Kairos 49: Haunts of Hades

The party had to shatter twenty statues by the time they reached the hallway’s end, and as Nessus predicted, four of them tried to kill the adventurers.

A hydra of stone had risen, alongside a chimera, a skeletal warrior, and a griffin. Kairos had felt quite guilty when he smashed that one. Thankfully, none of the animated representations had their inspirations’ powers. Their rocky bodies had made them difficult to damage, and they kept fighting until shattered into rubble, but the pirates had survived battles against far stronger foes.

Agron had even found the time to sing during the battle. “About time,” he muttered to himself as he pinched his lyre’s strings. Unlike his previous attempts, the minotaur managed to play a decent tune this time. “I thought I would never unlock that subclass.”

“Now, my bull, you have to figure out a way to play the lyre and wield that ax of yours,” Nessus said. “May I suggest that you learn the art of juggling?”

“Or you could keep your ax in your mouth, and play the lyre with your hands,” Cass said.

Kairos himself ignored them, as he worked on unlocking the next door. Unlike the previous ones, this room’s metal gates were protected by a complex, booby-trapped mechanism of gears and chains. Worse, the doors’ threshold was trapped as well; any individual stepping into it would have caused the walls to close in and squash the intruders.

Thankfully, Kairos possessed the [Lockpick 3] and [Sneak 3] Skills. The former made him a master lock picker, though he couldn’t affect magical defenses, and the latter prevented him from triggering land-based traps.

Moments like this made the Travian glad that he had picked [Rogue] instead of [Fighter] as his Class.

“Are you done, my other half?” Andromache asked at her lover’s side, her fingers clenching around her rod. If Aglaonice hadn’t lied, the [Rock of Theseus] waited in the next room, and this made the witch eager to go on.

The keyword being if.

“Almost,” Kairos replied, using a small dagger as an improvised lockpick. He just had to remove that gear and—

A clicking sound followed his gesture, and the lock finally fell. The doors opened, and Kairos could see ghostly, dancing lights beyond the threshold. “Alright, don’t walk on that line of slabs,” the Travian said as he hid the dagger beneath his clothes and pointed at a spot on the ground. “Take a large step.”

His group walked into the next room in tight formation, Cassandra and Andromache both providing additional lighting with their fire magic. Kairos expected other monsters to wait in ambush, but his fears were misplaced.

Though eternal torches fueled by ghostly flames cast the room in a dim light, the air was damp, almost misty. A large circular fountain filled the northern end of the chamber, with a three-headed hematite statue rising from the waters. The faces belonged to the Underworld’s judges of the dead: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus.

A broken obsidian altar stood on the left area of the chamber, with a strain of red quartz giving it a gloomy feel. A fresco representing Persephone and her husband Hades oversaw the shrine, their faces splashed with red paint. The Underworld’s queen seemed to hold something in her arms, though the painting was too damaged for Kairos to say what. The right side of the room led to a black funeral box sealed shut by a heavy stone lid, followed by a new set of locked doors.

Andromache’s eyes lit up upon seeing the fountain, but she remained cautious. Nessus went first into the room, checking it out. “I don’t see any traps,” the satyr said, glancing at the funeral box. “Though I wouldn’t suggest opening that creepy tomb. I deny all responsibility if an undead rises from it.”

“So what?” Agron asked. “We can kill it again, and the tomb may contain treasure.”

“We came for the [Rock of Theseus] and for scouting,” Kairos reminded him as they entered the room. “No need to take unnecessary risks now.”

Cassandra agreed with a nod, her face as pale as a ghost. “I can’t explain why, but this place makes me feel ill. It reminds me of the Argo.”

Kairos could smell it in the air too. The scent of blood.

Andromache walked towards the fountain, tasting its waters with the tip of her fingers. Kairos peeked into the pool, finding it so deep and dark that he couldn’t see the bottom. “Saltwater,” his mistress said with excitement. “This is the place.”

According to Aglaonice, the [Rock of Theseus] should slumber at this pool’s bottom.

“I could swim down,” Kairos suggested, while Agron and Nessus examined the tomb, and Cassandra the altar. “I learned to turn into a shark with [Skinchanger]. We could explore the bottom together.”

“That is sweet, my love, but no,” the Scylla replied, before removing her clothes. Her robes fell to the wet stone beneath her feet, exposing her nakedness. “I do not trust the sphinx. I can survive a trap underwater, but you are vulnerable in fish form.”

