An Idiot's Guide to the Underworld [Worm/Hades]

[OxfordOctopus]

AN IDIOT'S GUIDE TO THE UNDERWORLD
Taylor dies as a mortal, wakes as a god. It's complicated.​

AUTHOR'S NOTE: So this became a thing. Updates for this will be sporadic as Administrative Mishap will always take precedence over this, but I couldn't quite get the thing out of my brain, so here we are. I think absconding with my normal habit of waiting for 3 chapters before making a thread works in this case, especially considering the second chapter is 10k words.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

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HOMESTEAD 1.1​

Red.

That was all she could see. An endless red that surrounded her, entombed her. She could feel herself float in it, feel the way it stung her eyes when she tried to open them, the way it tasted faintly of copper on the back of her tongue.

There was no single moment where she fully came back to herself. It wasn't one moment she wasn't, the next she was, but rather a growing sort of awareness, drip-fed like an IV, gradually settling into her skull. For a time, being in the red, endless and metallic, was not something she sought to fight against. Something in her head whispered that this was the place to be, that this was normal, that the slow ripple of bubbles around her mouth, around her hair was just as simple as the fog that might follow a warm breath in winter.

Then, just as slowly as the awareness, the memories came back. A vast fight, a man made of gold, the stars, so far away, so infinitely larger than herself. The painful sound of a gunshot from up-close, then the violent pain of a bullet splitting her skull.

Panic surged, Taylor swiped a hand furtively through the red, sluggish and resistant from the fluid. It was heavy, slick, sticky and viscous like honey. She surged forward, tried to scramble her body, the panic of her mind refusing to acknowledge the lack of burn in her lungs that doubtlessly should've come after such a long time beneath it. Nothing made sense, nothing needed to, all she could do was flail, kicking her legs out, trying to recall the half-absent memories of swimming at summer camp, trying to propel herself forward and up, towards air or anything solid.

Her hands met something hard, knuckles smarting harshly against it. She barely registered the pain, reaching back out again as fingers caught against the telltale feel of stone, rough and pockmarked from age and erosion. Her fingers bit into it, and she pulled up, crawling desperately towards the ever-brightening red above her—the surface, it must be. She pulled and scrambled and reached out and out and out and—

The red broke around her head, and Taylor took in a wheezing gasp of air that she didn't need, but felt obligated to do.

Black spots freckled the edges of her vision, fading slowly as her surroundings slowly came into contrast. Above her was a ceiling sculpted into stone, smooth and onyx-black, like obsidian. Her fingers, where before she had assumed the rough edge of a shore cliff, were instead a series of small steps leading up and out of the pond she was floating in. The walls were decorated with marble and gold, with pillars emerging at various points along its length, some encrusted by messy chunks of stone and gem, but did not reach all the way up to the roof, which towered so high above it was almost hard to see. To her left, a sculpted vase about the size of a small car drooled an endless river of red into the pool below, perpetually filling it.

Where—where was she? It took a moment for her memories to reorient themselves, but each time she tried to grab for the answer, all that came back was blank. She remembered the fight, Scion, everything that preceded it. She remembered wandering into the grassy knoll, meeting Contessa. She remembered their talk, fading and wistful, the longing she'd stared up at the stars with.

She remembered dying.

Shutting her eyes, Taylor worked to banish the memory—a spike of pain, nothingness, a spike of pain, nothingness, a spike of pain—and worked on a more feasible task for the time being. She grappled with the slippery, smooth surface of the stairs, dragging herself forward until her bare foot could make contact with the rocky incline, hauling herself up and out of the pool, onto the stairs.

She came, almost immediately, face-to-back with what looked like a spectre. The noise that burst out of her - somewhere between a shriek and a yell of confusion - caused the thing to startle, whipping around to not so much stare at her, as she couldn't see any eyes beneath the hood it wore, shadowed as it was. She scrambled back, away from the pool and spectre both, her heel skidding against the ground as she jerked into the nearest pillar, her head smacking painfully back against it.

The spectre—it was only abstractly human, vaguely reminiscent of something Glastig might tote around alongside her. It was slightly see-through, green-blue in colour, and mostly featureless outside of encompassing the general shape of what a person might look like, had they been hunching over and wearing a heavy cloak. The other spectres - and there were more, all identical, dozens of them in a procession which had been, until her outburst, seemingly drifting down the hallway - had turned to look as well, all turned in her direction, some more hunched than others.

Taylor swallowed, tried again to get her bearings. Her mind kept returning to dying, to getting shot, a heady sort of memory, the type of thing that'd stay with her well into the future. She scrambled for a moment, trying to drum up protocols she'd learned for handling projections, Master minions that came not from control but from projection. Policies for those like the Siberian, Genesis, and nothing, not even a little, came.

She tried to reach out, tried to project some of what she was feeling into her bugs, into something, and realized, somewhat belatedly, that there weren't any. Not a single bug, not any she could perceive, in any event. It hit her in the chest, nearly knocked the breath out of her even as the procession of spectres slowly turned back around and began to drift back down the hallway, looking unruffled despite her freak-out.

She had no powers. She had died, she—

"Oh, Styx!" A voice called out, sounding panicked.

Taylor whipped her head around just in time to see the source of it. It was... well, a person. He was dressed in thick red wear, an outer, fur-lined cloak pulled around his shoulders that resembled a comforter more than it did a travel cloak. He was adorned in gold, with flared, wing-like spaulders and some sort of choker or collar around his throat that flared out where it met his nape. The clothes he wore beneath the cloak were similarly red, but fitted like something out of ancient Greece, a toga or something like it.

None of that was the most striking thing about him, however. That would go to his blue-tinted skin. It was the sort of blue that came when rigour mortis settled in in colder climates, when the red hues of the body were leached out, to be replaced by bruise-like purples and blues. His hair was pure white, and curly in a way that transcended even her own, so dense and thick that it bore a closer resemblance to a small cloud on his head, the fringe kept out of his eyes by what looked at a distance like a sleep mask.

Even odder was that he wasn't running, but rather more hovering in her direction, his bare feet a few inches off the ground. His face was twisted up into something that looked like genuine horror or panic, and he was clutching a small clipboard-like object - with paper spread out over it - against his chest.

"You—you, uh, really shouldn't've come out of there!" The man yelled, voice reedy and high, almost cartoonishly pitched, despite the very real worry painted in his voice. "Or look like that, for that matter! And your name! The papers can't tell! Oh shadows, Lord Hades is going to be so—so—!"

Whatever he was about to say ended in a noise of pain, like he couldn't quite bring himself to vocalize whatever punishment "Hades" might have for him. Taylor tucked the name away—a cape name, she was assuming. The spectres could be his, the pool could be, well, tinkertech. She died, right? It wasn't out of the realm of imagination to bring her back to life, though it didn't sound intentional. It wasn't like Bonesaw hadn't done the same with fewer tools.

She... she didn't actually want to know how it took place, still couldn't quite get the feeling of death, eddying at the edge of her awareness, to leave.

"You, you really have to come with me!" The man continued to say, growing rapidly closer.

Taylor pressed her palm into the pillar behind her, levering herself up to her feet. Her eyes drifted down, caught sight of her own dress; a pure-white dress of some kind, looped over and around her again in a way that inspired images of Greco-Roman clothing. It wasn't stained by the red pool she'd just emerged out of, and at a closer inspection none of her was even wet anymore. She had both arms back, as well, though the feelings about that were being left firmly tucked away until she could get out of here.

Process later, she reminded herself. Deal with things now.

"Who are you?" She said, instead, levelling a glare in the floating cape's direction. "Where is this? Who is your leader?" She might be bluffing, might not have a single bug to her name, but if anyone thought she'd just flop over and let whatever this was happen to her? She wasn't about to have it.

To her credit, whatever she must've projected stalled the floating cape, causing him to jerk to a stop not too far away from her. The shades - projections - had turned to watch them again, eerily silent despite the generally unintimidating look of them.

"I uh, wow you are... as messed up as your death entry!" The cape announced brightly, panic subsiding for something like curiosity. "I'm Hypnos, of course! This is the Underworld, next, and third, Lord Hades is, of course! It's silly that you don't know that, you know?"

Hades, Hypnos—actual Greek gods? She'd heard of capes taking up the names of gods as names, but they rarely stuck on anyone but the most terrifying out of them. It took a lot to be able to own the name of a god, reputation wise, even the more minor ones. She wasn't sure exactly what flying had to do with Hypnos, which she was relatively sure equally had something to do with dreams, but then grab-bags were always a thing.

Still, the Underworld? A base, maybe? Or—or possibly some sort of cape group? She tried to recall anything like it, but all she could pull was blanks.

"And what do you prefer?" Hypnos continued, interrupting her thoughts, slowly floating forwards. He had at some point tugged the clipboard away from his chest and was now staring determinedly down at it. "Taylor Hebert, Weaver, Skitter or—ooh, Khepri? I like that last one."

What. It—no, calm down. She was fine. If someone had revived her they could've easily figured out her secret identity, not that it had been much of one, considering the press coverage around the incident at Arcadia. Admittedly, by virtue of her being a minor, they had been able to scrub it from most parts of the internet and cable news, but she knew it was still out there, traded among the list of known capes by people with too much time on their hands and an utter lack of respect for people's privacy. They couldn't get rid of all of it, not really.

But, Khepri? That was new. She couldn't remember anything about having that as a name.

"But, no, sincerely, you uh..." Hypnos trailed off, twisting his head back around to stare at the procession of spectres. "You really need to come with me. This is really not how things are supposed to be working right now, and, well, there's only one way forward."

Flicking her eyes around and sincerely missing her bugs for not the first time, Taylor took in her surroundings and had to concede that he was mostly right. She was at the end of a long hallway, polished marble and gold, much like everything else, with the only way forward being away from the pool and towards... towards...

Taylor blinked. She hadn't really bothered to look down the full length of the hallway, too caught up with the threats nearest to her. First the spectres, then Hypnos, but now looking at it, the hallway opened up at the end into a larger room, dominated by a single desk, behind which was a very, very large man. He was hunched over, resting in a throne-like seat, working over an endless pile of papers. She couldn't get a good look at him from here, but he was easily two times her height, and dressed in regal reds, with spaulders made to resemble skeletal heads.

Next to him, of all things, was a dog about the size of one of Rachel's, albeit one with three heads and fur the colour of blood. All three were laying down, half-stacked on one-another, with eyes shut. Behind both the dog and the giant was a mural made from stained glass, depicting a man holding a skull above his head, or perhaps it was his head, it was too far away to tell.

