"Two will come while gods are gone, and through acts of virtue will tyrants be denied."
"Wait. what? What'd you say about the gods being gone?"
-The Unexpected Prophecy at Camp Half-Blood
Truth and Tribulation
1
"You've broken it."
"I've broken it? Worthless Roman, I'm getting us out of this cave. And you were the one to insist we walk this path, were you not? If nothing else, that makes the breaking a shared act."
"I was not the one who pried the mouth open. I told you to wait."
"And look where we are now. Where are we anyway?"
The Scarlet Son's voice trailed off as he stumbled free from the crevice. Into the light of a resplendent chamber he emerged, his brother in cultivation following close behind. A shadow loomed over them. The prickle of surging lightning licked at their skin, the pressure known to Griffon–associated with dogs in a storm.
Solus turned first, the frown on his face coming apart in confusion, then disbelief, and finally sudden wonderment.
Griffon was about to speak again–exercise the virtues of his rhetorictoward building dialogue or personal amusement–when he too turned and faced what quieted the Roman so.
For seven passing heartbeats, neither spoke, both enraptured by the sight before them, the weight of the majestic mystery sucking the marrows of their thought dry of focus. The twosome stood before the fractured body of a giant, a thing of storms and sky, divinity and authority.
Even with its vessel broken, the presence washing out from the being was undeniable. Unfaceable. Beyond mortal witness and reckoning, like a pillar of existence itself. A truth of truths; a pressure befitting a tyrant above tyrants.
The being before them was vast. Its unmoving form a tapestry fissured by lightning, cleaved in twain alongside its throne. Its face was lost. Shorn away by vines of creeping stormstuff. Its body was a clash of fabrics and dresses. A toga on the outside, purple, but also blue; a striped glove beneath, gripping pristine white silk, and a strange strip of red swaying from its throat like a noose.
Air, sky, lightning, and power screamed forth from the shattered throne, its fractures from where both philosophers emerged.
One more, the Scarlet Son and the Last Son of Rome basked in the face of a truth above truths, mystery beyond mysteries.
What stood before them was-
Fundamental.
Divine.
A vessel of a faceless father–a god above gods.
And now as if a cracked vase seated before the two philosophers, the fragments of the god calling to them in different ways.
Flowing tribulation.
Solus swallowed and was first to pull his eyes aside. Frowning, he glared at Griffon. "I told you not to pry."
The accusation broke the once Young Aristocrat of the Rosy Dawn Cult from his reverie. "Was that what you said? I recall you telling me to wait. Was that not your exact words?"
A piece of crumbling marble interrupted their dialogue. A chunk of the throne had toppled aside. It felt like part of the world had broken off along with it. From its parted fissures flowed the stuff of storm and mist but also a more familiar essence — pneuma. Pneuma of unmatched potency. A breath so vast it could drown the world.
And drown the world it did, with a voice that could speak through thunder.
"Trespassers." It was the voice of an absolute being, something beyond the reach of tyranny.
"Intruders," another voice, lower but no less dominant, rumbled from shadow instead of thunder, and both sons felt the caress of the mysteries.
Their ravens quivered, while the fissured cracks of lightning around them began to take on a familiar quality.
The Everstorm. Such was what leaked from the throne. That, and something more. That, and something higher. That, and something it was never meant to join. This realm of mystery was fraying at the seams, and they alone stood in this marble hall made in dimensions far vaster than any man.
Hesitation seized both Griffin and Sol for but a moment, and then the young master of the Rosy Dawn turned to his erstwhile brother and spoke.
"If I am to be struck down, it is best to remember that it was the both of us that came to this decision."
The Roman simply narrowed his eyes. "Only in the most sophistic sense."
"Yes, a fool to follow a fool!" Once more, the thunder of the room spoke, and with it came an authority that couldn't be denied. Trail cracks guided their gazes across the chamber, leading them away from the fallen thrones. "The world is broken. The world is broken, and we are shattered. The mists, they are infested by something foreign. Our divine essence has frayed us, broken us from within."
The traveling branches of lightning came to a stop at the heart of the chamber and slithered up the length of a solid-bolt buried through a broken crown oozing darkness.
"This world is shattered, and we charge you with the prophecy of the mending. We charge you, strangers two, brothers two, with the task of restoration. Remove the intruder. Remove the sickness from the mist. Find our heroes displaced. Share with them your virtue. Guide them through this struggle. Set right this world broken. Restore the shroud of mystery and be rewarded. Fail, and be struck down by tribulation. For from iron did the plague come, so too must from iron will the cure flow."
