#why are the people in the fields of asphodel trees?!

[thecounterfeit-redhead]

How could they not include the funniest part of the book in this episode?

[dhampiravidi]

a second chance at death (and happiness)

Achilles had known that he would choose glory over a long life the moment he won his first duel. Granted, that duel had been against Patroclus, who he had already fallen in love with. The two vowed to bathe in the Lethe together once they reached Elysium, so they could have one or more lives together somewhere else. They shared the same heart, so they should share the same adventures.

And then Patroclus died, killed by Hector while wearing Achilles's armor. Achilles had never known grief like that before, and his only comfort was the visit from his beloved's ghost, after he'd tried to bury all his pain with Hector's. When Apollo's arrow, guided by Paris, found its home in Achilles's tendon, he cried out of course, but he was glad. He could tell by the strength of the poison (and how it sapped his own) that it was going to kill him. For a second, he remembered kind Chiron, and his own son Neoptolemus--and he pushed their memories aside. Achilles would be with his missing half as soon as he closed his eyes...

He found himself in the Fields of Asphodel, where he and the other shades, ghosts with hardly any color, wandered aimlessly between plain trees, only able to groan as opposed to talk. With a heavy heart and rage directed at the gods, Achilles sat and wept. Patroclus had gone to Elysium--why wouldn't he?--but Achilles had been damned. It felt like forever before he and all the other shades' attention was drawn to something with an enticing scent that seemed familiar...ah, blood. The thing that landed him in his own personal Hell. But he never expected to see Odysseus, solid and alive in Hades. As soon as he got the chance, Achilles warned the man against dying, explaining his own suffering. Odysseus had always been a person who commanded respect, and yet Achilles did not truly understand why until the hero convinced Lord Aidoneus himself to resurrect Achilles.

The king of Hades would warn Achilles against being impious in any way, but Achilles already knew. He would not mess up his chances at an afterlife (or another life) with Patroclus. And maybe he'd get to see his son after all--according to Odysseus, Neoptolemus should've grown up and married. Achilles had a brief reunion with his mother (a big hug and lots of kisses on his cheeks), then went to join Odysseus.

"I hope I'm not too late," Achilles said, only walking up to the older man once he and his people were done burying their friend. He held out his hand, thankful for the opportunity. Just breathing fresh air felt like a blessing, though it was far from the kind Achilles desired. "You quite literally saved my life. I am in your debt."

@eternaljunkyard

[heteromerous-rhyming]

was it just me, or were the tree people in asphodel. very white. idk if i'm being too sensitive to things like this but like. they. are very white. (honestly i think that they might have needed to be white to show up with the terrible dark lighting. it's not a good enough reason. they feel like discount fae)

and that's not even getting into the fact that bc asphodel is like this, it changes a decent chunk of hazel's backstory? like ok, i get that they don't have the luxury to think that far ahead right now, but this is. a part of the worldbuilding. you didn't need to change. i liked asphodel as a place of wander, as a place of flatness and aimlessness, and a lot of that is gone if you make it about regrets. hazel is wandering not because she had regrets but because her betrayal was balanced out by her sacrifice.

the regrets in asphodel feel. weighty. it feels claustrophobic. it feels a little bit like the fields of punishment. (which on that note, why aren't they fields? fields - or meadows thanks wikipedia - would have made more sense, would have been able to convey the vastness of the underworld better) I kind of hate it. asphodel isn't supposed to be frightening, and if it is, it would only be in that existential crisis type of way. this is supposed to be limbo. (wikipedia goes "The Asphodel Meadows is most probably where the souls of people who lived mediocre lives remain" without a citation LMAO) it's the embodiment of eh.

[a-french-coconut]

Okay I’m going to need your opinions here. Do you forgive Luke Castellan for what he did? (the fact that Charlie Bushnell is handsome does not mean that Luke is redeemed sorry not sorry).

Because we all know he had good intentions, he just wanted a better life for demigods but come on, he could have started with something… idk smaller? Like pissing off his dad and not starting a freaking war!

And yes Kronos definitely manipulated him and took advantage of him but Luke knew that a war would kill people, demigods he was friend with.

And his actions toward Annabeth, his little sister??? Thalia died to protect them and he goes and try to destroy the place that kept them safe? He puts her under the sky?

So with all that in mind, I think Luke Castellan should have ended up in the fields of Asphodel, not Elysium. All the good things he did don't outweigh the bad in my opinion.

Imagine being a demigod who died during the battle of Manhattan and suddenly you see Luke Castellan, leader of the enemy army, walking through heaven’s door because he realized at the end that what he did was not, in fact, a great idea. Enough to kill me from shock again.

But then I also see why he did all that. Poison Thalia’s tree? Poor guy just wanted to see his old friend again and together they would kick their parents off their throne. Plus his backstory? Enough to make anyone snap I guess.

So yeah tell me your thoughts about Luke Castellan, an exquisite complex character how we love them, I would love to hear them.

[mahoganydoodles]

Diasterisms Anthology (Book 2/12): variations on a theme of you by diasterisms

"Who knows?" Luke darted a faint smile at Ben and Rey as they stewed in silence and disbelief. "The two of you might even learn to get along. Right, Leia?" "Like a house on fire," the General deadpanned. "Complete with screams, flames, and people running for safety." "Indeed." Luke's blue eyes twinkled. "There may be no survivors."

variations on a theme of you. This fic has everything: forced proximity, buttered muffins, Matt the Radar Technician. It’s the goofy, cracky, undercover-fake-relationship fic we all love. 

Which is why I always find it so funny that the collection has these serious, grayscale covers when half these fics are hilarious. But anyway!!

From left to right, top to bottom, the covers are: 

Because You’re There—Mountain climbing

the surface of last scattering—Outer space/galaxy

into the great laugh of mankind—Archaeological site

place the moon at my eyes (and her whiteness shall devour)—Full moon at night behind tree

Mirrorbright—Lake house at Naboo

World Without End—Asphodel fields

variations on a theme of you—Inner hallway of spaceship

The Short Story Collection—Bookstore

Shatterpoint—X-wing

made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter—Great Temple on Yavin 4

oh autumn, oh teakettle, oh grace—Aspen trees

ghostwalks (gin and fog)—Old-school movie set

variations on a theme of you is a light-hearted romcom between oops-maybe-not-so-sworn-enemies. Read it on AO3.

[death-himself]

alright episode 7 thoughts, i don't know how to feel about this episode because it had both my favorite changes so far and my least favorite

procrustes' outfit was fucking VILE, it was godawful but so perfect, and honestly good casting too I think

I feel mean saying this, but does crusty's actor naturally look like that or was it makeup, because his wrinkles seem at least a bit exaggerated or maybe I'm just not used to old people looking old on tv

ok the waterbed looked cool, but I'm so mad they didn't kill him. It's probably another way to get around disney censorship but come on live a little

also the entrance to the underworld being in his mattress shop?? are you fucking serious

this is the first change that I've actually hated, like what the fuck

the entrance being in a record shop is funny and it makes sense because records/vinyl are sort of a dying fad, what's the reasoning behind the entrance being in a mattress shop???

I didn't really have many expectations for the crusty scene because it's not much of a thing in the books, but damn did that whole part annoy me

annabeth giving grover the stress ball was funny and made sense though, considering she couldn't have gotten it from waterland, and honestly her getting it from there doesn't really make sense in the first place

more about the earlier flashback, I have some thoughts about sally's characterization but I'll save it for later in this analysis

I get that all the dead lined up outside the wall makes more sense mythologically, but I'm too in love with the thought of having to sit in a record shop turned waiting room for eternity, it's just too funny to me

we didn't get charon's characterization :( I love charon in the books, I'm sad about that, justice for charon

the way cerberus just fuckin NOMMED grover, I don't think percy and annabeth freaked out enough about that, because I was freaking the fuck out

also I loved how they mentioned annabeth's dog as a kid, like that's how they should've been doing more of the exposition in previous episodes

having it be more of a background thing made it feel like a thing for the characters between the characters, instead of for the audience's sake

"it's in the dog" THAT HAD ME CACKLING he said it so dramatically with the dramatic music but it sounds so stupid I was dying repeating it to myself for so long

I LOVE what they did with the fields of asphodel, it was so creepy, and the implication that all the trees used to be people, it's so much creepier than just a bunch of people wandering around

I feel like it's a concept that's been done before somewhere, but I don't care, it's a cool concept

and then annabeth being rooted down by her regret, I feel like there should've been some beats between that and her explanation of the roots, but half hour episode, I've gotten used to the bad pacing by this point

also I'm assuming the regret has to do with running away from home? since her dad and their dog were mentioned and that's a whole thing in the book

maybe because athena's shown that she doesn't give a shit about annabeth, annabeth wants to give it another try with her dad? idk I'm just trying to think of what works logically tv series-wise

I didn't expect her using the pearl there, but honestly I think it works just fine, i have no complaints about that

percy and grover's interaction when they saw the bolt was so funny

and ok, I know they were gonna save percy's mom no matter what, but things have changed now that the solstice has passed. Zeus is already gathering an army so why aren't they rushing??

i think how they could've fixed that is have grover take the bag to bring it back to zeus, then have percy go on his own to save his mom. then maybe when he comes back to the beach ares is already there and attacking grover and annabeth or something

grover didn't do anything when talking to hades so I just think that could've worked better

OK NOW ABOUT THE FLASHBACK I...don't like how they handled sally being a mom

yes, being a mom is tough and I like that they're showing that, but when your kid asks you "why are you trying to get rid of me" you don't fuckin kiss them and walk away! that causes issues!!

I know that she didn't want to cry in front of him, I understand why she was hurt by that, but you don't just leave after your kid asks that! especially with how young percy was, she needed to reassure him that she's not trying to get rid of him

am I not seeing something here?? is that just my own trauma ringing through or something?? that was such a horrible move like oh my god, I was waiting the whole episode after that for her to go back and apologize or explain or SOMETHING, but we didn't get that

now I understand that line from an earlier episode about loving each other so much when you can only ever hurt each other, but damn

also final thought about sally, the woman playing her has a gorgeous side profile, I'm gonna draw it someday

anyway, hades's palace looks nothing like how I imagined it, I don't hate it, I just prefer my version way more mostly because I like Nico being like an actual prince in there

I hated Hades's new characterization for the first like 5 minutes, then I realized that he acts kinda like a confident Nico and that's funny

also I feel like this characterization makes him stand out more, it's very different from any other interpretation of Hades in media

at the same time it reminded me a bit of Hades in class of the titans, and that interpretation pisses me off to no end so...

but yeah, I still prefer book!Hades, but tv show!Hades is interesting so I like him

it really feels like the production crew figured out how to 3D print statues and Rick was like "that's cool, let's use statues whenever possible," there are so many damn statues in this show lol

"it's all candy canes and rainbows down here, I'm doing just fine" with the gloomy-ass wide shot and thunder in the distance, that's funny

with hades seeming to be the only one of the gods who's actively recognized how toxic the godly family is, it makes me curious how they'll handle his relationship with Nico if we ever make it to seasons 3 or 4

because his relationship with Nico is one of the better ones among godly parents, but it's not really the best in terms of parents, so I think they'd end up having to change a few things

the way sally summoned poseidon felt like a reversal of giving an offering at camp. she gave the fire to the food instead of the food to the fire. there's a meaning behind that, but I don't know how to articulate it

I was so certain that was poseidon walking up to percy, and then it turned out to be annabeth and I felt so dumb lol

but that means poseidon might be making an appearance to help percy in the fight against ares! right, maybe? i think it'd be cool

with how little percy's actually fought in the tv show, and with the exclusion of his training at camp, him beating ares without A LOT of help isn't gonna be satisfying, so we'll see

that little teaser with percy and luke going into the forest under the fireworks has me so excited

i feel like a lot of people have already said this, but I think all of the actual issues with the show are disney's fault. the censorship is just a small part of that, but the amount of episodes and their length was probably decided by disney, and that's really hurting the show.

yes, i have issues with the writing and the direction rick's taken with the series. but I definitely wouldn't have as many issues if disney allowed them more time each episode to expand on what they're going with. i saw someone say that an 8 episode series used to be called a miniseries and honestly, a miniseries isn't enough for an entire book to make it feel complete

anyway, with that all out of the way, I'm still enjoying the series, I had much fewer complaints about this episode than last episode, and honestly, all of my real complaints from this episode aren't gonna play a part in later seasons if we get them, so I'm alright with that

[persephoneflowerpetals]

Why don't you describe or write more about their routine (Hades and Persephone)?

