Life as the prince of the Underworld was not easy, and neither was death. And his father's acerbic comments after he was yet again stabbed repeatedly by an ashen-skinned maniac were just part of the burden self-pitying Zagreus bore.
"Oh, look, Cerberus, he's back. What do you think of that?"
The hound of hell cocked his heads, looking from father to son, but since neither were holding any treats his attentions were limited.
"Yes, I see you're bored of his endless coming and goings too. Have you ever thought of not boring Cerberus, boy?"
"So, he's still in Asphodel, but he's getting near the upper reaches," Zagreus informed his father. "And let's be honest here, the bone hydra won't stand a chance against him. It doesn't stand a chance against me these days, and that shade keeps on killing me."
"What is your point, boy? Have you decided to put aside your nonsense and pay attention to your obligations to this realm?"
Not likely, Zagreus thought. He was getting the hell out of hell, or… whatever you got when trying to escape the Underworld. "My point is this is a dangerous escapee."
"Ah. Unlike you."
"I've said my thing," Zagreus retorted, giving up and marched off. Just to make himself feel better, he sought out the House's contractor - an inhumanly tall, ever-shrouded shade in a strange yellow helm - and bought himself a set of complicated board games with the gems he had plundered from his father's realm. Then he realised he had no one here who actually wanted to play them. Unless…
"Hey, Dusa, do you-"
The floating gorgon's head who cleaned the House let out a squeak and vanished up into the rafters.
"... guess not. That was my mistake, coming up on you from behind without warning." He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Sorry!" he called up after her.
All his objectives in the House of Hades having ended in failure, Prince Zagreus therefore headed straight through to the courtyard of the House, took up the shield of all-birthing Chaos, and leapt out the window to try to escape once more. Up through Tartarus he climbed, blessed by sanguine Aphrodite and potent Zeus, and with their borrowed prowess he smote down Tisiphone the Fury, who had much to inaccurately say about murder and his proclivities therein.
Still, the cunning prince had a plan, and so he hoarded the coin of the dead that he found along the way, secreting it away within the divine coinpurse he had been given by Hypnos. Actually, strictly speaking, he had devised two plans, but after trying to talk to Lord Zeus and not being heard, he had given up on the idea of asking his uncle about the ghost of Sparta with no small relief. The king of the Olympian gods was normally magnanimous and genial, but Zagreus had seen his temper when he had chosen Aphrodite over him when the two had demanded he pick the gifts of one of them, and he did not want Zeus's ire.
Well, if he could avoid it. He'd still pick Aphrodite over Zeus any day, because if there was one Olympian deity you didn't want irked at you, it was her. Over the time of their association, Zagreus had studied the ways of Aphrodite, and come to the conclusion that love on the surface was about getting into the thick of things, and swinging with everything you had while taking your lumps and bruises from your sparring partner. Really, it was reassuring to know how some things didn't change between the two realms. Just like dating Megaera, really.
The osseous remains of the Lernean bone-hydra fell before the romantically ill-advised prince, and so he sauntered with father-insulting insolence through the verdant pastures of Elysium. Right until the hallowed dead of this place tried to kill him, of course, and the heroes of older days did a rather better job than the fleshless bones of those imprisoned in Tartarus.
"You know, just putting it out there, but have you ever tried throwing your shield?" Zagreus asked of the last champion remaining in this chamber, circling the man who looked barely older than him. Zagreus's shoulder was aching and his shin bleeding from this man and his stupid blocking-everything-tricks. "Shield buddies, yeah?"
"Cease your blather! Show some respect to the arts of war!"
"Your highness," Zagreus pointed out.
"What?"
"Show some respect, your highness. I am prince of the Underworld, you know."
"Hey, now now now. I don't need to respect you when I follow your father's-" and that was about all the deceased hero could manage to say, because cunning Zagreus had only been trying to distract him and beaned him in the face with his shield. Thunder fell from the sky and electrocuted the warrior. And then Zagreus was on him, and it was all over bar the repeated beating with a shield of primordial power blessed by the goddess of love.
The champion's body came apart, and his soul coalesced in the form of a floating eyeball. "Fuck! This is just like dealing with fucking Odysseus again," the eyeball said, despite its self-evident lack of a mouth.