The decree seared at him, branded their spirits and compelled breaths from their lungs. Lightning lashed down at them. Shadows coiled about them. The spear of lightning leaped from the ground and burrowed up Griffon's veins. Shadows clung and stitched themselves upon Solus' skin.
The moment in sync with the declarations. The changes were inflicted. The charge was set.
Boons were granted.
In breath, blood, bone, soul, sinew, and more, their Pneuma expanded, their lungs filled with presences they could barely bear. In the end, potency of a higher order consumed their beings.
For minutes or hours they lay writhing, trying to master the wills overcoming them, trying to contain the bursting of their spirits. When the pain past and their sense returned, they felt their cultivation altered, and they felt the world around them with greater clarity.
"What was that," Solus spat, struggling to find his footing. He was at once empowered and enfeebled. He had too much strength, but his flesh was an adequate vessel for its bearing. "Can you march?"
The darkness spoke to him. Taunted him. Goaded him. He took a step. "I can march."
"Then you can serve."
Griffon, dragged himself up using his pankration hands. His skull throbbed. His nerves tingled. Every vein in his body hummed with weight. "Is drunknessi what death feels like? Losing one's mettle?"
"Are you dead?" the presence in his veins spoke.
"No?" Griffon mused. "How does one prove that. The situation I find myself in is most peculiar."
But the mystery of storms sneered inside him with contempt and scorn. "Do not dance on the edge of a lie. Serve."
A sound rang from the far distance. Both of their attentions turned to find a doorway opening before them, welcoming them forth with an inviting chime.
"Go now," Lightning cracked along the ground as seeping darkness curled, as if bending fingers beckoning them forth. "Go and seek the lobby. Descend, behold the world. Find the vessel of the titan, writhing and wrestling against the intruder. Find the sickness, break the sickness. Set free what is intersected. Make right the unmaking. Return the mists. Return the flow of fate/
Sol and Griffin looked upon each other, gazed with wide eyes and settling hearts.
"Well," Solus muttered. "Trouble has always been quick to find us."
Griffin shrugged uneasily. "I do recall us usually doing more stumbling into trouble rather than being unceremoniously cast at its feet." But it was hubris to argue with a mystery. The suddenness of the affair left him unbalanced, unnerved. A power dwelled within. A thing beyond tyrants—a tyrant of tyrants.
For all his life, he felt a hunger. A need to cultivate. Refine his virtue.
Now, as a sliver of eternity lurked inside him, he found his urges unslaked by power, only worsened. Not even Damon Atos had to be blessed in such a manner, entrusted by what had been offered.
Spurred by instinct, and walking forth in a daze, the Young Aristocrat went forth as the Last Roman followed, taking in the carriage that awaited with a lingering frown.
The lightning led into a small box illuminated by fluorescent lights embedding in the ceiling. Faint sounds that could scarcely be considered music emanated from an unseen source, and the sheen in the metallic revealed their contours in vague detail.
"What is that metal?" Solus asked. He squinted his eyes and struggled to judge if it was expensive or cheap.
"I find myself more curious about the mystery of the lights," Griffon replied. Tilting dawn, he saw at the brightness trailed through the glass.
They came to a halt before the doorway, and found a sliding thing. Without handles. Unclosing. For several heartbeats, they stayed there, at an impasse. Slowly, Griffon took a breath.
And gestured for Sol to proceed. "Well. After you."
"After me?" Sol said, frowning at his brother in cultivation. "So willing to sacrifice me to the unknown. Quite heroic."
"Nonsense, Roman. And do not deflect your cowardice upon me—I am trying to aid you. I did, in fact, begin this journey for us. It wouldn't be right if I kept being the one to step first, leaving you outpaced in deed, cultivation, virtue, rhetoric…"
But it was not Solus how drove him to his first step. Hands of darkness clawed out at the world, and the breath leaving his body whispered: "GRAVITAS."
A sudden burst of force, greater than either of them could resist, flung them into the carriage. The box rattled and the lights blinked. During which, they learned a few things about the metal. First, that it was rather solid. Second, that it was cold. Third, that it was not something meant for battle judging by the dents their cushioning arms left upon its frame.
Behind them, the doors slammed to a close while the music continued.
