“You abandoned us to deal with that monster by ourselves!” Athena screamed. She was beating her fists on the centaur’s upper body as he fended off her blows with his human arms. His horse legs were folded beneath him and he wasn’t even trying to get up to run away.

  She didn’t use any cards to augment her abuse of the cowardly Horse, just raining blow after blow down on him where he sat.

  “I’m sorry!” he cried, “I’m really sorry!”

  “No you’re not! Not yet you aren’t!”

  “It was an impulsive decision,” he said, the words lilting with his surfer accent. Athena’s fists hit him in the shoulder and on the arm, in the ribs, and the side of his head, arms moving like a waterwheel. None of the blows were strong enough to incapacitate, and Pan wondered if she was pulling her punches on purpose.

  “Don’t do that ever again,” she ordered, her anger subsiding slightly. “Never separate the party. It’s the golden rule of dungeoning and it means more now than it ever has.”

  Apollo and Pan strolled up and Athena stopped wailing on Horse.

  “Are you alright?” Apollo asked. There wasn’t any irony in his voice, which was strange considering it was Horse which had left the three of them to face the gaint skeletal chicken.

  “I was considering coming back,” Horse said pitifully. “But I didn’t know if it’d be weird.” He chuckled. “Funny how I could still be concerned about that now, huh? Worried how you guys would think of me if I came back after bugging out.”

  “Well, we’re fine,” Athena said with scathing emphasis.

  “More than fine,” another voice said. The four of them looked in its direction to find Arctus standing there, hunched, wings straight back, and his arms clasped behind him. “I really hadn’t expected that giant chicken corpse to have been of any concern. You did a fine job dispatching it, however. Did you like your rewards?”

  Athena’s rage renewed. She was up and marching towards the demon-looking thing even as it spoke to them. It didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. She wagged a finger under its beaky snout.

  “And you! You abandoned us too! “ she made a fist like she was about to punch him, but reconsidered when she looked at his rough volcanic looking skin. She squeezed her fist so hard it shook, then dropped it. “What was it you said before? You’re here to be our guide?”

  The creature nodded.

  “Well some guide you are! I want answers, and I want them now!”

  He nodded to the side, shrugging. “Ask away.”

  “What do you want with us? Where are we?”

  The rest of the group, still clustered around the still seated Horse, nodded agreement amongst themselves and looked expectantly at Arctus.

  “It’s not uncommon for vagrants like yourselves to be confused. But surely you came here seeking Elysium?”

  The general consensus was no. Athena uncrossed her arm long enough to make a “hurry it up” gesture.

  The creature continued. “Then I’ll start from the beginning. Vagrants come here to the Sundering Shore seeking Elysium. It is a perilous journey, and those who attempt it risk becoming Hades-Bound.”

  “You said all this before,” Pan said. “But we’re telling you we didn’t come here to seek this Elysium or whatever.”

  For the first time, the demon creature seemed genuinely shook. “None of you perished at the end of a heroic life?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Surely you’re here following some escapade into the underworld. Sometimes the living can cross the dread river Styx without dying per se…. Does that ring any bells for you?”

  “Do you not get this? We are not dead.” Athena spoke slowly as though to an idiot.

  The creature didn’t have a response. It twiddled its claws nervously against the tip of its snout.

  Athena pressed on, “You’re not even Arctus are you. You’re that other guy, the one over corpses and burial.”

  “Drigna,” Apollo interjected.

  “No, it ended in an ‘an’. Driganan.” Horse amended.

  “Degrenan,” the demon said impatiently. “And no, I’m not Degrenan. My name is Arctus, muse of architects and aquatects. And if you speak truthfully, then while it’s highly unusual, I’m afraid there’s no appeal.”

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  “Then I want to talk to someone in charge,” Athena asserted. Apollo rolled his eyes. Horse snickered, and Athena turned on him. “No backtalk!”

  “Ok, Karen,” Horse said. He and Apollo started giggling together. Athena’s face turned red.

  Pan stepped toward the demon, his torch still flaming, illuminating the ugly creature a little more. “You’re a gargoyle,” he said.

  “No, I am Arctus,” it said. “Gargoyles are based off me.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do? You can’t send us back home? We’ve been talking, you see, and it’s the same with all four of us. We started playing this game that had just come out-“

  “A game?” Arctus suddenly looked hunted.

  “Yes, a game. Vagrants to Elysium. I hadn’t thought anything of it because it was supposed to be incredibly immersive. But now none of us can turn it off.”

  Arctus didn’t seem to be listening to him. “I can’t promise anything, but I can ask around, ok?”

  At this, the whole party looked up. Athena stopped fuming, and Apollo and Horse stopped giggling and making customer service jokes at her expense.

  “You’ll do that?” Pan asked.

  Arctus waggled a claw dismissively. “Like I said, don’t get your hopes up. It’s more than likely you’re stuck here like a regular hero. But we’ve gotten real far off the point of me being here. I was going to talk to you all about something else.”

