Chapter Text
It was like always for Will, get up from doing paperwork check on patients and wake Nico up, he definitely didn’t add getting a prophetic dream from his father as a quest on the list. But here he is sitting in a dream for a quest.
“I have been informed that one of my children Guartena wise, has his art collection up. Although one artwork in particular a portrait worries me…it is his last work and his most active, what goes on in his fabricated world I cannot control or enter that’s why I am tasking you to do this, find the forgotten portrait and bring it back to camp to seal away before any mortals fall victim…”
The quest was simply, break into the art gallery and steal the painting called the forgotten portrait. Each quest now after some incidents had to have a minimum of two people, I tried asking Percy but before I could I was grabbed by Nico and promptly threatened to take him with me(threatened is an overstatement more like he just stared at me and told me he wouldn’t rest anymore, effective) so here we where at the gallery breaking an entry.
“Nico are you sure you don’t want me to do it?” I got good at lock picking after the numerous attempts at leaving me outside by my mom when I was a kid.
“No! I’m fine, j-just a little-“ I scooped him up in my arms and plopped him down next to me while I picked the lock, might I add getting it in 4 seconds.
“I-when we’re you gonna tell me you were a master lock picker?”
“I mean before this, never”
“Hmm…alright we’ll let’s get that painting and get out of here, this place doesn’t feel right.”
“Is the great ghost king scared?”
“I’m not scared just…worried.”
“I’ll protect you mon chéri.”
“Ok Aphrodite son.” The sarcasm was refreshing. Though I guess I could also feel the unnatural energy in this place…unsettling.
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“Garry~”
Huh? Who is that?
“Garry~ won’t you let them in? They wanna come play!” I snapped my eyes open looking around…right…I’m a portrait now after…Marry…but it’s alright Ib made it out, that’s all that matters.
I look around the area I was in, it looked like a secluded room in the fake gallery and a front most display in the real one. Then…I heard footsteps, not from the fabricated world but from outside…coming to my portrait…this…this is my chance to escape! To accomplish the promise I made! Well…let’s introduce the new players to this corrupted dry world?
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“Will! I think this is it!” I looked over at Nico staring at a portrait, the portrait was a person who looked dead, but he was still being held in place by thorny vines, roses covered the border and littered the vines, they were all dead except one rose, it was a full rose that was in the persons hand clutches so tight. Red was on the persons lips it seemed like if it wasn’t a painting it would be dripping…the person was undeniably beautiful, from the looks of them the person in the portrait was maybe a few years older than me and Nico, maybe 20-25? It was hard to tell if they were a girl or guy.
“!!” I felt a malicious presence, suddenly the lights flickered and turned off.
“Nico! Get away from that painting!”
“Huh?” As I grabbed Nico I looked up at the painting seeing the eyes open, the words “COME NICO.” written on the wall next to the painting in blue paint, arms reached out and we were both pulled into the painting.
“Wi-”
“Ill!”
‘Whos calling me?”
“WILL! Get up you stupid glowstick!”
“AGHR-Nico? Ahh! Where are we?”
“I don’t know…probrobly some kind of alternate world in the gallery…”
“Oh no…this is what I feared…”
“So are you gonna explain what this quest is about?”
“Well…apollo told me to steal the forgotten portrait cause it was painted by one of his children, Guartena weise, the painting was the last one he ever painted, Guartena was bullied cause of his want and love for art so he made a world all his own, the fabricated world, he was one of the few children of apollo that got his art side, if we take the forgotten portrait the labyrinth and in turn the fabricated world will wither and die…”
“I see…well here take this” Nico handed a yellow rose to Will, holding a black rose for himself. “I did some digging and these roses are connected to our lives, if it wilts we die so keep it safe.”
“Alright…we should get moving then, if my knowledge is right we need to find the portrait we came in by to get out…we need to find the forgotten portrait.”
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“Garry~whatcha thinkin? Are ya gonna take me with you?” The little unsettling doll asked while grabbing onto my shoulder.
“I’m just thinking about how much fun it will be when they start the challenges, I didn’t enjoy Marry or Guartenas little representation of the fabricated world so I made some tweeks, though…never mind…”
“Hehehe this is gonna be fun!” the doll screeched before jumping off my shoulder.
