Hadespera
The 26th of Elaphebolion
The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals
All was still as Arche and the beastmar chieftain fell. For one second, every creature paused to take in what had happened. Lyssa felt his death, felt her connection to him sever. Felt the notification that confirmed the horrible truth. She had lost a Companion.
For the second time, she had let a brother die.
A keening wail rose in the silence. It was pain and grief and every dark thought. The sound rose, haunting as it echoed off stone. The prisoners shied away from her – the sound came from her own mouth. She drew her swords and was gone before anyone could stop her. Her blades wrought devastation as she sprinted through the throngs of beastmar. Everyone, beastmar and prisoner alike, was taken aback by her ferocity.
Then battle commenced once more.
Lyssa tore her way through the beastmar as she tried to reach Arche’s body. Tess was at her side an instant later, blades flashing. Lyssa ignored the Rogue, all of her focus was on getting to Arche. If she could just reach him, she could find some way to save him. To bring him back. If she could get to him, he would sit up and laugh and have some outlandish saying he knew would only puzzle her. Most importantly, he would be alive. He had to be.
The beastmar blurred before her, one into the next as she cut them down. Arche had been foolish to challenge the chief. Beastmar were abominations, they had no concept of honor. They would never have surrendered even if Arche had won uncontested, but the damned fool had fought his way out too far and been separated. She should have gone after him, but Tess had beaten her to it. If she’d gone, the rest of the prisoners would have died. Now they would all die together.
Arche had overdone himself getting Tess out of danger, Lyssa could tell by how his posture had changed. Mana Burnout. She’d never experienced it herself, having no aptitude for magic, but she knew it could cripple people for hours, even days. If he’d still had enough Mana left to use his special skill, she had no doubt he would have defeated the chief. She’d seen him do enough incredible things not to doubt him.
Now she needed him to do one more incredible thing.
A claw tore open Lyssa’s cheek and her howl grew sharper. Even with all that they’d killed, there were still over two dozen beastmar. Too many to win. She reached Arche’s body, Tess fighting alongside her. The wicked labrys was still stuck in his chest. Seeing it up close, Lyssa’s Huntress mind assessed the damage. It had split at least four of his ribs and likely pierced a lung, if not his heart. He’d died in moments, not minutes.
Lyssa planted herself in front of his body, brandishing both her swords as she roared her challenge. A bestial howl, even to her own ears, that promised pain to any foolish enough to challenge her. As if in answer, a deep rumble echoed around the cavern, thunder in the underground. The fighting stopped and everyone looked for its source. Everyone except Lyssa, who was past caring. The few prisoners left standing ran out of the tunnel, screaming as whatever monster had been inside came out, and what a monster it was.
A massive, two-headed dog emerged from the tunnel. Both heads loosed a baleful howl, the sound so loud that every other creature stopped what they were doing to clutch at their ears and scream in response. Lyssa was driven to the ground by the noise, hands clapped against her sensitive ears as a combat notification indicated a new debuff.
Deafened — Tier 5
-90% Hearing
Deafened — Tier 5: 1:59
Lyssa took her hands away to find them slick with her own blood. She wiped them on the stone ground, trying to clean them or at least get enough grip back that she could hold her swords without dropping them. When she could stand with swords in hand, she found that the beastmar paid no attention to her. They had devoted the entirety of their focus to fighting the two-headed hound.
The creature stood over five meters tall at the shoulder. By contrast, the largest of the beastmar came up to the monstrous hound’s knees. Its fur was a piebald of red and black, but its form, though formidable, was emaciated. Skin pulled taut over massive ribs and the hound’s stomach pulled inward.
Both heads plunged downward, moving quickly for such a large creature, and each gaping maw found plenty of beastmar to eat. That was not to say the beastmar were incapable of fighting back. Despite having two heads and a huge size advantage, the beastmar turned the creature’s legs into a bloody mess. There were simply too many for the hound to fight all at once.
Lyssa adjusted the grip on her swords and was about to jump back into the fray when a hand landed on her shoulder. She turned, ready to strike, but saw Tess standing at her side. The woman pointed and said something but Lyssa couldn’t hear more than a garbled warble. She turned to follow Tess’s gesture.
More creatures poured out of the tunnels on the far side of the cavern, but these were not beastmar. Humans, elves, dwarves, and other races charged out into the open cavern. Above them all swooped a familiar bird-like figure.
“Abraxios,” Lyssa whispered, voice lost even to herself.
