The divine notification had come the day before, the sterile ping of the system as unfeeling as a factory bell.
You are requested in the Underworld Offices before the Winter Games departure.
Prepare.
Prepare for what? He had no idea. Something awful, probably. It usually was.
He sat up, dragging a hand through his hair and shaking off the fog of half-finished thoughts clinging to him like cobwebs. The faint tang of iron and ozone hung in the air, a lingering reminder of the summoning ritual he’d been working on earlier. The room still felt charged, like the echoes of his magic hadn’t quite settled.
He was experimenting—trying to mold weapons out of aether, shaping them into something tangible, something deadly. It was easier said than done. Ever since he ranked up to Silver and unlocked Affinities for both Soul and Truth, he’d felt… sharper. The power coursing through him came with new insights, sure, but also new frustrations. His abilities listed on the Character Sheet were just the tip of the iceberg, the parts the System acknowledged because he was finally starting to grasp them. The rest? Those he’d have to figure out on his own. Trial and error. Heavy on the error.
He’d figured out something most Travelers didn’t: the System wasn’t some benevolent force handing out powers like candy, or even dishing out EXP. It didn’t grant anything. All it did was measure what was already there, tallying it up and filing it neatly so his mind could make sense of this bizarre new world.
The System didn’t give him power—it just labeled it, organized it, and tried to help him not lose his grip on reality. The System wasn’t the cause, but rather, the effect.
Weeks had passed since his rank up to Silver, and with it came something new—something hungry. A new ability named Veilsteel, though the name felt too certain for a thing so mercurial.
Ability: Veilsteel
Type: Active
Rank: Silver
Cost: Moderate to High Aether (scales with weapon complexity)
Cooldown: None (limited by user stamina/aether)
Effect: Summons a single weapon forged from twilight essence. Weapon form is shaped by user intent and emotional state. Duration is short; weapons dissolve after several seconds or upon impact with strong force.
Notes:
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Only one construct may exist at a time.
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Stability and duration increase with mastery.
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Emotional clarity improves weapon strength and control.
It wasn’t a skill so much as a trick of will, drawing weapons from the breath-thin place between life and death. When he reached inward and wanted—truly wanted—energy gathered like dusk pooling in cupped hands, violet-black and pulsing, until it bled into the shape of a weapon.
A dagger, once. A short sword, more often. Once, a war hammer, heavy and beautiful and gone too soon. The constructs were never the same twice. And they didn’t last. None of them did. They unraveled after seconds—sometimes less—fading into smoke that tasted of ash and old blood. Each attempt left him gasping, the magic slipping through his fingers like sand through a sieve. The ability wasn’t enough to replace his curved sword with, due to the fact he could never really be sure of what weapon he would draw from the shadow place. And the aether drain sucked. He was sure it wouldn’t be so bad, except for constant drain he had going.
The real issue was his aether pool. He wasn’t just burning through it for the swords; a hefty chunk was being siphoned off constantly to fuel his ring—the White Raven Familiar. It was still recovering, its essence fractured from the last battle it had, so many years ago, and the only way to nurse it back to full strength was to keep feeding it.
It hurt—both his pride and his progression—but it felt worth it.
Still, as he flexed his fingers and felt the telltale tingle of aether sparking beneath his skin, he couldn’t help but wonder how much longer he could afford the cost.
He checked its status, the progress bar crawling upward at an infuriatingly slow pace.
89% replenished.
Close, but not close enough.
He checked his inventory, fingers flicking through the menus with the ease of someone who’d done it a thousand times. Each item, neatly cataloged by the System, appeared in glowing rows before him—armor, weapons, tools, even the odd trinket he wasn’t sure why he’d kept. He scrolled past the heavier sets, shaking his head. Too bulky. Not practical.
Finally, he settled on a suit that struck the right balance: lightweight, reinforced, and versatile enough for both combat and travel—it was something Twig had custom made for him. The material shimmered faintly as he selected it, the System automatically equipping it with a soft hum of aether.
He gave himself a once-over in the mirror. Dark hair, perpetually tousled, framed stormy gray eyes that stared back at him with a weariness he couldn’t quite shake. His face was lean, the kind of leanness born from too many skipped meals and too many nights spent running or fighting. His body told the same story—hardened by necessity, sharpened by survival.
