One Month Later:
Let me tell you about Zagori, way up in Northwestern Greece.
Long story short?
It was the heart of the Pindus range, bordering Albania, and about what you'd expect if you read the label on the tin and called it a day - great big mountains rolling out in all directions, forests of pine and fir and who knows what else stretching out every which way you could look, and untamed wilderness out the wazoo.
Plenty of gorges, too - these narrow, older-than-dirt valleys with high walls and steep drops carved into the earth - but we'll get to that in a minute.
There were a few dozen small villages scattered across the place - the Zagorochoria - threaded together with old stone-paved paths, arched bridges, and a network of crisscrossing roads that brought the whole thing together with a bow on top.
Quiet place, quiet people, and even the wild predators around - the non-supernatural kind, at least - were more likely to roll their eyes at you and leave you alone than they were to try and take a bite.
Unless they were hungry.
Or cranky.
Or they thought you looked particularly juicy.
Then you were toast.
Still.
All in all? On the mortal end of things?
Zagori was neat.
Perfect scenery. Great place for tourists and nature enthusiasts.
Now, on my end of things?
The demigod side?
Hah.
You already know where this is going.
It started...
Well, things technically got going bright and early on the day of my first visit to the place, but the fun only really hit its peak a few hours down the line, when I found myself walking across the floor of one of those gorges I talked about before.
It was a deep, jagged wound of a ravine nestled between two sharp cliffs, the rock faces on either side of me rising so high up you couldn't even see the tops from where I was standing - not with ordinary senses, at least.
The sun was up there somewhere, but thick curtains of mist dragged across the sky, choking it out and flooding the gorge with this dim, cold half-light - and I do mean cold, with a feeling to it that went beyond just bad weather.
The early autumn breeze was one thing, but this wasn't that - it scraped against my skin with something two shades off intent, sharp and bone-seeping, and what little daylight made it through from above was dull and shimmering, wafting by in pale streaks that made the whole place feel three sizes too big and halfway underwater.
The kind of underwater that made you feel like something huge, nasty, and with way too many teeth for comfort was circling just out of sight - and getting closer with every pass, naturally.
I didn't stop walking - that would have been stupid.
Instead, I kept at it, and every step I took over damp earth or shifting gravel was muffled, the echoes distorted, quickly swallowed by the fog curling around my trainers right from the get-go. Even the clicking of the tiny pebbles or the occasional stone I kicked up came out wrong, like the walls and the swirling clouds of silver-white were chewing up the noise and spitting it back out in bits and pieces.
Or something else was.
Sounds about typical, doesn't it?
When the inevitable attack finally came, I was more than ready for it.
One second, there was nothing but a vague, ominous sense of danger and doom nesting at the back of my head - a classic, really - and the next, that instinct blared like an old-school air raid siren as something fast, strong and near-blindingly bloodthirsty blitzed out of the mists to my left and took a clawed swing at my head.
SHREEE - KRIT!
My shield caught the torturously loud blow as I crouched at the knees and deflected the taloned swipe off of it, before igniting Serpent's Downfall and swinging it out in a fiery arc that forced the thing coming at me to back off hard.
It shrieked in fury as it kicked back and retreated into the mist, but I got a good look at it all the same - and holy crap.
Pale, waxy skin with a sickly sheen to it. A hunched back. Too-long limbs tipped with bristling claws, and waves of endless hair that floated above its head, drifting and flowing from side to side.
Half emaciated frame, half-worn rags.
Sheer, wafting malice.
Whatever it was, it wouldn't be winning beauty contests any time soon.
"You know," I started quietly, exhaling lowly as the mist seemed to fall eerily silent and brace for impact - the calm before the storm. "If I had a nickel for every time I've been surrounded by mist and attacked by an ugly monster or two, I'd have three nickels. Which isn't anything to write home about, really, but it's weird it happened-"
Behind!
I pivoted on the spot and hurled Serpent's Downfall through the cold haze, letting it lance towards the latest homicidal nightmare in my life as it - she - came flying out at me with the intent to thoroughly eviscerate.
For a split second, I even thought I'd nailed her.