It made sense, though Kairos would have rather followed her. “Be careful,” he said, “and return safely.”

“I will,” she said before they exchanged a kiss. With these words, Andromache shapeshifted back into her true, cursed form. Tentacles grew where the legs had been, and snarling dog-jaws opened around her waist. She leaped into the pool before her transformation finished, staff in hand.

Kairos watched her vanish into the abyssal darkness, and prayed that she would come back alive.

“I hear running water behind that door,” Nessus said, as examined the chamber’s exit. “I will need your help to open it, oh my captain.”

“We won’t try until Andromache returns,” the Foresight’s captain replied. According to the map, the next room would lead into the dungeon’s next level, and Kairos wouldn’t scout it out without his team’s full strength. “Cass, what about the altar? Did you find anything?”

His former first mate didn’t answer.

Kairos frowned upon approaching Cassandra, finding her looking at the fresco on the left wall with a frightening intensity. The pirate king put a hand on her shoulder. “Cass?” he tried to shake her, to no avail. Her eyes didn’t blink when he moved his hand before them.

Something was wrong. “Nessus, Agron, I believe Cass is—”

He heard a cry.

Kairos’ head instinctively snapped in its direction, facing the fresco behind the altar.

The faces of Hades and Persephone had turned into weeping fountains of blood, pouring out the red fluid on the ground below. The red stain in the queen’s hands shifted and wept, letting out horrifying laments and a familiar sound.

A baby’s cry.

You have been [Haunted].

Kairos didn’t pay attention to the message, his attention fully focused on the fresco. He couldn’t avert his eyes away from its shifting colors and pictures; an invisible force pulled him in like a hook with a fish.

The picture’s blood drowned the world and painted it red. Faces appeared from red walls, a horde of twisted fiends. Men twisted by centuries of torture, forgotten monsters rejected by the gods, broken giants, and beasts hungry for blood. The wolf-sons of Arcadia howled at the vanguard, a pack hungry for human flesh. The damned howled and screamed, raising bloody swords to a breach in a sky of stone.

The gates of Tartarus were rattling in the wind, and its prisoners walked free.

Only one figure stood between the red tide and the breach, a grim guardian with a helm of solid darkness. His bident slammed on the ground, and the Underworld trembled. The guardian was tall and strong, but what could a lone shadow do against such an overwhelming tide of evil?

“This is as far as you go.” The grim figure swung his bident. His voice betrayed neither fear nor nervosity; only the iron-determination of a dutiful man. “Return to your cells.”

The damned host responded with fire and fury. They marched by the hundreds, trampling each other in a desperate dash to the outside. A pack of wolf-men and inhuman beasts led the charge, a true tide of fur and fangs. Any mortal would have recoiled before their death march.

But the figure was no man.

Spikes rose from the earth with a wave of his weapon, impaling the wicked. The shadows swallowed the damned. Others he crushed underfoot. The tide crashed against this rock only to abate, again and again. The vile dead came with ever-growing numbers, but none made it past the shadow sentry.

“You cannot stop us!” The ghost of a murderer warned the grim figure. “Typhon is free, the living are rebelling!”

“This is the twilight of Olympus,” a wolfling added. “And the beginning of our dawn.”

“The dead will live again!” The cruel dead chanted. “The world will remember our might!”

The grim figure showed no fear. “Words are wind,” he said, firm and implacable. “So long as I draw breath, you shall not escape my domain.”

A new voice made his presence known, foul and cruel. “Your breath, or his?”

The horde split in half, to let a single figure through. A man with a black wolf’s head walked among them, dressed in the tattered rags of a dead king; the wolf-sons of Arcadia bowed as one before their sire. The werewolf king’s eyes burnt with cruelty, and a naked child cried in his arms.

And the figure flinched.

“Such a fragile little thing,” the cruel werewolf said, his claws sharp and cruel. “A paltry whelp of a god.”

“Zagreus,” the grim shadow whispered, furious eyes simmering beneath the helmet. “How?”

“Does it matter? Here he is, and here I am.”

The grim figure took a step forward in anger, but the black werewolf pushed a claw against the child’s belly in response. The baby cried out in pain, a drop of blood shed, and the father froze in place. His fist clenched with rage, but his eyes were full of fear.

