The battle’s noise fades behind Ares. Athena and Helios remain at Corinth, organizing the battered defenders, while the River Styx manifests at the Mortal Realm’s edge in a hush of black water.
Newly dead Corinthian soldiers drift along the current like pale reflections. Thanatos walks beside the shore, guiding each soul toward the Underworld with a quiet word and a steady hand.
Thanatos
Easy now. The struggle is finished. You need not carry the weight of the living across the river.
Thanatos pauses as he recognizes Ares. The solemn procession continues around them, but the god of death grants his student a small space apart, beneath the river’s cold silver mist.
Ares
These marks do not match the retreat.
Several shades bear strange, deliberate-looking wounds unlike the weapons used at the breach. Thanatos notices Ares studying them, and his calm expression tightens with concern.
Thanatos
You see it too. Tell me what happened after Zukalina’s army withdrew, Ares. Did anyone remain behind?
✓ Quest Accepted
Inform Thanatos of the army's withdrawal
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover who or what caused the strange wounds
“I tell Thanatos how Zukalina's army withdrew beyond the ash field.”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Perception, rolled +0)
Ares
Zukalina ordered the army to withdraw beyond the ash field. They kept their formation and regrouped under her banner.
Thanatos listens without interruption. As Ares speaks, the torn wound in his shoulder pulls open beneath the cloth, and a dark line of blood reaches his arm.
Thanatos
Then the retreat was witnessed. No remnant remained within Corinth when you left the field?
Ares
The wound is bleeding again.
Thanatos’s gaze drops to the blood, then returns to the drifting shades. His concern sharpens, but he does not touch Ares without permission.
Thanatos
You have given me what I needed. The strange marks were made after the army withdrew, and your shoulder now demands attention.
Quest Complete
Inform Thanatos of the army's withdrawal
“I let Thanatos tend to my bleeding shoulder as I look out at the shades. “What happened to those shades? None of the weapons used at the breach could have caused those wounds.””
SUCCESS (Mediocre Medicine, rolled +2)
Ares
Let Thanatos tend the shoulder. What happened to those shades? None of the weapons used at the breach could have caused those wounds.
Thanatos unwraps a strip of clean linen and binds Ares’s shoulder with practiced care. Across the black water, the marked shades drift in silence, their forms trembling in the mist.
Thanatos
No weapon caused them. I examined the first souls to arrive. The marks appeared after death, while they waited upon the shore.
He tightens the bandage, then turns toward the nearest shade. Faint dark lines cross its pale outline like writing pressed into smoke, vanishing whenever the current carries it beneath the surface.
Thanatos
Something reached through the boundary between life and death. It seized their passage, marked them, and released them only when the river resisted.
Ares
The marks appeared after death.
Thanatos
I found one other sign. Every marked soul came from the ground beyond Corinth’s ash field, where Zukalina’s army regrouped.
✓ Quest Accepted
Gain Thanatos's agreement to investigate the hidden threat
+ New Item Acquired
Linen Bandage
““Does Zukalina know of this?””
YES (Even, rolled 35)
Thanatos studies the dark markings beneath the river mist. The nearest shade shudders, and a faint echo of marching feet travels from beyond Corinth’s ash field.
Thanatos
Yes. Zukalina knows. Her banner stood over the ground when the first marks appeared, and her warriors did not approach the dead.
A thin strand of shadow pulls from the marked shade toward the distant shore, then snaps as the Styx surges between worlds. Thanatos closes his hand over the fading trace.
Thanatos
She saw what was happening, or received word of it. Either way, she chose to withdraw while the dead were tampered with.
Ares
The marks began after the army regrouped.
Thanatos
That does not prove she wielded the power. It proves the act occurred beneath her commander's eye, and she allowed the ground to remain under her control.
Across the river, one marked soul turns toward Ares. Its silent mouth opens, and a whisper crosses the water in a voice borrowed from the living.
the marked shade
She told us the field would keep what Corinth had lost.
“I question the marked shade about what happened”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -2)
Ares
What happened on that field? Tell me what marked you after death.
The shade’s outline tightens as the question crosses the Styx. The river pulls at its feet, and Thanatos raises one hand, holding the current steady for a breath.
the marked shade
After the army withdrew, men in ash-colored veils came among us. They carried no blades. They pressed black seals into the earth, and the ground answered.
A dark thread lashes from the shade’s chest toward the far shore. Thanatos severs it with two fingers, but the recoil burns a narrow black line across his palm.
the marked shade
Zukalina stood beyond the stones. She watched the veiled men work. When we cried out, she ordered her warriors to keep formation and leave us.
Thanatos
Who commanded them? Was it Zukalina, or someone beside her?
the marked shade
A voice beneath the earth commanded them. Zukalina called it an ally, then forbade anyone to speak its name.
Quest Complete
Discover who or what caused the strange wounds
Skill Upgrade: Medicine Mediocre→Fair
““If this is true, then the invaders are complicit in crimes against the dead. Uncle will want to know of this right away.””
Ares
If this is true, the invaders are complicit in crimes against the dead. Uncle must know of this at once.
Thanatos lowers his burned hand and looks across the Styx, where the marked shades drift beneath the river’s silver mist.
Thanatos
He will know. Hades must understand what crossed into his kingdom, and who permitted it.
The shade’s borrowed voice fades, but the black seals remain visible beneath the current, each one pulsing toward the distant ash field.
Thanatos
I will bring these souls safely across and preserve what traces remain. You should stand with Hades when I report this.
Thanatos turns toward the waiting dead, his expression hardening into duty. The Styx quiets around his steps as he guides the marked shades toward the Underworld.
Quest Complete
Gain Thanatos's agreement to investigate the hidden threat