Then she... snapped.
Literally.
Her body and limbs bent in on themselves in mid-air, compressing and breaking around the incoming spear with a grisly orchestra's worth of sickening cracks and sounds too disgusting to keep track of, dodging certain death by the pale skin of her demonic teeth.
Not unscathed - she evaded the killing blow even as the fiery heat arcing off of Serpent's Downfall made her howl - but despite the smoking, acrid scent of burning flesh, when she landed three feet away, it only took her a blink to unfurl like a venus fly trap with a grudge to settle, and then she was hurling herself my way all over again.
I met her charge this time, leaping forward and snapping a hand out to recall my spear-
Ń̵̲̲͌ó̸͓̣̖̽.̵̮̯͓̮̀͑
-before hissing as something rejected the instinctive magic, stopping me from summoning it back.
Even through the instant of disorientation, I had a good feeling I knew what it was.
Who it was.
Not the monster in front of me, that's for sure, but that one had no problem capitalising on the opening and slamming her weight into me, driving us both out of the air and giving me a close-up glimpse of blank, inhuman orbs for eyes and a mouth full of gnarly fangs as it descended and tried to tear out my throat.
Nope.
"Get OFF!"
The word exploded out with physical force, the sound reverberating in a shockwave that blasted the two of us apart and across the gorge in opposite directions - just as planned.
Mostly.
The earth screeched under my armour as the raw power behind the blast sent me skidding across the valley floor, but the rush of it all had me leaping up and back on my feet in no time flat, and a good thing too - the murderous hag wasn't anywhere close to done.
The blood-curdling scream and the wild dash straight towards me was kind of a giveaway... though calling it a 'dash' didn't do the frenzied freakiness of it justice.
"Kyeeeerrrrk!"
She came at me with limbs flailing in all the wrong ways, sickle-like claws whipping out and teeth flashing - and not on two feet, either.
Instead, she skittered on all fours like a demented spider, ducking in and out of the mist as she tore through the space between us, before bursting out to my right this time and aiming low, trying to cleave my legs out from under me.
"Gah!"
I darted out of range and cocked back an arm, waiting for her to follow me up before bashing her across the face with the flat of my shield.
Bong.
I would have laughed, for all that she definitely felt it, it barely slowed her down an inch.
When I went in for a haymaker with my other fist, she actually caught the blow, her clawed grasp wrapping around my knuckles and digging into my skin.
Her head snapped back with a sharp click, and baleful pale eyes fixed me with an earlier, alien glare.
Quick reminder: despite the ragged look to her everything, she was still monstrously strong, and her grip was brutal.
I gritted my teeth and wasted no time swinging out with my shield again, but she somehow managed to snatch hold of that too, and for a beat, we were caught in this savage, no-holds-barred deadlock.
I'd have broken through in a second, of course, but she didn't give me the chance.
No, she pulled the same trick twice - folding her lower half in on itself, making me stumble an inch forward as the footing she was bracing us both against vanished, before kicking out at my chest with both deformed feet.
"Freaking-!"
Without the armour, the impact would have knocked the breath out of me.
Even with that extra protection, it launched me backwards, - for the second time in under a minute - sending me careening head-over-heels into the cliff wall behind me.
Thwoom!
Stone cracked and shattered around me, fractures shooting out across it like spiderwebs from the sheer collision, and I couldn't help but wheeze, deep and from the soul.
That one, I actually felt.
Jagged little shards rained down over me, and the taste of pulverised dust I took in with my next inhale was downright miserable - and we weren't done yet.
I tore out of the Winchester-shaped impression in the wall behind me just as the hag cleaved into it, throwing up more flying debris like it was going out of style.
Terrifying, but still a mistake - I was there before she could claw her way back out, driving my knee through her center mass and nearly flattening her against the shallow crater at full speed.
Karma, am I right?
The crater spiderwebbed deeper as I pressed down harder, and when she shrieked again, it came out garbled, her ribs bowing under my knee - at least at first. Soon enough, she was swinging for my head again, but I let the first swipe whistle over my head, knocked the second away with my shield, and snapped a hand out around her throat.
