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Icarus stumbles through the dimly-lit room, trying to peer ahead through crowded rows of bodies hanging from the ceiling. They’re arranged in such a way, so closely strung together, that it’s impossible for him to avoid brushing against them and sending them lightly spinning, eerily. Most of the bodies are draped loosely in some kind of thin cloth, as well, adding to the unsettling effect. He shivers – mostly because of the cold. This meat locker appears to be refrigeration-temperatures, rather than freezing, which is lucky, because the ragged shroud he’s wearing isn’t doing much good to keep him warm. Icarus’ shoestring budget has guided most of his costume choices in the last couple years, so he’s basically just wearing cheap old bedsheets pinned in place, and some of that greenish-pale face paint. He’d put black circles under his eyes and Helios had joked that it didn’t look much different from his usual sleep-deprivation circles. Asshole. Helios, wherever he is, is probably not much warmer in his ‘sexy black cat’ costume; though, he is the sun, after all. Apollo is the only one who’s properly clothed; he went dressed as an eighteenth-century dandy, complete with neckerchief*. The neckerchief would have been handy right now; it’s damn cold!Icarus really hopes he can find the exit soon, but this maze of bodies is difficult to navigate.And, though he’s trying to be calm about it, the truth is that there is a thrill of fear giving him the shivers as well, and driving him through a little more anxiously. He knows it’s fake – each of these bodies has a plastic tag with some Greek word on it: Ἀρισταῖος, whatever that means**. And he’s sure these are too big to be human bodies; it’s probably pork or beef or… mutton or whatever. And the weird guy wearing a mask, who let them into the house, he had a pretty distinct blue haircut… totally Hermes. And the totally pitch dark room, where he, Helios, and Apollo had all been grabbed by invisible hands and tugged into different directions and split up – well, he knows he heard Hermes’ voice, at least, laughing at them. That voice is still laughing, somewhere behind him, and damn if it isn’t freaking him out!! It’s all fake and he knows it, but there’s something primal about trying to run away from something scary, running through something scary… it goes straight to his spine and makes Icarus jumpy and nervous.Icarus bumps against another draped body, and leaps back with a shriek as it abruptly begins shifting and moaning, in a distinctly human voice, while a human hand feebly grasps at him.“My last victim,” says a voice immediately behind him, making Icarus jump at least twenty feet and whip around with a gasp. There’s the masked weirdo again, grinning as he holds a chainsaw aloft. “And you’ll be next!” He laughs maniacally and descends on Icarus with the chainsaw. Icarus shrieks again and tears off through the bodies, knocking blindly past them and away from the chainsaw killer. More of the bodies start shifting and moaning as he runs past and against them, and manages, by some miracle, to find another door. He fumbles at it desperately – the chainsaw killer is close on his heels, howling and roaring – and pushes through, into abrupt silence and darkness. --------------------* “I’m Samuel Coleridge Taylor! ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner?’ One of the most haunting and unsettling, and yet also beautiful, works of poetry ever written?!” Apollo was indignant for a while when Icarus and Helios failed to recognize his costume, but Icarus soothed him by commenting that the look was very sexy. Most people who saw his costume assumed he was a vampire.** Ἀρισταῖος is Aristaeus, son of Apollo and Cyrene, god of animal husbandry, among other things. Hermes commandeered his meat locker for the haunted house event.
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Hermes turns off the chainsaw and allows himself a moment of self-congratulatory snickering. This is going great. All these dorks are running around in a total panic. He’d debated on whether or not to keep them together or split them up, but ultimately… he knows that the gods are hilariously easy to spook, but they’re protective, too. And he kind of wants to see what Icarus does on his own, without any gods around. So far, he’s shown decent initiative, which is good. Hermes had half-believed that Icarus would have chosen to stand listlessly in a corner until someone finally came and dragged him outside, but he’s been exploring, and showing he’s got a little fight in him. Or, well, a little flight, really… but that’s fine. He’s reacting, and in an amusing way, which is good enough for Hermes.He brings up his phone, decorated with festive spooky stickers, and sends a text. “RBF thru portal off meat locker. I forget where that goes; watch for him.”A notification beep comes through on his phone (the sound of Athena saying “Hermes that’s disgusting!”) and a contact he’s named as Gothic Cinnamon Bun sends a message. “K. Big Bad in Spider Forest now. Swearing a lot. V. droll.”“Hidden cameras??”Thumbs up emoji. “Yup! Heph checked again. Replay value for DECADES.”“Haha! I bet!” He checks the Living Map device Hephaestus had invented centuries ago; something like a cross between the Maurauder’s Map and a modern GPS. “Wonder Twins headed too close to zombie room. Can u chase them away? They can’t handle seeing each other dead”Thumbs up emoji.
