Nyxpera

The 19th of Thargelion

The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals

“Fuck this palace, fuck this city, fuck the Fleece, fuck this labyrinth…”

The curses dripped from Arche’s lips with every step, a marching tune as he went deeper into the space below the city. He had wandered in the dark for nine hours, by his best estimate, recasting Darksight whenever it ran out to help keep track of time. A roar reverberated off the stones, making the world vibrate.

“And fuck you too!” Arche shouted back.

The roar came often, varying in intensity, but Arche found it impossible to tell if he was actually getting closer to it or if it was simply the bizarre layout of the labyrinth. It was, he found, a labyrinth in truth. There were no false turns or dead ends, just a single, unending path to follow. Every now and then, the walls would shift, sometimes chasing him and sometimes closing off the path he was going. Whenever this happened, a new path would open, making it unclear if the entire labyrinth was changing like this or if it was only the sections he was in.

Regardless, he was bored.

He’d expected more from a Journeyman dungeon with a recommended level of fifty. Sitting at a measly Level Twenty-One, he thought he’d have to be constantly on his guard but, other than the occasional roar, he had yet to meet any other creatures. Perhaps that was part of the dungeon, getting him to relax into complacency before luring him into a trap. He doubted it, unable to shake the feeling that whatever was going to try to kill him was at the heart of the labyrinth. As for what that was, he had at least one idea.

The roaring continued as Arche took a drink and recast Darksight.

Darksight has increased to Level 5.

Cost: 192 Mana

Duration: 16.5 minutes

Distance: 16.5 meters

The labyrinth wasn’t much to look at. Decayed filth lined much of the walls, smashed into unrecognizable pulp from the changing layout. Stains covered everything but Arche had little interest in actually identifying them. It would either be dirt or blood, and there wasn’t much dirt. The smell was pretty bad, too. Death, decay, and something even more fetid. It got to the point Arche tied a spare shirt around his face just to filter out as much of the stench as he could. It didn’t help.

He settled the Tridory onto his shoulders, draping his arms over the top, and arched his back, listening to his joints pop. The labyrinth walls reached the ceiling, leaving no way to climb over the top and speed things up. Even if he had the option, he’d taken enough turns that he had no idea which way the center was.

A scraping sound behind him was enough to start running again. He was in a long, straight stretch and the walls moved quickly. He was always being chased by something, it seemed. A wolf, a door, a wall, a god. Another wall appeared from the darkness ahead, indicating a turn. The wall behind him tapped his heel, almost throwing his balance, then he was around the corner and safe, tumbling against the ground at the sharp change in direction.

Arche hit the far wall in a sitting position, coughing from the sudden exertion and impact. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he rolled forward, bringing the Tridory up in front of him in a threatening posture.

A huge creature sat in front of him, easily three times his size, staring at him with hatred and hunger. It opened its maw and loosed a roar that physically shook Arche. It was covered in dark fur with a bullish head and large arms that clawed at him, despite being well out of reach.

Arche Examined the creature.

Asterion

Level: 57

Race: Minotauros

Age: ?

Height: ?

Weight: ?

Profession: ?

Trade: ?

Traits: ?

Companions: ?

Adventuring Party: ?

Health: 218 / 16,850

1%

Stamina: 714 / 10,460

6%

Mana: 110 / 110

100%

Examine has increased to Level 8.

+2% Examination Speed (+16%)

“Hey, easy there! Can you understand me?” Arche took a step back.

It was a gamble, one he hoped would pay off, and entirely based on the creature’s intelligence. If Mana scaled the same way for it as it did for Arche, that would put it at eleven, which was more than enough to be sapient.

The minotauros, Asterion, took another swipe at him but it was slow and half-hearted. It sprawled on the ground, looking strangely feeble. Arche hesitated. It was half-starved and half-mad. In its current state, he could kill it with a single thrust of the Tridory, but there was something more at play.

“Asterion,” he called sharply. “What’s wrong?”

The minotauros jerked. Its eyes, hazy and hateful, cleared for a moment.

“Hunger.” Its voice was deep and painful, like the words cut its throat on the way out.

Arche paused, trying to recall what he knew of the myth about the Minotaur. A curse set by the gods against King Minos, his wife impregnated by a divine bull initially meant as a sacrifice. The child was a rageful, half-man half-bull thing, hungering for meat and blood, and locked away in a magic labyrinth. But that was supposed to be on an island kingdom. Arche was reasonably sure they weren’t on an island. It seemed the Minotaur, and perhaps the labyrinth as well, had been relocated. Unless this was a different thing altogether.

Arche searched his inventory and found his rations. He pulled all the meat out and tossed it toward Asterion. The minotauros grabbed it out of the air and shoveled it into its mouth. It wasn’t much, a few pounds of wolf and deer meat—some cooked, some not—but it was enough to make the minotauros’s Stamina rise.

