The Ambassador of Athena

Two hours later I was on my way to New York.
If you wonder why, well… it should be obvious: I’ll go down to the Underworld, rescue Johanna and come back. Simple Katabasis, the ancient heroes did it all the time and Percy was an expert in descending into the underworld. Katabasis was the opposite of Anabasis or dying, since Katabasis included not only the descending into the underworld but also the coming back, preferably alive. I couldn’t ask Percy personally since he would have stopped me, but the satyr, Grover, was with him, and he wouldn’t grow suspicious, at least I hoped he wouldn’t. I returned to the Amphitheatre where I found him sitting next to his wife Juniper, his daughter sleeping with her head in his lap. He was playing his reed pipes, a sad slow song I felt I knew, but I simply couldn’t remember the name of it.
I sat down next to them and started talking. I’ve been careful, talking about our own adventure, and then asking him about his own with Percy and Annabeth. Finally he told me what I had to know:
“We could have saved us a lot of trouble if we’d just used the entrance at Central Park, a short pipe tune and we’d been down in the underworld in no time.”
I looked surprised, and I didn’t even have to fake it.
“Seriously, there is an entrance in Central Park?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Jeah, it’s in the southern part of the Park, right north of the pond at a boulder.”
I stayed a little bit longer so it wouldn’t cause him to think about my motifs, but after a while I headed back to my house. I packed a backpack with everything I thought I would need in the underworld and sneaked over to the parking lot of the camp.
Don’t ask me how and why, but I’ve once learned how to short-circuit a car from a friend of mine. I got one of the camp-trucks running and before anyone noticed I was off to New York.

I arrived in Manhattan via Queensborough Bridge and found an empty parking lot close to the park. It must have been around 3 in the morning when I finally found the right boulder. I was the last one in the park, so I took my IPod out of my backpack and plugged in my speakers. I prayed to every god I could remember that this would work out the way I wanted it and hit the play button.
‘Highway to Hell’ blasted from the speakers, a song almost made for situations like this. I already thought it hasn’t worked when the stone rumbled and a crack appeared, wide enough to let me pass. I took a last deep breath and stepped into the darkness of the staircase to the Underworld.

I had no idea how long it took me to climb down those stairs, but it seemed forever. It was pitch-black, but after a while a faint glow lit the staircase. I got out of the cave at the bottom of a cliff. To my right a river roared off in a cascade of rapids, probably the Styx. To my right a huge, black wall in the distance. This must be Erebos, the wall of the Underworld, built to prevent souls from escaping, though Grover speculated Hades got fed up with all the heroes knocking at his door so he built this wall. There was only one gate, and I had no choice but to take this entrance.
But I also recognised something else: My jeans and T-shirt have disappeared. Instead I now wore a bronze muscle cuirass over a tunic, bronze vembraces and greaves and a heavy helmet. I looked like the archer from my burial shroud. And sandals weren’t that great when you walk over razor-sharp rocks. I never heard of the Underworld giving you an extreme makeover, but except that I missed my pants I was fine with it, at least it looked cool.
The gates were exactly like Percy has described them to me, with souls waiting in line to get into the underworld, the judgement pavilion glowing in a golden light and of course Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of Hades. I hoped that Percy was right about him and searched for something in my backpack. I finally found what I was looking for, a red rubber ball and a few packs of dog biscuits. Cerberus bared his fangs and growled, but I threw the ball at him.
The effect was as I expected. It snapped for the ball and the three heads started to fight over it. I threw the dog biscuits at him too and walked carefully around him.
It sounds easy, but I almost wet myself. Cerberus sounded not so bad when Percy described him, but I was terrified. Even though you could see through him his spit was as real as it could get. These stains would never get out of the armour.
I got over to the VIP-line, since there were no ghosts waiting to be admitted. Obviously not many good people or heroes died today. At the beginning of the line there was a sign:

VIPs Only!
You are admitted in the VIP-Line if you fit one or more of the following conditions:
·Great Warrior or died in Combat (NO warlords!)
·Great Intellectual
·Favoured by the Gods (WARNING: Gods will be contacted)
·Servant of the Gods
·Demigod on a quest (Note: Percy Jackson, don’t you dare)
If you are not a VIP and try to pass through this gate you will be killed immediately by guardians / if you are already dead sent directly to the fields of punishment.

Signed: Lord Hades

I fitted more or less three of the points I headed along till I reached a small house with a metal detector attached to it.
A bored looking guy with grey hair wearing a purple toga and wearing a laurel wreath sat behind the counter. A name sign on the desk read: ‘Today’s on duty: Emperor Claudius’
“Welcome to the underworld, the brightest place under earth.” He said in an annoyed voice. “Please prove your VIP-Status.”
I rolled up the sleeve of my tunic and showed him the Mark of Athena
(BTW, this pun was intended. I’ve heard the stories about it.).
Claudius inspected it and sighed. “That should do it. So please, Ambassador, declare the purpose of your visit.”
“I am here to talk to Lord Hades in an official case.”
The former emperor filled out a blank on a sheet and continued:
“Do you have any weapons of mass-destruction, bottles that contain more than 100 ml or more than 250g of ambrosia with you?”
“Ehhh, no, well, only this bottle of water.”
“Please toss it in the bin provided. Fasten this pin somewhere on your clothes so it is visible.” He handed me a pin that showed the gates of Erebos with a sign underneath that read: “I visited the Underworld and survived”
I fastened it to my sleeve and Claudius hit a button. The gate behind the metal detector opened and I walked out on the fields of asphodel, the most boring place on, no, underneath earth.

Notes

So, here the next part of the story. I hope you like it, any feedback would be great ;)