Chapter 29: Across The Styx

Auntie Tina?

Melinoe came barreling towards us and threw her arms around Athena. The goddess stood there like a marble sculpture, completely thrown by the reaction.

“I don't think I've ever seen you down here," Melinoe said. “Did you want to visit mom and dad? Why didn't you just go through the portal like normal? And you're looking so much more relaxed than usual, did something nice happen to you? Who are your companions?”

Athena still stood there starstruck and I decided to have mercy on her, though I was going to tease her relentlessly later on. The nickname, the reaction, all of it was amazing. “Easy there," I told the demigoddess. “You need to actually give her some time to answer.”

Melinoe let go of Athena and then looked over to us. “Wait a minute..." she said as she looked me up and down, then she walked towards us. “You're that mortal Tina keeps talking about, aren't you?”

I smirked. “Yeah, that would be me.”

She looked from me to Athena, then back to me, then back to Athena. “Curiouser and curiouser..." she muttered. “So, what brings you all here?”

“Can we go somewhere more private to discuss this?" Athena asked.

“Sure," Melinoe said, then led us to a small grove of trees nearby. “So?”

And so we told her. She was practically hyperventilating when we told her that Olympus had been overrun.

“What can I do?" she asked. “I have to tell mother and father about this.”

“We came here to get to the Elysian Fields," Athena told her. “We want to convince the Heroes to help us.”

“But the river..." Melinoe said, horrified.

“What's going on with it?" I asked. “Clearly nobody dares to cross, but what is wrong with it?”

“A spawn of Scylla is attacking ships that try to cross," she said. “We need to find some way to get rid of it but there just aren't enough capable fighters around.”

Of course. I'd already known this would happen. Amazing Luck stat my ass. “Well, how about we handle it?" I asked.

“Are you sure you can handle it?" she asked.

“They are the most capable fighters you are likely to find on this side of the Styx," Athena said. “And I need to get to your father's realm, so of course I would be helping.”

“So five adventurers, Auntie and me..." Melinoe muttered. “Yes, that should just about work.” She looked back up at us and asked: “Are you sure though? This isn't your fight.”

“It became our fight when this thing decided to show up between us and our destination," I said.

“Be honest, you would have helped even if it hadn't," Selene said.

I sighed. “Yeah, probably. Who gets to say they've fought and killed a spawn of Scylla?”

“I don't even know who Scylla is, let alone what her spawn looks like," Selene countered.

“Scylla is a giant sea monster," Melinoe said. “She is extremely dangerous but she can be reasoned with. Uncle Poseidon made a pact with her. The mortals give her offerings and in turn she spares them. Her spawn, on the other hand, are just mindlessly hostile, to the point that even Scylla herself doesn't have control over them.”

Athena added: “They're one of the types of monsters that make travel between our realm and the southern realm so dangerous in late spring.”

“And what are they?" Selene asked. “Giant fish? We already fought those.”

Melinoe shook her head. “They're abominations. They have tentacles like a kraken but their head is a cluster of five wolf heads. They're also enormous beings, each wolf head about four times as big as that of a natural wolf and the rest of the body is equally enormous, with dozens of tentacles.”

“So not big enough to sink a proper ship," I translated.

“Big enough to pluck every living being off the ship and eat them," she said. “And that's before we start talking about the smaller boats.”

I shook my head. “I didn't mean they were nothing to worry about, just that we have a fighting chance. I wouldn't want to fight anything that could sink our ship before we even notice we're under attack.”

“That's a good point," she admitted.

“Trust me, we've had a good bit of experience fighting enormous monsters lately," I said. “I'm not going to underestimate any of them but I would say we've gotten pretty good at it. Do these things have anything other than tentacles and fangs to worry about?”

“Storm magic," she said. “Storm magic is massively weaker in the underworld compared to the surface world but it can still send gales and maybe even a lightning strike at us. But I should be able to handle that.”

“Are you sure you want to come along?" I asked.

