Before leaving, the goddess gave Percy two pieces of advice, saying that the quest would be boring if she spelt everything out for him. She said that both would help the quest, but the first one "Trust in your peoples' tongue" sounded just like a fortune cookie, and the second was just that a high place would be a good start.
Percy now stood in the streets of London, having spent a majority of his birthday's night with his father, getting a celestial bronze sword from the god as a gift before he parted in a brilliant flash. Percy knew of a few high places in London, at first, he contemplated going to The Eye, but it wasn't going to be built for quite some time so, instead he decided that he would go to Big Ben, maybe the goddess of magic had planted a gift for him at the base of the ancient clock tower.
Eventually, as Percy walked, he began to think about his 'past-life', maybe if he'd been stronger he would still be at home, still be with Annabeth. He thought that, but he loved his family here in the London of the past, even if there were some obstacles, a 'man' like Smelly-Gabe was never needed. As he continued to get further and further lost in his thoughts, Percy eventually became hungry and turned into one of the buildings nearby, to ask for some directions.
He had found himself in a butcher's, one that was too quiet for the time of day, maybe the smell of wet dog was driving away customers. Percy began to understand why the shop was so empty when the Butcher himself came into sight. Holding a dark skinned Satyr boy in disco-funk attire that was a few years older than Percy now, was the Minotaur.
"I'd like a cut of lean beef sir." Percy said with a chuckle as he grabbed his sword, the weapon itself being very similar to the legendary blade he wielded before. At this, the minotaur dropped the Satyr boy and charged forward with a roar, tearing through the counter between the two in one go.
"I'm not even wearing red, Toro, Toro!" Percy said, holding his arm out like a cape, trying to dodge out of the way when the half-bull got close but failing, not having trained his new body up to the standard of his previous.
The half-man half-bull stood above Percy after knocking the greek to the ground, grabbing an arm-sized cleaver from his hip and slashing at the demigod, who managed to avoid the attack this time.
"Watch it there, beef-cake, precious cargo here." Percy motions to himself, swinging his blade at the minotaur and striking the monster true, closing his eyes in preparation for the great beast to explode into golden dust, but the shower of dust never comes, and a warm black liquid splatters onto the boy followed by a steady leakage, coming straight from the point Percy struck the minotaur.
"Ugh, maybe it's different now that I'm not a true demigod anymore." Percy says, a look of shock on his face as he tries to wipe himself clean of the monster's blood, walking over to the Satyr boy and tapping him on the face.
"Wakey Wakey, cans and cake-y." Percy says, waiting for a response before grabbing some water from his bag, pouring it onto Satyr's face and watching the goat-boy splutter awake.
"Goat meat doesn't taste that great I promise! I can show you a tofu recipe much better!" The Satyr boy flails about, not even fully opening his eyes as he shouts this, finally doing so when Percy grabs his arms to avoid being struck. "Hey! You aren't the minotaur?" The Satyr states, finally opening his eyes and looking Percy in the eyes.
"Well of course." The demigod chuckles, motioning to the monster's corpse. "I don't think Beef-head appreciates lean beef that much. I'm Percy, you are?" He holds his hand out to shake, helping the Satyr up as he does so.
"My name is Cecil dude, but you can call me Cee, say… are you a nature spirit of some sort, you smell like the salt of the seas sure, but I can smell a powerful forestry scent too." Cee says, taking a whiff of the air near Percy.
"My dad is the nymph of the Aegean Sea from what he tells me." Percy nods to Cee, trying to remember why he would smell like nature, but not sure. "But I don't think that does anything for the forest part, my mom is a mortal after all."
Cee nods for a second, grabbing a set of reed pipes hanging from his neck, playing a tune and watching vines come from the ground and bring the minotaur below. "Can't have anyone seeing that, I'm surprised you even took it on by yourself."
Percy steps over the rubble of the counter, watching on as he sees Cee use magic to remove the monster's corpse, wondering if the Wizards like his mom or uncle can do similar things with magic. "Hey, I'm going to Big Ben if you want to tag along." Percy extends an invite to the goat boy, a friend with skill always being valued.
