Fated To Fall: PJO

Mastermind

Theo's first mistake was to feel optimistic about their chances in the Underworld now that they were past Cerberus.

Strike one.

Imagine the largest concert crowd you’ve ever seen, a football field packed with a million fans.

Now imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine the electricity has gone out, and there is no noise, no light, no beach ball bouncing around over the crowd. Something tragic has happened backstage.

Whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for a concert that will never start.

If you can picture that, you have a pretty good idea what the Fields of Asphodel looked like. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees— Grover said they were poplars—grew in clumps here and there.

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

Theo's face went pale as he tried not to imagine they’d fall on them at any moment, but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves
in the black grass.

Apparently the dead didn’t have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of booster rockets.

The four of them tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls.

Theo couldn’t help looking for familiar faces among the spirits of Asphodel, but the dead were hard to look at.

Their faces shimmered.

They all look slightly angry or confused. They would come up to them and speak, but their voices sound like chatter, like bats twittering.

Once they realized they couldn't understand them, they frowned and moved away.

The dead aren’t scary. They’re just sad.

The quartet crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the
main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read:

JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION
Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas.

Even from far away, Theo could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.

He could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to
move his boulder to the top. And he saw worse tortures, too—things he didn't want to describe.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much
better.

This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld.

Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions.

Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. Theo could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking.

Elysium.