Charon wasn't happy. Ever since he had let those demigods inside the underworld, not only had he not received his promised pay raise, but now he had to do maintenance work! What was the point of that! That whole mess hadn't even ended badly. It was an absolutely unacceptable insult towards someone like him, he was a son of Nyx, for crying out loud!

But at the end of every day, there he was, obeying Hades. He usually had to do stuff like grease doors, feed Cerberus… but today, he was ordered to look around the Styx river. Why? Apparently there was an inacuraccy regarding the people who took the ferry and arrived at the gates of the underworld.

"-The notary has told us that there is a discrepancy of 2.4582% regarding the daily ferries and new arrivals. Fewer people arrive than the ones registered on the ferry. So, there must be something wrong around the Styx."

Tisiphone had told him, another victim of the changes in human resources. Now she was the one doing the paperwork.

"-Well, I must say that, maybe, If I hadn't been removed from my position so unfairly, we would not be missing people on such a simple walk. All this is preposterous and has been for too long, Tisiphone. If you could talk to-"

Tisiphone had simply ignored him and continued looking at papers. Charon had thought of going directly to Hades, but he had taken a very long detour to comply-with-ordersburg.

-What am I even looking for? An Airbnb for souls who don't want to be judged?

He mumbled as he walked, trying very hard not to stain his suit; it was an expensive one, like all the ones he had. As he finished his research route, there seemed to be no problems. He could already see the report: 'There is no anomaly, it is the fault of the new ferry guy. It is recommended that the former driver be rehired'. But then, he saw something.

A hole in the ground, smoking. It wasn't very big, but big enough for someone to get in. He approached it, but it had a very creepy feeling, even for an inhabitant of the underworld. As he approached, he felt an extremely foul smell coming from the hole, almost to the point that he wished he could throw up. He also glimpsed some kind of stairs leading down.

He started going down, the smoke obscuring his vision. Manteinance-guy went down the stairs, and down the stairs, and down the stairs… He kept going for a very long while. So much so that it seemed like he had been there for hours.

-What is even this…

He thought of going back, in fact, something inside told him to go back. There was some reason why he shouldn't be doing it, but he couldn't quite put the finger on it. Another thing he realized was a very distant sound, they were like pulsations: periodic and constant. They repeated every 2 seconds or so. He stopped, he couldn't do this. His guts gave him an irrational need to get the hell out of there. He breathed heavily, feeling like he was going to be judged and banished into the Tartarus for being there. With a shook of his head he cleared hi mind, what was this about? If he wanted to finish his job and clean his suit (it had ended up a bit dirty), he had to continue. That is what he was going to do. He took a decisive step forward.

Gtssss*

With a combination of the noises of a cake breaking and a burp, the stair he stepped on broke. He fell flat on his face, and all the stairs collapsed at his encounter. Suddenly he was in a mushy, disgusting slide of molten rock. This was terrible for the suit, there was no salvation, it would have to be thrown in the trash. When he reached the end of the slide, he found himself in a room. Well, calling it a room was a bit generous, rather a small, cavernous, smoke-filled chamber. The floor was rock dissolved in some kind of dark yellow fuming liquid, the ceiling dripped the same concoction. But that didn't disturb Charon, he no longer cared about his suit being dirty.

In front of him, in the smoke, an amorphous and unstable silhouette was drawn, constantly changing shape. But it seemed to be trying to take a form, the mass contracted and took a figure that could vaguely remind a human, but every time it came close to a normal form a pulsation sounded that destabilized the form and expanded it again. That was the sound. He approached, trudging through the rocky mud. Upon closer inspection, he could see that there were two chains tying up that shapeless conglomeration, and those chains were the ones pulsating.

-Is this a prison? Who the hell are you?

The smoke didn't let him quite see the mass, but talking to it seemed to make it react. Two small glows appeared in the center of the amorphous creature, like eyes, before suddenly collapsing back to chaos.

'Okay -Charon thought- this is someone, maybe if I lit a fire I can see them…'

With a clap, he lit a small fire. Within moments, it expanded into a ball of fire, igniting all the gas filling the chamber.

Crack*

A tremendous explosion rocked the chamber, blocks of semi-liquid stone falling on Charon and sinking him. Panick filled him as the yellow-ish liquid entered his nose and mouth, making his flesh feel like they were rotting right then and there. He fought to resurface, his arms and legs furiously pushing upwards. Finally his head peeked out from the mud and his eyes widened as he saw broken chains in front of him.

He looked up, where the mass had been, there was now a shirtless man tied by another chain by one hand. The man was dejected, his long blond hair covering his eyes, from which a small blue glow shone through. His skin was sickly white, and he was very thin, but what was most striking was a dagger piercing his chest. A black dagger that created a series of large black cracks in the prisoner's chest and stomach. The remaining chain was going crazy, pulsating multiple times every second. But it did nothing but cause spasms in the chained arm.

Charon coughed out the liquid, feeling like he was vomiting lava.

-Sir? I broke one of the chains that held you, so, quid pro quo? I would greatly thank if you helped me…

Charon tried to sound convincing like it wasn't an accident while he crawled out. The prisoner raised his head, looking with his glowing blue eyes. He seemed confused.

-I am…

His voice sounded thin and delicate, but it was immediately followed by an echo from beyond the grave; he seemed like a child and a monster speaking at the same time.

-You are…

Charon said, like he had a name on the tip of his tongue, but it didn't come to him. It didn't make sense if it did come either; he'd never seen that man before.

A sudden ground tremor cut short the 'conversation'. The prisoner looked up, and moved his mouth like talking, but no sound came from it. After a couple seconds, the tremor stopped and the chained man stopped mute-talking. He looked back at Charon, now his eyes with a threatening undertone.

-I lost my name… But a new one has been granted to me…

He slammed the wall behind him with his free first, sinking into it. He started yanking, slowly pulling out his fist, although it wasn't alone, he was holding a long object, unrecognizable because it was covered with the molten stone. When he pulled it out completely, the layer of dirt began to fall away, revealing a long golden sword. Charon was trying to get out faster than before, as he felt this wasn't going well. He managed to get out while the man raised his sword. The moment his legs stepped out of the mud and turned around to escape, he heard the sound of the last chain breaking.

He ran to the exit, but the ceiling of the road from which it had come collapsed. Everything went dark, he was trapped in that chamber. He tried to look around to see the prisoner, but he had disappeared.

-In the name of the Gods! Where are you? How dare you trap me here!

He felt a shiver run down his spine and he turned around slowly. He encountered two glowing blue points in the middle of the darkness, he was still there.

-I'm Godwyn, the First Prince.

That was the last thing Charon heard before he felt the cold sword against his neck.