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“Fucking Hermes!”Artemis and Apollo, like most siblings throughout existence, frequently go back and forth between being each other’s biggest fan, and bickering like petty children, and back again. Halloween is no different, except that they switch back and forth between solidarity and fighting within minutes now. They had started out the evening arguing about whose costume was cooler (Artemis can’t believe, sometimes, that her brother is such a dork; for his part, he can’t understand why she’d voluntarily go out in public wearing something as gauche as a sexy cowgirl outfit. Like Halloween is so well-known for being a classy event!)But now, after twenty minutes or so in the haunted house, they’ve been separated from the cuties they’d brought with them*** and are stuck with each other. They fight whenever Artemis makes fun of Apollo for jumping like an idiot baby literally every time one of Hermes’ costumed spooks jumps out at them; then said spooks cover them both in silly string, or fills the room with something that reeks, and then the twins are united again in cursing Hermes bitterly.“I’ll kick his stupid ass into Tartarus; see how funny he thinks he is then,” Apollo grumbles, repeating the same threat he’s made against the messenger god since they day they first met.“I’m gonna team up with Ares and make his life hell during our sparring sessions. You know he’s putting Helmet Head through the wringer.”“We should volunteer him to do paperwork with Hades next Halloween. Hit him where it really hurts.”“Poor Hermes. And here he went to so much trouble to entertain you!”This is spoken in a low, spooky woman’s voice. The twins both whip around as one to look; Artemis pulls out her fake six-shooter on reflex.A witch levitates in the shadows a few yards away, head lolling to the side as she regards them. She looks so spooky as to almost be cartoonish: face painted deathly green; grin stretched too-wide; pointy hat; ragged black robes.She cackles and starts after them. And, okay, the unnatural way she drags through the air, arms outstretched, feet never touching the ground – it’s a little creepy. But Artemis is tough, and not so easily scared by some goofy fake witch. It’s Apollo who yells and shoves them both forward, down the hall, towards a door –A door that they never reach. A rug, just before that door, gives way – a trapdoor on the floor. They both fall through with a startled yell, landing hard on a surface in an entirely different environment. Artemis hits warm water and splutters upright. It’s about waist deep. Apollo’s landed in a pile of… something, nearby, on a ledge. Artemis looks around; it’s a tunnel, for sure, warm, and with a ledge that appears to have bones piled here and there – a catacombs? The ledge lies next to a stream of running water…She gasps. “Oh shit – this better not be a fucking sewer!”Apollo has gone rigid with horror. “What am I sitting in?!”Artemis grips the ledge in a hurry to haul herself out of the questionable liquid, and shrieks when she feels something organic and moving beneath her fingers. “Fuck!! Are these bugs??”Down the tunnel of the catacombs/sewer, there’s squeaking, as of bats or rats. Apollo is on his feet and hits his head on a low ceiling. Something rains down on them and they both groan in disgust.“Fucking Hermes!!” ------------------*** For anyone curious: Selene declined to participate because she, alone, listened to that quiet nagging doubt in the back of her head. She got out of it by claiming someone needed to make sure the moon was sufficiently ambient for the occasion. She’ll definitely be at the party afterwards though.
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“Fucking Hermes!!”Persephone takes the recorded clip and saves it; then sends it to Hermes, adding “for ur ringtone collection!”She leaves the twins yelling about the gross filthy tunnel and smiles contentedly to herself as she moves to her next location. Every year that they decide to do this is so much fun! Between Hermes’ mastery of pranking and her own artistic macabre style, they have a winning team going for the Halloween occasion. These gods do not see it coming.Of course, spending her time on this means she’ll have to work quite hard to get caught up after the night of the thinnest veil between Life and Death; but come on – fun! Worth it!She checks her Living Map and quickly texts Hermes again. “Looks like grandpa’s headed for his room, hurry and let’s watch!!”He replies immediately: “!!!!!!! 8D OK gonna make sure RBF is okay first then I’ll be right there”She rolls her eyes, though he can’t see it. “U have some nerve flaunting that lil scam in front of me & Hades :P he was pretty pissed when he found out”“ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ““& now doting on him like a mama hen”“he is smol and sad :C ““yeah I know. Just giving u shit. I won’t do anything TOO awful if I see him :) hurry up tho!!!”