“Keeping the passage safe is my responsibility," she said. “And apparently I've been doing a terrible job of it lately. Don't worry though, I'll pull my weight.”

“Meli is Hecate's goddaughter," Athena said. “And she shares her talent for magic.”

“That's right," Melinoe said, preening under the compliment. “Trained by the goddess of magic herself. No mortal mage can keep up with me.”

“And she's modest, too," Athena said.

“Since when do you have a sense of humor?" Melinoe asked, then looked between Athena and me again as if trying to spot something.

“Don't brag too much, Meli," Athena said, then indicated Alisha and Yume. “These two aren't that much weaker than you.”

Melinoe raised an eyebrow and then walked towards our two mages. “Is that so?” She first approached Alisha and looked her up and down, getting way up in her personal space.

“You smell of fruits," Alisha said, licking her lip.

Melinoe jerked back, her cheeks turning red. But instead of dropping the matter she walked up to Yume and eyed her up and down. And then I noticed her eyes flicking back and forth as they followed the fox girl's swaying tails.

Suddenly there was a flash of light blue magic and Melinoe jumped a foot off the ground with a shriek. When she landed again she looked around and then blushed even harder. “That was uncalled for," she told Yume.

“Don't start a staring contest with a fox," Yume replied calmly.

“S-sorry," the demigoddess said.

“If you're quite finished," Athena said, “I would like to find Charon and ask him to get a ship ready for us.”

“Right," Melinoe said.

**

And so we went off to find Charon. He'd seemed a bit callous before but when we spoke to him I could tell he was mostly just overwrought. Ferrying the dead to their afterlife was his job and right now he couldn't do that job because of circumstances outside of his control. Which made me wonder...

“How did a spawn of Scylla make it all the way down here anyway?" I asked as Melinoe, Athena and Charon were discussing which vessel would be the most appropriate for what we had in mind. The question made all of them look up. Melinoe and Charon seemed a bit confused but Athena was already looking horrified, clearly already realizing what I was getting at. But for the benefit of the others I continued: “I mean, first of all they should be seawater creatures but the Styx is perfectly sweet drinking water. Second of all, why would a monster journey all this way? We're in the east of the kingdom. This thing would have had to travel upriver for weeks to get here. That's not natural behavior.”

From Athena's expression I could tell she was wondering if I suspected Poseidon. I didn't, really. I definitely suspected that one of the Olympians had done it but I didn't think Poseidon had a motive. He was one of the most worshiped of the Olympians. He had no reason to betray his kin.

Of course that thought brought me back to something the Dark Lord of Shub-Niggurath had told the Chosen One sent to slay him. He'd told him that his god wasn't even the strongest god of his own pantheon, which wasn't even the strongest pantheon in the world. And then he'd told him that if he were to join his cause and help pave the way for her that he would end up as one of the elect. Had the Holy Maiden used those same words? How many of the Olympians were insecure enough to sacrifice the entire world in order to become more powerful?

Well, that was a useless line of thinking because last I checked the answer would be 'most of them'. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely fair. But Ares, Demeter, Hera, and of course that self-absorbed asshole Apollo? Certainly. Of course, there were also dozens of minor deities that most people tended to forget about like Eos, goddess of dawn and sister to Helios and Selene. In the end, we didn't have too much concrete to go on.

Although I had to acknowledge that yes, the fact that this sea monster kept Heroes from reaching Hades also made him and his wife suspects. But still, I doubted it and Melinoe's genuine shock at the news of Olympus having been overrun spoke against it as well.

“I suppose someone must have brought it here," Charon finally said, getting what I was saying.

“But that's insane," Melinoe protested. “This is putting so many people at risk, not to mention all the poor shades stuck at the shore.” She paused and then it seemed to dawn on her. We hadn't told Charon about the invasion of Olympus and didn't want to voice it now, but the horrified look Melinoe gave me indicated that she'd pieced it together.