"Lord Hades is an imposing man," Hypnos said simply, jolting Taylor back into the present, her head whipping around to stare at him. He smiled thinly at her, reaching up with his free hand to rub tiredly at one of his eyes. "Gotta face the music before I can take a nap, so..."

He motioned vaguely towards the hallway.

Taylor breathed in, let it out. Steeled herself. If that was Hades, then he ran this place, and would have answers. She had no tools, no powers, but she had dealt with much less in situations arguably much worse. This could all be a ploy, and that idea still swam around in her head, too much she didn't know. Could Hypnos' behaviour be all a ploy? Possible. Could all of this be tinkertech? Almost certainly. Could this be a Myrddin situation, where it wasn't entirely clear if they truly believed they were magical or if it was all a clever marketing ploy? Also possible.

Taking a step forward, Taylor began to pace down the hallway, Hypnos keeping just ahead of her. She could do this, she could face this down, she could handle this. She let herself sink back into that eminent headspace that always worked when it came to confrontations. It wasn't so easy without her bugs, without the endless distractions they provided, but she managed well enough.

"So, what're you choosing for a name?" Hypnos asked, tilting his head back around as he gracefully floated on ahead, a lazy smile twitching at her otherwise tense expression.

It wasn't like they didn't already know it. "Taylor," she replied quietly, preferring it. "Just call me Taylor."

"Ookay, wouldn't be my choice, but Taylor it is! Says here you..." He squinted. "Received some pretty bad head trauma! Sucks like that, I'm surprised you could die at all though! Things don't generally happen that way. Really, your entire death profile is worryingly messy. Multiple names, constantly shifting natures, the fact that you died. All very odd."

Taylor turned, glanced warily towards him. "Why wouldn't I die?"

Hypnos just blinked, a sluggish sort of thing that imparted a fair amount of bewilderment. He laughed, awkwardly, before apparently catching sight of her expression and realizing she was serious. "Oh, uhm. Well, y'know, the only thing consistent here says you're a goddess. I mean, I can even feel it!"

That was a point in favour of the Myrddin prognosis. It wouldn't be the first time someone conflated having powers with being divine-touched or something similar. A lot of early religious cults had risen up around the earliest parahumans, back before it became centralized and the mystique of being able to shoot lasers had been worn down by a government-sponsored information campaign.

The fact that he could 'feel' her powers - even if she couldn't herself - did point towards something. Possibly a Trump? It might fit, but it wasn't good to focus overly much on speculation. After all, while Skitter did point towards bug control, it could've also been picked up by a person with super speed, or anything else. Names were relative, and sometimes intentionally misleading.

Still, she opened her mouth to probe a bit more about that.

"Back already, boy?" A voice thundered, blocking the words before they could come. Taylor swung her head around, catching sight of the huge man again, her feet brushing against the threshold that divided the hallway from the main foyer. The dog to his right had perked up by her proximity, all three heads tilted curiously. It would almost be cute, if not for the gleaming fangs and uncanny sense of intelligence packed away in each pair of eyes.

That and the three heads, really.

"Well, uhm, about that. Sir?" Hypnos called out, fidgeting with his clipboard.

Hades - presumably - stilled, eyes still trained on his paperwork. Slowly, almost achingly, he rotated his head up from his desk, eyes drawing a line straight to Hypno, then to her, then to the pool behind her and the smattering of spectres surrounding her.

"You... the pool?" He asked, eyes flicking away from her, towards Hypnos. "Give me the list." It came harsh, a demand.

Hypnos, visibly scared, nodded wildly before fluttering over, placing the clipboard up onto Hades' gigantic, black-stone desk. The man swiped it up with one meaty hand, easily large enough to cover the entire thing, his face pursing as he glanced down at the piece of parchment attached to it.

After a moment, Hypnos pulled back away, coming to float just a little ways beside her.

"Nyx!" Hades bellowed, glancing away. "I need your assistance in these matters!"

There was a flurry of black motes, coalescing into place just next to the desk. A woman solidified out of them, hair as black as night, with skin so pale it was closer to Alabaster's than anything remotely human. She was older-looking, closer to her mid-to-late 40s, and dressed in gold and purple rather than the regality of red and gold that Hades and Hypnos wore. She had a purple amethyst stuck to her forehead, and her clothes were, again, toga-like, made from purple silken fabric, with epaulets on either shoulder meant to resemble crescent moons. She wore enough gold jewelry that Taylor discarded the notion of cataloguing all of it, from rings on her fingers to gloves on her hands to wrist-bands and necklaces but what did stand out, above all else, was a hair ornament, inlaid with designs to resemble a skeleton and other lunar iconography, that she used to fit the majority of her undoubtedly exceedingly long hair into a fanciful style, flaring out around her head as it was, looking almost like wings spread.

"Lord Hades, while we—" Whatever she was about to say died off, her eyes slipping from the man himself towards Taylor, focusing down on her with enough intensity that Taylor found herself taking a step back. "This is..."

"Unprecedented," Hades finished matter-of-factly for her, reaching out to hand the clipboard off to the woman, who took it gently, eyes flitting over whatever was inscribed on the paper.

"A godlet. Born from the Styx, you think?" Nyx asked, not glancing up.

Hades shook his head. "I would know if Styx was with child. Notice the names, Nyx, they change."

"I'm not a god," Taylor couldn't quite help it anymore, spitting the word out. "I—gods aren't real. Powers aren't divine." She hated the notion, it'd always gotten under her skin in a way. A low ache of wrongness, that something divine could come out of trauma or, later on, be bottled and given out to those who paid enough.

Heads swivelled to turn at her. From Nyx's look of slight confusion, to Hypnos' worried look, to something like hatred smouldering in the gimlet eyes of Hades. There was only silence following her proclamation, her words echoing dimly off the halls, even the low burble of that red fountain fading away into the absolute silence.

"She suffered a head wound, it says," Nyx picked up, glancing at Hades. "Generally we do not die, not truly. Mortality is unbecoming, and not something even your son truly holds claim to."

"She is certainly not mortal now, I can already feel it," Hades continued, eyes flicking away towards Nyx. "A newborn, is our best guess?"

"A confused one," Nyx agreed idly.

Taylor felt her frustrations spike, swirl unpleasantly in her gut. Her fingers tensed, clenched down into fists at her sides. They were just ignoring her, dismissing her. She wasn't a god, they weren't gods—powers did not make people divine. They only dragged them down, their sole purpose had been to end the world. There was nothing holy about that. "My powers," Taylor grit out, each word hard in her throat. "Are not divine. I am not a god!"

Hades stared back at her, utterly unruffled by her outburst. "Whether or not they were then," Hades began, his words icy and cold. "It does not matter. The world only acknowledges power, godling, and whatever it might have been is no longer. You are in the Underworld, my domain, and your power is now yours. It infuses you, it has become you. You may not know it yet, but you are divine, undecided yet, but you will eventually come into your own. Despite my own declaration not to trifle in the matters of other gods, newborn or ancient, you have come into my house, and you are now my problem."

"Stop trying to fool me!" Taylor snapped back, motioning behind her. "This is all—this isn't real! You know my identity, you clearly brought my corpse back to life somehow. I have my memories, I won't be fooled by this! It's obviously Tinkertech, nothing you can say will—"

The world shook. Light, which has previously trickled in from behind the stained-glass mural from sources unknown, dimmed and guttered entirely. Braziers, situated around the area to give light, flickered and grew faint, and the same happened to the candles. The spectres, previously content to mill awkwardly around, warbled and shrieked in voices that sounded distant and echoed, scattering away into corners or around walls to hide. The three-headed dog slowly rose, eyes staring focusedly at her, each maw drooling, too intent to be anything but predatory.

Everything rumbled, accompanied by the harsh groan of stone-against-stone. The world grew darker, Taylor could feel herself almost sink down, the pressure of whatever this was weighing heavily against her back. Her breath came out hard, panting, nearly a wheeze as she felt her legs buckle, trembling beneath an unseen, almost unfelt weight. She could hear Hypnos next to her saying something, but it sounded like it was underwater, too muffled to make out. Her vision swam, red tinting everything, encroaching in like it might swallow her again, drag her back down. Be done with it.

"Enough, Lord Hades," Nyx's voice cut through the din, the groaning, sounding crystal clear in her ears. "She is clearly beyond her wits, give her a stay of execution so that she may regain them."

In an instant, the pressure was gone.

Taylor toppled, knees hitting the ground, hands barely managing to flash out in time to catch herself before she'd faceplant into the ground. Sweat dripped across the skin of her face, pooled against her nose, and fell off, hitting the ground beneath her. She breathed in, savouring the sweet feeling of oxygen in her lungs, trying to regain some semblance of control.

"I will not accept disrespect in this house," Hades said, voice flinty but utterly calm. "Whether or not you feel as though this is all some infernal trap to twist you, to bewilder you, you, once-mortal, of little import in the grand scheme of things, does not matter. You are here now, you are part of my household, and you will abide by the rules of propriety in doing so."

Taylor didn't look up, couldn't, not when the feeling of death still swirled unpleasantly in the pit of her skull.

There was the sound of creaking stone again. "Nyx, as you have decided to defend her against due punishment, you may look after her until such a time when chambers can be prepared. Know it that this may make up for some of your... latest interpretations of our oath."

"Of course," Nyx replied, sounding closer than she had been before. Her voice was almost icy, hard and clipped, but utterly professional.

"Hypnos, go to the administrative room and find answers," Hades announced next. "Take the death log with you, do not dawdle."

"Uh, ah, yessir! Sorry, uh, Lord Hades. Sir."

"And, finally," Hades began again, and Taylor could feel his gaze on her, a painful heat against her spine. "If you wish to verify if you are truly in the afterlife, if you still do not truly believe your fate, then, next time my erstwhile, foolish child comes around, you may feel free to accompany him on one of his escape attempts without me taking offence to it. When you die, and when you return..."

There was a pause, the weight of his gaze growing heavier.

"You will know that this is the truth. Now, get out of my sight."

The gaze left, and with it the weight. A hand touched her shoulder, gentle but so very cold, like the flesh was not just dead, but nearly frozen solid. Taylor canted her head up, caught sight of Nyx hunching over, hand on her shoulder.