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Icarus is in some kind of cave – rocky and bare. It’s barely lit by some kind of glowing fungus or something. It’s sufficient enough to see the height of the cave, anyway, and that the ground inclines downward. For lack of any better guidance, he follows the cave’s tunnel downward.He’s a little less freaked out than he might have thought by the idea that he clearly went through some sort of portal. The sun gods have teleported him before, so he’s familiar with the sensation, plus it only makes it more obvious that none of this is real, and it’s all orchestrated by Hermes, probably.At first, Icarus can only hear his own footfalls and the quiet dripping of water out of sight. After a few moments, though, he thinks he hears – and then is certain he hears – a calm man’s voice with an English accent, talking about – horses?? “The rack and slow gait of the American Saddle horse, running walk of the Tennessee Walking horse, and the pace of the Standardbred may be natural or acquired. A natural gait is one that is performed by natural impulse and without training. The acquired gaits are the result of specific training…”What the hell? It gets a little louder as he moves through the tunnel. After a few more moments of walking, he reaches a wide, roughly circular space, ringed with torches. There’s a deep, dark hole in the ground – a pretty enormous hole. He hears something inside the hole, and nervously tries to go around it.He has no idea what to expect here – a dark cave, a deep hole, and a voice talking about horses…? He steps to the far side, where he thought he saw another tunnel entrance. He’s so busy keeping his eye on that hole that he doesn’t notice the man standing at the tunnel entrance until he’s almost walked directly into him. Icarus gasps in alarm and stumbles backwards, away from him.The man looks at him strangely, then looks past him and says something: “Σταμάτα! Πήγαινε πίσω.” Icarus whips around to look, and imagines that maybe he sees something at the dark hole – but if he does, it’s gone already. He looks back at the guy nervously. He’s tall, with dark skin and – well, it’s dim in the cave, but his hair looks green. He’s in costume, sort of – a black t-shirt, pirate bandana, eyepatch, and a fish skeleton necklace. He’s still giving Icarus a weird look, like he’s waiting to see what Icarus does; but when Icarus doesn’t do anything, the guy finally speaks – in English, this time.“Ahh, I must apologize – you weren’t meant to be in this room…”“I’m… sorry?” Icarus ventures uncertainly. “I hope I’m not trespassing? I mean, I didn’t mean to come here, I just got chased through a portal, and – um, if you can show me how to get out, I’ll get out of your way, I’m sorry.”The guy’s face changes a little at that; it’s still a little unreadable to Icarus but a bit of tension seems to have broken. He gestures for Icarus to follow him. “It isn’t trespassing. I only mean I didn’t expect you – because, the room’s still, uh – under repairs. Not ready for visitors.”“Oh! I see,” Icarus smiles awkwardly. “Well, I hope I’m not interrupting you at anything.”The guy half-smiles then, gesturing as they reach a slightly more furnished-looking part of the cave – it has a couch, a refrigerator, and a television set paused on – aha. A documentary about horses.“As you see, you have not interrupted anything crucial.”“You like horses?” Icarus says, apparently just to be even more awkward.The guy’s half-smile widens and he looks almost friendly. “Yes, indeed. I love horses very much.” He shows Icarus to a door. “This portal will lead you back to the rest of the house. If you are looking for him, I think Helios is through here – or at any rate, I definitely heard Helios yelling a moment ago.”“Oh, thanks! Yeah, I’d like to find him if I can, and Apollo. Thanks so much. Uh – Happy Halloween!” Icarus does a stupid half-wave and hurries through the door.Behind him, he hears the guy say, “Yes, Happy Halloween, Icarus.” It’s a little startling to hear that the guy knows his name, but not that weird. After all, it seems like nearly all the gods know who he is. Some better than others.
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The man returns back to his couch, looking for the remote. Behind him, in the room with the pit, he hears an irritated-sounding pit. Poseidon speaks, in Greek: “This one was not for you, darling. You must be patient.”“Way to kill the ambiance,” complains another voice, mildly chiding.Hermes, in full chainsaw killer regalia, is looking at the battered couch and horse documentary in amusement.“You should be glad for my horses and fridge killing the mood. The boy suspected nothing.”“I do appreciate it,” Hermes says, seriously. “I know you didn’t have to.”Poseidon shrugs, and makes a gesture towards the wall, where a crosspoint hanging reappears from where he’d concealed it: the full text of “Full Fathoms Five;” a spooky decoration given to him by Athena recently. They get along better these days.“It wasn’t any trouble on my part to usher him through with no further trauma. And in any case, I used up all the ambiance on Ares when he came here. That was the highlight of my evening; anyone else can go hang.”“Yeah, I heard about Ares’ little misadventure. Persephone and I were too polite to watch, of course, but I imagine Aphrodite will enjoy that little show.”