Charon clearly noticed the look but then apparently decided that this was above his pay-grade and let it rest. “The way I see it we have two options," he said instead. “Either we take the second-largest ship with your entire group or we take the largest vessel but then we'd have to take the cage with those bound for Tartarus with us. It would be a waste to make a trip with that clunky thing and not fill it to capacity. The question is, can you handle being on a boat with two dozen raving mad shades on it?”

I was about to tell him it wasn't an issue when I saw Athena and Melinoe looking a little queasy. Oh right, they could hear and interact with them, couldn't they?

“I know that the cage is placed in the ship's hold so I think it would be fine, but I would strongly prefer to stay on deck the whole trip," Melinoe finally said.

“Agreed," Athena said.

“Then it's settled," Charon said. “Plus, if we sink I won't feel bad about leaving those shades stuck at the bottom of the Styx.”

“Your optimism continues to be a breath of fresh air," Athena said.

“You and your kin can make me do this job," he said. “But you can't make me like that part of it.”

Oh yeah, him and I were going to get along great.

**

It took an hour until we could finally cast off. Loading the cage onto and then below the deck took a lot of time and work and after that it took quite a bit of time to actually get the ship going. From what I'd gathered along the way the monster had showed up slightly less than two months ago, so shortly after the attack on Olympus. That couldn't have been a coincidence but I still wasn't convinced that the bad guys had had the foresight to place an obstacle in our path just in case we decided to go down to the underworld to ask for help.

Either way we were soon on the water and apparently what the rest of us only heard as barely audible whispers even with our enhanced hearing sounded like an anguished cacophony to Melinoe and Athena because they kept as far away from the grate that covered the ship's hold as it was possible to go.

Alisha and I were standing at the bow, or the front of the ship, looking out over the dark waters. The illumination above did a lot to make the giant cave we were in look like it was under a perpetual night sky but that still meant that the waters of the Styx were midnight black. And while the tributary we'd traveled along for most of our journey was a modest little thing, only a few yards wide, at this point the Styx was wide enough that the crossing would take over an hour even if we weren't going to be interrupted. In the distance we could already see the first hints of Olympian-style architecture that marked Hades' realm, but we were still quite a ways out.

On a proper naval vessel Alisha would likely have had to help out, seeing as they used air mages to generate wind when there was none, but this boat didn't have sails. It only had a crew of Charon's men, Heroes all, rowing us forward inexorably. Selene and I had suggested helping with the rowing but pretty much everyone else had vetoed that idea, saying that we needed to be in top form for the coming fight.

“You two make a cute couple," I heard a voice saying from behind us and turned to see Melinoe approaching us. She'd been standing nearby since the stern was quite far away from the hold but she'd left us to stand there before, me just holding Alisha as we gazed out onto the waters. “I'd thought for sure you were with the fox-kin who follows your every move.”

“I am," I said. “Alisha, Selene, Yume, Anna, we're all lovers.”

Melinoe raised her eyebrows and looked over to Alisha. “And you don't mind having to share him?”

“We all share," Alisha said. “I get to play with all of them and I love watching when he takes them.”

“I-is that so?" Melinoe asked, then turned around to me. “And what about Auntie Tina?”

“What about her?" I asked.

“You've fucked her," she stated matter-of-factly.

“What?! Of course not!” I wanted to keep protesting but she rolled her eyes and said:

“I think you're pretty smart, all things considered. Don't make me rethink that by telling such a stupid lie.”

I snapped my mouth closed.

“So Tina isn't part of this group of yours?" she asked. “Even though you've fucked her?”

I hesitated with my answer, which gave her all the answers she needed.

She started chuckling. “You have an entire harem of pretty women and you keep a goddess as a side piece, this is amazing.”

“He is," Alisha said, placing a hand on my chest in a proprietary way.

“I suppose I can see what you all see in him," Melinoe said.

I cleared my throat. “So, what's up with you calling her 'aunt'? You're Hades' daughter, she is Zeus' daughter. You two are cousins, not aunt and niece.”

She smirked at me, my attempt to change the topic not lost on her, but still she explained: “It's a bit weird, I suppose, but demigods call full gods they're related to 'aunt' and 'uncle'. She has enough worshipers to transcend mortality. I don't.”

