Hercules and the Temple of Torture - Part 1

Here's the first installment of a 3-part series featuring one of the hottest heroes of all time -- the mighty Hercules! :D

Hercules and the Temple of Torture - Part 1

Based on an original story by dbeverly

Part One – A Crisis Brews

Hercules approached the valley of the Egyptian priest known only as Hem Netjer, Egyptian for servant of the gods. King Eurytus of the Greek land of Oechalia, open-minded and generous to a fault, had allowed the stranger refuge from persecution in his homeland but was not comfortable with the man inside the royal city. So, the king sent the priest to a valley at the far reaches of his kingdom to live in peace and relative seclusion. However, not long after that, reports of young men mysteriously disappearing made their way to the king. He sent his son, Prince Iphytus, the strongest and bravest young man in the land, to investigate the disappearances. When Iphytus failed to return and word made its way to Eurytus of a magnificent temple having appeared almost overnight in the valley, the King asked Hercules to investigate and bring home his son. Hercules could not deny his former mentor and friend or the lust for adventure that ruled his soul. 

Cresting the final hill of his journey, Hercules saw a massive and majestic temple in the distance and knew that no mortal men could have built such a structure in years let alone in days…but there it stood, ominous and pulsing with an energy the demigod recognized immediately as pure evil. The awesome structure glowed with power, seeming to suck the very light from the valley, and at the same time emitting a mist that permeated the valley floor with an eerie luminosity. Even in the heat of the Greek sun, an unaccustomed chill caused the huge muscles of Hercules’ massive and powerful body to tighten in the presence of malevolence like none he had encountered in all his adventures and travels before. 

While the temple still held its secrets close, the mystery of the disappearing young men was quickly answered. Looking down into the valley, Hercules saw small groups of young men making their way across the valley and into the mist surrounding the priest’s temple…and to his surprise, as he smelled a cloying scent on the air, he too felt a peculiar pull toward the temple. However, fearing no man, no beast, and no priest, and trusting in the blood of the gods running through his veins to protect him as it always had, Hercules joined a pair of young men on their dark journey toward the temple. 

Hercules could immediately see from the young men's dazed expressions that they were under some wicked spell. The trance-like state of these men, and his own troubled senses, were signs to the mighty muscle man to move with care as the priest’s magic was obviously strong. The powerful demigod bravely moved with the two young men on their strange journey toward the Egyptian temple and a fate he could not yet imagine. 

Part Two – Hercules Enters the Valley

Hem Netjer had cast another spell over the surrounding countryside, calling yet more young men to their new fate and their new master. He would sacrifice their virile, male essence to the gods for greater power over this humble land that was his temporary home. Then he would add their strong, soulless bodies to his growing army. His limitless ambition had been the priest’s downfall when he had underestimated the combined power of the other priests of his homeland. In Greece, there were no powerful servants of his gods to challenge him; therefore, he would build his magic with the very life of this land’s unusually physically powerful young men and create an army of undefeatable warriors. Then, one day, Hem Netjer would return to his homeland stronger than ever and take vengeance on those who had moved against him.

Moving to a window at the highest point of his temple, the priest peered through a golden looking glass just in time to see the most magnificent man-beast he had ever seen make his way down the far hill. The powerful servant of the gods immediately knew that this man was not pulled by the mist but instead followed it like a predator to its prey. Hem Netjer's temper -- a very dark and dangerous temper -- stirred at the intrusion into his new domain, but that anger was tinged with something else the priest could not quite place. 

No mortal man could resist the mist’s magic, and yet this mighty Greek obviously did. The priest did not need the long golden tube fitted with pieces of special glass to see that this near-naked creature was a giant among men, easily a head taller and vastly more powerfully built than any of the formidable men of this land who had already so impressed Hem Netjer with their physical stature and strength. This Greek moving into the mist of his own free will was strikingly, almost painfully handsome and more massively muscled than any two of the most powerfully built warrior slaves combined. The giant’s proportions were so extreme that just the sight of such a mighty man made the priest’s heart pound. 