"Well, I'm supposed to be doing something, but who knows, the thing I'm looking for could be near Big Ben, I found myself here after all! Besides, I need to see the sights of London." Cee says, getting up and following the Half-Nymph out of the butcher's.
The pair seemed to wander for a few hours, Percy's roguish countenance mixed with the two's age allowed for the pair to secure travel with a few punks of a similar age range, who helped Percy and Cee get halfway to Big Ben, as well as getting a bite to eat with the pair.
When Big Ben came into the pair's sight, it was surrounded by people, allowing the pair to blend in with their surroundings, none paid the questers any mind, aside from one woman in her late 40's who walked up to the pair. "Hey, where are you paren-" She began, but luckily for Percy and Cee, the woman was interrupted, when an elderly man in the crowd began to shout.
"There's a monster!"the shouting man pointed at a headless suit of armour atop of a black horse, the armour leaking a sickly green fire. At first, not many gave the man attention, not even batting an eye or looking in that direction, but the creature eventually charged forward, running the large spear it was wielding into the man who called it out, causing an outbreak of hysteria, most people running from the sight, screaming that the man had been shot.
A strange, faint, smell came to Percy as the man's blood spilled onto the ground, almost like the taste of Ambrosia, but Percy put that aside and prepared himself for a fight, taking his sword and aiming it at the rider. "It's a few months from Halloween! Where's the Pumpkin?" Percy shouts to the Horseman as it turns around and begins to charge at him and Cee.
Cee attacks before Percy can, playing a few notes on his Reed Pipes, vines coming up from the ground below the Horseman and its mount, trying to restrain the ghostly pair, but only slowing them down. When Cee tried to restrain the creatures, Percy got an idea, and did something he hadn't done before in this life, reaching for a tugging at his gut and mentally commanding the horse ahead of him. 'Stop.' He could feel the command, but not the sensation in his gut,, the horse and its rider continuing to charge forward, nearly trampling over the Half-Nymph.
Percy manages to avoid the charging horse, swinging at the Horseman as he does so, but the attack haplessly clangs against its armour. Trying and failing to issue a command to the turning horse a second time.
Cee tries his first attack a second time, having more success as he properly restrains the pair for a moment, Percy feels something as the vines wrap around the pair, a tugging at his gut oh so familiar to him, and so he pulls in response and in a moment Percy had never seen before, the vines begin to wilt as spikes made of ice and water impale the headless horseman and its mount, carving through the metal plate mail as if it were butter.
"Good going Perce! Or should I say Aqualad?" Cee says jokingly as he witnesses the final blow, accounting it to his Half-Nymph of a questing partner, who suddenly began to feel faint as he began to stumble and fell. "You alright Perce?" Cee asks, trying to catch Percy as he falls but dropping him.
"Damn Cee, I could've sworn I already said that I was precious cargo today, no need to be tossing me all over the place" Percy says with a smirk, staying in his place for a moment before pointing aa a pulsing from the now dead Horseman's torn armour. "What's going on over there? Do you think it's coming for round two, with a Pumpkin head this time?"
Cee doesn't get the chance to answer as a three legged raven bursts from the armour and flies over to Cee, landing on the Satyr boy's shoulder and beginning to caw into his ear, the boy nodding along as if he was understanding something from the goat boy.
"Hey Perce, this bird seems to know where we should go," Cee says to Percy, helping him up as he does so. "It's saying something about Mount Elbrus, and how it can lead us there"
Percy dusts himself off, looking at the base of the giant clocktower, trying to see if his assumptions were correct but sighing. "Sure, mountains are pretty high, so I can see how that works. Let's just not go on a wild goose… well more appropriately raven chase, eh?" Percy smirks at his own pun, waiting for the Cee… or well the bird, to start. "Wait, how far away is Mount Elbrus anyway?"
"Mount Elbrus is pretty far away from here, it's the highest mountain in Europe, and Russia. Do you have a passport, Perce?" Cee says, pulling an American passport from his pocket.
"Russia? You think we'll be able to get any sight seeing in?" Percy asks with a smile, but shaking his head when Cee asks for his passport. "Don't have one, wasn't planning on going anywhere this year."
