Chapter 126 – The Second Escape
The moment Zagreus hears Nuwa hiss at Megaera from outside, he quickly grabs at his skull waist belt, but not before Nuwa rushes back inside. She sees him naked and looks at him with confusion. He fumbles with the belt for a moment before it activates to expand and cover his whole body in clothes. Nuwa asks him, “Big Bro Zag, why were you naked with that meanie?”
Due to none of the inhabitants of the House of Hades needing to excrete waste from their bodies, they are almost never naked. Nuwa only has to get naked to clean up if she makes a mess when she eats or breaks something. They all even sleep with their clothes on, so this is an unusual situation.
Zagreus is at a loss. He is still trying to recover from that stressful encounter with Meg. He doesn’t even know what their relationship is anymore. He thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend earlier, then she seemed like she was dumping him, but later she claimed ownership over him? It is definitely not normal. He doesn’t mind the abuse, but he can’t stand how she intends to trap him just like his Father does.
The more he thinks about it, the more he feels that hooking up with her was a mistake. ‘I should have dashed out.. shit. Why didn’t I dash out? Oh right.. her insides felt way too good. Ugh.. that bitch. She never even said she loved me back.’
He says with self-righteous zeal, “I had a big fight with that meanie and we aren’t on good terms anymore!”
Nuwa’s eyes light up, “Finally! You agree with me. I’ve been trying to tell you that she’s no good for ages! She always blah blah blah..”
Patting her head calmly as he nods along to her whining, Zagreus finds himself drifting back into his memories of fucking Meg into submission. He wears a sinister smirk on his face in real life as the moment plays out in his fantasies. This time, instead of role-playing, Meg is earnestly submitting to him. His big dick is dredging her depths and she is begging for more like a slut. Oh yeah. He’ll do that for a few days nonstop, enough for her to start begging him to stop otherwise she’ll become a slave to his divine donger, but he won’t stop-
“Big Bro Zag?” Nuwa interrupts his wishful thinking. Zagreus looks at Nuwa as he comes back to the present, “What?” He is horrified to find that he cannot get his mind off of Meg. ‘Fuck me! That toxic bitch.. It’s like she conditioned me or something!’
“I asked if you beat her or not.” repeats Nuwa. Blinking a few times, Zagreus shakes his head reluctantly, “No, I lost this time, but I’ll beat her next time!”
Zagreus says next time with a bit too much fervor, but Nuwa doesn’t notice. She cheers and gives him a hug. Accepting her hug for a moment, he releases her and says, “Ok sis, time for me to get back to work. I have to get my overtime hours in.”
Nuwa seems satisfied with the explanation, but she doesn’t let go of his hand. “Can I come with you to work, Big Bro Zag?”
“NO!” Zagreus shudders with terror at the thought of his cute little sister getting her brains and snakes bashed in by a shade’s club. Nuwa gasps with a hurt look, so Zagreus quickly placates her with some more head pats and strokes on the scales of her hair-snakies. He puts on a wry smile and says, “My job is a little dangerous. It is not meant for a delicate little lady such as yourself.”
Nuwa looks like she’s about to argue, but Zagreus cuts her off, “If you want to come, you’ll have to earnestly train in combat with Achilles and wait until you’re 18. I won’t make any exceptions!”
Nuwa puts on her puppy eyes, but Zagreus doesn’t budge. She prefers playing around over training so for her to be able to focus on training is a monumental task in and of itself. She agrees dejectedly, “Ok.. fine.”
Kissing her on the cheek and giving her a big smile, Zagreus cheerfully says, “Good girl, I’ll see you soon!” then heads to the training room to go on another run. Nuwa watches him leave longingly, then raises her little hands and pats her cheeks before running off to Achilles.
Nyx hovers in wait for him in the training room. She soothingly greets Zagreus, “Welcome back, child. Leaving so soon?”
Zagreus looks at Nyx with mixed feelings as he replies with a hint of anguish, “Are you going to convince me otherwise as well? Even after lying by omission for so long?”
Nyx looks sideways with guilt as she explains, “There were circumstances that demanded my silence on the matter, child. I can only offer you my sincere apologies and assistance on your journey.”
Utterly stunned, Zagreus points at himself and asks, “You intend to help me?”
Nyx nods and explains, “Of course. The Mirror in your room has been connected to you and allows you to project my power. You may deposit any Darkness you find within the Mirror in your room to receive certain permanent buffs.”
She points to her jewelry when she says Darkness.
“I have also reached out to a contact on Mount Olympus who is amenable to offering occasional assistance to the Son of Hades battling his way out of the Underworld. Though it would be good to keep your conversations small, lest your true motivations not to join their circle leak out.”
Zagreus feels guilty for doubting his foster mother. This is the woman who has only ever shown kindness to him for his entire life, after all. “I.. I’m not sure how I could ever repay this debt of gratitude, Nyx.”
Nyx smiles kindly and replies, “Just call me Mother Nyx and there is no need. You’ll always have a home here, child.”
