~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A.N. I have been and will be busy this week and most of next week so I'll post when I can.
Also I'll doing a lot of time skips till the escape.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We separated and went to do our training. I was now sitting on the black sand on the right, Hestia doing her thing on the left. While sitting in a lotus position, I'm simply circulating my death divinity, while meditating. More like brainstorming, thinking of different ways I could use this divinity. I never really thought too much about it, all I really practiced for at first was to control flames as I thought it would be needed for survival and light. I don't think I'll be able to get anything like death embodiment without making my death divinity a central divinity, I won't be doing that as I have plans for that last slot, but that still leaves me plenty of possibilities.
For example, Phobikinesis: with this you could control and get divine authority over the power of fear, like the original Hades, most likely because most beings fear death. Maybe minor Cryokinesis: you could generate an aura of intense cold and Dark Infernal Pyrokinesis: absolute control over black hellfire, which is considerably more destructive than normal flames, as it turns whatever it touches into liquid. Death Curses: able to place curses on the living. While he was unable to kill people before the Fates decreed its time, he could prevent a person's soul from ever leaving their body, as he did with the Oracle of Delphi. This will mean that a person's body will eventually turn to dust with age, while their soul will be lost forever. With my control over the fates I could straight up kill someone or do things like OG Hades.Death Sense/Life sense: As the God of the Dead, Hades could sense when a person is dying, when their soul is being judged in the Underworld and can sense life auras to help him determine how much longer someone has left to live. And of course necromancy were all skills and abilities the OG Hades had so I should at least be able to get those and maybe more, especially once connecting to the underworld.
I can train and practice all the abilities except a few like life/death sense because I don't have my divinity high enough to even attempt it on Hestia yet. So I stick with all the ones I can practice on my own, while occasionally giving Hestia a Hand or word of advice on her training.
[5 years Later]
After another training session me and Hestia returned to the cave. While sitting across from me, each with our backs to the wall, Hestia says in a dejected tone.
"Hades, I'm really bored, and I'm sick of training. It's not like I'm going to be all that useful with the few meager skills I have managed to obtain. I mean I only have 4 abilities and only my Pyrokinesis can be used in combat. The others, while I do like them, I can't help but feel a little dissatisfied with it. Especially compared to your progress, brother."
"Hestia the skills you have could be quite useful now and even more so if you get your divinities to a high enough level. With your Teleportation we could travel much faster than if I were to try to make a portal, the only downside is you can only teleport from your hearth to hearth."
About 3 years ago when Hestia finally decided to try teleportation. I helped her build 3 hearths. One is up against the back wall of our cave, with the other 2 on each end of the beach. With those built she was able to teleport but she can't bring me with her freely though either. So we still have yet to learn all the limits and I don't remember too much about her skills either. As for me, I was able to obtain plenty of different skills but I wouldn't say I mastered any yet, but I'm confident in using them all. It got to the point where I asked Oracle if she could organize them all for me on a page like my status screen, thankfully she agreed.
"That may be true, but that's most likely only because you still haven't gone back to training that yet. You've been focusing on your death divinity for a little over 4 years before you finally switched to something else."
Well… that's actually not true. I only spent 2 years working with my death divinity, the last 2 plus years I was working on my devourer divinity. I had to do a lot of its training in secret but it was worth it.
"There was a lot there to understand. My Comfort divinity, the one I'm currently training, should be a lot easier because I don't think I'll try too much with it honestly. To me it's just a downgrade of my ease divinity and even lower than your other skill, Serenity Inducement. After Comfort, I'll dive into my space/time divinity. It should be our best and probably only hope of getting out of here, so I'll be spending the most time on that most likely, hopefully after getting most of my divinities to the next level we can escape. During my training of space/time I'll need to completely focus on that divinity for some time, so at that time your Serenity Inducement and food generation abilities will be beneficial to your lasting comfort."
Near the end I could tell that Hestia was very uncomfortable and hesitant about me pulling my divinities away from her, it kinda makes sense. After 5 years of it the idea of that comfort being removed and also the need to eat again will make anyone a little hesitant, at least that's what I believe, because I know I would be super fucked without it.
"Brother, are you sure? I understand that you'll need to focus but could you not do this the same pace you trained your other divinities. I know it is very selfish of me to ask you to prolong our stay here, but I don't think I'll be able to last very long without the assistance of your divinities. … I never said it before but even when you would mostly pull away your divinities so I could train my Serenity Inducement, I would feel the pain of this place even when covering myself. Not nearly as bad as before but still enough for it to seem like slow torture. Maybe if given more time to train it, I could get it to a manageable level as there was slight progress already. How long do you think I'll have till you begin your space/time training?"
I acted shocked. I knew she was feeling pain during our training sessions, as I can sense the comfort levels of people, she was clearly uncomfortable and in pain. I only put a barrier around her. She would usually be too focused on herself to notice. This was to protect her from the full effect of the environment but to also give her some motivation, she would know that she needs to train more to even be able to protect herself let alone anyone else. Mean and cold? Kinda, but to be fair it's training, no pain no gain. Even I'll have to risk some pain when I start training my space/time divinity.
I stand up and go sit next to her. While hugging her I say softly,
"I apologize and I'll give you as much time as you need. I can do minor training until you are ready. It will probably take me a year max to advance in my comfort divinity. During this time we could train together as they are so similar. Then I'll just work on small things until you are ready. Maybe I could even use this time to work on some combat exercises, as we both know there will be war when we escape, but for now we should just rest. Tomorrow you can not train and just relax or observe me."
"Ok brother, rest well."
And with that she laid next to me, using her arms as a pillow.
"Same to you, Hestia."
After also laying down I checked my status.
[Hestia's skills so far:
Home Teleportation: Hestia has the power to teleport people back to their own home. She teleported Percy and Nico back to Percy's home.
Serenity Inducement: Hestia can induce potent feelings of tranquility in others, enabling her to keep everyone who surrounded her at total ease. She inherited this ability from her mother.
Serenity Inducement: Hestia can induce potent feelings of tranquility in others and herself to an extent, enabling her to keep everyone who surrounded her at total ease. She inherited this ability from her mother.
Food Generation: Hestia can generate or conjure delicious food, manifesting them anywhere she desired. Percy described the taste of her food as "the kind of home-cooked meal people are supposed to have but never do".
Pyrokinesis: As the Goddess of the Hearth, Hestia has divine authority and absolute control over fire. The fire that she tends to seems to glow "more richly red than a normal fire".]