Among the numerous fascinating secondary characters that enrich the beautiful story of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the fearless history lover Epizelos is definitely one of the most memorable that our lead hero has the chance to meet along the way. Epizelos - Eppie for his close friends - is a young man from Boeotia whom Alexios comes across while visiting the region, either in the course of a main quest, or for exploration purposes. It turns out that he has a huge love for history, myths and ancestral treasures, something that quickly attracts our lead hero's interest and he agrees to help Eppie in his quests.
The first meeting between Alexios and Eppie is quite intense: Alexios finds Eppie lying wounded on the ground at the side of the road of a rather dangerous area, surrounded by hungry wolves that are about to tear him to pieces. Wolves, however, are not the only hazard in the area: not far from the spot where he is, is a small sanctuary occupied by fierce hunters; and sometimes Deianeira, the fearsome champion and Cultist, can be seen passing along the road with her equally fearsome cousin Astra. After being saved from a certain death by Alexios, and although he does look quite exhausted and weak because of his struggle to survive the wild animals' attack prior to Alexios finding him, Eppie quickly manages to pull himself together and make his aquaintance: although not a professional archaeologist or historian, he had always been fascinated by the past and had been studying ancient history and exploring sites of interest ever since he was able to go out in the world on his own. A slim and delicate young man with black hair and piercing dark eyes, Eppie doesn't have the appearance of someone who is into sports or training. Both activities could be rather useful in his risky quests, but his lack of such experience never stopped him from traveling around Greece, looking for hidden treasures in sites of worship, many of which definitely would have been riddled with all sorts of danger.
Being a mercenary by trade, Alexios gets immediately interested when Eppie asks him to help him recover precious treasures connected to the Mycenaean civilization. Eppie's deep faith that something important is about to be revealed is based on the fact that he has already found a piece of a stele which has some mysterious writings on it. He further establishes Alexios's aid by playfully indicating that their paths crossing was actually a work of the Fates. Regardless, Alexios and Eppie seem to have a connection from the start, although, on first look, they don't have much in common as far as their characters, temperaments and interests are concerned. It gradually becomes obvious however that, aside from his interest in finding precious treasures, Alexios gets genuinely moved by Eppie's love for history and his contagious enthusiasm everytime a discovery is about to be made.
Eppie leads Alexios to a nearby cave which turns out to be an important Oracle. Inside the cave, there is some kind of shrine, and there are several people praying, although Eppie claims that they can't possibly know about the Mycenaean connections to the site. Proving him right, Alexios finds a secret passage leading to the tomb of a Mycenaean warrior which is cleverly hidden behind uninteresting corridors and dusty anterooms, a section of the cave that apparently the worshippers outside and the local residents had no idea about. There is a sarcophagus in the tomb with a piece of an armor inside it, and Eppie's stele piece can be placed on a wall made with similar pieces, some of which are missing, with a strange and unreadable inscription on it.
Alexios then agrees to go on a series of quests to recover the missing stele pieces. Along with each piece, he finds another piece of the warrior's armor. With every new stele piece that is placed on the wall, the inscription becomes more and more readable, as Eppie, with his vast knowledge, is able to go through it and decipher it. In short intervals between the quests, Alexios has some quite interesting discussions with his new friend, in which it is revealed that Eppie has a hard time getting along with his peers because they can neither understand nor empathize with him. It becomes clear that, when it comes to his environment, he is completely alone in his quest for more knowledge of the ancients, and his passion for exploration and history is most probably frowned upon by his family and friends.
There is a strange mystery surrounding Eppie's discovery, as it is unclear why the missing armor's pieces have been scattered around, and there is always a stele piece with each one of them. Eppie suspects that the message that the inscription conveys must be very important, which is why it was partly destroyed, so that it could not be easily discovered by explorers or random passers-by. As he slowly deciphers a new part of the inscription, he finds out that it speaks of a ritual which, once completed, will activate something. Little by little, Alexios follows the clues given by Eppie and manages to recover all the missing stele pieces and all the pieces of the warrior's armor, at which point the full inscription becomes readable. Eppie reads out the full message and all of a sudden the inscription wall becomes illuminated, with Isu-like symbols projecting from it. Alexios stands watching it in awe, but soon realizes that Eppie cannot see any of this impressive stuff. He can only see a plain version of the inscription, just a wall stele with writings on it. The reason why this happens is because the activation of the stele was to be seen only by the Isu and their kin, and since Alexios was half Isu, he was able to witness it. Eppie being a mortal, was deprived of this privilege, but the point is that it was his, a humble human's research, that led to the solution of this centuries-old riddle.
Secretly acknowledging this, and seeing how disappointed Eppie is with this outcome, Alexios pretends that he sees nothing special either, which lifts his friend's spirits a bit. Alexios then encourages Eppie to never stop his studies and his research, and asks him to join him on his ship as a lieutenant. Although Eppie has his doubts, because like we said earlier, he is not the athletic type, accepts the offer because this will mean he will be able to widen both his knowledge and his exploration horizons by traveling. It is interesting to note that if Alexios makes the mistake to point out to Eppie that there is indeed something in front of his eyes and he simply cannot see it, he will leave in a fury, and unfortunately we won't be able to see him again. There is no reason to make such a bad choice, however, because after bonding with Eppie so much during the course of his quests, it's a shame to trash everything on a whim. Not to mention that Eppie, being a golden lieutanant, is one of the best high-ranked crew members that you can get in the whole game, and it is clear that he will be your second best buddy after Barnabas.
Although Eppie is an amateur researcher, he can be viewed as an early colleague of Lara Croft and a tomb raider of the ancient world. His story is one of the most fascinating secondary questlines in Odyssey, not only thanks to him being such a charming and likeable protagonist, but also because it is closely connected to the backdrop of Alexios's story. The discoveries that Eppie's clues bring to the light prove that, in the game's lore, the Mycenaeans were part of the Isu heritage, and obviously whoever scattered the armor and stele pieces around, did so to protect the untimely revelation of such a knowledge. Random explorers that would stumble upon the warrior's tomb in the depths of the Oracle would simply note it down as a great discovery and probably stop there. Eppie's desire for further enlightenment led him to keep searching, ignoring all dangers and surpassing all obstacles, and maybe it was indeed fatal for Alexios to come to his rescue at that specific point in time, because he was the one to be able to witness the activation of the stele, as he was among the very few people in position to actually see it happen.
At some point during his quests, and as it becomes obvious that the full
revelation is about to happen, Eppie has a moment of doubt, where he
expresses his fear that he may not be worthy of this discovery. This
may foreshadow the outcome of the story, since he is not able to witness
the activation of the stele because he is mortal, but being worthy has nothing to do with it. He is more than worthy because it was his restless spirit and fascination with primordial history that led to this discovery. When he expresses his doubts, Alexios manages to raise his spirit by encouraging him to look forward to the full discovery no matter what. We could say that Eppie sort of represents all historians, professional or not, and all explorers who bring secrets of the past to the light; sometimes these secrets are treasures, other times they are relics or items of worship; they can also be lost texts or other kinds of knowledge that many times can be put to use in each era's contemporary world. Eppie might have been living in the ancient times, but there were already centuries of history before him, and a vast mythology which he longed to explore and delve deeper into.