"Come," she said, slipping one hand further beneath her armpit, helping her to her feet despite the wobbliness of her knees. Taylor sucked in breaths, tried to center herself but the low rattling of stones in the back of her head disrupted all attempts. She felt worse than unmoored, worse than out of place, she felt fragile, like a stiff breeze might shatter her to pieces. "I will show you to the lounge, where we may talk."

Shakily, she glanced Hades' way, caught sight of him working once again, unruffled and uncaring, not even looking at her. His quill scratched across the parchment, the only noise in the air. The spectres, previously having fled, slowly began to drift back in, one-by-one, some passing through walls while others took more conventional routes.

Nyx's hand, ice-cold, closed around her wrist gently and tugged, pulling her towards the rightmost hallway. Taylor followed, still in a daze, still reeling in every which way. Her feet made solid noises as they hit the ground, the only thing that felt even remotely real, as even Nyx, despite appearing as though she was walking, made not a sound.

A smaller group of spectres huddled around a desk, piled high with notes and blueprints, each one wearing what looked to be a rudimentary approximation of a hardhat. A little ways to the side and in front of it was an empty seat, a lyre left abandoned at its side. Passing beyond that, Nyx led her up to a set of doors easily the height of a single-story house, with one of the doors already pushed open. Inside, the low sound of chatter rattled out to the accompanying noise of clattering plates, and there were a series of three tables in a line visible even from the threshold.

Spectres were here too, of a variety of shapes. To her immediate right, one was fitted behind an L-shaped desk, adorned with gothic-styled metal fencing, and was about the size of an elephant, and much more round than its contemporaries. Curious yellow dots - eyes, she was assuming - stared out from beneath the cloak, the rest of its face cast in impenetrable shadow. Further inside, a lankier-looking shade hovered next to what was clearly a cooking area, encircled by a lower bar-like barrier, fitted with plenty of plates and stools placed in front of them. What other spectres were there looked like the rest, and were mostly clustered up against a single table off in one corner, heads bowed and silent.

Nyx let go of her wrist, pacing forward up to the middle table. Gesturing towards one of the two stools, she took a seat in the other, breathing out a quiet sigh as she did.

Warily, slowly returning to her wits, the sound of creaking stone and untombed things slowly fading, Taylor took a seat across from her.

"You still don't believe any of this is real," Nyx said, rather flatly.

Taylor glanced down at her hands, to the things around her, the endless array of spectres, her experiences not a minute ago. "No."

There was another sigh. "That will change. Life was not kind to you, child, I can see it in you." Another pause. "Death can be, however. You will have to learn the way of things here, as you are to remain. I do not know yet what your place among us will be, but neither do I think you will avoid having such a place. I would introduce you to my child, Thanatos, had I the opportunity, but he is... busy."

Taylor found herself glancing up, fixing her hands against the table, clenching it if only to have a place to put her anger, her frustration. Her fear. "I don't know what you're trying to accomplish," she said, finally, getting the words out felt hard, like she was about to be buried in red again. "I—is this a cult?" She didn't want it to sound plaintive, fearful, but she might not have a choice. "What do you want from me? I found..."

Closure. Acceptance. An end to the path, one with regrets, yes, but she had finally been... done. Finished. She had saved the world, destroying herself in the process, but she had done enough. She had been so tired at the end, so weary, years of preparation, years of work, it had worn her down. She had been ready to die, ready to move on.

"Child," Nyx said slowly, almost gently. "Things are not always fair. I still do not know how you arrived here, your power is foreign, though with each passing moment it grows more familiar, more in-tune with the world. Whatever it once was—it is no longer, and in this place..." She trailed off, glancing away.

"Power is everything, and you have power. Enough to qualify, enough to be divine. This is the Underworld, godlet." Nyx stared at her, dead in the eyes, with conviction so strong it must have come from either truth or severe indoctrination. Taylor wasn't entirely sure which one would be worse. "And you are stuck here, now and forever. Welcome to the House of Hades."

 

[OxfordOctopus]

HOMESTEAD 1.2​

As the minutes passed, the world began to more firmly reassert itself. The sound of scraping stone, the low groan of the earth—they faded into the back of her head, distancing themselves from the present until she could hardly remember what it had felt like. The pressure and heaviness lifted slowly from her body, her nerves tingling in a decidedly unfamiliar way. It all felt hypersensitive to even the air, like it was charged with static.

Centring herself without bugs was more difficult than it should've been. She hadn't had even a remotely good poker face before getting her powers, certainly, but she had assumed the skills she'd obtained since then in keeping her calm would at least somewhat translate. Her better hopes had been wrong, to that end, as it was taking a startling amount of her focus to keep her expression placid, Nyx's unfaltering gaze a constant reminder of her current situation.

She was not with friends, not even remotely. This was a hostile environment—Nyx was, whether brainwashed into a cult or not, an accessory to her abduction. She wasn't an ally.

The deafening silence from her power was worrying her the most, out of everything. Before, she'd dealt with power nullifiers - Hatchet Face, to a lesser extent Echidna - and even with her power out of her control when under the influence of their abilities, she had still felt it. A staticky hum, sitting beneath the surface of her skin, prevented from fully escaping. Even in the few times she'd been as removed from bugs as possible - as, despite the genuine efforts of most people, bugs could and would get everywhere without you even noticing - like on flights, her power had still been there, reaching out, trying to connect. She could always feel it, always recall its presence.

It wasn't there anymore. She couldn't feel any trace of it.

Removing someone's power was not an easy affair. There were a few in record who could, the most known among them being Glaistig Uaine, and the general theme throughout was that people tended to die with permanent power removal. Instantaneously, in some cases, slowly and painfully in others, but death was a frequent affair. There'd always been rumours and hearsay about Cauldron possibly being able to remove powers after the fact, but to a point Taylor had never really found out whether or not that had just been a euphemism for killing someone.

She didn't feel any different, to be fair. They had healed her arm, and last she checked she used to be close to blind without contact lenses or her glasses on, despite currently having neither and being able to see perfectly fine. If anything, she felt better than she had in the days leading up to the Slaughterhouse's return, where it had felt like an uphill fight against exhaustion and aches. In theory, this meant nothing; she could be wasting away over a longer period of time, and the symptoms of such a thing just hadn't set in yet, but that wasn't a particularly useful way of thinking.

She was just going to assume she wasn't going to have her powers now or into the immediate future, and hope that it was temporary, or at least not permanent.

"Dusa," Nyx called out, eyes finally drifting from her face. Her mask nearly slipped in relief.

There was a thud, flesh impacting something solid and dense like stone. A small green blur flickered across the edges of her vision, Taylor casting her head skyward, towards where a series of rafters had been attached to the sloping stone ceiling. Descending down from it was, rather bluntly, a head. Green, scaled skin, significantly lighter around the face, encompassed a single floating head, with hair made up of about five snakes. Her eyes were larger than they should be, like how they got on young geckos, and filled in with yellow for all but a single slice of pupil, like a cat's or a reptile's. She had a snake-like nose, too, more of a pair of holes set at about where the nostrils should be. Her mouth was wide, with a pair of fangs that tended to worry at her thin lower lip. She wore a headband of a sort, a slip of white cloth with a red disc attached to it, inscribed with a sigil that appeared frequently throughout the environment—likely Hades' symbol itself, considering the fact that it resembled the odd way he styled his beard.

Blankly, Taylor watched a gorgon's literal detached head descend further, accompanied by a low, putter-like sound whenever it moved. One of its snakes was using its mouth to hold up a feather duster, with actual purple feathers visibly tied to a rough wooden handle, presumably due to a lack of other available appendages.

"Y—yes? Lady Nyx?" Dusa - she was assuming - squeaked. There was no real other way to describe her voice, it was almost cartoonishly high and rapid, with an odd tinny distortion in there that made it just the smallest bit inhuman, possibly due to whatever function let her speak without a larynx, or a throat for that matter.

"Prepare us a small meal, to celebrate the newest member of the House," Nyx instructed, her voice rather more detached and cool than it had been when she was speaking to her. "Is that clear?"

Dusa nodded, or at least seemed to, if the way she was bobbing her head up and down was any indication. "Right!—I'll, uhm, do that! Right now!"

With another burst of speed, Dusa was off, flying towards the lankier spectre she had seen coming in, brandishing her feather duster.

"It shouldn't take long," Nyx mused, still glancing the way Dusa went, her hands folded primly in front of her. "Her enthusiasm can overcome her decorum at times, but she is a dedicated worker."

Nyx's eyes turned back to her, entirely too focused—too aware to be comfortable.

"Tell me," she started, eyes lidding. "What do you know of us?"

That was a tricky question, wasn't it? She could play dumb, wave off anything but the most rudimentary awareness of the Greco-Roman pantheon, but then most people knew at least a little. She knew a little more than average, due to the lapsing interest she had in them after her middle school curriculum had gone over them. They had seemed like mythological capes in a lot of ways, and she had even considered the flight of fancy that they - and other polytheistic pantheons - might actually be such a thing.

It might help her get information too. Nyx might let something slip about individual powers, as at this point all she knew was that everyone here likely had some sort of altered biology - the bluish skin, floating heads, that sort of thing - and a few had powers they'd actually used.

No, it would be best to let Nyx think she didn't know much.

"Not a lot," she said, finally, keeping her gaze steadily interlocked with Nyx's. "I've only really heard your names in passing."

Nyx pursed her lips, giving her a considering look, before bowing her head. "Then it may be best to inform you of who is who, and what to expect."

It worked. Good.

"The lord of this domain is Hades himself," she began, gesturing in an area around her. "Myself and Lord Hades share duties. I handle the managerial side of things, whereas Hades himself manages the bureaucracy and rulership of the domain, in large part because the Olympians would not consider me their equal."

Possibly another cult, and potentially adversarial? It was starting to worry her about how many there might be.

"Lord Hades is the god of the dead, of the Underworld, and of the mineral riches of the earth," she continued, hands returning to their place in front of her. "He is the master of the House of Hades, and he is the father of one child—Zagreus. The one who has been trying to escape."

There was no mention of Persephone. Everyone got taught it in school, Hades spiriting away the goddess of grain to be his wife, with the mother to said goddess refusing to let anything grow until she was returned for 6 months out of the year. It was a way to teach kids how other cultures saw things like weather, seasonal change, and things that we later found out were products of science. Why did lightning happen? Zeus. The seasons? Divine in-laws.

So the cult might be inaccurate, then. Or at least not playing fully to the myths she remembered. That threw a wrench in things, for certain.