I like to read your ideas and use them as a basis for inspiration to make a comic of the two of them in the future

I really like your blog/work ✌️

Omg this was my legit reaction when I got your ask:

LOL but fr thank you so much! I’m honestly so glad you and so many others enjoy hearing my thoughts and ramblings and reading my fics and whatnot! It makes me so so sooooo happy that other people can enjoy my self indulgent postings and stuff with me! I also love that you and many others get inspired by my headcanons and like them so much that you guys use them for comics and role plays and fanfictions! It makes my heart so happy and honestly it inspires me to follow my dreams of being an actress/voice actress (helping create and flesh out a character with acting lol) or even an author writing books for different media franchises like Disney and video games and stuff lol!

Anyways, enough of me going on and on lol! I’d love to talk about Hades and Persephone’s daily routine! I’ll make a little schedule layout of what a regular day is like for them:

Hades:

6:00 AM - Wake up/eat breakfast

7:00 AM - Start daily underworld work (organizing new arrivals, signing important scrolls, etc.)

12:00 PM - Lunch break

1:30 PM - Daily update meeting with Pain & Panic

2:00 PM - Cont. underworld work

5:00 PM - Plan evil schemes/schmooze with current or potential allies/chill out on the underworld throne (only if most of the important underworld work has been taken care of)

7:00 PM - Eat dinner

8:30-9:00 PM - Personal free time/get ready for bed

10:00-11:00 PM - Bedtime

Persephone (in the underworld):

6:00 AM - Wake up/eat breakfast

8:00 AM - Start daily underworld work with Hades (she’s not much of a morning person and it takes her a while to wake up and get ready for the day)

12:00 PM - Lunch with Hades

1:30 PM - Daily update meeting with Hades, Pain, and Panic

2:00 PM - Cont. underworld work (mainly helping Hades with his work, tending to the agriculture in Asphodel Meadows, checking on the souls in Asphodel Meadows, etc.)

5:00 PM - Join Hades in “meetings” with current or potential allies/busywork/chill and talk with Hades in the throne room

7:00 PM - Dinner with Hades (if he isn’t working late)

8:30-9:00 PM - Personal free time alone or with Hades/get ready for bed

10:00-11:00 PM - Bedtime

Persephone (during spring):

7:00 AM - Wake up/have a quick breakfast

8:00 AM - Start seasonal work (planting flowers/trees/bushes/etc., helping wake up the wild animals from hibernation if Artemis hasn’t done it already, melting snow/ice, etc.)

1:00 PM - Eat lunch

2:00-2:30 PM - Cont. seasonal work

5:00 PM - Eat dinner

6:00-6:30 PM - Cont. seasonal work (slower paced, checking details, adding finishing touches)

8:00 PM - Personal free time alone (if Hades doesn’t stop by for a visit)/get ready for bed

9:30-10:00 PM - Bedtime (either in a flowery field under the moonlight or in her personal room on Mount Olympus if there’s rain)

Of course, these aren’t EXACT schedules for them lol, they definitely change depending on the day, but this is just kinda a run down of what their daily is schedules are like. When they have children their schedules become a little different (at least in the underworld anyways) because they have to make time for their kids, but yeah lol

[sylvieeee5]

Trailer speculation, possible future episode spoilers ahead!

So I’ve been rewatching the teaser and the trailer somewhat obsessively as of late…

and why isn’t anyone talking about the possibility that the trio is going to be separated and Annabeth is going to be lost in the Fields of Asphodel???

So… this location is the Fields of Asphodel, right? I’ve seen other people calling it as such, and it fits- dark, barren, black grass and trees, and the shades which seem to be actual statues in this iteration. In this clip from the trailer, we see the trio walking through the fields...

...followed by the boys running, no Annabeth in sight. Perhaps because they've become separated and are searching for her?

In the next shot, they run into a shade:

which looks just like the one we see Annabeth looking at in a clip from the teaser.

But we know that they won’t reunite for a while- because when we see the approach to Hades’ palace and the meeting with Hades himself…

It’s still just Percy and Grover.

So yeahhhh IDK what kind of side quest Annabeth is gonna go on in the Underworld but I’m excited and also kind of VERY SCARED that the trio is going to be apart!!!

I mean I know Annabeth will be totally fine, it’s the boys’ ability to survive without her I’m worried about abvshgshsjsbd-

[tipsycad147]

How Do I Know If Hades Is Reaching Out To Me?

In ancient times, the Greeks felt inhibited and terrified to pronounce the name of the Lord of the Dead, as they believed it was a bad omen. Along those lines, they referred to this god by the name of his kingdom, the Hades, because nobody knew (or dared to evoke) his real name. For centuries, Hades has been marginalized, demonized, and only summoned when desperate measures had to be taken. People would invoke the King of the Underworld to claim justice for a crime against their deceased loved ones, especially regarding defamation, homicide, and kidnapping; or to ask for someone’s smooth transition into his kingdom. Modern witches, however, understand that death is also part of life, the end of a cycle, and as such, it should also be respected. We also understand how misunderstood he’s been over the centuries. That’s why we want to remove the stigma around his figure, tell you more about him and show how you can benefit from working with Hades. 

If you’re starting deity work or want to learn about it before getting into it, don’t miss out on our How To Work With Deities and Ancestors and  How Do I Know If A Deity Is Calling Me? posts. As you do your research, you may find you want to work with Hades, but also, that there are other spirits, such as Hekate, Thanatos, or Anubis, that share similarities with him. So, how are you to confirm that it’s him? Keep reading to find out!  

As with other deities, the primary sign that this deity is reaching out to you is that you feel drawn to them, their mythology and their essence. For instance, with Hades, it could start with an interest in necromancy or the Afterlife, or even feeling the need to do shadow work. Moreover, he could show up in dreams or in the astral plane as a large man with a black beard —according to popular opinion.

Associations with Hades

Associations with the Lord of the Dead include skulls, bones, the helmet of invisibility, the bident (a two-pointed spear), Cerberus or dogs in general, snakes, sheep, black wolves and horses, chariots, narcissus, mint, cypress tree, white poplar, iron, the color black, keys, pomegranates, and the planet Pluto. 

Most of his signs are correspondences of either his figure, his mythology, or his domain. And some of them are related to other spirits’ myths that are somehow associated with him. For example,  pomegranates correspond to his wife, Persephone, and her time as a victim of Hades’ abduction; and the keys open the doors to the Underworld.

Alternatively, coins or money in general, cinnamon, and the cornucopia, as all are associated with the symbolism of wealth, which is Hades’ second domain. You can also experience a sudden increase in your salary or amazing discounts on things you’ve had on your wishlist for so long.

How do I confirm it’s Hades?

Being aware of his mythology and what his job entails will help. As I mentioned, some of his signs are related to other spirits he’s been involved with —Persephone, Sysiphus, Heracles, Hermes, Zeus, et cetera— which is useful to validate his presence and not confuse him with other deities ruling over their respective Underworld.

Doing deity confirmation Tarot readings is one of the most basic ways. The cards that represent Hades are Death, in connection with Pluto —the planet of changes, renewal, and transformation— and The Judgement, in relation to his role in the Underworld. Contrary to popular belief, Hades isn’t the God of Death, but the Dead, as he takes a role in judging the souls that come to his kingdom, assigning them a place in the Elysian Fields, the Asphodel Fields, or the Tartarus pit; and imparting a fair punishment on those who caused damage when they were alive. Because of the latter, Hades is often invoked to ask for justice for innocent victims who have passed in the hands of criminals, murderers, and rapists. Remember to ask further questions related to his story. For instance, the six of swords (Rider Waite-Smith deck) can represent his ferryman, Charon, and the nine of swords, his association with wealth.

How are signs from deities received?

Signs can appear in many different ways. But you’ll know in your heart that what you’re perceiving is a sign because of the frequency and the vehemence in which you receive them. You can notice these signs through your clair senses (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairalience) or dreams; or you can see his imagery, symbols, and correspondences in social media, in nature, in your house, or even another person can reach out to you on his behalf.

How to start working with Hades?

Even though the Lord of the Underworld usually reaches out or favors people with depression, necromancers, or Scorpio Sun witches, you can also choose to have him as your spiritual mentor.

If you decide to answer his call, you can expect him to be gentle, patient, and respectful of your boundaries. Hades will never see you as broken or damaged, for he understands what it feels like to be lonely and cast as the villain. You can certainly expect him to help you get through shadow work, especially if you want to work through trauma and abandonment. What’s more, in association with necromancy, he can help you communicate with the deceased. It is said that you can ask him to have a loved one who has passed show up in your dreams or get rid of nightmares. In regards to money, as the ruler of wealth, he can assist you in managing your funds and expenses.

In case you're working with Persephone, don’t be surprised if Hades reaches out to you as well, as you cannot have one without the other. If you’re not working with her yet or wonder if she’s trying to contact you, don’t miss our blog post on Signs Persephone Is Calling you. 

What offerings are suitable for Hades?

As the God of Wealth, it is safe to assume that Hades has it all and that material expensive offerings aren’t that appealing to him. He appreciates dedication, care, and devotion. Anything worthy of his approval is a good offering. You can give him imagery or elements he’s attributed with, you can do good deeds, such as helping the poor, donating to charity, volunteering in animal rescue shelters, cleaning tombstones, honoring the dead, leaving coins at the entrance of a cemetery for the lost souls, visiting and decluttering rivers, and many more. At the end of the day, it's your relationship with him. You can ask him what he would like as payment in return for the favor granted to you. 

What should I be careful about working with Hades?

As with any other spirit, remember they come from the Higher power, he’s superior to humans. So, treating him as your friend or an equal would be disrespectful. Moreover, ever since modern witches started to work with Hades and educate others about his true nature, people began to refer to him in childish ways, which lead to disregarding his authority as king and his power as a god. Furthermore, making foul comments toward his spirit allies, especially Persephone, can cause his wrath.

If you work with multiple deities, try setting up his altar or placing his offerings near spirits’ he gets along with, like Thanatos, Hekate, Hermes, and obviously, Persephone; and away from those he’s not very fond of, such as Lucifer, who he’s believed to have had feuds with.

As always, working with spirits shouldn’t be taken lightly, as they’re ancient beings who, like people, have their limits and moods. Remember to be respectful of these boundaries, no matter the gender or title of the entity, and to take your time before agreeing to bond with them. Do your research, check your protections and think hard about what working with this entity would mean to you and how it can help you align yourself with the Universe.

[halothenthehorns]

How Do You Say Gods;

Chapter 20: WE FIND OUT THE TRUTH, SORT OF

"Oh well that's a relief, because if you found out the whole truth things would go easy and we can't have that!" Jason groaned.

"The truth about what exactly though?" Alex smirked. "Who stole the bolt? Annabeth's imaginary friend? The president?"

"It probably means more half-truths and figuring it out for ourselves, so I'm not looking forward to it any more than you guys," Percy sighed, clenching and unclenching his hand with unease. It was unblemished like the rest of him, but he would swear there used to be a scar on his palm...

Will felt for the guy, truly, Percy had been drafted into this, accused of and lied to this entire time and now he had to face an impossible choice no one would envy. It was moments like these he truly understood Luke's cause, the gods that had done this to Percy couldn't have mercy for their kids, but they were all here. Getting Percy's memory restored because of Poseidon. Some good had to come of this, whatever the original plan had been on how they'd gotten here.

Imagine the largest concert crowd you've ever seen, a football field packed with a million fans.

Nico grimaced, sounded like his personal torture.

Now imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine the electricity has gone out, and there is no noise, no light, no beach ball bouncing around over the crowd. Something tragic has happened backstage. Whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for a concert that will never start.

It only then occurred to Nico, hearing it out loud like that, spending all of his time in this place might be why he'd grown to loathe being touched and in large crowds. He knew he was looking for someone he had no hope of finding and yet persistently kept at it with no other hope of a connection gone. The ghosts crowded him though, their whispers his ears could detect better than anyone's, impeding his progress all the more.