Griffon summoned pankration hands, buried them in along the edges of the vertical exit. As he tried to pry, however it refused to budge. Consequently, a panel lit up beside him. One filled with strange symbols running down and horizontal in columns and rows.
Both cultivators tilted their heads at the eccentricity discovered and frowned. "What is this?" Solus mused.
"Some kind of machin—," Griffon said.
"Enough,' the thunder inside him screamed. A bottom most button was struck by a leaping bolt jumping from Griffon's skin. "It is an elevator. Fool. I am wearing a fool."
"Elevator," Griffon said, hearing his mystery, yet they were clearly descending.
Truly, mysteries were ironic beings.
Griffon gripped as his chest as he felt his Pneuma near tear out from him from the thought. There was something to be said about the impatience of mysteries, mainly, how much it hurt.
Trickles of lightning trailed around an icon near the very bottom. It was a straight line downward, and Solus let out a comprehending breath. "Numbers…"
"Numbers?" Griffon said. He was already feeling the agitation inside him, but curiosity told him to chance things a bit longer. "Yes. Yes, I do see that. What kind of script is this?"
"Not any I know," Sol replied.
"Nor I."
Both suddenly found themselves wishing for expertise. Another person to inquire. Yet, they were alone here. Alone as strangers in this strange land.
Alone. With no memories of how they arrived beyond the cave.
"Solus," Griffon said. "How did we get here?"
There was a haze to their memories, a dullness of where they were before. They had been somewhere, been seeking something, had been lost, and now, now they found themselves in a place beyond the place they were before. This was being lost, but perhaps in being lost, they found something they sought.
Tribulation. Understanding. Feats for fate.
Had they been summoned by the unseen? Have they caught the eye of gods thought broken and dead?
"The lightning," Sol asked. "It speaks to you."
"Indeed," Griffon replied, eyeing his brother briefly. "And your shadow is leaking."
Sol responded with a nod, disquieted by how the shroud he cast seemed to be molded to another's shape.
They were both infested. One mystery and another.
As the number along the interface finally changed, a loud chime struck them both from their distraction, pulled them to attention, and as the door swung open, they found the outside world drowned by carnage.
A man blurred past them, sent sailing by an unseen assailant, as they screamed. A taller, far hairy shape rushed past, its scent that of a cow, its body that of a bull. Loud cracks and more cries of horror sounded from the outside.
Griffon and Solus looked to each other and slowly pushed their heads beyond the entrance.
The halls were awash with panic.
Footsteps echoed as shadows and figures flitted around the corners, vanishing before either Solus or Griffon could gain a clear glimpse at their features. Only faintly did they notice the marble quality of the walls around them and the cold amber radiance offered by panels of glass above.
A woman bearing a strange complexion and attire—less than a citizen by stature—was the first of many things to capture their notice. She wore a vibrant blue uniform with a shining metallic badge on her chest, and her right hand was locked around a curved metal wand in a death grip. Blood seeped from a gash along her stomach, painting the blue of her uniform with dark crimson, and her breaths came fast and unfocused.
Terror did not grip her alone. To their right, at the end of the hall, a crowd enfeebled by fear clutched at each other. Some were pressed against the walls. Others hammered at clicking buttons on panels. A good many among them were but children, and their tear-stricken faces were fixed dead ahead.
Fixed on the looming shadow blocking them from the lobby.
The bleeding woman collapsed beside Griffon and Solus' open elevator then, following on her side and wheezing a wet rasp. As she clutched at a crackling black box on her shoulder, she froze, finally noticing the two cultivators staring down at her.
"Greetings," Griffon boomed, doing nothing to hide their position. Solus closed his eyes as he heard a bestial chuff. A considerable weight thudded against the ground as the noise of hooves slamming against marble greeted his senses.
"Minotaur."
True to the mystery's words, the creature standing across from them was wide, burly, bipedal, and unmistakable a mix between a bull and a man. Its eyes were bloodshot with rage and confusion, and between its legs, an unmoving figure lay face down on the ground.
"Shit," the woman gasped. Her words came with a gurgle. She leved her wand—
"Gun. It's a gun." The mystery thundered from within Griffon's veins.
–and fired.
The noise made both cultivators flinch back. The loudness made their ears ring. Sadly, volume was all it offered. A spark flashed from the thick brass greaves that the Minotaur wore, and it offered a low, taunting chuckle as it shifted a massive axe in its hands.
An axe that bore a letter both Griffon and Solus recognized.
