"They're very... Olympians don't really see people as people, not mortals, not when they last so little—even the immortals aren't so immortal that they don't eventually come here. And to Olympians anyone who's here isn't really anywhere. So."

“Olympians suck,” she sniffs. “Fortunately for them it’s much easier and more efficient for me to renovate the Underworld instead of figuring out if I can overthrow them. But I thought about it.”

That's really hot—

—wait no he's not meant to flirt with her, right.

"I'm sure many of them have it coming. They can't be blind to the possibilities, they overthrew the Titans after all."

“Uh huh.” She realizes that he might perhaps like to get on with escaping again. “Anyway I’m, uh, distracting you from leaving, aren’t I, sorry. Also for not, um, helping more directly, though I think some of the Asphodel upgrades have probably helped in a roundabout kind of way?”

"Father increased the active security by a lot which I'm sure was very expensive but not unexpected, but personally I'll take fighting twenty times as many shades if it means not accidentally falling in magma every other dash. This chiton is already sufficiently sexy without being half burnt."

Well now she’s reminded that he thinks she’s hot and also is wearing a very short chiton and now she’s not looking at him at all, nope.

“… okay,” she says, for lack of a better idea. “I’m glad you prefer it.”

"Lernie was definitely very mad, though."

She looks kind of upset. It's probably because she took the thing as flirting-adjacent, isn't it. Damnit.

“Oh,” she says, feeling very dumb and inane.

Aaaaaa it’s gotten so awkward she made it so awkward this is all her fault why is she so weird aaaaa.

She wraps her arms around herself and thinks on the benefits and drawbacks of pulling a Thanatos and just poofing away. She doesn’t really want to, but. It is very tempting.

"...are you... alright?"

He has a guess but last time he tried to guess with her he failed miserably so he doesn't want to try again.

“… no?” she attempts after a long pause, then winces and shrinks in on herself. “Um. Never mind, it’s. Fine. Go, um, pillage things again and escape and stuff, I’m sorry for getting in the way.”

"It's—not fine. I—if you want me to go away I will but I'd rather not—I want you to be okay?"

Wow A+ work there Zag you're so good at words.

“I want you to be okay, too.” She’s still not looking at him, though.

Gosh it sure is tempting to turn into a puddle and sink into the depths of the Underworld, though.

He's honestly surprised she hasn't puddled yet, she seemed very comfortable puddling last time they interacted and she wanted to not be social.

"I'm very hard to hurt?" he tries. "—uh, by which I mean, I think I'll be fine and if I'm not I'm kinda literally asking for it. And I know that I'm asking for it, I'm not going 'oh there is no way this here awkward conversation is going to go badly for me at all ever'."

She’s actually been working on not turning into a puddle at the drop of a hat! It freaks the shades out a bit, so she’s been interacting with them a lot.

“That’s not really what I… meant. I’m not afraid of hurting you, I just. Couldn’t think of anything else to say. I don’t know what to do or say and I’m sorry I’m being so weird and confusing and. Stuff.” Shriiiiink she wants to be a puddle so bad but she will be strong, she will not pick up Thanatos’s bad social habits!

"...I mean, okay, but... It's fine to not know what to say? But you seemed—I don't know, sadder somehow."

Aaaah.

“I totally want to sink into a puddle and exit this conversation but it freaks the shades out when I do that and I think it’s a bad habit I don’t actually want to indulge and more importantly I don’t think it actually solves anything I think it just puts things off and I don’t see how that helps and I’m rambling sorry.”

"It's fine," he replies automatically. "I... think... the way it works for Than is that he doesn't always know what he's feeling and he'd rather not be wrong about that when he says things so he... goes away to... figure it out? And it helps. I don't know if it's the same for you, though."

“Nope. I mean, maybe in other situations, but I am just as filled with social anxiety and blind emotional confusion as before and I have no idea how to fix it or what is even wrong with me. Except this is all clumsy social flailing that doesn’t seem like it’s getting anywhere productive and that bothers me a lot and it is definitely wasting your valuable escape time so, um.”

Oh, she gave him a blessing thing before, didn’t she? She can do that again, and that can be a good opening to flee, and then she can go hide under her very own bed again. Poof! Here, have a blessing thing, Zagreus! Choice between three options, as before!

“There that was productive I’m going to stop flailing like an idiot now bye.”

And at long last, she puddles and flees.

...he's really confused.

But okay. Onwards.

He was not looking forward to this. Or, well, he kinda was, but only in a sort of theoretical sense where it would signify he managed to step on Theseus's face. In the object-level, he's gonna have to deal with rats and satyrs and murderous crystals and murderous urns of ashes and...

...and the gods damned poison.

His shield is not really rated for that. He's not sure what would be rated for that, poison that's bad enough to actually affect a god is not really something your garden-variety strategies really work with. And sure, the suspiciously-placed antidote fountains help, but if whoever placed them there has the ability to just create a preemptive antivenin or perhaps coat him in curative oils, they're clearly not sharing.

Still, even if mechanically he doesn't have any particular advantages, he's learning how to play this game more defensively, and he's sure those lessons are going to be useful here, too. His father does have more of a chance to send shades at him down in the depths, when Zag is crossing the Underworld this slowly, but even Hades cannot command the rats.

Sort of poetic, when you think about it.

And his shield is sharp. Of course the Shield of Chaos wouldn't just be a shield, of course he can slice with it. And while the lessons of playing defensively are well-applied, rats are small and quick and have pointy teeth and the best way to deal with them is a combination of magic and sharpness. Steadily he crawls and explores, certain that he'll find what he's looking for even if he doesn't know what it is; that's how the Underworld works, even here, and thus he advances.

He... finds it. He finds the thing he's looking for. The thing he's looking for is, of course, a rat. A tiny vermin. It's even somewhat smaller than most of the rats he's fought thus far, and the spacious chamber he finds it in highlights its size.

So of course it catches him by surprise when the damned rat's skin stops his shield like armour, and he's even more surprised by the rat's sudden scream and the accompanying tremour. The Underworld does not have seismic activities, and though he takes a ready stance while the tiny vermin slips between his legs he was not prepared for the actual avalanche of rats that start pouring from every hole in this chamber, even holes he hadn't noticed were there.

Playing defensively is not enough. If he just tries to wait and bide his time he will get overrun. But just going on the offensive is sure to get him five rats down the back of his chiton before he notices them.

So, a hybrid approach it is.

He's not Hermes but he's fast, some weird combination of running and teleporting letting him step past and through his foes serving as his main movement tool here. He uses it to great effect—the rats aren't smart enough to predict his movements, and they just try to be more numerous than he can handle. And of course, as they're pretty much dead already, he knows they'll come back eventually. They might even come back earlier than normal, because of the tiny vermin.

It's unclear how, but the tiny vermin is the core of it, he's certain. It's faster, sneakier, stronger, and hardier than its brethren, and if he tries to just deal with the avalanche by itself it's sure to escape.