Prytaneum
Lighting Candles
I walked into the Pantheon an hour later, rolling my shoulders as I did.
It seemed my Status hadn't improved much. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about or if it even mattered to me. The entire concept of a God's Grace was still weird to me and probably would be until I really experienced it for myself. I more or less understood the idea, of course, even if it still sounded like something out of a game, but…I don't know. What would it feel like? What would it do?
I was curious, I had to admit, but…well, I'd probably find out sooner or later. From what Hestia had told me, the general idea really did work a lot like a game. As such, it was hard to improve on the experience gained by fighting someone significantly weaker than myself. To get stronger, I'd need to fight stronger opponents. According to Hestia it was more complicated than that—something about how my experiences were literally experiences; histories written in my soul that the gods could somehow touch—but stuff like that was beyond me. Frankly, as long as it didn't stop me from advancing further into the Dungeon, I suppose it doesn't really matter one way or another. With my luck, I was bound to run into something willing and able to kill me if I just kept doing what I was doing.
In the meantime, I had stuff to do.
"Misha," I greeted, spotting the girl I'd spoken to the day before and approaching her counter. "Any luck finding me an advisor?"
"Ah, Percy," She said, looking up at me with a smile. "Actually, yes. I managed to get you the best advisor I know!"
"Yeah?" I asked, smiling in return. Her enthusiasm was infectious. "Glad to hear it. I hope they're not too mad about getting stuck with me."
"Not at all," Misha replied, shaking her head quickly. "I'm sure Eina's looking forward to helping you."
That won't last, I thought.
"Eina?" I asked aloud.
"That's her name, Eina Tulle—she's my best friend, has been since we were in school together. She's very kind and super smart. She's helped loads of adventurers since we joined the Guild; if you follow her advice, you'll do great!"
"Well, if there's anything I need, it's advice," I replied, following her as she circled around the desk and began leading me somewhere.
"About that armor we talked about yesterday," Misha continued. "Did you make a decision?"
"Apparently," I replied, patting the bag by my side. "Lady Hestia told me to use this."
"That's good," Misha said, seeming to relax a bit. "The Dungeon is a dangerous place—it's best to keep yourself as safe as possible."
I nodded silently as I spotted where we were going. There was a young woman manning another counter—brown hair, green eyes, and maybe five-five. More noticeably, she had pointed ears, if not to quite the extent of some I'd seen. That'd make her an elf, I guess?
"Misha," The woman—Eina—greeted before glancing towards me. "Is this him, then?"
"Yup," Misha chirped before glancing towards me with a smile. "Say hello to your new advisor."
"Hello, Ms. Tulle," I obeyed, holding out a hand for her to shake. "I'm Percy Jackson."
"Hello," She replied, shaking my hand after only a moment of hesitation. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Did you make a decision about—"
"The armor?" Misha piped up. "Yup!"
Eina glanced at her for a moment before nodding.
"That's good, then," She continued. "Then follow me, please. Misha, I'll handle things from here."
I knew a dismissal when I heard one and apparently so did Misha, because her shoulders sagged before she trudged—very slowly—back in the direction of her desk. I empathized; it didn't look particularly fun.
"Follow me, please," Eina said before leading me towards a doorway. On the other side was a hallway and she opened the first door on the right. She held it open to let me in and then shut it behind her. "Is this your first time back here?"
"Yes, ma'am," I replied, looking around absently. There was a small, plain looking table, along with several bags on the floor. Otherwise, the room was empty.
"These are meeting rooms," She told me. "A place for adventurers to speak to their advisors without being overheard. If you ever need to speak to me about something private, we can do so here."
"Cool," I said. "Where do we start?"
"Well to begin with, I'd like to make a request," Eina replied. "Would you be comfortable if we spoke casually to one another? Though our relationship as an advisor and an adventurer is a professional one, I would like for us to be friends and I want you to know I'll be doing everything I can to help you."
"Sounds good to me," I answered. "Should I just call you Eina, then?"
"Certainly," She allowed. "May I call you Percy?"
"Sure," I agreed.
"I'm glad to hear that," She said with a smile as she picked up a bag and held it out to me.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Your armor," She answered.
I opened the bag quickly, curious to see what was inside. In truth, the armor amounted to little more than a breastplate, but it was still something, and I strapped it on with practiced ease.
More interestingly were the other items in the bag—a backpack and a leg holster.