Lightning arced from the tengu, splitting itself to strike half a dozen beastmar. They froze and shuddered as their muscles contracted against their will. Arrows flew, felling several more who had focused wholly on trying to kill the two-headed hound. Lyssa and Tess did their part by attacking any beastmar who turned away from the monster but, for the most part, they stood watch over Arche’s body as the battle played out before them.
They were joined shortly by the other prisoners. All had their share of blood and most sported varying degrees of injuries. Exhausted, Lyssa dropped to her knees. Her Stamina was spent but it went deeper than that. They had been fighting down in the dark for so long, convinced that they were going to die, and now hope had surged forth before them.
If only Arche was alive to see it.
With the two-headed hound on one side and the villagers on the other, the beastmar were quickly routed. Some of the villagers prepared to fight the hound, weapons hefted hesitantly, but it ignored them. It dragged as many beastmar as its mouths could hold back into the tunnel and disappeared entirely from sight.
The battle was over. They had won.
Tess fell to her knees next to Lyssa. Arche’s skin had grown pale beneath the blood and dirt. His eyes were dull and stared past Lyssa. Whatever his last words might have been were lost, leaving behind only the memory of a short life, less than a month old. They had lived, Arche had died.
Now they both had to face that fact.
A figure strutted up, stopping a couple meters away. Lyssa looked up into the sneering face of Callias Buteo. He said something but it was garbled, unintelligible. She ignored him, rubbing her ears as the Deafened debuff counted down to nothing. Sound came back to her with a pop.
“—you ignore me?” Callias shouted. “Look at this mess you’ve caused. All this…this…this carnage. This utter waste. Don’t even think of trying to collect on that bounty my fool of a steward offered you. I’ve rescinded it, the official quest will be canceled upon our return. Why, I should have you imprisoned for the mess you’ve made of things. For your greed, endangering the whole village in this fool’s quest to attack the beastmar. You’re just trying to separate me from my family’s hard-earned drachmae. I should have you flogged!”
Lyssa found it hard to care about what he was saying. She thought of Arche and what he would say. The words brought a bittersweet smile to her lips and she let them pass.
“Go fuck yourself, Callias.”
“How dare you. I see now that prison would be too kind of a sentence for you. We have neither the means, the manpower, nor the infrastructure to incarcerate you for nearly as long as it would take to teach you some manners, elf. Neither can you be exiled, for surely your foul influence would only serve to commit greater crimes elsewhere or bring trouble to us once again. Yes, there’s only one thing for it, now. Guards, kill these two.”
Lyssa and Tess were on their feet in a flash, weapons drawn. Callias stepped back behind the protective line. The guards, for their part, looked uncertain as they faced down two warrior women drenched in blood and surrounded by dozens of slain corpses.
“This is rash, Callias,” a familiar voice said.
Lyssa turned her head to see Vik had spoken up. He, Elpida, and Gigator had maneuvered to stand by her and Tess, weapons raised toward the rest of the village guards.
“The snakes crawl forth from the woodwork. If you wish to oppose me, very well. Your lives are forfeit, too. You heard me, kill them!”
The guards formed a circle around them and closed in, spears raised.
----------------------------------------
Arche felt lighter than he ever had before, as though his clothing and limbs were weightless. Instinctually, he tried to breathe, but no air rushed into his lungs. His chest still rose and he felt no discomfort, but there was no breath. Now that he was aware of it, he couldn’t feel anything at all. Not the air against his skin or the stone beneath him. No clothing or weapons or anything. He opened his eyes.
The world had changed but it was not unfamiliar. He found he was not naked, as he had originally thought, but was wearing very simple clothing, like he had when he’d first woken up nearly a month before. He was in a hollow cave deep inside the earth, much as before, but small flames flickered around the space. Bright green sparks with shadows silhouetting them and darker orange sparks with large, grotesque shadows. They danced around each other, but the orange sparks vastly outnumbered the green sparks. Arche touched one. His hand passed straight through and, though he felt nothing, he sensed something. Someone, more specifically.
“Lyssa,” he murmured.
“The concerns of the living are not for the dead.”
Arche turned, the motion more of a thought than an action. His mind appeared to control his movement in this place, not his muscles. The entity he saw before him was tall and covered in thousands of small plates of interconnected, black armor. Obscuring its face was a mask of black metal that shifted, sometimes morphing into a face and other times simply forming a black mirror. The only unchanging thing about the mask were two eye-slits, revealing white pupils surrounded by black sclera.