She floats away, leaving him to his own devices. Zagreus feels his eyes mist up, but shakes any stray thoughts away to focus on his goal. He returns to his room and presses the Darkness dropped by the defeated shades against the Mirror. It glows and absorbs the purple gems to show a screen.
There’s only one option available to him to start with.
‘Shadow Presence - Each Rank gives you +10% damage when you strike foes from behind.’
He taps at it the option and a Rank Up icon shows to the right of it. Currently the Rank of the ability is 0, and it will cost 10 Darkness to rank it up, which he has already deposited inside the Mirror. He selects the Rank Up arrow and his Darkness drops to 0.
He suddenly senses that a connection to the Mirror has existed for all of his life, but only now realizes it due to feeling empowered after ranking up that ability. ‘This must be the effect of Shadow Presence. I can now deal stronger blows to the backs of enemies. Heh, this will be good for those goons.’
He runs back to the training room and sees a newcomer. It’s the stuffed toy that Nuwa dropped on the ground near his Father. Now that he has a closer look, it is not a stuffed toy at all, but a real skull. The skull bounces around to face him with glowing purple eyes. “Nice place you got here, boyo! Name’s Skelly, how’s it going?“
(A/N: Skelly - unknown strength, only fights verbally)
Zagreus is slightly creeped out now. ‘Why was Nuwa treating a sentient shade as a toy?’
The skull then pulls together some nearby bones to reform itself into a full skeleton. “Ahh, that’s better. Enough with the small talk. I’m here to do a job. So let me have it! Give me everything you got!!”
Zagreus walks over, picks up the Stygian Blade, and points it at Skelly. “You’re a hired punching bag? Are you really OK with this?”
“Yeah! Let me have it!”
He swings Stygius at Skelly, once horizontally, and once with a more heavy vertical blow.
“Woh!”
“That kind of hurt!”
He continues comboing the training dummy just to see if Skelly will stop him when he is low on health. Instead he keeps giving snarky comments like, “Felt nothing there, sorry!”
Zagreus ends up killing him just to shut him up.
About 15 seconds later, a magic circle appears on the ground, to which Zagreus puts up his guard and wonders if his Father is spawning flunkies inside their House, but it turns out to be Skelly reviving. “Ahaha, good as new!”
Zagreus sighs with both relief and exasperation. “Guess you are a suitable punching bag. Who’s your supervisor, by the way? Why was Nuwa carrying around your head?”
Skelly jumps and quickly looks around saying, “Oi! I am a skeleton of impeccable integrity. I protect my sources and friends with my life. You’ll have to kill me to make me squeal!”
“Wouldn’t you just revive again?” asks Zagreus.
“Ehehehe, looks like you’re catching on, boyo! By the way, why aren’t you using your magic? You can use that bloodstone of yours on your clothes to cast magic!”
Zagreus looks over at the bloodstone floating above his shoulder-plate. He plucks it up and tosses it at Skelly. The gem forms streaks in its projectile path, indicating its magical nature, and hits Skelly. “Ah! Struck me good.”
Zagreus comments, “Neat, my first long-range attack.”
There are upsides and downsides to it though. The bloodstone is lodged into Skelly, so he has to kill Skelly to retrieve it. In other words, he cannot spam his Cast as a long-range attack. So even though it’s almost twice as strong as his normal blade swings, it won’t see much action even if he incorporates it into his combos.
He now feels a bit more prepared for this escape attempt though, now that he has his foster mother’s help. "Good luck, boyo!" he hears Skelly say from behind him. He exits the House, to which Hades comments from afar, “Your Mother’s support changes nothing, boy! Death is all that awaits you.”
Zagreus responds, “Is that concealed jealousy I hear, Father?”
Hades only snorts and relinquishes his hold on the Authority.
Zagreus senses his connection to the Mirror and feels newfound gratitude when he realizes that if even his Father was jealous, it must be far more powerful than he had originally thought. He resolves to make the collection of Darkness a priority. ‘Mother Nyx, huh? Simply calling her that is far from enough. I will always remember this debt.’
He continues forward and finds a curious glowing golden orb lying in wait just past the stone bridge. Seeing the shield logo of Athena upon it, he realizes that this must be the assistance from Olympus that Mother Nyx had requested. He hesitantly puts his hand on the orb and says, “Here goes nothing. Ahem. In the name of Hades.. Olympus, I accept this message!"
The golden orb explodes as Zagreus exerts his borrowed Authority, and a projection of Athena appears. She has black skin, blue hair, gilded armor, a shield on one arm, and an owl on the other hand. Her proud stature and high cheekbones offer a glimpse into her character. Zagreus does not know the story of Medusa, so he does not have any prejudice towards her. She turns to him and says, “Hail, noble Cousin. Now, let’s get you from that miserable place. I’ll see to it that all of us on Olympus do our part, beginning here with me.”
(A/N: Athena, early-t4 Goddess of Wisdom. Known for providing boons to heroes that offer excellent defense.)
Zagreus says, “Hello?” but Athena only poofs into a golden panel that displays a list of 3 boons she offers to aid him. ‘Oh, so it’s only a one-way line of communication. They must be going through a lot of effort to send blessings to me while I am deep in the Underworld. I better keep mum that I’m only going up to look for my mum.’
