Hell on a Stick Pt. 2: Car Talk

 
The running water is increased to a growl.

"What do you do with the water down here? Do you guys drink water?"
Jevas and I are on a road walking. The sky is still completely black, and there is a subtle glow in the distance. Criozesas, I think.
"That's an offshoot of the River Styx. This one's tamer, with fewer dissolved souls in it. Some demon creatures can drink water, some dissolve upon contact with it, some just don't like it an' drink other stuff instead."
"The river Styx? Like in the legends? Don't the souls taint the water?"
"You're in hell, or the underworld, whatever you wanna call it. There are no legends. It is all very real, so let's get that outta the way. Yeah, we have a special fountain-filter setup where we have to boil out the souls to make it drinkable. Poor things."
"Why did they end up in there anyways? It's kind of an uninventive and dull sort of punishment for a soul."
"Hades is not very...creative sometimes. We passed legislation that would stop more souls from being trapped in the River but aside from boiling them out there's no other ways to release them. Criozesas is one of a few towns that routinely draws water from the Styx and boils it to purify it, so souls kinda wait on a roulette sorta deal on whether or not they'll get boiled out that day. Upon release the soul manifests itself into an orb of vitality we use as fertilizer for crops."
"You guys grow stuff down here? In this climate?" I thought it was odd; I guess I didn't expect demons to eat many veggies.
"Yea these souls are released into the ether upon boiling and leave behind juicy, reddish orbs that really do wonders for the plants around here. We got some of the best farms this side of the Sallopian Mountains."

The road gets wider, and becomes more evenly paved. I see a tiny outpost with a guard sitting outside on a chair.
We get closer.
"Hey Jevas? How's the weather?" The guard waves at us.
"We don't get weather! How many times do I have to repeat myself?"
"It's just a jest friend, don't get too twisted over it" he laughs.
"Who've you got there?"
"A tourist. He calls himself Cayman. Who ever toured hell before?"
"I mean some people do it, but we haven't had a tourist in a few hundred years. I think the last guy to drop in was Miosonno, and he ended up opening a sushi restaurant in Asphodel."
"He came here on visit? Didn't know that, thought he showed up like the rest of us. Killer sushi; Cayman you have to go sometime."
"I will."
"See you later Fennel!"
"Bye Jevas! And have a nice stay in the underworld Cayman."

Criozesas is smallish by the looks of it. From our vantage point over the ridge past the outpost, it is less than five miles across. The road is properly lit at points, and farms of varying crop are all around the town.
"Isn't there a chance of attack? You all don't have a wall or mounted weapons."
"What is this, feudal Europe? Who's gonna attack us? Everyone here is a demon, spirit, supernatural being, or just regular people like you. I mean sure you have the garden variety flora and fauna in the areas past Criozesas's farmlands, of which many are deadly, but it's as dangerous as I imagine the wilderness back on Earth is. So not too much to worry about. It's when you go over to Coctys, or Tartarus, or the shady areas of Asphodel when you really should worry. Criozesas is pretty tame though."
We walk for a while. Other beings of all sorts occasionally pass us on wheeled vehicles, going outwards into the plains. Some of the vehicles aren't just wooden carts; in fact most of them look almost modern.
"You guys have cars?"
"Cars? Um, wait what were cars again......I remember Nefer talking about them..."
"The vehicles that pass us, look pretty advanced."
"Oh, you mean those. Only the upperclass can afford to use chariots. The most common means of propulsion are these glass canisters of riotios."
"Riotios?"
"Very strange spirits. There's a bottling factory in Metesville, which is located a little too close to the pits for my liking. Whenever a soul finally dies after decomposing in Tartarus, its remaining energy, free of a soul to bag it down, can finally escape the steep cliffs of the pits. Of course they're not actually anything at all, just the remnants of energy. Very powerful little things, and we lure them in with this big funnel hood that hangs off one of the bigger cliffs of the pits, with lights on the underside. They get attracted to the light, and fly into the funnel where a suctioning area catches them and then we bottle them from there. Incredibly lucrative business."
"Everyone else just walks?"
"I mean we have bicycles, or you can pay a fee to get teleported to another area, though it is pricey to do that, and you can only take a couple things with you when you teleport, so it's not ideal."
"Huh."
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