“I know you,” Arche said. “You’re that being from before. You called yourself Death.”
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“I am.”
“You told me I wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“You weren’t.”
“And now?”
“You are.”
“I’d…hoped I’d get more time.” Arche’s voice faltered. “There’s so much I didn’t get to see.”
“It is the wish of many to delay my meeting with them.”
Arche tried to take a deep breath but no air flowed into his unsteady form. Instead, he closed his eyes and shoved his feelings down into whatever now passed for a stomach. “I never got your name.”
“I am Death.”
“Yeah, got that part, but that’s not a name. Arguably, that’s what you are. A name’s an important thing. I should know, I didn’t have one for a while. Surely there’s something someone calls you?”
“I…” Death hesitated.
Arche was taken aback by that. Death hesitated? Could Death be unsure? He’d thought Death was the only thing that was ever certain. Well, that and taxes.
“I was once a being called Thanatos, but I have…evolved since then. I absorbed many of the Keres, my sisters, and have become that which shepherds all who die.”
“Would you mind if I called you Thanatos? ‘Mr. Death’ is a little too formal for me.”
“I am Death, little spark, but I have been called many things by many beings. If my old name would bring you some comfort, then use it.”
Arche looked around, seeing all the different sparks moving about each other.
“Are these souls? Living ones? Is this why your kind call us sparks?”
“They are not of your concern.”
“Yeah, I know, I just…” Arche sighed, wishing he could actually blow out air to vent his frustration. “I barely got to know this world. What comes next?”
“Come and see.”
The thought terrified him.
“Just tell me this much. Was this it? Did I waste the only life I’m going to have?”
Thanatos cocked its head.
“Do you regret the life you lived?”
Arche blinked. He thought about waking up in the forest, about his first encounter with Lyssa, with Helwan, with Tess. All the people he’d met and befriended along the way. The party in the village, learning how to fight, the adventures, the battles, the dungeoneering.
His body was no longer real, nor were his eyes, and he was grateful, for it meant Death would not see him cry.
“No. Only that it’s over.”
“Then come.”
Arche hesitated. Then, slowly, he extended a translucent hand toward Thanatos.
“Not so fast.”
Thanatos stiffened and withdrew its hand. Death stared at something behind Arche. A presence filled the space, so thick and overpowering that Arche felt himself mired in place, hand still extended. Fear rose in him, despite already being dead, and he wanted more than anything to turn, to see who had spoken, but he didn’t have to see to know who it was. It was the entity that had been playing with him this whole time. The same one who had confronted Thanatos when Arche had bargained for Tess’s life.
“You should not be here,” Thanatos rumbled, showing genuine annoyance for the first time since.
“Now, is that any way to treat an old friend?”
“This is too far.”
Thanatos’s hand flickered and a large scythe appeared.
“You are bold, indeed, if you would take up arms against me. Do not forget what I am owed.”
“That debt,” Thanatos growled, “has been paid already. I warned you what would happen if you interfered again.”
Once again they were talking about him as though he weren’t even there. He was already dead, what more could they do?
“Enough!” Arche roared. The presence weighed on him, but it no longer felt so stifling that he couldn’t speak. “Somebody tell me what is going on here or I’m going to start screaming.”
Thanatos looked down at him and extended a hand.
“Don’t…”
Thanatos tapped Arche on the top of the head and the overwhelming presence dissipated.
“Finally, gah, what the fuck?”
Arche turned his head and looked at the new entity. The sight would have chilled his heart if he still had one. What stood before him could have been a statue, had the sculptor intended to inspire nightmares. Blood flowed in the shape of a man, taller even than Thanatos. Darkened metal fashioned into armored plates adorned the blood, each piece bore damage but was undeniable in the quality of its craftsmanship. The eyes were cold steel, reflecting Arche’s own face back at him.
“I had such high hopes for you.”
The blood figure sighed like a disappointed father.
“Who…what are you?”
“He is Ares. He should know better than to interfere in matters that do not concern him.”
“The boy died in battle. That’s as much my business as it is yours, harvestman.” Ares waved a crimson hand dismissively.
“Do not test me, Ares. Your power has waned these millennia, but mine has only grown.”
“Spare me your threats, Than. You do not want to raise your scythe against me.”
“Ares,” Arche said slowly. “I know that name. Why do I know that name?”
“Silence. You will be dealt with in due time.”
“Return to your brethren, Ares. I will not tell you again.”
