While Hel vegged out and enjoyed her long-awaited Netflix series, Scott stood outside of her door. Did he disturb her to apologize? Did he wait until they left in the morning? It would be a long road if she was legitimately angry with him and not just trying to make him squirm.

He truly wished that he could remember more about her. Sadly, most of the tidbits of memory that he could glean had already risen to the surface. More might come in time, but for now he was operating blind.

After a moment’s further consideration, he stepped away from her door and shook his head. “Let her cool off. I guess.”

Nothing else to do, he opted to wander around Castle Hel-Skull, or whatever she actually called the place. Hel’s castle? Hel’s house? Hel’s bachelorette love shack?

That last bit was somewhat interesting at least. Was she a bachelorette? Did Hel have a boyfriend? It was something to consider while he wandered the ancient stone halls of her castle.

Scott meandered aimlessly through the various halls of the castle never finding even so much as a random ancient warrior to talk to in his meanderings. It was like everyone had scattered the moment that business had ended for the day. Did Hel not spend time with her minions?

Eventually, he made his way into a small garden filled with black and white flowers. Beautiful in its own way, but there was something off. It was a statue carved from what appeared to be marble. The statue was of an incredibly well-proportioned angel. The towering figure stood with outstretched wings and was completely white save for a black onyx loin cloth, a black obsidian electric guitar, and one other things. The black and white scheme was broken by the appearance of some sort of blue rock carved to be in the shape of a spikey head of hair.

“This…” He was uncertain how he knew, but it seemed to be a statue of Noct-el. Why would Hel have a statue of him in her garden? It made little sense that she would act fussy when he arrived but had something like this lording over her black and white shrubbery. If anything, that shock of blue hair went against the color scheme with no apparent purpose other than simply for it to exist.

Scott placed his hand to the base of that statue then closed his eyes. Memories did not come to him, so he was uncertain if there was a specific reason for this statue to be here based on a past event. Could it be that Hel simply wanted a statue of him to be erected in her garden?

“Maybe she comes here now and then to yell at it, or something?” It was a noteworthy consideration as far as he was concerned.

He inspected the statue for a while then left that little garden in search of more places of interest. Sadly, the entire castle seemed to be a place of striking similarities. Room after room. Hallway after Hallway. The black and white motif continued without cessation. Everything ran together in his eyes. Now and then he would find a few modern items buried under an old rug or hidden in a crate, but for the most part the place had an ancient rundown appearance akin to a house left unmaintained for years.

“All these random dead guys, and no one dusts the place?” he asked lightly.

Truthfully, he could not say much in that regard. Until the events of the first dream, he had lived like a housebound slob most of the time as well. It never reached a point where he had to swim through soda cans and potato chip bags to leave a room, but he certainly did not keep his house up to a well-maintained standard. He justified his old lifestyle by way of anxiety, depression, and generally not giving a damn about it since he lived alone and did not entertain guests. Of course, there was no excuse for Hel. She had minions who could be bothered to dust once a week at least.

Scott eventually came to a stop outside of what appeared to be a home gym. It offered old-timey looking weight-lifting style apparatuses that looked like rocks and sticks tied together. Once he entered the room, however, he noted that the aesthetics shifted into a more modern equivalent. There was even a TV on the wall.

“Does anyone here even need to work out?” It was a legitimate question, as far as he was concerned. Did goddesses created at the beginning of time have to worry about cellulite? Did dead people have to worry about a beer gut?

Scott found a remote for the television and turned it on. “Netflix login required…”

He did not know Hel’s information, so he put in his own and chuckled when it worked. “Ah. Altered Carbon Season Two was released today…. Neat.”

Curious about the next season of that show, he hopped onto a treadmill and started it up while Netflix prepared to show him the good stuff. He watched the entire first episode, while he strolled down the never-ending walking path that was the treadmill.

He nodded his head then said, “So, they’ve replaced the actor from the first season with a new guy… Surprisingly, still good.”

Not long after that, however, he sighed and hung his head. “What am I even doing right now?”

It was bullshit. The waiting game was killing him. He needed to get back to Earth. Back to what amounted to his life. Yet, here he was in the underworld walking on a treadmill in an ancient modern castle while watching Netflix.

Scott made his way back to the throne room then decided to get a shower of his own. The hot water cascaded down his body, relieving his tension, and freeing his mind of his many doubts and general misgivings. He spoke to himself quietly after the never-ending hot water had washed over him for a time. “I can’t rush things. It’s my chance to do things right… There’s too much riding on me getting this done perfectly for me to blow it all by being impatient.”

Odin, if he chose to help, would be able to bind a new system architecture to his soul using his runic command and lore. Much like Scott’s Dark Judgment, Odin had been granted an exceptional skill for Rune Carving by Logos Remnant.

Scott needed a system in order to perform his duty, which was important to the part of him that was Noct-El. He needed to be free of the system forced onto Earth if he wished to do what he needed for Earth and the people in the dream.

Noct-El, his repaired original self. His entire goal was to defend the children as they slept. All the seraphim had that goal. They guarded the cradle as a last line of defense and acted as something of an immune-response system to deal with problems that arose within that cradle.

As the children slept, they dreamed. Those dreams were the lives they lived as mortals or even as their idea of what a god might be. Sometimes those dreams were fanciful and whimsical tales. Sometimes they were hellish nightmares. If all the dreamers agreed upon it, even the worst of nightmares were fine. However, what the so-called gods had chosen to do on his version of Earth was against that concept. The children who called that dream home were not given a real choice. Sure, there was a contract to sign but it was the equivalent to putting a gun to someone’s head then telling them that they would have to deal with the bullet on their own if they did not sign.

“The more I know, the less I understand,” he said quietly to himself.

He had a goal at least, and a reasonable one. Odin might require that he do something to get his help, as there needed to be a trade off for such things. Otherwise, he would be able to use that ability of his without restraint. Scott simply hoped that it would not take that long to accomplish whatever task was presented.

Scott snorted. “Who am I kidding… Between Hades’ warnings, and my own Swiss cheese memories, I already know what that crusty old fart is going to ask me to do.”