"I, personally, am Nyx, as you well know, goddess of the night. I am the mother of a number of children, though you will only truly see two of them around—Thanatos, my son, and god of death, and Hypnos, his brother, god of dreams, who you have already met. A third that you may one day meet is Charon, the boatsman of the Styx. I will not name all of my children, as you are unlikely to meet many, if any of them, but you do remind me of one. Eris, one of my daughters, and the goddess of discord." Despite the nature of the words, Nyx smiled faintly, almost longingly. "You have a similar air about you."

Taylor had no idea how to feel about that. It had been said in a way that suggested Nyx believed that it was a compliment to be similar to the goddess of discord, or the person who set off the Trojan War. Or at least a person who might approximate such a name, considering that these still weren't gods. The fact that she had so many kids - one of whom was easily her age, if not older - did set off more alarm bells in her head, not that they weren't already all mostly ringing in the first place.

The way Nyx kept reinforcing her status as a new member of the House had already put her on edge. Wards of all ages, even ones like herself, got regular classes on how to avoid situations like this, due to the very real incentive by horrible people to ensnare and manipulate young parahumans. Powers were game-changers in a lot of cases, even a very rudimentary Brute could make you nigh-unstoppable without another parahuman to fight him. All of this was made worse by the fact that powers were generational, with kids usually inheriting variations on them.

She definitely couldn't relax here, not even for a moment.

"Here comes our meal," Nyx called out, glancing off somewhere behind Taylor's shoulder. She turned with her, watching as Dusa awkwardly fluttered over, her feather duster abandoned to help free up snakes to carry the load. There were two bowls, encircled by one snake each, two goblets with snakes using their mouths to hold, and one large platter that she had balanced on the crown of her head, with a snake keeping it in place. It was certainly much slower than she had been moving before, though whether that was due to weight or just wanting to be careful wasn't clear.

Shakily, Dusa eased the goblets out onto the table, each one sloshing with a purple-red liquid. Wine, and potent too, she could smell it even from where it was sitting. She certainly wasn't about to indulge in that; even if she wasn't running the risk of poisoning herself, the last thing she would do was consume mind-altering substances in a place like this.

Next came the bowls, one going to each of them again. Inside was a small assortment of fruits: two stalks of purple grapes, a few chunks of pomegranate, and what looked like a small assortment of dried figs. They all looked a little too perfect, like the fruits you saw on television commercials, likely painted over and laced with things like shoe polish to give it the mirror sheen that nature would never meaningfully create. The reds were too red, the purples too purple, and there was not a limp, soggy grape in sight.

She didn't trust it. Whatsoever.

Finally, the last platter was placed with help from the now freed snakes. On it was some sort of roast fish, not any she'd seen before, though the majority of the outer scales had been peeled away, just leaving the head and tail. It was about as long as her thigh and considerably thicker, and it smelled faintly of smoke.

"You may go, Dusa," Nyx declared, waving one hand dismissively.

Dusa hovered for a moment, big yellow eyes almost glistening. She looked starved for praise or positive reinforcement, and it might've inspired some sense of sympathy if not for the fact that she resembled someone's decent attempt to make Voldemort look cute by appealing to all the things the human brain associated with young children. Then, without so much as a tear shed, the gorgon head puttered off again, back up into the rafters, to who-knows-where, stopping only to grab her feather duster from a nearby table.

Across from her, Nyx reached for her goblet, pulling it up to her lips and taking a small sip from it. Their eyes met for a time, Nyx raising one brow as she set the cup back down, reaching for her own bowl. "Wine not to your liking?" She asked, plucking a grape from the stem.

"Not a fan of alcohol," Taylor replied, and that much was at least the truth. She had been drunk exactly once due to some idiot Tinker aerosolizing half of a brewery, and that one experience had been, frankly, more than enough.

"Then what of the food?" Nyx said, pausing briefly to slip a grape into her mouth.

What about it? Taylor glanced down at her bowl again. Pomegranate was the first thing to stand out to her, a brilliant red, contrasted by the white of the rind. They looked perfect, appetizing even if she wasn't all that hungry, or even particularly thirsty for that matter. The sight of it alone brought the myth of Persephone back into sharp relief; she'd been stuck in the Underworld due to eating pomegranates, just like this.

"I'm not hungry," she declined, instead, because any chance at all of that being relevant to the food was too much of one. It could be laced with drugs - tinker designed or not - to make the reality they were trying to project appear more real, make it easier for her to swallow.

Nevertheless, this still brought a frown to Nyx's face. A tight one, the sort of frown that parents wore when their children did something inappropriate. "Do you still think us so despicable as to break the laws of hospitality? To poison your wine, your food?"

The laws of hospitality—it sounded vaguely familiar, but the memories were too murky to get anything out of it. She rolled her jaw, trying not to grit her teeth. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm being held here captive against my will."

Nyx's frown deepened. "You are still disoriented, child? Perhaps... no. Hades may be right on matters of the mind this time, however rare such an occurrence is. If I cannot convince you, you must learn to convince yourself." She shook her head, a tired sigh threading through pursed lips. "You will not starve without food, you will not die of thirst without drink; immortals eat only for the enjoyment of dining. If you do not wish it, you will not need it, but know, despite your own lack of decorum in the ritual for hospitality, I, speaking in place of this House, still extend our protection to you, now and forever."

A throwaway line about protecting her after all of that? Hardly about to make her feel much better about the situation.

"I ask of you to keep these thoughts to yourself, however," Nyx said, sparing her another glance, this one pitying in a rather more dismissive way. "While I am able to acknowledge it, others may take your words as an insult. Whether or not you believe any of this is real, it would be to everyone's benefit not to make enemies by inflaming tempers."

Taylor regarded Nyx from across the table in silence. She was of two minds on this. On the one hand, Nyx did have a point—brainwashed or otherwise indoctrinated people weren't likely to take her statements that this was all fabricated and delusional lightly. Some of them might even lash out. On the other hand, however, the explicit request not to do so made her think it might be worthwhile to do it anyway.

But... no. The ship was already sailed for playing along and pretending everything was normal, and escaping some other time. They knew she thought this was all bullshit, it wasn't a secret she was necessarily hiding. If she did speak about it to others, and it didn't correct their thinking immediately, the only effect it would have would be to make her escape even more difficult. She was right, there was little point in airing her concerns. She'd find a way to come back and try to figure out how to spring others, but until that point she had to look out for herself.

"Fine," she replied tightly, folding her arms over her chest. "I'll keep it to myself."

Nyx smiled wanly. "Thank you. The House has been a bit of a mess, since Zagreus has begun his escape attempts to the surface. I would prefer it if we didn't worsen tensions any." She halted for a moment, head turning back towards the door. "Speaking of his attempts, it would appear he's made it past Megaera."

The name was familiar enough to put a title to it. Megaera, one of the furies—a sort of, as far as she could remember, god or spirit of revenge with relation to broken laws and taboos, she was pretty sure. The only ones she could completely remember were related to that one story about a son killing his mother after his mother killed his father because he killed their daughter. Even thinking it was getting it mixed up in her head, but at least she had a rough idea about who was coming.

"How does he keep managing to escape?" She asked, not caring too much about looking like she was fishing for information.

Nyx glanced back. "He has an escape route somewhere in his pavilion, connected to his room," she explained, head flicking back around towards the door as the sound of heeled footsteps grew ever-closer. "Lord Hades doesn't fix it, as he believes that, even if all else fails, he can simply stop Zagreus from leaving up at the Temple of Styx."

She would have to find out where exactly his room was, but it sounded promising.

The footsteps grew louder until, finally, a person emerged from around the corner of the door. She was, as seemingly with most denizens of this place, partially monstrous; with blue-hued skin much like Hypnos and what looked to be a large bat's wing that extended out from somewhere on her back.

She wore blues and golds, with a style distinct to ancient Greece, if perhaps a little more modern than the long, flowing togas of her peers. It was a half-toga, or something similar to it, aborting around her thighs and overlaying a more modern dark purple shirt that clung to her person. Both of her arms were largely bare, revealing corded muscle, and she was broad-shouldered. Her hair was a white-blue, tucked back into a high and severe ponytail, cinched with a golden tube of some kind. She was, as with most others, adorned with jewelry, from another odd collar-like fixture around her neck, flared and with spikes near her nape, golden wristbands, a belt made of what looked like actual woven gold thread, and golden sabatons that, near her knees, were made to resemble a skull. Fastened to her belt was unmistakably a whip, coiled into a circle.

It might say something about her ability to compartmentalize that none of the monstrous features were the things that startled her. She had grown almost numb after she'd watched a floating head covered in snakes give them their meal plates. No, what startled her was the magenta lipstick and nail polish. It contrasted noticeably against the rest of her, and was in a shade that just wasn't something you could extract from plants. It had to be artificial, and when until now the most complicated piece of machinery she'd seen were door hinges, that said something.

It felt out of place, it almost made her feel out of place.

Megaera's face, twisted into a steely rage, flattened the moment she caught sight of Nyx, turning back into a blank and utterly professional facade. Her eyes twitched, the only thing she truly moved, to her, and then back to Nyx. There was a question somewhere in the back of her expression, Taylor could almost see it.

"Lady Nyx," Megaera said, her voice throaty and a touch subdued. "It's good to see you enjoying the lounge. May I ask who this is?"

Nyx smiled plainly. "Tell me, Megaera, how is the child doing on his current escape attempt?"

The ghost of a few expressions flickered across Megaera's face before it all settled back down. "Flagging," she admitted bluntly, sounding a little satisfied by it. "He took me down, but he was already lagging behind. I doubt he'll make it very far into Asphodel."

"I see," Nyx replied, tone giving nothing away. "As for your question, this is Taylor. A new god, born of the Styx."

Megaera's mask buckled enough to show confusion and shock. "Is your mother Styx herself?" she asked, sounding like she would really rather that not be the case.

"No, Hades told me he would've known if she was. It would appear this one was simply sired by circumstance, born from power, rather than lineage," Nyx interjected, passing her gaze back over to Taylor, watching for a reaction. She gave her none, and Nyx, with a look of bemusement, focused back on Megaera. "She is still unsettled by her birth, and is having some difficulties adapting."

Taylor let her hands clench beneath the table. Megaera shot her a probing look, glancing over her clothing, her hair, her face, before giving a shrug.

"Welcome to the House of Hades," she announced, instead, resting the knuckles of one hand against her hip. "I hope we can have a productive work relationship."

