Stronger Together chapter 237

"I don't get why you're so grumpy about this. Henry's place is in  undertown and we got there all the time." Kara, as was her habit, seemed  mostly unbothered by pretty much everything when in mixed company. I  knew that she had more doubts than she let on of course, but in public  she always tried to be the bastion of hope. We were standing in front of  an old run down house she had spotted with X-ray vision from above.  "I'm sure it won't be that terrible down there. It's just underground  right? Though it's a bit weird I can't see most of it I admit."

She  wasn't wrong, especially considering how strong we all were, but I just  couldn't shake the inherent fear I had for undertown. I could probably  have blamed the books for it id I'd really wanted to but regardless of  the reasoning I just felt nervous when the place was brought up. Still,  it was better to be too prepared than not enough so I shook my head.  "No, everything I know about undertown makes it out to be hellish.  Having actually been to hell I can tell you it isn't a great place so  I'm going to go ahead and expect the worst. You should do the same."

She  shrugged. "You know more about this than me so I'll keep an eye out."  As we stepped through the door though she froze." I cocked my head  curiously and she swallowed hard. "I hear something." That made me tense  up but she shook her head. "Nothing bad, it's just something  unexpected. I didn't see or hear anything aside from a hole in the floor  before we stepped inside, but now I hear...gears." Sharing a confused  and worried glance we both drew on our power, Kara shrouding herself in  the power of faith in a way I hasn't seen her do before as I pulled my  aspect around me.

But  before we could head down into the depths of the ruined house Aiden  walked cheerfully past us, seemingly without a care for safety or  caution at all. We both froze, clearly unsure what to do, but moved  quickly to catch up after as second. I considered calling to him or  asking him to hang back, but the weirdo was almost as fast as I was, so I  doubted he would be hurt by some random basement sweller. Not my job to  prevent him from being stupid, so we would let him look around and be  ready to jump in on his side if something nasty tried to make him lunch.

When  we came down the step to the basement though Kara and I both froze  again. I turned to look at her. "So this hole you saw. You sure it  didn't have something...in it?" She stared at the structure in the  middle of the room and shook her head worriedly, and honestly I could  hardly blame her, it was unsettling. I spoke quietly as I continued.  "Aiden." The strange man stopped. "Come back, this feels weird, we'll  approach it together. He just shrugged and turned to walk back over.  Even he clearly thought it was odd, which made sense because In the  center of the room, sitting somehow completely unattended, was a bronze  elevator.

It  was one of those old timey ones with the scroll work and the half circle  readout of the floors on the top, with intricately carved doors covered  in shapes and geometric designs. Lots of angled lines. Kara not being  able to see this in x-ray was weird, but even stranger was the  disturbing feeling of unreality coming off the thing. Like it was some  kind hallucination that we were all sharing and definitely couldn't  really exist. I turned to the other two. "So...are we going to take it?"  Because honestly I didn't see much other choice, and honestly I was  pretty sure we could handle anything we came across, but random  elevators in basements were a bit suspicious.

Kara  frowned at it before turning back to me. "I can see it in the normal  spectrum, but when I use my x-ray it just looks like a hole again.  Whatever that is it doesn't show up outside the immediate physical  image." Which somehow I kind of got. The unfinished nature of the thing  made it seem like it wasn't firmly anchored in the world, and an  illusion would be one of my first guesses. My instincts told me it  wasn't though, that it was physical, but maybe not completely? It was  confusing the hell out of me.

I  decided to be the one to move forward, since my armor would make it  unlikely for me to be hurt. Aside from that I reached for the memory of  Yang's earth magic, and, with an ease that had eluded me before I  completed my halfway transformation to an angel, called on the spell  that I'd been tinkering with slightly in my downtime since hell. I'd  gotten it working before, so it only took me a minute or two to get my  aspect of earth pulled through my body. I fely the strength and  durability of steel roll over me, reinforcing my flesh and muscle with  the nature of the nearest earth elemental source to me, the godsteel in  my own body.

It  wasn't enough to make me godsteel tough all the way through, but it  shifted my angelic flesh in a way similar tohow the earth magic imbued  essence into stone. It made me strongewr and more durable, and when I  poured power into my archangel armor as well I knew I would be fine as I  stepped forward to approach the elevator, waving my friends back. Well  waving Kara back, I didn't really know Aiden well, but tough or not, if  this was genuinely dangerous I could react faster as the target, so the  plan had changed.