The three legged raven takes off, not allowing the two to continue their conversation, Percy and Cee immediately moving to catch up and follow the bird.
The two go on, following the strange bird for a few hours and eventually coming to a stop when the bird stops in front of a pub named that Percy couldn't quite make the name of, cawing loudly before diving into Percy's bag.
"Well I think this is our stop Perce, The Leaky Cauldron, ever been here before?" The Satyr asks, watching as strange robed men exit and enter the pub at a rather slow pace. "Hey maybe we could get somewhere to stay, we definitely aren't getting to Mount Elbrus in one day after all."
"I've never been here, but I remember hearing about it every once and awhile from my mom and her family" Percy says, beginning to walk into the pub, turning to Cee as he does so. "I'd say not to worry about revealing yourself here, but the Wizards and Witches are racist" Percy shakes his head.
"Hello there, name's Tom, what can I do for you two?" The man at the bar, Tom says to the pair, a smile in his eyes shining in the otherly grim pub.
"Well Tom, I'm Percy and this is Cee, what do you have to eat? We've been following some bird here and honestly, I'm starving." Percy says with a grin as Tom gives him a weird look, but nonetheless points to a menu carved into wood hanging above his head.
"That's what we got, and are you two Hogwarts students? I take it neither of you have wands, so I can open the passage to Diagon Alley myself if that's what you need." Tom offers the boys, and Percy hears a caw from his bag as well as what he assumes to be affirmative rustling. "What was that?" The pub-owner asks, confused at the sound.
"Yes, I said yes, I just coughed when I did" Cee says, stifling out a fake cough, which fails to convince Tom, but the pub owner nonetheless gets up, wand in hand.
"Follow me" He says, leading the two out a backdoor and into a dead end.
"Now I don't know about Cee or yourself Tom, but I failed my classes on walking through brick walls." Percy says, looking for some sort of exit and getting a laugh out of the older wizard.
"I've heard plenty of things before, but not something like that, I like you Percy, good luck" Tom says, tapping a few bricks with his wand and stepping back as a vast majority of the bricks on the wall begin to reshuffle and spread apart revealing a passageway into a strange looking place.
"Woah." Cee said the sageness of his statement showed Satyr's true age. "I've seen some cool things, Perce, but this may take the cake." Cee is the first to step through, looking around at the large street of shops from London long ago in awe.
"See you later, you two, word of advice, start at Gringotts, Dumbledore has a little fund set up for Muggle-borns." Tom says as Percy walks through, and the bricks begin to close back up.
"See ya Tom, and thanks." Percy says to the barkeep just as the last brick finds its original place. "To Gringotts then, whatever that is." Percy turns to Cee, pointing at the bustling street. "But where is that? There are quite a few places here in Diagon Alley, and my mom never really took me here."
Cee shrugs, looking around. "No clue Perce, I've never even heard of the place, let's ask her." The Satyr boy points to a kindly red-headed woman with quite a few children surrounding her and the man standing next to her, Cee walks over to the woman with Percy to follow. "Excuse me miss, me and my friend here are looking for Gringotts."
"Oh it's just lovely you two happened to run into us then, we're heading that way ourselves, I'm Molly, this is my husband Arthur, our sons Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and our daughter Ginny." The newly met Molly says, pointing out each member of her family as she mentions their name. "Are you two shopping for Hogwarts as well? You look like you're in my Charlie's year, and you look like you'll be in your first year with the twins" She says to Cee first and then to Percy.
"Cee here goes to Ilvermony, and I'll probably go there too, as a first year," Percy says, pointing to Cee as he says that. "And hey, my name's Percy too! We have all of our money at Gringotts, so we came here for a few weeks as a holiday." Percy lies through his teeth with the limited knowledge he has and Molly seemingly believes it.
"Well that's a shame, nothing beats good ol' Hogwarts, but you do sound like you're from here." Molly points out to Percy, not waiting for an answer before continuing. "Anyway, follow us, loves." She motions to the two, leading them in the direction of a large marble building.
As the now much larger group sets off, a sea-blue owl swoops down and drops a letter into Percy's hands, catching the eye of the older Weasley trio, but they nonetheless remain quiet as Percy opens up the scroll, reading through the contents which are written in Ancient Greek.