He'd never admitted it before, but Will put it so simply the parallel was impossible not to draw.

Nobody would bother him in Tartarus, he concluded.

  If you can picture that, you have a pretty good idea what the Fields of Asphodel looked like. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp.

"Are we sure this isn't a form of punishment?" Alex demanded.

"Doing nothing will leave you with nothing," Thalia uneasily reminded. "It was their choice not to face the judges for something better, their average lives that lead them to, well an average eternal-ment."

Alex bared her teeth, not at Thalia, just the world in general. She'd never go down without a fight, not in the mortal world or any other realm. Hearth already got the sense she was going to be an einherjar no matter what became of her in the world above.

Black trees-Grover told me they were poplars-grew in clumps here and there.

The cavern ceiling was so high above us it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. I tried not to imagine they'd fall on us at any moment, but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass. I guess the dead didn't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of booster rockets.

Annabeth, Grover, and I tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls. I couldn't help looking for familiar faces among the spirits of Asphodel, but the dead are hard to look at. Their faces shimmer. They all look slightly angry or confused. They will come up to you and speak, but their voices sound like chatter, like bats twittering. Once they realize you can't understand them, they frown and move away.

The dead aren't scary. They're just sad.

Nico watched Will say that, really seem to mean that, and it surprised him all the more Percy seemed to understand that too. What did it say that most of the campers thought he was creepy, yet a very important person around there didn't?

Thalia was looking a bit forlorn herself, that this was the best she could hope for Luke instead of receiving some punishment from Hades for his actions. She didn't even know if she should want this for him instead.

We crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read:

JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION

Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. Even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music. I could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top.

For a moment Thalia's eyes glazed over again, just a bit, just a hint of still wanting to go back and try again before she mentally smacked herself.

And I saw worse tortures, too, things I don't want to describe.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls-a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. I could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking. Elysium.

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium. Immediately I knew that's where I wanted to go when I died.

"Don't we all," Will said graciously.

Thalia thought she was at least lucky in that regard. While it wasn't part of the guarantee of being a Huntress, you were most assuredly going to get Elysium for doing the goddess's work unless you'd done something outstandingly stupid to earn her wrath.

"Sounds sort of boring," Alex dismissed, this felt no better than eternal nothingness. "Getting a perfect afterlife, everything you could ever want just handed to you. Where's the, drive, where's the goal?! People need motivation to do something or they'll go nuts."

Magnus was watching her avidly, he was pretty sure he could spend eternity watching her do whatever she wanted and never grow bored of it.

"Who said the Isles of the Blest doesn't do that," Nico had an odd sort of smile on his face as he challenged back. "Nobodies ever been there and back to report of course, it's impossible to sneak in, you have to be escorted by Hades himself. Yet I find it hard to believe the ultimate goal of the dead could ever be called bad." He was thinking though, that if other gods existed, it was possible other forms of death did too. Maybe even his dad didn't know for sure what happened out there, but Hades spoke of the place with confidence while watching him...like he pictured him going there one day.*

"That's what it's all about," Annabeth said, like she was reading my thoughts. "That's the place for heroes."

But I thought of how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good in their lives. It was depressing.

"Most people aren't good or bad, they just don't try," Alex said with an eerily calm look as she twined her garrote around her fingers. "Too wrapped up in their own worlds to make that effort. I suppose, in that way," she trailed off this did seem just.

"Doesn't mean we stop hoping they will," Will insisted, it never hurt to hope for the better, even when disappointment was all you got, the trying had to make it worth it on some level, even Hades's.

We left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields. It got darker. The colors faded from our clothes. The crowds of chattering spirits began to thin.

After a few miles of walking, we began to hear a familiar screech in the distance. Looming on the horizon was a palace of glittering black obsidian. Above the parapets swirled three dark batlike creatures: the Furies.

"Darn, I was hoping it was gargoyles," Magnus said.

"They're a good resemblance," Percy agreed.

I got the feeling they were waiting for us.

"I suppose it's too late to turn back," Grover said wistfully.

"I'm sure you still have time to make it to Maine and back," Jason snorted.

"We'll be okay." I tried to sound confident.

"Maybe we should search some of the other places first," Grover suggested. "Like, Elysium, for instance ..."

"Come on, goat boy." Annabeth grabbed his arm.

Grover yelped. His sneakers sprouted wings and his legs shot forward, pulling him away from Annabeth.

"What the-"

Percy made a wild grab for the book before Thalia snatched the back of his shirt and yanked him back into his seat, but the other four all took the hint and knew not to ask what was going on as Percy narrowed his eyes with confusion, for now. Something was about to happen though, the air in here was starting to feel a little thin...

He landed flat on his back in the grass.

"Grover," Annabeth chided. "Stop messing around."

"But I didn't-"

He yelped again. His shoes were flapping like crazy now. They levitated off the ground and started dragging him away from us.

No, he didn't, Grover hadn't done this, but something evil was doing this to him. Percy had Riptide in hand and looked prepared to stab Thalia, Will, and whoever else he needed to find out what was being done to his friend.

"Maia!" he yelled, but the magic word seemed to have no effect. "Maia, already! Nine-one-one! Help!"

I got over being stunned and made a grab for Grover's hand, but too late. He was picking up speed, skidding downhill like a bobsled.

We ran after him.

Annabeth shouted, "Untie the shoes!"

It was a smart idea, but I guess it's not so easy when your shoes are pulling you along feet-first at full speed. Grover tried to sit up, but he couldn't get close to the laces.

Jason felt like his imagination was in active overdrive as he tried to keep up with the chaos being described, fingers twitching like he had the maddening desire to try it now and see if he could.

We kept after him, trying to keep him in sight as he ripped between the legs of spirits who chattered at him in annoyance.

I was sure Grover was going to barrel straight through the gates of Hades's palace, but his shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged him in the opposite direction.

The slope got steeper. Grover picked up speed. Annabeth and I had to sprint to keep up. The cavern walls narrowed on either side, and I realized we'd entered some kind of side tunnel. No black grass or trees now, just rock underfoot, and the dim light of the stalactites above.

Percy's breaths were coming in short, sharp pants as he wished he could do anything to stop this, the feeling was creeping around him more every moment of where his friend was being dragged to and he couldn't breathe-

"Percy," Thalia gave his shoulder a vigorous shake, "you're sucking all the water out of our air!" She was starting to get a nosebleed!

"Sorry," he gasped, literally, and so did the others as they exhaled in relief and some of them rubbed their throats. It was like he'd been trying to pull Grover to him any way he could, bend him back to his side no matter how ridiculous the thought. If he concentrated though, really hard, he just knew somewhere Grover was alive and okay, though he still had no clue what gave him such an assurance.

Thalia kept her nails dug into his shoulder all the same at the horror of what had almost happened.

"Grover!" I yelled, my voice echoing. "Hold on to something!"

"What?" he yelled back.

He was grabbing at gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow him down.

The tunnel got darker and colder. The hairs on my arms bristled. It smelled evil down here. It made me think of things I shouldn't even know about-blood spilled on an ancient stone altar, the foul breath of a murderer.

Nico was taking calm, calculated breaths like he was preparing to take that lunge right now. Whatever Kronos had started by awakening had not stopped by his death. There had been zero hope of finding Percy in the Underworld, but he'd looked all the same until he heard the whispers from the dead, mother earth herself was stirring, and he would go down to the deepest parts on display right there to find out what.

"Nico, pay attention!" Will was nudging him persistently, speaking just a tad louder than was necessary. "I'm sorry if you're afraid of heights, but that's not helping!" The guy was turning gray and they would all swear the earth was starting to roll just a bit beneath their feet.

Having two such powerful demigods in such a state of distress was about to literally tear the roof down around them if they didn't hurry up and get away from this chasm!

Then I saw what was ahead of us, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

The tunnel widened into a huge dark cavern, and in the middle was a chasm the size of a city block.

Grover was sliding straight toward the edge.

"Come on, Percy!" Annabeth yelled, tugging at my wrist.

"But that's-"

"I know!" she shouted. "The place you described in your dream! But Grover's going to fall if we don't catch him." She was right, of course. Grover's predicament got me moving again.

He was yelling, clawing at the ground, but the winged shoes kept dragging him toward the pit, and it didn't look like we could possibly get to him in time.

It took every ounce of self control Percy had not to throw himself forward again, hand extended towards no one here to stop this from happening. He could do this, he could stop this, if he just stabbed his sword into the ground and reached far enough, he wouldn't lose him.

What saved him were his hooves.

Percy laughed. He slumped back in his seat in relief and looked punch drunk like all this water was making him high. Thalia sighed in relief and smacked his shoulder calling him a turnip brain, before Will shushed them both so the rest of them could hear for themselves and get away from this creepy cavern Nico was still far to uneasy hearing about as far as he was concerned.

The flying sneakers had always been a loose fit on him, and finally Grover hit a big rock and the left shoe came flying off. It sped into the darkness, down into the chasm. The right shoe kept tugging him along, but not as fast. Grover was able to slow himself down by grabbing on to the big rock and using it like an anchor.

He was ten feet from the edge of the pit when we caught him and hauled him back up the slope. The other winged shoe tugged itself off, circled around us angrily and kicked our heads in protest before flying off into the chasm to join its twin.

"I have never been more afraid of shoes in my life," Jason looked a little faint.

"Did those Aphrodite kids curse them or something?" Alex demanded.

All at once it seemed to hit the five of them who had given Grover those shoes. Percy began looking at Thalia, Nico, and Will so intensely, they could practically feel the water boiling around them.

"The bolt Percy," Thalia forcefully reminded him, "focus on getting out of that place, not going farther in."

He struggled to swallow for a moment as his headache screamed in protest like he was going to split in half. He should let this go before he blacked out from pain, but he couldn't, he was right and they were going to admit it-

"Let it go Percy," Jason coolly stepped in. "We've got enough to deal with when we get to the surface to hash this out." A mole in their midst was certainly a priority of his, and he wasn't even sure he had any loyalties to this camp yet.

He was right though, Percy would have to admit as he backed down. His mom was the priority here, finding that bolt and getting back to Annabeth. The second he let go of the idea, he was already drawing up a blank on what he'd been demanding before anyways. He just knew he wanted out of that cavern.

We all collapsed, exhausted, on the obsidian gravel. My limbs felt like lead. Even my backpack seemed heavier, as if somebody had filled it with rocks.

Thalia had her lips pursed up so tight she looked like she was chewing on a lemon, and Nico and Will were fidgeting in the exact same way. Great, now he knew he was missing something! That stupid backpack had nothing to do with those shoes, right?

Grover was scratched up pretty bad. His hands were bleeding. His eyes had gone slit-pupiled, goat style, the way they did whenever he was terrified.

"That was freaking cool if it wasn't so awful for him," Alex muttered.

"I don't know how ..." he panted. "I didn't..."

"Wait," I said. "Listen."

I heard something-a deep whisper in the darkness.

Nico looked least surprised of all, Will felt a cold chill as he watched. There was something so wrong with the calm way he knew of this place, his head tipped slightly to the side as if he were listening for it now. Nico had never been Kronos's spy though, had helped Percy and them fight in the Titan's war, so what his familiarity with this place was greatly disturbed him if it was somehow even worse than that.

Another few seconds, and Annabeth said, "Percy, this place-"

"Shh." I stood.

The sound was getting louder, a muttering, evil voice from far, far below us. Coming from the pit.

Grover sat up. "Wh-what's that noise?"

Annabeth heard it too, now. I could see it in her eyes. "Tartarus. The entrance to Tartarus." I uncapped Anaklusmos.

The bronze sword expanded, gleaming in the darkness, and the evil voice seemed to falter, just for a moment, before resuming its chant.

I could almost make out words now, ancient, ancient words, older even than Greek. As if ...

"Magic," I said.

"We have to get out of here," Annabeth said.

Together, we dragged Grover to his hooves and started back up the tunnel. My legs wouldn't move fast enough. My backpack weighed me down.

"Just drop the dang thing already!" Magnus blurted, he had no more need of it.

He watched all four Greek kids grimace at the suggestion and realized Jason had been right to question it.

