Chapter 8: Jason the budding wizard (Hazel)

I've never really done well with school, particularly with boring, annoying, mandatory classes. I also don't like being forced down arbitrary paths (hear that Heacte?). So you can imagine that I was not a big fan of Ms Orici's Origin 101 class. Dyslexia would've made reading the good book a chore in the best of circumstances, and the fact we were expected to be actually learning life lessons from it made things even worse. The only real bright spot was that, as long as we cooperated, Frank and I were kept together and were well taken care of. Unfortunately, though, we still weren't allowed to freely interact with the other captives, and we didn't want to finalize any escape plans before knowing what was going on with Jason. In the couple of times the whole group had been assembled in the last few days, we'd managed to find Jason and make eye contact, but had no way to actually communicate with him.

On the bright side, I'd been making progress adapting to how mist manipulation seemed to work in this universe. The magical veil seemed thinner, but there was still enough to work with providing I could concentrate. Frank had been doing his best to take everything in stride, but I could tell "playing along" was wearing on him. Origin itself didn't seem too bad on the surface, and it was full of the anecdotes and quotable passages you would expect from a religious text. But even with the (admittedly little) we'd been able to really investigate, it was clear that the main point of the text was to convince the Ori's subjects that they were truly perfect, divine and benevolent, and they deserved to be worshiped for the gifts they would provide.

After struggling through one particularly dense passage, I chuckled and shut the book before throwing it onto the bed stand.

"Hey Hazel, you wanna hear a joke?"

"Sure"

"A perfect god"

"There's no such thing"

"exactly "

Even without the context of their actions in the underworld, we'd had enough experience with real gods to know that, while they may try to do what they think is best for the world (sometimes), they were far from perfect. They had emotions, made mistakes, and had (at times gargantuan) egos. I doubted that the Ori, especially given their throwing away so many of their soldiers' lives during the attack on Pluto's domain, were any better than the Titans or Gaea. Their power and influence was to be respected, sure. But undying devotion? That's a hard pass.

Bored, I suggested to Frank that we go over the ship's layout again. While our access had been fairly restricted, we had managed to pick up on the paths between the few locations that we knew. We had been given paper with which to take notes (how generous of them) so we had instead sketched the layout on one that I kept hidden. We knew how many turns, which directions, and how many paces were between our quarters, 2 of the elevators, the main "enlightenment" chamber, and several of the smaller rooms where priors preached origin to any crew willing to listen. Unfortunately, there was one big location we weren't sure about, the ring room. Frank and I were barely conscious when we'd teleported aboard. While we knew the rough path from the ring room to one of the elevators, we didn't know which elevator, or what level the rings were even on.

"20 paces, then a left, then another 25 paces to the...,"

"Wait! Someone's coming"

I quickly hid the map underneath the bed seconds before the door opened. A group of soldiers beckoned us out and escorted us to another "sermon". It was incredibly boring, and they weren't that terribly interesting to begin with. She finished a particular passage with the familiar "hallowed are the Ori,"

"Hallowed are the Ori" everyone echoed.

After a moment I realized that the whole group had echoed her, but I didn't say that, did I? I focused and calmed my mind for a moment, and noticed something. I was following along! It was almost like my brain was on autopilot, my body muttering the words without my intention or consent. I managed to force myself to stop for a moment, and I looked around to see everyone else, Frank included, following along with her words. It was almost like they'd all been hypnotized. Or brainwashed I thought. I reached to my left and pinched Frank, nothing. I tried again, still no reaction. C'mon Frank! Snap out of it! I waited for a moment, then punched him in the arm.

"Ow"

"Shhhh. Look around,"

"What are you…"

Frank stopped as he realized. By some miracle no one seemed to notice his outburst. With nowhere to go, we decided to play along, and we continued to mime along with everyone else. After what seemed like another couple of hours the sermon was finally adjourned, but this time the priors seemed in no rush to separate the group. I glanced at Frank and we silently agreed that this would be the best opportunity to try to reach Jason. We made our way through the crowd of partially hypnotized demigods until we finally spotted him. He saw us just before we reached him, and we both grabbed him and squeezed as hard as we could.

"What in Pluto's name are you guys doing here?" he asked.

