Ares emerges from the Underworld onto Corinth’s southern defensive line, the cold of Tartarus still clinging to his wounded shoulder. Hades and Thanatos remain below, guarding the sealed breach.
Athena, Helios, and the militia captain wait beside a newly blackened patch of earth. The surviving defenders stand nearby, silent beneath the salt wind.
Athena
You returned sooner than expected. Your face says the matter beneath Tartarus was worse than the battle.
The blackened soil pulses faintly. A narrow trail of dark marks extends from it through the battered streets, pointing toward Corinth’s heart.
Helios
That earth was clean when Zukalina’s army withdrew. Now the stain leads toward the city.
the militia captain
Tell us what you found, Ares. If the enemy left something behind, the defenders must know where it leads.
Athena
And if Zukalina’s hidden ally fed the breach through the dead, we need its connection before the trail fades.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reveal what is directing the dark trail through Corinth
✓ Quest Accepted
Stop the new threat targeting Corinth
“I tell Athena what we faced beneath Tartarus, and inform her that Hades will be sending reinforcements given the threat to the dead. Hades is known to never get involved in mortal affairs, so that he would send reinforcements demonstrates the severity of the threat.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +0)
Ares
We faced a breach beneath Tartarus. Something used the marked dead to reach an imprisoned Titan, and Hades sealed it before the chains broke. He is sending reinforcements.
The defenders absorb the report in silence. Even the salt wind seems to falter around the blackened earth, whose pulse dims beneath Ares’s warning.
Athena
Hades does not enter mortal affairs, nor spend his strength beyond the Underworld without cause. If he sends aid, this threat exceeds Corinth.
Helios
Then the stain beneath our city is part of something older than Zukalina’s invasion. We will not dismiss it as battlefield sorcery.
the militia captain
The defenders will clear the streets and hold every approach. Tell us where Hades’s reinforcements are needed, and we will make room for them.
Athena
Your warning is accepted, Ares. I will secure Corinth while you and the arriving forces trace this dark path to its source.
“I follow the dark trail toward Corinth’s heart”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +1)
Ares follows the dark trail through Corinth’s battered streets. The marks pulse beneath salt-stained stones, guiding him past shuttered houses and silent defenders toward the city’s heart.
Athena
Keep the path clear. No one touches those marks until we know what answers them.
Helios and the militia captain direct the defenders aside. The black trail crosses the market square, its symbols deepening wherever blood once touched the ground.
Helios
There. The trail ends beneath the old council hall. That foundation predates Corinth’s harbor and every wall around it.
Ares reaches the council hall’s center. The final mark lies within a sunken stone seal, where darkness gathers in a slow spiral beneath the cracked floor.
Athena
The source is inside the city, not beyond its walls. If it is connected to Tartarus, Corinth has become its anchor.
The seal answers Ares’s arrival with a deep subterranean pulse. Far below, something strikes once against buried stone, and a thin black fissure opens at his feet.
“I inspect the fissure beneath the council hall”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Perception, rolled +2)
Ares crouches over the fissure and studies its edges without touching them. The stone is ancient, but the crack is fresh, its sides darkened by a residue colder than shadow.
Ares
The fissure descends beneath the seal, and the marks are written from below.
He angles himself toward the opening. Beneath the council hall, a buried chamber comes into view, its walls carved with the same black symbols that marked the dead.
Athena
What do you see?
The darkness below answers with a muted pulse. A narrow stone stair winds down from the chamber, ending at an altar split by a vertical seam of pale fire.
Athena
That is no natural foundation. The altar is a conduit, and the seam carries the same force that reached toward Tartarus.
Within the seam, a fragment of black seal-stone bears Zukalina’s war sigil beside an older mark. The trail’s source is exposed beneath Corinth, linking the invasion to the buried conduit.
Quest Complete
Reveal what is directing the dark trail through Corinth
Skill Upgrade: Ranged Combat Superb→Legendary