But there was more now. Power thrummed beneath his skin, subtle but undeniable, a spark that hadn’t been there before Terra Mythica. It didn’t erase the scars or the sharp angles of his frame, but it added something else—something otherworldly.
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Jace adjusted his robe, the black fabric clinging to him like shadow, the faint emblem of the white raven glinting on the back.
“Good enough,” he muttered, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders as the suit adjusted to his frame. He wasn’t sure what he’d need to face, but he wasn’t about to show up unprepared.
He straightened the moonstone pendant around his neck, letting out a slow, measured breath to steady himself. The Prismata Shard, its soft silver glow pulsing in time with his heartbeat, felt cool against his skin. It wasn’t just jewelry or some flashy bauble. The shard could be worn or absorbed into him, its essence becoming a part of his very being. For now, he preferred to keep it external—something tangible to anchor him.
The pendant was more than a focus; it was a lifeline. A tether to the magic he was still struggling to fully control, a conduit that bridged his raw potential with the reality-bending forces of Terra Mythica. Without it, his power felt like a wild beast, barely leashed. With it? He had a chance to hold the chaos in his hands, to shape it, to wield it.
He checked over his status screen, glances quickly at his progress.
Silver Rank One.
It sounded impressive until you realized how far there was to go. Two Words of Power. That was it. Two Words, two Affinities, barely enough to scrape by in a world crawling with gods and monsters. He’d been practicing, trying to combine them, trying to unlock something greater. But progress came slow.
The Fields Below stretched before him, an endless maze of caverns and tunnels carved into the heart of Mount Olympus University. When Jace had first arrived, this place had been little more than a forgotten corner of the campus, a neglected shrine for a god no one cared to worship anymore.
Now, it was alive.
He might’ve been the only official Chosen of Hades, but ever since they’d allowed Hecate—the goddess of magic—to plant her banner under the same roof, the Fields Below had undergone a transformation that was impossible to ignore.
What had once been little more than a desolate afterthought now thrived with dark vitality. Hecate’s presence had drawn students like moths to a flame, swelling their ranks into the hundreds. Each newcomer brought their points and ambitions, reshaping the fields into something both awe-inspiring and distinctly underworldly.
The caverns gleamed with crystals that pulsed faintly, as if the walls themselves had veins of living stone. Sanctuaries bathed in perpetual twilight sprouted up like nocturnal blooms, places where whispers gathered and secrets hung suspended in the air. The gardens—if you could call them that—glowed with an otherworldly luminescence, their twisted flora hovering between beautiful and unsettling, more like manifestations of forgotten dreams than anything that belonged in sunlight.
Jace couldn’t help but admire Hecate’s handiwork. He might’ve been Hades’ Chosen, but Hecate had turned the Fields Below into something people wanted to be a part of. If he was being honest, it felt less like he was running the place and more like he was just trying to keep up with her.
He moved through the labyrinthine passages of the Underworld, the sound of his boots on stone echoing softly in the dim silence.
Wisps of light and shadow flitted past him—spirits, their forms insubstantial and shimmering, like faint memories of something lost. Hades had always been clear on his disdain for the undead, calling them an affront to the natural order. But spirits? Souls caught in the fragile space between existence and eternity? Those, he welcomed.
Ahead, the faint glow of torchlight marked the entrance to the Underworld Offices, flickering like a neon sign beckoning him into something he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to deal with. His dorms, tucked deep beneath Mount Olympus, had a direct path to the offices. Convenient, sure, but stepping into the place was always an exercise in surrealism.
The door creaked open, and he strode into what could only be described as the Underworld’s version of an office building. Rows of cubicles stretched out before him, the gray dividers worn and sagging slightly. Each desk held the relics of bureaucracy: yellowing stacks of parchment, quills that scratched at papers of their own accord, and glowing, ethereal screens displaying arcane symbols that defied translation.
The spirits were everywhere. Some hovered at desks, their translucent forms flickering as they shuffled phantom papers or tapped at ancient keyboards that gave off faint whispers instead of clicks. Others floated through the aisles, carrying stacks of files that never seemed to shrink, their expressions a mix of focus and quiet resignation.
