CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-TWO

Styx!, Part 1

At first, Sam could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing—as if the senses he’d been born with were suddenly gone and only the emptiness of the void existed around him. Within this darkness, he heard the familiar laughter of the old giant who hounded him even in dreams.

You will fail, little hero, whispered that malevolent voice. Pride will rise, and your world will fall.

Sam had heard that voice often enough that he no longer felt goosebumps rise on his skin these days, making it easy to shrug off the evil aura that stretched its bony fingers toward his mind.

Go away, Lord of Nerds, Sam growled. Wait… that’s an insult to my fellow nerds… It would be better to call you the Lord of the Black Turds.

He heard an angry roar reverberate all around him, but this too was quick to disappear. Replaced by a cold whisper that managed to make the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end this time because it wasn’t the evil giant’s usual taunt but something else that sounded a lot like death whispering in his ears.

So, you dare to enter my domain, young Heraclid… whispered that cold voice. …perhaps you will prove useful to me. Only then will I allow you to survive…

Who are you? Sam called.

There was no response though, and the silence that followed unnerved the semiconscious hero.

It felt like hours passed with Sam drifting in and out of consciousness, but eventually, his eyes opened and he found himself in a place that was far from anything he’d ever seen before.

“Where…”

His eyes drifted upward and he saw only gloom. Dark storm clouds rolled across an inky black sky. Forks of red lightning streaked across the clouds, lighting the dark scenery in shades of crimson.

“Holy Z…” Sam stopped himself from uttering the name of Thunder’s patron as he assumed he’d just landed in Hades’ domain. “Hades’ balls… am I really in the underworld?”

His gaze snapped toward a horizon that was bleak like the sky and lined in orange hues as if a great fire was slowly rising in the distance. Around him, patches of dark grass rose between blackened earth and outcroppings of jagged rock.

“Where have I…”

He couldn’t help feeling like he’d seen a sight like this before. They even smelled similar because the scent of fish and rotting garbage filled his nostrils.

“Oh,” Sam’s eyes widened slightly, “this feels just like the bottom of the San Francisco Bay…”

He didn’t know why the stench of pollution permeated the air though as there was no sign of trash wherever he looked. Still, Sam couldn’t shake the idea that these two places felt similar; an endless landscape that reeked of bad juju with unseen dangers around every corner.

“Chiron?”

No response.

“Seriously?”

Not hearing his master’s voice worried Sam as he didn’t know if he could survive in the underworld without the centaur’s help.

“Triple-A… are you there?”

Yes.

Sam let out a sigh of relief. At least the system was working properly. “What happened to Chiron?”

Signal interference… something is blocking the creator’s transmission.

That was a problem Sam needed to solve quickly if he wanted Chiron’s help later on.

“Are you okay?”

The signal interference will limit certain functions.

“What sort of functions?”

GPS Data, map tracking, quest tracking, and other similar functions.

“So… you can’t find Thunder or the Argo VII?”

Not at the moment.

“What about Onus?”

…Currently unable to find the location of your hammer.

Sam sighed. It was just his luck to lose the tools he needed most while he was lost in the underworld.

“The Argo VII’s upgrades should make it easier to track… can’t you find its signal?”

Not unless the bus is close enough that the signal disruption won’t affect the tracking system.

“Damn… I was hoping they’d be right behind me after I jumped into Medea’s portal.”

The time it took for them to enter the portal after you would have been enough of a delay to ensure your arrival locations would be different.

“Does that mean I’m closer to where Thunder landed?”

Perhaps… It is recommended that you discover the source of the disruption and eliminate it for normal functions to resume.

“Complications one after another… what else is new…” Sam picked himself off the floor, and that’s when he heard the sound of running water. He searched his surroundings but couldn’t find any source of water nearby though. “Any clue where that’s coming from, Triple-A?”

On your left.

Despite not seeing it beforehand, it barely took Sam a minute to reach the side of a winding river that glowed bright and cold like the blue of steel. It wound across the craggy earth and stretched out for miles, reaching past the red-tinged horizon.