Between the colour of her nails and the fact that she'd heard something closely approximating that in her past workplaces, the entire situation was feeling utterly surreal. Megaera was relaxed, but distant, not focusing much, if at all, on her, unlike Nyx's, whose focus Taylor could only meaningfully avoid a quarter of the time. She looked like something out of a Mortal Kombat game, all bright contrasts and absurd, semi-inspired outfits.

Still, Megaera was clearly waiting for a response, with each second that ticked by drawing her features into an increasingly annoyed look.

Taylor took in a breath, steadied herself and made sure to remember that this was still a cult that had abducted her and was trying to make her believe she was divine in some way. She had to play along, to the best of her abilities. "You as well," she said at last, about the best thing she could put together.

Megaera relaxed even further, loose shouldered and almost limp. A small smile twitched at the corner of her lips, almost friendly. "I'm glad at least someone is taking their future duties responsibly."

"My future duties?" Was this the part where they told her how they want her to crank out children to indoctrinate and brainwash?

"She isn't aware of her domains yet, Megaera," Nyx chided gently. "We do not know yet where she will go in the systems of the Underworld."

Megaera blinked, lips tugging down a bit. "Oh, so a bit like Zag," she said, sounding a bit hesitant. "I mean, I think you'll find them out eventually—all gods do have domains, it can just take some time for some."

"Quite," Nyx agreed with a rather pointed look in Taylor's direction.

She ignored it.

"If you ever need help, you can come to me to ask about it," Megaera said, then. "I know this can be overwhelming, but we all prefer to run a tight ship and if you have questions, you can come to me or someone else as necessary. Speaking of, where's Dusa?"

Nyx glanced upwards. "I believe cleaning the rafters of bats."

"Again?" Megaera glanced up too, frowning. "We really need to get a cage for them, they keep repopulating. I didn't even know bats could live this far down in Tartarus. They certainly can't in most of the Underworld, that much is for certain."

Following their gazes up, Taylor caught sight of, true to their word, Dusa 'cleaning the rafters of bats'. Bats about the size of small dogs, one of which she had a snake wrapped around the throat of and was bludgeoning headily with the feathered end of her duster.

Taylor blinked, reached up to try to rub at her eyes. When the black spots faded, she could still see it. The bat went limp after a few more violent cracks between its ears, falling over limp. Almost eerily, the massive bat was slowly dragged back onto the rafters, where it slid out of sight.

"She has gotten good at it," Megaera mused absently. "I'm glad the training we did worked out for her."

"Oh? Is that where she got it from?" Nyx replied in turn.

Taylor glanced down, just in time to see Megaera flush a blotchy purple, looking more than a little awkward. "She kept getting bit by the bats, and she asked, so I thought it was okay?"

"It was, Megaera," Nyx soothed. "Your friendship is a good thing, even if I can be critical about Dusa's enthusiasm at times."

This felt absurd. It felt like this should be a sign of the entire charade falling apart, an indication that people were letting down their roles, but it was... consistent. It was absurd, but within the realm of what they were preaching.

She still couldn't let her guard down, but the entire thing felt utterly disarming. Had it been intentional? She didn't know, couldn't know, but wasn't about to let it be the case. She pushed the train of thought out of her head. This was power-related, all of this was. It had to be tinkertech or something more complex like reality-warping. None of it would make sense otherwise.

Taylor took in a breath, let it out, and felt herself finally settle. Good.

"Ah," Nyx intoned, glancing back off into the middle distance. "It would seem your prediction was right, Megaera. My charge returns home early. Come, Taylor, you two must be introduced."

Nyx rose, gracefully pulling away from the table. Her words said they were a request, that she was simply asking Taylor to come along, but her tone—it made it very clear that it was a command. Whatever patience Nyx might have had for her, she was starting to guess she had worn thoroughly down at this point.

Megaera watched the two of them, clearly picking up on some of the subtext but not enough to get a proper read on the conversation.

Taylor, begrudgingly, eased herself to her feet, the stone cold against her toes as she moved her feet away from the places she'd planted them. Nyx prowled along ahead, passing around a larger contingent of spectres, and beholden to her request, Taylor followed after. They passed out through the doors of the lounge, back into the hallway leading up to it. She glimpsed, for a moment, a black stone archway with purple light filtering out through it, but didn't have enough time to wonder what was over there, having to speed up her walk to catch up behind Nyx.

"Back already, boy?" Hades boomed from his desk, the only part of him visible being the crown of his head, encircled by that red-orange laurel wreath. The rest of him was hidden behind stacks of papers.

The spectres, having lined up politely in front of Hades' desk, parted like a sea as the sound of footsteps - bare footsteps, at that, like her - began to grow louder and ever-closer.

Around the corner, slowly, Zagreus came into sight.

The first thing that struck her was how normal he looked by comparison. His skin was still deathly pale, but a handful of shades darker than Alabaster. He looked in his early 20s at the latest, though had a certain agelessness to him that made her feel like she couldn't be so sure about that. His features were somewhat boyish, with a defined jaw and a rounded chin. One of his eyes was a red identical to Hades, while the other was green. His hair was a mess, a tangle of black cowlicks and fringes that stood on end, giving it a spiky and untamed look, barely held in place by a red-and-orange laurel wreath, much like his father's.

He was by far the least bedazzled out of the lot, with no true visible jewelry on him. He did still wear a toga, yes, and of a similar style to Megaera's, albeit in gray and white, overlaid by a red swathe of cloth that bore a resemblance to a sash. Nearly one half of his torso had been left bare, revealing the upper half of his ribs and chest, as well as shoulder and arm, while the other kept the clothes he was wearing cinched in place by a series of three dog skulls, each one with bony ears as well. His belt was similarly made from bone, carved into skeletal faces, and below that he wore either pants or leggings or something similar, a shade of red identical to the one on his toga. Below that were metal sabatons, with skull-like details, but ones which ended around his ankles, leaving his very-much-smouldering feet bare and exposed for the world, flickering with red-hot embers.

"Well, the lava was just so inviting, you know?" Zagreus called back, coming to a halt a dozen or so feet away from Hades' desk itself. The cheek just about oozed out of his voice, though something underneath it was still bitter. "One of your skeletal friends gave me a helping hand to realize that."

"You'll never escape," Hades promised darkly, sounding about ready to reach over and smack Zagreus upside the head. "Your continued failures to make it to the exit prove as much."

Zagreus scowled up at his father, arms crossing over his chest.

"Child," Nyx called out, the both of them passing out through the threshold of the hallway and into the main circular area. Zagreus turned his head, the scowl bleeding from his face as he caught sight of Nyx, only to be replaced with something like utter confusion when he caught sight of her. "I have someone to introduce you to."

Hades, behind his desk, made something of a disgruntled noise, but did nothing further to try to interrupt them.

"Did uh, Father recently lift the ban?" Zagreus asked, eyes flicking between herself and Nyx. "Because, well, visitors aren't exactly normal, you know?"

"Child, please give me a moment to speak," Nyx chided softly, still sounding amused. "This is Taylor, a goddess born of the Styx. Taylor, this is my charge, Zagreus."

"That's a weird name," Zagreus blurted, barely letting her finish. His features coloured, a true pinkish blush catching around his cheekbones. "Not bad! Just—weird, oh, shadows this is an awful introduction. Can we start over?"

Taylor really didn't know what to feel with that sort of reception, other than bafflement. "Sure?"

"Right!" He extended one hand, the universal gesture for a shake. She took it. "I'm Zagreus, Prince of the Underworld, it's good to meet you Taylor. Say, is your mother Styx?"

"Why does everyone keep asking that?" she asked, instead.

Zagreus gave her a blank look. "Zelus, obviously?"

That told her absolutely nothing. "No, she isn't."

Zagreus brightened, shaking her hand firmly before letting go. "Sorry about the cold reception, Father is just like that."

Considering the last time she showed him any amount of disrespect, she pointedly said nothing in response to that, especially when she felt Hades staring at her again.

"Right, well," Zagreus shuffled to the side, glancing at her awkwardly and towards the archway she'd seen coming out of the lounge. "I need to go give this another attempt, alright? I'll see you around. Or not."

"Wait," Taylor interjected before he could even so much as fully get around her. His head swivelled back to stare at her, almost boggling. "I want to help."

He gave her another blank look. "You don't even know why I want to escape, you just arrived here."

"I don't want to be here any more than you do," Taylor deflected, remembering the agreement she had with Nyx. "Your father gave me permission to come along with you, working from the notion that my failure will make me accept my place here." It was about as close to the truth as she could manage it.

Zagreus glanced over her shoulder, towards Hades, then back to her. "He says the same to me, too. I think he figures I'll give up if I die frequently enough. Hasn't happened yet, or will ever. Still, disappointing that he's already started reusing old lines already."

If he dies—that, there were revival powers. He might have one of those, and it would fit, being the child of Hades, thematically anyway. "Alright, so. How about it?"

"I mean, I guess?" Zagreus started walking, then, down the hallway, and Taylor trailed after him, glancing back over her shoulder to find Nyx watching her, raising one arm to wave her fingers in her direction. "Sure. If we make it Elysium, it'll finally be two-on-two, and I might be able to stuff Theseus' spear somewhere it'll hurt. I can even get you a weapon, if you need one, anyway?"

"I would prefer one," Taylor replied diplomatically, glancing into the lounge to find Megaera watching her with narrowed eyes, but with surprisingly little heat. They passed by it, arriving at the archway, which Zagreus rather jauntily walked into. Passing around the wall to it, she got her first sight of what was inside.

In theory, seeing a self-proclaimed god's bedroom may run the risk of further alienating him, making him feel all the world like Nyx and Hades, impossibly distant and foreign. The reality was, however, that stepping into Zagreus' room was like stepping into her own room in the past, if significantly larger. Zagreus, clearly, did not put much emphasis on keeping things tidy; his bed was a mess, with sheets pooled around the bottom, the floor was littered with the occasional skull, pot and other fixtures. There were two trunks, both overflowing with clothes, one at the end of the bed and the other next to a desk, where a scroll had at some point toppled off, leaving a length of papyrus behind it like a roll of toilet paper. At the end of the room, opposite his bed, was a vast, inky mirror, reflecting crystal-clear images of the people, if not the surroundings.

It made her uncomfortable to look at, so she avoided doing so as she paced into the room itself.

