Orti Anima Sanguineque( Greek myths/pjo self inserts into the Hechatoncheires with Fromsoft games power): chapter 4: And also us

Pov: NIKOLAOS "BRIAREOS" PETROPOULOS

There's a particular kind of comfort in having a plan.

Even if the plan is "conquer literal hell," even if the plan is objectively idiotic, even if the plan requires us to fight against the fundamental structure of reality itself having goals, having steps, having a framework turns chaos into challenge.

And I've always been good with challenges. Especially the kind that involve research and lore and understanding systems.

"Okay," I say, letting my staff tap once against the ground. The sound resonates deeper than it should, like I'm knocking on a door that's larger than the universe. "Okay. Base first. Let's see what we're working with."

I turn slowly, taking in our surroundings with new eyes. Eyes that remember being human. Eyes that have read item descriptions and studied environmental storytelling and learned to see what games are trying to tell you through architecture and placement.

Tartarus is... it's hard to describe. The more I look at it, the less sense it makes, but also the more patterns I start to see.

We're in a cavern, yes, but the walls aren't random. They curve and fold in ways that suggest purpose. Intention. Like someone designed this place not for aesthetics but for function. For containing. For suppressing.

The ground beneath us slopes gently downward in all directions except one behind us, there's a slight rise. A shelf of stone that juts out from the wall like a balcony. It's maybe thirty feet deep, fifty feet wide. The wall behind it is solid. Or as solid as anything gets in this place.

"There," I say, pointing with my staff. "That outcropping. High ground, wall at our back, good sight lines to the rest of the area. Defensible."

Chris looks where I'm pointing. I can see him evaluating. Calculating angles and approach vectors and all the tactical considerations that live in his head like background processes.

"Yeah," he says after a moment. "Yeah, that works. Limited approaches. If something comes at us, it has to come from the front or the sides, not behind. And we can see them coming."

"Assuming sight works normally here," Elijah adds. He's moved to the edge of our current position, torch held high. The silver flame casts strange shadows that seem to bend toward him rather than away. "But it's better than nothing. And better than staying in the open."

We move toward the outcropping. It's strange, walking now. Being human-sized. Part of me misses the massive form, the hundred arms, the sense of being too big to ignore. But this is more practical. More mobile.

And I can always change back if I need to.

That's a comforting thought.

The climb up to the shelf is easy, there are natural handholds in the wall, or maybe they're unnatural. Maybe they're forming as we climb. Hard to tell. Everything in this place exists in a state of negotiation with reality.

When we reach the top, I immediately feel better. The higher position gives perspective. I can see the cavern stretching out before us, can track the way the walls curve away into darkness, can spot the places where the geometry stops making sense and starts making wrongness.

"Right," Chris says, all business now. "Perimeter check. Make sure nothing's hiding up here. Niko, you take left. Elijah, right. I'll check the back wall. Shout if you find anything that wants to kill us."

We split up. It's automatic. The same way we'd split up in a game to cover more ground, to search for items, to make sure we didn't miss anything but in real life.

The left side of the shelf is empty. Mostly. There are marks on the ground, scratches, gouges, patterns that might be ancient writing or might be the random scars of geological time. I crouch down, running my fingers over them.

They're warm.

Not hot. Just... warm. Like something was here recently. Something with body heat.

I file that information away under "concerns for later."

The wall behind me is solid stone, but when I press my hand against it, I feel that same pulse I noticed before. The anxious breathing of the place itself. Except here, close up, I can feel something else underneath the pulse.

A rhythm. Not regular. But not random either.

Patterns.

"Anything?" Chris calls out.

"Marks on the ground," I call back. "Might be something. Might be nothing. You?"

"Wall's solid. No cracks, no caves, no hidden passages. We're not gonna get ambushed from behind unless something can walk through rock."

"In this place, I wouldn't rule it out," Elijah says. He's finished his sweep too, returning to the center of the shelf. "But right side is clear. No threats, no surprises. Just more unsettling geometry."

We gather in the center of our new base. It's not much. A flat space, a wall, a view of hell. But it's ours.

"Okay," I say. "Okay, now we need to think about fortification. We can't just sit here exposed. We need... defenses. Warnings. Something to tell us if anything's approaching."