Immediately, she went berserk, thrashing with so much maddened rage that it felt like the effort alone would bring the entire trembling cliff down around us.
"Kyeeeerrrrk!"
Keeping hold of the thing was worse, because it dialled up the wrongness it gave off a thousand-fold and made every part of me that hated it on reflex roar that much louder, until the noise and the pressure thundering through my veins and in my ears were almost deafening.
So I did the practical thing: I grinned, teeth bared, and tightened my grip.
"What? Not having fun anymore?"
I idly deflected another swipe, brutal enough that her own claws began to chip against the cyclops-forged metal.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you? Never dish out-"
I kicked off the cliff, dragging her up and out of the crater with me in a rising arc-
"-What you can't handle!"
-and launched her down and away like an honest-to-Zeus skipping stone.
By the time I'd landed, she'd already gone bouncing off into the mist.
"He pitches,' I grinned some more, getting ready for the grand finale. "He strikes, and the crowd goes wild!"
And you know what?
A crowd did go wild - just not the kind anyone sane would have ever wanted.
In hindsight, I might have even been tempting fate a little there, but them's the breaks.
KRRA-RUMM
It started with a rumble - This deep, shifting vibration that shook the gorge underneath me and wiped the smile right off my face.
Then I heard the hag wail out in the distance, the damned noise ripping out like a siren call.
Exactly like one, even.
Dark, razor-sharp, and nasty to the point where I could feel it settle down on me and everything else around like a malevolent, smothering blanket - and if I could say that with a straight face, you know it was really, really bad.
Then the valley floor started cracking open with feeling, my eyes went wide, and rotting, undead limbs began to reach out into the world like a single, grasping tide.
After that, 'bad' got left in the dust.
Next stop: 'Zombie Apocalypse' - and I'm not kidding.
"Oh, come on."
They pulled themselves out of the dirt in waves, some of them human, others animal-like, and plenty more downright chimeric, all skeletal in some form or another, or passing by with rotting scraps of mottled flesh and empty pits for eyes.
The worst of them were 'fresher' - bloated and swollen in shades of blue and stomach-turning purple, with living maggots writhing under half-way hollow skin and earthworms pouring off of them in droves.
One was humanoid from the waist, but goat from there on up, like some kind of deranged play on a satyr, and its unhinged jaw was full of twisting, pulsing growths I didn't even know where to begin describing.
Crime against nature didn't cover it, or any of the rest of them.
Vrykolakas.
The more 'recent', catch-all term for Greek undead.
Right about then, though, I didn't care what they were called.
The chorus of their creaking bones and wet, thudding footfalls alone was living rent-free in my head for the next year - and that was before the hag's wail sounded out again, and the entire hoard seemed to snap its collective attention onto me.
Because of course it did.
The overpowering scent of mutated roadkill was just a plus.
Also-
"Nope! No sir!" My hands were up, palms-out and aimed at the ready before the first abomination took a single step my way. "Hard pass!"
Sunlight bloomed, and the mist hissed and recoiled with something almost hand-in-hand with terror.
The revenants were next in line, stumbling and breaking out of their dead-sprints - hah - as the radiance drove them back.
Behind all the rest, I could even see the hag herself, desperately clambering onto a boulder above the hoard and flinching as the light grew brighter and brighter with every passing second.
"Kyeeeerrrrk!"
She managed to fix me with this look - soulless and utterly hateful, the kind you aim at someone you know is about to completely ruin your day - and I shot her one last smirk and a cheery little wave to boot.
Then I spoke.
"Hail, Great Alexikakos!"
Apollon, in his aspect as the Averter of Evil.
"Sunder the Dark, and Banish The Rot That Dwells Within!"
...
A beat.
Then Warmth
It coursed through my chest and across my body, fierce like fire and spice all at once, and the light I was putting out took on a heavier, weightier focus right as I took a deep, deep breath.
...
Then I exhaled, just as quickly, and the sun exploded out of me at full force.
Everything happened all at once, after that.
The gorge lit up under the glow of a second dawn, courtesy of yours truly.
