Cozy's Inferno: a Journey through the Darkest Void

Cozy Glow

After vanquishing Medusa, we burrowed deeper into the blind prisons until we finally found the exit. But the exit led to a rocky hillscape dominated by a labyrinth hewn from the very stone in the surrounding lands, leading deep underground, it’s walls towering towards the heavens to make room for the enormous creature that inhabited this dread labyrinth. This was the labyrinth of the Minotaur, the next foe we needed to bypass in our journey towards the Ninth Circle. Unlike Medusa, a foe we couldn’t hope to best by force due to her ability to turn people to stone with but a look, Helel assured us that the only way to get past the Minotaur would be to slay it. The creature had been at home in this very labyrinth since it was slain by Theseus millennia ago, an exact copy of the labyrinth where the creature was confined since birth on the island of Crete, it knew it so well that none could hope to navigate the labyrinth without encountering the Minotaur, our best way through was to engage in the namesake of this circle, violence. Orpheus told us about the story of the Minotaur.

Long ago King Minos, the very same Minos that now presided as judge of the dead in the circle of Limbo, had entreated the Sea God Poseidon to show him their favour when he was competing with his brothers for the throne of Crete. His prayers were answered in the form of a snow-white bull that he was supposed to sacrifice to show his dedication to Poseidon. But the future king had decided to keep him instead and offered the inferior sacrifice of a regular bull to Poseidon instead. To punish Minos, Poseidon had made Minos’s wife Pasiphae fall in love with the bull. She contracted the inventor Daedalus to make a hollow wooden cow she could climb into to mate with the bull. The result of the union would be the fearsome half-man half-bull creature known as the Minotaur, but the creature’s proper name was Asterion. A creature that had to devour humans for subsidence. So, Minos decided to commission Daedalus for an underground labyrinth where to keep the beast contained, Minos feeding criminals who had been given the death penalty to the creature by trapping them in the labyrinth.

When Androgenous, the son of King Minos had been slain by jealous Athenians after his victory at the Panathenaic Games. For which King Minos waged a war the Athenians lost. As revenge, in tribute, King Minos demanded the lives of multiple youths to sacrifice to the Minotaur. When the time for the sacrifice approached, Prince Theseus of Athens volunteered as a sacrifice to slay the Minotaur, declaring that he would rather die than to rule a city that pays tribute of children’s lives. Promising his father King Aegeus that he would change the black sails of the boat to white sails upon his return if he was successful, leaving the black sails on if he was killed. When he reached Crete, Minos’s daughter Ariadne fell in love Theseus and help them navigate the labyrinth by giving him a bowl of thread which allowed him to retrace his steps. Theseus would ultimately prove victorious over the Minotaur and returned to Athens in triumph, after abandoning Ariadne on the island of Naxos, for he had never truly loved her as she loved him. But Theseus forgot something important as he forgot to change his sails from the black sails of mourning to the white sails of triumph. Resulting in his father upon seeing the black sails, assumed his son was dead and cast himself of a cliff into the sea that would from then on bear his name. The Aegean Sea

This Theseus was indeed a fool to screw up this badly after his victory over the Minotaur. Perhaps it was karma for using Ariadne, but most likely just his own foolishness. I could only imagine achieving the impossible and returning in triumph only to forget something vitally important that would forever taint your sense of triumph. Wishing forevermore that you would have remembered that crucial detail as your foolishness cost you someone you cared about. I certainly knew what that felt like, I had long cursed myself for my role in Aurora’s death and I wished I could go back in time to undo my mistake. I knew there was certain spells that would allow a pony to go back in time, but it required real power, the power only an alicorn, or the most gifted of unicorns could possess. Meaning that if I were to fix my mistake, I needed power, absolute power. And even then, I realized that going back in time would probably undo my ascent into power in the first place, rendering me once again only Cozy Glow the orphan. I wasn’t sure I would even be able to go through with it, I guess that would be forever my dilemma, choosing between power and the life of my friend. I had chosen power before, what to say I wouldn’t do so again?

I was dwelling in my guilt, complete distracted from the outside world until I heard a loud bellow from the corridors ahead of us. Around the corner came a massive creature, while Equestria did have Minotaurs, this one was like no Minotaur I had ever seen. To begin with, the creature was enormous, more the size of a Cyclops than a Minotaur and its head was more like a bull’s skull with a thin layer of skin draped over it. The creature was bipedal with a muscular physique, hairy legs with cloven hooves and a set of massive horns on top of its head. But worst of all words terrible bloodshot eyes that seethed with rage and hunger, I knew this creature hungered to devour our flesh.

