Chapter 3

When I came to, I was lying in what seemed an expensive hotel room. "Holy Hades," I muttered, sitting up and rubbing my eyes, quite convinced I was dreaming. The wallpaper was jet black, but appeared to shimmer with all the colors of the rainbow where the moonlight from the open window fell on it. The bed I was laying in was almost certainly a gold mixture and the sheets were woven from a silvery material. It took me a moment later to realize that it was silver. A mahogany writing desk stood in a corner, covered with intricate carvings of the gods and goddesses. Most of them I didn't recognize. I gingerly got out of the bed and discovered that whatever had ailed me last time I was conscious had sorted itself out. I felt great. I crossed the room to the desk and examined the desk, for I found the insignias very intriguing. The surface of the desk was devoted entirely to Hades. I recognized my father in an instant, the Helm of Darkness on his head, the skeletal horses that drove his chariot, and the creepy scepter that he was reluctant to talk about. I grinned. Whoever had decorated the room had to be some kind of expert on the gods.

I turned and noticed a door. Crossing the room, I turned the gold handed and pulled it open. To my disappointment it was just a closet, but my interest returned when I noticed that the clothes it contained were almost certainly for me; black jeans, a skull t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. The combat boots in there were even my size.

"This is crazy," I muttered as I pulled off the black pajamas that someone had taken the liberty of dressing me in and pulled on the clothes in the closet. On impulse, I hung the pajamas in there too. Walking back to the desk I noticed that there was a note on it, one corner under the black and silver cup that held some neat looking fountain pens. I pulled it out and read it.

Nico, if you're reading this it means that you survived the entry process. Congratulations! Now on to more important matters... You are currently in the top floor of the Hero Hotel. We don't have floor number; we name them based on godly parent. You are on the Olympian Floor which covers all Olympian children.
In order to leave your room – Way Downstairs – you need only to clap twice with the intention of leaving.
Once you have done so, please tell the... guard... that you have an appointment with the Head Councilor and he'll find someone to take you.
Be polite, be nice, and don't stare. Don't ask dumb questions either. I'll do my best to explain everything to you in good time. If you see a monster, don't try to kill it unless it becomes clear that it is a threat. You ought to end up alive at the end if you don't screw up too badly.
Good Luck Soldier,
– S

It was the oddest note a girl had ever written or said to me, including all that goblydeegook Annabeth comes out with. Maybe I was coming down with something. I reread the last sentence. It didn't sound very promising. I tucked the note in my jacket pocket. I had a feeling that I'd probably need it, knowing me. It said that I had to clap twice with the intension of leaving. That sounded kind of nuts, but whatever. I clapped.

At once, the world went black around me. It felt like I was being twisted into something incredibly small. I tried to cry out, but something was wrong with my voice. I was being forced through a portal of pure energy. Then it was over. I was standing in front of a humble looking building constructed of reddish brown bricks. To my great surprise, it was dark; night, in fact. The stars shown crystal clear and pure above. There were so many, it almost hurt my eyes to look at them.

Consulting the note again, I remembered that I needed to find some sort of guard. In all honesty, I seriously doubted that whoever or whatever it was actually existed. Ironically enough, as soon as that thought popped into my head, a pair of meaty hands closed around my throat. I may not be an expert of power, but I could feel the strength that surged through whatever was gripping me. Whatever it was, was nothing human or demigod. It could snap my neck in an instant. My Stygian Iron sword had been taken from me early on, and right now I would have killed to have its familiar weight at my hip.

"Son of Hades," a slow, deep voice muttered somewhere above my head. "Always smells like death."

"Yeah, listen, sorry about that. I've been in a tight spot for a few weeks." I tried to keep the sarcasm from my voice. Hades wasn't all bad.

"That's the truth!" cried the creature. "Everybody always thinks the worst of Hades." Had the thing just read my thoughts? It sounded sad for a reason. "Just like me," it mumbled. "It's cause I'm ugly I think… and I drool when I'm excited so everybody always thinks I'm so stupid."

"That's awful," I agreed, really not caring but pretending I did just to humor it. "Listen, my name's Nico. I need to speak with the head councilor."

"Okay." It let me go and I turned… and froze.

The creature was an ogre, there was no mistaking it. I know ogres didn't show up much in Greek mythology, but I swear this is was one. It was humanoid in shape; that held true. It was far more muscular, far bigger, and far more dangerous looking than a human though. Its head was completely hairless and two dull brown eyes looked at me with a very sad expression indeed. Two fangs jutted up from its bottom lip that seriously needed a good brushing. There was a loincloth around his waist and there was a huge scythe strapped across his back. The scythe reminded me forcefully of Kronos, but there was no way there could be a connection. It smiled apologetically, showing moss-colored teeth with several missing. I restrained myself and didn't take a step back like my body was screaming at me to. Okay amendment, it was screaming at me to run and get the Hades out of here before I got killed or worse.

"You need see Stella?" it asked hopefully.

"Yeah, can you take me to her?" I asked.