They were lucky, or grateful Ares had enchanted him to not do any such thing, Will very much wanted to protest! If Krono had gotten that, he could have resurrected even sooner! Though, it might have saved Luke's life, maybe he would have made the right choice sooner...

Percy kept shifting his weight around like he was trying to readjust the straps, that stupid purple thing was lingering in his mind like it was full of Oreos again and he was being denied a treat, and no way was he crazy for thinking so with the way Thalia would no longer quite meet his eyes.

The voice got louder and angrier behind us, and we broke into a run.

Not a moment too soon.

A cold blast of wind pulled at our backs, as if the entire pit were inhaling. For a terrifying moment, I lost ground, my feet slipping in the gravel. If we'd been any closer to the edge, we would've been sucked in.

All eight of them shivered at once. It had never left their mind just how close the thin layer of ocean floor could be separating them from this very fate if this was all somehow a trap.

We kept struggling forward, and finally reached the top of the tunnel, where the cavern widened out into the Fields of Asphodel. The wind died. A wail of outrage echoed from deep in the tunnel. Something was not happy we'd gotten away.

"What was that?" Grover panted, when we'd collapsed in the relative safety of a black poplar grove. "One of Hades's pets?"

Annabeth and I looked at each other. I could tell she was nursing an idea, probably the same one she'd gotten during the taxi ride to L.A., but she was too scared to share it. That was enough to terrify me.

I capped my sword, put the pen back in my pocket. "Let's keep going." I looked at Grover. "Can you walk?"

He swallowed. "Yeah, sure. I never liked those shoes, anyway."

"He managed to hit Medusa with a branch with them, it's almost worth the trade," Alex disagreed.

"Now I know what kind of footwear you prefer, the life and death kind," Magnus didn't seem all that surprised.

He tried to sound brave about it, but he was trembling as badly as Annabeth and I were. Whatever was in that pit was nobody's pet. It was unspeakably old and powerful. Even Echidna hadn't given me that feeling. I was almost relieved to turn my back on that tunnel and head toward the palace of Hades.

"You guys didn't question this at all?" Magnus whispered in a tiny voice.

"We were focused on the deadline," Percy said with such dread in his stomach, he was beginning to wonder if he'd swallowed that backpack.

Almost.

The Furies circled the parapets, high in the gloom. The outer walls of the fortress glittered black, and the two-story-tall bronze gates stood wide open.

Up close, I saw that the engravings on the gates were scenes of death.

"Did we expect anything else at this point?" Alex said, but a very large part of her did want to see such twisted artwork in person.

Some were from modern times, an atomic bomb exploding over a city, a trench filled with gas mask-wearing soldiers, a line of African famine victims waiting with empty bowls-but all of them looked as if they'd been etched into the bronze thousands of years ago. I wondered if I was looking at prophecies that had come true.

"He actually has a bit of premonition power about death," Nico answered, "a sort of, gut feeling, like a ticking noise that steadily grows louder the nearer it draws, that all sound slightly different when something is about to strike and increase his workload," he finished sourly. Boy did he always hear about the paperwork of that.

"All gods have that to some degree," Will added with less cheer than usual. "It's not that they can see the future, except the Fates of course, that's their shtick, but they get this, feeling. A sense like they should grab a raincoat even though there's not a cloud in the sky and it works out for them later in the day when a bucket falls on them."

"This feeling that stretches over millennia, mind you," Thalia nodded.

Alex grimaced with distaste, she had plenty of experience with Loki's uncanny assurances about the future, but the others felt a bit small for the reminder of how the gods could easily view them as pawns in such a widespread cosmos.

Inside the courtyard was the strangest garden I'd ever seen. Multicolored mushrooms, poisonous shrubs, and weird luminous plants grew without sunlight. Precious jewels made up for the lack of flowers, piles of rubies as big as my fist, clumps of raw diamonds. Standing here and there like frozen party guests were Medusa's garden statues- petrified children, satyrs, and centaurs-all smiling grotesquely.

In the center of the garden was an orchard of pomegranate trees, their orange blooms neon bright in the dark. "The garden of Persephone," Annabeth said. "Keep walking."

I understood why she wanted to move on. The tart smell of those pomegranates was almost overwhelming. I had a sudden desire to eat them, but then I remembered the story of Persephone. One bite of Underworld food, and we would never be able to leave. I pulled Grover away to keep him from picking a big juicy one.

Nico sighed with distaste, it was a particularly popular story for cabin four to hiss at him during meals. You'd think the guy who got regularly turned into a plant by their mother and his own stepmom would get some kind of pass from them!

We walked up the steps of the palace, between black columns, through a black marble portico, and into the house of Hades.

"And house is putting it mildly," Percy told them.

"Not an adventure I envy," Jason shuddered.

The entry hall had a polished bronze floor, which seemed to boil in the reflected torchlight. There was no ceiling, just the cavern roof, far above. I guess they never had to worry about rain down here.

Every side doorway was guarded by a skeleton in military gear. Some wore Greek armor, some British redcoat uniforms, some camouflage with tattered American flags on the shoulders. They carried spears or muskets or M-16s. None of them bothered us, but their hollow eye sockets followed us as we walked down the hall, toward the big set of doors at the opposite end.

Two U.S. Marine skeletons guarded the doors. They grinned down at us, rocket-propelled grenade launchers held across their chests.

"That sounds like the coolest haunted house in the universe though," Alex said with just a touch of longing.

"Only if you acknowledge there's no exit," Magnus swiftly reminded.

"You know," Grover mumbled, "I bet Hades doesn't have trouble with door-to-door salesmen."

"And here I thought the Bible Thumpers would be lining the block to get in there," Will snorted.

My backpack weighed a ton now. I couldn't figure out why. I wanted to open it, check to see if I had somehow picked up a stray bowling ball, but this wasn't the time.

"Well, guys," I said. "I suppose we should ... knock?"

"At that point it's just redundant," Thalia rolled her eyes, "you've already snuck into his kingdom, might as well barge into his home." She was mostly being sarcastic, but it didn't feel like there was a right answer to that either.

A hot wind blew down the corridor, and the doors swung open. The guards stepped aside.

"I guess that means entrez-vous," Annabeth said.

The room inside looked just like in my dream, except this time the throne of Hades was occupied.

He was the third god I'd met, but the first who really struck me as godlike.

Nico straightened up in surprise, but he wasn't really going to get his hopes up Percy had anything decent to say about his dad, nobody had before.

He was at least ten feet tall, for one thing, and dressed in black silk robes and a crown of braided gold.

His skin was albino white, his hair shoulder-length and jet black. He wasn't bulked up like Ares, but he radiated power. He lounged on his throne of fused human bones, looking lithe, graceful, and dangerous as a panther.

Will sounded as if he meant every one of those powerful words.

 Apollo had come to visit him in his dreams sporadically and he'd only seen his dad in person twice as a happy go lucky teenager. The last time he'd been to camp he hadn't even popped in to say hi, though admittedly his sister had been missing at the time, they'd all quietly wondered to each other that summer why he'd never instigated a quest out of any of them, nor had he gone out of his way to ever show them around Olympus when they got the chance to visit there. He came across more as a 'cool' parent who just blessed them with amazing gifts when he remembered they existed.

He glanced curiously at Nico, and now actually felt a little jealous of how common place this environment was to him. How much time did Hades spend with him?

I immediately felt like he should be giving the orders. He knew more than I did. He should be my master.

"I think the wine dude is still my favorite," Alex said with a scrunched up face. "I'll take trailer-park cherub over any auras these other two give off."

"Please don't ever say that to him, I am begging you," Will said with even more fear than seconds ago, which appropriately made the reading sound even worse now.

Nico managed to laugh of all things, taking that in stride as he imagined Will eating this book before Dionysus could get his hands on it instead.

Then I told myself to snap out of it.

"Which I'm only semi-confident you can do at this rate," Jason frowned, considering how rude he'd been to Mars. Pluto at least was coming across exactly how he would have expected.

Hades's aura was affecting me, just as Ares's had. The Lord of the Dead resembled pictures I'd seen of Adolph Hitler, or Napoleon, or the terrorist leaders who direct suicide bombers. Hades had the same intense eyes, the same kind of mesmerizing, evil charisma.

"You are brave to come here, Son of Poseidon," he said in an oily voice. "After what you have done to me, very brave indeed. Or perhaps you are simply very foolish."

'It's amazing how thin that line is,' Hearth uneasily agreed. He'd never wanted to hear depictions of Hela, let alone her male Greek counterpart.

Numbness crept into my joints, tempting me to lie down and just take a little nap at Hades's feet. Curl up here and sleep forever.

I fought the feeling and stepped forward. I knew what I had to say. "Lord and Uncle, I come with two requests."

Hades raised an eyebrow. When he sat forward in his throne, shadowy faces appeared in the folds of his black robes, faces of torment, as if the garment were stitched of trapped souls from the Fields of Punishment, trying to get out. The ADHD part of me wondered, off-task, whether the rest of his clothes were made the same way. What horrible things would you have to do in your life to get woven into Hades's underwear?

And then the tension was broken by nearly hysterical laughter by them all. Thalia tried choking something together about child molesters and rapists but the answer wasn't very clear, while Alex said loud and proud, "you make me wish I had ADHD for these thoughts!"

"At least now you acknowledge I have them," Percy grinned indulgently, glad it was all fun and games for them when his voice had been squeaking like a mouse in front of someone who could wave his hand and turn him into one any second.

"Only two requests?" Hades said. "Arrogant child. As if you have not already taken enough. Speak, then. It amuses me not to strike you dead yet."

Nico bore a very striking resemblance of that unimpressed look now, Percy absently noticed, as he grumbled inaudibly he'd been going about making him laugh all wrong. Man that guy was weird.

I swallowed. This was going about as well as I'd feared.

I glanced at the empty, smaller throne next to Hades's. It was shaped like a black flower, gilded with gold. I wished Queen Persephone were here. I recalled something in the myths about how she could calm her husband's moods. But it was summer. Of course, Persephone would be above in the world of light with her mother, the goddess of agriculture, Demeter. Her visits, not the tilt of the planet, create the seasons.

Annabeth cleared her throat. Her finger prodded me in the back.

"Lord Hades," I said. "Look, sir, there can't be a war among the gods. It would be ... bad."

"Really bad," Grover added helpfully.

"Grover the unsung hero of this quest," Magnus snorted.

"Return Zeus's master bolt to me," I said. "Please, sir. Let me carry it to Olympus."

Hades's eyes grew dangerously bright. "You dare keep up this pretense, after what you have done?"

I glanced back at my friends. They looked as confused as I was.

"Um ... Uncle," I said. "You keep saying 'after what you've done.' What exactly have I done?"

"At this rate what haven't you done," Alex threw her hands up in exasperation this pantheon seemed no better than her own. "Shoot JFK? Started World War 2!"

"Can't say I'm looking forward to finding out," Percy groaned.

The throne room shook with a tremor so strong, they probably felt it upstairs in Los Angeles. Debris fell from the cavern ceiling. Doors burst open all along the walls, and skeletal warriors marched in, hundreds of them, from every time period and nation in Western civilization.

'That is a lot of dead bodies,' Hearth's mind boggled at the madness.

'And those were just the ones he summoned,' Magnus reminded, his mind on all the dead who had ever passed his domain, Genghis Khan's ruling alone must have been a mass import.

They lined the perimeter of the room, blocking the exits.

Hades bellowed, "Do you think I want war, godling?"

I wanted to say, Well, these guys don't look like peace activists. But I thought that might be a dangerous answer.

"You get a gold star for that restraint alone," Thalia promised.

"You are the Lord of the Dead," I said carefully. "A war would expand your kingdom, right?"

"A typical thing for my brothers to say! Do you think I need more subjects? Did you not see the sprawl of the Asphodel Fields?"

"Oh, here we go," Nico couldn't stop the little sigh of defeat, but he did it quietly just for Will. He knew this speech so well he could have said it with him.

Will had to really concentrate all of a sudden on the book, and not the fact he shouldn't be able to feel the warmth of his breath down here.

"Well..."

"Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone, how many subdivisions I've had to open?"

Magnus opened his mouth with that curiosity of his again, but Nico gave him a small shake of the head silently hoping he wouldn't persist. He didn't, to Nico's relief, who for once would have felt guilty for not answering, and yet that kind of knowledge was really pushing the limits of what he should and shouldn't know of this place.