Jezebel spoke an incantation and ensnared the Minotaur in black oily tentacles, giving the creature a good thrashing before the Minotaur broke free of its grip and charged Helel who threw themselves in between the rest of us and the creature. Helel was barely able to hold their ground, digging their feet into the ground and just narrowly avoided being sent flying by the force of the impact. But absorbing such force dimmed the light of their being, they were probably severely wounded. Sunset cast another spell and summoned a guardian of pure light in between the rest of us and the Minotaur, the Guardian struck at the Minotaur, wounding it. I took the opportunity to conjure an illusion of its worst fear in the mind of the Minotaur, which appeared as a tall and muscular man who I could only assume was Theseus. The Minotaur hesitated for a moment out of fear of its slayer come back to haunt him before slamming the ground in anger, knocking all of us over. Helel took the opportunity to jump up from the ground and soar into the air, moving back so that Sunset guardian as well as the illusory Theseus was between them and the Minotaur.It took the Minotaur a few moments to overcome its fear of Theseus, during which time Jezebel and Sunset bombarded it with balls of fire. The Minotaur would eventually overcame its fear of Theseus and broke free of the black tentacles that bound it. It charged at me, but Helel threw themselves in the way, striking a flurry of blows with their sword, decapitating the Minotaur with a final swing.

We eventually managed to get out of the labyrinth, only to reach the nauseating riverbank of the Phlegathon, a river of boiling blood Helel told me contained the souls of those who were violent against others. Violence, I could only think of a single time in my life when I resorted to such brutish methods, when me, Tirek and Chrysalis made our assault on Equestria after being enpowered by the Bell of Grogar. In retrospect, that was a careless action, inspired primarily by the sense of fury that overwhelmed me when we discovered Grogar was in reality Discord and had been deceiving us all this time. Some of that anger still burned in my soul, as well as the fear and indignation I felt as we were turned to stone as our assault was repelled by Twilight and her friends.

The riverbank was made up of living flesh and calcified trees that resembled bones as they stretched towards the sky. The flesh seemed to wriggle and move on its own, it made me nauseous just by looking at it. The surrounding area gave off a terrible stench, the screams of the damned deafening. The damned constantly tried to climb out of the boiling river, only to be pushed down again by the bone spears and arrows of centaurs, creatures that looked very much like my friend Tirek.

When the centaurs saw us, they immediately turned their attention towards us, raising their spears and firing their bows. Their leader declaring a challenge that was accepted by Helel. It was a gruelling battle, but we were able to best them. The centaurs driven back by a storm of dark tendrils and radiant energy from Jezebel and Sunset and their leader bested in single combat by Helel. Yet more centaurs gathered in the distance. Their advance only stopped by the orders of an elderly centaur. This centaur had a long white beard and long flowing white hair, which contrasted with his light-brown coat. The other centaurs clearly respected him, as they stood down on his orders.

Orpheus told us this was Chiron, the wisest of all centaurs, who was responsible for training many great heroes of his homeland, including Herakles and Achilles. Promising he would one day relay to me their stories, as well as their tragic end. It seemed that Chiron recognized Orpheus and Euridice, as he asks them how they got so far down the hells, as they were condemned to the first and second circle respectively. They told him the truth, that we were on a mission to play the lower of Apollo for Prometheus and hopefully restore the underworld to how it was long ago, before the rule of Epimethius. This intrigued Chiron, who long for the time where he still resided with the great heroes he trained back in Elysium instead of being tasked to guarded the river Phlegathon for all eternity. Chiron was also impressed by Helel for defeating the centaur leader, who he called Nessus, who he said in life had been slain by his student Herakles when Nessus kidnapped his wife in order to rape her. It was clear Chiron had no love for Nessus. So, Chiron ordered his centaurs to let us pass to the other side of the river. With me, Sunset, Helel, and Jezebel possessing wings, crossing didn’t prove difficult with Helel and Sunset carrying Orpheus and Euridice respectively.

On the other side was the edge of the forest of suicide, one of the most dreaded places in the entirety of the Hells. The edge of the forest was essentially a wall of gnarled and wizened trees, sporting dark green leaves and branches covered with thorns. The forest gave very little room to manoeuvre, the tightly packed trees letting in very little light, or it would if there was any source of light in hell at all, apart from the divine flame of hope and the infernal fires. Helel warned us to avoid contact with the thorned branches as they were coated with a powerful poison. There was no path, the only distinguishable landmark being the Phlegathon, which continued deep into the forest. While I had to focus most of my attention on not getting pricked by the thorns, which was easier for me than for some of the bigger creatures accompanying me, I couldn’t help but notice the forest went through a horrific transformation the further in we went. Faces started appearing among the trees, resembling faces that had been cut off from their original body and the skin stretched across the entire tree like some kind of horrific mask. Some of these faces could be heard lamenting their fate. Some were in the process of being torn apart by harpies, hybrids between birds and human women, much like the minotaur was a hybrid of a man and a bull, the trees screaming in agony in the process. Howls and snarls could heard be among the trees, like coming from mangy hounds. Helel told us these people were those who had been violent against themselves, Yaldabaoth considering the worthy punishment for such disrespect towards their physical forms was to be denied their true forms for rest of eternity. When those who ended their own existence ended up in the Inferno, Minos flung their soul down here, where it would become a seed for the damned trees they would eventually become.

