A/N: Finished, because the House of Hades inspired me. Owned it for 24hrs and 30mins. Read it in roughly 7hrs and 15mins. Yup. It was great. Won't spoil it for those who haven't read it. So with this chapter finally done . . . everything else is planned out in my head. Now to write it. I should be finished before NaNo.

Percy: We Play Stones

We had a game plan. Okay, half a game plan. You know, I wouldn't really call it a plan – more like an idea of what we were going to do. There was no way to know what we'd be up against, so it was going to be made up as we went along.

Once we were sure there was no other information to be gained, we bid good-bye to Rider and headed back to our hotel rooms. The next day we'd be leaving Phoenix to set out for the Weaver's Needle.

I was not looking forward to a mountain climbing trip. It involved us going to Flat Iron (which was a tourist spot) and then climbing up to the Weaver's Needle. The day after we had to make it to the peak of Battleship Mountain.

Annabeth and I bought supplies to replenish our stores, and then all four of us crashed in the hotel. We tried to get Cora to talk about what these Darkest Dawn people might have in the mountains, but she clammed up pretty fast.

The next day we took the first bus out of Phoenix to the park at the base of Flat Iron. The park was free, which meant no security, and it didn't take us long to find the hiking trail leading partway up Flat Iron.

Half the morning was spent on the trail, and then it was actual rock climbing. The cliff faces were sheer and crumbly, but they didn't fall apart as bad as the climbing wall at camp, so it wasn't too bad.

We reached the top about mid-afternoon. There was a surprise waiting for us.

The four of us finished heaving ourselves over the top when the ground buckled and rolled. Gravel and stones tossed around us wildly, a horrible grinding sound deafening us. I clutched at whatever seemed stable, only to have it ripped from my grasp.

As abruptly as it had started, it stopped. The ground went still, leaving us lying in heaps. I coughed and looked up. For a brief second, it looked like the ground had warped into the shape of a face.

I had a freak out moment, thinking of Gaea. Then I realized it was just my imagination.

What was not my imagination, was the wizened old man sitting at a stone table, with some sort of board game set up in front of him.

I looked at the others and got to my feet. The man's skin was the colour of grey rock, matching his Roman style robe. His hair was wild, and looked like snow on a mountain top. I uncapped Riptide.

"Please tell me this isn't one of Gaea's leftover minions," I said, pointing at the old man with Riptide.

"No," Cora said, getting to her feet. "He's the spirit of the mountain."

The old man smiled at her. "Right you are," he said. "You're still a sharp one, even with that block."

Cora stared at him blankly. "Uh . . . have we met?"

"No, no. But do you think that after millennia I can't recognize the feel of demigods? Or monsters? You're a powerful one, you are, and I've been able to tell where you are ever since you came to my range, even when you're in Phoenix."

"Why am I not dead already?" she complained. It actually was a fair question.

The mountain spirit man laughed, kind of like a nice grandfather (which I never had). "While I don't know much about you, if you were to ever give your all in a fight, I would fear for your enemy!"

Cora flushed. "Thank you?"

"Now," the spirit man clapped his hands. "Shall we get on to the bargaining of your passage?"

"Bargaining of what passage?" Annabeth asked.

"I like to be helpful," he said, smiling benevolently. "But I never do anything for free – small thing really. In the end, your current course won't get you to your destination early enough. I will provide passage so you can reach there by noon tomorrow." He gestured to the board in front of him. "All you have to do is beat me. You may work together."

I looked at the board. "What sort of game is this?" There were a bunch of pieces, and the layout made no sense. I was at a loss.

"Stones," Cora said. "It's . . . it's called Stones, right?" The spirit man nodded.

Annabeth frowned. "Isn't that a made-up game in The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan?" I looked at her, wondering how she knew that. "He was a demigod."

Cora's face was scrunched up tight. "It was based off this game. The real one . . . it's like a combination of Chinese checkers and senet – both strategy and luck. I think . . . I think I remember how to play it."

All of us except the mountain spirit looked at her in surprise. "You do?" I asked her.

"Yes, I would play it with . . . oh, no, it's gone now," she made a frustrated sound. "I hate this not knowing!" I wanted to tell her she'd remember, though, quite frankly, at this point even I was starting to get skeptical, and she brushed off anything said to her.

The spirit man clapped his hands. "Don't worry yourself – hardly worth your troubles now – the Darkest Dawn should be your main priority – hate those miserable, unhuman necromancers – can't do a thing about it. That's why I want to help you!" He gestured to the board. "Shall we play?"

Cora looked at us before reluctantly sitting down. She gave us brief instructions for the game in rapid-fire French-English, to the point where my head spun. She must've been stressed if she switched languages.

And then she began to play.

I didn't understand almost all of it. To me, it seemed like Cora was actually quite good. Annabeth would give her strategic pointers whenever her memory seemed to fail. Some turns required tossing missing pieces back on the board, and that fell to me, because apparently I managed to drop them in good spots.

An hour passed. Different colour pieces were lined up in the centre of the board. I could almost see a bead of sweat trickle down the side of her face. Cora glanced at us nervously, biting her lip as she stared at the board.

