Prometheus's Gift IV - The Envelope Revealed

    The tavern nearest, one block away.
    Zeus snarled down a double whiskey, neat, finishing with a loud slap on the table.  Prometheus sipped a Bloody Caesar, extra Tabasco.  Only two in the afternoon and they were tipsy, nothing new for any immortal (which is quite all right for the hardiness of Prometheus's liver was legendary).  Zeus looked at The Envelope then ran a finger along the surface one more time, feeling the heat and noting the symbols:  Glyphs.  Incomprehensible to to any god but easily read by any mortal.  The Demigods?  They may be able to read them, maybe not, it was impossible to predict those goofy half-breeds.
    Zeus waved another whiskey.
    "Ooh," said Prometheus.  "Look!"
    On an overhead flatscreen a woman with hair of gold and skin as soft and perfect as a newborn baby's flogged a jar of (supposed) anti-aging cream, mouthing muted words.  They could sense from a backwater familiarity and her timeless beauty she was one of them.  Mortal women had equalled her beauty, yes, now more so than ever thanks to surgery and diet pills and the spells of some aethereal god sporting the very odd name Photoshop.
    She stuck out her chest and and rear as she flicked her hair, sexiness at its most formulaic.  Still, women pined as men lusted.
    "Aphrodite, baby!"  Prometheus threw a kiss then swooned.  "Such beauty!  Eyes of orb!  Hair of silk!  Lips of rose!  You're enough to turn me straight one day!"  He sipped his Caesar then added, snickering:  "Not!"
    "Anti-aging cream," snorted Zeus, watching the waitress place a whiskey on the table.  He gave her obvious amorous looks, she returned in kind just before leaving.  He picked up the shot then rubbed his chin and frowned, thinking.  "Hold on a sec.  That can't be her, Mercury told me she went brunette and is apparently a dead ringer for Angela Jolie.  Her lover Brent Pinn raised his suspicions as well, said he's the mirror image of Apollo or some such."
    Prometheus smiled a silly smile as he allowed a few naughty thoughts of him and her lover to come.  Neither wearing clothes, of course.  Then:  "Brad.  His name is Brad Pitt."
    Zeus waved a hand.  "Whatever.  Like I care."
    "But Angela-?"  Prometheus scratched his head, comparing mental images.  "By Icarus you just may be onto something, with the likes of we one never can tell.  But to me all these female types look the same .  Now men.  Men are a different matter all together-"
    "Hmm," meandered Zeus ignoring Prometheus.  "Yes.  This is one of us, I sense the pull.  I know her, I do.  But I can't place her face; it must be the whiskey.  Athena, maybe?  No.  Artemis?  Hebe?"
    "You," said Prometheus, raising an eyebrow, "don't even know your own offspring?  Then again, why should I expect anything less?"
    "Oy I was busy back in the day.  Wenches to bed, wars to start it was never easy being the king of the gods you know."  He tapped the table, loudly.  "The endless politics and the dealing with The Opposition Party:  Saturn and his Titans.  To say nothing of the other parties like the Giants.  Let's not forget the nigh impossible task of striking a balance between terror and respect in the mortals, for too much of one or the other and we cease to exist.  The stress is unbelievable, Prometheus.  You have no idea what it was like.  I, for one, don't miss my terms in office in the least."
    Zeus shrugged then slammed his whiskey.  Prometheus slurped back the last of his Caesar, feeling light headed.  Zeus waved another round.  He waited a moment, then:
    "Just what to you plan to do with this one?"
    "Why, I intend to do with this one what I do will all my gifts."
    "Do you deem that wise?  Do you even know what it is?"
    "Nothing is ever certain for either us or the mortals, that is true."  Prometheus held up The Envelope and studied it a moment.  "In matters of myth and legend matters become even more shrouded.  If genuine to us it's nothing but common mail labelled in nonsense and forever out of our reach.  But to a mortal?  Ah!  Now therein lay a very different story."
    "If opened and read," mumbled Zeus, "it will turn a mortal into a god."
    The drinks came.
    Prometheus threw the straw onto the table then gulped.  He hiccuped a burp, then:  "This is how the tales have come to us, yes.  Legend has it a mortal wandered out of his cave and into another.  He found this:"  He waved The Envelope.  "Of course it wasn't words on paper but glyphs on a wall, the first language, still in its infancy and yet to gain its infinite potency.  Thus arose the first god of any age or legend.  Since then it has been whispered and muttered amongst the pantheons that its message surfaces every other century as a different medium; scratches in the sand, a carving on a stone slab, a papyrus, a totem pole-"
    "Yes yes we all know the story."  Zeus sipped his whiskey, eyes looking somewhere else.  "It is to us gods what we be to the mortals.  Bah!  There is no real evidence for its existence, there is no way for any of us to know if the stories are true."
    "This," countered Prometheus, "is because no immortal has ever been able to get a hold of it.  There was no way for us to safely transport it until the modern advances of today.  But so far it has given us every reason to believe and no reason to doubt its power.  But there is more.  Imagine, if you will," he waved to the flatscreens, "its message flashed on these devices and instantly seen by millions.  Its message quickly available to every mortal on earth.  Imagine, if you will, our lot being no longer a divine privilege but a divine right.  There can be no gods to slaughter themselves over, no deities to exert control.  No more pain.  No more disease.  No more death.  Think of it, Zeus."
    "And," Zeus raised a skeptical eyebrow, "you think you can accomplish this how-?"
    "Why, it told me," Prometheus giggled.  "The mortal who opens it will become the god to tell its message to all."
    Zeus sat back, curling a lip.  He raised his shot glass.  "Aye.  I cannot stop you.  None of us can.  Just make sure you think this through."  He slowly drank until finished.  His head rocked, the effects were now obvious.  He smirked:  "I suppose you'd get rid of Current Management.  That can only be a good thing."
    "Yes," said Prometheus, nodding and frowning.
    "Those scarabs and their imaginary one god that has caused more strife amongst the mortals than all of us combined in the shortest time ever.  We all despise them and their dishonourable tactics."
    "Agreed, Zeus.  But they never come out to play.  Where in Tartarus are they hiding?"
    "In plain sight, just like the rest of us.  They never emerge because they know they're inviting a good old fashioned Old School style thumping.  Angels.  Demons.  Cherubs."  Zeus snorted.  "They're neither stronger nor weaker than us.  They are the same as us, though they're having their mortal followers believe otherwise.  My business partner's old man had a chance meeting with one a decade or two ago."
    "Ah yes," giggled Prometheus.  He finished his drink.  "Thunderbolt Enterprises.  We Make Money Appear In A Flash Of Light.  Oh that Thor, that closet queen, running around in them dresses.  Do tell me what she had to say."
    Zeus waved another round.