“Throw down your arms, Hades, and that helmet of yours,” the werewolf king said with cold, cruel glee. “Or your son will die before you can take another step.”

His wolf-sons howled, blood drooling from their fangs, and the damned laughed. The figure remained as still and thoughtful as a statue.

“I wondered how the barren Lord of the Dead could father a child.” The werewolf chuckled to himself. “But then I remembered that your queen is the bringer of spring. It took eons of effort, but here is your heir, so full of life… like the child I served to your brother at my table.”

“I can bring him back,” the figure said, though his confidence had wavered.

“Can you?” The werewolf opened his mouth, revealing rows of bloody fangs. “Everything I devour is gone forevermore, Hades… his soul will languish inside my gullet until the sun dies out, and his death will make me a [God]. But what good is godhood without freedom? Let us pass, and I shall let the child go.”

“Free him first,” the figure ordered.

“I think not.” And to illustrate his point, the wolf’s fangs closed within an inch of the crying child’s head. “We walk free, or your wife gets a delayed miscarriage. But then again… better late than never.”

“You foul fiend, you will not free my son, even if I accept your bargain.”

“But will you wager your son's life on it?”

“Your previous torment will look like the Elysium Fields, if you dare—”

“Oh Hades, even in the bowels of Tartarus, the damned can find comfort,” the werewolf said. “Your pain will be my soul’s meat, and your wife’s tears will warm me for all eternity.”

The grim figure hesitated, the earth trembling. The light of the outside wavered, as the Anthropomachia engulfed the world. Yet the guardian cared not for the outside. He only had eyes for the crying child.

“No…” a woman’s voice echoed, full of horror and sadness.

“Swear,” the figure ordered, clenching his fist so tightly that blood dripped from his fingers. “Swear upon the Styx, Gaia, and the Furies.”

“All of them?” The werewolf laughed. “Very well. I swear to let your child go unharmed, so long as you throw down your weapon and let us escape.”

“Do you take me for a fool?” The Lord of the Underworld thundered. “You will not only let my son go unharmed. You will swear never to harm him. All of you.”

The werewolf’s eyes burned with anger. “Fine,” he said. “I swear that I shall never harm the child, and none of us here will lay a hand on him. May the Earth swallow me, the Styx drown me, and the Furies haunt my dreams if I prove false.”

The grim figure let out a long, sad sigh.

“Forgive me, brother.”

The Lord of the Underworld threw down his bident and his helmet, the shadows dissipating. Without his mantle of darkness, he looked no different than a man, gray and old and tired. The damned chuckled and jeered, but the grim figure stood with dignity.

The werewolf looked at the child, and then slowly put him on the ground. “Go, return to your father while you still can,” he said, almost paternally. “I made no promise about your uncles, little one.”

“Even with a new life, you will all end up here,” the figure replied, implacable. “And when you return, you will find me waiting.”

The grim guardian knelt, hand extended. His son calmed down at the sight of him, and crawled on all fours. The child moved back to his father, under the cold gaze of the hordes of Tartarus. All watched, but none made a move or a sound.

None but the werewolf. A dangerous light flared in his eyes, red and baleful.

“Sons, do not forget your table manners,” he said with a vicious smile. “Don’t eat with your hands.”

And his vile brood rushed at the child, fangs out.

The figure’s eyes flared with horror, his frozen heart breaking as he realized the loophole in the oath. He leapt forward in panic, not quick enough to grab his bident. “Zagreus!”

But he could not run fast enough.

His screams of anguish echoed across the Underworld, a deafening wail of pain and sorrow. The grim figure collapsed to his knees, struck not with anger, but with a deep, terrible despair.

The werewolf king moved faster than lightning, his fangs closing around the great lord’s throat. Like sharks aroused by blood, the damned fell on the figure like one, tearing him apart.

None of them used their hands.

A woman’s wail echoed, deafening, as a grim and twisted banquet began.

Kairos gasped, as his viewpoint changed and a terrible pain wracked his body. He felt his bones break beneath the jaws of wolves, his entrails spill into the Underworld’s cold hard ground. He was the grim figure, sharing the pain, watching his own gruesome death...

“ZEUS!” The werewolf howled to the light of the outside, as he and his pack feasted on Kairos’ flesh. “I will slay you, Zeus! I will slay you and your wife, your brothers, and sisters! I hunt your brood to the ends of the Earth, until none remains! I will feast on their hearts, and their children’s souls! I will leave nothing but tears and bones!”