"This way," Zagreus called out, glancing behind him. Across the room from the entrance was another archway, leading out into a stone pavilion, with several distant objects seemingly floating in the air. The majority of the room was blocked from her sight by the edge of the archway, so she carried herself forward into a jog, picking up her pace to get back into step with Zagreus, who had already departed into the area proper.

Passing through the threshold, Taylor sent a look around. The floating objects from before were a sword of some kind, a spear, a shield, a bow, and what looked to be a pair of gauntlets, currently covered in chains and locks. Next to the cluster of weapons was a display case, fitted with wood and glass, inside of which were a smattering of trinkets or keepsakes, curious objects that didn't seem terribly interesting to her.

The pavilion proper had a small area of extended stone that pointed out from the square arena-like area. Casting her gaze up and around, catching sight of only the gloom high above - unnatural, she noticed - and rocky cliff walls off into the distance, Taylor let her feet carry her along and up to the end of the perch.

A massive city, vast and almost unending, was what she was met with at the other end. Green light filtered out of a great temple, thousands of buildings were mashed together in a labyrinthine network of alleyways and streets. Motes of light - now what she was noticing as likely spectres - filtered along the main path. She tried to look further, over the horizon, but she saw no end to it.

It was... huge. In ways that things shouldn't be, had they been power created. There were limits, and in theory, someone could have made an entire underground city like this, inhabited by spectres, powered by tinkertech, but it was larger than anything she had ever seen before, could ever believe would be functionally possible with powers. Her heart fell into her stomach, and she found herself stumbling away from the edge, from the fathomless ravine far, far below.

"Yeah, Tartarus can be intimidating like that," Zagreus' voice interjected, sending her heart right up into her throat. She jolted, jostled around in a flinch, towards where the voice came from. He was leaning against the display case, one hand under his chin, a sheepish look on his face. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. It's always interesting to see how people respond to seeing Tartarus for the first time. Shades can be very expressive."

Taylor breathed in and out, managing to steady her heart. "Yeah," she croaked out, brushing a hand over her forehead. "It's a lot."

"A lot to escape," Zagreus agreed solemnly. "It's totally cool if you don't wanna come. Like, let it be known, I really understand how daunting all of this can be."

She shook her head, pushing her doubts to the back of her head. Question later, deal now. She just had to get out, and whatever fucked up shit this world was dealing with, she could handle then, when she was safe. "No, I'm coming along. I won't be trapped here."

Zagreus' expression split into a broader smile, and he clapped his hands together. "Well, alright then! Speaking of. Hey! Skelly!"

There was a noise, like energy charging up before firing. Taylor cant her head to the side, catching sight of an odd sigil inscribing itself across the stonework in the middle of the pavilion. It burst suddenly and without warning, a shower of light that nearly blinded her. She scrambled back, expecting an explosion, but was met, instead, with a skeleton. Something out of an RPG, or a horror movie. For a moment, it just stared back at her, the pits where its eyes should be filled in with some sort of purple energy, likely to approximate eyes.

"Heya boyo, who's the lady?" The skeleton said in, of all things, a thick Brooklyn accent, sincerely not helping the absurdity of everything beginning to weigh on her.

"That's Taylor, a new goddess. Born out of the Styx," Zagreus was quick to introduce, waving a hand in her direction.

"Weird choice in names," Skelly replied, utterly glib. Taylor could feel her brain beginning to process the accent, but it was certainly taking some time. Felt a lot like she was spinning her wheels, that or having a mental breakdown. She wasn't so sure yet.

This had to all be a cult, at this point. If it wasn't, she wasn't entirely sure she'd remain sane. A skeleton. With a thick Brooklyn accent, as if he'd died in New York and had to be collected after the fact. She could already feel a stress headache coming on, though measurably fainter than the ones she'd gotten during her time in Chicago.

Zagreus nodded. "Right?!" Then, a pause, glancing her way awkwardly. "Er, not bad."

"Nah, not bad," Skelly was quick to agree, presumably catching onto the fact that she was still very much in the room. Thanks. "What's she here for? Seein' you off?"

"Nope, she's coming with me. Speaking of, Taylor, come pick a weapon?"

"I'd be careful about that!" Skelly belted out in a rush. "Not, ah, ta' make this a thing or nothing but, er, new divines, they got wibbly-wobbly powers. Might want to make sure whatever weapon she chooses, well, that y'ain't gonna need it for a while after. Infernal weapons can be real tetchy!"

Zagreus glanced her way, then towards the weapons. He pursed his lips. "How good are you with a sword?" He asked, after a moment.

Well. "About as good as I can be with what's on offer."

Zagreus nodded, then, a resolute sort of nod. "Right, I'll take the spear, Taylor takes the sword. I'll show you how to get it working, alright?"

Nodding slowly, and keeping a good berth from the leering skeleton, Taylor trailed after Zagreus, who led her right up to the sword. In its current state, it was a primarily red blade, with the edges a sleek silver. On the red part of the blade, there were runes of some kind inscribed, while about a few inches from the hilt the red was replaced by triangular bands of gray that grew increasingly dark until becoming black. The hilt was a skull, framed by that ever-so-iconic red laurel wreath, meant to form a sort of handguard. Below that, the hilt was relatively short, one-and-a-half-hands, at best.

"Your best bet to get something that works for you is to invoke your own name in front of it," he explained, gesturing towards it. "I'm not sure what'll happen, but the form it's currently in is invoked in my capacity as a god. It works perfectly for me, though I've managed to invoke a few others with other weapons."

Feeling both oddly apprehensive and profoundly absurd, Taylor shuffled in place. She reached out, pausing as her hand neared the handle. "I—I invoke myself?"

Nothing happened.

"Well," Zagreus started. "Maybe you just need to—"

The weapon exploded in a shower of energy, flickering and spasming, forming almost glitch-like noises. Taylor stumbled back, shielding her eyes for a time, pulling her arm away only when she could no longer hear it making noise. What was left floating was nowhere near as long as the sword that had once been. It was about the length of her forearm now, and still retained its nature as a straight-sword. The blade now started orange near where it met the hilt, forming a gradient that ended with dark purple near the very tip. The hilt itself was a silver crescent moon with a sun contained within it, and the handle that extended down from it was made out of intertwining bands of purple and gold.

Reaching out, she took it into her hand. It felt perfectly balanced, and while it was a bit longer than the usual fare that she got in terms of knives, the size difference wasn't so dramatic that it felt unwieldy or likely to hurt her. Holding it made her feel stronger, and moving the weapon around caused motes of purple to drift from the tip, forming a trail behind its arc.

"Oh, wow. A xiphos," Zagreus said, reminding her that he was there. She glanced back his way, curious, and he supplied. "It's a uh, pretty common secondary weapon for soldiers? Been around for a while, too. The leaf-shape design really helps it be versatile, as it can be used to slice or stab. It was always one of Achilles' favourites, though he likes the spear more."

She glanced down at the weapon, unsure about how the legacy of it fit into this. Or what Achilles had to do with anything. Shapeshifting weapons weren't exactly impossible, but it still felt... different. She shook the thoughts away, and again, went through the mantra: cope later, deal with things now.

"Any idea what it does? Other than look really cool," Zagreus asked, glancing curiously at it.

"Not a one," she replied honestly.

"Ah, well, bet we can figure that out when we head down," he said, shuffling over to the spear and pulling it from where it had been hovering in the air, flipping the thing around in his hand a few times. He was either good at handling the spear or really good at pretending he was, as he handled the weapon with a sort of familiarity even she didn't have after years of work in the field.

Motioning for her to follow, Zagreus started to make his way towards the other side of the pavilion and, more specifically, the window. Curious, Taylor trailed after him, tucking the weapon down to her side, not exactly sure where to put it, what with the lack of sheathe or convenient retractable blade, and not wanting to test what exactly the weapon did when it hurt someone on herself. She was pretty sure she was managing well enough, but despite everything the weapon still was pretty heavy, and it was a bit annoying to lug around like this.

Coming to a halt next to the window, Taylor peeked a little over the edge, frowning. "Zagreus?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's the ladder, or the rope?" The drop from here looked to be nearly a hundred feet, if not more. She couldn't even really see the floor, that ever-pervasive, unnatural gloom muddying her vision.

Zagreus grabbed hold of her arm, hooking one leg up so that his heel rested on the window pane.

Taylor felt her heart rather suddenly plummet into her stomach.

He gave her an odd look, one of those blank ones she was starting to associate with cultural barriers. "Why would I need either of those?" He asked, sounding almost affronted.

Then, before she could so much as get a word in edgewise, he jumped.

With her.

---

Taylor didn't know how long they fell for. It could've been seconds, it could've been minutes. It probably didn't matter, either, as for a time she was relatively sure she was going to die. Again.

Then they landed. Or, rather, Zagreus landed, holding her up by her arm, somehow still in its socket despite the sudden 100-to-0. Old instincts died slow, and before she could really think about asking him are you suicidal? she had already driven the heel of her foot into his ribs.

Zagreus dropped her with a yell, and she hit the ground with a rather hard thud. He was clutching his side, wincing. "What was that for?!"

"Tell someone before you're about to jump off like that!" Taylor bellowed back, pointing at him with her sword.

"How else would I have escaped, a ladder? I thought you knew!"

"I obviously didn't! You have to tell people before you do insane things like that—"

Pop!

Taylor whipped her head around, Zagreus doing the same. A few paces away, near the start of the hallway to... wherever they were, a bundle of light had erupted into place. It was a bright, nearly neon-green, and came with a distant scent of pine smoke, of gentle moving winds. In the center of the mass of energy was a symbol: a single arrow, pointed up, bisecting a single horizontal line.

"Oh, hey, it's Artemis," Zagreus said, apparently recovering from the most grievous injury she had inflicted on him. She shot him a look, not exactly sure what Artemis had to do with anything. He shot a look back, a little grumpy but in a good mood, trodding forward right up to the ball of ominous light. "It's just a boon, Taylor. It's not that complicated. Artemis wants to help me escape, so do other gods, and they send down little boons to help me achieve that."

So—so a Trump power, then? That would make sense. This was totally still explainable—

His hand reached out, brushing over the orb. It shimmered, then burst, green motes exploding into the air before consolidating into a woman. She was androgynous, actually a fair amount like herself build-wise, albeit a fair amount shorter. Her hair was green, and braided back into one single, extremely thick braid that floated out around her. She wore a headpiece of some kind, antlers fixed into a gold circlet, interspersed with silvery-white moons, a moon that was replicated just below her collarbone. Her clothing was some sort of dress - she sincerely needed to learn the names of these things, she'd look it up once she escaped - with fur cuffing it, making it down just below the top of her thigh, while those strappy sandals she'd always seen in roman iconography covered her feet. In one hand, she bore a long, green-blue bow with carved wooden owls, and on her back, a quiver full of arrows.