I opened my mouth to respond, but Hades was on a roll now.

"More security ghouls," he moaned. "Traffic problems at the judgment pavilion. Double overtime for the staff. I used to be a rich god, Percy Jackson. I control all the precious metals under the earth. But my expenses!"

"Charon wants a pay raise," I blurted,

"I take my gold star back!" Thalia whacked him hard enough to make him see stars.

Percy couldn't even be mad as he rubbed the spot, he already wished he hadn't let that one slip too.

just remembering the fact. As soon as I said it, I wished I could sew up my mouth.

"I will help," Alex promised.

"Maybe later," Percy sighed, though he hadn't ruled it out yet.

"Don't get me started on Charon!" Hades yelled. "He's been impossible ever since he discovered Italian suits! Problems everywhere, and I've got to handle all of them personally. The commute time alone from the palace to the gates is enough to drive me insane! And the dead just keep arriving. No, godling. I need no help getting subjects! I did not ask for this war."

"That was fascinating," Jason looked like he regretted not having a pen and paper to jot all that down. "Did none of the other gods take that into consideration? It's like Zeus wanting more car factories to exist."

"We certainly didn't think of it that way," Will agreed regretfully, "and Hades has no, ah, ambassador to speak for him, nor is he welcomed on Mount Olympus to ask, so, yeah, sounds like a recipe for disaster in hindsight." He'd thought Nico would take up the role, but he'd have to be a camper longer than two weeks to manage it!

"But you took Zeus's master bolt."

"Lies!" More rumbling. Hades rose from his throne, towering to the height of a football goalpost. "Your father may fool Zeus, boy, but I am not so stupid. I see his plan."

"Great, can he explain it to me?" Percy sighed.

"How have we not all died yet from these three?" Alex looked plenty disturbed these idiots apparently thought their two brothers were out to deceive them at the drop of a hat.

Nobody answered her, which wasn't exactly encouraging.

"His plan?"

"You were the thief on the winter solstice," he said. "Your father thought to keep you his little secret. He directed you into the throne room on Olympus, you took the master bolt and my helm. Had I not sent my Fury to discover you at Yancy Academy, Poseidon might have succeeded in hiding his scheme to start a war. But now you have been forced into the open. You will be exposed as Poseidon's thief, and I will have my helm back!"

Hearth was starting to get a headache trying to keep in line all these different fabrics the gods were weaving over this one lie in the first place. How was it even possible to hide away a demigod child if monsters could so casually smell him, wouldn't the gods have known when he was born? The same deity who had foreknowledge of plagues and natural disasters couldn't pick up on the fact Percy had no idea about any of this? Immortal clearly didn't mean all-knowing like Odin.

"But ..." Annabeth spoke. I could tell her mind was going a million miles an hour. "Lord Hades, your helm of darkness is missing, too?"

"Do not play innocent with me, girl. You and the satyr have been helping this hero, coming here to threaten me in Poseidon's name, no doubt to bring me an ultimatum. Does Poseidon think I can be blackmailed into supporting him?"

"Percy has literally not said a word about any of that," Jason said dubiously, "he's been weirdly polite to this god during his rude rant."

"You try telling him that," Percy waved at Jason with such agreement he blasted a current of water that splashed his face. He spat out the ocean from his mouth and asked himself how long he'd have to put up with these Greek kids nonsense.

"No!" I said. "Poseidon didn't-I didn't-"

"I have said nothing of the helm's disappearance," Hades snarled, "because I had no illusions that anyone on Olympus would offer me the slightest justice, the slightest help. I can ill afford for word to get out that my most powerful weapon of fear is missing. So I searched for you myself, and when it was clear you were coming to me to deliver your threat, I did not try to stop you."

"You didn't try to stop us? But-"

Magnus was going back in his head and ticking up all of the interruptions, and only the first on the bus had most definitely been Hades. After that it was Medusa and Procrustes by accident, Zeus had sent Echidna, and Ares had helped them the rest of the way there. It did seem that if this guy had wanted to impede their progress, he might have been trying harder. Hell, they'd walked right through his front door!

"Return my helm now, or I will stop death," Hades threatened. "That is my counterproposal. I will open the earth and have the dead pour back into the world. I will make your lands a nightmare. And you, Percy Jackson, your skeleton will lead my army out of Hades."

"Was that a threat or a compliment for your brass?" Alex asked.

"I could not tell you, gods do I hope we don't find out," Percy groaned.

The skeletal soldiers all took one step forward, making their weapons ready.

At that point, I probably should have been terrified. The strange thing was, I felt offended. Nothing gets me angrier than being accused of something I didn't do. I've had a lot of experience with that.

Percy's defiance in the face of the gods didn't surprise anyone this time. This quest had been nothing but infuriating from the start, everyone pointing the finger at everyone else and even this twelve year old made the gods seem like a bunch of children arguing over a toy.

"You're as bad as Zeus," I said. "You think I stole from you? That's why you sent the Furies after me?"

"Of course," Hades said.

"And the other monsters?"

Hades curled his lip. "I had nothing to do with them. I wanted no quick death for you, I wanted you brought before me alive so you might face every torture in the Fields of Punishment. Why do you think I let you enter my kingdom so easily?"

"Easily?"

"Return my property!"

"But I don't have your helm. I came for the master bolt."

"Which you already possess!" Hades shouted. "You came here with it, little fool, thinking you could you threaten me!"

"But I didn't!"

"Open your pack, then."

A horrible feeling struck me. The weight in my backpack, like a bowling ball. It couldn't be...

I slung it off my shoulder and unzipped it. Inside was a two-foot-long metal cylinder, spiked on both ends, humming with energy.

"I don't understand," Percy looked very much like he didn't understand his own words coming out of his mouth. "Did the pit put that in there! It wasn't there until, but-"

"I know Percy," Thalia sighed, "this is a really multilayered crap sandwich. It took Annabeth ages to explain it all to me, and with not nearly so much detail as this."

Will was glancing anxiously from Percy, to Nico, to the surface to get this over with already and kept reading loudly before he could ask anymore leading questions he wasn't ready for.

"Percy," Annabeth said. "How-"

"I-I don't know. I don't understand."

"You heroes are always the same," Hades said. "Your pride makes you foolish,

Nico felt his heart shrivel up, did his dad think that of him too? Hades only tolerated him most days, had a rare conversation on a good day, and ignored his presence the rest of the time while roving in the Underworld. He didn't consider himself a very prideful person, but he'd never been officially claimed either, so he didn't feel he had anything to be proud of.

thinking you could bring such a weapon before me. I did not ask for Zeus's master bolt, but since it is here, you will yield it to me. I am sure it will make an excellent bargaining tool. And now ... my helm. Where is it?"

I was speechless. I had no helm. I had no idea how the master bolt had gotten into my backpack. I wanted to think Hades was pulling some kind of trick. Hades was the bad guy. But suddenly the world turned sideways. I realized I'd been played with. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had been set at each other's throats by someone else. The master bolt had been in the backpack, and I'd gotten the backpack from ...

"There's that sort of truth," Alex narrowed her mismatched eyes with distaste, and the look seemed all the more striking for it.

"There's no way Ares was the one who orchestrated all this," yet Magnus would believe it at this point. Would the war god ever have a reason for not wanting to start one out of boredom? He'd admitted himself he'd put this idea in Poseidon's head, but, "he can't take their godly items."

"He's had help," Jason agreed, those shoes still bothering his mind greatly, but what motive would a child of Mercury have for helping him? Luke could be being framed for that bad gift just like Percy had been. None of this explained that grotesque pit's involvement either.

Thalia made a hissing noise and was slashing across her throat to shut them all up before Hearth could get his hands moving. It was heartening to see them piecing this together, but bad for her friend who had his eyes closed and fingers drilling into his forehead to alleviate the pain.

"Lord Hades, wait," I said. "This is all a mistake."

"A mistake?" Hades roared.

The skeletons aimed their weapons. From high above, there was a fluttering of leathery wings, and the three Furies swooped down to perch on the back of their master's throne. The one with Mrs. Dodds's face grinned at me eagerly and flicked her whip.

"There is no mistake," Hades said. "I know why you have come, I know the real reason you brought the bolt. You came to bargain for her."

Hades loosed a ball of gold fire from his palm. It exploded on the steps in front of me, and there was my mother, frozen in a shower of gold, just as she was at the moment when the Minotaur began to squeeze her to death.

Percy reached his hand out again; he was twelve years old standing on the rain soaked hill of Camp-Half Blood where Thalia and his mother had made a sacrifice that had paid off, he was at the edge of that pit willing to throw himself over the edge to pull Grover back. He would burn Hades's palace to the ground jewel by jewel to get her back.

...and yet...

I couldn't speak. I reached out to touch her, but the light was as hot as a bonfire.

"Yes," Hades said with satisfaction. "I took her. I knew, Percy Jackson, that you would come to bargain with me eventually. Return my helm, and perhaps I will let her go. She is not dead, you know. Not yet. But if you displease me, that will change."

I thought about the pearls in my pocket. Maybe they could get me out of this. If I could just get my mom free ...

"Ah, the pearls," Hades said, and my blood froze. "Yes, my brother and his little tricks. Bring them forth, Percy Jackson."

My hand moved against my will and brought out the pearls.

"Only three," Hades said. "What a shame. You do realize each only protects a single person. Try to take your mother, then, little godling. And which of your friends will you leave behind to spend eternity with me? Go on. Choose. Or give me the backpack and accept my terms."

I looked at Annabeth and Grover. Their faces were grim.

"We were tricked," I told them. "Set up."

"Yes, but why?" Annabeth asked. "And the voice in the pit-"

"I don't know yet," I said. "But I intend to ask."

"Decide, boy!" Hades yelled.

"Percy." Grover put his hand on my shoulder. "You can't give him the bolt-"

"I know that."

"Leave me here," he said. "Use the third pearl on your mom."

"No!"

"I'm a satyr," Grover said. "We don't have souls like humans do. He can torture me until I die, but he won't get me forever. I'll just be reincarnated as a flower or something. It's the best way."

"No." Annabeth drew her bronze knife. "You two go on. Grover, you have to protect Percy. You have to get your searcher's license and start your quest for Pan. Get his mom out of here. I'll cover you. I plan to go down fighting."

"No way," Grover said. "I'm staying behind."

"Think again, goat boy," Annabeth said.

"Stop it, both of you!" I felt like my heart was being ripped in two. They had both been with me through so much. I remembered Grover dive-bombing Medusa in the statue garden, and Annabeth saving us from Cerberus; we'd survived Hephaestus's Waterland ride, the St. Louis Arch, the Lotus Casino. I had spent thousands of miles worried that I'd be betrayed by a friend, but these friends would never do that.

They had done nothing but save me, over and over, and now they wanted to sacrifice their lives for my mom.

"I know what to do," I said. "Take these."

I handed them each a pearl.

Annabeth said, "But, Percy ..."

I turned and faced my mother. I desperately wanted to sacrifice myself and use the last pearl on her, but I knew what she would say. She would never allow it. I had to get the bolt back to Olympus and tell Zeus the truth. I had to stop the war. She would never forgive me if I saved her instead. I thought about the prophecy made at Half-Blood Hill, what seemed like a million years ago. You will fail to save what matters most in the end.

Percy's breath shook loose with such sorrow, the powerful wave it sent through the realm probably had surfer's owing him a prayer of thanks. Thalia had promised him this was inevitable, the line that comforted and tormented him in equal measure all condensed into this one moment. He had done the right thing, his mother would be proud of him, even if he never got to see her again. It did not feel like a sacrifice he could ever make, and yet it had stopped the world from falling into doom.**

"I'm sorry," I told her. "I'll be back. I'll find a way."

Magnus couldn't believe what he was hearing. He'd come on this quest for her and nothing else, and now with the moment at his grasp, all he had to do was offer the bolt to have her back, or even throw the pearl for her and leave himself behind. He wasn't so sure he could have done the same in this moment what Percy had done.

The smug look on Hades's face faded. He said, "Godling ... ?"

"I'll find your helm, Uncle," I told him. "I'll return it. Remember about Charon's pay raise."

"Do not defy me-"

"And it wouldn't hurt to play with Cerberus once in a while. He likes red rubber balls."