And then the werewolf turned at Kairos, the sharp fangs glistening with blood, his gullet as black as a starless night… he traveled down the throat, into a pitch darkness from which no one ever escaped...

[Instadeath] negated by Cassandra’s [Cinderlight].

A warm hand grabbed him by the shoulder, and a ghostly light shattered the vision. The pain vanished, the blood replaced with saltwater filling his lungs.

[Haunted] ailment dispelled by Andromache.

When Kairos regained consciousness, Andromache was holding his head by the hair with a tentacle, and lifting it from the pool. Cassandra pointed her fork at the couple, bathing them in her light.

“Are you alright?” Andromache asked, as Kairos regained his breath.

“I…” The Travian spewed out some saltwater as his concubine released him, before sitting alongside the pool’s edge. His head hurt, as if someone had hit him in the face with a hammer. “Give me a second…”

Kairos gathered his breath while Andromache shifted back into a human shape, his eyes examining the room. Cassandra looked terribly pale beneath her hoplite helmet, while Agron and Nessus were busy covering up the fresco using stones from the previous room. A wise choice, since the dungeon’s magic repaired the walls whenever someone damaged them.

Most importantly, Kairos noticed a white, rounded stone one meter in diameter near the fountain. A single crack spread through its smooth surface, leaking saltwater.

“The picture was haunted,” Cassandra explained, the fiery flames in her fork dimming. “But the effect was so powerful… even my undead-repelling light couldn’t dispel it.”

Andromache shook her head, as she put on clothes again and sat at Kairos’ side. Her hands felt so warm when they brushed against his skin. “Were it not for you, Cassandra, the haunting would have slain both of you. Your fork’s light weakened the memory enough to let my magic break the curse.”

[Instadeath] effects immediately slew the victim without inflicting damage, separating the soul from the body. Even now, Kairos could tell he had barely avoided the kiss of death.

“I should have noticed that trap,” he said, blaming himself. His Skills and Nessus hadn’t noticed anything, and so the Travian had lowered his guard.

“You missed this haunting for the same reason that I did, my other half.” Andromache scowled. “It was not a trap, but a memory that would not die. A pain so powerful, that it resonates even a thousand years later. You bore witness to a god’s death throes.”

“Two of them,” Cassandra said gravely, her expression twisting into one of pure disgust. “A toddler...”

Kairos frowned. “That scene… Cass, was that—”

“The Crime of Lycaon.”

An act so odious, that few ever dared to speak it. The twisted murder that allowed Lycaon to rise to godhood, and escape the Underworld. The sin that caused Queen Persephone to close the Underworld’s gates, and emptied her of all joy.

Kairos shivered as he remembered Hades’ pain and anguish, as Lycaon and his sons feasted on his flesh. Just the idea that he descended from these… from these heartless animals filled the Travian with shame and disgust.

“What I don’t understand, is why it didn’t affect you, Nessus,” Cassandra said, as her teammates had finished covering the fresco, “You should have fallen into a trance when you looked at that picture.”

“Well, it’s because they weren’t my ghosts,” the satyr replied evasively, before shrugging. “More seriously, I think you triggered that haunting, dear Cassandra. You were revived once, and death shadows you.”

Cass frowned, but had to admit the theory sounded plausible. “Possibly,” she admitted. “If so, perhaps I should sit out the dungeon’s exploration. I might cause other accidents in the future.”

“Anyway, it’s neutralized and we have what we came for,” Agron grumbled. “What do we do next? We go on?”

Kairos glanced at the rounded stone near the fountain, using his Skills to analyze it in detail.

Rock of Theseus.

Rank: Artifact 3.

Value: Priceless

The rock which once bound Theseus and Pirithous to the Underworld. The rock will continuously cry tears of saltwater, and if hit with a weapon, shall give birth to an adult male horse loyal to the striker. Additionally, anyone sitting on the rock shall be instantly [Petrified].

A cursed item, if Kairos had ever seen one. Yet the sight of it put a smile on Andromache’s face. “This is it, my love,” she said with confidence. “The key.”

The key to her freedom.

Andromache had waited for centuries, and now… now, if the god Orgonos accepted this gift, then they could finally lift her curse.