It occurred to him that he was feeding a creature much more powerful than himself. A clear carnivore who very well might kill him once its strength was recovered. It was clearly a stupid thing to do. He should kill it now while he had the chance. At the same time, it felt wrong to attack it, weak as it was. At its peak, Arche had no doubt it was unequaled by any it had ever faced, but in its current state, it drew more pity than fear.

“I don’t have much, but what I have is yours, if you can keep from attacking me.”

The minotauros didn’t answer. All of its focus was on shoveling as much food as possible into its mouth. It gave Arche an opportunity to look around. They were in a circular room with two entrances. One was the passage Arche had entered through, the other was on the opposite side, on the far end of the bull. The room itself was littered with broken bones of all shapes and sizes. Scores, if not hundreds, of creatures had met their ends in the minotauros’s lair but none of the bodies were fresh. There wasn’t a scrap of meat in sight, other than the sorry hide currently shoveling in the last of Arche’s rations. When the meat was all gone, Asterion sat up and leveled its gaze at Arche. When it spoke, it had a voice like growling thunder.

“You do not fear me. Why?”

“It’s been a hell of a few months,” Arche replied. “You’re hardly the first thing I’ve met that could tear me apart.”

“And yet you do not flee.”

“I need to get past you. I have a debt to repay.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The bull’s nostrils flared.

“But you gave me food. Why?”

Why indeed? Now all he had left was a few bowls of stew.

“You were hungry.” Arche shrugged. “Didn’t seem right.”

“Right,” Asterion echoed. “And what is right, little human? Is it right to leave me here, never enough meat to fill my belly? Never again to see the light of day, to hunt the men that killed my mother? Butchered and ate my father?”

“Do you limit your hunt to those responsible? Or all who cross your path?” Arche gestured to the bones around them. “I’ve heard your story, before, if you’re who I think you are. They said you were insatiable before you were imprisoned. Bloodthirsty.”

Asterion growled, a tone so low it vibrated the pebbles at Arche’s feet.

“And right they were. The gods bestowed me as a curse upon the kingdom of Krete, the kingdom of Minos.”

“You remember the gods?”

“Remember?” Asterion snarled, raising his voice to echo off the stone walls. “I curse them. I curse them as I was cursed by them. Curse their machinations and curse their pride, through which I was damned into existence. I did not ask to be, human. I did not wish for this life. I am, that a long-dead king may suffer. I am still, for my own suffering.”

Arche stared for a long moment.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” the Minotauros spat the word with contempt. “Sorry is what my sister was when they took me from my mother. Sorry is what led her to give some passing hero a bundle of thread, that he might slip into my prison, slay me, and leave with none the wiser. Sorry has spread my blood and brains across the floor and turned my prison into my tomb. Spare me your pity, human. If you would do me a kindness, then let me feast upon your bones.”

“I can’t do that.” Arche sighed. “I don’t want to fight you. Is there some way I could help you?”

“I have had enough of men and their help.”

“Then will you allow me to pass?”

The minotauros stood, slowly raising itself off the ground until it towered over Arche.

“No.”

Arche shifted his feet, readjusting his grip on the Tridory.

“Then, perhaps, we should sit and talk a while longer. We might be able to come to an accord.”

Asterion blinked.

“You would deal with me?”

“Why not? You’re a surprisingly good conversationalist and I have some time, yet. Do you eat things other than meat? I’ve got some more food.”

Asterion consider the offer, then slowly lowered his great, hulking form to the floor.

“If it’s talk you wish, I will provide it for more food.”

Arche produced three bowls of stew and set them down. Once he’d taken a step back, the minotauros grabbed them and put them into his mouth, crunching the wooden bowls between his teeth. Arche squinted, but did his best to keep his expression pleasant and nonthreatening. Asterion wiped his face as he finished.

“What would you know, stranger?”

It took Arche a moment to realize that the minotauros was inviting him to ask a question and not, once again, challenging his intelligence.

“You remember your death,” Arche said. “How is it that you came to be here?”

“Tartarus is the only home for monsters who fall on the wrong end of legend. I was trapped here by foul magic that prevents my ever leaving. This labyrinth was built around me and the city around it.”

“You know there is a city above?”

“The humans I have been fed are too finely dressed to be from anything else. It is like the prison constructed by King Minos, only more variance.”

“More than humans walk the surface, now. Many races commingle together.”

“Tell me. Do the gods walk among you?”

“Not openly. I have it on good authority that they abandoned Tartarus some time ago. A few thousand years.”

Asterion grunted in disbelief.

“You have the stink of gods on you, but you are not one of them.”

“I’m not. I’ve set myself against one of them, actually.”

“Which one?”

“Ares, God of War.”

“I am set against Poseidon, the World Quaker, who created me.”

“If I meet him, I’ll give him your regards.”

Asterion grunted again, this time in amusement.