  None of them had heard anything the demon creature had said. They had all gotten too excited at the prospect of going home after spending days in this alien wilderness, magic powers or no.

  Arctus snapped his claws impatiently. “Hey. Hey! Let’s get this back on topic. You’re all still in here and every moment poses new and terrifying chances for you to be made Hades-Bound.”

  They un-rowdied themselves like a classroom being threatened with losing recess. “What does that mean, exactly?” Pan hazarded before Arctus could continue. “Hades-Bound? I really hope it doesn’t mean what I think it does.”

  Apollo spoke up. “Well, Hades was the Greek god of death, which the Romans called Pluto-“

  Arctus cut him off, “Hades is the realm of eternal torment. Once you’re in there, there’s no getting out.”

  All but Pan were suddenly horror-stricken. Pan only looked downcast. “Ah. Yeah. That’s about what I thought,” he said sadly.

  “Yup. Die in the Sundering Shore and that’s where you’ll go,” Arctus said.

  “You can’t do that,” Athena started to say.

  “Upupup,” the gargoyle said, stopping her complaint in its tracks, “I don’t make the rules. I just enforce’em. Die here, you’re Hades-Bound. It’s kinda the whole deal. Can we get to the part where I help you survive Degrenan’s Dungeon of Doom?”

  Athena grumped but otherwise let the god talk. Apollo and Horse were too stunned by this bombshell reality to object. Pan merely looked resolved to listen to Arctus.

  “Ok, good. What I really came here to tell you is how to use what I gave you. You,” he pointed a stony claw at Athena, “were supposed to have looted that chicken. It was a rush job, considering you weren’t really expected to interact with it, but you got the killing blow. I was trying to give you the yellow upgrade gem that he got.” He pointed at Pan. “Do what you want, but you’ve got a yellow card that you’ll really benefit from upgrading. I can’t tell you what it is, though. Rules is rules.”

  Athena’s eyes changed, as though reading something close-up. A clear sign she was looking through her menus. “How do I use it?” she asked.

  “Well first, the faun here has got to trade it with you. Do you know how to do that yet?”

  Athena and Pan both said they didn’t.

  “That’s alright. I’ll walk you through the menus.”

  And for the next few minutes, the group got a crash course in trading their collectables. As a party, they could exchange and gift anything among themselves freely, but they couldn’t just hand the objects over. There was a Trade menu option that one had to initiate with another player, and they had to both agree to the proposed trade.

  Pan moved the yellow gem to the panel intended to go to Athena’s inventory and indicated he was Ready. The border turned green. He could also see a panel containing the things Athena was intending to give to him, but it was empty. It was also greyed out and he couldn’t interact with it.

  “Do you want anything for this gem?” she asked Pan. “Maybe something like this?” She contributed a card to the trade, and it removed the Ready status from Pan’s side. He looked at the card.

  Tent, depicting a cream colored canvas propped up with sticks and secured to the ground on either side, a typical camping tent. He could see the foot end of a sleeping bag on the inside.

  “Sure. I don’t have one of those,” he replied. They both indicated they were Ready, and the screen cleared. The gem was no longer in his inventory, but he now had a Tent card he could use at any time.

  While they were doing this, Horse said to Apollo, “Hey, I think I’ve got something you can use.” The two also explored the trade screen.

  A thought occurred to Pan after his trade with Athena, and it was a thought he didn’t like. It was the realization that he could give his curses to his friends. He wondered where a thought like that came from. But still, he thought, it’s an option. Some of these really aren’t that bad. I could lighten the load a little bit, and maybe make myself more useful with cards they don’t want. Despite the reasoning, he felt dirty for thinking it.

  Athena was still looking through her inventory, likely trying to find the best card for the upgrade she had just received.

  Arctus spoke up again. “Ok? Are we all good?” he asked, feigning enthusiasm. Being a god, probably with his own dungeon, dealing with Pan and his friends must be a bit irritating. No one likes training the new guy.

  Apollo, Horse, and Pan all nodded in answer to his question.

  “Great. Because you’ve got more incoming.”

  Athena, distracted by the screen still, spoke up, saying, “No I’m still trying to find what card you mean-“ in time for Arctus to disappear.

  And at the same time, a great big thing emerged from around a corner in the labyrinthine room.

  The creature, appearing in profile to the group, was big and humanoid covered in tattoos of wavy lines. It wore a rough leather loincloth and carried a stalactite by its point. The weapon was taller than a man and a quarter as wide at the base. It hadn’t noticed them yet.

  “It’s another cyclops,” Pan said. He thought he had only breathed the words, but even as Apollo tried to shush him up, the creature turned to look at the party.

  On its shoulders was not one head, but two. The other head, hidden until it had turned, was nothing but a skeleton. Its other arm, too, was nothing but bones. The still living head furrowed its brow over its one great eye. The skeletal head rattled its jaw and bounced.

  “Auuggh!”

  The cry didn’t come from the creature, but from Athena. “I’ll upgrade later! It’s just one damned thing after another here, isn’t it?!”

  And the creature raised its club to attack.