"Omega?" Griffon muttered. Blinking briefly, he stepped free from the elevator, and met the beast gaze to gaze. Solus followed immediately thereafter, his intent drifted over to the civilians present, and the surroundings thereafter.
There was nothing of Pneuma or cultivation from the bull-man. There, however, was a weight. Some manner of presence that was analogous to virtue, but not quite the same.
The Minotaur drew in sharp intakes of breath as its eyes widened. Bracing its might axe against its shoulder, it traced a hand across a clutter of necklaces. Necklaces that seemed almost transparent. Leaking mist and storm-stuff. "Not demigods."
"Why," Griffon said, grinning, "how would you know? Is there something wrong with my scent?"
The beast glared in response.
"Also, what poor fellow did you steal those sandals from? Why are you dressed at all."
"Confused," the Minotaur said, shaking its head violently. The size of its horns were immense, and it seemed ready to topple from the weight of its skull at any time. "Been… been here before… in this city… things were different… I was… I was…" It's words trailed off. "Was dead." It's focus snapped to Griffon and Solus again. "Where is he?"
"He?" Griffon asked.
"The Son of Poseidon. The one that killed me? Where is the half-blood!"
"What have you done now," Solus sighed.
Griffon turned away from the bull, outraged. "What have I done? You wound me, Solus. I have done nothing to provoke the beast. It's addled. Clearly, not only has it been going through a man's clothes, it has also taken all his wine."
The Roman seemed like he didn't believe him.
Two heavy stamps claimed both their attentions. The Minotaur was hammering its hooves against the ground—preparing to charge. Its breaths came deep and left its lungs as steam and mist…
—And sparks from the Everstorm.
Both cultivators tilted their heads again.
"Do you see that?" Solus asked.
"Yes. That's definitely not Pneuma."
"No."
The Minotaur hefted its axe high, letting out a bellow that provoked screams from the huddling civilians behind. While this went on, the downed woman continued speaking into her black box.
"Say, Roman," Griffon said, eyes fixed to the bull's horns, "might it be time for us to make things a bit simpler."
"Perhaps," Solus said. I'll pull it down by the axe, he bade his raven say.
I'll get its eyes and horns, Griffon replied.
The Minotaur was barely into its first step before it was claimed by the cultivator's counter-charge.
"Gravitas," Solus proclaimed. This time, however, not only did his cultivation aid him, but the shadows lent their grip as well, reaching from every corner against the light, clutching around the haft of the Minotaur's blade. Force spiked downward as a Philosopher laden with a fragment of a mystery directed his intent.
The weapon left the beast's hands, and balance abandoned its legs. A wave of pankration hands came next, exploding across the gulf between them like bolts of lightning. They speared thumbs into the Minotaur's eyes, pried at horns and neck alike. The beast gave a hoarse cry as it toppled—which broke into a choke as both cultivators slammed into it.
Rather than bull charging down a narrow hall to make prey of men, two questing heroes carried the beast outward into the lobby, passing to a point where the light of day passed through shattered glass, and where beasts came pouring forth from fissures of lightning, carried by tumbling mist.
They were upon it in a frenzy of violence, each fighting to support the other, sharpening actions with the potency of their rhetoric.
"The creature must be unsteady with horns so heavy," Griffon said, twisting and slamming the Minotaur's head into the ground using his pankration hands as it struggled to get up. His flows flowed alongside his Pneuma, his own hands turning to cups, lashing out to crack the sides of man-bull's skull. "Of course, getting your hearing damaged also do you no favors."
Medical knowledge was a wonderful thing to apply.
The creature roared, bucked against him, reached out for its axe. But Solus held the weapon in place, gripped it with Gravitas and shadow, slammed a knee against the Minotaur's wrist. A pop resounded, and the roar momentarily trailed off into a yelp of pain.
Then, from across the room, a volley of spears came whistling, forced both the cultivators to shift their response. Crimson hands blossomed beside Griffon and caught the oncoming flurry. Solus simply shifted aside, and took in the measure of their new foes. What came at them was a wave of scaled monstrous, not quite fish, but not quite person either.
"Someone seems to be quite the open lover," Sol spat, sardonic disgust filling his voice.
Lightning crackled around Griffon, the faint presence of the mystery grumbling with offense. But neither cultivator's minds were distracted. From across the room, people were fleeing in all directions, and behind them chased twelve sea-beasts laced with armor and bearing spear and shield.