"Hey Zag, I—" her head snapped around, staring directly at Taylor. "...Did your father happen to make you a sister? Whenever Zeus corners me on Olympus, he always says Nyx is Hades'—"

"I beseech you, Lady Artemis," Zagreus said with the sort of strained discomfort that can only really come out of conversations like this. "Do not finish that sentence. This is Taylor, a newborn god, and not my sister. She's helping me escape."

"Well, alright," she said, glancing away. "You still only get one boon for one of you. Enjoy, or something." The woman flickered, then pulled apart into three separate motes of light.

"Sorry about Lady Artemis," Zagreus said, belatedly. "She doesn't like, well. Gods. In general."

Taylor had no idea what to say. Or think. She blinked the spots of light out of her eyes, rubbing at the sooty scuff marks around her knees as she pulled herself up into a stand, dragging her sword with her.

Zagreus shot her a wounded look at her silence, but nothing more, poking at each mote of light with a curious look on his face. Finally, he grabbed hold of one in particular, and it soaked into him with a burst of light.

She decided, rather frankly, to simply ignore the inconsistencies at this point. She shovelled them into the back of her brain, made sure not to think too deeply about it, and adopted a policy of assuming Trump powers first, everything else secondarily. Nothing else would make sense at this point. Striding forward, she focused her attention towards the other end of the hallway.

Cope later.

Deal now.

"Not going to ask what I took?" Zagreus queried, sounding a little sad about the fact. She ignored him and any looks he might've sent her way.

What was that at the end? She squinted, the yellowish blob becoming more clear. It was... a pile of skulls? With more floating skulls around it. What's more necromancy at this point? They were really getting into the whole Underworld theme, though, she could give them that much credit.

"Oh, a Skullomat," Zagreus chimed in, picking up his pace. "Don't worry about it. They just generate Numbskulls, I'll get rid of it real quick."

She turned just as he outpaced her, picking up into a run. "Shouldn't we—"

The finishing plan? was cut off by Zagreus blurring forward, a shower of orange light flaring around his feet as, in two hops, he closed the distance to the pile of skulls. He thrust his spear out, shredding through the pile, sending fragments flying in every which direction, before ducking forward in another burst of speed to pick off the last remaining two with precise, accurate thrusts of the spear. The door nearest to him made a noise, and the glass orb above it filled in with what looked like an amethyst shaped like a teardrop, slightly insubstantial, like a holographic representation of one.

Jogging up ahead, Taylor glanced his way. "Zagreus?"

"Yeah?"

"What's that?" She pointed up towards it.

"Oh! Actually, funny story about that," Zagreus began, Taylor slowing to arrive just behind him. "So, the Underworld is where we keep all the dead and all that, but we kinda need storage space. So, they left up these indicators to show what other than evil, tortured spirits we kept in any one region. Since this is currently in lockdown mode, the glass indicators will break to give pursuers a direct path to us, while also making it impossible for us to backtrack."

That sounded horrifying. "What if we run into a dead-end?"

Zagreus gave her a genuinely startled look. "I don't know," he said, after a moment. "I haven't run into one yet. Bit weird, considering the layout keeps changing too."

So a perpetually-changing maze full of potentially deadly dead ends, an inability to backtrack, and purportedly full of the vengeful undead. Alright.

She could do this.

She had to.

---

She watched Zagreus from a distance as he leapt forward again, spear blurring up to stab directly into center mass of a floating, witch-like wraith. From his body, green motes coalesced, forming a single arrow that blurred forward, taking her across the head. He'd gotten that ability after a second boon from Artemis, the only two boons they'd stumbled on since they'd started crawling through the Underworld.

She had personally withheld from taking any. Power granters rarely came without side-effects, and if she was going to hold on to the tenuous notion that something this complex could be power-created, she was just going to have to work with what she had.

Another quick stab and the witch blew apart into smoke, a wail following it out.

Golden sigils, inscribed with a sword, began to flicker into place around them again. Two near Zagreus, one near to her. It was larger than the rest, and she could already feel the annoyance coming onto her as the sigil solidified and burst, releasing exactly what she expected: a very, very fat ghost.

Now, it shouldn't be that surprising to see a fat ghost. People generally didn't die in their best health, but for whatever reason, the dour-looking, chain-wearing, cow-sized spectre was deeply unsettling and unusual. It reared towards her, arms outstretched, and launched itself like a cannonball right at her.

Ducking to the side, she let it hit the wall instead, which it did with a meaty smack and a pained wail. Twisting back around, she drove her weapon right into its side, splitting phantasmal flesh with a flash of purple. The wounds her weapon generated were purple-tinged, with golden motes flickering out from inside.

The fat ghost reeled towards her, one flabby arm outstretched trying to slam into her. Rather than let it happen, she tugged on the connection and felt herself move, a burst of silvery-gold energy flickering into existence where she once was, reappearing on the side of the ghost's body where the wound was. Her blade glowed, a dim sort of gold around the edges, and she drove it home into the very same wound, causing it to explode with both force and the smoke of the phantasmal creature dying.

That, as it would turn out, was the weapon's ability. Zagreus claimed most of the time it could create shockwaves of force, but with her it became a more precision weapon. Any wound she made, she could teleport to, and it would infuse her weapon with more power for the next attack. She didn't need to hit the same wound, though it seemed to do more damage, or perhaps the damage just got deeper and let her destroy the construct more easily.

From behind, she heard the telltale pop of spectres exploding, and turned just in time to see Zagreus skewer the last one through with a stab. The two doors in the room shuddered, and one of those amethyst teardrops - that Zagreus called 'motes of darkness' - appeared suddenly right beside him. She could, even here, feel it calling out to her to take, but ignored the impulse, watching instead as Zagreus pressed a hand against it, absorbing it into himself.

Taylor began heading his way, keeping her eyes peeled towards the doors. The indicators above them flickered, then filled in. One displayed another mote of darkness, and the other displayed a symbol she hadn't seen before. A boon, probably, a golden shield surrounded by four dots.

"We're making good time!" Zagreus announced cheerily, picking at the coins on the ground and shoving them by the handful into a pouch he apparently kept on himself for this exact reason. "You're pretty good at fighting for someone who was born today, though. Did anyone happen to teach you?"

"Sharp end goes in enemy," she deflected, still staring at the symbol. "It's not that hard."

"I mean, that's... true? I hate that that's true. I trained a lot to get this good, you know?" He was a really talkative sort of person. Not always a bad thing, she'd worked with people who were significantly more unfiltered - Romp, to name one - but it did make the entire situation still a bit... odd. They were fighting through throngs of the long-dead, dodging suicidal skeleton heads, being attacked at range by witch-like spectres, having to avoid being crushed to death by obese ghosts—it should be more sombre, and every time he opened his mouth it made her feel like this was all a joke, or a game.

Except everything was logically consistent. The absurdity was absurd, yes, and the blase way Zagreus treated death was deeply concerning, but it was consistent, and that bothered her.

But she couldn't let herself focus on it. Hadn't, not since he cleared out that pile of heads.

"Oh, hey, that's Athena's symbol. Neat." Zagreus strut right on past her, off towards the door, and dutifully - if only because at this point she was banking on his presence being the reason he never ran into dead ends, rather than it being some intrinsic quality of the place - Taylor followed on after him. They arrived at the door, which despite everything still managed to loom ominously above her, making her feel more than a little unwelcome.

Then again, if what Zagreus said was true, this place was supposed to be Tartarus. You know, the place they stuffed the dismembered parts of the Titans. It probably wasn't the best place to be in the first place.

Reaching out, Zagreus tapped the door in front of him, causing it to open. They passed through it, right into a room that, with little fanfare, was filled with a sudden green light.

"Aw, balls," Zagreus groused, two massive sigils in front of them, a small ways away, beginning to collect on the floor. "The bomber twins."

Taylor sent him a worried look. "The bomber twins?"

"Yeah, there are smaller ones out in Asphodel, but uh," he jerked his head, and Taylor followed it, watching as, with another burst of light, two skeletons appeared before them. They were outfitted with a metal helmet with golden spikes, a massive glowing barrel on their back, and a bomb with a candlewick-like flame in their bony hands. They were both easily twice her size, and they both turned and immediately focused on her.

Taylor felt a chill run down the back of her neck and booked it to the side, running into a full sprint. Smart idea, too, as the place she had been not ten seconds ago was very suddenly filled with explosions. She caught sight of Zagreus swooping around the other side, blade in hand as he leapt forward and caught one of the two on the side of the head with one meaty blow, sending it reeling.

She glanced back just in time to avoid getting a face full of bomb, the watermelon-sized explosive whistling past her head as she ducked low. She strafed away from the bomber, keeping a close eye on him even as Zagreus, in the background, whacked his bomber closer to the other.

The bomber procured another bomb in its hand, and then jumped. It was similar to how fast Zagreus could. One moment the bomber was across the room from her, the next she was slamming into his bony arm, stumbling to the side. The bomber raised his bomb up, and with a gleeful, horrifying cackle, brought it down.

She kicked back, trying to get a distance, but only got so far. The explosion rocked her, her vision going black for a second as she was spent sprawling, her head spinning wildly and ears ringing like sirens in her skull. Her entire body lit up in agony, flames singing her toga, her skin. She scrambled back, biting her bottom lip to keep the noise of pain out of her mouth, and not quite managing it when the dust cleared and the bomber, looking utter unscathed, was still standing there, face twisted into the mockery of a grin.

Yet, it didn't reach for another bomb.

Her back jostled against something hard and spiky. She twisted around, blinking the black spots out of her eyes as the whining in her ear from the blastwave finally started to peter off, replaced by the urgent rattling hiss of the urn she'd just bumped into, which was currently sparkling and glowing with purple energy. The face on it was morose, a steely sort of expression, and it was the last thing she saw before it exploded too.

Agony. Pure, undiluted agony. She felt her body leave the ground, get carried through the air, and then land.

Then, she felt it again. Slow, unavoidable, the taste in the back of her mouth, the grinding of stones and something pulling deep in her gut. Death, she knew this, had felt it when she'd been shot. It was not foreign, but neither was it familiar. She felt it soak into her, felt herself begin to sink through the ground itself, the yawning chasm of void rippling in her chest.

