My goodness, there's still so much to do in this story. I'm like, jumping for joy with a million ideas for House of Hades, but we must finish this in order to get there. Then, once I'm writing House of Hades, all my ideas are going to be in Blood of Olympus. My brain likes to work faster than my hands possibly can.

Review, and please inform me of spelling/grammar mistakes, as every time I go back and read old chapters, I find at least one.

Enjoy! :)

First Person: Audrey

This man had a dog. Every day the man took his dog to the edge of the lake to get water, and the dog would bark furiously at the lake, like he was mad at it. Finally, the man got very annoyed with his dog for barking so much and he scolded it.

"Bad dog! Stop barking at the water. It's only water!" To his surprise, the dog looked right at him and began to talk.

"One day soon, the storms will come. The waters will rise and everyone will drown. You can save yourself and your family by building a raft, but first you will need to sacrifice me. You must throw me in the water." He thought the dog was lying, once he got over his shock at the dog talking, that is. When he protested, the dog said, "If you don't believe me, look at the scruff of my neck. I am already dead." The man grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck and saw that its skin and fur were already coming apart. Underneath was nothing but bones. The dog was a skeleton dog.

So with tears in his eyes, the man said goodbye to his annoying skeleton dog and tossed it into the water, where it promptly sank. The man built a raft, and when the flood came, he and his family survived. Without the dog. When the rains subsided, and the raft landed, the man and his family were the only ones alive. The man heard sounds from the other side of a hill - like thousands of people laughing and dancing - but when he raced to the top, alas, down below he saw nothing except bones littering the ground - thousands of skeletons of all the people who died in the flood. He realized the ghosts of the dead had been dancing. That was the sound he heard. There was no explanation to why they had been dancing. Maybe they were happy that one family survived. Maybe they were enjoying the afterlife. Maybe they had another reason hidden beneath that only they would understand.

Zy once had me play Final Fantasy X, and a scholar in the game told a story that came to my mind when I heard Zy's explanation of the flood. Long ago, there was a war between one city reliant on summons, faith, and magic, while the other was reliant on powerful machines. In the end, the first city didn't stand a chance against the powerful machines of the second. It was said that when the war was over, people from the machine city heard a song, a hymn calling out from the dead of the battlefield from their former opponents.

The people who had survived the war came together and summoned an enormous monster, one that destroyed the machine city with ease, terrorizing them as a kind of reprisal for having such power within their grasp. Those that survived vowed never to use weaponized machines again, but they took advantage of the situation and claimed that the monster was punishment to anyone who grew too powerful. In turn, they were able to make the population reliant on a certain government sect, as they were all afraid of the monster. They boasted about how they knew a way to kill the beast, and that only those that kept faith in them would be able to survive, even though the monster was able to revive itself even when defeated, and it only grew more powerful with time.

Those that opposed the group were thrown out as heathens, the population afraid of the summon that had destroyed the powerful machine city. And so those that opposed the new government, seeing that they made false and unreliable claims to control the population, began to sing the hymn that had once been sung by the fallen in defiance. The hymn that was sung by those who had summoned the monstrosity that terrorized the population, a song of the dead, a song of defiance, almost like a last laugh.

Eventually, so many people began to sing the hymn in defiance, that the government had no choice but to lift the ban they had on the song and claim that it was the song sung to soothe the souls of the dead. In the end, they may not have been wrong. The song was sung by souls of the dead that had their revenge, that had the last laugh. But sustaining the summon, allowing it to come back again and again, made it so that those souls couldn't move on to the next life. They couldn't stop the summon unless someone killed the one man that sustained it perpetually, remaking it every time someone defeated it. Those people gave their souls willingly when they were alive, offering to be the battery that sustained the summon, but now that their revenge had been dealt, they were trapped.

I wonder. Did the souls that were trapped between life and death sing that song to ease the pain of their possible eternity of unrest?

Now, in the nymphaeum in Rome, as the dark water rose, I questioned why the story of the flood had been important for us now. Here, a raft would do us no good. Personally, I feared we were more like the skeleton dog. We were already dead.

The basin filled with alarming speed. All of us rushed around, pounding on the walls, looking for an exit, but there was nothing. We climbed into the alcoves to gain some height, but with water pouring out of each niche, it was like trying to balance at the edge of a waterfall. Even as we stood in some of the niches, the water was soon up to our knees. From the floor, it was probably eight feet deep and rising fast.

"I could try lightning," Jason suggested. "Maybe blast a hole in the roof?"

"That could bring down the whole room and crush us," Piper said.