The mist was blasted apart into loose waves of silver and gold, swirling and shrinking this way and that before melting into nothingness. The shadows vanished entirely, and the vrykolakas went with them, reduced to scattering ash the instant the light slammed into them.
No muss, no fuss, and not even the slightest hint of resistance - conceptual brilliance unmaking that which was geared against it as easy as breathing.
Even the jagged cliff tops seemed to shimmer and glow, painted in shining gold for as far as the eye could see, and best of all?
The hag barely lasted a second longer - this one moment of enraged flailing - before abruptly catching fire and going up in a blazing pillar of screaming flames.
"Kyeer-!"
She tried to get at me one last time, leaping off the boulder with her burning limbs thrown out wide, but she didn't even make it halfway over before crumbling into ash mid-air.
All that was left of that suicidal last rush was this sad, pitiful rain of crumbling dust, pooling onto the dirt and drifting away in the breeze.
Completely done for.
...
Quick, brutal, and anti-climactic as all heck, so... pretty much gold-tier, by half-blood standards.
I thought about that for a bit, before nodding in satisfaction.
Good.
The last of the mist was fading, and the sun - the real one this time - was shining down here again. The air was warming quickly, and the general feeling of unnatural cold and bad juju was gone with the wind.
In a little while, it'd be like it never happened at all.
That was one thing done for the day.
Now then...
Time to get a certain goddess to fork over my spear.
…
A Few Minutes Later:
She was already waiting for me by the time I flew out of the gorge and across the mountain range where we were due to meet up.
"Mission accomplished," I said, dropping out of the air and straight onto this large rocky slab of an outcrop she was sitting on and crossing my legs for good measure - then I paused. "That is the end of it, right?"
My aunt Artemis - leather jacket, white-blonde hair, and silvery eyes and all - hummed, but she didn't answer at first.
Instead, her hand flashed with a hint of magic, and a fruit materialised in her grip.
A fig.
Except, it was the best-looking fig I've ever seen - velvety purple-green, fuller with a certain shine to it, and with a curling, vine-like stem that gave it points for style.
Artemis wordlessly twisted off that stem, and handed the rest of the fruit over in the same easy motion.
"Eat."
"...Thanks?"
I took it - it's not like I had a reason not to, and I liked figs just fine.
That said...
One of our old neighbors back in Maple was a farmer who owned some land just outside town, and every summer he and his wife would send out little fruit baskets with neat ribbons tied around the handles.
The figs there were always good - Katie and Alex went wild for the strawberries - but this one alone blew'em all out right out the water.
"Woah."
Biting into it was like swallowing a mouthful of jam and sparks.
Sweet, soft, and warm in a way that had me deflating like a balloon and sitting up all at the same time.
It just worked.
'"This is-?"
"A delight, isn't it? Grown in one of Demeter's personal gardens."
I... didn't take a second bite.
Not just yet.
"Demeter as in-"
"Yes."
"...Right."
Another Olympian.
That's a thing.
"And I can just eat this, no questions asked?"
I mean, I doubt she would have given it to me if it were a big deal, but caution was always a good knee-jerk reaction to have with any of the Great Twelve, and the Verdant One's personal punishments for those who crossed her could get downright horrifying.
Just ask that one moron who tried to cut down her sacred grove and got cursed with endless hunger for his troubles.
Oh wait. You can't.
He ate himself to death.
"It is ultimately a fruit, one I gave to you, and so the point is moot." Artemis shook her head. "Even if you'd taken it for yourself, so long as the proper respect was shown, Demeter would have cared little and less. You are of Olympian stock, and the bounty of a good harvest shared is a gift that returns to the earth in due time."
She gestured, and an entire bowl of them materialised between us.
Just to prove the point, I guess.
"That said," I took another bite, and she continued without missing a beat. "Past the bare minimum or circumstances of urgent need, avoid sharing any such goods with ordinary mortals."
"They're dangerous?"
"They are... unlikely to harm them, and are significantly beneficial more often than not, but under the occasional rare circumstances, divine power that promotes health and growth, no matter how diluted, can have... unexpected side effects."