“Do you resent that?" I asked.

“Not at all," she said. “Worshipers can pull your personality this way and that. I can just be me. And when I'm dead I might still end up as a goddess.”

“Hmm," I said. “Does that mean the only reason Ares is an arrogant prick is because that's how the Spartans see him?”

She gave a hearty chuckle. “No, Uncle Ares was a bastard long before the Spartans existed.”

I smiled, then nodded at my little fox. “Talk like that and you'll get along great with Yume.”

She blinked, then looked over to the fox woman standing at the port side, meaning on the left-hand side, looking out over the waters. “Did he do wrong by her?”

“Yes," I said, not wanting to go into any more detail. “Yes, he did.”

“Bet she's fucking thrilled to go liberate Olympus if it means helping him, huh?”

“She's already said that she won't lift a finger to help him," I said.

Melinoe smiled. “I think I'll have a chat with her.”

“You do that," I said and watched her leave.

“She's hot," Alisha said once Melinoe was out of earshot.

“A common affliction for gods and demigods," I said.

“And she seemed rather intrigued by our relationship," she added.

I groaned. “Don't even start. I have four lovers. I really don't need another.”

She smirked and her eyes flicked over to Athena at the stern, meaning the ass end of the boat. “You already have five lovers. Or you would if you sat down and had a chat with her.”

“She's a goddess," I protested. “Why would she be serious about a mortal?”

“Why would she let a mortal deflower her when she has dozens of other gods who could have done the honors?" Alisha countered.

I opened my mouth but thankfully I was spared from having to come up with some bullshit explanation when I heard Anna yelling:

“I think I see something! Starboard side!” She meant the right-hand side of the boat, where she'd been standing with Selene.

“I can't see anything," Charon called back from the ship's wheel.

“If Anna says there's something there then there's something there," I called back. “Get ready!”

I pulled out Helios Edge and saw everyone on the deck getting ready as well. Anna pulled out her ornate longbow and nocked an arrow, Alisha drew her little rapier, Yume drew Kageshiro, Selene drew her blade and her buckler, Athena drew Palladion and Aegis and even Charon and Melinoe pulled out weapons. For Charon it was that giant oar he dragged around everywhere and which I then noticed had wickedly sharp edges around the rim of the paddle and Melinoe pulled out a knife that hummed with enchantments and that I was certain would be a powerful focus like Alisha's rapier.

And by the time we'd all gotten ready I could finally see what Anna had spotted. It was one of the most bizarre sights of my entire life and if I hadn't been told what Scylla's spawn looked like I would have assumed my mind was playing tricks on me.

Upstream there was a disturbance in the water, the waves foaming up, and when I looked at what was causing the disturbance I saw a pack of wolves in the water, looking like the Wild Hunt had accidentally dropped into the water, the beasts slavering and their paws kicking up the water. Except they were way too far out for me to be able to see them clearly, indicating that these wolves were far bigger than normal. And they were coming at us fast.

Of course thanks to what Melinoe had told us and the books I'd read I knew that beneath the water's surface I wouldn't see the back halves of all those wolves but instead a giant tentacled beast large enough to yank a grown person off this ship. That alone was a horrifying thought but I honestly couldn't decide what would be worse: Getting grabbed by a tentacle and then dropped into a giant maw the way so many horrible sea monsters did or getting grabbed by a tentacle and then dropped into a pack of ravenous wolf heads, as this thing would do. I guessed it was a moot point as I'd prefer neither of the two.

When the spawn was close enough that I could clearly make out the eyes on each wolf head Anna drew up a storm of Qi and then loosed her arrow. A moment later the arrow landed in one of the wolves' eyes and eleven more impacts of the same size peppered the rest of the body.