Chris nods. "Agreed. In normal circumstances I'd say trip wires, alarm bells, maybe some stakes. But we're not exactly swimming in resources here."

"We're gods," Elijah points out. "Or close enough. Maybe we can make our own resources."

That's... actually a good point.

I look down at my hands. At the staff I'm holding. It's solid, real, but it also came from nowhere. It manifested when I needed it, when I transformed, when I became the Elden Lord.

What else can I manifest?

I close my eyes. Reach inward. Not to the Gyes part of me, the hundred-handed deity. To the Tarnished part. The part that remembers grace, remembers sitting at sites of grace, remembers the way they'd glow and offer comfort in hostile lands.

"Grace," I whisper.

And something responds.

I feel it gathering in my chest. Warm. Golden. The memory of every bonfire, every checkpoint, every safe room in every game I've ever played. The promise that no matter how many times you die, you can always return here.

I kneel down and press my palm to the stone.

Golden light spills out. Not bright. Gentle. It pools around my hand like liquid, like honey, like dawn. And where it touches the stone, things change.

The rock smooths. Softens. A pattern emerges, roots, or branches, or veins of light spreading outward in fractal complexity. They glow faintly, pulsing in time with... with something. My heartbeat? The world's heartbeat?

Both.

When I lift my hand, there's a site of grace. Small. Fragile. But real.

"Holy shit," Chris breathes.

"Respawn point," I say, and I can't keep the smile off my face. "We have a respawn point in case us being gods isn’t synonym with unkillable."

Elijah kneels beside it, studying it with those insight-heavy eyes. "It's not just a marker," he says slowly. "It's... it's a anchor. A fixed point. I can feel it. Like it's nailing this spot to reality, keeping it stable. The rest of Tartarus might shift and change but this... this stays. I don't know how I know this, why I am so sure but yeah."

"Can you make more?" Chris asks me.

"I... don't know. Maybe? But not right now. That took a lot out of me. Like, more than i would have wanted."

Chris nods. "Makes sense. We're probably running on finite resources until we figure out how to properly use our powers. Okay, we have our anchor point. That's huge. That's step one complete. Now we need visibility."

He moves to the edge of the shelf and looks out over the cavern. I join him.

From here, I can see maybe a hundred yards before the darkness gets too thick. There are shapes out there. Structures, maybe. Or creatures. Or both. It's impossible to tell without getting closer.

"We need light," Chris says. "More than Elijah's torch. We need to see what's coming."

"I might be able to help with that," Elijah says. He's been quiet, contemplative, his attention focused on something we can't see. Now he lifts his torch and the silver flame brightens.

Not much. Just enough.

But it's not the torch that changes. It's the flame itself. It detaches. Pulls away from the wood like it's alive and curious. It floats in the air, hovering, a small sun made of moonlight.

Elijah gestures and the flame divides. Splits like a cell, one becoming two, two becoming four. Each flame drifts outward, positioning itself at the edges of our shelf, forming a perimeter of light.

"Messengers," Elijah says softly. "Or echoes of them. From the dream. They can carry light. Carry messages. Carry warnings."

The flames settle into position. They don't illuminate much, this darkness is stubborn but they mark the boundaries of our space. They define the territory.

Our territory.

"Beautiful," I say, and mean it.

Chris is nodding, approving. "Okay. Okay, we're getting somewhere. We have a respawn and a rest point, we have a perimeter, we have light. Now we need supplies. Food, water, whatever passes for sustenance when you're a monster god in hell."

"Do we need food?" Elijah asks. "I mean, do we get hungry? I don't... I don't feel hungry."

Now that he mentions it, neither do I.

"Might be a god thing," I muse. "Or a dead thing. Or a we-haven't-been-alive-long-enough-to-get-hungry thing. But we should figure it out before it becomes urgent."

"Add it to the list," Chris says. "Test metabolic requirements. For now, let's assume we need something eventually. Which means we need to explore. Which means we need to be smart about it."

He turns back to us, and I can see the strategist fully engaged now.

