Hey guys. Here's chapter 15, hope you like it. I didn't get that many reviews last chapter, I hope I'm not losing my style. Let me know what you think of this one!

Chapter 15 –

Liam stood on the very edge of the western wall, holding on to the ramparts with one hand and allowing the left side of his body to hang high over the wall, looking out to the horizon in the late afternoon. He felt the wind billowing in his face and sensed his body swinging gently in the air whilst he watched the sun sinking softly into the ocean. It was calming after everything that had happened and it relaxed enough to think about everything that had happened that day.

After Dean had walked him out of the sanctuary, he had offered to show him everything about Castra Roma and to teach him what it meant to be a child of Apollo. They had then headed towards the southwest corner of camp, where all of the cabins were, so that he could see the place where he'd be sleeping and so that he could meet, and this was something he still had to process, his many brothers and sisters.

The cabin was a largish building, constructed more for efficiency than for comfort. On the outside it looked almost exactly like all the other cabins in the area, being distinguishable only by the symbol of Apollo, with its two proud bows shining over the front door. As soon as you got past the threshold, you were met with a large common room, complete with a bookshelf and some couches for reading, as well as some posters and equipment scattered around the room. From the walls there were bulls' eyes hanging, with darts and other projectiles sticking out of them and in the furthest corner of the room there were a number of musical instruments and sheets thrown about, including guitars, violins, a complete drum set and even some lyres.

On the far side of the wall, there was a corridor that went deeper into the cabin, with several doors on either side. The first door on the left led into a room filled with bunk beds, clearly meant for the girls by the decorations he managed to see and the yells that shouted him out when he tried to go inside. The first door on the right led to the guy's room, also filled with bunk beds and into which he entered comfortably. Both rooms were sparsely decorated and neatly ordered, with only some pictures and an occasional poster, but the whole cabin felt warm and welcoming when he was assigned the bunk furthest from the door and especially when he was given a fresh set of clothes and the chance to wash up and change.

Back in the common room, now dressed in a purple shirt and new pair of jeans, Liam met most of his extended family. Over two dozen kids welcomed him, patted him on the back and made fun of him with the good nature of an older brother giving the younger kid a hard time. For the first time in days, Liam felt his shoulders slump in relaxation and he actually had some fun, cracking jokes with these new kids while feeling like he were making friends with strangers but at the same time that he was reuniting with people he should have known long ago.

When the introductions and jokes were over, he was taken all the way down the center corridor, past several rooms, to a final door that was guarded by one of his brothers in full battle armor. Beyond the door there was a long flight of stairs that led to an ample but dark basement, littered here and there with more doors.

"Where do those lead?" asked Liam.

The cabin leader, a guy called Marcus Mumford, had come down with him and Dean, and he answered. "Beneath Castra Roma," he said, "there are tunnels that connect the different cabins, but they also branch out and twist and turn in a huge maze. It isn't as treacherous or as large as Dedalus', but maybe more mysterious."

"How so?" said Liam.

"The maze is ancient," said Marcus. "Over the years it has been used to hide things, as escape routes, to communicate between cabins. It has been enlarged, destroyed, blocked, forbidden and reopened many times. There are many secrets and things that were lost down there, from previous campers, by Lupa, some say even by the gods. When I first got here I was told there are catacombs, with the remains of the demigods that died in the early Roman wars."

"Cool," said Liam. "Can you get to them?"

"I have no idea if they even exist," replied Marcus. "You can easily get lost down there and some of the rooms are guarded by monsters or spells. Many campers have never come back from the maze and we now only go down for some special forms of training or to go to rooms that we know the way for. Every cabin leader has a map of the maze with the locations and routes we know, but the maps are incomplete and the maze is tricky to navigate, so we mostly stay out of it."

"But that sounds like something we should check out," said Liam, "I'm not much for going underground, but shouldn't we at least make sure of what's down there?"

"It's been tried before," answered Dean, "and it's never ended well. A camper died there last year and since then it's been off bounds unless a cabin leader officially requests permission from Lupa. But it's weird, it's almost as if Lupa doesn't want us going down there, we have requested to go down a couple of times and been denied. Anyway, don't worry about it, there's never been a threat to camp from the tunnels, and the only creatures down there are stuck guarding their rooms, they won't leave."

"Right…" said Liam, quite unconvinced and slightly worried.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence before Dean said they should get going because there was still a lot more to see. They left the cabin and walked over to the battlegrounds where Dean explained how the children of Apollo trained for war.