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Oh, fuck, Ares is SO PISSED OFF. He’s gonna murder the fuck out of that little shit and he’d be doing the entire cosmos a fucking favor.He trips over another headstone and curses. He’s in some huge, warehouse-like room – possibly. It’s either a huge room, very convincingly decorated and lighted to look like a cemetery at night, or he could have been teleported to an actual graveyard out in the countryside somewhere****. If so, Selene’s in on this scam somehow, because he can’t tell if the full moon hiding behind the clouds is her or if it’s another convincing fake. Hermes and Persephone had basically kidnapped him earlier and dragged him into this House of Misery, and he’s been running around through the worst of the rooms ever since. The two assholes keep chasing after him and teasing him every time he falls for one of their stupid cheap jump scares. And there are so. Fucking. Many.He’s grabbed door handles that turned out to be fake – they grabbed his hand and dragged him into the fake-door surface up to the shoulder while something gross and slimy licked his hand until he managed to detach himself with a round of swearing.He’s spent a long time trying to navigate his way through some kind of maze in total pitch darkness, and might still be wandering around in there now, if it hadn’t turned out that the maze was located in Thanatos’ home and his old pal had finally taken pity on him and shown him out.He’s spent twenty very… busy minutes, in Poseidon’s cave, which took him totally by surprise, particularly when the damn Kraken came out and caught him up in its tentacles. Poseidon is a fucking dirty old man!! He better not have showed Aphrodite like he threatened to!He’s been chased by giant spiders, chased by zombies, turned into a zombie, and had a spell cast on him by Hecate that made him sing a song about how much he admired Queen Persephone and had a huge crush on Lord Hermes. Which wasn’t scary necessarily, but it was deeply annoying and embarrassing, and it was six stanzas long, and they both had laughed and Hermes had swooped in for a sneak-attack kiss afterwards, which Ares obviously hates. He’s going to find that fucking punk and wring his neck. He’ll punch him into the goddamn sun – then let those two assholes take a turn beating him up, because he’s pretty sure he’s heard their stupid voices yelling in rage too around this house of hell.Ares trips over still another headstone and this time faceplants hard, into very real-feeling dirt. His curses and threats against Hermes ring through the silence around the cemetery.He’ll direct all of his rage at Hermes – not Persephone, of course. Ares isn’t an idiot. ----------**** It is outdoors, but it’s still fake. Hermes and Persephone combined the spookiest elements from several graveyards around the world, including Highgate in London; the Glasgow Necropolis; several in New Orleans; and others. Ares didn’t really notice all the details and wouldn’t have been impressed anyway.
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His favorite idiot is floundering around in the dark, growling threats at the world in general and Hermes in particular. As well as threatening the various bats that skitter around his head, and at the vines and roots that tangle his ankles, and at the headstones of the poor departed souls who can’t really help being there in his way. Ares is wearing a werewolf costume, which involves ragged clothing and ruffled fur, so it’s difficult to say how disheveled he’s become since entering the haunted house, but the expression on his face tells a lot.Hermes does love flustering Ares: the god can always be counted on to give a good reaction, and stirs up his inner scaredy cat in hilarious ways. Plus, Hermes figured out a long time ago that Ares secretly loves these kinds of events. Contained survivalism allows him to direct his natural aggression and fighting instincts into something safe and socially acceptable. Unfortunately, one of the downsides to doing this in a group setting, is that the group tends to drain on him as a god of courage. Artemis, Apollo, Helios… even Icarus and little Siproites, they all are subconsciously calling on Ares’ store of courage and strength to push forward in the face of scary challenges, even though Ares needs it himself here. Hermes can see he’s struggling a little bit now. His frustration is beginning to get an edge.So Hermes decides to give Ares a break from the adrenaline. He’s got to redirect the guy anyway; he’s been headed in the direction of the portal that leads to the Wall Room – a room where the walls begin to close in on the victim, as though they’ll be crushed. Of course, it’s rigged so that the floor gives way and drops them to safety, but Hermes doesn’t want Ares anywhere near it. The Aloadai and their jar might feel like a long time ago to the rest of the gods… but the effect on Ares was permanent.He waits for Ares to pick himself up from the faceplant, smiles when he hears his own name being cursed for the millionth time tonight, and then swoops in behind Ares.“Having trouble? You’re supposed to go around the gravestones – not over them,” he says, reaching out and tickling Ares’ ribs. Ares whips around and throws a solid punch, that strikes only air as Hermes dodges it.“You’ll need another couple thousand years to land a punch on me,” Hermes says smugly, before latching himself onto Ares’ back, koala-style, hugging him tightly. “You horrible little fucking shit!” Ares snarls, but already losing steam and there’s a clear note of relief in his voice, though he hides it well. Hermes hugs him tighter, feeling a bit of tension leaving his frame.