Thanatos shifted their weight and placed themself between Arche and Ares.
“I have claimed my mark upon this one. All the other souls of Tartarus are yours but his is mine.”
“That is not how the system was designed. You have no jurisdiction in this matter.”
“Enough! You will not deny me this, errand keeper. You may collect the souls but it is my wars that bring them to you. I will wage a war so great and terrible that it destroys the very fabric of this ‘system’ you serve. Stand aside, I will not warn you again.”
“I am not some pawn in your games. One of you tell me what is going on, right now.”
“Silence!”
“Fuck off!” Arche roared. Both entities turned toward him in surprise. “I’m sick of this shit! You all interfere with our lives so easily but in all your apparent power you can’t even answer a question? Why? Why me? What did I ever do that I got caught up in this?”
Ares and Thanatos both stared at him without reaction, which would have sparked fear into him if he hadn’t already been dead.
“He…is not of Tartarus. Ares, what did you do?”
“As I said, he died in battle. That makes him my business and I have plans for him, yet. You, boy, you wish to know what is in store for you? Why you were chosen?”
Arche glared up at the pillar of blood.
“You were chosen because you are an instrument of war. You always have been. You have fought your entire life, from birth all up unto your death, whereupon I claimed you. I bestowed upon you a gift, a divine spark to fan the flames of your potential. A feat that has not been accomplished in millennia. You say you are not a pawn? You are nothing but a pawn. Your existence here is my doing and through you I will have my war. That is your purpose, you have no other.”
Arche reeled. Thanatos, too, seemed similarly affected.
“Ares, you have broken the pact.”
“Damn the pact, Than. Change is coming, it cannot be kept away forever. When that change happens, you should consider to whom your allegiance truly lies. There is still time.”
“No,” Arche interrupted.
Both entities turned toward him once again.
“No, I don’t accept this. I won’t do it.”
Ares’s face congealed into anger.
“Do not push your luck, boy. You owe everything to me.”
“You’ve fucked with my entire life, every step of the way. You used me and you’re going to keep using me until you decide you don’t need me anymore. How long, then, before you cast me aside? A year? A month? A week? No, fuck that. What you’re selling? I’m not buying. I’ve had enough. Push me and I’ll push back.”
Ares blinked, seeming genuinely surprised.
“You would wage war against me?”
“If it means stopping you, yes.” Arche stared up with as much grit as he could muster.
Ares smiled. “Very well. I will relish our conflict, but you will serve me in the end.”
Crimson light flashed and Arche was left alone with Thanatos.
“Please tell me you have some answers for what just happened.”
“This has been…concerning.”
“What happens now?”
“His mark is upon you. His spark of divinity and something more. I am sorry, mortal, for that title no longer accurately describes you.”
“What?”
Thanatos turned away, then turned back, as if struck by a sudden thought.
“Do you truly wish to defeat him? Or were those words spoken in the brashness of anger?”
“I…” Now that the moment had passed, he was uncertain. “I don’t know if I can, but whatever he’s planning doesn’t sound good and he doesn’t seem to care who he hurts. There are still people I care about, people I need to look out for. He needs to be stopped. I’ll do what I can.”
Thanatos dipped his head. “Very well. I am limited in what assistance I can provide, but I can provide this.”
Thanatos produced a single silver coin from seemingly nowhere.
“Place this obol in the mouth of a departed loved one whose soul still lingers.”
Arche reached out to take it but Thanatos held it back.
“Unless the rules of the pact change, this is the only help I will be able to give. Use it wisely.”
Arche took the coin.
“Does this mean I’m not dead?”
Thanatos cocked his head and, though Arche couldn’t see a face, he would have sworn that Death was smiling at him.
“For better or worse, you are banished from death. I will speak with Hermes. He will determine what next steps to take. This has not happened before. I am sure whatever cost he imposes will be prohibitive, so do not make a habit of traveling to my realm. You may find it worse than the alternative.”
“I see,” Arche said slowly. “One more thing. Do you know who I was? Before I came here?”
“The affairs of the living are not of my concern.”
“Right, right. Of course. Erm, thank you? Thank you.”
Thanatos cocked his head to one side, staring at Arche with those strange, inverted eyes.
“You are an anomaly, little spark. Nonetheless, I will return you now. Someday I will see you again. I see everyone, eventually. Do not forget this. There is no escape.”
With those last, ominous words hanging in the air, Thanatos reached out and rested one hand on the top of Arche’s head.
Then Arche fell through darkness.