That's... probably not something I wanted to ask about while I was still eating.
I could bring it up again later.
"Don't share the goods with mortals. Got it." I nodded, before stopping as another idea popped into my head. "Wait, so Sairaorg-"
She waved the concern off easily enough.
"He's as much an 'ordinary' mortal as you are. He'll be fine."
Good to know.
He was out there too, somewhere across Zagori, running his own little side-quest with Courage for company, and Chiron for supervision.
And judgment.
Lots and lots of judgment.
"Now then." My goddess of an aunt's silver eyes focused on me, a little more serious this time. "Your battle - what have we learned?"
That the next time you offer to take us out 'hunting' and Chiron happily agrees, I should really ask for more details before saying yes?
I almost said it too, but I like to think I'm getting better at not putting my foot in my mouth.
"That vampires suck?"
Or maybe not.
Also: Pun, absolutely intended.
Artemis even snorted.
"That was not a 'vampire,' and 'vampirism,' as a general term doesn't refer so much to an affliction or a single species as it does to an entire sub-type of dark creatures that have been cropping up in one form or another for longer than humanity as you know it has recorded its history. The Lamashtu of Mesopotamia is among the oldest still remembered to some degree, and there have been countless others across the world - some descended from one another, others created through any number of other circumstances, and all but a measly few have consistently been a plaguing, parasitic menace."
She huffed again and shook her head as I stared.
"Consuming lifeblood isn't novel or unique - it's a trend, a miserable one, and has been for quite some time."
Huh.
I took that in slowly, nodding along before asking the obvious question.
"So if that wasn't a 'vampire', then what-"
Her expression darkened.
Not sharply, not dramatically, but enough that I could tell she was displeased.
Not at me, though - small mercies there.
"That..." Even her voice had gone arctic. "...was a gello."
...
Yeah, I got nothing.
"A what?"
"A gello." She repeated, looking over in the direction of the gorge I'd left behind. "A loathsome spawn that begins its existence in a phantasmal state, tormenting the homes of its unsuspecting victims and causing infertility, miscarriage and the death of infants to begin with."
Yikes.
I almost winced - no wonder she sounded the way she did.
Considering her domains - patron of childbirth, protectress of women and children, and all that - that thing was a violation of everything she stood for.
"With enough time, a lesser gello can grow powerful enough to achieve partial incarnation by subsuming the body of a host - a young woman it has slaughtered or 'broken' to the same functional end - and after that, it will revel in all the carnage it can sow before it is driven away or put down like the abomination it is."
That's... wait.
I paled.
"The hosts can still be alive? The one I just dusted-"
"Long dead." She answered immediately, and I exhaled hard. "Buried in the region centuries ago by one hand or the other - mortal necromancers, perhaps - with the vrykolakas in the valley left behind as a security measure. One of many. The wretch seized control of them when a few poor fools stumbled upon its tomb and woke it from its slumber."
Ah.
"That... couldn't have ended well for them."
She smiled humourlessly.
"It decimated nearly half the remote town before a contingent of my hunters was summoned to seal it away."
...Well then.
I didn't bother asking how they would have known.
They were the hunters of Artemis, and magic was the ultimate Swiss Army Knife of convenience.
Enough said.
"I would have had them exorcise it immediately — it, and the second one they found, buried in another region entirely — but the threat was already imprisoned in that gorge, the damage already done, and, against all odds, the disgusting thing served a purpose: giving you a new measure of experience with the hidden dangers of this world. That sufficed."
That made sense, I guess.
Then I thought about that gello, with her blank eyes and maw full of rabid teeth, and I resisted the urge to shiver.
"So there are a lot of those things just... out there?" I gestured off across the mountain range. "In the wild?"
"They have no communities - that much is beyond them - and I would never permit their existence regardless-" I didn't doubt that, "-but no matter how thoroughly they seem to have been exterminated in any given era, a few will always crawl back into the world over the passing centuries. A final, lingering gift from their accursed progenitor."
"Progenitor?"
"The first Gello. The greatest of them."
The sheer disdain in that one word could have put hydra venom to shame.