ALERT! You have arrived at the eastern bank of the river Styx. Stay away from its fumes to avoid being cursed with intense [Hatred].

Sam had heard all the stories of the first river of Hades, the same body of water that encircled the Underworld seven times and separated it from the land of the living.

“This is the Styx…?”

On one Saturday sermon many years ago, Sam listened to a temple’s priestess tell the tale of Cerberus, a monstrous hound with three heads, who waited on the further side of the Styx by Charon’s Station where the shades of the departed gathered for the crossing.

“Um, Triple-A… which side is Charon’s Station?”

Unable to determine the location of any underworld landmarks while the map feature isn’t functioning correctly.

“Well, St—”

Sam had to stop himself from cursing using the river’s name as he was reminded of another legend about the Styx. The scholar, Homer, once named the Styx ‘The Dread River of Oath’ for any oath sworn on the underworld’s first river was sacred to gods, men, and even giants.

“Falls oaths made in the name of the Styx receive primordial retribution from forces even older than the gods,” a priestess of Zeus had once claimed during a Saturday sermon as a reminder to certain politicians not to use the Styx’s name in vain during campaign promises, which many politicians seemed to be doing during election years.

While he remembered this interesting fact about the river, Sam began to notice something just beneath its water’s steel-blue surface.

“Is that… a teddy bear?”

A stuffed toy’s fluffy arm was indeed rising from the water’s surface while the rest of the old teddy bear was submerged in the river. Moreover, this toy was but one of many objects Sam could see being swept along by the river’s current. From grandfather clocks and rusted swords to worn-out t-shirts and broken pieces of armor—quite a few items were polluting the waters of the Styx.

These are the remnants of broken promises and lost dreams; the regrets of the dead who could not achieve their goals in life.

“Is this why the Styx is polluted by hatred?”

That is one theory. There are eighteen more. Would you like to view them now?

“Um, maybe when we’re not so busy…”

Very well. The system will add this to your to-read list for a later time.

“Thanks…”

At Triple-A’s suggestion, Sam began walking along the river bank with the Styx on his left side, which he hoped was taking him further away from Charon’s Station rather than toward it and the fearsome guardian that protected Hades.

“It would be just my luck running into Cerberus while I’m alone…”

An hour of walking along the river bank with only the refuse of broken promises keeping him company was strangely uneventful for Sam. He would get warnings from Triple-A that Regeneration was actively working to prevent him from being poisoned by the Styx’s noxious fumes, but that was about it. He wasn’t used to this quiet, and it made him more nervous.

“If Jack were here, he’d have said something that would jinx us by now…”

ALERT! The system is registering a presence nearby.

“What kind of presence?”

Unable to determine. Presence is exhibiting a weak life force signature.

“So, it might not be a dead person?” Sam frowned at the slope of the small hill that blocked his sight from what lay beyond it. “Is it one of my friends?”

Unable to determine… However, the life force signature seems to be human.

“Well, at least we know it’s not a horror.”

Caution is still recommended.

“Thanks for the heads up.”

Hoping it was Thunder or any one of his other friends, Sam began running up that hill. However, when he arrived at its peak, he was disappointed to discover that the presence Triple-A warned him about didn’t look like anyone he knew. The person sitting on an outcropping of blackened rock had the shape and size of a man, although they were covered in a heavy dark robe and hood that kept their features hidden.

“That robe looks too frayed to be one of ours…”

He walked cautiously down the slope with his gaze fixed on the hooded figure. They didn’t seem concerned about Sam’s approach though, because the pale hand sticking out of the robe maintained its hold on the wooden fishing rod positioned over the Styx.

When he drew close enough, Sam reached for the left node on his belt, but he was unable to summon Gram to his side because that’s when the hooded figure turned toward him. Within its depths, Sam saw a pair of cold, unfeeling eyes the color of dried amber staring back at him. It was a gaze that kept him rooted to the spot, his body frozen like a deer in front of headlights.