"There are two types of training," he said, "there's your personal training and then there's Legion training. Legion training always comes first in the day and it involves two parts, physical training and weapons training. For physical training, every morning you'll get up bright and early for a 10 or 20 mile run, depending on Lupa's and your commanding officer's mood. After that, we hit the swimming pool and then the gym, where you'll practice long jump, high jump, sprints and other assorted sports until you feel like your legs and arms are about drop. Of course, this routine will change a lot depending on the day and on what your cabin leader wants you to work on. In your case, you look like a skinny chimpanzee so I expect you'll be spending a lot of time in the gym."

"Thanks a lot, mate," murmured Liam and then in a softer voice, "you look like the north end of a south-bound mule but you don't hear me complaining, do you?"

Dean grinned but pretended not to hear and simply continued. "When weapons' training comes around at 10:30 a.m. sharp, you'll learn how to use a sword, a spear and a shield. Also, once you have defined what your weapon of choice will be, where I expect you'll choose our usual combo of bow and sword, there'll be group training. In group training, you'll learn how to march, how to move in formation, what our strategies are, how to defend during a siege, how to spearhead, etc. This is one of the most important parts because it will define what your position will be in the army and that determines your career in the Legion, so be sure to give it your best during group training."

"Sounds like fun," said Liam. "Then what?"

"Then there's lunch and a couple of hours for rest. You'll be starving by then, so you'll probably spend most of your time eating but, really, lunch is free time, you can do whatever you want until 3:30 p.m."

"Nap-time, definitely," said Liam.

"Probably," he said and laughed while he motioned for them to keep on moving.

They walked away from the battlegrounds and over to the southeast corner of camp, where the learning and music buildings gleamed in the sunlight. "In the afternoon," continued Dean, "the schedule varies a lot. Some days you'll have to go to the learning grounds for lessons in Latin, history, etc. But on most days, the afternoon is reserved for your personal training, for you to develop those abilities that are inherent to you, depending on who is your godly parent and your own preferences."

"So you can do anything you want?" said Liam

"Yes, but don't think you can goof off in the afternoon. Cabin leaders, the praetor, not to mention Lupa will check up on you, so you'd better do something useful or you'll get into trouble and trust me you do not want Lupa on your case for laziness.

"What do you do in the afternoons?" asked Liam.

"Well, I go to the learning grounds twice a week to study. Then, on most afternoons you'll find me at the archery range practicing with different long range weapons. Sometimes I go to the forges so I can work on the making of magical arrows and test them out with the children of Vulcan."

"Don't you ever play music?" said Liam, walking over to the building with a melody coming out of it, "isn't Apollo also the god of music?"

"Yeah," said Dean, "but that's not for me. Apollo is also the god of medicine and I'm also not crazy for healing, not compared to some of the others in the cabin. Even though we're all children of Apollo, not all gifts and preferences are evenly distributed; some are better archers, some better healers, some are all-round and so forth. For me, it's archery, all the way. Between me and Marcus, we fight over who's the best in the cabin. He beat me in the last tournament, but I'll get him this time around, I swear, I've been practicing like crazy and he's getting overconfident."

"Ok…," said Liam , "but there's no problem with me going over to the music building and playing, right?"

"Yeah, sure," said Dean, "but I wouldn't recommend it. Most children of Apollo will go there every once in a while, some more than others, but to tell you the truth, the music building is the least used facility in the whole of Castra Roma."

"Why?" asked Liam.

"Because there isn't much use for music, at least not in battle. Every child of Apollo has some control over sound, that's why we can use sonic arrows in battle but music in itself won't help you in a fight, not unless you're a music master and we haven't seen one of those for something like four hundred years."

"You haven't seen one of what now?" asked Liam.

"Oh yeah," said Dean. "It is an extremely rare gift, but every once in a while, a child of Apollo is born that can fuse magic into music and use it for all kinds of incredible things."

"Like what?

"You ever heard of Orpheus?" asked Dean.

"Yeah, sure," said Liam. "When his wife was killed he went down to the Underworld and tried to bring her back, but Pluto told him not to look back as he walked to the surface and when he did, his wife died all over again. It's a very sad story."

"Yes," said Dean, "but you missed out that he was an incredible musician. He got to the Underworld by playing music to the earth and making it open up for him and the entrance he made can still be used. He got his wife back by playing music to the Lord of the Dead himself and charming him into allowing Eurydice to come back to life, something that had never happened before and hasn't happened since. When his wife died, it's been said that the music he played was so filled with grief that every god in Olympus cried. He was the very first music master."

"And what would a music master be able to do? If another one was born."

"We're not really sure, they're supposed to be able to control people's moods, inspire them, scare them and so forth. They can create visions, confuse opponents and the most powerful ones would be able to control wild animals and even monsters. Orpheus was able to influence even the gods, so I think there is really no limit to what you could do with that kind of talent. But don't think on it too much, there have only been a couple of music masters in history and Lupa thinks they are extinct now."

"Right," said Liam. "It's just that… woah!"

