Once they made it past the stairs, Kratos and Pinkie continued questing into the Temple of Helios. It quickly became apparent that it wasn't just Helios that was unavailable for steering the temple through the skies. The spirits of the Fire Steeds had also left their physical vessels, to slumber in statues scattered throughout the temple. When they reached the first one, Pinkie scowled. "So what now?" she asked Kratos.
Kratos glanced around the chamber, thinking. "Well, if the spirits are sleeping...we need to wake them up-"
Before Kratos could finish his thought, Pinkie had pulled out a horn and blown a deafening note. "Wake up!" she shouted at the statue, pulling out what looked like inverted shields and banging them together, setting up an infernal din. She then pulled out the strange axe from before and began strumming the strings on it forcefully, releasing a barrage of sound that - for some reason - make Kratos reach for his face to check if it was melting. She then pulled out a gong and banged on it for a while, before finally finishing with dumping a large pile of barrels and boxes full of a strange black powder around the statue, leaving a trail of it back away from said statue, and then lighting it and ducking for cover. The flame blazed along the trail, ending in a massive explosion.
When the smoke cleared, the statue was unscathed, and the spirit of the Fire Steed still slumbered. "Well, I'm out of ideas," Pinkie offered, shrugging her shoulders.(1)
Kratos shook his head and pointed. Nearby were two statues holding reflective shield, which - during Pinkie's attempts - he had pushed into position to reflect light from the Temple itself into alcoves waiting to receive it.
"Ooohh..." Pinkie breathed. "Mirror puzzles!" She frowned. "I always hated those. So hard to get the angles right."
Arranging the statues carefully, Kratos then used the Sun Shield to send a concentrated burst of light into the statue to wake the spirit, and then to send the spirit back through the temple to where its stone body waited to pull it through the sky. "One down," he muttered.
"Three to go?" Pinkie asked. Kratos nodded in confirmation. Pinkie then pointed. "And it looks like waking this spirit revealed a new path with-" Her face began to twitch as the floor she pointed to began to drop. "More stairs!" she screamed in frustration.
Kratos couldn't help but chuckle under his breath at Pinkie's almost comic frustration. He pulled back as Pinkie lunged up to his face with a gasping grin, only to pull back in disappointment, before turning to go down the stairs, muttering "So close" under her breath.
As they continued along the path, they heard the voice of Eos, urging them to hurry. A strange portal then appeared, leading them to a cave like region that, somehow, did not feel like the temple. Ascending a wall in the new region led Kratos to acquiring Triton's Lance, an artifact that enabled him to breathe underwater.
"Oh goody, we get to go swimming!" Pinkie said happily. "Just let me get my snorkel!" Fishing in her mane, she then pulled out a strange tube which curved up from her mouth, a clear visor to cover her eyes, and flippers for her hooves. "Re's go!" she cried around the tube in her mouth before leaping off the pinnacle into the water.
Kratos paused as he stared after her. He wasn't confused about her already having an artifact to swim underwater with, the strange nature of it, or how she got up the sheer cliff to leap off.
What he puzzled over as he leaped into the water to follow her was why she hadn't used it sooner.
The path they were forced to take thereafter was roundabout enough for Pinkie to begin emitting strangled sounds of frustration and further complaints about the needlessly convoluted path, although the occasional monsters that popped up happened to be at just the right points for Pinkie to vent that frustration. Although it was somewhat unnerving for Kratos to watch Pinkie slam one of the larger monsters bodily into the others by swinging it over her head in her forehooves while shouting, "Stop hitting yourselves! Stop hitting yourselves! Geeze, if you're all this bad, just turn friendly fire off in the options!"
As they passed through, they eventually encountered Eos herself, severely weakened from her brother's absence. "All glory be to Lord Zeus for granting you safe passage to me," she said softly.
Before Kratos could respond rudely, Pinkie spoke up. "Umm, all the gods are asleep cause of Morpheus. We had to make it here all on our own. And...all things considered, thanking Zeus for Daddy's accomplishments isn't the best way to get on Daddy's good side...or Zeus's, for that matter."
Eos nodded her understanding. "Kratos, if you free my brother, I give my word he will plead your case with Zeus to free you, both from your servitude and the nightmares that haunt you."
Kratos started to open his mouth to reply rudely, but Pinkie glared at him, and he thought over the situation. "Your sentiment is appreciated," Kratos said at last, "but you cannot promise on behalf of your brother, or anyone else."
Eos accepted this point. "Know that you will have at least one permanent ally on Olympus in the future then, Ghost of Sparta. But hurry. The Primordial Fire is almost out. Without Helios, the life giving light of the world cannot be sustained. If you do not find him, only darkness and death await all of us."
Kratos nodded his understanding. "Where has Atlas taken him?"
"I do not know, Kratos," Eos admitted. "Follow the path out of the Cave," she instructed, "retrieve the fire, and it will light your path to the remaining steeds. They will guide you to their master." She began to wilt in on herself a little. "They will take you to my brother."
As Kratos and Pinkie started down the path, Eos spoke one last blessing on them. "May you go with the speed of Hermes, Ghost of Sparta."
(1) Before beginning this story, I once considered writing one where Pinkie was raised - collectively - by the Looney Tunes.
...does it show?