Ares steps through the obsidian mist, Thanatos cradled against his chest. The Underworld gatehouse opens wide around them, but the great hall is wrong, too still, too blank.
Fog clings low over the stone floor and swallows the rows of waiting souls. The usual guard lines are broken, and the bronze sigils on the pillars gleam with a sickly, unsteady pulse.
Thanatos
The wards are faltering. Hades must know now.
A shadow shifts at the far arch. Hades stands there, rigid with alarm, his gaze snapping at Thanatos first, then at Ares, then to the corrupted hall beyond.
Hades
Bring him here. Tell me everything, now.
The silence breaks at last, not with noise, but with the sense that the Underworld has been waiting for this report, and for the truth about Sisyphus to reach its king.
✓ Quest Accepted
Report Sisyphus's treachery to Hades
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure Thanatos's recovery
“I carry Thanatos toward Hades and lay him gently upon the stone floor.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Strength, rolled -1)
Ares shifts his grip and carries Thanatos across the fog-slick floor. The hall gives only a low, uneasy murmur under their feet.
He lowers him before Hades, careful and steady, until Thanatos rests on the cold stone.
Thanatos
He is here. Sisyphus has turned the palace wards against the Underworld itself.
The failing ward-light stutters over Hades’s face. His jaw tightens as he looks from Thanatos to the broken guard lines and the drifting fog.
Hades
Report everything. Every trap, every name, every breach.
Thanatos lies back against the stone, breathing hard but finally secure, while Ares stands between him and the empty hall.
Around them, the gatehouse feels compromised in every direction, and Hades is already measuring which broken passage to hold first.
Quest Complete
Report Sisyphus's treachery to Hades
Quest Complete
Secure Thanatos's recovery
“I tell Hades every trap and breach”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +0)
Ares gives Hades the report in hard, measured pieces, every trap named, every breached seal accounted for. The gatehouse seems to listen with them.
Hades
The palace wards were turned inward. Who laid the first corruption, and where does it spread?
Thanatos
At the pit chamber first, then through the lower corridors. Sisyphus is using me as a source.
As Ares finishes, the ward-light skips across the pillars and the bronze sigils shiver with a dull, sickly gleam.
Ares
The hall is weaker than it looks.
Hades
Then the gatehouse is compromised. If the wards fall here, the threshold follows.
Hades turns sharply toward the wavering archways, already choosing a route through the unstable stone, while the fog licks higher around their feet.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the compromised archway
“I draw my blade and follow Hades toward the unstable path.”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled -3)
Ares draws his blade in one clean motion and falls in behind Hades. The iron sings once, then quiets, as he matches the king’s pace into the wavering hall.
The nearest arch stones answer with a soft crackle. Dust sifts down through the knee-high fog, and the ward-light skips away from the cracks as if it fears them.
Hades
Stay close. If the stone shifts, do not fight the fall, clear it.
Thanatos
The hall is taking strain where the sigils are weakest.
Ares reaches the compromised archway at Hades’ shoulder, blade low and ready. His boot lands on a hairline fracture, and the stone gives a sharp, treacherous sigh beneath him.
A fine sting runs up his ankle from the bad step, but he keeps moving. The fog parts around his legs as the archway looms ahead, its bronze marks dimming in uneven pulses.
Hades
There. The arch is failing. Take the left side and keep your blade up.
Quest Complete
Reach the compromised archway