"Oh, don't feel so down on yourself, mate. I'm sure you can get back to pointlessly fighting other people to the death when you reincorporate. Or whatever you do when I pass through. Actually, I've never asked you lot what happens after I die up here." Zagreus snapped his fingers. "That was it! Ever heard of a man called the Ghost of Sparta?"
"I am a Spartan! In life, one of the men who followed our glorious king Meneleus to Troy to undo the wrong-doing of the treacherous queen-stealing Trojans!"
"So…" Zagreus left the sentence hanging.
"I know of no man with that epitaph."
"Yeah, thought not. I've been asking around in Elysium, but from what I can tell, he seems to post-date most of you lot. Oh well. And by the way, don't think I didn't see you sidling over to try to take up your weapons again."
"... don't you want another fight?" the eyeball asked tenatively.
"Oh sure, yes, go ahead."
"Why thank-"
"No." And fertile Chaos's shield lashed out again, and Zeus's lightning fell from the sky and ended him.
Working out his shoulder, Zagreus entertained himself by smashing open one of his father's treasure chests and plundering the good gold for himself, as he was wont to do. Not-too-distant flute music drifted out over Elysian glades and he took the moment to relax for a moment. His policy of killing all the heroes save one, and trying to talk to them wasn't working out. He'd even tried asking the witches who worshipped the Chthonic gods in life and so had been let into Elysium when they really shouldn't have been. They'd just tried to hex him, except for one. She'd tried to stab him. Well, okay, she'd stabbed him. That had hurt.
No one seemed to know who the Ghost of Sparta was. So that meant that he post-dated all the spirits in this place. Or pre-dated them. Or the people he'd murdered didn't wind up in Elysium. Or he just hadn't found them because Elysium was a big place.
Not too useful, really, he thought, tapping his foot along to the flute. Oh well. Back to plan A.
The prince made his way to the grand fighting arena that barred the way out of Elysium, where the hero-
"Jackass."
-the hero Theseus and the Bull of Minos stood, breaking all who tried to leave the realm of the hallowed dead. But before the grand arena Charon waited beside the Lethe, hawking his as-usual overpriced wares.
"Hey, mate. Fancy seeing you here."
"Ghhhhhhhhh," Charon said.
"Well, just out for a walk, you know how it is." Zagreus felt his coinpurse, eyes widening in mock shock. "Well, would you look at this. I just happen to have a lot of money here. And here you are, someone who likes money. I mean, really likes money."
Charon did not reply, but only stared at him with darkness-filled sockets, clearly expecting the prince to give up the charade and get on with things.
"So, mate, here's the thing. I can't get the Elysian spirits to tell me anything about the Ghost of Sparta. And thinking of the people who can go out and ask questions, well, it's you or Thanatos, and your brother is kind of still not exactly pleased with me for trying to escape. Also, he comes for the people who die peaceful deaths, which is - working from my experience here - people who aren't going to be spending any time around that very, very angry man. So I was thinking I'd give you… oh, the contents of this coinpurse, which at last counting was over eight hundred shiny obols. And in return, you'd go and use your shady - heh, shade-y - contacts and find what you can about him for me. Maybe even some of the gods might help out. Athena, maybe, because I'm looking for knowledge. Or Hermes. He'd be a good way to get the info to me, right?"
"Kkkkkh," Charon said, his tone somewhat dubious.
"I'll throw in these two bottles of nectar," Zagreus offered.
That got a nod from the ferryman of the dead. "Ghhh-hhhhhhhk," he agreed.
The loss of so much money to no immediate benefit was not something the Underworld's prince was exactly happy about, but the prince had always taken a rather easy-come-easy-go approach to matters. In truth, he was rather proud of himself having reached this far with spending almost nothing in Charon's shop - save for a snack mid-way through Asphodel, for his stomach had been rumbling. He handed over the payment to the boatman, where it vanished into his voluminous robes.
"Pleasure doing business with you, mate," Zagrues said. "Now, I'm off to fight Asterius and the walking embodiment of Asterius's bad taste in men, I'll be seeing you soon."
And perhaps Zagreus had some minor gift of prophecy, for he received a spear to the back when he was busy trying to have a gentlemanly duel with a giant bullman, and died cursing Theseus and his cheap-ass spear-sniping bullshit ways.