ZAGREUS
Then yes, I probably do need your help.
Conditionless would be ideal. I'm not feeling up to much at the moment.
HADES
I'm not in the business of signing contracts I can't read
what do you need help with?
ZAGREUS
I know. And I've heard the song Orpheus wrote about it.
He won't sign a contract that he didn't read / and he won't cut you slack if you beg and plead / tough negotiations are part of his culture / so be careful or your spleen might be eaten by a vulture
ZAGREUS
I die, I get dumped out into the River Styx, I land in your office. Grand old time. Oh how we laugh. Well, mostly everyone else, and mostly at me.
HADES
I haven't had an office close to the river in years...
ZAGREUS
Are you the god of technicalities now? All right. What's the end of a river, then. The... basin? The unbasin?
Anyway. If I die here, I don't know what's going to happen. So I would prefer to avoid it.
And you seemed to know what was going to happen to me if I went to the surface.
ZAGREUS
Sorry. Ἁιδης. Aδάμαστος! GIVER OF WEALTH. THE UNSEEN. GOD OF THE DEAD. KING OF THE UNDERWORLD. HE WHO DROVE THE TITANS FROM THE HEAVENS AND LOCKED THEM IN THE BOWELS OF TARTARUS. DARK FATHER OF ALL BEINGS, SUCH AS ZAGREUS, GOD OF PERPETUALLY DISAPPOINTING HADES. EXAMPLE.
Seriously, dad. You can't run back to that well every time I forget to file an expense report.
HADES
I'm not -
I'm not playing games here,
...Zagreus?
I don't have a son. I don't know who you are.
ZAGREUS
If this is your way of telling me that you lied to me about BOTH of my parents then it's honestly only marginally better than your original plan, which was of course to try to get Cerberus to eat me.
HADES
Cerebus has very strict dietary requirements. I would never.
ZAGREUS
You know he gets a little bit of souls of the damned as a treat.
HADES
The poor nymph who walks him hates when I do that. But yes.
ZAGREUS
If I knew how to get back in the house without dying I'd take him myself.
I understand why the gate code would be a closely guarded secret but you could at least tell the security guard to let me in.
But it's fine. It's fine.
We don't need to rehash who lied to who about whose parentage.
HADES
Do you mean the lobby of my building? I don't have a gate code. It's a high rise.
ZAGREUS
Don't you feel like hiding away in your tower is leaving you disconnected from the experiences of the people you govern and leaving you more vulnerable to escape attempts, or worse?
ZAGREUS
Would you like an alphabetical list, or a chronology of specific examples
HADES
I’ve made the Underworld into a wonder place. We have thriving industry, luxury apartment building, better restaurants than Olympus... I don’t understand.
ZAGREUS
Charon's vastly overcharging for centaur hearts and we both know it.
But that's not really the point.
I'm sure some of the shades are happy enough, but eternal torment and/or servitude while you slowly lose any semblance of who you used to be unless you happened to die in combat just doesn't sit right. You know? Seems a little draconian.
HADES
no one is being tormented.
well
no one who doesn’t deserve it
ZAGREUS
Have you actually spoken to Sisyphus? Or Prometheus? Or Eurydice? They're very nice! Very nice people who were trying to do nice things.
Did you know that the Minotaur was wandering aimlessly on the outskirts of the underworld until Theseus found him? And now he's FRIENDS with THESEUS?
No one has done something so terrible that they should have to be friends with Theseus
When I was on the surface, I found that being on the River Styx kept me from dying. My mother said it was because I was no longer fully in the surface world.
I had hoped that perhaps you might be able to help me find some of its waters.