“I love you too, sweetie,” he coos, planting a kiss on Ares’ cheek and watching the blush spread even in the dark. Ares grumbles his usual (totally fake) protests and tries to assume a manly stance. Hermes smiles and climbs up to sit on Ares shoulders. He pats Ares’ face and points in a direction; Ares goes, unquestioningly, in spite of all the abuse he’s suffered at Hermes’ hands tonight. The total trust makes Hermes almost feel a tiny bit guilty for the nonstop scary pranks, but he’ll make it up to him later. “We’re thinking of starting to wrap up. The others are getting worn out. Well, Icarus and Sippy are anyway. The Wonder Twins are fine but unfortunately me and Persephone guessed wrong and sent them into the gross tunnel of bugs and slime too early, and now they’re both pitching a fit.”Ares, who had waded through that same gross tunnel about ten minutes before the twins and hadn’t been fazed, snorts in amusement. “Mighta guess Sunshine couldn’t take it, but I thought Arty was tougher than that.”“She thinks it’s incredibly disgusting, but she usually keeps a lid on it better. When she’s with Apoop, she lets her guard down a little more,” Hermes informs him cheerfully.“Good to know.”“So, anyway. We’re gonna get people into teams again and kinda prod everyone towards the exit.”“Teams?” Ares had been dragged in alone, of course, because he’s a lot harder to scare with other people around. If he’d been with the sun gods, there would have been a lot of manly posturing preventing his inner cowardice from shining through; if he’d been with Arty, there’d be too much friendly horsing around; if he’d been with the nymph or the mortal, his protective side would have come out too strong.That protective side is what Hermes needs right now, though. “Yup – well, like I said, the Wonder Twins are wading through slime together, and Icarus is about to free Helios from prison.”Ares makes a noise almost like laughter. “Persephone caught him?”“Yup – he fell apart in the demon frog room!”“I fucking knew he would!! I know you fucks have hidden cameras around here, you better let me see that shit – ” “Hephaestus has a highlight reel going that we’ll play at the party afterwards,” Hermes tells him. He lifts off Ares’ shoulders.“Party?”“Yeah. Hestia’s been setting up. Nice fireplace, seasonal snacks, spiked cider… so you better hurry!”He points down the far end of the cemetery, where there’s a commotion. “And go save your partner!”
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Siproites stares, as the girl rises out of the well. Half her body is bone white; the other half is midnight black. She appears to be dressed with a Gothic Lolita look, which is… actually really cute, and Siproites was briefly distracted from her fear, in order to squeal mentally over the cute little buttons and ruffles on the dress the Girl in the Well is wearing. She’s opening her mouth to say something about how she was going to wear something Gothic Loli-style tonight but went with a cute panda look instead, but then the girl smiles and whispers something into the air.The ground erupts with ghosts.Siproites shrieks and stumbles away, as the ghosts all open their mouths, or at any rate a hole gapes in the blank white faces and the most horrible noise pours out. It’s kind of a moan and kind of a scream and it’s loud and terrifying and Siproites freezes –“Sippy!!”Her name is shouted from the other side and suddenly – Lord Ares is there! He charges directly through and past the ghosts, who look nonplussed and irritated, and without even breaking his stride he scoops her up and into his arms and continues tearing through the graveyard, straight towards a mausoleum. The ghosts are all starting to drift after them, still shrieking, and it’s all very frightening, but at the same time Siproites is trying very hard to keep her skirt at least somewhat modestly in place, and trying not to get too in a flap over the fact that the handsome and gallant Lord Ares appeared from nowhere to rescue her.“What were you doing, dummy?? Just standing there staring at her!”Lord Ares’ manners are, well, rough; but Siproites has been living with Lady Artemis for a very long time and such things have long ceased to faze her. “Her dress was very cute! It made me think maybe she wasn’t one of the- the Scaries, but maybe another person running around!”Lord Ares adjusts his grip on her – in this new position, her modesty is saved, which is just one of the small gestures of kindness Siproites would expect from such a gentleman. He runs up to the mausoleum, which has two doors, firmly shut. “Yeah, that’s fair. But that was Melinoe. I guess you wouldn’t have seen her before.”“Queen Persephone’s daughter!”“And King Hades, yeah,”Lord Ares quirks his lips in amusement before giving the mausoleum doors a solid kick. The heavy stone doors fly open, breaking the hinges and they fall to the ground, cracking into several pieces. The inside of the mausoleum is oppressively dark, and a cold, foul-smelling air drifts out of it. Lord Ares steps over the rubble and puts his hand out to her. Siproites takes it, barely noticing the train of ghosts coming after them. “Cute costume, by the way,” Lord Ares says, distractedly, peering through the murk.Siproites beams. “Ohh, thank you! I made it myself!” She’d asked Lady Athena to help her with the cap with the pom-poms on it to represent the ears, and had been quite proud of her efforts. “You look very dashing in your costume, too!”Lord Ares does look very cool in his wolf costume, or at least Siproites thinks so. She's a big fan of Lord Ares. He was one of the first people outside of Lady Artemis’ Grove to support her new place in the world as a woman, all those years ago. And he’s so funny, and chivalrous and handsome besides! He’s one of very, very few men that Lady Artemis allows into her Grove, so you couldn’t ask for a better recommendation of character.“Come on, idiot!” Lord Ares breaks her reverie and hurries her down the steps of the mausoleum, into the darkness, as the ghosts mill about the broken doors and shriek at them. He takes her hand and guides her through, carefully. “You can be such a little ditz,” he says, but she knows his tones by now and he sounds both annoyed and fond, which is what you have to hope for from him.They go deeper into the tunnel and the wailing behind them fades until there’s nothing but silence. It’s creepy, but the God of Courage is here with her, so Siproites contents herself to follow behind him as he mutters his usual curses and threats against Lord Hermes and leads them into the darkness.