Taking in the aesthetics of their wear, Solus' nostrils flared with outrage. The shield, the armor, the weapon, they were of Roman design—a legionnaire's design. Where did they get those arms? How? The black bile of hatred boiled within the last son of Roman as he shared a brief look with Griffon, their raven's speaking across shadows. "Do you have the bull."
The Minotaur struggled and bit, but the thrill was upon Griffon, and the man slaked his spirit of competition by wrestling the beast. "Go. Play with your fish. I'm going to see about this poor fool's eyes." And with wit spat, Griffon promptly drove two thumbs into the beast's eyes.
It howled with pain, arms struggling through a row of manifested hands, desperate to relive itself from torment. Sol managed a roll of his eyes the shadows sang out to him, tendrils licking at the encroaching insults wearing the regalia of his fallen brethren.
A weight pressed down upon the world, a weight beyond merely the material. There was a displacement at play here. The Pneuma of existence pooled in pride. There were still many questions behind their arrival, behind the mysteries now nested within their beings, but that would come later. For now, they needed to exercise cultivation in the most practical variety.
The sea beasts were parodies of men, their gleaming emerald scales covered further by armor. Soulless eyed the tridents they possessed and scorned them for their incoherent strategy. Though they were twelve, they did not approach as a legion. Rather, they were little more than scattered bands of brigands, like wild dogs seeking easy flesh. The common folk they hounded were also meager of spirit and body, few possessing the mettle to face their foes, none at all with the capability to truly fight back—none other than the philosopher striding forth to save them.
More of these merfolk reared their arms back, preparing to cast their spears. In that moment, Soulless exercised his power, reaching out using shadows and sweeping their ankles. Eight of the merfolk stumbled, two outright tripped, and a final two still managed to fling their spears, but thrown off balance, their aim was denied. Still, one such weapon sailed towards the back of a fleeing man. He wheezed and fled, ignorant of his coming death, ignorant still as Soulless stole the spear mid-flight.
Spinning it, he felt the weight and found it poorly balanced, but even so, a faulty weapon could still have much promise when wielded by a proper practitioner. As the merfolk wrestled against tendrils of gravity-wrought darkness, Soulless stepped forth and heard the voice of his mystery utter a statement of bitterness.
"Displacement, more displacement. Time itself flows upon a fractured river. None of us are where we should be. My realm bleeds upstream. This has happened before. I have claimed these lives before. The Strix… the Strix is lost."
Though some context was lost to Solus, he could feel the dread seeping out from the mystery—a dread great enough to drown a million men. Solus had to focus on keeping his breath controlled; it was hard to stand against the terror of a god, even a facet of a god, but he managed. It helped that the mystery wasn't trying to press down on him; rather, this was just residual pain radiating over into the last Roman himself.
Pushing down on the world with another surge of gravitas, the sea beasts were thrown off balance, and Griffin exploded across the room, darting between the fleeing commoners and bringing death at the point of his spear. Blood sprayed through the air as the first three merfolk were cleaved and pierced. The other four tried to fight back, reaching for spears hanging along their sides, but found their faults amplified by Solus's relic. "If you cannot march, you cannot fight," his voice infused with will and truth impacted the merfolk, and suddenly their efforts collapsed, as did their bodies. The tendrils were still pulling at them, and they, split of focus, succumbed. The heavy head of a trident fell, boots stomped, and four died between the circulation of Solus's breaths.
Behind, he heard a loud roar, put off by an echoing slap as Griffin taunted and jeered. A faint smile pulled at Solus's face. Even their choice of foes defined them: the last Roman facing down unworthy legionnaires, while the young aristocrats of the Rosy Dawn made a mockery of a bestial challenger. Lightning flashed out from Griffin's palms as he struck and battered the bull's ears. Every time its strength swelled, Griffin broke its balance, and every time it tried to throw him off, he rained blows upon the nerve clusters of its limbs. His medical training was augmented by the mystery dwelling inside him. The world around him was alive with static, and the flesh was merely his conduit of expression.
"I'm going to crush you," the minotaur roared. "I'm going to tear you limb from limb, and then I'm going to find that boy," it chortled as the curve of a palm speared into its throat, propelled by a bolt of electricity.
"What's that, you say?" Griffin chuckled as the beast reached back to grip at its throat. He dispatched several hands and took the bull by its digits. "Tell me, how well do you fight without being able to clench a fist?"