"Or electrocute us," Percy added.

"Well we don't have a lot of options here!" I shouted urgently. "The water's not bending to my will, and we're not gonna last long at this rate!"

"Audrey, let's search the bottom," Percy suggested. "If this place was built as a fountain, there has to be a way to drain the thing. You guys, check the niches for secret exits. Maybe the seashells are knobs or something. This place can't be completely water-proof after all these years for them to wither away. There's got to be some way to drain it." It was a desperate idea, but Piper and Jason got to work.

Percy jumped into the water, and I braced myself before I followed him. All of this water felt so heavy, unclean, icky. It wasn't water, I knew that much, and diving head first into it was like throwing a claustrophobic person in a closet. It made me nearly panic as the water seemed to try and suck the life out of me. I managed to keep my power inside of me and keep it from escaping as I dived down after Percy. The black water was extremely hard to see in, but there are parts of the ocean that never see the light of the sun, and so my eyes adjusted eventually. When they did, I caught up to Percy, who suddenly froze in his attempts to search for a drain when he realized he couldn't breathe. I turned my hand to water and put it to my mouth and nose. The black water seemed to want to disperse my pure water hand, but I managed to keep it together and use it like a re-breather. Percy was frantically swimming for the surface, his lungs crying for oxygen, and I hurried over to put my other hand around the lower half of his face and turn it to water. He gasped for breath, and I dragged him the rest of the way to the surface.

"Couldn't breathe," He choked as I returned my hands to normal and hauled him to Jason and Piper. "The water…not normal. Hardly made it back. Thanks Dray." The life force of the nymphs, I guessed. It was so poisoned and malicious, even children of the sea god couldn't control it. As the water rose, I felt waves of fatigue hitting me as though I'd just run for miles, and my hands turned wrinkled and dry despite being in the middle of a fountain. Everyone else was moving sluggishly as well. Jason's face was pale, and he seemed to be having trouble holding on to his sword. Percy and I were drenched and shivering. I noticed that Percy's hair didn't looked quite so dark, as if the color was leaching out.

"They're taking our power," Piper said. "Draining us."

"Jason, do the lightning," I ordered. Jason raised his sword. The room rumbled, but no lightning appeared, and the roof didn't break. Instead, a miniature rainstorm formed at the top of the chamber. Rain poured down, filling the fountain even faster, but it wasn't normal rain. The stuff was just as dark as the water in the pool, and every drop stung my skin.

"Not what I wanted," Jason muttered. The water was up to our necks now. I could feel the water trying to steal my energy. I was beginning to feel lightheaded, as though I'd just run a marathon, or went through two hours of gym class. I felt like passing out, but I forced myself to keep going.

"We'll survive," Piper murmured to herself. We were going to have to swim soon, and this water was already draining us, possibly paralyzing us. Percy starting pushing the water away with the pack of his hand, like was shooing a bad dog.

"Can't…can't control…"

"Same here! We're powerless with this water!" I grabbed my water bottle at my hip, pulled it above the dark water and flicked the cap, unscrewing it in one swift motion (as it had been specifically designed to be accessible with only one hand in case of emergencies) and released a couple gallons of water into the air. It looked puny compared to the water now filling the fifty-foot-tall room, but it would have to do. The rain was clearly trying to disperse and destroy the water, but I managed to hold it together. I held it above our head to block the rain from above like an umbrella, sending down tentacles of water through the black water to grab and keep us afloat.

"We can't fight this," Piper said, clutching her cornucopia. "If we hold back, that just makes us weaker."

"What do you mean?!" Jason shouted over the rain. Though we were now floating, no longer able to reach the bottom of the fountain, the water wasn't even halfway to the ceiling yet, meaning we had time.

"You will need to sacrifice me," The skeleton dog had said in the story. "You must throw me into the water."

"The horn of plenty," Piper said. "We have to overwhelm the nymphs with fresh water, give them more than they can use. If we can dilute this poisonous stuff-"

"Your horn can do that?" Percy asked. He looked terrified, though considering he was so used to never having to worry about drowning, it was understandable. Back at Camp Half-Blood, Zy had worked on my ability to hold my breath, my swimming, and my ability in the water without my power. Though I was severely limited compared to normal, she had trained me up to be professional when on my own. Swimming wasn't much of a problem for me, but keeping your head above water while also focusing to make sure the water umbrella above us wasn't destroyed by the dark water and also having all of us rise to keep up with the water level took a bit of concentration, I'll admit. The water was definitely sucking the energy and power out of us, but I was able to push away the effects and keep as much as I could to protect the others.