Its momentum faltered and it let out a sound somewhere between a wolf's howl and the gurgling of a drowning man. Anna didn't pause to admire her handiwork though and nocked arrow after arrow, firing more and more of them at the beast. I'd seen her smearing some sort of greenish liquid on the arrowheads beforehand and I was curious to see if whatever concoction she'd come up with would actually work. Scylla was one of the many children of Echidna, mother of monsters, and her and her spawn weren't entirely natural so it was possible that they were immune to natural poisons. But I trusted Anna's knowledge of herbs more than I trusted the monster manuals I'd perused over the years.

The beast approached much slower now though I didn't know if it was out of caution or because the poison was starting to slow it down. Either way, once it was close enough Alisha and Yume started to unleash their auras. Alisha gathered up a dozen tornado lances while Yume first sent a light blue haze at the beast before she created a fire snake pumped full of Qi and sent it at the monster. The fire splashed harmlessly over the monster's wet hide but then Alisha sent her tornado lances at it, one after the other, aiming each one carefully. The first tore into a wolf's head that Anna had already blinded, two others went wide as the beast frantically juked to dodge her projectiles, three more hit the body underneath the water judging by the screams the monster let out and the remaining ones all splattered against a wall of storm magic.

Melinoe had been gawking at Alisha's display of magic but when she saw the storm wall she let out a “Tch” and pointed her dagger at the monster, a purple haze rising up behind her like a shadow. She kept chanting under her breath for a few moments before she slashed the dagger diagonally through the air and the storm wall collapsed in on itself.

“Gods below," Alisha gasped as she conjured up another couple tornado lances. “You have to tell me how you did that.”

“Sure," Melinoe said. “If you tell me how you're doing that.”

Alisha's tornado lances weren't simple constructs of mana. Her normal air lances were strong for an air mage but not too devastating in the grand scheme of things, but when she channeled her Qi into them they became a tremendous offensive weapon. However, the act of infusing spells with life force was completely unheard of in this kingdom, as Athena's ignorance of Qi techniques more than proved. And so it was only natural that Melinoe would be fascinated by the technique. I remembered the lord of Shackled Hollow examining one of Yume's fire snakes in a very similar manner, trying to puzzle out how the little fox could do what she'd done.

When the spawn realized that its protective spell was gone the wolf heads snarled at us and a tiny little cloud appeared above our heads. Yes, a cloud. Underground.

It was such an obviously telegraphed attack that by the time a lightning bolt shot out of it Melinoe had already erected a translucent purple shield above our heads. I was sure on the surface such an attack would have been much faster and more effective but down here it barely amounted to a parlor trick.

It kept trying to summon a few more lightning bolts to similar effect and then changed tactics to a savage gust of wind, trying to sweep us all off the deck. Melinoe's upwards-facing dome did nothing to protect against it but Alisha threw her arms forward, her body glowing with both the gray-green of her magic and the white of her Qi, and sent a massive gust of wind forward that crashed against the one the spawn had conjured up, dispersing it and then slamming into the monster, rocking it back a couple yards.

The wolf heads shook themselves and then howled and suddenly there was a new gust of wind. This one wasn't trying to push us away, though. Instead it was pushing the monster forward, making it faster as it approached us. That was fine by me though. Out there only four of our party of eight could hurt it.

Alisha and Anna seemed to realize this because they stopped peppering it with magic and arrows and let it approach. As it got closer we could see that it was looking quite the worse for wear. The monster was short one wolf head, it was peppered with holes from Anna's arrows, there were chunks of its flesh missing, many of the arrow wounds were leaking a sickly yellow pus and, most peculiarly, the light blue haze Yume had sent at it at the start of the engagement hadn't dissipated yet but was still wrapped around it. I wondered what she'd done. The lightning strikes had been weak but they had been accurate so it couldn't have been something like phantom step. Also, phantom step was a protective spell, not a hex.

And then it was upon us. It slammed into the bow of the ship with a lot less force than I had been expecting and then two long, dark blue tentacles shot out of the water and slammed down onto the deck of the ship, narrowly missing Selene and me and only missing Yume because she flash stepped out of the way.

I pointed my sword at the beast and bellowed: “Everybody, NOW!”