"Those are the best parting words I have heard in my life," Alex said in admiration. "You could write speeches."

"You are the only person who would give me that power," Percy said with a reluctant, halfhearted grin. The only thing stopping him from curling up in a ball and crying about never seeing her again was the confidence he would find that way. He would see her again.

"Percy Jackson, you will not-"

I shouted, "Now, guys!"

We smashed the pearls at our feet. For a scary moment, nothing happened.

Hades yelled, "Destroy them!"

The army of skeletons rushed forward, swords out, guns clicking to full automatic. The Furies lunged, their whips bursting into flame.

Just as the skeletons opened fire, the pearl fragments at my feet exploded with a burst of green light and a gust of fresh sea wind. I was encased in a milky white sphere, which was starting to float off the ground.

Annabeth and Grover were right behind me. Spears and bullets sparked harmlessly off the pearl bubbles as we floated up. Hades yelled with such rage, the entire fortress shook and I knew it was not going to be a peaceful night in L.A.

"Look up.'" Grover yelled. "We're going to crash!"

Sure enough, we were racing right toward the stalactites, which I figured would pop our bubbles and skewer us.

"How do you control these things?" Annabeth shouted.

"I don't think you do!" I shouted back.

We screamed as the bubbles slammed into the ceiling and ... Darkness.

Were we dead?

No, I could still feel the racing sensation. We were going up, right through solid rock as easily as an air bubble in water. That was the power of the pearls, I realized; What belongs to the sea will always return to the sea.

"Thank you father," Percy said instantly aloud this time. They all heard it, felt it as the cold depths of the ocean parted for a moment for the message to pass unimpeded. The Olympian Gods, in their narrow minded fields, still existed because of their toying, tangling relationship with humanity. Not always good, not always bad, it just existed same as the shark and the seal.

For a few moments, I couldn't see anything outside the smooth walls of my sphere, then my pearl broke through on the ocean floor.

"A shame, some archeologist and geologist would kill to get a look at some of those layers in the earths crust," Alex smirked.

"I'll have Poseidon send them a Christmas card if I'm ever allowed back in LA," Percy chuckled.

"Now I'm just grateful they didn't catch sight of any buried bodies and any amount of things under the surface," Jason frowned at her.

The two other milky spheres, Annabeth and Grover, kept pace with me as we soared upward through the water. And- ker-blam!

We exploded on the surface, in the middle of the Santa Monica Bay, knocking a surfer off his board with an indignant, "Dude!"

I grabbed Grover and hauled him over to a life buoy. I caught Annabeth and dragged her over too. A curious shark was circling us, a great white about eleven feet long.

I said, "Beat it."

The shark turned and raced away.

The surfer screamed something about bad mushrooms and paddled away from us as fast as he could.

"I think that's karma on some level, you might have saved his life," Thalia said saintly.

"Now who's giving out crappy PSA's," Percy rolled his eyes.

Somehow, I knew what time it was: early morning, June 21, the day of the summer solstice.

In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city.

There had been an earthquake, all right, and it was Hades's fault. He was probably sending an army of the dead after me right now.

Nico was staring at the floor with a touch of fascination, he'd never equated his gift to Percy's as shaking the very earth! The idea fumbled in his mind though, not quite flying high enough to make his mind race off and hope one day Percy would realize the same. It just stayed there, level, as an interesting comparison rather than being a good or bad one, which left him feeling more flummoxed than if he had just tried to shove his crush back down.

"That is the coolest thing I never wanted to imagine," Will smiled casually, and he had seen the end results of those hordes bursting out in New York.

"It's something alright," Nico casually agree, staring at his fingernails oddly.

But at the moment, the Underworld wasn't my biggest problem.

"You know it's a big thing when every supernatural thing under the earth isn't your biggest problem!" Jason nodded.

I had to get to shore. I had to get Zeus's thunderbolt back to Olympus.

'I will take a moment to pause and be grateful he didn't zap the whole ocean with that thing,' Hearth frowned.

'Magic!' Magnus mocked back with a laugh, which only made his friend smile in delight.

Most of all, I had to have a serious conversation with the god who'd tricked me.

Alex's eyes sparked with particular interest as Jason took the book. Ares was no Loki, but she could not wait to hear this godling give that jerk a piece of his mind!

Jason looked like he was being handed a live bomb and was tempted to let somebody else read the appalling idea this idiot was about to challenge a god!

PJOPJOPJO

*I do imagine all the worlds overlap in a sense, so Isles of the Blest is quite possibly Hotel Valhalla in some aspect. Regardless, I've seen The Good Place one to many times not to nitpick at this anymore, and being atheist means I simply think people just poof, vanish, and that's more comforting to me than eternal anything.

**Considering Percy's fatal flaw is told to be that he would sacrifice the world for his loved ones, I find it hard to believe he allowed it this first time without putting up more of a fight. Don't get me wrong, he made the right choice taking his mother's want into account, it's commendable, but still. It comes true in the third by what he does for Annabeth and all following books he risks the world for her, but it does rub me the wrong way his romantic love seems to outrank his familiar love in the definition here.

I personally think his fatal flaw is more clearly defined as impulsiveness like his half brother Theseus, he doesn't think far enough ahead and choses in the moment what's most important. Like all children of Poseidon, his erraticness would be his undoing; his short term solutions having long reaching problems due to their ever shifting ways. Adaptable, but problematic.

He chose this quest to go save his mother, not to stop the war, that's just what he correctly chose in the end, he over came his fatal flaw, but it's still what almost came to his death before he corrected thanks to his mother and friends willing to do the same for him in that moment.

This of course is in reverse of Jason, who's fatal flaw is most definitely to much deliberation, and I adore they balance each other out! I've yet gotten to it but they are going to be besties by the end!

Will, on the other hand, absolutely deserves the title of sacrificing the world for a passing stranger. He's too sweet for his own good and needs Nico's to balance him out, which we all know is holding a grudge too much.

Alex and Annabeth have the same in my mind, Pride, they're too confident they can do anything better than anyone else.

Magnus and Hearth's could arguably be the same, self-doubt.

I've yet picked a clear winner for Thalia, and it's good enough for me not everyone needs a fatal flaw, but I'm looking forward to exploring this and more as the series goes on.

[iphido]

now that i think about it why does percy have the most 'normal' life out of all the big 3 kids. like can we look at the material. tyson is a cyclops with a bird girlfriend lets just get that out of the way. bianca and nico were born in the 1930s and were trapped in time for 70 years. bianca abandons nico for eternal life, only to die on someone else's quest. nico becomes an outcast and a wanderer with no one to guide him, yet he still plays his part in winning two different wars all before he turns 15. hazel was born in 1928 and brought a whole fucking island down in alaska to delay the coming of gaea, only to be found in the endless fields of asphodel and brought back to life by a brother she'd never met before. thalia turned into a tree when she was 15, is revived by the golden fleece, almost becomes the prophecy kid until she rejects fate and pledges herself to artemis, and presumably will live forever until she falls in battle. jason was claimed by juno before he was even born and at the age of two was abandoned by his birth mother to be raised by a wolf goddess and groomed to be the perfect leader of a camp who only paid attention to him because of his father. JASON DIDNT EVEN KNOW WHEN HIS BIRTHDAY WAS OR EVEN HOW OLD HE WAS UNTIL HE WAS 15 YEARS OLD. percy is literally the only normal one. out of all the big 3 kids. he got/gets to go to normal school (even if he struggles socially and academically). he drives his stepdad's prius. he has a loving girlfriend who he firmly believes he's meant to be with. hes just trying to graduate high school

LIKE IM NOT COMPLAINING I LOVE PERCY BUT IM WONDERING WHY ? is it because he wants it the most? i think they all wanted a normal life -- except maybe bianca -- or maybe the others just wanted safety and contentment and acceptance. nico wants to be needed and accepted. bianca wanted to be independent. hazel wants to be strong for camp jupiter and she wants to be loved. thalia wanted to be free of fate, and now.. at this point now i think she just wants to serve her lady and survive. jason wanted to know who he was without all the expectations and assumptions people made of him, but he still died serving the gods. percy only ever wanted to be normal. he only ever wanted his mom’s hugs and to go to school and be free of it all. im so upset.

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. Why does RS keep putting Aphrodite down? Like she keeps teasing us we’ll get more on Aphrodite and then uses her like a punching bag like she does with Minthe. Like Aphrodite got “redeemed” sorta 

2. Is there like no justice system for the Nymphs? Daphne turned into a tree, echo and Thanatos know, but nothing is getting down about that. Minthe is a plant for like Idk how long it’s been 3 days?? Maybe more??? Hades told Thanatos she’s a plant (just like his gf) and nothing is getting done about that??? BUT HES CALLED A NARc for actually turning Persphone in which is something that Zeus really wants (I know Poseidon said it but I don’t much on his character which way he leans on this whole thing) honestly feel like this trial arc was written by someone who doesn’t know basic court room stuff

3. Didn’t Rachel mention that she thinks Artemis and Apollo are black? Cause if that’s true, that’s just another example of a poor portrayal, and making those characters black is very…questionable? 

From OP: Artemis in her dream cast was black, Apollo wasn’t there but it’s pretty unlikely that they’d be completely different races (so, he’d be black as well).

4. Maybe Rachel should have played the multi-award winning games Hades™️ to get the basic idea that the three sections of the Underworld are as ancient as Time itself, and no one, not even Nyx, was there when it was created, and Hades and Persephone and co. are merely servants to the realm, not them controlling it and adding whatever they want to it as they please. JFC, how can Rachel claim to be so well researched and even a voice for accuracy when she makes stuff up so egregiously like this?

5. Hey! Not really, LO related (sort of) but I wanted to know if you’ve ever heard about this musical called Mythic? It’s another kind of modern adaption of the Hades/Persephone kidnapping, and although it’s not perfect, it’s probably one of the better ones I’ve seen. Again, there’s a few problems with it, but the fact that Demeter isn’t demonized and there��s actually a healthy mother & daughter relationship already makes it so much better than LO and a few other adaptations I’ve seen

6. yeah im also under the impression the "trial" seems more like rachel trying to "one up the haters" and frame any and all critique thrown at LO as "character assassination" and "slander" when its like, girl, you know she's only on trial for murdering a whole village because YOU wrote it that way, right? the people critiquing it didnt write it this way, YOU did. she seems to be act as if LO exists out of thin air and she can't be held accountable for it or its writing when its HER work!

7. Ah yes, the Goddess whose character consists of making baklava and scrapbooks, the epitome of beauty,  grace and wisdom even though she would be about an infants age in godly years. I also love that fields of Asphodel has been reduced to some purgatory places.

You know what hurts me the most, recently I’ve written a research paper of modern iterations damaging the authenticity of knowledge. For example, due to translation errorthe biblical use of Hades is hell, so most of the western people associate Hades with the Devil while Hades is both the god of the dead and the place where dead people go.

Lastly I find it relevant since how I started my Greek Mythology journey was through the Percy Jackson series and it shaped my initial thoughts, it might be possible that young people will actually associate god Apollo with r**e 

8. There's so many canon LGBT+ couples and characters in greek myth and yet the best Rachel could do was to make up a ship that makes no sense and has as much chemistry as two piece of stale white bread. i dont want her to force diversity, but seriously? it seems like she went out of her way to make it as heteronormative and 1% status quo as possible.

-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

9. So Hades in all that time of being the absolute monarch, instead of making Elysium or the Asphodel Fields himself to prove he's a caring and thoughtful king, he decided instead the best option was to enslave them so he could make his vast fortune off of their labor? Like this plot point isn't just stupid in regards to how bad LO tries to make Persephone "powerful", this reinforces LO Hades is literally evil, and a random teenage intern has to try and "fix" his self-made issues instead of himself

10. FP// even if Persephone wants to "save the Underworld" (whatever that means) that doesn't negate the flaws in her writing? She even admits its not for the shades or out of the goodness of her heart, it's for herself to feel better, so it's not even a "Savior" moment. No one cared if she if could be dark and complex, we want that! The issue is Rachel going out of her to always excuse P's actions and this "Elysium" plot only proves she doesn't get why P's depiction is critiqued in the first place.