The worst thing about this place was the whispers coming from seemingly nowhere, whispering about how worthless I was and that I should just kill myself and join the ranks of the horrific trees that were once people. I had to admit part of me was tempted, ever since Aurora’s death, deep down, I had felt like I deserved to die, that it wasn’t right that I got to live on and she didn’t, that I should join her in damnation to pay off my culpability for her death. At the time the only thing that kept me clinging to life was my obsession with finding the true nature of Solar Justice, a unicorn colt that had bullied me and Aurora as children, who I now believed to be a demon I had inadvertently signed a pact with. Or maybe that was just an excuse my mind had conjured to relieve myself of my guilt in that I might’ve been the primary catalyst for Aurora death. The whispers kept whispering that it was my fault and that I should end it so I could join my old friend in eternity as one of the trees.

These whispers started to sound more and more tempting the farther we ventured into the forest, a nearby tree appeared to have a rope with a noose descending from its branches, I was calling to me. For a moment I wanted nothing more than to fly up to that noose and put my neck through it, joining the damned as a member of this eternal forest. The only thing that stopped me was the reappearance of Aurora’s ghost, who told me some encouraging words:

“Don’t even think about it, while we would be together in a sense, life in this cursed place is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. I was wrong to blame you Cozy, you seem to blame yourself enough. I want you to live on, to prosper. I want you to be happy. What remains of my physical form is close, seek me out and free me from this suffering, please Cozy, if you ever valued our friendship, free me from my eternal lamentation.”

Her melodious voice was enough to snap me out of it and got me to focus on the task at hand, Aurora’s ghost leading us in the right direction. But the closer we got, the closer was the howls of the dogs and the harpies. Aurora told us to hurry up before they caught up with us.

We would eventually find the tree that was the remnants of Aurora, a twisted tree that resembled a willow with many poisonous thorns across its branches, with the agonized face of the pony that used to be Aurora stretched across it. At this point the hounds and the harpies had almost caught up with us. Helel, Sunset and Jezebel turned to engage the harpies. I only had eyes for Aurora, regardless of the sacrifice to myself, I knew what I must do. I reached for the hope within me, put my hoof on Aurora’s face and channelled it into her. Depleting a good amount of my reserves of hope, bringing me closer to be forever lost to damnation, I knew it, but didn’t care, as long as I could save her. Suddenly, a divine light filled the tree until it exploded in a burst of light. Before me Aurora was, not as a tree, but as the filly I once knew. Aurora had a snow-white coat, a golden mane in a style that resembled mine and her crimson eyes were luminous with intelligence. Her flank was blank, just like it was when I last saw her, sadly she had died before she discovered her special talent. Aurora hugged me while she told me how much she had missed me and how horrible her existence in this forest had been. I hugged her back and told her:

“You will never be trapped here ever again, I will see to that, we are planning to bust out here. But to do so we need to reach the ninth circle, come with us and I will make sure you will get out of here.”

Aurora nodded and we turn our attention to the battle between Helel, Sunset and Jezebel and the hounds and harpies. Jezebel had trapped the majority of a huge pack of hounds among the black tentacles she summoned, but 3 of them had broken free on one front. The hounds look like mastiffs, only grotesque, fat and bloated, not too dissimilar from Cerberus. On the other front, Helel was caught up in a battle against a horde of harpies. Sunset, seemingly wounded by the harpies claws as she had several claw marks across her body, were hiding under a nearby tree, preparing an incantation that summoned a wall of divine flames in between us and the hounds. I took the opportunity to mutter an incantation of my own in an attempt to muddle the minds of the 3 hounds that broke out of the field of tentacles. Two of the hounds turned upon themselves in the confusion and the third was befuddled for long enough to not make any advance against us. By that point two more of the hounds got out of the tentacles and approached us. By which point Jezebel went to aid Helel’s fight with the harpies, harming one of them by just her touch. The group harpies seemed to almost overwhelm even a fighter as skilled as Helel, but upon the intervention of Jezebel, the fight swung in our favour. The approach of the hounds was halted by my confusion spell and Sunset’s wall of fire, buying Sunset enough time to vaporise the 5 hounds in front of it with a ball of holy fire. The rest of the hounds were still held by Jezebel’s tentacles, but they could break free any moment. Aurora looks to me with a glint in her eyes as if to say: “You got this”. Which gave me enough bravery to approach the hounds and unleash the cold I have felt inside since I first entered this place into a wave of frost, making 4 of the 5 hounds into immobile ice sculptures that were then shattered by the black tentacles.