"Captured, what about you?" Frank replied

"Same, mostly"

"Mostly?" I questioned

"When they attacked they seemed mostly uninterested in Elysium, but I could see them breaking all of the souls out after they'd beaten back Pluto's troops. I didn't know who they were or where they were taking the dead, but we knew we couldn't just let them walk a bunch of demigods with questionable character out of there. So…we made like we'd broken out so they'd take us,"

"Whose we?" I asked

Jason gestured to another demigod in the crowd behind him, he was similar in height and complexion, but had sandier blond hair and a scar across his face. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. "So, do you have a plan?" Frank asked.

"Kind of. Our best guess is that she's eventually going to try to turn us into more of those priors, believing we'll be even stronger than the current ones,".

Her earlier comments about us helping spread origin made a lot more sense. She clearly had at least some idea what we were capable of, so using us as super-priests to help her cause was both inspired and a little insane. Jason continued "Best we've figured is, we'll be as good of students as possible, wait until she gives us their powers, then bust everyone out of here,". "That's it?" I replied.

"Look, didn't have a ton of time to think beforehand, and we're kinda improvising here"

"Have you noticed what the Orici's been doing to us?"

"Preaching this stupid religion and our importance for hours,"

"Retaining any of it?" Frank asked

"Some, I never was a great student"

"Are you sure?" I asked

"What do you mean?

I explained what the Orici had been doing to us during the sermon. Jason glanced over to her, she was across the room talkinging with a group of unfriendly looking faces. "So she's been inside our heads and we didn't even know it?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure. I've had enough experience with illusions to recognize that kind of thing, and she's good" I replied.

"How long has she been doing this to us?"

"I can't know for sure, but if I had to guess, she's been working her magic little by little at each one of these meetings, who knows how long we've been cooperating without knowing"

"Do you think there's a chance we can resist it?" he asked.

"I don't know. Back in the cave she said we had strong minds, now that we know we know what she was doing, it could be possible"

"One way or another we need a way out of here" Frank pointed out.

"Luke and I have some ideas, you guys?"

"We're working on it, but we don't have the route totally figured out yet," I admitted.

Frank flashed me a warning glance and I turned to see the Orici making her way toward us. "Have you met before?" she asked. I decided it would be best to keep the lying to a minimum, just in case. "Yes," I admitted. "Jason used to be our praetor before his…death,".

"I see," the Orici replied. "The Ori have given you a new life and a new chance to help your friends. I hope you intend to honor the terms of our deal,". Jason nodded, but I could feel a presence trying to enter my mind, like someone peering in through the top of a fish tank. I did my best to block it out, and the Orici continued. "Since you have completed the first stages of your journey, we will be permitting more freedom throughout this level of the ship. You may converse freely with one another and travel where you wish so long as you follow the instructions given by any prior or soldier,". She smiled and walked away, and I could feel the presence leave along with her.

The priors began directing us back to our quarters, and we arranged to meet back up with Jason tomorrow. On the way back, I couldn't help but think about the other demigod Jason was working with. There was something about him that seemed familiar, not in the "I recognize you but can't place your name," way but in the "you resemble someone I've heard a lot about way,". It wasn't until we were back in our beds that the name finally came to me. "Luke! That's his name!" I blurted out.

"Whose name" Frank replied

"The other demigod working with Jason"

"Wait Luke, as in Camp Half-Blood's Luke, the guy who hosted Kronos?"

"Yes! Wait…"

The story Percy and Annabeth had shared came flooding back to me. From what I could remember, Luke was really close with Annabeth and Jason's sister when they were younger. After a while, Luke's (not unfounded) resentment toward the gods had been manipulated by Kronos into a powerful tool. Luke helped the Titan's rise to eventually wage war on Olympus, but in the end he sacrificed himself to stop Kronos. That was how he must've ended up in Elysium.

"Are you sure we can trust him?" Frank asked

"No, but Jason seems to, that has to count for something"

"Good. So we now have 2 friends on board, we're moving up in the world"

I laughed a little, but even though we knew what Jason and Luke were up to, we still had serious problems. I knew the others must've come after us, and they were probably out there searching for us, but we're in space for Olympus' sake! As determined as they were, I had a feeling we couldn't count on a rescue any time soon. That meant we had to figure out how to get out, before the Orici either caught wind of what we were up to, or finished brainwashing us.