The male Larua returned with a towel and pristine white robes, the female one replacing her mask quickly before he reentered the private bathing area.

I lifted myself out of the bath, noticing how dirty the water was now and took them from him.

“Thank you.” I said to him, trying to inject as much genuineness into those two words as possible.

He didn’t respond in any way, but that didn’t matter. Honorable action didn’t need reward or recognition, it was good in and of itself.

A little over a month’s time. That’s all I had. When Albas Heraklion had been sent by Achilles to bring me with the advance team, I had been told we would be gone for a week. That week had turned out to be two weeks’ time to get to Elysium’s walls. The others would take about that, perhaps a bit faster, to get back to the army, and then around two weeks more to bring the whole of the army to Elysium’s walls. They’d have to deal with any alert systems and sentries, but they’d get here soon enough and I would have to be ready to somehow solve the problem of how I was going to move the army across the water.

Ideas had occurred to me, but most of them seemed very silly like having part of our forces form a bridge of bodies like ants would make so that the rest could cross. It wasn’t completely and entirely braindead, we couldn’t die so drowning our living bridge wouldn’t be a problem and it didn’t require me somehow constructing a real bridge like another idea, but I could see in my head how uncoordinated and flawed our execution would surely be. People fighting over whether they got to the brave warriors crossing or the unnamed bridge materials, people making the width of it too wide so that we couldn’t reach the other side or too thin so that far fewer could make it to the islands at a time, people falling off the slippery and uneven causeway of wet interlinked limbs and drenched bodies.

I was finding with my increasing responsibilities over my life and the sudden shock of dying because of my arrogance that every plan should account for a quarter of your men not hearing the plan at all, another quarter hearing it but not understanding it, and the last half hearing and understanding you but taking twice the time and getting half the results you expected. Sometimes things went off perfectly, but most of the time it was better to assume everything that could go wrong would go wrong.

I grimaced as another thought occurred to me. A month was a short time to get everything prepared for the invasion of Elysium, but it was adding more and more to the time I had been away from the mortal realm. What was going on up there? Nothing good, or at least, nothing good for me. It would be nice to suppose that things were going how I hoped but that was silly to expect. I had to approach these things rationally.

No doubt Persias Fulvion had denounced me and turned public perception against me and was using the power vacuum to take control. Why wouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he? The man, as so many people had told me, cared only for his own personal power and the thin illusion of me being a god had been yanked away just as soon as it had started. When I return to the living world, I was assuredly going to face an uphill battle to make Apollo system think of me as more than a fraud and to reclaim my Governorship from Lord Fulvion.

Having dried and clothed myself, I thanked the two Laruas again, and left to make a beeline for the nearest exit I could find before I could be propositioned or catcalled. The Blessed in Elysium clearly didn’t have a taboo against nudity or any kind of shame about bodies, much like living Imperators, but the difference I found was that there was no lust amongst my comrades in life. When we were stripping down in the examinations for getting into the Scholarium, no one was ogling each other despite being rooms full of mixed genders of actual teenagers, but here in the bathhouse was a mess and a half. I didn’t understand why there was such a difference, but this place grossed me out.

I found Callidas Aezion waiting for me outside.

“Better.” He said. “At least you won’t be an embarrassment for me now.”

“I appreciate you showing me around.” I lied, hoping to slip away on my own. “But you really don’t have to-“

“Yes, I do.” Callidas said dismissively. “It’s my literal job here.”

“I didn’t realize the Blessed of Elysium needed… careers in the afterlife.” I said. “I imagined it more like, well, I’m not sure.”

“Feasts and parties?” Callidas said with a smile on his face. “That’s a lot of it, to be sure. You’ll find though, Adrias, that there are two classes of people in here.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Elysium is the end of the line for the lucky few, an eternity of pleasure and leisure. People respond differently to that. When most hear that their journey of glory has ended, they settle in and indulge and forget who they once were. Some are different though; can you guess what those men and women do when they’re told by the heavens that the journey is over?”” Callidas said.

I thought of how I would respond to that.

“I am the one who made the journey and it ends when I will it, not when the Fates or the Muses or the gods say so.” I said.

A much more real smile came to Callidas’s face, something with a darker twist to it but at least it was honest.

“Very good.” Callidas said, clapping me on the back. “We define the journey and anyone who stops being grand and majestic when they’re told to like dogs was never grand in the first place.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” I said. “I’m new, you don’t know yet which of the two I would be.”

“It doesn’t matter if I told you that whichever way end up. If you’re like me, then it just gets you up to speed, if you’re like most then you can forget what I said and go to your eternal fate of empty enjoyment. These Blessed I’m insulting already know I look down on them, they just don’t care.” Callidas said.

“So what does your job as tour guide bring you that it makes you grand?” I asked.

“The job has its little perks, but the main thing is that the individual roles aren’t the valuable part of holding a position. You can’t hold a political position or vote in our senate in Elysium without performing some kind of public service for the whole community.” Callidas said.

“And if most people are too lazy to do that then you get to make whatever laws you want.” I realized.

“It’s the purest form of meritocracy in history, the only thing holding a Blessed back from unchecked political power is whether they’re willing to do more than eat, drink, and have sex.” Callidas said.

“I’m guessing one of those little perks you mentioned of your guide job is that you get first access to potential new voters and can manipulate them before anyone else sinks their teeth in.” I said, eying him.

“Manipulate is a strong word,” He smiled deviously. “I encourage and inspire. And occasionally bribe. Speaking of which, any favors I can do to get a guaranteed vote in the future for my legislation?”

There was a lot I would probably need, but one question kept burning in my mind.

“Just a single question for now.” I said. I’d ask more later once I had more informed ones.

“Name it.” Callidas responded.

“I ordered one of the Laruas to take off her mask.” I said. “What are they really? No lies, no half-truths, no obscuring the facts.”

He sighed. “They’re the souls of dead clones.”

“I thought those went to Tartaros immediately,” I said, confused. That was what Lord Fulvion had told me, that they were all damned to the Pit.

“Most do. Hades lets us keep a few as servants.” Callidas siad.

“Why do they have completely crimson eyes? And why are their mouths stitched shut?” I said.

“Red eyes in any form are a spiritual sign of a corrupted nature that is a crime against the heavens, it’s why Red Haloed exist with their rings of red. Once they have departed the mortal realms, their true corruption becomes clearer. Their mouths are stitched shut because we don’t like them talking.” Callidas said.

“Oh, that makes perfect sense. I’d do the same in your place.” I lied, restraining the urge to deck him.

“Now come on, I want you to see some small court proceedings and then meet the judge afterwards.” He said.

We entered a long building and climbed stairs to go to a private section overlooking the judging. Something about a lease on beachfront property, but my interest in it faded as soon as I saw Laruas passing out one of the targets for our attack.

“Refreshments.” Callidas said, passing me a plate of Ambrosia and a cup of Nectar. Eating and drinking the food of the gods felt like a smoother, sweeter version of the fire of Heracles raging within me. I felt stronger, healthier, after eating even a small appetizer-sized amount. I noticed that when one of the citizens of Elysium consumed the two, they glowed briefly with a light inside them that winked out within seconds while mine shined within me for almost a minute.

I realized the problem, these “Blessed” weren’t Brights at all, they would have long since Blurred without the divine meals they consumed constantly. I had thought earlier that Callidas didn’t have the two fundamental qualities of true legend that Achilles and now I knew that all of them were like that despite constantly renewing themselves with divine power and living in paradise.

These people lacked grace and gravitas and I despised them for it.