Ataraxia [BTS au | Heroes of Olympus]

19

When had seen the Cyclopes he thought nothing could be more scarier than this. The talk about Giants had made him he realise he was wrong. The shift in the atmosphere after Namjoon finished talking, made him realise he was very much indeed wrong again.

He had wanted to stay awake to try to wrap his head around everything but the moment his head hit the pillow he was out cold.

He was up early in the morning. Jin and Taehyung were asleep handing over the night watch duty to Yoongi and Hosoek, sometime in the middle of night.

Jungkook and Namjoon too came into the lounge after walking up still yawning. They had breakfast, Namjoon telling them how he had Iris messaged Chiron to let him know about their leads. They were having a small talk as Yoongi and Hosoek came to join them on the table.

They heard Taehyung shouting panicked. "Oh my gods! Jin is not in his room. He's missing!"He instinctly tensed up ready to stand up when Taehyung yelled again this time in relief."Don't worry. He was in Namjoon's room." He turned to raise his eyebrows at Namjoon who started choking on his coffee, ears red.

He tried really hard to keep himself from laughing but didn't succeed. The others were chuckling too, some smirking.

Taehyung and Jin came in too after the laughter died off. They went over everything once more and Namjoon started coming up with a plan. It was a good plan. If things went as they expected.They were attacked by more harpies. Then by some man eating birds which Namjoon said was called Stymphalian Birds. The things kept coming back but they managed to handle them pretty easily.

The evening came and Jungkook asked Yoongi to land. Jungkook insisted on going alone , which he didn't like at all.

Night fell. The time was past midnight. Spending a lot of time on land was not easy. They had more monster attacks. He was on watch duty with Namjoon, him looking at the clock from time to time. Jungkook had asked them to come look for him if he haven't returned by 1 in the morning. They had 30 minutes till the clock struck 1:00. He was stomping back and forth tensely till Namjoon asked him to stop and calm down.

Jungkook finally came, 10 more minutes later. The left side of his t-shirt was burnt and in rags, the burnt skin under the remains looked ugly and red. He looked exhausted and almost dead.He had jumped forward helping the boy onto the ship and Jungkook almost fell uncoordinated. Namjoon left to get nectar as he helped Jungkook to sit on the deck.

"Oh my god! Jungkook! Hey, are you okay? Look at me. What happened?" He asked panicking.

"A basilisk. Caught me off guard when I was returning. It's fine. Just a little burn, it'll heal."

"It's not just a little burn. You look almost dead."

"That's the summoning up the dead. It was tiring." Jungkook mumbled almost already asleep.Namjoon then came, waking him up to give him the nectar. Jungkook drank it, his injuries healing already.

He noticed Jin and Hosoek had came out of their cabins, armed, ready for their turn of watching over. He made Jungkook get up to take him to his cabin. Namjoon helped him open the door as he took Jungkook inside helping him onto his bed. The boy was asleep before he could even say goodbye which made him smile. He pushed back the dark hair sticking to his forehead before going to his own cabin.

When he woke up the next day, Jungkook was still sleeping. He was almost finished with his breakfast surrounded by the others when Jungkook came in groggily, taking a seat next to him. Then stuffed some bread in his mouth before saying.

"I communed with the dead last night." He just tossed that line out there, like he was saying he got a text from a buddy. "I was able to learn more about what we'll face," Jungkook continued. "In ancient times, the House of Hades was a major site for Greek pilgrims. They would come to speak with the dead and honour their ancestors."

Hosoek frowned. "Sounds like Día de los Muertos. My grandmother took that stuff seriously."

Jungkook cleared his throat. "A lot of cultures have seasonal traditions to honour the dead, but the House of Hades was open year round. Pilgrims could actually speak to the ghosts. In Greek, the place was called the Necromanteion, the Oracle of Death. You'd work your way through different levels of tunnels, leaving offerings and drinking special potions –"

"Special potions," Taehyung grumbled.

"The pilgrims believed that each level of the temple brought you closer to the Underworld, until the dead would appear before you. If they were pleased with your offerings, they would answer your questions, maybe even tell you the future."

Yoongi tapped his mug of hot chocolate. "And if the spirits weren't pleased?"

"Some pilgrims found nothing," Jungkook said. "Some went insane or died after leaving the temple. Others lost their way in the tunnels and were never seen again."

"The point is," Jin said quickly, "Jungkook found some information that might help us."

"Yeah." Jungkook didn't sound very enthusiastic. "The ghost I spoke to last night ... he was a former priest of Hecate. In the first war with the giants, Hecate fought for the gods. She slew one of the giants – one who'd been designed as the anti-Hecate. A guy named Clytius."

"Dark dude," Yoongi guessed. "Wrapped in shadows."

He turned towards Yoongi, his eyes narrowing. "Yoongi, how did you know that?"

"Kind of had a dream."

No one looked surprised. Most demigods had vivid nightmares about what was going on in the world. He had learnt that already.

"So the giant is Clytius. I suppose he'll be waiting for us, guarding the Doors of Death." Namjoon munched on his pancakes. None of them looked happy about the new information.

"But there is some good news," Jungkook said. "The ghost I talked to explained how Hecate defeated Clytius in the first war. She used her torches to set his hair on fire. He burned to death. In other words, fire is his weakness."

Everybody looked at Yoongi.

"Oh," Yoongi said. "Okay."

Hosoek nodded encouragingly, like this was great news – like he expected Yoongi to walk up to a towering mass of darkness, shoot a few fireballs and solve all their problems. Yoongi didn't want to bring him down. He was pretty sure it would take more than a few matches to set that giant ablaze.

"It's a good lead," Namjoon insisted. "At least we know how to kill the giant."

Jimin sighed."We have to reach the House of Hades, battle our way through Gaia's forces –"

"Plus a bunch of ghosts," Jungkook added grimly. "The spirits in that temple may not be friendly."

"– and find the Doors of Death," He continued.