"What are these?" I asked.
"Just some things I found gathering dust in the storage room," She dismissed.
"Are you supposed to give these to me?" I wondered.
"Better they be of use to you than take up space," She said without really answering. "I heard from Misha that you're the start of a new Familia—I thought you could use the help."
I blinked at her and then smiled honestly.
"Thank you very much, Eina," I said. "I appreciate it. Really."
She returned my smiled and nodded.
"It's nothing," She brushed off. "Now, with that out of the way, let's cover the basics, shall we?"
She gestured towards the table and I quickly moved to take a seat while she picked up the other bag. Instead of holding it out to me, however, she simply held it above the table and let go.
The bag hit the table like it was full of bricks and my smile faded.
"Open it," Eina urged and I noticed that her smile hadn't changed. Somehow, it still filled me with dread, even as I opened the bag.
It was full of Books. There were five of them to be exact and they each deserved the capital letter—they were huge, the type of books that could double as murder weapons, each of them thick enough to be an encyclopedia.
No, I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut. They were encyclopedias.
Slowly, I looked back up at Eina.
"Memorize all of these by the end of the day," She said.
I licked my lips, opened my mouth, and utterly failed to say anything for a moment.
"Is there going to be a test?" I finally tried to joke, but my voice faded to nothing when I saw her pick up a stack of papers and drop them in front of me.
"Yes," She answered bluntly.
Well damn.
I took a deep breath, mustered my courage, opened the top encyclopedia to the first page—and pretty much gave in right then and there.
In my defense, I had an excuse. Several of them, in fact.
"That could be tough, Eina," I replied, my voice quieter this time. "Because I can't read."
That made her pause.
"You can't read?" She asked.
I nodded before bobbing my head to the side.
"Well, I can't read this language," I admitted. "Though I'm not all that great at reading my own, either. I'm dyslexic."
Eina gave me a stern look for a moment, as if wondering whether I was lying to try and get out of the required reading. Which I wasn't—but if it just so happened to do that as a side-effect, I'd have no complaints. I had ADHD and dyslexia; making me read encyclopedias should count as a cruel and unusual punishment.
As such, I looked Eina in the eye and tried to project all the sincerity I could muster, hoping it convinced her better than it had six of my principals.
After a long moment, she signed, pulling back a chair to take a seat across from me.
"Very well," She said. "What do you know about the Dungeon, then?"
I held back a sigh of relief.
"I know just about everything about the first five floors," I said quickly, relaxing. "I explored them all last night."
I knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. You know how when you say the wrong thing to a woman and then you're just too scared to even look at them, but you can feel them looking at you just from how their eyes are boring a hole in your face? It was like that—except there was nowhere else to look except at Eina and her look of scornful disapproval was…well, not quite on the level of Annabeth's, but managing to give me flashbacks to Clarisse.
"That's funny," She said, seemingly musing to herself. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're the first member of your Familia, are you not?"
"Uh," I said. "Yes?"
"And you became an adventurer yesterday, did you not?"
"Uh," I replied, refusing to look away. "Yes."
"And you had absolutely no armor until just now," She said. "The implication being that you went into the Dungeon, on your first day, without armor."
"Ah," I said. "Yes."
Eina broke eye contact first, shutting her eyes for a moment and looking down. The entire process must have just been to help her summon her rage, though, because when she looked back up, she looked pissed.
"Yes?" She asked. Except it sounded more like she was daring me to answer.
I was silent for a moment and then tried to change the subject.
"Speaking of armor," I began, reaching down to the bag at my side. "I should pay you back for that now, huh? Let me see, it was, uh…"
I trailed off and not just because of the heated glare Eina was sending my way. Rather, I'd remembered an embarrassing problem I'd been trying not to think about. But I hadn't been kidding when I said I wanted an advisor who could explain everything.
"Uh…can you show me how to count this out, Eina?" I asked, trying not to look her in the eye this time. "I'm not used to this currency, either. I was, um, going to give it all to Lady Hestia, but she insisted I use at least this much for myself, and I, uh…I didn't want to tell her I didn't even know how to use it."
Eina looked down at the bag I put on the table and closed her eyes. I wondered what she was thinking about me now.
"Where'd you get this much?" She asked finally.
"Like I said, I went to the Dungeon yesterday," I replied.
She just looked at me, closed her eyes again, and muttered what I assumed were swear words in elvish.