“Hades rolled over in his bed with a lazy yawn. His face caught the harsh, blood-red Underworld sunlight peering into his vaulted bedroom and he squinted. Somehow he had overslept. Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, he wondered why his alarm clock didn’t go off.

In his case, the alarm was the sound of a thousand freshly reaped souls screaming in torment. They soundly wailed every morning on schedule as soon as they were deposited into his infernal river, obviating the need for him to have a lackey to wake him up. But for some reason on this particular morning, the souls never wailed. Not really thinking too much of it, hades went about his morning rituals.

He walked and fed his three-headed hellhound, Cerberus. He took a luxurious bath, then dried himself by the heat of his flaming hair. And he oversaw his cavernous domain from the top of a volcano while sipping a glass of fine brandy.

It was only when he checked his soul-counter in his private lounge that he realized he had a problem. Inexplicably, it registered a paltry amount of a few dozen. Hades shook the counter to make sure the device was working properly, but the final didn’t budge. His equipment was working fine. It was his soul count that was pitifully low.

Hades shook his head and clenched his fist. There was little that put him in a worse mood than a low soul count. He felt like going out and drowning the first twenty restless spirits he came across in his infernal river, but he knew that wouldn’t solve his problem.

To get to the bottom of the issue, he’d have to look at the soul-providers who fueled his supply up in the Overworld. Unfortunately, hades didn’t have any real power when he journeyed above ground, and out of his domain. even if he could figure out which of his admired cadre of murderers had stopped murdering, he’d have to find a creative way to get them to resume killing.

First he needed time to think. He took a stroll through the grimy, sulfur-laden streets, which teemed with sad, restless spirits. These were the souls who still had unfinished business hanging over their heads, weighting on their permanently silenced hearts. The spirits avoided eye contact with hades, afraid he might unleash his wrath on them. But hades stopped one for a chat, a small, bearded villager.“



Transcript by @this-too-too-sullied-flesh