As it turned out, that Percy guy was in the arena. Slicing several dummies open at once. It was sort of an odd pastime, but Reese dismissed it. This had been an odd day.

"Um, Percy?"

"Oh, hey. Reese, right?" Jeez, how could the guy forget Reese's name? He'd just spend an entire day saving Reese's life.

"Yeah."

"Sorry. We get a lot of new campers – after a while it's hard to remember each name. What's up?"

"I needed a tour. You said you'd show me around."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Percy pulled on his sword, which was currently skewering a dummy through the heart. After a few tugs, he uprooted the dummy from its stand, unable to get the sword out. "Fetch, Mrs. O' Leary," Percy said. Mrs. O' Leary? There was no one else around. Percy flung the dummy off his sword to the other end of the arena. But just before it hit the ground, a huge black mastiff literally materialized from the shadows and caught it.

"What the hell!" It was one of those creatures from earlier today... A hellhound, right? He thought this camp was supposed to be safe.

"Hades, actually. Not hell. Same thing, really, but..." Percy said calmly. "Oh, and this is my pet, Mrs. O' Leary. Yeah, she's a hellhound. But she's good."

"Shouldn't it be a Hadeshound then, if Hades is the same thing as hell?"

Percy laughed. "Yeah, very funny."

The hellhound, Mrs. O' Leary, dropped the soggy dummy at Percy's feet. He gingerly picked it up, before tossing it again in her direction.

"Get the Greek!" he said sort of halfheartedly, before turning back to Reese. "Sorry about that. She scares most of the newcomers. Come on, I'll give you the grand tour."

"Thanks. This is weird. It's like, two hours ago I was sitting in the cafeteria with my friends, no idea that this world even existed."

"It's rough at first. You'll get used to it."

"How long did it take you?"

"That's a difficult question to answer. Maybe when I met the oracle."

"What?"

"Not what, who. But I met her back when she was still a creepy hippie mummy. Now she's... Well, I wish I could introduce you guys, but Rachel's still at school."

"You have an oracle named Rachel?"

"Yup. She's damn good at her job too."

"Um, okay. This day is just getting weirder and weirder."

"It's a long story."

"Isn't everything? Like, how when I ask about this pact with the gods about the claiming at thirteen and stuff, everyone just says "It's a long story. Talk to Percy." I don't get it."

"Well, it is a pretty long story."

"You're not just another demigod, are you? Nyssa acted like you were some sort of celebrity."

Percy turned a little red, which seemed weird. He didn't seem like the blushing sort of guy. "I sort of... saved the world last year."

Reese hesitated a moment, wondering if Percy would say "NOT!" or "Just kidding! Got you there!", but nothing happened.

"And in reward, the gods offered me immortality."

"So you're immortal now?"

"Nope. I turned it down."

Reese stopped, staring at him. "You turned down immortality?"

"Yeah. I had some more... important priorities. Anyway, they still allowed me one wish. I made them swear on the River Styx... No more unclaimed kids trying to claw their way to Camp Half-Blood. No more kids stuck in Hermes cabin as "undetermined". They had to claim their kids and get them to Camp Half-Blood by the time they turned thirteen. And the gods have kept their end of the deal all year."

"But then I came along."

"Precisely. And we don't know what's wrong. So I'm gonna have to go to Olympus tomorrow and talk to Zeus. It's actually relatively convenient, since Annabeth is headed there anyway to work on the reconstruction..." He trailed off, glancing in the direction of the cabins.

"What do you mean?"

"My girlfriend's an architect. After the war last summer, Olympus sort of got... wrecked, I guess you could say. Annabeth's rebuilding it."

"Oh. Cool."

"Yeah. She's really jazzed about it. Anyway, back to the tour. That was the sword-fighting arena, obviously. Over there is the armory... That's where Hephaestus kids work, usually. But let me show you the cabins."

"So, you said each cabin has kids who are siblings. Each cabin would be dedicated to a specific god or goddess and their kids, then. Right?"

"Right. We had to add on eight new cabins this year for minor gods, thanks to the deal I made last summer."

"Because you saved the world."

"Yeah. So if we go through here, you can see the cabins for goddesses are on the right, and gods on the left. With the exception being the Dionysus cabin, since there's a disparage of gods to goddesses on Olympus. Hermes cabin is over there. That's where you'll be staying, at least until they figure out who your dad is."

"And that's what used to happen a lot. Right?"

"You're catching on quickly. So we should probably go talk to Connor and Travis, and then if you don't mind I need to swing by the Iris cabin too."

"Iris?"

"Goddess of rainbows. She also serves as a sort of messenger for the gods."

"I thought that was Hermes."

"Yeah. But Iris... Well, if she heard me saying this she'd kill me but she's kind of like Skype. She lets you, well, I suppose "video-chat" people anywhere in the world."

"This is really hard to take in."

"We've got an orientation video. I'm sure Chiron could show you that. Let's finish the tour first. So these are the cabins. Over this way are the showers and toilets – heh, I'm sure Clarisse will be happy to see you – and past that is the canoe lake. We don't really need to go over there. This way to Hermes," Percy said, guiding Reese into a sort of run-down looking cabin. There were maybe eight kids of all different ages in the cabin, from the little redhead girl playing solitaire in the corner to the tall, elvish looking boy sharpening a knife on one of the bunkbeds. Two curly-haired brothers came forward. They looked like twins, but one was clearly older than the other.

"Hey, Percy," one of them said.

"Connor. Travis. I've got a new member of your cabin here. His name is Reese."

"Oh, cool. Nice to meet a new brother," the other said (was it Travis or Connor?).

"Undetermined, actually," Percy said absently. In response to the weird looks the twins gave him, he added, "Yeah. I'm going to Olympus tomorrow to check it out."

"Weird. Well, you're the first undetermined over the age of thirteen we've had in almost a year. Pleasure to meet you. I'm Travis, and this here is my brother Connor," one of them said, sticking out a hand for Reese to shake.

"Sorry, my brother's a mischief maker. I'm Travis, actually, and he's Connor," said the other.

"Travis, Connor..."

"What?" asked Travis/Connor innocently.

"Yeah, jeez, Percy. Can't we have a little fun?" jested Connor/Travis.

"I told you not to trust the Hermes counselors," Percy said in an undertone.

"What? You said that about us? And after all we've done for you, Perce," Travis/Connor tutted.

"Yeah. You've done so much for me. You know, I really needed centipedes in my-"

"Okay, you should probably head out now," Connor/Travis interrupted, nudging Percy out the door. "We'll introduce Reese to the cabin."

"I still need a tour of camp," Reese protested, a little nervous about being alone with those two.

"Fine. Come by later, then," muttered Connor/Travis.

"I have to go talk to Annabeth. She borrowed some blueprints, and..." Percy trailed off, one foot out the cabin door.

"Cool. I can get someone else to show me around," Reese said, trying to sound nonchalant. He wasn't totally used to this whole half-god thing, and if anyone could help him out, it would be this Percy dude, but he didn't want to seem dependent.

"Oh, and Percy?" one of the girls in the Hermes cabin asked, nudging her way past the Stoll brothers. "Are you teaching the swordfighting class later?"

"What?" Percy asked absently, his head turned in the direction of cabin six. "Oh, oh yeah. I'll be there."

"Cool. One of my friends is new, and he was just sort of wondering..."

"Great. Oh, and Reese? If you're not too overwhelmed, maybe you could stop by the sword-fighting class too. It's never too early to start training," Percy suggested, before turning and jogging off in the direction of the Athena cabin.

"Got it! Thanks!" Reese said, and then turned mournfully to greet his new cabinmates.