Snippet #2196617

"Oh, hello Ishmael." Sage said with a smile as the antisocial member of the hephaestus cabin walked up to them and immediately began greeting Lucas in his own, quite special way. Of course, this involved various levels of insults and the mention of the minor matter of there being a bet on whether or not Lucas would come out of his coma... Which Sage had, regrettably been in on (and had won). "Have you started on that project for me?" Of course, as soon as that question was asked, Lucas started his questioning again. "Yes, I did mention an arena, but it's hardly on the same level as a roman Coliseum... It's really little more than an area where we have our weapons practices. We typically only fight each other here, but every so often they let us go apply our skills against the monsters we stock in the forest on the edge of camp."

He took a quick breath then before continuing, growing rather tired of continuing with these explanations. However, before he could speak, a much older voice spoke out from a bit away from them. "Yes, he was talking about that Chiron." Sage turned quickly to see Ethan, a teenage boy roughly sixteen years old with white blond hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in his usual manner; work out pants, combat boots, and an orange camp shirt with the sleeves ripped off. In his right hand he held a long sword made of celestial bronze, though one side of it always seemed a bit discolored. "And yes, you are alive now because you managed to defeat the Minotaur. Quite the extraordinary piece of work there, by the way. Only a few campers have actually managed to kill a monster or two, but they typically come back in worse shape than you did. I think.." He said as he stepped closer to Sage and put his hand on the kid's head, ruffling his hair, "That this kid is one of the only ones to come back unscathed every time. And no, Chiron is not our camp director.. That job belongs to Mr. D. Chiron is more like our activities director and a trainer. He can train you in everything except for swordplay.. That's where I come in." He gave Lucas a warm, welcoming smile as he removed his hand from Sage's head and offered it to Lucas. "The name's Ethan, leader of Cabin 11, son of Hermes."

Sage looked up at Ethan with something close to admiration mixed with the embarassment brought on by his treatment as a child. "To answer your last question... Yes, the Underworld exists.. I'm living proof of this... My father is.. Well..." Sage sighed and held out his hand in front of him, palm up. His expression turned to one of concentration, and after a few moments a ball of black flames ignited a few inches over his hand and continued to burn. Sage held it up towards Lucas. "I'm a son of the Underworld, or, rather, its king."