No one could ever forget that one late September day when Rock Glen University became the birthplace of an ancient campaign for masculine power revived in the modern world. It all started with the unveiling of of a seemingly innocuous art exhibit on pottery and metal ware excavated from a nameless ruin in Greece and the group of troublesome students who accidentally stumbled onto something that was better left buried and forgot. There were four of them in total, all childhood friends who had fallen into separate ways in high school, yet still managed to keep in touch somehow despite the years and mounding social pressures that would threaten to drive them apart. First, there was Tanner, the most proactive--or as some would say, the most provocative--member of the group. He had been a boisterous, pudgy little redhead now grown into a hefty young man with shoulders broad as a barge. His family loved football like it was bred into them, so it seemed almost natural for him to go into college on an athletic scholarship and end up filling the role of the Rock Glen Lions' super tanky, star quarterback. Then there was Drew, an earnest black kid from a pretty well-to-do household in Atlanta. He'd just recently come into his dream of becoming a motivational speaker, helping people find their own ways through the power of words. After his first week on campus, he got into the habit of wearing his hair groomed back into a curtain of loose dreads during classes and debates. It just seemed like the style made him look more eye-catching compared to the other preppy guys around him and really accentuated his winning smile. Next one down the lineup was Seth, and figuring him was real easy. If the textbook definition of a slacker ever needed a face, then his handsome movie-star mug would fit perfectly. As earliest as the other guys could remember him, he was always looking for an excuse to get out of his chores in favor of just taking in the "silent beauty" of nature. They weren't surprised to find out he smoked weed. Couple that with the beanpole physique he got from his high metabolism and it was a wonder how the girls still flocked to him. Must have been those sensitive philosopher vibes he gave off while reclining in the shade of a tree, his long chestnut hair blowing in the breeze. Lastly, as most people seemed to rank him, was Ripley, the nerd. Yep, that's it. Just...the nerd. Fits the stereotype to a tee. Frail body, thick glasses, dorky fashion sense that only a professor over fifty wouldn't laugh at. Owner of at least a dozen different medications at age nineteen and even more humiliating nicknames to the tune of "Dipley Rip" and "Lil Handy," most of them given to him by Tanner. But all that aside, he was easily the group's voice of reason, especially whenever things got down to the wire for one of them. It was almost like having a second mother watching you while you were away from home and nagging you to boot. Whatever ways they each might have felt about it, this more than anything was the reason they made it this far in school and still kept him around.
The encounter went down one evening at around sunset, when most of the students on campus had already gone back to their dorms. Tanner, out of the blue, called his old friends together for some kind of secret meeting behind the old utility shed next to the playing field, giving them each cryptic reasons at best for why they should come. When the three of them arrived, they could see his whole body trembling with guilty excitement, a sight that they were familiar with all too well, unfortunately. He was there at the doorframe, waving at then to hurry and come in the shed, like a magician who was about to put on his greatest show. But convincing them to just follow blindly along wasn't going to be as easy now as it was over the past few years; they had all grown older and much wiser to how full of shit he was.
"There's no point to jerking us around like this, Tanner," Ripley spoke to him, not budging an inch from his spot on the green. "It doesn't matter how badly you're bombing classes already, we can't trade out with you even if we wanted to. Like I said, it's high time you started crying and begging to the advisors for leniency instead of me."
"Fuck you, that's not what you're here for." He was honestly a little ticked that the runt had the balls to mention the private stuff they talked about last week. "Have some more faith in me than that, Stickley. Jesus, I just wanted to show you guys what I've got inside..."
They joined him huddled around in the cramped, dimly lit equipment room where they watched him pull away a tarp that was covering something low to the floor. Underneath was some kind of wide, circular dish standing up on three stubby legs. The metal it was made of had corroded until it took on this greenish black sort of color, but not enough to completely erase the faded engraving within it. It was this picture in the classical Grecian style, like what you might see painted on urns and novelty T-shirts at the museum, of a helmed warrior wielding a spear, his erected penis bobbing out for all the world to see. The group just stood there staring down at it, transfixed by the object's strange ugliness for a good long second.
"So, you really think tis funny rain catcher's gonna help you fix your grades?" muttered Seth.
"I told you, that's not why we're here!" he hissed at him through gritted teeth.
"It's a brazier," Ripley explained, "A kind of stand that ancient people would start fires on and burn offerings to the gods."
Seeming to have ignored him, Tanner went on to pull Seth and Drew in close by the shoulders. In an obvious, loud whisper he told them, "Now, this hunk of junk comes hand-delivered to you bozos, thanks to yours truly, straight from that ritzy antique exhibit happening over at the art's center. And it can actually be a priceless treasure in the eyes of the right dweeb."
"What!? You stole from the art exhibit?" Ripley gasped. "Wha...How? Why!?"
"I'm getting there, Dipley. All you gotta do is shut it and listen to me." He resumed talking to the other two. "So, I came across it while doing some volunteer work helping set the place up. Everything was chill up until I heard one of the directors going on about how much one of these would fetch in the black market if it was taken by the wrong people. So, I took it. And I snuck it out without being seen. And now, were staring down our ticket to becoming set like kings. You're welcome, sluts."
"Are you goddamn out of your head? That's so illegal!"
"I agree with the little guy," Drew came in, "There's no way you smuggled it all the way here without being seen. And are you sure it's worth as much as you think it is, man?"
"Psh! Yeah, right. As if I'd ever let myself take a page from Wimpley's Believe-it-or-not Book of Paranoia and not bet on my chances when I see a good one. Look, I can promise you guys, this dinky old thing is worth everything it's hyped up to be and more. I can tell by my gut, and my gut's never wrong."
"Mind if I test your gut's theory, then?" Seth asked, drawing out a bag of kush from where he'd hidden it inside the lining of his jacket. He dangled the bag in front of them, letting it make the rest of the offer for him. Judging by the look of the smiles showing plain on both their faces, the challenge was accepted, no contest.
They emptied out all of the medicinal herb into the brazier trying to distribute it out as evenly as they could, still half-heartedly lying to themselves that they were only doing this to test the tray's ability to handle heat as they took a lighter to it. While the three of them gathered around the rising smoke to bathe in its relaxing fumes, Ripley dashed back outside gasping out of fear for a possible asthma attack. There, he looked up at the sky and saw dark, swelling clouds overhead. What had been a clear, late summer evening before had turned into an ominous overcast centered around nothing so much as the shed. A sudden primal feeling of dread hit him, screaming at him to get away. Get away, because something big was about to happen here soon, and he would be caught up in the middle of it.