A great rumbling began as an earthquake shook the ground violently. Liam turned and saw the praetorium in the center of camp starting to crumble and some of the beams and columns that supported it starting to snap. He ran towards it, with Dean right by his side and he arrived in time to see Percy running desperately out of the building just as it looked about to come down. After a small standoff, Liam saw Percy leave with Lupa and Dakota and he tried to follow them back to the southeast corner of camp but he was quickly ordered to stay put. After that, there was such a commotion between the cabin leaders and senior campers that Dean simply told him that he was too late to join in any of the ongoing activities and that he had the afternoon off, as long as he reported back at the cabin at sunset.

And so, he had wandered about camp without much purpose, watching the other kids go about their activities and responsibilities. He had first gone down to the archery range where he'd been itching to try out the bows, but had rather watched with amazement at the precision and aim that his brothers and sisters showed and thought he'd rather wait to be taught instead of making a fool of himself by shooting uninstructed and accidentally killing someone.

He walked away from the battlegrounds and made his way back to the music building. He found it completely empty as no one had returned to it after the events in the praetorium and he walked around, looking with curiosity and excitement at the different instruments thrown about. Ever since he'd been small, he'd been interested in music, how to read it, play it, its history and its theory. But his mother couldn't afford to put him in lessons and his grandfather would hear nothing of it because he thought it would only distract him from "the important things in life." So all he'd managed to get was some guitar lessons from this old guy at a pub a few blocks from his mother's flat. It hadn't been for more than a couple of months but he'd quickly turned into a pretty decent guitar player and he'd even managed to play some live shows at the pub when the crowd was low. The manager had thought he was fantastic and Liam was quite sure he could've gotten a regular gig there if he hadn't been sent to the States for the summer.

Now, walking down the empty halls of the music building, he remembered being up on the small West London stage and how happy he'd been. He picked up a dusty acoustic guitar from a stand in a side room and sat down on the building's empty stage. With a small pang of homesickness, he plucked the strings gently, playing some random notes that hung in the air. A few seconds later he chose the last song he'd heard live in the pub in London and he was about to start when he was suddenly interrupted by a loud, shrill and angry voice.

"What do you think you're doing?" yelled a small girl from across the room.

Liam was so startled by the girl's sudden appearance that he almost dropped the guitar to the ground.

"Nothing," he said immediately, standing up. "I was just leaving." Liam quickly jumped off stage and was about to leave the guitar on the floor when the girl spoke again.

"No, wait, I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to scare you out, but you're not supposed to touch that guitar. Reyna could get upset."

"Reyna?" said Liam, with disbelief.

"Yeah," said the little girl. "That's Jason's guitar. You're not supposed to play it."

"The guy who's missing," said Liam. "Reyna's boyfriend."

"Yes," said the girl. "He had only just started to play when he disappeared, couldn't pick out a song yet, but I think Reyna would freak if she knew someone took his guitar."

"Sorry, I didn't know," replied Liam, "I just got here today. I'm Liam, by the way."

"Maria," she answered simply, "nice to meet you."

"Do you come here often?" asked Liam, curious after what Dean had told him about the music building.

"As often as I can," she answered. "I'm the only that comes here regularly. I love this place and singing, even though it can get lonely."

"I think I'll be dropping by quite a lot," replied Liam, "so I'll probably see you around." He paused for a second but he still felt rather startled and uncomfortable so he decided to take off for the moment. "I've got to go," he said, "it's almost sunset and I have to be back to my cabin before then."

"You still have a few minutes," said Maria. "You know, if it's your first day you should check out the sunset from the western wall. It can be really beautiful there."

Liam smiled and said goodbye to the girl. Once outside, he looked at the sky and saw that he did still have several minutes before sunset, so he decided to take her advice and headed straight for the stairs that led to the western wall. She was right, the view was beautiful and from the center of the wall there was a small crevice he could hang from and feel the wind in his face and think about the day's events. However, the sky darkened quickly and a few minutes later, he had to rush back to the Apollo cabin, getting there just before nightfall. They got themselves in formation, making two neat lines and started to march towards the southeast corner of camp, where the dining area was located.

When they arrived, he was surprised to see that the many tables had been placed right next to the amphitheatre, almost at its base. Also, to Liam's puzzlement, the tables were not divided by cabin but instead, once they got there, every kid went to a different table, with other teenagers from other cabins. They all seemed to know where they were going but it made absolutely no sense to Liam.

"Don't know which is your table?" said a voice next to him.

He turned around to see that Maria had come up to him.

"How is this organized?" he asked. "Where am I supposed to go?"

"They should've explained this to you before but I suppose that between the day's excitement and your tardiness getting back there wasn't time. The tables for lunch and dinner aren't divided by cabins but by rank."