[theapprenticeofthanatos]

TAoT: Chapter 6: Up In Flames

Danny called Sam and Tucker after waking up around noon. Both of them wanted to hear about Danny’s night in the Underworld, so the trio decided to meet up at the park that afternoon. When Danny left his house, the January day was bright and chilly. When he got to the park, he saw both Sam and Tucker sitting on a picnic blanket under a tree a ways away from the walking paths that twisted through the dead grass.

“Hey, Danny.” Sam waved him over.

“Hey, guys.” Danny sat down on the edge of the blanket. Sam must have packed the basket because there were a variety of fruits and vegetables that Sam had likely grown herself.

“So, how was your trip?” Sam asked, munching on a large green apple. “Meet anyone interesting?”

“Yeah, did you see Ha-” Tucker began, but Danny slapped his hand over Tucker’s mouth.

“Don’t say his name.” Danny warned, eyes briefly glowing.

“Whoa, Danny, chill.” Sam held her hands up. “What’s your deal?”

Danny quickly removed his hand, feeling slightly ashamed. “Sorry, guys.”

“Sensitive subject?” Tucker guessed, glaring sulkily at the picnic basket—Sam definitely packed it, then.

“No, no, it’s not that,” Danny answered, rubbing his eyes. “I was told not to say the names of any Greek Myth people.”

“Why not?” Sam questioned.

“It could get their attention in a bad way.” Danny answered, grabbing an apple from Sam’s picnic basket and taking a bite.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Tucker asked Danny, pointing at said appendage.

Danny looked down at his right arm, which was now wrapped in an elastic bandage; he had pulled on a hoodie before leaving his house, but the bandage was now peeking out from under the cuff. Danny had wrapped his arm that morning to avoid any questions from his parents. Jazz had raised an eyebrow at him at breakfast, but hadn’t questioned it. “Well,” Danny began. “I should probably tell you what all happened, first.”

Sam and Tucker were enthralled as Danny told them about his adventure in the Underworld. He told them about Cerberus and the Fields of Asphodel. Sam nearly squealed in delight when Danny told her about Persephone’s garden. However, when he got to the ceremony, Danny faltered; he had a feeling that he shouldn’t give out the fact that he was Death’s Apprentice so openly. Instead, he told them that Thanatos wanted to train him to use his ghostly powers so that Danny could better handle the Ghost Zone spirits. He also didn’t mention Nico because he still felt pretty awful about upsetting him.

“Okay, dude, that’s awesome and all,” Tucker said. “But what does that have to do with your arm?”

“There’s… a mark that… let’s me know when they need my help with something.” Danny hated lying to his friends, but he felt it was necessary for a reason he could not explain.

Danny could tell his friends knew he was lying, but they didn’t question him. Sam wanted to see his mark, and Danny decided that it was probably okay to show his friends. It wasn’t like they knew Greek, and even then it just said ‘Thanatos.’

After his friends had studied the mark, Tucker decided that it looked awesome. Sam agreed, but then asked Danny how he planned to hide it; he said he’d just use elastic bandages for the time being.

“So what’s the plan, then?” Sam asked, absently bringing a hand to her temple as if she had a headache. “You know, like, with the ‘death god’ and all. When’s he gonna train you?”

“Actually, Thanatos said that he’d contact me sometime after sundown.” Danny said as he rewrapped his arm and pulled on his hoodie.

“You mean, like, the sunset that is currently happening right now?” Sam pointed at the sinking sun, eyebrows raised at Danny.

“OH MY GOSH, I GOTTA GO. SEE YOU GUYS LATER.” Danny then leapt up, transformed and flew away from the park and back towards his house.

While in the air, Danny’s mark started tingling with pins and needles. What the heck? Danny thought. Maybe it’s letting me know Thanatos needs me? Danny flew intangibly through his bedroom wall and landed on the bed. Not knowing what to do, he waited awkwardly and watched as the sun set through the window. Wait a minute, he thought. How is Thanatos going to contact me?

As if answering his question, a rainbow shimmered into view at the foot of his bed. The tingling disappeared as Thanatos’ face appeared in the middle of the rainbow.

“Whoa! That’s so cool,” Danny awed. “What is it?” He reached out a hand to touch the rainbow.

“Don’t touch the Iris Message, Daniel.” Thanatos said quickly.

Danny yanked his hand back. “Why not?” He asked curiously. “What’s an Iris Message? And why was my mark tingling?”

“Interrupting the image is how you break the connection.” Thanatos answered. “And Iris Messages are a way for gods and demigods to communicate with one another. As for the mark, the sensation you felt is how you and I will be able to let us know that the other is trying to communicate.”

“Neato. So, can I use the Iris Message thing, too?” Danny asked.

“I believe that you would be able to, as long as you have the proper payment and a rainbow with Mist available to communicate.”

“Awesome!” Danny gushed. “You’ve gotta show me how to do that sometime!”

Thanatos smiled at Danny’s amazement. “Perhaps another time, Daniel. For now, it is time for your training to commence.”

“Sweet!” Danny said. “So, uhh… where are we gonna train?”

“I have a place set up for us in the Underworld.” Thanatos answered.

Danny asked how he was going to get down there; Thanatos said that he would come and collect him. Thanatos then swiped his hand through the rainbow and his image dissipated. Danny did not have long to wonder how Thanatos would get to him, when he felt a hand land on his shoulder. Danny, still in ghost form, jumped to the ceiling, startled, when he realized Thanatos was in his room. Danny bewilderedly asked the god how he did that.

“That is not important right now, Daniel.” Thanatos’ wings were folded tightly against his back, so as not to take up space in the relatively small room. “We need to start your training.”

“Okay, just gimme a sec.” Danny transformed back into human form and quickly ran out into the hallway and down the stairs.

Danny found his mom and dad working on something in the kitchen. Jack wanted to show Danny what they were working on, but Danny declined and told his parents that he would be studying in his room for the rest of the night. Maddie asked if Danny wanted her to check on him in a little bit.

“Nah, I’ll be fine, just got lots to study for my test on Monday.” Danny replied.

“I thought you just had homework due on Monday.” His mom looked up at him, confused.

“Oh, uhh, yeah, that too. I’m super busy, so don’t disturb me.” He then ran back up the stairs and into his room, where Thanatos was still waiting.

“Okay, I’m ready.” Danny transformed again. “So, how are we getting to the Underworld?”

“We will be shadow-traveling.” Thanatos placed his hand firmly on Danny’s shoulder. “I will need to hold onto you so that you do not get lost.”

“How would I get lost?” Danny wondered aloud.

“I do not exactly know, but I do not wish to find out.” Thanatos answered.

“This sounds… very much not safe.” Danny’s voice was steadier than he felt.

“You will be fine, Daniel.” Thanatos said before they melted into the shadows.

Danny’s eyes watered, and it felt like his skin was peeling off his bones; wind roared past him like he was going through a dark tunnel at high speeds. How fast are we even going? Danny wondered. Thankfully the sensation did not last long, though Danny’s eyes were still watering once they arrived in the Underworld.

“That… was different,” Danny said as he looked around. They were in a part of the Underworld that Danny hadn’t seen before, in the center of what appeared to be a large, empty stone arena.

“Indeed it was.” Thanatos agreed. He took a few steps away from Danny and shook out his wings, the feathers ruffling as he stretched his arms above his head.

“So what will we be doing? Are you going to test me to see what I can do?” Danny asked.

“First, we will spar.” Thanatos suddenly lunged at Danny.

“Whoa! What?” Danny yelped as he jumped to the side.

“I need to see what you know and how strong you are, and the only way for me to do that is to spar with you.” Thanatos said as he turned and lunged at Danny again.

“Okay, then.” Danny jumped back. “Come and get me, old man!”

Danny took off flying, hoping to build up some distance between the two of them, but Thanatos made that difficult. He was right on Danny’s tail, trying to grab him. Danny fired a few ecto-rays in Thanatos’ direction, trying to shake him. None of the rays hit their target. 

Danny tried going invisible in an attempt to get away, but had forgotten that Thanatos could still see him. This is getting annoying, Danny thought as Thanatos gained on him. Danny turned so that he was flying backwards and fired more ecto-blasts at Thanatos, none of which landed as Thanatos dodged. Maybe this will work. Danny went intangible and flew into the ground. He traveled through the ground to where he thought he was behind Thanatos and flew out to see that the god stood right in front of him with his back facing Danny. Yes! Now I can get a shot in! Danny cheered. His idea had worked; he had gotten Thanatos off his back and now had the advantage.

Danny went to punch Thanatos, but the god whirled around (nearly whacking Danny with his wings) and caught his fist. Thanatos tried punching Danny, but Danny caught his fist in return. They were locked in a struggle. Danny’s boots dug into the ground as Thanatos pushed against his hands to try and knock him off balance. Danny pulled at his ghost core, drawing more power from it in an attempt to push Thanatos back. He could feel his chest growing icy cold, and he suddenly felt a sharp pain as though something had snapped inside his core. The mark on his arm started burning like it was on fire.

Instantly, Danny was engulfed in a burst of green flames. They burned at his skin like acid, and he felt like he was dying in the portal all over again, only this time fire was added to the mix. He screamed in pain as the flames licked at him, burning his gloves off. Danny felt his Lichtenberg scar flare like lightning across his skin again. Through the tears in his eyes, Danny could see Thanatos’ face. His lips moved as if he were speaking, but Danny could not hear him. The green flames had died down and now burned the ground around his feet. Danny hadn’t noticed that Thanatos had backed away from him, but he flinched as he felt the god’s hands grab at his arms.

“Voithíste me parakaló… (‘Help me, please…’)” Danny whimpered weakly before collapsing in a heap on the ground.

First: Prologue

Previous: Chapter 5

Next: Chapter 7

[rustytrident]

my favourite bnha students as demigods (pt. 2)

still on that self indulgence train (pt. 1)

ch: shinsou hitoshi, jirou kyoka, kaminari denki

cw: none, my percy jackson middle school phase

shinsou hitoshi

son of hades, god of the underworld, the dead and wealth

he is actually one of the few kids on camp who get along with their godly parents, he and hades go on walks in the fields of asphodel or in persephone's personal garden

he doesn't get ANY sleep. mans has permanent dark undereyes anyway, but his heritage adds onto that a bit too much

sometimes he sees ghosts and mistakes them for real people until he realises he's been staring at a fucking tree for ten minutes like a weirdo

he feels at peace in the nighttime and often goes to the strawberry fields when he misses the underworld (he knows he can visit any time but he still doesn't want to be a bother)

shinsou doesn't really use weapons because he has the ability to shadow travel and control the dead. so he just,,, vibes? i guess?

if a battle demands he use a weapon he goes for a standard sword he has laying around

(yes i hc shinsou hitoshi to be almost exactly like nico di angelo, what about it?)

jirou kyoka

daughter of apollo, god of music, divination and light

she claims hates it but secretly feels relieved her dad isn't like zeus or something

absolutely rises with the sun, much to her dismay. miss girl is awake at 6 in the morning every. damn. summer. it took some time to get used to but she has written so many songs while watching the sunrise, it is part of her now

jirou rode in apollo's chariot once and she has since sworn to never trust her dad to drive her anywhere. not happening.

she loves her siblings and feels so at home when they play music together at campfires

her sixth sense is so sharp. she randomly predicts small fragments of the future during the day, so if she says not to do something, you DON'T DO IT, no questions asked

she uses a bow and arrows for battle, and she's damn good at it. her aim is so precise, it scares the people at camp

other than that, she uses a lot of moves from judo for her hand to hand combat battles

kaminari denki

son of dionysus, god of wine, festivity, madness and pleasure

he definitely did not expect his father to be,,, that dude in camp, but he soon found out he could be caring in his own way

denki believes he's here for a good time and that he should live up every second while he's safe and healthy. people often mistake him for being lazy or childish, but he really doesn't mind. he knows who he is and why he does what he does and that's enough

has never had wine in his life but loves grapes so much, he always has some no matter the season and people ask him for some every time they get cravings

he can also grow vines out of anywhere and turn people into dolphins, like his dad, but his favourite of his skills is his ability to drive people into madness

he usually uses that skill against his enemies, but he is not very confident in his innate abilities yet

so, he has mastered lots of handy weapons like throwing stars, slingshots, darts, all that. anything he can hide easily and have fun with at the same time

a/n: take care of yourself today, just a little bit

[elysian-drops]

omg hello??? that’s SO COOL????? i can safely say that answer to your @ was not at all what i was expecting and now i’m so fascinated this is such an interesting field to get into!! is there anything else cool about death rituals or cult traditions you can share? this is actually the coolest thing i’ve learned all day

Hi there!

