Chapter 6: Wrath
Upon entering the next circle of Hell, the members of Shepard's squad were all struck with a strong sense of hatred. The air was heavy and stank of some putrid smell, almost like melting tar. The squad could all feel the stench assaulting their nose and going right up to their heads, giving them all headaches in moments.
"What's the deal with this place?" Jack grumbled.
"The Fifth Circle of the Inferno, Wrath. Here are condemned those consumed with rage in life, who allowed anger, hatred, and fury to overcome them and dictate their actions. Now they are all cursed to reside forever in a neverending lake of black liquid sludge. The River Styx."
"So that's where the smell comes from." Tali noted. "Even I can smell it."
"Do watch your step." Orpheus' shade cautioned as one of Tali's three-pronged feet was suddenly grabbed by several gaunt pale-skinned arms shooting out of the ground as moaning and snarling filled the air.
"BOSH'TET!" Tali shouted as she started shooting at the arms grabbing at her, destroying them with every burst from her shotgun. Backpedaling she opened fire on the mess of other arms that shot out like a macabre crop that had at last come to rise.
"Passage through this circle will not be quite so easy." Orpheus' shade explained. "That is, unless we do as my people did in the days of the old world. We must cross via ferry."
"Does Charon take credits?" Miranda asked sarcastically.
"Times have changed." Orpheus replied. "The ferryman Charon now travels along the River Acheron transporting souls of the damned. No, the River Styx is sailed by a different ferryman these days. One who we may just be able to convince with the proper amount of persuasion."
At this a large grayish-green shape resembling a stretched out oval rose out of the black water, covered completely in moss and vines and adorned on the sides with spikes that curved inwards.
"We're riding in that?" Tali asked incredulously. "Oh, Kheelah..."
"Somehow I doubt we'll fare any better swimming." Miranda remarked in a deadpan as she apprehensively stepped onto the "ferry" along with everyone else. No sooner did they all get on was a loud rumbling sound heard over the sounds of the damned's screams and next thing everyone knew they were all jolted up as the thing they were standing on was raised well over twenty feet above the black water.
"What the fuck!?" Jack screamed as she very nearly went plummeting over the edge before Thane caught her.
"It is our ferryman." Orpheus explained. "Phlegyas is his name. Like King Minos I did not know him personally but knew of him in life. A son of Ares he was, and a king."
"What's he doing here?" Shepard asked as the giant continued to trudge through the Styx with them on board.
"He was damned to this circle and more specifically forced to be Guardian of the River Styx as punishment for his wrathful behavior in life. He allowed anger to drive him all his life until eventually he reached a bursting point and destroyed a sacred temple. So it was that he was cast down here, cursed to the Styx as all these other souls are. I advise you all to hold on to whatever you can. The trip will be...tense."
"TRESPASSERS!" one shade called out to Shepard and his crew, getting their attention. "Who are you to come here before your time? Who are you to get passage from the worst of us, to observe us like a spectacle? Do you come to gloat? To mock? Come down and face us, cowards!"
Jack responded by taking out her pistol and shooting the taunting shade in the face, causing his head to disperse into black-gray smoke followed swiftly by the rest of his body.
"Jack, that was unnecessary." Shepard said.
"He was annoying." Jack defended. "Besides, he wanted a response, I gave him one. No big deal."
"It is when you waste ammunition." Shepard pointed out.
Jack shrugged. "Whatever."
As Phlegyas continued to trudge through the Styx, the yelling and shouts of fury from the damned souls grew louder and more pronounced, and the oppressive smell of burning tar continued to fill the noses, eyes, and heads of Shepard and all of his crew. Every second they continued to spend in the circle was becoming more and more painful, and the inability to do anything about it but just wait was driving them all mad.
"Can't stand this…" Jack grumbled. "And those fuckers down there never shut up!" Indeed, as they continued to cry out in a cacophonous mix of pain, agony, fury, and indignance, Jack finally snapped and took to shooting at the shades again before Miranda grabbed her arm and forced her to stop.
"GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF ME!" Jack roared.
"Conserve ammunition, Jack, that's an order" Miranda growled.
"I thought it was Shepard who was the one giving orders!?" Jack snarled venomously before adding: "...because I ain't taking orders from more than one person, and I definitely don't want to take orders from you, cheerleader."
"Someone has to be second in command, and I think it's clear from your childish and psychotic behavior that it couldn't very well be you!" Miranda shot back, her tone and facial expression both becoming one of cold contempt.
"You know I'm getting really fucking sick of you being so damn high and-"
"Will you both please stop?" Shepard asked in an exasperated tone. "I've had to come in-between you two before, and frankly I'm really sick of it. I have better things to do than constantly keeping you two from fighting like a pair of bickering children. You're both adults, act like it!"
"I feel I should stress that I have done far better facing down arduous odds by myself." Thane pointed out, anger present in his normally stoic tone. "And that was because I did not have to worry about anyone's well-being but my own."
"Well if that's what you prefer, why not go back to that?" Tali demanded
"I've given it some consideration." Thane said darkly, his atypically severe tone adding a cutting edge to the rather formal wording of his remark.
"Everyone stop it!" Garrus roared, catching everyone's attention. "Something's wrong. We never speak this way to each other…"
"It is this particular circle." Orpheus explained. "The gathering of so many enraged souls in one place leaves a negative aura here. Those who stay here soon become hopelessly lost in the throes of rage, lashing out at everything and everyone."
"You don't seem to be doing too bad yourself." Garrus noted, also realizing as he said it that his own tone was becoming somewhat hostile and sarcastic.
"As an absolved soul I am immune to this place's corrupting influence. You all however are not. We must leave this circle quickly before this place brings out anymore of your repressed anger."
"How long until we reach the end of this circle?" Legion questioned, with even the machine's normally dissonant and robotic voice having taken on a clearly agitated edge, like gears that failed to turn properly and instead grinded up against each-other violently.
"Soon. We are nearing the end of the River Styx. Up ahead is the City of Dis. Within those walls are the four lowest circles of the Inferno, where the worst and most truly sinful go."
"Can't wait." Kasumi said with biting sarcasm, irritation filling her voice in place of her usual cheerfulness and good humor.
At long last, Phlegyas came to the end of the river, and submerged himself in it's black waters once more. Wasting no time, all the members of Shepard's crew all practically jumped off of him and ran through the black forest lit up with crimson light as fast as they could.
"Take care." Orpheus' shade warned. "Things will only get more arduous from here on out. And the City of Dis itself is not without protection of it's own."
"Like what?" Shepard asked, his previous irritation having still not completely vanished.
"The Harpies." Orpheus replied bluntly. "Leftovers from the time of the old gods that Lucifer has decided can still be of some use to him. They circle the city ready to claw at anything in sight. The Gorgons were also sent here after death."
"I assume they can still turn people into stone by looking at them?" Shepard asked.
Orpheus nodded. "Yes."
"Well then I guess we'll just have to stay out of of their line of sight."
As everyone else continued moving, Shepard paused only to absolve some nearby shades he noticed despairing on the edge of the River Styx who called out to him for mercy and forgiveness. Quickly granting the shades of Boudica, Hecuba, and others their request, Shepard took one last look out at the River Styx and the shades who continued to suffer in it, before turning away and running off after the others, silently glad to be as far away from that angry place as possible.
Author's Note: Short chapter I know, but there wasn't much to this part of the Inferno I felt, at least not as much as the other parts. Regardless the next few chapters will all be much, much longer, so hopefully that will even things out.