He suddenly recognized that not-quite-placed something that tinged his anger as a mixture of lust and fear. Lust he knew all too well, though never so strongly as that which this gigantic creature stirred. Fear, however, he was unaccustomed to and its presence inflamed his anger to even greater levels. How could this man, giant that he was, NOT be under the power of mist?! No man was strong enough to resist its call and controlling powers, yet this rippling giant was, and this man intruded into Hem Netjer's domain with the boldness only a hunter possessed. The dark priest knew he was the only prey worth risking everything for in this temple, and he began making plans to trap this Greek foe, this god in human form who was striding so boldly with purpose and courage among the enchanted men who were already little more than cattle.

The sheer physical power the Greek exuded caused the priest’s anger to flare even more strongly as Hem Netjer caught himself being mesmerized by the giant’s fluid and yet powerful movement, taking in every ripple and every massive bulge of unbelievable muscle. 

• With each bold stride, huge slabs of sinew on draft-horse thighs flowed like liquid marble, snapping tight and hard into pillars of solid, bronze-colored rock, only to release and roll again. 

• With every contraction of tremendous thigh muscle, a melon-sized leather pouch attached to his narrow hips simply by thin leather strips -- this giant’s only covering save his sandals -- bounced from one mighty leg to the other like a child’s ball…a very large child’s ball. 

• With every twist of his mighty body, this huge man’s narrow waist, smaller than either thigh, rippled and danced under the hairless bronze skin so dramatically that the priest was amazed. Through the looking glass, the Egyptian could nearly trace with his finger the deeply chiseled, perfectly symmetrical bricks of muscle stacked four to a side and framed by the intricately carved sinew of this titan’s torso. 

• With every swing of arms the size of a normal warrior’s thighs and every bulge of magnificent muscle, this huge man exuded a sense of strength like no man before him. The priest marveled as those arms swung from shoulders so broad and so massive they would block any doorway. 

• With every awesome breath, the giant’s enormous barrel of a chest could easily be seen to expand to nearly three times the size of his waist. Even more magnificent were the two colossal blocks of pectoral muscle jutting out from his barrel of a rib cage to form an overhang of hard, square man-meat easily as thick as a grown man’s hand was wide. The evil observer’s lust multiplied as those slabs bounced and rolled sensually with the rhythm of the Greek’s proud stride. To add to the Egyptian’s lust even more, those mammoth slabs of hairless muscle were capped with reddish-brown cones twice the size of a gold coin and those cones glistened like eyes in the sun on that huge chest. 

If this Greek had carried the battle scars of a soldier or a slave, or the ugly visage of an ogre, Hem Netjer may possibly have been able to control his lust. But no, every inch of this glorious man-among-men’s body was covered with hairless, sun-bronzed skin, unblemished and stretched to near bursting over muscles twice the size of the largest warrior’s. Worse, the sheer beauty of this man with the face of an angel and a devil with his wavy dark hair, his piercing blue eyes that were fixed so boldly on the Egyptian’s temple, and his smooth skin accentuated by several day's-worth of dark stubble, all combined to take the priest’s breath away. No mere man had affected Hem Netjer in this manner before. No mere man had struck the cord in his heart or his loins as had this near-naked giant. For this creature to have such an effect on the priest, to have such power to push the priest to the point of distraction, was unforgivable. The added insult of entering into Hem Netjer's world uninvited and uncalled was punishable by the most extreme means. 

“I know not who you are, Greek man of muscle, but you will pay for trespassing in my world and you will pay dearly. No man, giant or not, can withstand the full power of Hem Netjer.”