To my disappointment, or relief I suppose, it shook his head. "Not me, I just guard the entrance. You go with…" he stopped, stumped for a moment, then his eyes brightened again. "You go with Chelsea." Before I could ask who or what Chelsea was, the ogre pulled out a thick scroll from only Zeus knows where. His unintelligent eyes moved over the words on it and came to a stop somewhere around the middle. His face fell. "Too easy," he mumbled. "Too easy, I should remember." He muttered something under his breath and a moment later there came the sound of running feet.

A teenage guy of around sixteen came to a stop in front on me. He had a good tan and wore a shark's tooth necklace with rippling muscles. That was all that was normal about him though. His backs of hands were blue and webbed like the fins of some sort of fish. Another strange fin started at his brow and ended somewhere around the back of his head. It rose about a foot into the air, yellow towards where it joined his head and blue towards the top. Tiny yellow scales surrounded it and changed smoothly to blue and covered his head the way normal hair would. They ended around where his eyebrows would have been facing me and the rest extended down his neck and disappeared into his aqua shirt. His sea green eyes had whites in them and the pupils were overlarge. He reminded me of some sort of sea monster/human cross over from the movies. He saw me staring and grinned. His white teeth were slightly pointed. "Name's Chelsea," he stuck out a hand to shake. Cautiously I took it. I could feel the tiny scales covering the top of his hands. He winked. "My mom's Ceto."

"Who?" I'd never even heard her mentioned.

"Ceto," he repeated. "She's the goddess of sea monsters."

"Oh." I tried not to look embarrassed.

He laughed jovially. "Hey, no worries man. Everyone eventually gets used to my face. They have to."

I nodded uncomfortably.

"So you need to see Stella, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah, could you take me to her?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I can. Just follow me and don't stray off the path no matter what you see or hear and you should be okay."

"What's that supposed to mean?" This place was starting to give me the creeps and the darkness of the night wasn't helping.

Chelsea shrugged. "The thing is that our borders aren't impenetrable from monsters the way the demigods at Camp Half-Blood have it. That's partially because some of us are part monster and also because only an Olympian has the authority or the power to make the camp monster-proof. We don't carry the significance of Olympian demigods do so we get overlooked most of the time. We take second class." He sounded so matter of fact that I was taken by surprise. Children of Hades had always taken second place in that regard, but we had earned our place in the end, and Hades even got a throne at Olympus again. People grew up hearing about him, knowing that he was one of the Big Three. These were just a bunch of kids whose parents were seldom heard of or rarely mentioned. It would have made me angry if I had been in their place, but this guy was just completely chill with the fact. I looked at him with incredulity, suddenly ashamed of my earlier staring.

He saw my look and guessed my thoughts. "Hey man, we're cool with it now. The Titan War was a big wake-up call, ya know? Stella was going nuts trying to keep us all together." His voice trailed off and he suddenly looked like he'd said too much. "Come on," he muttered. "They're having a Gathering right now."

"A Gathering?" I asked as my heart skipped a beat. What had he meant with that slip-up, for it was a slip-up I was sure, about the Titan War? "What's a Gathering?"

He motioned to me to follow him. I fell in step beside him as we headed towards a path that headed towards the woods. The trek was well worn from the myriad feet who had walked it innumerable times before us. Crickets chirped in the underbrush and the trees rustled with activity. It didn't feel like a hostile place, but there was a certain tension to the atmosphere. I noticed the way Chelsea glanced around every few steps, eyes straining into the darkness. There was a certain nervousness in his posture that wasn't to be found at Camp Half-Blood.

"A Gathering is basically a time for some of us to pass the night in each other's company. Some, like Phoebe, are scared of what the night brings and need friends around them to feel safe. Others just like the company sometimes, and others show up for more serious conversations such as what needs to be done to better our situation. A lot of the time new admittances show up to make friends and to get to know what this is all about. Most of us are orphans or runaways. All of us are year round campers. Some of us like me have strange genetic mutations that make it impossible to live in the mortal world without a huge amount of mist and even that wouldn't fool the monsters, gifted mortals, or other demigods. People like me would probably be killed on the spot. That's why we receive special training." He paused for a moment as if he expected me to say something, but when I remained silent he went on. "We have a large concentration of mortals here too in a separate building. The ones here are the ones who can see through the mist and who can't cope with living amongst their fellow mortals who can't tell a Chimera from a Chihuahua. A few of us train specifically to break into asylums and places for the mentally challenged and insane because many of them are the ones who can see through the mist and can't deal with what their abilities show them. We train them and they become rather like demigods without the extra powers."

"So how many mortals do you have here?" I asked.

That one seemed to get him. He frowned in concentration. "Well over a hundred I think. We house them in a separate building, but they train and all that stuff with the regular demigods. It's the best way to prepare them in a worst case scenario and to promote a sense of fellowship with mortals. A lot of demigods gone bad or gods sometimes view them as animals."

I knew where he was going with that one. Kronos had thought of them that way and probably a bunch of other Titans too for that matter. Still, it was probably a touchy subject for them so I left it alone.

Chelsea stopped suddenly and I stopped too. "Here we are," he said. He clapped me on the back. "I'll see you round then Nico."

I turned to ask him how he knew my name for I hadn't shared it with him, but when I did so, he was already gone. Unsure and hesitant, I made my way towards the sound of voices up ahead.