Chapter 6: The Mist Sphere

Chapter 5

We walked over to Otus. From what I understood about death and torture in the Underworld, once you ended up here your body doesn’t change. According to the legends of the Aloadae, they died somewhere in their twenties. Otus looked like he was easily over one hundred, and fought rabid beasts every moment of his life.

“What happened?” Steve asked.

“Oh nothing much, just some bloke coming by and stealing my power.” Otus replied snappishly. “He also mentioned some brats were going to come by, but I just see a couple of Dafts and a Bird.” He sounded like a soccer hooligan from England.

“Can you explain how he took your power? It may give us an idea on how to get it back to you.” Steve had a notepad and a pencil out. Hope it wasn't one of mine, he would be in for a surprise if it was.

“Well I was minding my own business up here, see Hade’s punished me an my brother by setting us up on opposite ends of his territory. I am forced to sit all day over the entrance of Orpheus, my feet in scorpion pits, me body tryin to grow when there is nowhere to grow to. ‘Tis a tragic life. Anywho, I was sittin here, and Hades decided to make today more horrible than usual, and turn up the bum burners.” I mouthed bum burners as a question? But since he was looking Alex up and down, in a way that I really did not like, she must have wondered too.

“Aye, bum burners. I sit here so long I get some bed sores, like what took out Christopher Reeves, the Gods bless his soul. When they start actin up real bad, Hades there, he likes to make it a lil worse by redirecting some of the Phlegethon to toast me. It really sucked. Anyways, I was sitting here with the scorpions and the bed sores and the bum burners and it really sucked you know?” Apperantly he would not continue the story till Alex nodded, because he waited for that before continuing.

“And I sees the little man walk out of the tunnel. Now I can no normally talk because Hade’s keeps a rock in my mouth to keep my screamin to a minimum, me brother and me, we tend to scream louder than the rest of the folks being punished you know. So I sees this little man, and I am wonderin what hes up to. It wasn’t like last summer, when them two boys came through and one took a dip in the Styx and then showed Hades how to dance. Hoo boy that was an entertainign sight. Do you know what he did, he-” Steve interrupted.

“The little man?”

“Ah, right you are sir, you wants to know about the little man who done stole my power you do. Well, you see, he came in, and he was walkin all over my football game and I wanted him to move, but being locked in the stone up there kinda makes it difficult. Anyways, he started looking around here as if he knew I was here, which he couldn’t of have know because it do be a secret. Anyways he was a lookin for me, and was walkin all over my football screen - the one Hades set up back when TV was invented and he was in a good mood, I think it mighta been around the time when them Di Angelo kids were born, I donnae remember. But yes, he was walking all over my football game and looking around, when he noticed the pits. Now them pits are a frightening thing, pit scorpions a crawling all around the bottom, but since I do be already dead, the poison just hurts like the dickens.

So he’s a looking around for something and he finds the scorpion pits, and so he takes a look inside. Once he see’s me feet in there, he figures out where I am and climbs up till he do be on my nose. Now since I cannot talk still I was a wondering what he be doing on my nose, tis a most uncomfortable place for him to be in my humble opinion. He then takes out this blue glowy thing and places it right between my eyes he does.” Steve interrupted again.

“Blue glowy thing? Can you describe it a little better? And what he did with it?”

“Oh sure, ask, ask, ask, that's all you blokes ever do. Fine, I’ll describe it. It was a Sphere that did fit straight into his hand like a good baseball it did. Never understood that sport, baseball. Although it looks like the lass here is a fan of it. So it looked like a baseball it did, fitting into the blokes hand. It glowed an eerie kind of blue, smokey somewhat too, like what you see on them old noir films when everyone has a cigarette in their mouth you know?” He didn’t wait for a response this time, he just barreled on with his description.

“So he takes that blue sphere thingy and he places it right between me eyes,” he showed us by pointing his index finger right between his eyes, just above the bridge of his nose. “And it stuck there, it did. Now that was a neat trick, and I was wondering why he did that when he started a speaking the language of the earth. Now that there is an evil language, the language of Gaia. Sends shivers through me bones whenever I hear it, it does. And so he was chanting in that language, something to do with taking the powers of the unworthy and placing them in this temporary vessel until they could be completed or some such as that. Then the orb started to glow sommore. It glew so much that I was done near blinded I was. I could not see the winning score of my football game, now that made me right mad. I could not tell if Argentina or the USA made the final shot, though I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered, seeing as Argentina was six points up or some such.

“But yes, it glew, and I was nearly blinded I was. And then I felt something change. At first, the old pain of tryin to grow but bein unable to stopped, which was a very odd feeling. But then things got odder, I started shrinking I did. Next thing I knew all that there stone that was holding me in place dissolved, and I fell down. Now see, this here chain that do be on top of my legs, it was holdin me arms down so I could not do nothing about my imprisonment. Well now it do be holding me alot better than it was before, I can tell you that.” He indicated that his legs were crushed under the chain. I stopped paying attention to his rants at that point, he was a raving mad lunatic with a soccer addiction. Steve spent a few more minutes asking questions about the Mist Sphere.

Meanwhile I walked to the top of our little hill and pulled out some binoculars and took a look around. There was a hill with a giant boulder underneath it, but the boulder was not moving; a lake with a man stuck in the middle, branches of tree’s heavy with fruit hanging just over his head, within reach, but he could not grab any of it. There was a place where a man had to eat his own legs, which constantly regrew. It got worse from there so I’ll stop describing what I saw in the fields of punishment

I decided to look elsewhere. The field with the tent still had a bunch of blue green mist hanging around it. I presumed that it was the souls of the dead, but I didn’t look closely. I looked over at the entrance. A see through three headed dog, I guess Cerberus, was watching three lines of ghosts walk in their generic directions. Some security ghouls were frisking spirits here and there, dragging away others, most just walking directly under the dog. Alex tapped my shoulder, and when I looked over at her she indicated I should give her the binoculars.

As she took a look at what we were dealing with I pulled out another pair and started looking again. This time I studied the walls, starting by the security entrance and moving closer. The wall was too tall to jump over, and various mechanical traps were on the top, probably designed to gnaw on ropes or raise an alarm if anyone passed over them. A pretty tight security system.

“Are those people eating their -” Alex started. I got sick just thinking about where she was looking.

“Yes.” I responded.

“While -”

“Yes.”

“And tap dancing?”

“Yes.” I responded.

“Dude, they must have done some pretty messed up stuff to get that.” She concluded.

“I agree.” I resumed my examination of the top of the walls as Steve joined us.

“Any promising leads?” He asked. I was about to respond that there weren't when Alex broke in.

“Oh my Gods, is that... It is!” And with that rather unhelpful set of comments, she tossed the binoculars at me and ran towards the River Styx.

Chapter 7