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The Titan of the Sun is wearing a sexy cat costume and sulking from where he sits, trapped in a cage suspended over the ground. He could break out, of course, but Persephone had told him he’d better not; he’d better sit put and wait till someone came to rescue his ass. She drew a finger over her throat to show him she was serious. Helios rolled his eyes but didn’t argue; he was absolutely on her turf here and no one defied Persephone.She’d caught him when he’d lost his cool in the stupidest room in this stupid house, which was a large swampy room with an enormous stupid frog with demonic eyes that breathed some kind of poison gas and roared like the Void of Chaos. Whatever, it was lame and dumb, but he’d had a brief moment where he overreacted and yelled for someone to get him out of the room so she’d gone in and dragged him out and put him in this cage.To ease the indignity a little, she’d given him some tea from Hestia and put on some Halloween cartoons for him to watch while he waited. Helios had told her she’d better not let fucking Apollo see him like this; and she’d assured him that Apollo was bearing his own burdens at the moment.Really, it’s incredible how much she and Hermes like to see people suffer. If they’d brought Eros in on this mess then the trifecta of Fucking With People would have been complete and the entire ordered world could be brought to an end. The room where he’s sitting and watching Charlie Brown is otherwise decorated like a witch’s hut. Spooky shadows, cobwebbed corners, suspicious vials of liquid, a bubbling cauldron… and a black cat sitting on a shelf giving him a side-eye. Helios flips it off. He’s definitely pulling off the sexy cat look better than this feline shithead.“Helios – you’re – in a cage.”Helios looks over at the voice; it’s Icarus!! Out of all the people in the group who he’d want to see him in this state… well, Helios would rather that none of them did, but at least the kid won’t be an unbearable asshole about it forever.“Mop-Head! Hurry up and get me down! The key’s over there in that human skull.”Icarus raises his eyebrows briefly at him and goes over to the skull. “Soooooo…. Why are you in a cage?”“That asshole Hermes. And Persephone the ringleader.”“Well, yeah I figured that much, but – actually, it doesn’t matter. None of my business.”“Yeah, good call. Hurry up, Mop-Head, I saw Erichtho go through earlier and believe me that we don’t want to be here if she comes back. Ugh. Give me a witch like Circe or Medea any day.”“Circe and Medea I know, but… Erichtho?” Icarus asks, finding a keyring in the skull and bringing it over to try them on the lock to Helios’ cage.“Crazy, hideous, corpse-eating necromancer witch. Generally lives in cemeteries but I guess they hauled her out for the occasion.”“Oh… really?” Icarus shakes his head, finding a key that turns neatly in the lock. “Well, luckily I have you to protect me again.”Coming from anyone else, this would sound snarky, given that Helios is being released from a cage and was clearly not protecting anyone, and he gets pretty easily spooked regardless of anything else. But Icarus gives him that small smile and takes his hand and Helios pulls him into an enormous hug. “You got it, Kiddo! You got me looking out for you from here on!”Not two minutes later, he’s latched onto Icarus’ back, riding him piggy-back style while burying his face in Icarus’ neck.“I really wish you could walk,” Icarus complains, but with no heat. “You look like one of those zombies on Ocarina of Time.”“I don’t know what that means, but you need to shuffle along a little faster,” Helios snaps.They’re in another room of illusion – this one transforms them so that they take on the appearance of zombies, including the shuffling gait. This was first startling, then a little amusing. They laughed at each other’s dull, drooling expressions, the slumped posture, the random bones that appeared to poke out of green skin but felt only like air if you tried to touch them.But then they started to proceed through the room, or series of rooms. The rooms were large, and made mazelike by the placement of large piles of boxes or piled furniture, and ‘walls’ of chain link fencing. Bloodstained handprints occasionally decorate flat surface areas. They could hear eerie groans somewhere hidden in the rooms, and out of the corner of their eyes, they could just barely see the shape of something else shuffling along. Then, occasionally, they’ll turn a corner and see two zombies immediately in front of them – a mirror, showing only themselves, but the effect is alarming and keeps catching them off guard.It’s unsettling and creepy. It ain’t Helios’ bag. He normally floats above the world and all its creepy problems; he’s not used to having to – to deal with all this spooky stuff. It was always happening down there, not in his face!So he latches onto Icarus, who’s probably much better familiar with zombies and knows just what to do, and they shuffle