ATLOP: Trial by Fire

We Find out the Truth, Sort of

Hello everyone, we've reached more fun stuff! This is the longest chapter in a while (despite the fact that I wrote it all in one day) and I even have some art to share! (I'll be sharing pictures of the trio next chapter).

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

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Imagine, for a moment, the largest field you've ever seen, or maybe a huge concert hall concert hall, or perhaps Time's Square.

Now, imagine a field, a million times that size. Imagine a field like those endless wheat fields of Kansas, or the cornfields of Indiana, imagine it sprawling and wide and disappearing beyond the horizon. Now imagine that it's pitch black out, the lights are out, the sun is set, and the moon and stars hidden behind clouds.

Now imagine whichever you choose completely packed, you can barely move. There are whispering masses of people just milling around in the shadows, doing nothing but waiting. Waiting for what? Who knows, certainly not them.

If you could imagine that, you had a pretty good idea what the Fields of Asphodel looked like.

The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. There was a warm, moist wind that blew like the breath of a swamp (and despite the smell I welcomed the warmth as the cold of the underworld sapped my energy). Black trees—Grover informed us they were poplars—grew in clumps here and there.

The only usable light came from the ghosts themselves, faint pale greyish white light that gave us just enough to see.

The cavern ceiling was so high and dark above us it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed.

I side-eyed them and hoped that they wouldn't fall on us. Dotting the grass were examples of the fallen stalactites that had impaled themselves in the black grass. I supposed the dead didn't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of booster rockets.

Annabeth, Grover, and I tried to blend into the crowd... as well as the living in colorful clothes could blend in with the dead in drab misty gray chitons. We did our best to keep an eye out for security ghouls.

I did see if there were any faces I recognized. Were any figures from my dreams here? Would I see Lara, Abel, Esme, or even Calisto if I searched hard enough? Were they in Elysium? The Fields of Punishment?

The dead were hard to look at though.

It wasn't even the mist, not like on land. There wasn't a buzzing messing with me. They simply... shimmered. They blurred and drifted and seemed confused, or maybe angry. They would come up to us and speak, but their voices were like twisting whispers and we couldn't understand.

Many left when they realized that.

My heart ached, they were all... they were all so sad. They seemed so alone.

My gaze slid over the dead, and I faltered for just a moment at the faint glitter of jewels in the corner of my eye.

My gaze locked onto a ghost. Gold eyes met mine, and then they were lost in the crowd.

I blinked, gold eyes, like Abel's, like Kronos-tito, like the boy at the Hotel.

I shook my head, hurrying forward as Annabeth called for me.

We continued to creep along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read: