Percy Jackson, The Gamemaster

Westover Hall

~Percy's Pov~

I was awoken by the car bumping, Thalia and Annabeth were on either side of me. We were in my mom's car and headed towards a boarding school called Westover Hall.

I looked out the windows into the cold, snowy December night. The snow was flying past the car and making large snowbanks on the edge of the road. I caught my first glimpse of Westover Hall as the snow momentarily cleared.

It looked like a giant castle, with a few other different additions. The doors were at least 12 feet tall (3.6 Meters) and built with dark wood.

My mom pulled up and stopped right in front of the school, it looked quite intimidating up close. Like a looming presence hovering over my head, or a hellhound just waiting to strike from the shadows.

We got out as we grabbed our bags, my mom had made sure we had everything we needed.

"You sure you don't want me to be nearby in case things go wrong?" She asked me.

"We'll be fine mom, thanks again for the ride," I assured her as she looked at me skeptically.

She then drove off as we stood there in the snowstorm. It wasn't a very pleasant temperature in Maine during December. I stood there not feeling the cold as Thalia clutched her leather jacket closer to her and Annabeth shivered with her jacket on.

"Wow, your mom is great." Said Thalia in an attempt to start some small talk.

"Yeah, she is. What about your mom? You don't seem to talk about her much." I asked her.

"Keep it to yourself, Jackson." She said in a growl.

The air was beginning to smell like ozone so I took that as a note to shut up. I wasn't really looking forwards to getting a bolt of lightning to the chest. We then made our way into the castle-like school, which I was half expecting an archer to shoot down on us.

We got inside and stashed our bags behind a large pillar. However, before we could take another step a loud bang echoed through the halls as the door slammed behind us.

"Well, I guess we aren't leaving that way then." I stated while walking toward where I could hear loud music playing.

We walked down the halls toward the gymnasium. The news was that Grover had picked up a powerful demigod scent. He had also stated that there was a monster in the school, disguised as staff.

I noticed a pair of teachers heading towards us and Grover was right at the entrance to the gymnasium and spotted us. The teachers got to us first before Grover could get to us.

The one on the right had 2 different colored eyes, one was a pale blue and the other was brown. He was very tall and thin

"Mrs. Gottschalk, do you recognize these children?" The tall man asked her. I nearly laughed at the irony, which I don't think they would have taken well.

"No, I don't think I do Dr. Thorn." Mrs. Gottschalk said as they looked closely at us.

For a couple of seconds, I was thinking they were going to actually get us kicked out, which would completely fail the mission. However, before they could proceed with completely getting rid of us Thalia stepped forward and snapped her fingers. The loud snap echoed through the halls and everything except the music fell silent.

"We are regular students here and we are just late to the dance." She said confidently.

Mrs. Gottschalk's eyes glazed over for a split second while Dr. Thorn's eyes stayed the same, yet he seemed surprised by it. I was surprised by what she just did, I had guessed she had just manipulated the mist to make it seem like we were normal students.