His pankration hands twisted, folding the digits in directions they could not go. Sickening cracks sounded as the bull struggled to scream.
"Ah, but the greater issue perhaps is that you are unable to breathe. Here, let me help." Griffin lifted his knee and brought it down between the bull's legs. A soft mass large ruptured with the strike, and this time the bull did scream, only to choke once more as Griffin struck his throat.
"Enough," the mystery within him rumbled. There was a faint trace of amusement and satisfaction lingering in the tone, but the bulk feeling was simply annoyance. "Finish this mistake, and then follow the mists, we must mend the fracture, we must find the one that is broken."
"So you say," Griffin said, sighing as he took in the bull. The poor creature seemed confused and lost. It twitched as it tried to reach for its neck, but the hands didn't work. The other hand was torn between going for its face or its privates.
A terrible choice indeed. In a moment of unsurpassed magnanimity, Griffin placed all his pankration hands, along with his two real hands, upon the chest of the beast, and exhaled. Thunder and lightning erupted forth from the young master and surged into the bull. Lightning like tribulation, a storm like the one he was cast into by the gadfly, flowed free from his body and smoked at the insides of the minotaur. This time it did not scream itself, but the world cried out on its behalf, and something in the world broke with a thunderclap of power. The minotaur detonated apart in an emanation of Pneuma, coming apart not in an eruption of charred flesh, but as curling fingers of fading mist, mist that began to flow free from a glass doorway.
Griffin's gaze followed the trailing wind just as he watched his brother in cultivation break the neck of a final fish.
"Oh, Solus, are you well? Has this world slowed you, twelve fish took you that long."
The Roman simply shot him a brief, annoyed stare. He held up his spear. "Gravitas," Solus said.
Griffin felt himself grow immensely heavier. It was like his shadow was becoming an anchor, and from within he saw even his raven struggling to push free.
"The mysteries have changed us," Solus said. "Do you feel it?"
Griffin did not respond immediately. Rather, he looked upon his hands and felt the surging power flow through him. This was the power of dominance. This was the power of calamity, but this was the power of absolute dominion, dominion that threatened the world, dominion and avarice.
"The weight of tyranny seems to reside within us," Griffin said, his mood suddenly turning pensive. "You feel that?"
Solus responded with a slight nod. "Yes, what we have over the world feels like a dominion, dominion over specific concepts. Shadows are mine to reign, and the storms are yours to call."
Griffin chuckled softly. "So what say you, Sol? Are you saying that our encounter with the mysteries has made us half-while tyrants? I think tyrants are too soft a word for what they are."
The quiet returned, but not within.
"Enough. Stop wasting time. Seek the mists."
The surrounding space trembled as distant thunder roared outside.
"Oh, my God!" A breathless utterance caught Griffin's attention as he turned to face a wide-eyed man. His face was red, sweat poured from his every pore, and he shook, barely able to hold his own weight. He took in the fading minotaur and merfolk, as if lost in a dreamlike river. Finally, his gaze fell upon the two cultivators, who also regarded him with curiosity.
"There seems to be no practitioners among them," Griffin said, judging the physical and spiritual states of everyone present. Most were lost to panic still, barely able to compose themselves. Solus frowned as he agreed. Their breaths were sharp and quick, no purpose or power behind them.
The chaos of the moment was further intensified as a loud crash suddenly sounded. A round metal object on wheels slammed into the room, its shell a silvery sheen, only coming to a rough stop as it impacted the far wall. Marble fractured as dust filled the air, and then a loud horn squealed at Griffin and Solus both as they blinked at the sudden intruder.
Hissing steam filled the room as the metallic monstrosity groaned, followed by a noise that sounded like a series of explosions. The strange machine was splotched with garish white and sported a strange attachment upon its hood.
Solus and Griffon came together, their Pneumas flaring, their spirits climbing high, lightning and shadow intermingling, the mysteries within them reaching out to the sudden intruder.
"Charon, oh Charon," The mysteries sang in unison. "Deliver us from fools, deliver us, and carry these lost lambs, to seek that which is bifurcated."
"Bifurcated," Griffon murmured, musing on the term. But his question lingered, went unanswered, as the vaporous shroud parted, revealing a well-dressed man in fine silks, dark spectacles upon dark skin. His hair was white, his expression confused, frazzled. He looked around, took in the cowering crowd, and a faint frown pulled at his features.
"Well, I don't suppose you two have coins for your passage."