"An unsightly thing that was unearthed in old Attica, thousands of years ago. It terrorised the mortal population therein until its hunger drew our attention - she grew stronger the more she fed, you see, and she developed a costly taste for those of distant divine descent. The legacies of demigods and favoured mortals, and the younger, the better."
"You killed it?"
She shook her head again.
"Apollon and I hunted her across all of Greece, but she was slippery, cowardly game, and managed to evade us longer than something of her ilk had any right to. Eventually, when there was nowhere left to run, it created the means by which its lesser spawn continue to exist to this day out of sheer spite, before casting itself at the mercy of Hekate, believing that the Night-Wanderer would spare a creature such as herself in exchange for eternal servitude."
"Which ended badly for her."
I hope.
This time, my aunt's smile was more subtle, and a lot more vindictive than it was before.
"It did indeed. Hekate did not merely rebuff her: she tore her apart, rending her essence in twain, and shaped from it her two servants - the Mormo and the Empousa. What was left of the Gello after that, she either sundered entirely or banished to the moon. Either way, there remains nothing of its original self in this world."
"..."
"..."
"...You're about to ask me about the moon, aren't you?"
Yep.
"The way you said that... you're not just talking about the Greek aspect of the moon you hold dominion of, are you?"
"No."
Short and to the point.
Still ridiculous, given what we were talking about now, but I could appreciate the consistancy if nothing else.
"You're the goddess of the moon - as in, the literal celestial object up in outer space?"
Artemis only shrugged.
Shrugged!
"In as much as any moon-deity can claim to be, though my influence there is greater than most - In theory. In practice, that situation is complicated and very, very delicate."
"... I'm still stuck on the moon bit."
Just... for real now?
Look, Chiron had hinted at something weird going on there after that one time when he found me skimming through some of his older astronomy manuals, but that was forever ago, and we've never talked about it like this.
"The moon has a supernatural foundation? Does that mean that all the gods in our pantheon with mythological ties to planets in the solar system actually have power over them? What about foreign gods?"
I was really working up a rant now.
"What about the Sun? Is Dad the god of-"
"No." She repeated, cutting that off right in its cradle. "The root of our power begins with this planet and ends within the bounds of the moon."
"Why? What makes the moon so special?"
"You tell me. Why do you think it differs from most any other heavenly body above?"
"How would I know - ow!"
She flicked my forehead.
"You are intelligent and you've been taught well. Think before you speak - the answer will be glaringly obvious when you reach for it."
I scowled and rubbed the stinging spot.
"What's that supposed to - oh."
"Indeed."
She was right.
The second I thought about it, it hit me - and it wasn't obscure magical babble or anything along those lines.
It was one of the first things I'd picked up in second-grade science class.
The moon orbits the Earth.
Revolves around it.
Mainly because of gravity, but if you look at it from the more mystical end of things...
One follows the other, and that has meaning.
"The moon is subordinate to the reality of Earth, isn't it?"
The magical ecosystem, supernatural order, unconscious will - whatever you want to call it.
The point still stood.
"You're thinking along the right lines," Artemis said, and though it was praise, she didn't agree. "But not quite. The moon, even at its calmest, is only a reflection of Earth's order - and even that reflection is thin. Past it lies danger. Complete and utter peril, beyond what sane minds can begin to imagine, and that ignorance is a mercy most will never realize they've been granted."
"...I'm not supposed to be hearing any of this, am I?"
"Not at all.'
Figures
"Not as you are now, at least."
I blinked as she leaned in and put her hand on my shoulder.
The grip was rough, but it was firm, and her voice was suddenly iron.
"This is the last we'll talk of it for now, but commit this warning to memory regardless."
Her eyes locked onto mine, sharp and unblinking, and suddenly -despite the fact that nothing about her appearance had shifted at all - the intensity of her presence magnified.
From goddess to goddess in an instant.
"The moon is beyond you. It is beyond even lesser gods, and though reaching it should be all but impossible for you in your current state, I learned long ago not to underestimate the… creative lunacy demigods can find themselves hurled into, willingly or otherwise."
"..."