Part Three – Discovery

Hercules, spotting guards at the entrance to the temple and not yet ready to make his presence known or to be challenged by his own enchanted countrymen, slipped away from his spellbound companions and followed the wall that was the dark temple’s base. Several yards away from the gate, the demigod noticed a strange vine, foreign to this land, growing up the wall as if it had been growing for years instead of the few days since the temple had mysteriously appeared. Nevertheless, Hercules accepted what he saw before him as an opportunity to exploit instead of the trap that was one of many secrets of this temple. 

A few more yards farther on and he moved around a corner and out of sight of the great doors and those who guarded them. On the north wall, he found the vine strong enough to hold even the weight of his massive frame and he began climbing. Hercules used his phenomenal strength to quickly reach the top of the wall, and he saw that the wall was actually the side of the base of the strange temple, forming a 15-foot ledge all the way around the pyramid structure. The strange vine covered the ledge all the way to the pyramid’s walls and also covered at least the lower third of the temple. Hercules hesitated, aware of a low rustling noise among the large green leaves and thick vine stalks. Seeing nothing but vegetation, he looked up toward the receding wall of the pyramid to where the vines grew well above a row of 3 windows some 20 feet above him. Though this seemed too easy and he was on his guard for a trap, Hercules began to climb, never imaging just what kind of trap into which he was stepping.

Muscle forged by the gods made light work of the climb up the strong vines, and Hercules positioned himself outside the large center window and looked down into the temple. His blood ran hot with anger at the sight of so many Greeks enthralled to this priest called Hem Netjer. There must have been hundreds of young muscular men, obviously Greeks but dressed as Egyptians, performing all manner of chores and tasks within the temple, their glazed eyes telling Hercules they did not perform these duties of their own choice.

“What power must this dark priest have to enslave so many men and call even more into his service?” the demigod wondered.

Looking for the perpetrator of this wrong, Hercules spotted a man who stood above the others at a raised alter directly below this middle window. The man was decorated much more ornately than his thralls and yet wore only a white covering about his narrow hips. Powerfully built with his head and body shaved and his eyes painted, the man would have been handsome if not for his sinister expression. 

This priest stood above a huge urn the size of an ox cart and waved his hand over its eerily glowing contents, whispering strange words. The urn resembled the cauldron of the three blind witches of lore and was obviously the source of the glowing mist that saturated the valley and called to its young Greek men, for the strange glowing fog poured out of the urn in continuous waves, pouring out another set of windows and into the valley below. Stranger than the mist, there was no fire beneath the great urn to make its contents bubble and churn, yet, bubble and churn they did. The contents of the urn were a thick, milky, and eerily iridescent white, and the mist was released into the air above with the bursting of each new bubble that came to the surface. 

Hercules knew that only the blood of the gods saved him thus far from the call of that evil mist, but that call was stronger than ever now, and the demigod wondered how close he could get to that wicked cauldron before even his more-than-mortal blood could no longer protect him.

At that moment, the prince Iphytus entered through a doorway guarded by two great, golden serpents of stone rearing their hooded heads to stand twice the height of the young, strangely garbed man. Hercules nearly cried out to warn the prince, as he would swear the onyx eyes of the huge snakes followed his every move. But they made no move to attack and the prince moved to the priest’s side. To his great sadness, Hercules could see from the glazed eyes of his dear friend that the prince was no threat to the Egyptian. The evil mist had done its magic and enslaved the young ruler to his new master. 

“This will not go unpunished,” Hercules growled to himself, an anger stirring in his heart that rivaled any before it.

Then, to the surprise of Hercules, the priest looked directly up at his perch in the window as if having heard the vow and smiled an evil smile. For all his stealth, the Greek giant’s presence had been known all along.

“Welcome to my temple, giant man of muscle…join us!” With that, the Egyptian shouted some strange words and suddenly the rustling noise Hercules had heard before became louder. 