She felt death, and it took her all the same.

---

Red.

Death.

Taylor emerged from the pool with a hacking cough, waves of blood - or whatever it was - sloshing around her as her fingers slipped and pulled her up the final few stairs. On her hands and knees, watching her body drip the red fluid without even a single part of her clothing remaining wet, Taylor could only stare down at her hands, tensing and flexing against the stone floors.

This...

This was real.

Wasn't it?

Oh god. This was real.

---

Aspect of ??? - Stygian Blade

Your Special no longer deals damage, and instead teleports you to targets marked by your melee attack. Only one target can be marked at a time. Your attack range is reduced by 60%. Your next melee attack ignores armor. A blade seemingly meant for traversal between boundaries.

---

 

[Edin]

Ohhhh, this is real neat! I'll be watchingthis with great interest!

 

[Lagoon12002]

This... Is interesting. Definitely watched.

Now, speculation time!
Taylor probably shares a domain with Tithonus, the God of Insects (Will you be including OCs?), and has a connection to the Eldritch (which will be very Interesting).

Adding to that, she is a classical Hero in the same vein as Herakles, probably above him in power/fame for slaying Scion (which, inferring from papa Hades's little speech about godhood, was qualified for Big G godhood, adding Godslayer to her resume.) and saving multiple worlds of people.

The fact that the Stygian Blade took qualities of Doormaker is also really interesting, but I will get my answer to that with the next dozen chaps me thinks.

So let's recap! Given power by the Eldritch. Achieved heroics feats beyond the common man's reach. Becomes a pseudo-Titan. Killed, or at least drove to mortal-assisted suicide, an Aincent God with a long history of killing entire civilizations, and which was responsible for giving her power.

This is going to be one of the good ones. I know it.

 

[Zefferen]

Huh, so the god's can hear Zag? I thought the only one he gets to actually talk with was Chaos. Guess I misunderstood.

Oh boy Chaos interactions will be fun. I'm sure he'll have some shit to say on Taylor. If anybody knows what her deal is it'd be Chaos.

I'm curious how getting boons would work for Taylor. She's got even less of a divine identity than Zag. Boons might interfere with her own journey to forge/understand her domains or they might hurry it along given her history using a wide variety of powers not her own.

 

[w4terghost]

Looking at the description of the Stygian Blade, I think that's actually Sting.

 

[WhoAmEye]

Her blade is obviously stolen from Mouse Protector. Someone get her some cheese!

 

[Lagoon12002]

Looking at the description of the Stygian Blade, I think that's actually Sting.

Click to shrink...

After some thinking, yeah, you're probably right. "Traversal between boundaries" can mean many things, including 'punching through them like a Hammer of God'.

Her blade is obviously stolen from Mouse Protector. Someone get her some cheese!

Click to shrink...

It does bear resemblance to Mouse Protector. Probably a coincidence. Or is it? Gather the Science Team!

 

[Neruz]

Dusa hovered for a moment, big yellow eyes almost glistening. She looked starved for praise or positive reinforcement, and it might've inspired some sense of sympathy if not for the fact that she resembled someone's decent attempt to make Voldemort look cute by appealing to all the things the human brain associated with young children. Then, without so much as a tear shed, the gorgon head puttered off again, back up into the rafters, to who-knows-where, stopping only to grab her feather duster from a nearby table.

Click to shrink...

TAYLOR HOW DARE YOU BE MEAN TO BEST GORGON HEAD?! BAD TAYLOR!

Dusa is adorable and anyone who says otherwise should be thrown in the Lethe until they can't remember being such a terrible person.

 

[Illusion of Eris]

Really, that ability looks really similar to Murder Rat, the Bonesaw wombo combo of Ravager and MP. Creating festering wounds that serve as teleportation markers.

 

[Jreengus]

Huh, so the god's can hear Zag? I thought the only one he gets to actually talk with was Chaos. Guess I misunderstood.

Click to shrink...

IIRC it's a little inconsistent with that, they can't hear or talk directly to him except for when they can. I think it's because Nyx is blocking them so she can ease up on it when she wants to.

 

[Neruz]

Also; should totally link images of the characters when they first show up; Hades character art and designs are excellent and deserve every opportunity to be waved around.

LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE SNAKEFACE: LOOK AT IT!

*Squees like a schoolgirl*

 

[HamHamJ]

IIRC it's a little inconsistent with that, they can't hear or talk directly to him except for when they can. I think it's because Nyx is blocking them so she can ease up on it when she wants to.

Click to shrink...

When I read that part my initial reaction was that it was an error vis a vis the game canon (not that that's necessarily a mistake, having the Olympians able to interact with Taylor is obviously more interesting). But on reflection, I want to say that the boons are one way messages but when you give them Nectars it lets you actually talk to them? But honestly I'm not going to go digging through all the dialogues to verify that.

The other exception besides Chaos I think is definitely Hermes.

 

[Neruz]

When I read that part my initial reaction was that it was an error vis a vis the game canon (not that that's necessarily a mistake, having the Olympians able to interact with Taylor is obviously more interesting). But on reflection, I want to say that the boons are one way messages but when you give them Nectars it lets you actually talk to them? But honestly I'm not going to go digging through all the dialogues to verify that.

The other exception besides Chaos I think is definitely Hermes.

Click to shrink...

Hermes is a psychopomp, so he belongs as much to the Underworld as he does to Olympus. Him being an exception is thus entirely to be expected.

Chaos is, of course, Chaos, and gives zero fucks and does as Chaos pleases.


Whether or not the Olympians can actually talk to Zagreus is unclear; sometimes it seems like they can, sometimes it seems like they can't. Given the setting I would put it down to 'divine bullshit' and not think too carefully on the matter.

Plus; it would be entirely in-character for Hades\Nyx to deliberately prevent the Olympians from getting 'reception' in the Underworld, and for the Olympians to in turn occasionally overpower the underworld's E-War and talk to Zagreus anyway.

The ancient Greek gods were... contentious like that.

 

[WhoAmEye]

I think if Zagreus initiates (giving nectar, etc) the Shroud gives a little more leeway? They can definitely *see* him down there, detect him a little bit and what he's up to (and of course comment on his current relationships/progress/weaponry) but tbh that could just as easily be Nyx watching over and turning the other way as need be. In-game the Olympians, while helpful to Zagreus, are being very careful about overstepping boundaries when it comes to Hades and his realm. Because of the whole

Spoiler: Zag's Mom and other story spoilers

Persephone situation, Demeter's Long Winter, the fact that Zeus (of course) was the one to do the kidnapping (not that she minded???) and that Zagreus can't survive above the surface for long before the Styx takes him and the olympians not seeming to realise that

complex situation he's in, anything more than chatting and boons is like triggering the cold war into not very cold anymore war.

Though, to be honest, now that Taylor's involved, she's probably going to throw herself into it just like she did with prepping for the golden morning and have absolutely no chill towards anyone until she's shoved bugs down everyone's throat and/or gone full on Kratos
(/meme plz dont hurt me)

edit: oooh I can't wait to see what her aspect of Hexagryph is like
Taylor: I invoke me
Hexagryph: *becomes that pistol*
Taylor: ONE FUCKING TIME AND NOBODY LETS YOU FORGET IT

 

[Neruz]

edit: oooh I can't wait to see what her aspect of Hexagryph is like
Taylor: I invoke me
Hexagryph: *becomes that pistol*
Taylor: ONE FUCKING TIME AND NOBODY LETS YOU FORGET IT

Click to shrink...

Poor Taylor.

That is exactly the sort of thing that ancient Greek divine power would do.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Hmm. An interesting choice to be quite so literal about game mechanics (even as far as specific rooms with previewed rewards) which I probably wouldn't have gone for, but on the other hand a lot of Hades' mechanics are diegetic.

An interesting question is whether anyone Taylor knows will be appearing as a shade (or a new miniboss). I mean, let's be honest here, most of the people she knows are going to be in Tartarus. Regent? Tartarus. Coil? Tartarus, and likely getting the Furies' personal attention because he falls under all of their dominions. Though the question of whether Alexandria will qualify for Elysium depends, I suppose, on Hades judgement.

 

[giodan]

Nice idea, i was afraid it was just Taylor AP, but we got to see that amizing cast of Hades, but i just worred about spoiler, i had finish some run, but i guess i have yet to see the end?

 

[WhoAmEye]

You gotta finish at least ten to get the uh. Conventional? ending as far as im aware. but the game's sorta endless.

 

[Neruz]

Theoretically you can reach a point where you have beaten everything on maximum Heat and thus technically have nothing more to do.

In practice, you would have to be some kind of ubermensch, or using TAS tools, to actually accomplish that.

 

[Deathwings]

Theoretically you can reach a point where you have beaten everything on maximum Heat and thus technically have nothing more to do.

In practice, you would have to be some kind of ubermensch, or using TAS tools, to actually accomplish that.

Click to shrink...

Pretty sure Horheristo did it, but then the guy IS a complete monster at video games.

 

[Sorain]

Well this is going to get and keep my attention. If for nothing else then to watch the development Taylor is about to have to go through for having her entire worldview (in which she knew so much more of the truth than most) overturned. Oh wait, I also really want to see her interactions and what her dominions end up shaking out to become.

 

[FallenPears]

This is super neat, looking forward to more!

Also might be getting a bit of myself here but I'm kinda picturing what happens after Taylor succeeds and ends up back in the realm of the living. Getting some pretty funny images of the freak out everyone would have at Khepri clawing her way out of (a) hell.

 

[ThatGazzer]

This is super neat, looking forward to more!

Also might be getting a bit of myself here but I'm kinda picturing what happens after Taylor succeeds and ends up back in the realm of the living. Getting some pretty funny images of the freak out everyone would have at Khepri clawing her way out of (a) hell.

Click to shrink...

Time is odd in Hades. It is, all at the same time, no time at all, all the time in the world, around 30 minutes to cross or an eternity. it's also always 7:48.

Who knows how many ages of mankind will have passed her by the first time she makes it to the Temple of Styx?

 

[EarthScorpion]

Also might be getting a bit of myself here but I'm kinda picturing what happens after Taylor succeeds and ends up back in the realm of the living.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler

Given she seems to be a chthonic deity, the answer is "shortly afterwards, she dies, and winds up back in the Underworld".

There is no escape - and it's not just Zag who's affected that way. Hades is, too, and Thanatos mentions in passing that he can't survive too long in the surface world either.