If you find yourself on a path that even whispers of leading you there, you will not take a single step without my knowledge. And should you reach it in spite of all that… you call for me at once. No one else - not even your father."
"..."
"Do you understand?"
"...Loud and clear." I finally managed, my voice a little weak. I even went for a smile, but that flopped towards the end. "No creative lunacy here, Aunt A. Scout's honor. I'll let the old-school heroes keep their high scores there."
She blinked, before snorting again and leaning back.
As she did, that little extra oomph in the air faded away, and I could suddenly breathe easy again.
Nice.
That had been just this side of terrifying.
"Those 'old-school heroes', as you put it, boasted idiots of the highest order, - one reason for the consistent tragedies."
Another smile pulled at her lips, lighter and more fleeting.
"And while a touch of idiocy is a criterion you meet quite comfortably-"
My eye twitched.
"Hey!
"-I do have higher hopes for you than the relics of a bygone era." She reached over and poked me in the forehead, before ruffling my hair lightly and leaning away just as quickly. "Keep your head on straight, and you'll do fine."
The sincerity was quiet, like everything else about her, but entirely genuine - I could feel it.
"Oh."
I went to say something, but she wasn't finished.
"And to that end-"
Another flash of silver lanced out, and a weight settled on my lap.
I stared.
Just a little.
"-Your father already gave you the bow." She sounded just the teensiest bit disgruntled about it, or maybe that was just me. "You might as well have the full set."
It was a quiver.
Leather and wood with a polished glow, a reinforced mouth so the arrows inside couldn't spill out, and a sturdy-looking strap.
Magical, too, but subtle.
Nothing in-your-face special... but good.
Really good.
The arrows were still the bigger deal - power practically radiated off them. When I drew one out, it was off-white with a silver shine running up and down the shaft, the material smooth and almost glassy against my fingertips.
"Dragon bone," Artemis murmured. "From the beast you felled - Smaug, was it?"
I nodded silently, a little wide-eyed.
Can you blame me?
"They've been blessed," she continued, "and they are reusable, to an extent. But nothing lasts forever, so fire them sparingly when the need calls for it, and use your best judgment in between."
...Man.
First Dad, and now her too?
I have the weirdest family in the universe, bar none.
"...Thanks, Aunt Artemis." I slung the quiver over my shoulder and tried not to look too awkward doing it. "I won't disappoint you."
Fingers crossed.
"Just do your best, nephew. I'll accept nothing else."
"Right."
She sighed wryly- and the sound was almost fond, this time - and gave my hair one last ruffle before she rose to her feet and started brushing invisible dust off her cargo pants.
"Chiron and your friend will have finished up with the other gello by now. Wait for them here."
I got up too.
"You're leaving?"
"I have responsibilities to attend to. We'll meet again another time."
Obviously.
"I guess this is goodbye, then?"
"For now."
I nodded, accepting that at face value - then I paused.
"Wait, does that mean I can have my spear back now?"
It was her who'd taken it - another test, probably.
The question got me one last smirk thrown over her shoulder.
"It never left your reach."
And with a shower of dissolving light, she was gone.
I didn't even blink - I was used to it by now.
Never left my reach?
What was that-?
I blinked.
No.
No way-
But it was true.
I reached for the extended space inside my storage band, and there was Serpent's Downfall, hanging around like it'd never left.
It probably hadn't - she'd teleported it right back where it came from and I never even noticed.
I glared up at the sky on the double.
"Now that's just mean!"
The wind picked up around me for a second, and I swear I could hear a faint laugh on the breeze before it evened out again.
Awesome.
When she said I need practice without using 'advantageous tools', I thought she'd stop at forbidding Incinerate Anthem.
It made all kinds of sense, considering I was fighting a dark spirit and its undead lackeys - the Holy Cross was the mother of all overkill there.
Then again, considering the claws on that gello, maybe I should just be glad she didn't make me do without the armour.
...This time, at least.
With that cheery little thought in my head, I sat back around and started eating my way through the fruit bowl, waiting for Sai and Chiron to get back.
It didn't take too long - barely ten minutes later, and they appeared in a shimmer of displaced air.