“I would know your name, stranger.”

“I’m Arche. Nice to meet you.”

“Never has that been said before. I am Asterion.”

“And yet it is meant, all the same. Magic is keeping you here, you say. Can it be broken?”

“You would release me upon the world? Knowing my vengeance cannot be quenched?”

“I’m just exploring the possibilities.”

Asterion shook his head. “The same magic that binds me here has nourished me. I am weakened without meat but I will not die for lack of it. Without that bond, I would wither to nothing more than the bones that align my home.”

“It isn’t fair for you to be imprisoned in both life and death.”

“Those responsible have long decayed. Theseus sips nectar and gorges ambrosia in Elysium, I am certain, reveling ill-begotten victories. Such is the hubris the gods reward.”

“I’ll give him your regards as well.”

Asterion laughed, low and throaty like the braying of a cow.

“I have not talked with another since my sister, Ariadne, grew fearful of me and I was locked away. You, Arche—who have dined with me, spoken with me, and shown no fear—perhaps you will carry my hate to the gods.”

“There’s got to be more you want out of life than revenge.”

“I have a request, to make of you. If you complete it, you will be free to pass.”

“Name it.”

Asterion leveled his dark eyes against Arche’s. Having been somewhat satiated, they were no longer full of hate and hunger, though both were still present. Instead, they had been pushed aside by a need that went deeper than hunger, darker than hate.

“Kill me.”

Arche recoiled and scrambled to his feet.

“What?”

“The magic that binds me also prevents me from letting anyone past the labyrinth. You must kill me. I cannot do it myself.”

“But…” Arche struggled to find a compelling argument. “But you don’t deserve to die.”

“Don’t I? I have slaughtered and eaten countless of your kind.”

“My kind also resorts to cannibalism in extreme situations. You were imprisoned, fed nothing else.”

“I have no desire to be rescued. I have had a long, tiring existence. As a rageful thing abandoned under Krete, and now as a rageful thing abandoned under whatever city lies above. I have had enough of life and its many disappointments.”

Arche tried to argue again, but words failed him. Every story he knew about the Minotaur called it a monster, but here it was in front of him, sitting and talking and asking to die. It was wrong, like shattering a sculpture by an artist long dead. Once destroyed, forever gone from the world, never to be replaced. This bull, this man, had outlived civilizations, outlived empires. That had to count for something. Elves were mayflies next to the Minotaur.

“I am trying to be a better man than I once was,” Arche said quietly. “I don’t want to kill you.”

“For as long as you can see the man behind the monster, you will be better than all I have encountered.”

Arche adjusted his grip on the Tridory.

“I’m sorry.”

“I am not.”

Asterion lifted his head and stared at the ceiling. Arche followed his gaze and found holes cut into the stone, small lines connecting them. Stars and constellations, thousands of them, all hand carved. They connected together in a web more intricate than any spider, more beautiful than any painting.

“Perhaps, wherever I go next, I will see my mother again,” Asterion murmured. “And learn of a life where there is more than rage.”

“I wish it for you.”

“If I do, I will tell her of you. Of a kindness I received when I deserved none. I am ready.”

Arche clenched his teeth and forced his heart to harden. The spear sank into the minotauros’s chest, carving through muscle, bone and, finally, heart. Asterion did not stiffen or seize. His eyes did not leave the stars above, the constellation of a woman smiling down.

Tears slid down Arche’s face as Asterion went limp. He pulled the Tridory free and wiped it clean, then fell to his knees.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

With a trembling hand, he closed Asterion’s eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled out a drachma and placed it into the minotauros’s mouth.

“I don’t know if there’s a ferryman where you’re going, but I hope this gets you a better life than the ones you’ve had.”

Golden light flashed, blinding in the dark. Normally, a level-up was a satisfying event, but all Arche felt was revulsion. He sat with Asterion’s body for a long time. It was the most respect he could give, but he couldn’t stay forever. Tess and Efterpi were lost, somewhere out in the Labyrinth. Going back was not a viable option, the changing patterns would easily let them miss one another. Forward was the only path.

Always forward.

You have slain Asterion, Level 57.

You gain 5,700 experience.

Slayer of the Mighty activated!

You gain 3,600 bonus experience.

You have reached Level 22.

As a Human, you receive 5 attribute points to distribute per level.

As a Demigod, you receive +1 to each attribute per level.

You have 5 undistributed attribute points.

You have slain a Trait-Wielder.

You have gained a Trait.

Bull’s Might

+15% Strength

+15% Fortitude

+15% Endurance

Profession Paths are available.

Explore Profession Paths?

Yes

No

Arche dismissed the notifications. He hadn’t wanted this. Any of it. He looked back the way he’d come, but all that remained behind him was impregnable darkness. He opened his status and looked at the trait again.

“I will use this power to honor you, Asterion. May you find peace, wherever you are.”

Always forward.