"Basic reconnaissance protocol: we don't split up. Not yet. Not until we know what's out there. We move as a unit. Stay within sight of each other. If something attacks, we regroup immediately. No heroics, no solo runs. We're a party, we act like a party."

"Range and formation," I say, falling into the familiar rhythm. "I'm mid-range. I've got incantations and sorceries, so I can hang back and provide support or artillery. Chris, you're melee, obviously. Front line. Elijah..."

"Scout and skirmisher," Elijah says. "I'm fast. The Hunter is built for mobility. I can dart in, do damage, dart out. And my insight lets me see things before they get close."

Chris nods, satisfied. "Good. Okay. Standard formation then: I take point, Elijah on my right flank, Niko in the back but close enough to support. We sweep in arcs, never more than fifty feet from base. Map the area, identify threats, return to anchor. Then we extend the range. Methodical."

"Like clearing a level," I say.

"Exactly like clearing a level."

It's strange how much better I feel with a plan. With roles assigned. With tactics in place.

We're not just three assholes stumbling around hell anymore. We're a party. A team. A unit with doctrine and purpose.

"One more thing before we start," Elijah says. He's looking at the non-sky again, at the things moving up there. "We should have a signal. If one of us gets in trouble, if we need to regroup immediately, we need a fast way to communicate."

"Good point," Chris says. "Suggestions?"

I think for a moment. Then I lift my staff and channel a tiny bit of power. Golden light gathers at the tip, then shoots upward in a thin beam. It goes up maybe thirty feet before dissipating.

"Light signal," I say. "Fast, visible, unmistakable. If any of us shoots a beam of light straight up, the others return to anchor immediately."

"Works for me," Chris agrees. "Elijah?"

Elijah nods. "Yeah. Simple is good. Complicated signals fail under stress."

"Alright then." Chris draws his sword currently in straight sword configuration, practical and balanced and rolls his shoulders. "Let's go see what hell has to offer."

We descend from our shelf in formation. Chris first, sword ready. Elijah a few steps to his right, cleaver unfolded into its extended saw form. Me in the back, staff in one hand, seal in the other, ready to cast.

The ground level of the cavern feels different now that we're back down here. More exposed. More vulnerable. The darkness presses in from all sides, held back only by Elijah's silver flames.

"Heading?" Chris asks quietly.

"Left," I say. "The wall curves that direction. Let's follow it, keep one side anchored."

We move.

It's slow going. Careful. Every step is evaluated. Every shadow inspected. Chris sets the pace, steady but not rushed. The kind of speed that gets you through levels without attracting unnecessary aggro.

The cavern wall on our left is a study in impossible architecture. It curves and bulges, forming shapes that might be decorative or might be structural or might be something else entirely. In places, there are alcoves. Hollows. Spaces that look like they could house something.

We check each one.

Most are empty. A few have... residue. Not physical residue. Emotional residue. I can feel, almost see it it when I get close, echoes of despair, of rage, of things that suffered here and left impressions in the stone.

"This place doesn't forget. It remembers ever and forevermore," I murmur.

"Remembers what?" Chris asks.

"Everything. Everyone. Every prisoner that's ever been here. It's like... like the walls are recording. Storing. This isn't just a prison. It's an archive."

"Creepy," Elijah says mildly. "But useful. If we can learn to read it."

We continue following the wall. After maybe fifty feet, we find something new.

A pillar.

It rises from the ground like a tooth, black stone veined with red. It's maybe ten feet tall, three feet wide. The surface is covered in markings. Definitely not natural. Definitely intentional.

"Hold," Chris says, hand raised.

We stop. Watch. Wait for the pillar to do something threatening.

It doesn't.

"Niko?" Chris asks. "You're the lore guy. What are we looking at?"

I approach slowly. Staff ready. But the pillar doesn't react to my presence.

The markings are... they're writing. I think. But not any language I recognize. The characters are angular, harsh, all straight lines and sharp corners. They hurt to look at, like my eyes keep sliding off them, refusing to focus.

But underneath the visual noise, I can feel meaning. Not read it. Feel it.

"It's a marker," I say slowly. "A boundary. This... this is defining territory. Claiming space."

"Who claimed it?" Elijah asks.

"I don't know. But it's old. Maybe as old as Tartarus itself."