Chiron, naturally, looked just fine.
Iconic tea mug and everything.
Sairaorg was standing on two feet just as well, but there was a nasty gash running down the side of his head where he must've gotten clipped, a little dirt here and there, and his shirt was a write-off.
"Had a good trip?"
He gave me a flat look.
"Vampires su-"
"Already beat you to that pun."
"Damn it!"
I laughed and tossed him a fig, and Chiron too when he raised a brow.
"Oho? A fine treat to start the day."
"Yep. Complete with a potential dose of existential horror."
Chiron didn't miss a beat.
"What kind? There are several dozen just off the top of my head."
"That tracks."
"We talked about the moon."
I was half-kidding, just throwing it out there like that, but for an instant, Chiron's face blanked out.
Like, scarily so.
Even Sai pulled back abruptly, and the shadows at his feet bubbled where Courage must have sensed the shift in his mood.
"Teach?"
"It's nothing."
The words said one thing, but his tone was more than a little distant for a beat.
Far, far away.
"Just an old memory."
Sai and I didn't buy that - not with that kind of reaction - and we exchanged a hesitant look.
"Should we ask?"
Do you want to talk about it?
"You can try, but you won't get an answer as of yet." Chiron shot back, quickly bouncing back from... whatever that was. "I trust Lady Artemis has given you due warning, Daniel?"
"Like you wouldn't believe."
"Good. Then we'll cover it in a touch more detail as your lessons progress, and nowhere else."
And that was that - end of discussion.
Neither of us argued the point.
After a year, give or take a couple months, we both knew full well when Chiron would and wouldn't budge.
The fact that he wouldn't was just as big a red flag as Artemis's warning, honestly, and worst comes to worst?
I could always ask Dad the next time we meet up.
"So now what?"
Chiron shrugged.
"I'm thinking lunch."
"... Fair enough."
And we went from there.
...
A day later:
Before it went up in smoke, I'd had a plan for the day.
Sairaorg wasn't going to be around - something about a visit to his mom's, and a meeting with a couple of devils we'd run into a while back on the very first visit to the estate.
That was a thing, with a whole lot of conversation to cover.
I'll get back to you on that one.
Other than that, I was planning to visit my aunt and uncle at their new place by the beach - and that was another twist that was... going pretty well, actually.
Much better than I think I could have hoped for, given everything.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't all sunshine and roses, but I think even Aunt Sarah was stunned at how well Uncle David was taking it all.
And the girls?
More complicated, but I was planning on taking'em out for the day and letting them run wild, just this once.
Maybe pick up a few things, too.
There's no point in having a ridiculous fortune if you can't use it a little, and what little kid hasn't dreamed of being able to clear out a shelf at Toys 'R' Us?
But nope.
Fate had other plans.
I was in my room getting changed when I felt it - a blur of magic just past the estate's ward line, loud and obvious.
Not harmful, though.
Not yet.
I teleported right out into the front courtyard, where Chiron was apparently already waiting.
"Are we expecting guests?"
"Not to my knowledge, no." The wily old centaur tilted his head my way in bemused curiosity. "Shall we go see who's at the door?"
And we did.
We walked right down the garden path, onto the foot trail, and made it right up to the gate past the wards before the 'guest' stepped into our line of sight.
"Greetings, honored Lord Chiron."
She had to be around my age, and as far as getups go, hers was out there.
A long, white and black, robe-like dress with blue accents around the fastener binding her cloak in place, and a tall-pointed witch's hat straight out of the movies.
A necklace that shone in the sunlight and was magical, no doubt about it, and long golden-blond hair that fell over her shoulders without a single bend or curl.
For a second, before she refocused on Chiron, her eyes flickered to me, blue on blue in differing shades, and I'll admit that I stared - only for a moment, but still.
I couldn't help it.
She was, hands down, the prettiest girl I've ever seen.
"My name is Lavinia Reni. Apprentice at Grauzauberer, and former resident of the land of Oz." She swallowed nervously, voice stalling on the last few words, and immediately bowed at the waist. "And I desperately need your help."
And that's how that got started.
...