I’m so glad to hear you think it’s fascinating! I definitely enjoy it as well and I will absolutely share some more because I don’t get to scream about this stuff enough 😂 New slogan for this blog: “Come learn about death and the afterlife with Elysian.” Beware there is a long post under this cut lol.

Personally speaking, my area of expertise tends to focus more on Ancient Greece and Victorian burial practices (they are wild, let me tell you). But as for the cult stuff, I’ll just reference back to my other post on Orphic traditions for a second!

So Orphic traditions were inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. If you’re not familiar with the tale, the quick run down was that Orpheus, who was a demigod born from Oeagrus and Calliope (my favourite muse, by the way), travelled to the Underworld to retrieve the soul of Eurydice. Now, for the Greeks, this tale held a lot of fascination because few are the times recorded that mortal (or, half-mortal in the case of Orpheus) men could manage to go into the Underworld and come back unscathed. A whole cult tradition was born from this idea of being able to “cheat” your way through the afterlife, essentially.

For some background, a big part to the Greek understanding of the afterlife was this idea of κλέος (kleos or “glory”). You “live on” after death when people remember you— this was the reason behind having large families and putting so much emphasis on children being taught their ancestry. This was also why so many Greeks idolised great ‘heroes’, such as Perseus, Theseus, Heracles, etc— they achieved the greatest form of kleos and are forever immortalized in the afterlife. Obviously, it isn’t feasible for the common man to go out and become a hero— and of course, children and your family will eventually forget you.

So what do you do? Bring on the mystery cults that tell you how to cheat your way into getting kleos and a good afterlife (for a fee, of course 😂). I mentioned that there was one sect of the Orphic tradition that believed in the asphodel or gold drops on the tongue— but there were multiple “branches”. The most popular were the Orphic Gold Tablets which were buried with the dead so they would have a “manual.” These things are so fascinating because they give detailed instructions to the afterlife— they even tell you what to expect when you get there. For example, the translations say once you get to Hades’ mansion, there will be a white cypress tree and a fountain— you can’t drink from the fountain because you will lose your memories/identity. You need to entreat Mnemosyne (the parallel to Lethe) to let you drink from her.

But another hiccup? There are titans guarding her— so you have to get around that. These tablets tell you to proclaim you are not a mortal and you are not a god: you are a Titan. One of my favourite translations has the conversation going like: “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

“I am the son of Earth and starry Heaven”.

Essentially, you’re saying you are born directly from Gaia and Uranus (which were the primordial deities long before the gods + titans were born and long before Kronos and Zeus came into existence). If all goes well, the titans guarding Mnemosyne will recognize you as their brethren and allow you to drink from her to start the long process of achieving your kleos.

If you want to read more on these tablets, I highly recommend “Instructions for the Netherworld” by Alberto Bernabé. It’s an anthology that collects all different translations of these tablets and gives you more detail about the fountains + what to expect for the rest of your journey into Elysium!

Thanks for letting me scream at you for a bit 😂 I absolutely love getting to talk about this stuff lol.

[loving-jack-kelly]

Percy Jackson Died

Percy Jackson died.

He was old enough, he supposed, older than so many of his friends he’d watched die, but not really old. Old enough he was tired, and suddenly finding himself in the lobby he recognized from when he was twelve years old was disconcerting but not particularly surprising.

After all, he was a half-blood, and being a half-blood often got you killed in very nasty ways.

But still.

Percy Jackson died.

Charon remembered him.

“Drown in any bathtubs recently?” he asked dryly, but he waved Percy’s apologies for not having a coin to offer him. “You paid me for passage once and it clearly didn’t stick.”

So Percy Jackson died, and he crossed the River Styx on the ferry, and this time, when he arrived in the Underworld, Cerberus was completely visible.

Last time he came to the Underworld to see Hades, he’d entered the fast-moving line and stepped into the fields of Asphodel. This time, he waited in line to see the judges.

He’d saved the world more than once, they’d better give him something better than eternal stasis.

“Percy Jackson.” Daedalus greeted him warmly, arms full of blueprints and a full toolbelt wrapped around his waist. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Before Percy could respond, he was pushed to the front of the line and was standing in front of three men he had a feeling he should recognize but he didn’t. He didn’t have to speak at all, the three judges talked to each other while flipping through papers Percy couldn’t read, and without actually acknowledging him at all, the one in the middle hit a green button and Percy found himself on the inside of the gated community he’d only seen from the outside.

Percy Jackson died and was sent to Elysium. For a little while, it held his attention. Pretty much anything he wanted, he could have. Blue Coke, straight out of the bottle, better than the blue Coke at Camp Half-Blood. Pizza just like the pizza from his favorite place to go with his mom. Infinite activities, everything he’d ever wanted to do but hadn’t been able to when he was alive. Skydiving, cliff jumping, he got to pilot a plane.

He got to see old friends. Beckendorf and Selena Beauregard, who’d found each other and were happy again. Demigods who’d died in the second Titan war who wanted to hear from him how it had ended, to know what really happened. Heroes who died in the second giant war who wanted to know everything about Camp Jupiter and all of their friends who’d outlived them. Hunters who’d died in battles he hadn’t even known about while he was still alive.

But Percy Jackson was the son of Poseidon, lord of the sea. He didn’t like being contained in one place, and even if Elysium was a paradise for heroes, it wasn’t the same as being alive.

So Percy Jackson died, and Percy Jackson was sent to Elysium, and Percy Jackson chose to be reborn.

Zak Mason was born to a single mom.

He was an ordinary baby, almost. He was born with blue eyes, but they turned brown. He laughed and cried and pooped and spat up. He started preschool with a choppy haircut he gave to himself, and loved sitting on his mom’s lap to listen to Dr. Seuss books and watching anything fast-moving and colorful on TV.

When he was six, Zak’s basketball team won against all of the other first grade teams in their town, and a big picture of his gap-toothed smile holding the trophy he’d helped win with his first three-point shot held the place of honor on the fridge for almost a year.

Sometimes, Zak Mason had nightmares he didn’t understand. Of burning pain covering his entire body, of monsters and shifting Earth and bottomless pits, of faces he didn’t recognize twisted in pain or looking down at him as he fell, of flashing swords and screams and bursts of arrows whistling towards an enemy he couldn’t quite make out. He woke up and forgot the nightmares quickly, but they always left him almost wistful for something he couldn’t quite remember, even with how terrifying they were.

As Zak grew up, he noticed things nobody else seemed to. People who were just...different in ways nobody else seemed to understand. He saw a horse with wings, flying high above the clouds while he was on an airplane. A man he swore only had one eye that winked at him when he passed him on the bus. A woman with a forked tongue poking out of her mouth on a corner who’s smile made him shiver and walk faster.

And when he was eleven, almost twelve, a man with goat legs showed up and took him away from his mom. Just for the summer, but it was still the longest he’d been away from home.

“You’re a half-blood,” the man who called himself a satyr said. “You need to learn how to defend yourself and survive.”

His mom hugged him tearfully, but helped him pack his bags and sent him away, all the way to New York from their quiet little town in Wisconsin.

He expected it to be awkward. He didn’t know anything about what this satyr, whose name was Ash, was talking about. Gods and nymphs and a camp where he would learn to swordfight and find out who his dad was? None of it made any sense at all, and so Zak spent the trip to New York dreading whatever this camp was going to be.

He and Ash walked until he saw a tree, and Zak knew, just like that, that he was home. There were plenty of trees around, but this one was tall and proud and straight, and seeing it sent a jolt of some kind of unidentifiable pride down Zak’s spine.

And Zak and Ash passed the tree on top of its hill, and Zak felt like he was home. They looked over a valley full of cabins, a lake, strawberry fields, a big blue house with a wrap-around porch, a climbing wall that seemed to be on fire, and a thick forest.

Everything that didn’t make sense on the trip here clicked in Zak’s head. This was right, this was where he was supposed to be, that was the Big House, and the climbing wall was beatable if you knew the trick, and that was the armory even though it just looked like a shed.

“How do you know all that?” Ash asked, looking confused.

Zak paused.

“I don’t know,” he said.

But this was home.

He met Chiron, the centaur, and it felt like waking up from one of his nightmares. Especially when Chiron looked at him like he already knew everything about Zak and led him around the camp he already felt like he knew backward and forwards.

He was given a space to sleep in Cabin Eleven but told he’d likely be moving soon, as his dad would claim him.

Somehow, it was instinct to head for the lake during free time and climb into a canoe. He was terrible at it, but somehow it just felt right to be out on the lake with the naiads laughing at him.

What he was good at though, was still basketball. Basketball, and archery, and he picked up how to play guitar pretty quickly, too. He loved it at Camp Half-Blood, he told his mom in every letter. He missed her, sure, but they promised he’d be able to come home for the school year.

On his twelfth birthday, a flaming lyre burned above his head.

“Hail Zak Mason, son of Apollo,” Chiron announced in a booming voice, and Zak was welcomed into Cabin Seven with open arms.

So Percy Jackson died, and Percy Jackson made it to Elysium, and Percy Jackson chose to be reborn.

And Zak Mason was born, and Zak Mason was claimed.

Zak Mason still woke up with nightmares that faded from his mind before he blinked all the way awake. Of the same burning pain, but with a face that made him smiled floating through it. Of monsters he knew by name, and names he heard in stories of heroes in the second Titan war and the second giant war.

Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and designer of Olympus. Grover Underwood, the satyr who finally found the great god Pan. Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, and Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, and Frank Zhang, son of Mars, and Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto, and Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite.

Names that whispered “home” to him the same way Thalia’s tree did and the lake did and the entire camp did, and he wasn’t sure why.

Chiron watched Zak Mason carefully, always with an expression of almost-but-not-quite recognition. When he insulted another camper or twisted his face in a particular scowl, Chiron shook his head and turned away.

There was one name that didn’t just whisper home, it screamed it.

Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, savior of humankind, one of the most powerful demigods of the modern age.

Zak didn’t know him, how could he? He’d died protecting a group of young demigods almost two years before Zak was born.

But somehow, Zak did.

He looked in the window of Cabin Three and saw the always empty bunk bed with a minotaur’s horn hanging above it and a ballpoint pen on the pillow and he knew the stories behind them without having to ask.

He’d dreamed them, he knew it, even if he’d forgotten the dreams. Rain and lightning and a woman who disappeared in a flash of golden light, and a sword that had killed a thousand threats to people Percy Jackson loved.

Zak stared at the pen sitting on the pillow and knew it belonged in his pocket. It didn’t surprise him when he woke up with it on his own pillow the next morning, and it didn’t surprise Chiron when it continued to do so every time Zak tried to return it to the little shrine to the fallen hero called Percy Jackson.

When he practiced with Riptide in the arena, it was like every sword fighting tactic he hadn’t been able to master with any other sword came naturally.

People whispered when they saw him fighting with Riptide. Whispered of Percy Jackson, who had fought the god of war and won when he was twelve years old. Who had defeated monsters Hercules himself couldn’t. Who’d wandered Tartarus with only Annabeth Chase beside him and come out alive. Who’d stopped Kronos and Gaea and was the reason camp was so busy and full of life. Who’d given his life to save people he cared for and who’d been willing to go to the ends of the Earth or further for his friends.

And those stories felt like home in the same way camp did, in the same way all those names did and in the same way his nightmares did.

Because Percy Jackson died, and Percy Jackson made it to Elysium, and Percy Jackson was reborn as Zak Mason, son of Apollo, who would surely prove to be as much of a hero as the first body his spirit had inhabited.

Because a spirit like that of Percy Jackson couldn’t be contained to Elysium, and couldn’t be contained to one life of heroism. Not when there was the choice to be another hero whose name would feel like home in his next life when the River Lethe tried again to wipe away memories that couldn’t be erased completely.

And a spirit like that of Percy Jackson could never be anything less than a Hero of Olympus, even if it started over in a new body with a new name.