I wonder how long its been? Did Ib make it out alright? Shes not here which means she made it out, stupid question…I guess she got rid of Marry, one less thing to worry about, that explains why the gallery is under my control now…well it seems the two have found their roses…that rose…yellow…its real though…and a black rose? That’s unique, however a bit grim…I only meant to pull in one of the two…I feel bad about this..but its the only way…even if it's just a sliver of hope that Ib could remember me or something someone could remember me…I don’t even know how long it's been…how many years has it been?does time work differently here? All things I could answer once I escape this Tartarus hole…to think I’d have to deal with something like this again…man…well…haha…Thanatos isn’t getting my soul anytime soon…I have to be quick
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“Will are you sure you know where your going?”
“I-I don’t know…Argh!” I yelled when something dropped infront of me. Nico had spotted a rose garden maze in the distance aswell as just a very long dark hallway, I know Nico and shadows for long periods of time don’t mix so we took the rose garden route.
“Hehehe I’m so hungry won’t you let me sniff you flower? Hehehe and I’ll let you through”
“Agh-weird-wait Nico what are you doing?!”
“Giving him my rose? Its not like you have to worry, death hasn’t caused me any problem before a stupid door with a mouth won’t either”
“Ah gods there you go with your stupid hero talk again, can’t you treasure your life a little more? And we don’t know how this world works, Tartarus! Even Apollo couldn’t do anything! So just think a little bit before doing anything ok?”
“Fine…mom.”
“Haha very funny”
We continued moving a different way
“Wait nico over here! Its like a room in the maze theres some- eek!”
“Are you ok Will?”
“Ah-y-yeah um just got surprised, but theirs paintings on the wall over here, and…look! The bride has a bouquet!,” I pointed to the picture of a crying bride, each side of the room had a shadowy hand.
“Excuse me ma’am?” I asked the bride, “could we have your bouquet?”
The woman looked at me then at Nico before shaking her head,
“Is there anything we could trade for it?”
The bride looked sadly at one of the hands, I put two and two together realizing those are her hands, and also realizing her hand doesn’t have a ring on it,
“Would you like me to find your wedding ring?”
The bride looked happily and nodded at me.
“Did you just talk to a painting?”
“Yeah..”
“And it talked back…”
“Well not talk more gestured”
“Doesn’t matter, thats awesome is that an Apollo thing?”
“No…all the artwork in this place is alive like the weird flower eating door. What matters now is us finding her ring and giving it back…I wonder where it could be-”
“Keeyah!!”
“Nico! Are you ok? What wrong?”
“Get off me!”
“What are you doing? I didn’t think the great ghost king would be scarred of toys” I look at the…unsettling blue doll, weird…Nico usually likes these things.
“You call this thing cute?”
“Yes? Whats wrong?” ok maybe I’ll just play a small trick…
“I-whatever, can you just help me get this thing off me?”
“Fine fine,”
I grabbed the little blue doll pulling it off Nicos back,
“Thank you,,,but you really think that thing is cute?”
I kinda wanted to play a prank on Nico since he usually likes these kinds of things, to be honest it felt weird and unsettling…
“Ugh…and I though I had a dark sense of taste…”
“What do you mean?” kinda confused Nico usually likes these things…
“You know what? Lets just go…”
“Alright, but if your hurt tell me ok? I think I can use my powers in here, I mean healing I haven’t tried sickness, anyways lets go-argh” as I was about to walk through the gate way to another room the doll jumped out of my hands,
“Ow…” did that thing bite me before jumping?
“Hey! Will?! Are you ok?”
“Ah-yeah, sorry hey! Look!” in the mess of stuffing was a ring!
“Nico! Look! A ring!”
“Don’t think about that right now, your rose is missing a petal, let me see that…” the downside of being a gifted healer and subsequent plague causer is that you can’t be healed with magic or gifts.
“Here take this…” Nico handed me a bandage from his jacket pocket, “it won’t fix it but at least It’ll stop the bleeding until it can heal…”
“Thanks, let me grab the ring, since I’m already hurt-”
“No! I-I-mean I don’t want you to get pricked by the ceramic again…”
“Alright…”
Nico looked through the as he put it “ceramic” (which really didn’t look like ceramic, more like fluff.)and grabbed the ring.
“Lets get this on her hand,” I placed the ring on the right shadowy hand, the bride in the picture smiled then out of the picture the flower bouquet dropped, I quickly grabbed the bouquet pulling nico back to the door.
“Hehehe do you have flowers for me too eat?” the creepy door said,
“Wouldn’t you want these instead?” I held up the bouquet to the door.
“Hohoho so many pretty flowers, mmm here here pass.” the wall opened up suddenly.