'Dear Percy,
Now that you have stepped foot in the world of Mortal Wizards, I have left to you a gift
The goblin bank Gringotts originated in Greece, well a neighbour of Greece,
Some gods and their children would store things of value in the bank,
I was one of those gods, and stored great hordes of our drachmas and the wizard's 'Galleons'.
Who wants to name a coin after a ship anyway? Sorry son, I'm getting off topic.
As I was saying, I stored many things in that vault Perseus, as did my siblings.
Eventually, many thousands of years later, Gringotts found a new location in London,
and I took all the unattended vaults of the goblin bank as my own, moving them with the bank itself.
The contents of the vault are now yours, and the goblins are aware of that,
simply just ask for "Vault Olympia" and they will understand.
With Love,
Your Father.
P.S. It was me! I was the owl!
P.P.S. If a mortal ever asks about my side, say that you are a son of the Mediterranean Sea Nymph, I have started constructing a palace for you to reside at, as prince, if you so desire. Nothing you can do to stop it, I want you to have a good cover story, and a Palace.'
Percy finished reading the letter and then put it into his bag, you don't get letters from a god, delivered by a god all too often after all.
"Well Percy, we have a question for you" One of the twins, George, says, popping into Percy's view as he finishes the letter. "First off, what was that letter about?"
As George finished his half of the asking, Fred picked it back up. "And how do you feel about pranking? We need to find out which Percy is better after all." This itself garnered a few sighs from the Weasley family/
"It was a letter from my dad about his, well, my vault. Apparently it's been in the family for a very long time." As Percy says this, he realises that he might have a second vault, a Grindelwald vault, if Gringotts is safe enough for a god, it certainly is safe enough for some mortal wizards. "And pranks are amazing, I remember some friends of mine put centaur b- piss in a girl's shirt because she was being rude, never could quite get the smell out."
"Well that's good dear, just don't be too greedy or wasteful, it'd be a shame if you squander your family's finances by mistake, and don't let our hooligans get you in any trouble on your vacation." Molly smiles at Percy, tugging at Arthur's arm. "Isn't that right dear?"
"Oh yes, indeed, whatever Molly said" Arthur murmurs as the group finally closes in on Gringotts.
"Well I take it that we part here Percy, good luck with Ilvermony!" Molly says, waving at Percy as the group begins to split to what it was before Cee asked the Weasleys for help.
"If you ever want to get in contact and commit some international pranks, just send us an owl Percy, pleasure doing business with you, Yank." Fred says, hitting Percy playfully on the shoulder as he does so.
Percy, and by association Cee are the first to go up to the goblin tending the counter. "Hello sir, my name is Perseus Grindelwald and I'm looking to get into Vault Olympia." As Percy says his name, he bends forward some and speaks in a more hushed tone.
"We didn't expect you to come so soon after the transfer of ownership, Mister Perseus, but that doesn't change anything. Would you like to view both of your vaults today or just Vault Olympia? Is the group that you are with privy to the exclusive nature of your vault?" The goblin rattles off a few questions, giving Percy a better understanding just why this is amongst the safest place storage.
"Sure, both vaults would be fine and no they are not aware, but my friend here will be going to the vaults with me." Percy puts a hand on the Satyr next to him's shoulder, having a feeling that if he tried to correct the goblin on what exactly to call him, it wouldn't last very long.
"Good, good, I'm Griphook, and I'll be helping you with your vaults today, Mister Perseus. Now if you'll follow me." The new identified Griphook says, getting up and leading the duo to a rickety looking cart attached to seemingly less stable rails. "I advise you to hold on tightly Mister Perseus and friend, Vault Grindelwald is rather far down, and Vault Olympia is much further."
With that warning, but not giving much time to adhere to it, the group set off. At first the speed is manageable but it quickly picks up and Percy feels as if he was going at a speed he had dreamed before, eventually the cart comes to a screeching start at a vault identified by the number 913.
"I will open the vault for you Mister Perseus, I just advise that you take this moment as one just to admire, even if the sights will be better in Vault Olympia." Griphook says, the small goblin man walking over to the large vault doors and placing his hand atop a seal, which begins to slowly break and the doors eventually swing open.
