A/N I generally hate putting Author Notes at the beginning of my stories, but I realize that I have not updated this story in 2 years. 2020 was a huge turning point in my life and things had been crazy. Deaths in the family, graduation, job promotions, etc. Honestly, I forgot about my fanfiction page for a while because I grew up. I wrote my first Percy Jackson story when I was 10. TEN! I uploaded to this site when I was 11, maybe just hitting twelve. I am now 23 years old, married, I'm in the final editing stages of my first OFFICIAL novel I am going to try to publish later this year, and I am currently in law school. I'd love to say my writing has improved, but who knows. As anyone who has read my earlier work knows, my stories are no longer exactly cannonical. Clearly some cannon things have happened (Nico and Will for example) that don't work for my older Percy Jackson stories. That being said, I remembered this story and thought I could give my loyal readers an update. I don't know if anyone will read this, but I decided to try to give this story a finish. It's been so long, I don't remember my original end game for this story, but I'm going to try something. The ending may be rushed, but I am providing an ending, nonetheless. If anyone has been patiently waiting for updates, here they come, and I appreciate you for sticking around. Please leave a review and let me know. This will be a short chapter, but I'm just trying to get the ball rolling again.

Chapter Twenty

The Game is Afoot

CARTER POV

I hadn't been myself recently, but you probably already knew that. The vision got progressively worse every day, but my research was providing a lot of insight. I hadn't really looked into other religions before, but I had to in order to figure out what was going on. Percy had mentioned a prophecy to me that spoke of seven half-bloods. I didn't know it Sadie and I counted, but including us, we could potentially have seven half-bloods in Percy, Annabeth, Alex, Magnus, and Sophia. I could only hope the Sophia didn't have to be a part of it.

ONE! ONE! ONE! ONE!

I fell back and clutched at my ears. The voices kept pestering me. They didn't want me to interfere at all. The Egyptians deities were deadest on assimilating every god into one, ultra-powerful being. I could give you a million reasons why that wouldn't work and a million more on why it's a bad idea. However, if you've ever met a god, most aren't exactly known for rationally thinking and not brashly running headfirst with the first idea that materializes in their brain.

I said a short spell and the voices died down. It was temporary relief. The spell would wear off the voices would return. As I studied, I had come across Norse Nids. Curses, if you're unfamiliar with the term. These were powerful and could allow for the user to inflict anything upon the recipient. You didn't like the casserole Deborah made? Place this Nid on her and now every time she tries to make a casserole, she catches a cold. Of course, that's a mild example. You could kill her if you wanted. There are caveats, though. The user does have to have extensive knowledge of the art of carving the symbols required for the curse and they would need to be a fairly powerful being. Unfortunately, both of those things are true about our enemies. I decided to take a short break from the scrolls and books and browse Google for some updated info.

A picture stood out to me, and I checked the time stamp. Quickly, I checked other photos with other time stamps. This was not good. I needed to talk to Percy or Annabeth immediately.

MAGNUS POV

"So, these Nidstangs are basically carvings. And if they carvings are completed, they will curse the object or person? And further, the only way to end the curse is to effectively destroy the object or person?" Annabeth asked, tucking her blond hair behind her ears.

I nodded, "Yeah, pretty much."

Annabeth rubbed her fingers through her daughter's lightly colored hair. Sophia was napping soundly on her mother's lap, soaking in every second she could. Annabeth was already running calculations through her mind, desperately trying to find a way to get around this complication. I glanced at Alex who seemed to be disassociated from the rest of us. Her eyes were glazed over. I nudged her and she snapped back, forcing a weak smile in my direction.

"Sorry, I'm just thinking," she said. I rubbed her back in a supporting manner.

"How do we find these Nidstangs?" Annabeth inquired further, reaching for her bag to pull out her laptop. She used to have this really cool one that had a triangle in the middle. I always thought it was a gaming laptop, but Annabeth informed me it was the Greek letter Delta and the PC had once belonged to Daedalus, an Ancient Greek inventor. She lost that one in Tartarus, though, and now she was stuck with an HP. That's cool, too, but I bet the value isn't nearly the same.

"Well, Ymir didn't exactly tell us. I think there's two more that are in progress."

Annabeth looked up from her research. "Two?"

I could tell she was onto something. "Yeah."

She clicked away on her computer. Sally Blofis spoke up.

"What about Mount Olympus? Could Ran and Surt be placing a curse on Olympus?"

Just then, a floating head popped up next to Annabeth. I flinched, staring in surprise.

"Annabeth," the man spoke. "Can you look at the news? Search Empire State Building."

Annabeth nodded and swiftly typed the query into her search engine. Headlines from 30 minutes ago popped up.

GOLD DRESS ALL OVER AGAIN?

SOME PEOPLE CLAIM THERE'S A CARVING ON THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

PHOTOSHOP? NORSE CRAVING APPEARS ON ESU PHOTOS

Oh, gods.

Everyone in the room made eye contact with each other before we stared back at the screen. On the side of the Empire State Building was the unmistakable image of a Nid.