//------------------------------//
// The Temple - Part Two 
// Story: You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	The trio explored the open path, carving their way through swarms of monsters that arose to fight them, though they failed to prove a real challenge.  "Say Daddy?" Pinkie asked at one point.  "Does battle ever get...boring?"

Kratos shrugged as he ripped the head off a gorgon.  "It can if your power too greatly dwarfs that of your foe."

"It seems ours does," Calliope pointed out, catching a launched arrow and hurling it back at the undead archer.

"Maybe we could make it more fun?" Pinkie offered.  "Maybe keep score?"

"No," Kratos countered.  "We won't start competing with each other."

"Maybe we could take turns with each room?" Calliope offered.

"No, we work best as a team," Kratos disagreed.  "Besides, the monsters aren't going to just ignore two of us because we want them to."

"We could have a sing along?" Pinkie offered.

"I play music better than I sing," Calliope pointed out.

"Try making your flute music with your armor!" Pinkie suggested.

Kratos raised an eyebrow as he tossed another monster across the room.  "Would that work?"

As strains of Calliope's music flowed out of her helmet, Pinkie grinned.  "Seems to be!"

As Calliope played a happy tune over their rampage through the temple halls, the trio pressed onward.  Reaching a lower level passage, they encountered a large battle between monsters and other soldiers.  "I...don't suppose we can help them?" Pinkie asked.

"Not this time," Kratos cautioned.  "They, too, seek Pandora's Box.  They would seek to fight us...or use us to get them further in."

"And we need the box to defeat Ares," Calliope added.  "So we have to move on."

Pinkie frowned as she watched the soldiers fight and die.  "And there's nothing we can do...and their bodies will go back to the Burning Man...and the fire will turn them into more monsters...which we'll have to fight later."

"The necessities imposed by the Gods are often cruel," Kratos offered.

"...they shouldn't be," Pinkie murmured, following along after Kratos as he moved on.





Clearing several more chambers of monsters, obstacles, and a conveyor belt with crushing spike walls, they reached a bridge that passed outside.  "Fresh air!" Pinkie yelled happily, hopping onto a harpy's back to get into more direct sunlight.  Calliope seized the harpy's talons to keep it from flying off with Pinkie.

"Don't get too used to it," Kratos cautioned, hiding his amusement as he pointed to the other side of the bridge, that went right back inside.

"This place is going to drive me madder!" Pinkie groaned as she hopped back onto the bridge, breaking the harpy in half as she slammed it against the bridge.  "It's like some punishment afterlife for someone who answered questions the Gods didn't want asked, compelled to solve puzzle after puzzle that grows more and more complex over time, requiring more and more backtracking between each part, until you eventually can't remember what it was you needed from the chamber you were heading to by the time you get there!"

"Punishment by madness of boredom?" Kratos suggested.

"Exactly!" Pinkie groused as she went through the door.  "Hey, there's no roof here!"

"Guess we get to be outside a while longer!" Calliope cheered.

Shaking his head in bemusement, Kratos took the lead once more, climbing up the walls to new vistas.





After climbing up and down walls outside for a while, they came to an inner chamber with a wooden floor on hinges.  As monsters arose, the floor shook, as though it was going to drop them into an abyss at any moment.  "We'd better fight fast!" Kratos instructed.

Calliope and Pinkie focused on the shielded monsters, ripping the shields from their grips and smashing them in the faces with them.  Kratos focused on the sirens, keeping them off Pinkie and Calliope's back.  They managed to kill all the monsters before the floor collapsed under them, and rushed for the altar at the back of the room.

Kratos and Calliope made it to the altar, but the floor dropped out from under Pinkie Pie.

"Pinkie!" Kratos and Calliope called out, leaning over the edge to try and spot her.

"Yes?" Pinkie asked as she walked across the ceiling to them.  "Did you need something?"

Kratos managed a chuckle.  "I forgot you could do that," he admitted in relief.

"Wha...how?" Calliope asked in shock.

"It's Pinkie Pie," Kratos instructed.  Grabbing the Handle of Atlas from the altar, the floor lifted back up.  "Don't question it."





