ATLOP: Trial by Fire

Annabeth Does Obedience School

So I delayed the update because someone asked for an update, and as I said previously, I will delay updates by a week when I get those requests.

It gets annoying real quick to get constant requests for updates and I will keep to what I said previously. You can tell me all you want about how excited you are for what happens next, but when I'm updating minimum once a week and commonly three times, it's extremely annoying to get requests for more updates.

Come yell at me on tumblr: Percabeth4Life
Come chat with me on discord: https://discord.gg/3tGNJhu

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Annabeth helped me put the veil over my hair again. She had me try first (I didn't do very well) and then fixed. it where I messed up. She also put on her veil.

"The sun is going to set soon," she said in explanation. "The solstice is tomorrow, and with the sun setting I need to veil."

She laid the veil (a pretty grey with red embroidery) on top of her head and pinned it down. Then she crossed the lengths on the sides at the base of her scalp, hiding all of her hair (which she'd pulled into a bun). She pinned that in place, leaving the end strands to drape over her shoulder like a tail.

Once that was done we headed back to the road.

We used the Lotus Card again to get on the bus and ended up riding it around aimlessly.

Grover got a few odd looks for his walking, having the gait of a goat didn't make it easy to hide, especially without his braces, but we managed.

None of us were quite sure what we were looking for, we hadn't any idea where the entrance to the underworld was.

It ended up being thirty minutes of following the bus route before I noticed the sensation of burning shadows.

I shot up as the bus slowed to a stop.

"Thank you," I called as I hurried off the bus.

Annabeth and Grover squawked and scrambled after me.

"What the Hades!? What's going on Percy?" Annabeth asked, hurrying to match my steps.

"I sense the burning shadows, like when my mom was taken," I said distractedly. "I think we're near the entrance to the underworld."

Annabeth stopped, "Burning shadows? What?"

I paused, suddenly realizing I'd never actually told them about the sensations I felt.

"Oh, uh, I can sorta... sense things? Like, with magic, or terrors, and like, Godly powers."

Annabeth's eye twitched.

"Have you been able to do this the whole time?" She hissed.

I hesitantly nodded.

"Why didn't you say anything!? Could you sense the Erinyes? Medusa? The Khimaira? Ares? The trap from Hephaestus?"

I shuffled, "Well, yes. But I didn't really understand most of it. It's... kinda new? And I'm not good at recognizing what sensations are bad and which are good or what they mean. I think the buzzing I feel is the mist, and the itchy feel is a curse, but Thalia's tree has an itch to it. And a lot of places have some sort of feel to them, but they don't cause us any trouble."

Annabeth frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Well, the camp itself is like... a lot of different things. It was really overwhelming and kind of uncomfortable. But none of it was dangerous to us. I wasn't sure if the stuff outside of the camp was just... a powerful feeling that maybe was cursed too? Or if it was actually a threat. I'm still not really able to tell, I just recognize the burning shadows."