“It all started when I spent my damn reward on ale and whores.” The poor young soul, Nikolas, confessed as he downed the rest of his stale beer. “Don't get me wrong, the ale was great, better then this crap at least... but those whores...”
Artemis just nodded at Nikolas, and took the empty glass. “I see, I see. The mortals always do seem to have such odd luck. What did you do to get this gracious reward that you squandered so hastily and irresponsibly?”
“Well.. It all started about four years ago... And this is a long story.. you might want to get me another couple beers, preferably something at least remotely fresh.” Artemis rinsed out another glass and filled it from a tap under the bar, his special reserve. He didn't know why, but he liked this Nikolas, young and inexperienced; he never had a chance to live a real life.
“Here you go, this should help you remember things well” Artemis winked at Nikolas, and nudged him to continue the story.
Nikolas took a swig, “Ahh, that really hit the spot. As I was saying, this all started about four years ago during summer, right after graduation. I was finally free of the constraints of childhood. I could do whatever I wanted. And what I wanted most was to get away from home. I took what little money I was able to save up over the last couple years working as
Nikolas sighed and slowly drank from his warming glass of amazingly delicious beer. He was sad. Four years ago, he felt he was on top of the world, having a blast, doing what kids, trying to become adults. But after that year... things started to turn sour. These were not memories he wanted to bring back, especially from the underworld. He was dead now, and would probably never see his loved ones again. But, then again, Nikolas really knew nothing about the underworld, or life after death. He never expected Hades to be real. He grew up Christian. Expected there to be a Heaven and Hell, and from the way he was living his life when he died, he totally expected to end up in Hell. But this wasn't Hell, at least this wasn't he expected it to be like. Nor did he think this was anything like Heaven meant to be. Too much smoke and alcohol. Yes, this was a great place to be, but not anything like he expected.
Nikolas took a look around The Overly Boisterous Badger Pub. There were only a couple other patrons enjoying themselves, and they all looked very, very depressed. Most people that ended up here died in very, very unpleasant ways. Now, Nikolas's death wasn't necessarily unpleasant, but it definitely wasn't very enjoyable or happy. Actually, it was rather unpleasant, the women he hired, and thought to be hookers, turned out to be something entirely different, which we'll get to in a bit. Nikolas sighed again. He was alone, and spilling his guts to some random bartender. Actually, this wasn't just some random bartender, this was the bartender of the underworld. Well, at least as far as Nikolas knew he was. There are actually several tavern's in the underworld, The Overly Boisterous Badger Pub is only one of about twenty or so near the entrance.
“So what happened when you got back?” Artemis was genuinely curious, as he so rarely had the opportunity to talk with interesting dead people. Most of the dead died in the standard ways. Accidentally shot with a shotgun, car accident due to a drunk driver (more often then not, it was not the drunk he met), or someone sucked through a running turbine engine. And these were all just the recent deaths. Times have changed so much since he began taking care of this run down joint. In the early days it was due to torture, or having appendages torn off by horrible chariot accidents, or, on occasion, being trampled by livestock. The sheep stories were the worst of them all. In fact, the sheep stories still make Artemis shudder more then the atrocities of the living now.
“Well, I was glad to finally be home, but reluctant as well. I left a lot behind when i left, and now I had to face it all again, head on. I was not ready for that to happen, not all at once. I reunited with my family and friends, got a job, and began looking into going back to school. I didn't know what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to go in life. High school was a nightmare for me. Not because I got picked on or anything. I did pretty well socially, actually. But I was always so far ahead of my classmates, I got bored easily. This was a bit part of what inspired me to leave. I wanted to start a new life. But after trying new things, my life just didn't seem to be going anywhere useful. Home seemed like the best choice. Anyways, my first job didn't last too long, I had lost my motivation to succeed sometime while I was gone. My second job after getting back was much more successful. About a month after starting the second job, I got accepted into a very nice school. I started to regain my motivation, and started to set some real goals. And thats when I found out about the competition.” Nikolas paused there. He didn't quite know how to explain the rubber duck competition. It was a very unusual competition that he didn't really understand what inspired him to get involved. After about a minute of staring blankly into his beer, he picked it up and took another drink. “I really don't know how to describe it, but this competition involved an intolerable abundance of rubber ducks. Small ducks. Big ducks. Grey ducks and pink ducks. There was everything, even these weird little ducks with bug-like antennae. Creepy things really.”
Artemis was dumbfounded. He, for once in his two thousands years of life in death, was truly unable to respond. He couldn't fathom what kind of competition would involve wire, rubber and ducks, and what could possibly be done with them. And the more he thought about it, he wasn't sure he really wanted to find out.