"Should we be worried?" Chris asks.

"I... don't think so? It doesn't feel hostile. It feels... neutral. Like a fence post. It's just marking that something is here. Or was here. Or will be here."

"Helpful," Chris says dryly.

We mark the pillar's location mentally and continue.

Over the next hour or what feels like an hour, time is weird here, we map out the immediate area. We find three more pillars, equally mysterious. We find a depression in the ground that might be a dried riverbed. We find a cluster of stones arranged in a pattern that's definitely not natural.

And we find tracks.

Not footprints. Too big for footprints. More like... drag marks. Long gouges in the stone, parallel, like something massive was pulled across the ground. Or pulled itself across the ground.

"Something lives here," Chris says quietly. "Something big."

"Or lived here," Elijah counters. "These marks are old."

"Old is relative in a place that's eternal."

Fair point.

We follow the tracks carefully. They lead away from our base, heading deeper into the cavern, toward a section where the darkness is thicker. Where even Elijah's silver flames seem to dim.

"Decision point," Chris says. "We can follow these now, or mark them and return later when we're more prepared."

"I vote later," I say. "We're still learning our capabilities. If we run into whatever made those tracks, I want to know we can handle it."

"Agreed," Elijah says. "Besides, we're getting far from anchor. Another fifty feet and we'll be at our limit."

Chris nods. "Smart. Okay, we mark this location, return to base, rest and plan. Tomorrow or whatever passes for tomorrow, we go deeper."

We turn back.

The return journey is faster. We know the route now. Know which shadows are just shadows. Know which alcoves are clear.

When we climb back onto our shelf, the site of grace greets us like a beacon. It's grown slightly, I notice. The golden roots have spread a few inches further. Like it's taking root. Establishing itself.

"Home sweet hell," Chris mutters, but he's smiling.

We settle around the grace. The light is warm. Comforting. For a moment, we just exist. Three friends in impossible circumstances, taking a breath before the next challenge.

"So," Elijah says eventually. "What did we learn?"

"We're not alone here," Chris says. "There's at least one other thing down here, something big enough to leave tracks we could drive a car through."

"The pillars are territorial markers," I add. "Which implies territory. Which implies something to mark territory against. Multiple somethings, maybe."

"The walls record," Elijah says. "The place itself is alive or at least aware. Which means we need to be careful about what we do, because it might be watching."

"And we have no idea how big this place is," Chris finishes. "For all we know, that was the tutorial area and the real game starts past those tracks."

We sit with that for a moment.

Then Chris grins. "You know what? Good. I like a challenge. I like having something to solve. This is a puzzle. A massive, hell-shaped puzzle. And we're going to crack it."

"One step at a time," I say.

"One boss at a time," Elijah adds.

"One death at a time," Chris finishes.

We look at each other. And then we're laughing. Because it's absurd. Because it's impossible. Because we died and went to hell and our response is to treat it like a video game.

But that's exactly what it is, isn't it?

Another game. Another challenge. Another world to master.

We've done this before. We'll do it again.

"Alright," Chris says, standing. "Here's the schedule. Later, we push deeper. Follow those tracks, see what made them. If it's hostile, we fight. If it's not, we negotiate. Either way, we learn."

"And if it fuck us up?" I ask.

Chris gestures at the grace. "Then we respawn and try again. That's the advantage of having a checkpoint. Death if we can even die is temporary. Knowledge is permanent."

"Very philosophical," Elijah says.

"I contain multitudes."

I stand too, stretching. My body feels good. Strong. The Tarnished form is comfortable, like wearing a well-made suit. But I can still feel the Briareos underneath. The god-form. The hundred arms waiting to unfold.

"We're going to do this," I say. It's not a question. Not a hope. A statement of fact.

"Damn right we are," Chris agrees.

Elijah just smiles. That slight, knowing smile he gets when he sees something the rest of us don't.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," he says. "Just... I'm glad I'm dead with you guys."

"Fuck you," Chris says, but his voice is warm.

"Fuck you too," I reply.

"Group fuck you," Elijah says.

And we settle in around the grace, three boys in gods' bodies, planning the conquest of hell.

It feels like a Tuesday.

It feels like home.