The restored golden route rises from Tartarus and opens into the quiet Asphodel Meadows. Hades steps through beside you, with Cerberus close behind, while pale grasses ripple beneath the weight of the dead.
The shades turn together toward a summons no living voice can hear. Their solemn stillness breaks into uneasy movement as figures drift between the asphodel blooms, searching for its source.
Cerberus
The summons is not carried by wind or scent. It is calling through the dead themselves.
No shade crosses the meadow’s boundary, yet their shifting forms gather around several dim patches where the grass has begun to blacken. The influence has entered Asphodel, but it has not conquered it.
Hades
Stay close. Asphodel still answers to me, but something is gathering among these souls and testing the boundaries of my authority.
Hades raises one hand, and a restrained golden radiance passes through the meadow. The nearest shades pause, though farther off, one unseen summons answers with a pulse beneath the earth.
Hades
We will find what is calling them before fear turns their unrest into a passage for Eudora’s influence.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find the source of the summons calling the shades
“Can Hades trace the summons through the gathered shades?”
YES (Likely, rolled 32)
Hades lowers his hand toward the blackened patches. Gold threads sink through the grass and spread beneath the gathered shades, following the summons through their shared unrest.
Hades
There. The call is passing from soul to soul, but its source lies beneath this meadow. It enters through an old boundary, not through the dead themselves.
The golden threads converge beneath one dim patch of blackened grass. Around it, the shades recoil together, revealing a narrow ring where foreign magic has pressed against Asphodel’s wards.
Cerberus
The summons carries Eudora’s mark. It is thin here, but it reaches farther below.
Hades follows the golden trace with his gaze. It descends beyond the meadow’s roots toward a forgotten boundary, while the gathered shades settle as his authority passes through them.
Hades
I can trace it now. The summons is testing a buried ward beneath Asphodel, and Eudora is using the shades to find where my authority is weakest.
“Cerberus and I stand guard while Hades examines the buried ward.”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Perception, rolled +0)
You take position beside Cerberus at the blackened patch, watching the gathered shades and the grass beyond them while Hades follows the buried trace below.
Cerberus
I will guard the souls. Watch the ground where the foreign mark disappears.
Cerberus spreads his three bodies across the dim patch, heads turning toward different edges of the meadow. The shades remain within Hades’ authority, unsettled but contained.
You hold the perimeter with him, tracking each blackened blade of grass and every shift among the dead. Your watch reveals no second breach, but the buried source remains difficult to distinguish from the old ward’s deeper pattern.
Hades
I have it. The buried ward is intact, but Eudora has threaded a listening mark through its foundation. It gathers unrest without yet commanding the shades.
Hades lifts his hand from the grass. Gold seals the foreign thread beneath the patch, quieting the summons, while the time spent studying it leaves the wider meadow unchecked for several tense minutes.
Quest Complete
Find the source of the summons calling the shades