“Are you feeling anxious?” Kairos whispered into Andromache’s ear.

“Not at all,” she replied, though her smile faltered. “The road to Orgonos is still long and treacherous though.”

“Perhaps,” Nessus said, having heard the answer, “but you reached a major milestone.”

Kairos couldn’t help but chuckle, and even Andromache seemed amused by the wordplay. “To answer your question, Agron, we will check on the second level’s entrance, and then return back to camp,” the Foresight’s captain decided. Though the vision hadn’t slain Kairos, it had left him tired.

After disabling the doors’ lock, the group scouted the next room. However, their advance came to a swift end, as the new stone hall ended in an underground river. A ghastly stone face of Thanatos more than ten meters in height spewed the waters, which flowed down into a large cavern supported by obsidian pillars. A black skiff large enough for six or seven people was anchored to the hall’s edge, prevented from following the current by a thick chain.

“The current goes down,” Cassandra said with a frown. The cavern was too long for the group to see far, but it clearly descended into the dungeon’s lower levels. “It will be much easier to go down than up.”

“Too risky to explore further for now,” Kairos decided. “We lack supplies, and we risk being trapped.”

“Agreed,” Cass responded with a nod. “Especially since we lack a map or any information about what awaits us.”

“The planetary alignment won’t take place until next year,” Andromache pointed out. “We have time.”

“Time to do your Quest, oh lovely Scylla?” Nessus asked mirthfully.

Instead of answering, Andromache glanced at Kairos and locked eyes with him. By now, he knew her well enough to read her mind. Though she desired to foil Circe’s plan, she lusted for freedom first and foremost.

The witch had waited centuries for an escape, but no longer.

“We retreat,” Kairos decided.

“And the tomb?” the minotaur asked. “The rock is a good spoil of battle, but we can’t divide it.”

“I noticed no magical defenses protecting it,” Andromache replied. The rock’s discovery had left her in a good enough mood to indulge in graverobbing. “It could contain something interesting.”

“I didn’t find any traps either,” Nessus said with a shrug. “Can’t be worse than that fresco.”

Kairos glanced at Cassandra, who shrugged. “What good is a dungeon if you can’t loot its content?” she asked. “At worst we can simply peek beneath the lid and close it afterward.”

And so, the party opened the funeral box. Kairos half-expected a trap to activate, a curse to strike them, or a ghost to haunt them. Yet, to his surprise, none of this happened.

For the funeral box turned out to be a treasure chest, overflowing with old golden oboles and a black, horned helmet.

Horns of Hypnos

Rank: Armor 2.

Value: 8000 gold coins.

This helmet consecrated to Hypnos, the late god of dreams, automatically adapts to the wearer’s face. The [Horns of Hypnos] grants the wearer [Sleep] Immunity, though they do not protect them from physical and mental fatigue. Additionally, the wearer can cast the [Sleep] spell thrice per day.

“Perfect,” Agron said before swiftly putting on the helmet. Though it was shaped for a human wearer, the device’s metal adapted to the shape of the minotaur’s skull, covering his horns and forehead.

Since taking the helmet didn’t trigger any reaction, Cassandra and Nessus quickly emptied the box of its gold and counted the coins. Kairos examined a few, and realized that few of them were identical. Some represented the ancient symbol of the city of Sparta, others were imprinted with the face of Theseus of Athens. All of them predated the Anthropomachia.

“Around three thousand gold coins,” Cassandra declared after she and Nessus finished counting. “Six hundred for each of us.”

“Just to be safe, none of these coins are [Cursed]?” Nessus asked Andromache.

“No,” the Scylla mused. “I suppose they were offerings to the temple’s priests, back when it still received visitors.”

Once news of these spoils spread to the population, it would bring many adventurers to the dungeon’s doorstep; and with them, merchants, healers, and camp followers. As Kairos had guessed when he learned of the Necromanteion’s existence, the wealth within these walls would help develop the colony.

With three more levels to explore, the Necromanteion would prove a long-term challenge, and Kairos faced other problems. The war with Mithridates wouldn’t wait a year.

For now, Kairos would focus on fortifying the entrance and let other parties clear out the way. He would use the respite to form alliances, gather better equipment, and help his teammates complete their Quests. He had the feeling he would need a party of [Heroes] to conquer the dungeon’s depths.

It was time to sail the Sunsea once more.

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