"I don't . . ." she was at a loss, yanking in frustration on a thick blue strand of hair.

The spirit man smiled at her, only it wasn't quite as friendly as before. "If you're having trouble," he said, "How about we change the game a little, to make you take some different choices?"

"Whoa, hold up," I said quickly, not liking the sound of that at all. Cora had hardly opened her mouth before the game table was sinking back into the ground. The next thing I knew I was sliding down cold stone.

I hit something hard and came to a stop. I blinked and looked around, getting to my feet shakily. Around me the ground was some sort of patchwork. I saw Cora and Annabeth and Hunter getting to their feet in various places, all in specific spots on the patchwork. There were giant boulders also set in spots, some in reddish rock and some in grey.

Well, that was bizarre. Based upon past experience, things were probably booby-trapped. I stepped over to the edge of my spot. Sure enough, when I tried to step over it, the ground around me disappeared. Suddenly I was staring at a very long drop. I stepped back.

"Okay, nobody move unless their suicidal!" I called out to the others.

"I think we have bigger problems," Annabeth hollered back. "We're part of the game."

I looked around and realized everything was set up like the board had been. Cora was yelling some curses about mountain spirits in a few different languages. I was tempted to join her.

"Very good, daughter of Athena," boomed a voice. A twenty-foot tall version of the mountain spirit appeared at equal distance from the four of us. "We will finish the game like this, with the four of you taking the places of four pieces."

"Um, how is this any different from the game before?" I asked, raising my hand. "I mean, it's just . . . bigger."

The spirit smiled at me. "There is a catch, Percy Jackson. If you finish as a piece, you will never leave this mountain. This will become your home. Eternally."

Definitely got the family resemblance to Gaea and the evil ourae in Greece. I wanted to kill this guy.

In the next thirty seconds, I leaned something about Cora. You should never put the fate of the world on her shoulders, make her play a half-remember game due to a time limit, and then threaten her friends. She's not good with that kind of stress.

There was a very nasty curse spat, and then one of Cora's speciality golden domes appeared around the mountain spirits. Only, where all the others had been benevolent, protective, the one was malevolent. It began to creep inwards, as if intent on squeezing. The spirit flickered, as if he wanted to vanish, but couldn't.

"I can deal with playing a game, but not when that game puts fates at risk," she growled.

Annabeth and I exchanged nervous looks. I hated it when Cora got like this.

"Cora," I said loudly and clearly. "It's okay. You're smart, you know this game, go ahead and play. Win us that passage. We'll be fine. Don't get angry at the creep."

The mountain spirit frowned at me. "I can hear you, Percy Jackson."

I ignored him. My words had the intended effect, calming Cora – or distracting her – just enough that the energy dome vanished.

Cora took a deep breath. "Then I guess, we'll keep playing." And the boulder pieces began to move.

It was going great until the boulder nearly crushed me.

I didn't notice the shadow falling over me until almost too late. Instinctively I rolled to the side, uncapping Riptide and slashing at the rock as I came up. The rock split in half, revealing two hollow pieces, and an angry earthborn inside.

You've got to be kidding me, I thought, dodging the earthborn's first attack and slicing off three of its arms. A kick in the back dissolved it into a pile of mud.

Helpful mountain spirit, not so helpful. He seemed very intent on killing us. I glared at where his form shimmered. He didn't seem very happy with me either.

"You cheated," he accused.

"You're the one who tried to kill me with a giant rock and earthborn," I shot back. "I'm not into dying." I thought he'd sink me right then and there, but he didn't.

Now it was Cora's turn. She looked around the hillside critically. A bit of a smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Hunter," she said, "Déplacer les deux places avant." He complied. Cora looked at the field again, and then grinned at the mountain spirit. "We win."

The ground bucked and rolled again, and when I stopped rolling I was covered in dust and back on the normal top of Flat Iron. I got up and grabbed the collar of the mountain spirit.

"No more funny business," I said. "Give us the passage you promised, no tricks, and I won't kill you."

Nobody got mad at me, which showed just how annoyed we all were.

"Okay, okay, just had to test you," the spirit said, less calmly than the words intended. "You've passed – knew you would. So now I'll let you through. I want those awful necromancers gone as much as you do. Had to make sure you were good enough to defeat them, of course."

He snapped his fingers. An opening in the ground appeared a few feet away. "It'll deposit you as far as possible at dusk. Hope you brought lights, though. Latest you'll be at the place is tomorrow afternoon. Just in time to stop them."

I let the mountain spirit go. He vanished in an instant. I capped Riptide and looked at the others. Annabeth pulled out a flashlight. I looked at the younger two. Hunter seemed, well, confused like usual. Cora seemed perfectly calm and nice. She was back to her usual self. Together the four of us headed down the stairs and into the tunnels.

A/N: Did you like it? I needed filler, and I felt like showing some of Cora's temper. Stones actually is a game from The Wheel of Time series. I read them. Quite good, if very long. Only on book five, still, but I do like them very much. So the next chapter . . . *grins* I think you fans will like the events in it very, very much. I've been dying to write it for so long . . . at last! Let me know what you thought of this chapter via either reviews or favs or alerts! See you soon!