[Elafonisos Beach, Shoreline]
Rocks jut up from the soft sand of the beach, waves coming to crash upon them as the surf rolls in with methodical laps of water. Lichens and mosses cling desperately to the stone hosts as they do their best to keep from being taken out to sea by the tide. Odd hunks of driftwood and bits of shell lay scattered about the area like a child's forgotten toys left to brave the elements on their own. You also see a shattered boat.
Crete is the largest of the Greek islands, sitting almost directly south of Athens in the Mediterranean Sea. Passage to Crete may be purchased in Eleusis at the Old Docks on the west side of town.
Crete was the home of King Minos, perhaps most famous for his construction of the labyrinth beneath Knossos that he had Daedelus design to hold the infamous Minotaur. The minotaur came into being after Minos pleaded with Poseidon to give him a sign that Crete was a good place to settle. Poseidon sent a gorgeous white bull as a sign under the condition that this bull be sacrificed to him upon arrival.
Minos, hoping Poseidon would not notice, decided to keep the bull. This enraged Poseidon so he decided to make Minos's wife, Pasiphae, fall in love with the bull. We skip over a few bits best left to the imagination and she has a child with the bull… a minotaur. Legend goes onto say that the white bull went on to become the Cretan Bull which Hercules had to capture for one of his labors.
The minotaur, in myth, was defeated by Theseus, but in our world it was a group of Athenian who traveled to Crete and braved the labyrinth, bringing the ceiling down on the fiersome beast. Years later we come back to Crete, finally, to find his corpse hidden beneath the chamber he was defeated int, the rubble having been cleared by the villagers in an attempt to prove the minotaur's fate.
Another great beast known to Crete was the great bronze automaton, Talos, who Zeus gifted to Europa. Europa took Talos to Crete where the giant guarded the coast, throwing boulders at passing ships and embracing stangers in a heated grasp until they collapsed.
Talos is eventually slain when trying to keep Jason at bay when passing by on the Argo. The bronze golem has a vein running from his neck to his heel, and a nail at the heel was removed which let his life force flow free and subsequently he died.
When the Athenians arrived back at the island, however, Talos was alive and well. It wasn't until after they talked to villagers that they uncovered a plot by a man named Kakosarchigos to rule the island. With Discord's help he had built another, mechanical Talos, and was turning anyone who got wise to his plan into animals using Demeter's stolen bow. Unwittingly, Autolycus stumbled across the build site and was turned into a dog.
Apparently after a while the animals began regaining human traits, such as speech, so the madman turned to killing them instead of just morphing them. He then used the fake Talos to spread messages to the people from "Poseidon" which he used to control the villagers to do his bidding. The Athenians ended up destroying the faux Talos and recovering the bow, allowing everyone (including Autolycus) to be turned back to human form.
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