Only one hound survived, but it broke free of its restraints and came for me, only for Aurora to intervene, throwing herself in the hound’s path, the creature taking a bite out of her leg. Jezebel quickly rushed to our aid, putting hand on the hound’s forehead, the creature collapsing to the ground, perishing instantly. In amazement I had to ask her what she did to it, Jezebel just told me:

“I am the daughter of Samael, the angel of death, I can drain the life from a creature with a touch. Their deadly caress is a trait commonly attributed to succubi and incubi in legends as a result of this trait.”

Over time I had started to realize that I was traveling together with some truly amazing creatures, not only the superb swordsmanship of Helel the fallen angel, but Jezebel also had powers far beyond those of any mortal. Alone, me and Sunset wouldn’t stand a chance against the horrors of hell, but in the presence of those two, we stood a chance.

Helel told us to hurry to leave the scene before more harpies and hounds showed up. For the rest of our journey through the forest of suicide, we were fortunate enough not to encounter any more creatures, it was almost like they were avoiding us now, as we had proven to not be easy prey. Following the banks of the Phlegathon, It didn’t take long until we found the edge of the forest, before us was a vast desert, above us the City of Dis, with fire from its furnace raining down on the area below. Among the desert were countless sinners, bombarded by the flames above, the scolding hot sand burning their feet and hooves. Aurora asked the rest of us who these people were, Helel answered:

“Those who has been deemed violent against the supreme authority, that being, Yaldabaoth. They usually include those whose proclivities Yaldabaoth deems unnatural and not according to the grand design, one example being those with a desire for the same sex. As well as those who blasphemes against the supreme authority, like I tend to do. Blasphemies like suggesting Yaldabaoth is not the one true god, but rather an imposter deity.”

Both me and Aurora simultaneously shuddered when we heard who were being punished here. I remembered my crush on Ocellus, that changeling girl from the school of friendship, it felt like I had committed most of the sins pertaining to these circles.

Helel suggested that the only way to pass through the desert safely was to follow the bank of the Phlegathon, where the terrain was rocky instead of filled with burning sand, the river itself redirecting most of the fire from the sky. We walked alongside the riverbed for what felt like hours. The only thing we would pass during our journey was humanoid shapes, statues seemingly made from salt, but there was something off about them, other than a crippling fear of statues that is. Their expression was that of terror, frozen in time. I knew this place by now, these were definitely people that had been petrified. Helel seemed to catch my unease and answered my question without me even needing to ask:

“These salt sculptures were those of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. These two cities drew the ire of the Adjudicator by daring to try to sexually assault two of his Malakhim followers. As punishment, Yaldabaoth turned the cities and their inhabitants to salt, and salt they remain, even here in the Inferno. A fate worse than death if you asked me, but I think you are more than familiar with that fate, Cozy.”

I didn’t know how Helel knew that particular detail about my past, but I didn’t dare to ask. Perhaps Helel had figured it out due to my obvious unease around statues. But there had been something about Helel from the day we first met them. They were hiding something, I could sense they had once been a being of greater power, given how the denizens of the underworld reacted to them. Even Hecate and Hades seem to have quite a bit of respect for them. And the way Helel spoke about Yaldabaoth, the hatred in their voice when they spoke that that name was near bottomless, it was almost like they had personal history together. But why would the grudge feel so personal between the current Supreme Being and a lesser angel? Once upon a time they must’ve been close and Helel felt they had been personally betrayed, that was the only explanation.

My suspicions only grew stronger when Helel introduced us to the next obstacle in our journey, Geryon, one of the archdevils of hell. The creature would appear before us as an enormous serpent with the head of a man, a pair of enormous wings and sharp claws, he had cold, empty eyes. The creature was as large as a palace, emerging from the Phlegathon’s boiling blood without even a scratch. He reminded me of the former Dragonlord torch when it came to his enormous form and obvious physical might. Yet Helel dared to make a demand of it:

“I, Helel, Prince of the Second Host demand passage serpent. Take us into Tartarus so we can finally confront our destiny.”

Geryon just laughed:

“You may have had power over me once, Prince of the Fallen, but now Yaldabaoth rules us all and you are but a shadow of your former self. Prove your worth princeling, both you and your allies. Prove yourself worthy to take the throne of the Underworld.”

With those words Geryon attacked. Their white, gleaming eyes shining like stars.