through the zombie maze that way, slowly and with a great deal of complaining.They get to a room that’s larger than the others, and it’s mostly empty, save for a h. uge ‘ambient’ puddle of blood on the floor. Oh, and a figure in rags, standing off to the side and facing the wall, swaying slightly in place but otherwise still and silent. Just past this figure is an ornate door, different from all the rest. Certainly the portal out.Icarus tightens his grip on Helios’ legs, and Helios has enough presence of mind to file that sensory memory away for consideration later. They step cautiously into the room. On their other side, set off by nothing at all, something (a stick? A bone?) clatters to the floor, making a noise that echoes in the silence. The figure turns around, revealing a sunken face with gray and rotting skin, and teeth visible in the absence of lips. “Oh! Uh. Are you, are you, another visitor? Like us? Um, we’re looking for a way out of the room, maybe that door you’re standing by? Maybe we could check it out?” Icarus, the sweet dummy, is doing that thing he does when he’s nervous, which is to make awkward small talk at a babbling pace. Charms the hell out of the gods… but Helios recognizes this figure. She’d been a demigoddess once, but now she was little more than a monster, and no amount of charm, threats, or pleas will reach her. “Fuck. Come on, Icarus, that’s Erichtho!!” In the back of his mind, Helios knows that Hecate must be nearby, keeping an eye on her monstrous servant. But Helios also knows that gods and witches alike have misjudged the power of monsters, and the fate of Erichtho’s victims is gruesome and terrible.He reaches down and grabs the front of Icarus’ shirt while dropping to his own feet, using the motion to flip Icarus over onto his own shoulder, and hauls. Well, as fast as he’s able with the damn zombie curse still slowing his legs. Erichtho opens her mouth in a horrifying, unearthly shriek, and starts after them. She’s moving much faster than she should be able to.He race-shambles as fast as he can. Icarus twists around to try to see, and gasps. “Shit!! Helios, shuffle faster! She’s like ten feet away!!” “Fuck!!” Helios is going to pummel Hermes! And Persephone too, he’s not scared of her! And Hecate, for good measure! But Hermes most of all, that little shit.They reach the door and Helios can smell her, the reek of corpse and wrongness, and fuck but Helios wishes he could just go full sun and burn the shit out of this whole place but he’d burn Icarus too if he did…He yanks the door handle open just as the zombie witch grabs Icarus and by his long, trailing robe and pulls him towards her. Icarus panics and starts thrashing around. “Shit! Helios!!”Helios wheels around and kicks hard at the witch, whose mouth has widened far more than should be naturally possible. He does break her grip on Icarus, but knocks them both off-balance. Erichtho howls at them as Helios and Icarus stumble backwards through the door, where they immediately fall down into darkness…..
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Apollo smacks his head yet again into the low ceiling of this Nyx-cursed darkness – he and Artemis have been wandering for a while in a maze where no light can be seen. It has to be Nyx, because even Apollo can’t summon any light here. The twists and turns are easy enough to miss that the twins have been forced to hold hands in order not to lose each other in the maze.Artemis hears the clunk of his forehead hitting a low part of the ceiling and laughs. “S’what you get for being so tall, 'Pollo!” she teases, just before tripping over some unseen obstacle and falling heavily to the ground, hand yanked out of Apollo’s grip. Apollo’s delighted schadenfreude overrules his aloofness and he cackles at her. “It seems hubris isn’t only a hazard for mortals, Big Sister!”“Oh, shut up,” she gripes sourly. “Gimme your hand, jerkass.”They both reach out and take a hand again. There’s a long pause.“Are you…?” Artemis sounds confused. There’s some rustling noises. “You have boobs?!”“Eeek, L-Lady Artemis! Is that – you?!”“Sippy?? What are you doing sneaking around?!”“Ahh, we didn’t expect to find you here! We just got teleported here after the cemetery!”“That’s lucky! Oh, and… please excuse my grope, heh.”Apollo interrupts whatever the nymph is about to say. “Wait – then whose hand - ??”“Sunshine?!”He and Ares rip their hands away from each other as though touching fire.“Ah, Ares! Good to see you survived another Halloween with Hermes!” Artemis sounds happy, at least.“It isn’t over yet,” the oaf mutters. Correctly.As though in direct response to this observation, there’s a popping noise and the distinct sensation of a portal opening, and then there’s a person in Apollo’s arms, yelling and thrashing around. “Shit! The zombie got me!!”“Hold on, I’ll get it!”And then Apollo receives a punch in the stomach.