Occasionally, a ghostly figure would pause to tidy up a desk or scribble something on a scroll, their movements precise and deliberate. Whatever tasks they were performing, they did so with purpose—a purpose Jace couldn’t quite make sense of. Maybe they were cataloging souls, balancing ledgers of life and death, or filing complaints about the conditions of the River Styx ferry service.
It was unnervingly mundane for a place that existed between worlds, but it brought an odd kind of order to the chaos. And maybe that’s why he didn’t entirely hate it. Here, in the heart of the Underworld, there was structure. A hierarchy. Rules.
The ghosts didn’t speak to him as he passed, their silence a constant hum in the air. But their presence grounded him. They were a reminder that even in the dark, even in the strangest corners of existence, there was a kind of logic. A rhythm.
Up ahead, Jace spotted Jerry, his ghostly form faintly shimmering in the dim light. A small grin tugged at Jace’s lips—it was good to see him. For all the chaos in the Underworld, Jerry had a way of making the place feel a little less heavy.
Jerry—a ghostly figure with more personality than most mortals—was in the middle of what could only be described as a car-crash-in-slow-motion attempt at flirting with Barbara, the Underworld’s receptionist. Barbara, with her towering beehive hairdo and sharp, cat-eye glasses, had perfected the art of looking unimpressed.
“...and, uh, I was thinking, maybe we could grab a coffee sometime?” Jerry stammered, his voice oscillating between hopeful and please-stop-this-now panic.
Barbara arched one impeccable eyebrow. Her lips twitched, hovering somewhere between amusement and the kind of exasperation that could peel paint. “I’ll think about it,” she said, her tone cooler than a midnight ferry ride across the Styx.
Jerry turned at the sound of Jace’s footsteps, his face lighting up.
“Jace! Perfect timing! Been a while, huh?” Jerry called out, his translucent form flickering slightly as he jogged to meet him. Falling into step beside Jace, he floated more than walked, keeping pace effortlessly as they headed toward the elevator.
“Jerry! How’s the love life?”
Jerry let out a dry laugh. “You know how office romances go. Got a bit of a Will-They, Won’t-They thing going as always.”
Jace just smiled.
Jerry floated backward a few inches, his hands spread wide in a theatrical shrug. “Love is a marathon, not a sprint.”
“Bit of a treadmill, in your case?”
“Harsh,” Jerry said, grinning faintly. “But fair.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just kidding, Jerry. You’ve got this,” Jace said, smirking. “She said she’d think about it. That’s progress, right?”
Jerry’s face lit up, his translucent form shimmering faintly. “Yeah, another hundred years or so, I think we might have a real date.”
The two of them moved down the dimly lit aisle, passing cubicles where spirits flickered in and out of view. Jace gestured toward one particularly frantic spirit, whose attempts at organizing files were hampered by the fact that they kept slipping through its intangible hands. “Busy day in the afterlife?”
Jerry chuckled, the sound hollow and echoing like an empty hallway. “Oh, you’d be surprised. End-of-cycle quotas, reincarnation petitions, complaints from hauntings—it’s all part of the job. And don’t even get me started on the bureaucracy around exorcisms.”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“Oh, it’s a riot,” Jerry said in genuine excitement.
As they reached the end of the aisle, the Underworld Elevator loomed before them. Its black iron doors were intricately carved with glowing sigils, each one pulsing like a heartbeat.
Jace smiled and clapped Jerry on the shoulder out of reflex, only to pause mid-motion when he remembered Jerry was a ghost. He half-expected his hand to pass through—but it didn’t. Instead, there was resistance, a faint but solid presence. His Soul Affinity flared, a sudden surge of awareness coursing through him, and the realization hit: he could touch ghosts.
“Good luck, Casanova.”
Jerry saluted, a half-hearted wave of his hand as Jace stepped into the elevator.
“Oh! Remember, Jace,” Jerry said, his voice echoing faintly as the elevator doors began to slide shut.
But Jace beat him to it. “The only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
Jerry smiled and Jace snorted, shaking his head as the doors sealed with a soft thunk, separating them. He leaned back against the cool iron of the elevator and pressed the single button engraved with Hades’ sigil. The doors slid shut with a whisper, sealing him in as the elevator began its smooth, silent descent.
“Down we go,” Jace muttered, bracing himself for whatever came next.
Girl from Ipanema played softly, and he found himself nodding along to the familiar tune.