“I know you can’t hear me, Goddess Athena, but thank you.”
He selects the boon that seems most practical to him, the “Divine Dash”, which states that it will allow his dash to deal damage and deflect projectiles! This should help with the Witch’s magical blasts and the Inferno-bomber’s grenades. He begins his killing spree. Now, when he reaches the end of each chamber, he sees options on the doors that indicate what rewards the next chamber offers. He occasionally sees Darkness, Chthonic Keys, Coins, Gems, Centaur Hearts, and another Boon from Olympus as he goes through the rooms.
His second boon is from Athena as well. Her message is, “The one called Nyx.. she is your mother, as I understand? We Olympians rarely consort with the Chthonic Gods. Though Nyx herself reached out to me about your plight, and I was spurred to act.”
For her boons, he selects Divine Flourish, making his sword slams stronger and adding a deflect to them as well. He mentally thanks Nyx once again for allowing the misunderstanding to continue. It is due to her power after all, that he is receiving so much courtesy from Olympus.
Zagreus is unsure if any of these collectibles or Boons are permanent like the Darkness he keeps upon death. The Centaur Hearts in particular are useful since they increase his vitality and maximum health while recovering as much health as they add to his max. Recently, he also noticed that traps were installed to catch him by surprise. He rarely took damage from enemies this run since he was more accustomed to their attack patterns and could dash out of the way. Most of his damage came from traps. ‘Father must have had these built on short notice, damn it all.’
He comes up to an option of two doors one with a Coin icon and another with a Bag with a skull on it. Selecting the Bag door, since he isn’t sure how useful Coins are, he arrives in a small chamber with lots of shades idly floating around, three items on display with a Coin price listed above them, and Charon floating next to the items. He dashes up and says, “Why good to see you, Charon mate!”
Charon is the Stygian Boatman and therefore even closer to the River Styx than Hades himself. He is the older brother of Thanatos and Hypnos, but he entirely resembles a pale black-clothed zombie and can only communicate with low groans and growls. His job is ferrying the souls of the deceased beyond the River Styx and throughout the Underworld, so he always carries his oar on him. For some reason that no one knows, he is obsessed with coin. He even asks the souls of the deceased to pay him, otherwise they may be stranded for over a century in wait as Charon preferentially helps the more affluent shades.
(A/N: Charon, mid-t4 Stygian Boatman, one of Nyx's eldest children)
Knowing that Charon is not much for talking, Zagreus makes some short small talk in response to the awkward silence following his greeting, before he gets to the point. “Well, I’m just minding my own business, taking in the sights. I see you’ve got some wares for sale. I’ll have a look. Any chance of a discount for a younger brother?”
Charon stares eerily back at him from behind his gaudy robe and wide-brimmed hat. “Graaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh..”
“Haha, guess not then.” Zagreus checks the wares. He sees a Centaur Heart, a red glowing Boon from Ares, and a special-looking pomegranate slice. He could either get only the Boon, or he could get both the Centaur Heart and the pomegranate, based on the number of Coins he has at hand. He figures two are better than one so he gets the health upgrade and the pomegranate.
When he eats it, he finds out that it’s called a Pom Slice of Power. It upgrades a random Boon on his person. His dash was upgraded to increase in damage. Not bad. He often finds himself dashing through enemies in order to utilize his backstab damage boost, so the dash damage as he crosses their bodies can add up. The Centaur Heart helps him heal some of the current damage he has taken.
‘Hahh.. if only Brother Charon was not so stingy. That Ares Boon is probably powerful. What a shame.’
“See you Charon mate. Thanks for the wares.” says Zagreus as he dashes to the only continuing door, which has an ominous looking icon of blood and a chibi skull at the bottom. Now that he thinks about it, he’s gone through quite a few chambers. Is this the end of Tartarus?
He opens the door and dashes through to enter a sprawling chamber with various traps and torture devices strewn about the walls. Megaera is standing in the center, waiting for him! Zagreus mutters to himself, “Well, this is awkward.”
Megaera enters a battle position and declares, “Halt Zagreus, not one step further.”
Zagreus is not keen on battling the Fury outright. He sputters out whatever arguments he can come up with to avoid battle, “Come on, Meg. I thought we had something between us. Don’t you have a job to do? Places to be?”
Megaera calmly replies as if she has already thought this through and has no regrets, “Your Father sent me. All in all, I’d rather be on your bad side than his. Now you can turn back like a good little man or I can send you home the painful way. What’ll it be?”
Zagreus narrows his eyes and states, “I’ll have to go with the painful way.” as he too enters combat stance.
“A man after my own heart.” Megaera mutters as she unsheathes her whip and unfurls her wing before getting into a crouching position to dash towards Zagreus, who is only at half health.
(A/N: Borrowed a lot of dialogue directly from the game. Hope Supergiant doesn’t mind since I know I’ve already convinced a few readers to buy the game :D. 300k words btw!!)