"This Wizarding London stuff just keeps being spectacular… and woah" Cee says as he watches the vault open, jokingly shielding his eyes. "Damn Perce, you're a Wizard Nepo-baby, I never took you for that honestly. You should treat me to a meal here in wizard land." Cee continues to joke, amazed by the coinage/
Percy looks into the large vault and discovers that it is nearly decorated with huge piles of golden coins similar to drachma, which he assumed to be the wizarding Galleons, he supposedly had Galleons in the other vault, so he turned to leave, not wanting to waste the coinage here.
As Percy began to leave, he heard a cawing from his previously quiet bag and watched as that same three-legged raven flew free from the bag's confines, looking disoriented from the previous trip in the minecart. "I never took you for motion sickness, but hey, I'm not a bird, so what do I know?"
As Percy says those things, the bird seems to roll its eyes before diving into one of the piles of gold, remaining there for a minute before flying out from the pile with a copper coin turned nearly green with age, immediately going back to Percy's bag.
"Well I think we're done here, I'll take what I need from Vault Olympia." Percy says to Cee, walking over to Griphook, just repeating himself before walking over to the minecart and getting in, Cee following close behind.
"Of course Mister Perseus." The goblin says, placing his hand on the vault doors as a seal reveals itself, cementing the doors back into place, after doing so he walks back into the cart and moves the lever sitting next to it, further than one would normally think possible, the ground itself seemingly bending to accommodate. As soon as Griphook releases the lever, the cart bursts forward with insane speeds, going down further and further as slowly Percy stops seeing vault doors, and they continue to go down, minutes go by at breakneck speeds, but eventually Percy can see carvings into the walls depicting Greek tragedies and victories, getting more and more grand the further the group goes. When the cart finally reaches a stop, it rests in front of two nearly featureless marble slabs, a golden seal seemingly holding them together, seeping into the marble.
"Here we are Mister Perseus, just place your hand on the centre of the golden seal and the vault should open itself for you." Griphook says, stepping out of the cart and looking at the marble in some sort of awe, as if the goblin himself had never really seen the vault.
"Thank you Griphook," Percy smiles at the man, placing his hand on the seal as it slowly melts away, forming a strange golden glue-like substance on his hand. "Woah, that feels weird." He stretches his hand, watching the slabs spread apart slowly, as if repelling one another.
"Once you are done there Mister Perseus, place your hand where the seal was and the seal should return to the marble." Griphook states to Percy as the marble finally finishes in opening Vault Olympia.
"It's just like dad said, maybe a little more…" Percy says, looking at the near mountains of golden coins both Greek and Wizarding, shovelling a good few handfuls of each into his bag as he looks up, being able to see miles upward without end.
"Holy Hades Perce, that just makes the last vault look like squatters in comparison. Does your dad just happen to be the greatest pirate of all time or something? I can't see how else he would get all of this treasure, and even that! How the fuck did he get a pirate ship here?" Cee asks, pointing to what is indeed a pirate ship emerging from a mountain of coinage.
"You're right Cee, but honestly, I'm not going to ask him, he'd probably do something crazy like bring 15 more if I mentioned it to him." Percy sighs, shaking his head at the idea. "Who knows, maybe he's Captain Davvy Jones and that's his ghost ship." Percy jokes, beginning to walk out of the vault, but turning back to his friend. "Anything catch your beady little goat eyes? Besides my pirate ship of course." Cee shakes his head, walking back out with Percy.
"Nah man, it's hard to see in there with all of that gold, but I doubt your dad left anything in there that would catch my eye." Cee shrugs, not really minding the ordeal. "But it's good to know I have a rich friend Perce, just don't forget about me, how I knew you when you were poor." The goat boy nods to Griphook as he and Percy get back into the cart, and they begin the trip back up to the top of Gringotts.
A/N: I decided to have Percy visit Gringotts, and I couldn't find a better place to end the chapter but here. If you have any critiques feel free to shoot them at me.
Of Course I had to start the quest with the minotaur, and also Percy's powers have changed, and he hasn't used them much because he doesn't want to, bad memories and all.