Taking another path further back, the trio opened a two switch door by pulling the switches at the same time before going through the door, rather than having to time throwing them one after the other while dodging saw blades.  "See?" Kratos pointed out.  "We work best as a team."  Pinkie and Calliope nodded in agreement.

When they reached a door depicting Atlas holding up the world, Pinkie paused.  "Daddy?"

"Yes, Pinkie?"

"This temple was made hundreds of years ago, right?"

"Right," Kratos agreed.

"And...Persephone released Atlas, leading to you chaining him to hold the world up, just five years ago, right?"

"That's right," Kratos confirmed, flapping the wings briefly.  "Your point?"

"So how could the builders of this Temple known to have carved a relief of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders?" Pinkie asked, pointing to the door to the Path of Atlas.

All three turned to stare at the door.  After a time, Kratos finally spoke up.  "Perhaps the fates had a hand in it, knowing what would happen to Atlas."

"But if the Fates told the Gods to tell the stonemasons to make this relief because Atlas would be holding up the world by the time we got here, why didn't anyone do anything to stop Persephone?" Pinkie inquired.  "And how come the statue doesn't look anything like Atlas?"

Kratos struggled to think about that.  Eventually, he sighed.  "I don't know," he said finally.  "After we deal with Ares, we'll ask."

"Okie Dokie Lokie!" Pinkie said happily, accepting that decision.  The three proceeded down the path.

In the next chamber, after finishing off several monsters including two minotaurs, they attached the Handle of Atlas to a crank.  Using it, they caused a statue representing Atlas to lift a globe.

"Wait!" Pinkie said again.  "What's that ball he's picking up?"

"Considering the design on the door," Calliope pointed out, "it's probably supposed to be the world."

"But Daddy told me the world was flat!" Pinkie complained.

"That was my understanding," Kratos replied.

"But Pythagoras told me in Elysium that it was round," Calliope pointed out.  "The other scholars agreed."

Kratos shrugged.  "We are warriors, not scholars," he pointed out.  "For now, let's continue."

Progressing to an upper level, a switch caused the Atlas statue to throw the ball, breaking open a path to the outside.  Crossing a bridge, they found a tomb crafted in stone and gold.  Kratos read the inscription before it.



My youngest son will laugh no more
Death in the service of his father
Death in the service of the Gods
The building of this temple has claimed his life
May you be lucky enough that it not claim yours
-Pathos Verdes III, Chief Architect and Loyal Servant of the Gods



Kratos staggered back, turning his eyes to Pinkie and Calliope.

"What'd it say, Daddy?" Pinkie asked curiously, her head tilted in interest.

Too easily, Kratos could imagine losing his laughing, equine daughter in the service of the gods, trying to earn free of his nightmares, trying to kill a god.  He had already lost one daughter because of a god's machinations and his own hubris.  Could he bear to lose another?  Could he lose Calliope again?

He banished those thoughts as best he could.  "It's nothing," Kratos replied.  Remembering the skull lock on the next ring of the Temple, he knew what had to be done...but he couldn't bear to let his daughters see it.  "The key is in this tomb.  I'd...rather neither of you see what is inside.  Could you both wait for me back in the Hall of Atlas?"

Both girls looked confused, but agreed, turning to head back inside.  Once they'd passed the gate and were out of sight, Kratos opened the coffin.  Climbing up top, he stared down at the skeleton lying in repose.

"Pathos," he whispered, "may you and your son forgive me for what the gods demand."  Drawing the Blade of Artemis, he carefully severed the spinal column, lifting the skull gently free, carefully placing it in his satchel.  When the coffin shifted aside to reveal a ladder downward, he carefully put the lid back on.  "I hope you can still rest," he whispered, mumbling what few prayers of consecration he remembered, hoping it would be enough to ease the ire of the son's spirit for the desecration of his tomb and body.

Returning to the hall, he beckoned his daughters to follow him.  The solemnity that had filled his being dampened their spirits somewhat, and they followed down the ladder in silence.

Returning to the central chamber of the Temple, Kratos hid his actions from his daughters as he placed the skull into the door, opening the path deeper into the Temple.