Three weeks of stillness cling to the Underworld like dust. In the throne room, Hades slumps on his obsidian seat, breathing shallowly, trapped in a sleep that feels wrong.
Eris stands beside him, fingers sketching lazy shapes in the air. Her smile says she has already won something.
Ares
Hades is enchanted. That means the palace is leaderless, and the path back to the surface is no longer secure.
Eris
There you are. I was hoping you would find him like this.
Cold blue ward-light flickers along the throne room seams, then stutters out. Somewhere deeper in the palace, a lock grinds open with a sound like stone deciding to give way.
Eris
Sisyphus is not in Tartarus anymore. He has the help he wanted, and the rest is your problem.
Ares stands between the sleeping king and the dark corridor beyond, with the Underworld’s return route now exposed and threatened at once.
✓ Quest Accepted
Force Eris to reveal the curse
“I draw my blade and demand Eris break the enchantment on Hades.”
SUCCESS (Great Intimidation, rolled -1)
Ares draws his blade in one smooth motion, the steel whispering through the throne room hush. The point settles toward Eris, and the old night seems to hold its breath around the sleeping king.
Ares
Break the enchantment on Hades.
Eris
Oh, you do know how to make a room tense. All right, listen closely.
Eris
It is a curse of surrender, not sleep. Something in Corinth was turned against him, a binding that trades the king's will for stillness.
Eris lifts one finger, and the blue ward seams along the floor sputter in answer, then dim further. The effort costs Ares a thin line of blood where the blade's edge bites his palm as he tightens his grip.
Eris
You want it broken, you need the anchor. Find what ties the curse to this hall, and Hades wakes. Fail, and he keeps drifting while your enemy keeps breathing.
The corridor beyond the throne room gives a soft, distant grind, as if another lock has just shifted somewhere below them. Eris watches Ares over her smile, waiting to see whether he trusts her answer.
Quest Complete
Force Eris to reveal the curse