I  walked down the wood stairs, feeling the structure creak under my  weight, but it held in the end, and I approached the elevator. I waited  as I got closed, trying to ready myself for combat in case I was  attacked, but once I got within range I felt...nothing. Nothing attacked  me, nothing jumped out, it just kind of stood there. I turned to look  at them and they just stared back, Aiden seeming blankly cheerful and  Kara confused. Then I hit a button on the side panel and the doors ding  and flew open. We all tensed, waiting for an attack buit all we got was a  lazy voice issuing out "Oh stop dragging your feet please."

I  almost jumped, but kept myself under control, when I looked inside the  elevator car I saw something enxepected. An elevator man. One of those  red dressed attendants from old movies and buildings with a red pillbox  hat and a smart red jacket. He had tan skin and bronze hair, with deep  sea green eyes. When he saw me looking he chuckled. "Yes, I'm very  surprising, could you step in please? I have a schedule to keep. I'm  willing to help because 0f favors owed, but Odin promised me minimal  interruptions to my routine." He leaned carelessly against the wall of  the bronze contraption, which i could make out was covered with grecian  murals along the inside.

I  had a decent guess as to what this guy was even if I didn't know for  sure who. He noted my eyes tracing the designs and rolled his own. "Yes,  yes, I am Hermes of the greek pantheon of deities, god of messengers  and travelers and thieves. You're shocked and amazed but not afraid  because you're such a big tough man and you've met plenty of gods  before, can we skip this please? Like I said, I've got things."My  instincts said to trust him but, I looked to Kara and Aiden who both  nodded and we stepped into the elevator. With a sigh of relief Hermes  hit the button to one side and the doors closed, the elevator beginning  to descend.

I  turned to Hermes. "So, can you tell me whats going on? Because it's  weird that Odin knew where we would be and sent you. Don't get me wrong  I'm pleased as punch to have...whatever help you're offering, but what  exactly are you doing here?" I couldn't figure out what the hell this  was. Had Odin known about Tessa? Was Hermes here to help us find her? It  seemed insane to even contemplate sending a god to help us track down  and kill some Denarians. He almost had to be here for another reason but  I couldn't for the life of me figure out what. More importantly I  couldn't figure out why? Why now? What the hell was this?

The  pagan god rolled his eyes. "Because now is the time things are bad and  the help is needed. There are certain rules that need to be followed,  certain conditions to be met, but you have things you need for the  upcoming battle and this little trip to undertown fulfills those  conditions well enough to make it possible for me to play ferryman.  Normally this would have been done more subtly, over a longer period of  time, but time is something we don't have much of, so we dispense with  the theatrics for the sake of expedience. I'm taking you down to get  some weapons. The real ones, the kind you'll need to win this."

And  just like that it hit me. This had happened in the books, but it had  happened slower and without Hermes interfering. We were skipping the  pretense and just taking an elevator down to the underworld. We were  raiding Hades, vault for powerful weapons to use against the outsider.  I'd forgotten about that, but it seemed Odin hadn't. Apparently going  down to undertown would be enough to let Hermes take us into the vault,  but it made sense the messenger god could courier us down there more  easily than if we went ourselves. The question was, could we afford the  detour?

The  answer was, no. But also we couldn't really afford not to take it. These  weapons had been important enough for the accorded nations to arrange  Skin Game just for Harry to get his hands on them, which meant we would  probably need them. If Odin felt strongly enough about us using them to  call in a favor like this our Denarian hunt would need to wait. We were  going to have to take this trip down and gear up. Granted I was betting  they didn't have any armor as good as mine, but a weapon wouldn't  exactly go amiss. I mostly just punched shit, but I only had one metal  arm and something to use with my other hand would be nice.

Kara  looked concerned and a bit confused, but she also trusted me and  clearly trusted Odin at least a bit. I put a hand on her shoulder and  squeezed reassuringly and she smiled and gave me another nod, this one  firmer. Aiden meanwhile appeared to neither know nor care what we were  doing and just looked around the elevator casually. I turned to Hermes.  "So assuming I know where we're going are you dropping us off in his  office or are we going to be expected to retrieve everything ourselves?"

Hermes  seemed surprised that I knew what was going on, or at least acted like I  did but then he chuckled. "You'll be meeting him, Mr. Beddows. I think  he'll like you, you're a sharp one. I see why Odin picked you for this,  though I imagine that terrifying lorica you're wearing didn't hurt your  chances. Makes sense to send someone who already has armor, means you  can carry an extra set." He smiled to himself as we descended, clearly  enjoying the thought of what our time down there would be like. Finally  there was a second loud ding and the doors opened to a white marble  lobby. Hermes grinned. "Basement level, everybody off." And with that,  we stepped out into the underworld.