"She's right," I said. "The horn works by reflecting emotions. These nymphs have been poisoned over the years of despair and anger. We just need to revive them with fresh water, clean this stuff out. Channel everything we have into the cornucopia. Percy, think about the sea."

"Salt water?" He asked.

"Doesn't matter. As long as it's clean. Jason, think about rainstorms - much more rain. Everyone, grab the cornucopia. Emotions are everything here, people. The stronger the emotions, the stronger the horn will be. Damn, if Emily was ever needed in a situation, now would've been great. Thanks Fates. You're really making life crappy." I remembered that Zy was the one who ordered Emily to go with Leo's team, but meh. I pulled us all together with my water and then had it surround us like a dome to hopefully block out the distraction of the black rain. My water wasn't able to make a full sphere around us thanks to the black stuff, and so my legs were beginning to feel like lead as my strength was leaving slowly but surely. My water was losing strength in turn, unable to support us, weakening by the second, and the situation was only getting worse, as the distractions weren't helping in filling the cornucopia with good thoughts.

"No good!" Jason yelled, spitting water.

"We're getting nowhere," Percy agreed.

"We have to work together!" Piper cried.

"We don't have any other ideas!" I agreed. "Concentrate. Block out everything else! Focus on every good moment you've had in your life. Pour your emotions into this!"

"Think of a clean water - a storm of water," Piper suggested. "Don't hold anything back. Picture all your power, all your strength leaving you."

"That's not hard!" Percy said.

"She means you have to force it out!" I shouted. "Offer up everything, like - like you're already dead, and your only goal is to help the nymphs."

"It's got to be a gift…a sacrifice," Piper continued in almost a whisper. With that, the boys froze and were quiet.

"Let's try again," Jason said. "Together." I closed my eyes, blocking out the fatigue of holding my water bubble up and keeping the others aloft. I tried to make it easier for them to block out everything but their thoughts as well, and felt power flowing into the cornucopia. I concentrated on giving all my power to the cornucopia. These nymphs wanted my water, my youth, my life, and possibly my siren voice? Sure, fine. Take it. I gave it willingly to them, and I imagined all my power flowing out of me.

"I am already dead," I thought, as calm as the skeleton dog. "This is the only way." Clear water blasted from the horn with such force that our group was pushed against the wall. The rain changed to a white torrent, much cleaner and colder than I had expected. I had no choice but to drop my water bubble to release the water properly. The water felt like a breath of fresh air as I could suddenly react with it, unlike the dark water from the nymphs.

"It's working!" Jason cried.

"Too well," Percy said. "We're filling the room even faster!" He was right. The water rose so quickly, the roof was now only a few feet away. We could've reached up and touched the miniature rain clouds.

"We can't stop!" I shouted. "We have to dilute the poison until the nymphs are cleansed!"

"What if they can't be cleansed?" Jason asked. "They've been down here turning evil for thousands of years."

"If they can't be cleansed, we die! There's nothing left to lose, Jason! Just don't hold back. Give everything. Even if we go under-" My head hit the ceiling, and the rainclouds dissipated and melted into the water. The horn of plenty continued blasting out a clean torrent. I transformed fully into water, now with less risk of being destroyed by the dark nymph water with Piper's fresh stream taking over, and used myself and my water to create breathable water for Jason and Piper. Piper kissed Jason and told him she loved him just before we all went under. The current of water pushed and pulled, the current roaring around us, bubbles swirling around us. Light still rippled through the room, and I knew the water had to be getting clearer.

Water continued to stream out of the horn, and I was losing the power to sustain Piper and Jason with my already weakened state. Still, I felt the four of us pushing everything we had into the cornucopia, and I began to feel lightheaded - if I had a head at the moment, that is. I wondered what would happen if I died while in water form. Would my water reform, or would I just transform into regular water while my soul went to Hades? Both understandable possibilities. There was no more room for water anymore, but the horn continued. Would the walls crack under the pressure?

For a moment, my vision went black. I'm not sure if I really blacked out, one of those things where you can't tell if you fell asleep and yet the clock says you were out for an hour. I swear I heard the roaring of the water, but in the chaos and my half-conscious state, I couldn't tell if it was all in my head or not. Then, the room began shaking, the water swirled faster, and I felt as we began sinking. My limbs burned from fatigue, but I willed the water around us to shoot us to the surface in one final burst.

