The funerary temple hums with sacred warmth. Shadows retreat from the altar, and the stone gives off a low, mourning chime.
Ares stands before Valintal’s body, the last rites complete. Thanatos holds Sisyphus fast, while Hades watches, calm and ironbound.
Thanatos
The dead are restored to their path. My work here is done.
Hades
So is mine, once judgment is given. Ares, the king waits for sentence.
Sisyphus strains in Thanatos’s grip, pale with fear but still measuring every door and angle in the room.
Sisyphus
Name the price, then. I have already paid in ruin.
Thanatos draws back, and Hades turns with Persephone’s quiet blessing in his wake, each god ready to leave for their rightful domain.
The temple falls silent around Ares, Valintal honored, the cycle mended, the captive king awaiting the final word.
“Sisyphus lets his spirit be taken to the Underworld without incident. However, upon his arrival, he personally appeals to Persephone, claiming that his wife Merope has wrongfully denied him the proper funeral rites and dumped his body in the public square, which is a grave violation of the laws of the Underworld. For this reason, Sisyphus asks to be allowed to return to the mortal realm temporarily in order to haunt Merope and arrange a proper burial for himself.”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled -1)
Sisyphus’s plea slides toward the queen, and Ares cuts it off before it can settle. The temple’s hush catches on the interruption, then holds.
Ares
He does not get to turn burial into escape.
Persephone
Enough. The dead do not bargain themselves back to the living.
Sisyphus
My wife denied me rites. I ask only what the law allows, a brief return to set the world right.
Persephone’s gaze hardens. Thanatos tightens his hold, and Sisyphus’s confidence thins under her silence.
Hades
The laws of my realm are not yours to twist, Sisyphus. You remain for judgment.
At that, Sisyphus’s shoulders sag. The argument is spent, and the cost lands in the room like a cold stone, his latest falsehood leaving Persephone sharply wary of every word that follows.