JASON'S P.O.V

We followed 'Luke' into an abandoned classroom. I was very confused, but the guy seemed familiar. Some of the Greeks seemed to recognize him, but they were all wary.

I wondered where I'd heard his name. I remembered the photos in the Zeus cabin. Annabeth had called the guy in those photos Luke.

But wasn't that guy dead? The classroom was in pretty bad condition, but it wasn't that bad. All the tables and chairs in the room were upturned. The blackboard was dusty.

All of us turned a chair upright and sat down.

Once we were all inside, Annabeth locked the room, and then immediately judo-flipped Luke. Remind me to never get on her bad side.

"Ow, Annie! That hurts." Luke said.

"Don't call me Annie!"

"So, to all the people who don't know me, I'm Luke Castellan, son of Hermes. I was Head Counsellor of Cabin 11 until I raised Kronos out of spite and ultimately died saving Olympus. You can ask me about my sob story later, but I'd first like to be mildly acquainted with all of you."

Well, that was a lot of information.

I looked at Thalia, asking her a silent question. Could we trust him? She slowly nodded, and I went towards Luke.

"I'm Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, former Praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, one of the seven half-bloods."

Luke frowned. "Grace? That means…" he trailed off, looking at Thalia.

"He is my brother."

Luke's eyes widened.

Piper started. "I am Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite, Head Counsellor of Cabin 10, one of the seven half-bloods."

The introductions continued until everyone (except some of the Greeks, who Luke probably knew) was done.

"Ok then, why do many people keep mentioning Roman names?"

"Because we're Roman, duh," Reyna said, unimpressed.

"I feel like there's a long, complicated story to that, so I'm not gonna ask," Luke muttered under his breath.

"Anyway, why are you even alive, douchebag? We saw you die." Percy said.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Perce?"

"Answer the question or get an arrow knocked in your head," Thalia said.

"Chill, Thals. Hecate found some important information and decided she wanted a demigod messenger to relay that information to you guys, and she only had favours from Hades left, so she dragged me out of the Underworld, told me what to do, and sent me to this enormous voodoo magic castle."

"So, you're gonna go back after telling us the information?" Katie asked.

"Nope, I'm also going to act as a guide for you guys, which means I can only go back after this quest ends. So, if you don't want to see me for longer than required, you need to finish the quest."

"And what is the "information" you came here to relay?" Piper asked, making air quotes.

"It's that this stupid wizard guy Mouldy or something made even dumber life decisions than I did."

"I don't believe that. What defeats your choice of literally hosting Kronos in your body?" Pollux asked.

"Splitting your soul eight different times so that you're left with 1/9th of your soul?"

Silence fell across the room, everyone trying to process that.

Finally, Percy laughed, breaking the silence. "No wonder that guy went mad. I'm surprised there are people dumber than Luke and I."

"Indeed. So why did he split his soul, and what to do now?" Annabeth asked.

"He did it for immortality. He read in a book that splitting your soul and putting that fragment inside an object makes you immortal as long as the object isn't destroyed. So, he did it six times, and then because of how unstable his soul was, it split when he was trying to kill a baby and got embedded in that baby, and then he created another after that. He doesn't know about the one in the baby, so he thinks he only has seven of them." Luke said, writing down the information on the blackboard with a piece of chalk.

"And to answer your other question, Annie, Hecate found all of those objects and gave them to me. We have to figure out how to destroy them. She said that someone had destroyed one of them in the past and that two of them were embedded inside living creatures, which means we have five to destroy."

"Why are two inside living creatures? I thought you said only one was in the baby?" Reyna asked

"That guy Goldy put his last soul piece in a snake. I think it's his pet?"

"So how do we destroy them?" I asked.

"I have no idea. I guess we should just strike it with our weapons until it breaks."

"So, we have to destroy eight soul pieces, two of which we don't even have, and we have no plan?" Annabeth asked.

"When you put it like that it sounds depressing," Luke replied.

Just then, the door slammed open.

HARRY'S P.O.V

We ran in the direction the Royals went, searching every room for them.

After searching many rooms, Hermione said, "This is taking too long. We should split up."

"But how will we notify the others if we find them?" Ron asked. I nodded my head.

Hermione handed both of us a Galleon. "Do you see the numbers on these coins? If you press them, it'll alert the bearer of the other two coins by getting warmer. It also serves as a sort of tracking device. It keeps decreasing temperature when you get closer to the coin that activated it. If one of you finds the Royals, press the coin and we'll be able to come. It's not the best system, but it'll work."

I put the Galleon in my pocket. "I'll go left. Ron, you go right, and Hermione, go straight."

"Also, don't waste your time searching in classrooms that look well maintained. They would've gone to an abandoned classroom deep in the castle because it would be harder to find them."

I nodded and set off.

I ran past the first few rooms until I reached a part of the castle that was mostly abandoned.

I searched in many rooms, but to no avail.

Exactly when I was going to give up, I heard voices.

I strained my hearing to find where they were before it led me to a locked room.

"Alohomora," I said. The lock clicked open.

I barged in, seeing 'Luke' in there.

"What are you doing with that guy?! He's dangerous!"

'Luke' looked at me with an odd expression.

"Hello, seventh soul piece."

A/N: Hello peeps, how're y'all doing? As always, I deeply apologize for updating pretty late. This should be the last update for a few months because offline school is about to reopen for me and I also bought 15 books to read, so I'm gonna be pretty darn busy. I also want to thank all of you readers for reading this and patiently bearing with me. Here are some blue pancakes for being so wonderful. Also, shoutout to TheBlackSisters for reviewing and reminding me this story exists! And as always, R&R and I'll see you next time!

~AnnabethMcGrace,