"What are the ranks?" asked Liam.

The girl sighed. "Prepare to be bored but try to remember this because it's important," she said as she turned to the dining area and prepared to explain.

"There are five ranks in the Legion" she began, "and therefore five sections, each made up of several tables. The first and lowest rank, where you and I are going to be seated, is the Munifex or, simply, the soldier. That's the leftmost and largest section over there where over half the demigods are. Then come the Immunes or special soldiers, that's those guys over there. They are soldiers that have distinguished themselves as the best in a particular area or skill. If you want to get to that table you have to participate in one of the monthly competitions and get yourself into one of the top three spots."

"So anyone can be there?"

"Yeah," said Maria, "but you'll have to kick someone out to get there, so be careful who you beat, Liam, because people can be resentful. Anyway, after the Immunes there come the Centurions. In the old days a Centurion would command one hundred men but that was when a Legion had over 6000 soldiers. Nowadays, there's a Centurion per cabin and they earn their position in two ways. First, they have to be one of the best in the cabin, distinguishing him or herself in every aspect the cabin is known for. Second, they have to obtain a ratifying vote from the majority of the cabin members. See Marcus there? That's your Centurion or, as they are commonly called, your cabin leader.

"It'd be cool to be a Centurion," said Liam, "get to command the cabin and all."

"Good luck with that," said Maria, laughing. "Not only do you have to work your butt off, there's also Dean and Diane fighting for that spot, so you're gonna have some harsh competition. But anyway, above the Centurions come the Tribunes who are our leaders during wartime."

"Why aren't the centurions the leaders?" asked Liam.

"The thing is, when we go to war, we don't form our divisions, or cohorts as we call them, per cabin because then you'd have some divisions with clear weaknesses. For instance, an Apollo cohort would be wicked in long range, but catch them in a melee encounter and they're doomed. So the Legion is divided to make balanced cohorts with people from every cabin. And so, in these times, the Centurions choose from among themselves the Tribunes who lead each cohort. Right now there are no Tribunes because we are not at war so, as you see, that table is empty."

"And then there's the praetor," finished Liam.

"Yes," said Maria. "The praetor eats with Lupa, when she comes to dinner, which isn't often. When she's not here, the praetor will usually eat with the Tribunes or Centurions, depending. I hope you got that, it goes Munifex, Immunes, Centurions, Tribunes and Praetor. Just remember, there's a stripe for every rank, so more stripes, more rank. You'll be fine if you remember that."

"Thanks, Maria," said Liam, "I just might've gone and sat with Marcus and messed it all up. So what cabin are you from?"

"Me?" she said. "Oh, I'm from cabin six, that's Venus cabin."

Liam stared and, for some reason, he felt himself starting to blush. For the first time, he really noticed Maria and saw that she was she was strikingly beautiful. She was shorter and younger than him, probably fourteen or fifteen, and she had long curly brown hair and light chocolate skin with huge eyes and a cute smile. Liam was out of words for a second as he tried to compose himself and think of something smart to say. Several seconds must have gone by because Maria simply laughed and said, "come on, Liam, you must be starving."

She moved away towards the first table and he followed, noticing for the first time that the girl had an accent that seemed ringed with Spanish, as if the girl were originally from somewhere in Latin America or maybe even Spain. They sat down together and ate, ordering their meal from the very air and obtaining whatever they wanted to eat, laughing and having fun with the other low-level soldiers.

Liam was having a great time at the Munifex table and he was almost finished eating when a conch shell blew in the night. Immediately, every demigod immediately stopped eating and stood up. They silently left their plates where they were and headed towards the amphitheatre.

"What's going on?" asked Liam.

"We're being summoned to the amphitheatre for an announcement, something must be going on. Go, move! ," said Maria, "and be quiet!"

They made their way to the large amphitheatre and sat on one of the stands closest to the ground. After a few seconds Liam saw Jamie coming over and she sat next to him, on his other side. He hadn't seen her during dinner, as she'd been sitting at another table in the Munifex section, but she didn't look too happy.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Percy hasn't showed up," she said. "He hasn't been seen since that whole thing at the praetorium. I'm worried."

Liam was about to answer when Dakota walked into the amphitheatre, with Percy and Reyna in tow. The second she took the stage, the whole room became quiet as death, waiting for their leader to speak and reveal what had been going on that day, what news there were and what could be important enough to interrupt dinner.

Reviews would be great. By the way I think the title "music master" kinda sucks but I'm really out of creativity. So if any of you come up with a better name for the concept let me know and I'll change it for the rest of the story.

Also, I'm not really sure if Orpheus was a son of Apollo. I haven't found out who was actually his godly parent, so just go along with me, I'm stretching the myth a bit. Thanks.

See ya. WPR.

Review !