Something encircled his left wrist and something else took hold of his right ankle. To his amazement, it was the vines themselves coming to life!!! Quickly, the demigod tore the vine from his wrist, only to immediately have it replaced by half a dozen larger ones. Even as he tore free from these new vines, dozens more encircled his free wrist and his other ankle and pulled his mighty limbs wide. Within seconds, all four of his limbs were encased in hundreds of vines, which lifted the massive muscle giant into the air as if he weighed nothing, rendering Hercules bound and helpless. 

Hercules was stunned by the sudden turn of events, and he could not get any traction to pull at the vines and free himself. Every time he tugged one of his limbs, the vines gave enough so that they wouldn't tear, but they held fast and kept the huge man trapped. Hercules' awesome strength was rendered useless. 

The vines lifted Hercules higher into the air, and then brought him through the large open window. Before he knew it, Hercules, son of Zeus, was hanging helplessly in the air directly over the huge and glowing urn. He struggled in vain to free himself, all too aware of an increase in the sickening sweetness of the vapor rising from the glowing urn. Hercules fought even harder to free himself, pulling mightily at the living evil that bound him. The great vines gave just enough under the strength of his awesome power to prevent his breaking their hold, only to immediately pull his limbs back into a widespread and vulnerable position. The more he struggled, the harder he breathed, his massive chest inhaling too much of the evil mist. The great Hercules could feel that awful vapor cling to his face and seep into his muscled body. The harder he fought, the brighter the vapor glowed, and the weaker Hercules’s great sinews became, his mind clouding so that he could no longer focus clearly.

Intrigued by the strength of this mighty Greek and amazed at his resistance to the powers of the mist, Hem Netjer's heart pounded all the way down to his loins at the sight of this magnificent being twisting with the power of 100 men in his living restraints. Every enormous muscle in this man’s body quivered and bulged and fought against the vines even as his mind struggled to fight against the call of the mist, but the priest could see the battle waning. 

A gasp from the spellbound prince drew the priest’s attention and surprise, for the sight of this near-naked giant under his power had somehow pierced the veil of young Iphytus’ clouded mind.

“You know this man, slave?”

“Yes… master,” Iphytus answered, Hem Netjer not missing the hesitation.

“Your reaction to his capture is strong enough to give you some measure of strength against my power…only a momentary lapse, let me assure you, my pet. Now tell me…who is this giant man of muscle?” asked the dark priest.

“He is the mighty Hercules, son of the god Zeus and a mortal woman, half-man, half-god,” answered the prince, unable to hold back or protect Hercules in any way, though the sight of his dear friend stirred his mind strongly against its magical bonds. 

“Something tells me this man is more than just a hero to you. I can see his great strength, slave prince. Now tell me, what is his weakness?” hissed Hem Netjer.

The sight of the great Hercules captured, his huge limbs drawn wide and bulging with power, his great torso with his humbling musculature writhing spectacularly against the possessed vines, and the demigod held vulnerably in the air by the Egyptian’s magic…this sight affected the enslaved mind of Iphytus so greatly, the struggle was visible on the face of the young prince even through the priest’s black magic.

“SPEAK!” Hem Netjer commanded, re-enforcing his hold on the prince’s mind with a wave of his hand that sent the mist circling about the handsome young man’s head.

The struggle ceased and the prince said, “His human half can be harmed and caused pain but he cannot be killed or permanently maimed. His god-like strength allows him to protect himself from injury…control his mind and his strength and you can cause physical harm…but his body will heal itself. My father, the king, has sent him here to destroy you, evil priest.”

“We’ll see about that, slave prince. Your king’s champion, Hercules, is already succumbing to my power. Once defeated, he will pay dearly for daring to enter my temple. I will enjoy causing your hero GREAT PAIN and testing his healing powers. If he survives his punishment, I will drain your half-man, half-god of his superhuman essence and offer it to MY gods. His essence added to my magic will give me more than enough power to end your father’s rule and take these lands for my own. Then I will return to my home and DESTROY THOSE WHO BETRAYED ME!!!” cried Hem Netjer.