“I am. Now about Tartarus?” I asked.

“I’m guessing you also saw Merlin. We should hurry. Though, I need to pack up my things.” the man said before rolling up his mat and stuffing it into a sack along with his instrument. Without saying anything else, the man got up and began leading me down an alleyway.

“So where is this place?” I asked.

“Well, it’s hard to say. I can lead you to the entrance but I have no clue whether you’ll be able to go beyond the Labyrinth which leads to hades. If you can make it that far then you’ll have to figure out a way to Tartarus through Hades.” the man said.

“And where is the entrance?” I asked as that wasn’t exactly what I was asking for.

“It’s located in a cave on the banks of Cape Tainaron. About a three days walk from here.” the man said with a nonchalant attitude.

“Three days? That’s too long.” I complained.

“Well, we don’t have any other choice do we?” the man said with an annoyed tone.

“Wait, I have an idea!” I said ecstatically.

“What kind of idea?” he asked right as I grabbed his arm and focused on the world of stars.

Just as I appeared before Tim who looked like she was bored out of her mind, the informant fell to the watery floor and began hurling. Tim’s face began to twist from her blank, emotionless face to that of a disgusted one at the sight of the man throwing up all over her floor. I, however, took delight in the fact that I made her show some form of expression.

“You ass! You better not be wasting my time by coming here!” Tim yelled as she got up and began stomping her feet as if she was throwing a tantrum.

“Wasting your time? You have all the time in the world and you’re probably bored out of your mind right now. Now, would you mind sending us both to Cape Tainaron as fast as possible?”

I asked after berating her about her remark. She seemed angry with me but couldn’t really argue with my comment about her being bored.

“Whatever. Just do what you want! I don’t care!” she said before waving her hand. The next thing I knew, the informant and I were both falling into the water of the Cape. The water barely caught us as we fell in. had we been any higher then we may have risked getting a broken bone. However, I would have probably been fine. The informant, not so much.

After swimming our way to land and getting asked a ton of questions about where we just were and who the girl was, I finally convinced him that it wasn’t important. Though he still wasn’t satisfied with that answer, he didn’t bother asking any further. The informant gauged where we were and started leading me to the cave. As we approached it he stopped and gave me a concerned look.

“Alright. Inside is the labyrinth. Beyond it is Hades and he can lead you to Tartarus. That is if he wants to. Why you need to go to Tartarus is beyond me so I hope you don’t die.” the informant said before extending his hand. Shaking his hand I nodded.

“Thank you for taking us this far. You have no idea how helpful this is.” I said before walking forward into the cave.

“Oh, you should probably take these with you.” the informant said as he threw me a stone with an engraving on it and a small coin. “It’s a Wayfinder stone. It illuminates the area around the direction in which you desire to go. I don’t know if it will work properly in there but it should help at least to let you see. The other is a coin to get you across the river to Hades. That is if you find it.”

“Thank you again.” I said as I caught the stone and continued into the cavern.

Water dripped around me in pools that caused an echo effect as I passed through. As I ventured down into the chasm and the light from the cave entrance disappeared, the Wayfinder stone began to illuminate the path ahead of me. It wasn’t much brighter than a cheap flashlight but it worked well enough.

Continuing through the musty cavern led me to fork after fork in the road. As I reached each one the stone would illuminate a specific path for me to go down. Doing as the stone guided I ended up so deep within the cave that it was becoming hard to breathe and the heat was becoming too harsh for me. Despite this, I continued until the light from the stone began to illuminate the entire cavern like a compass that was directly over a pole.

“That doesn’t help me much.” I said to myself as I looked around. Moving around the cavern I noticed that when I moved a bit away from where I was before the stone would illuminate a spot on the floor.

“Could it be below me? Compton, can you create a portal through the floor, or perhaps move the stone below me with a portal?” I asked.

“Of course, just hold still and give me a moment to concentrate.” Compton answered. Just as he did a ghost-like creature appeared behind me and flung me across the cavern. Dropping the stone on the floor, the entire room went pitch black as I crashed into the side of the cavern.

“What the?” I asked myself as I got back up and drew my sword. Focusing on producing the armor on my arms and shins the glowing armor gave off a faint bit of light, allowing me to see the creature. A ghostly humanoid that looked to be enraged.