Piper broke the surface first, and I quickly followed. I grabbed Percy and hoisted him up. Instantly, Percy gulped and began to thrash, but Jason was still under, lifeless as a rag doll. Piper and I hauled him up so he could breathe too as the water in the room drained almost as fast as it had filled the room, the cornucopia having stopped. Piper clung to him, yelled his name, shook him, and slapped his face. She barely noticed when all the water had drained away and left us on the damp floor. Luckily, some of the water had gotten into my bottle, and I had been vertical when we'd reached the ground, and so it was filled to the brim.

"Jason!" Piper tried desperately.

"Piper, I can help," Percy said. He knelt next to her and touched Jason's forehead. Water gushed from Jason's mouth, and I tugged the rest of it out, causing the water to spurt out like a fountain (looked kinda gross, but hey, we were saving someone's life here). Jason's eyes flew open, and I threw up a water barrier before a clap of thunder threw Percy and Piper backwards in an explosion of my quickly-made shield.

"Sorry," Jason coughed. I wasn't a doctor, but I'd spent enough time in the infirmary helping out Zy to know color was returning to his face and his lungs and oxygen seemed to be normalizing; i.e.: No permanent damage to his lungs or his brain from oxygen deprivation. He'd be good. "Didn't mean to-" Piper tackled him with a hug. She probably would've kissed him, but didn't want to suffocate him.

"Dude, I've face enough lightning bolts in my life - having a best friend that shoots them constantly - to know it was coming." Percy grinned.

"In case you were wondering, that was clean water in your lungs. We could make it come out with no problem." I fell and laid on my back with a heavy sigh.

"Well, that was exhausting."

"Well you and Piper saved us," Jason said.

"Yes, they did," A voice echoed through the chamber. The niches glowed, and nine figures appeared, but they were no longer withered creatures. They were young, beautiful nymphs in shimmering blue gowns, their glossy black curls pinned up with silver and gold brooches, their eyes gentle shades of blue and green. As we watched, eight of the nine nymphs dissolved into vapor and floated upward. Only the nymph in the center remained.

"Hagno?" Piper asked. The nymph smiled.

"Yes, my dear. I didn't think such selflessness existed in mortals…especially in demigods. No offense." Percy got to his feet.

"How could we take offense? You just tried to drown us and take our lives." I stood and elbowed him.

"Not everyone's as selfless as us, sure, but there are some. Don't be surprised when you find selflessness can be scarce, but also don't believe that there aren't the occasional exceptions. It's understandable to believe that people can be selfish, but things have changed."

"I'm sorry. I was not myself before. But you have reminded me of the sun and the rain and the streams in the meadows. Percy, Audrey, Jason. Thanks to you, I remembered the sea and the sky. I am cleansed. But mostly, thanks to Piper. She shared something even better than clear running water." Hagno turned to her. "You have a good nature, Piper. And I'm a nature spirit. I know what I'm talking about." Hagno pointed to the other side of the room. The stairs to the surface reappeared. Directly underneath, a circular opening shimmered into existence, like a sewer pipe, just big enough to crawl through. I suspected that was how the water had drained out.

"You may return to the surface," Hagno said. "Or, if you insist, you may follow the waterway to the giants. But choose quickly, because both doors will fade soon after I am gone. That pipe connects to the old aqueduct line, which feeds both this nymphaeum and the hypogeum that the giants call home."

"Ugh," Percy muttered, pressing on his temples. "Please, no more complicated words."

"Oh, home is not a complicated word," Hagno said, sounding completely sincere. "I thought it was, but now you have unbound us from this place. My sisters have gone to seek new homes…a mountain stream, perhaps, or a lake in a meadow. I will follow them. I cannot wait to see the forests and grasslands again, and the clear running water."

"Uh," Percy said nervously. "Things have changed up above in the last few thousand years."

"I mean, nature is still there, but there are a lot more cities and people," I added.

"Nonsense," Hagno said. "How bad could it be? Pan would not allow nature to become tainted. I can't wait to see him, in fact." Percy looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself.

"Good luck, Hagno," Piper said. "And thank you." The nymph smiled one last time and vaporized. Briefly, the nymphaeum glowed with a softer light, like a full moon. I smelled exotic spices and blooming roses, and I heard distant music and happy voices talking and laughing. I guessed we were hearing hundreds of years of parties and celebrations that had been held at this shrine in ancient times, as if the memories had been freed along with the spirits. There was a hum flowing through the air as well, almost as if the stones themselves were singing. Maybe this was a signal of sorts that this place was no longer the prison of the nymphs, that it would no longer be a place harboring hatred and pain.

"What is that?" Jason asked nervously.

"The ghosts are dancing/singing," Piper and I said respectively.

"Come on," Piper said. "We'd better go meet the giants."