“Ow, fuck! Damn it, Helios!”The person in his arms stills. “Wait, what? Apollo?”A gasp from nearby. “Apollo? I punched you?? I’m sorry! I’m really sorry, it was instinct, I swear!”Apollo’s impressed, actually – he had assumed the punch had come from Helios. Apparently, adrenaline gives Icarus quite a boost of strength. Apollo drops Helios unceremoniously to the ground, ignoring the curse that results and reaches out to take Icarus’ hands. “No matter, Icarus, I’m simply glad to see you’re all right. It sounds like you had a rough night too.”Icarus laughs a little breathlessly. “Yeah, we sure did. And you? What about Artemis and Sippy?”“We’re here, kiddo.”“Yes, it was pretty scary! I hope I can compliment Queen Persephone on her efforts this year!”“They outdid themselves this year, to be sure. I hope to ‘compliment’ Hermes, too,” Apollo says drily. “You may have a chance to pay them your compliments – if you survive your final trial,” comes an unfamiliar and booming voice.There’s light, suddenly, and it illuminates a nightmare that Ares hasn’t seen in thousands of years.Typhon, the great and terrible monster birthed by Gaia and Tartarus in revenge for the gods’ victory over the giants, stands before them. A massive snake’s coils merge hellishly to a man’s torso, and is topped by one hundred snake heads, each spitting fire. A roaring shakes the ground and fills their ears with cacophony.The last time Apollo saw this nightmarish creature was thousands of years ago, and he’d fled from the sight of it. Turned into a bird and flew to Egypt, along with Artemis and every other god…. Except Athena. And even Athena could do no more in the face of the beast but to shout encouragement to Zeus, who fought Typhon alone and barely triumphed in the cataclysmic battle.Apollo knows – knows – that it’s impossible for Typhon to be here. He’s been destroyed for millennia, and buried beneath the earth. And yet, the reaction of terror is visceral and he finds himself holding Artemis’ hand again, as they had so long ago when they were still barely more than children facing it. Then he sees Ares, looking haggard and just as terrified as the rest, but he’s shouting something at Siproites and shoving her at Icarus. The nymph clutches at Icarus and starts to run away with him as Ares shimmers, and Apollo realizes at the moment that he’s shifting to his true form. He’s going to try to fight Typhon.It’s death. Typhon is death. And yet, Apollo realizes that the only imaginable way that Icarus will survive this is if these gods confront Typhon alone while Siproites runs for help. So he takes Helios’ hand on one side, and Artemis’ on the other, and they stand, grimly, in their ridiculous Halloween costumes, facing Typhon.…Typhon, who speaks again, in a considerably less booming voice.“All right, all right. Well. You lot really are worked up. Compliments to Persephone indeed.”The gods, all states of half-transformation, freeze and stare, blinking. Typhon raises his hands made of swords and snakes and makes a ‘calm down’ gesture with them. “Nymph. You may return with the mortal – Olympians, return to your human forms already.”They do so, bewildered. It’s Apollo who finally ventures a guess: the voice sounds familiar now…“Uncle…? King Hades?”And suddenly, the most terrifying scourge of the entire history of the earth is just their uncle’s tall, sharply-angled form, wearing a costume that’s revealed to be a ridiculously fake-looking padded snake tail, and a lot of papier-mâche snake heads attached to a headdress. Hades, Lord of the Underworld and eldest brother of the first-generation Olympians, is standing there, looking ridiculous and embarrassed.He waves his hands vaguely, in response to their unasked questions. “You know how it is when Persephone insists.”“All too well,” they mutter in reply.“I thought it was a bit tasteless myself, but Persephone and Hermes insisted that was the point. At least the illusion worked,” he says, removing the headdress and tail hastily and tossing them aside. “My apologies for any revisited trauma. Anyway, I was your last trial… now that’s over with, you can go through here. My sister Hestia has festivities prepared.”Another door appears, opening to reveal those two fucking monsters, waving cheerfully at them all, while Hestia busies herself in the background with something that smells spectacular.Apollo, Helios, Artemis, and Ares all stare for a moment through narrowed eyes. Apollo is certain they’re all thinking of the same thing: revenge. What form it will take, and how quickly they may take it. But Siproites bursts ahead, catching Artemis’ hand and calling for Lord Ares to hurry up; and Icarus comes up to take Apollo’s and Helios’ hand as well. Icarus looks ruffled and wired up and excited and alive. He’s been thrilled by all the torment – another human thing that Apollo will never understand.But at the moment, he doesn’t care. Icarus had fun, apparently, and he seems happy and unharmed. Apollo finds that’s sufficient for him. He’s content to cuddle with him and Helios on the couch and eat some of Hestia’s finest.Hermes is still fucking toast later, though.