I woke up in an uncomfortable hospital bed with white drapes around it. A white bird that resembled a swan stood on a perch next to the bed looking at me intuitively. It wouldn't take it's eyes off of me.

When I was about to get out of the bed it squawked,

"Squawk!, stay in bed, doctors orders."
"And who's the doctor?" I asked.

"Squawk!, that is me"

"What are you some sort of swan parrot?" The bird cocked it's head to the side. If a bird could look offended this would be pretty close I thought.

"Squawk, I am the first of the Caladrius my name is Tony." Tony flew off and brought me back a cup of water. Tony cocked his head Expectantly so I took a sip. That seemed to satisfy him as he turned away and flew off.

"Tony," an old man called. "Is our new student awake yet?"

"Squawk, yes master Solomon."

"Great," Solomon said as he pulled back the curtains. "We can start the ceremony tonight." He was an old Asian man probably in his late sixties. He had a short trimmed beard with a Fu Manchu mustache and he was wearing a robe like Hugh Hefner. He had his robe wide open revealing a hairy belly and white Khaki shorts. He was wearing a pair of brown sandals and had a goofy grin on his face. He looked like a twenty year old playboy trapped in an old man's body.

"Hey," he said smiling at me. "Your Dean Ryder, am I correct?"

Before I could ask him how he knew my name he introduced himself, "I am Solomon son of the goddess Belig the god of wisdom, evolution and probability." He gave a theatrical bow and insisted that I get off my butt so that he could show me around the school.

"Squawk, doctor says stay in bed." Shouted Tony.

"He'll be fine, trust me." He gave the bird a small wink like they shared an inside joke.. When I got up I stumbled a bit as a sudden wave of dizziness washed over me, which I quickly got over. I noticed the pocket watch was still around my neck, so I covered it with my shirt. He started guiding me by putting his arm around my shoulder as if we were best friends and have known each other forever.

The inside of Arcadia was a huge castle in the middle of a forest somewhere in Colorado. The walls were covered with pictures of monsters wreaking havoc to the villages. There were pictures of old heroes and priests from different countries. There were stairs that seemed bottomless and there were winding stairs crossing each other like vines. Some of the stairs were even upside down that went up, outside was a giant lake where you could see seals swimming and lots of people were around. I watched as a seal shed it's skin turning into a human man and left it's skin behind as he went to go play beach volleyball with a bunch of other guys and girls.

"What are those?" I asked looking around and seeing a lot of seal skin shedding's.

"Those are Selkies, seals that shed into humans and get back in their skin at the end of the day. There was a patio with people playing chess and checkers. I even saw a couple of kids playing twister with what looked like a brown genie. Solomon noticed what I was staring at and he explained

"Ah yes those are djinn we have lots of different types of Genies around here we have Djinn, Genies and Marids which are like water genies."

"That's so cool." I said, getting pumped "So you just get to wish for something whenever you want it." I asked.

"Of course not." Solomon said, "that would cause a riot" They can manifest things on their own but you need their lamp to own them. They are hidden in places where no human or demi-god can get them."

"Oh. . ." I said. A little upset that I couldn't wish for Cassidy to come back. "I guess that makes sense." He guided me towards a big stadium made from polished quartz and huge bronze gates. When we got closer. I saw a pair of twin girls who both had beautiful brown hair that went down to their shoulder and were each around five foot four. They didn't look like much but they were facing off four guys who were much taller. I watched as they slashed, parried, dodged and stabbed at the guys each holding their own. One of them managed to get close enough to the guy to smack the flat of her blade across his helmet which made a loud clang. I watched as he fell crumpled to the ground. That's the twin who just took the guy down had an opening and the biggest looking guy kicked her in the stomach and knocked her off her feet.

"Lia!" the other twin shouted as she let her guard down to see if she was alright, which was a mistake because the other two guys took advantage of that and slashed downward across her chest and her armor cracked, The force of the blow made her crumple to her knees and the rest of the three guys pointed a sword at their throats.

"Do you yield?" The big guy said with a grunt.

"Never." The other twin shouted.

"Liv we lost, take it like a lady." Lia cautioned as the guys pressed the sword to their throats harder, drawing blood.. There was silence for a few seconds before Liv agreed and the guys lowered their weapons.

"Good job students." Solomon clapped. "Ladies never let your guard down, it could be the end of you." Before I could stop myself I heard myself say,

"I thought they did pretty good." Everyone turned to look at me. Both the twins smiled at me but the guys looked downright murderous. "I mean if it was two against two it would have been a lot fairer." I added then mentally face palmed. My face was so hot it must have been as red as a tomato.

"Liv, Lia why don't you show young Dean here around the rest of this castle, I'll see you at the celebration Dean."

"And Dean?" Solomon asked. I turned around to look at him. He smiled at me and said "A true warrior can take on as many soldiers as they need to win, as long as they have their heart set in the right direction, nothing can stop them." He turned around and started having a chat with the guys about their foot work.

We started walking out of the arena and as soon as we were out of the arena they chatted up a storm.

The girls introduced themselves as Olivia and Amelia but apparently everyone calls them Liv and Lia.

"I'm the daughter of Natura, goddess of Water and prosperity," Lia started. "And I am the daughter of Distortia, Goddess of fire and destruction." Liv finished.

"So how are you two even related." I asked stupidly.

"Same father." They replied together giggling.

"Thanks for back their." Lia said.
"Liv decided to pick a fight with them so they challenged us to a duel." Liv rolled her eyes and scoffed,

"They were asking for it, they were making fun of our dad."

"Who's your dad?" I interrupted.

"He's a comedic actor who embarrasses himself in many movies." They both replied at exactly the same time as if this was rehearsed.
"So you're not going to tell me who?"
"No," they both sighed.

"Okay you guys need to stop doing that."

They just laughed at me, and continued on with the tour. There were stables that held different kinds of horses, there was even a fire breathing donkey that almost made me lose my hair. We continued the tour on the inside where they showed me the dungeons which held deadly monsters and a big round arena that moved and made people dizzy as they fought on it. Apparently it was for an event on tuesday nights, luckily it was not mandatory. Hopefully I didn't have to go in there any time soon. There were at least four bathrooms, two for the girls and two for the boys. They showed me the dining hall, they showed me the theater and all the different classes. There were classes for everything from archery to mythological zoology.

"We get weekends off to study and dinner should be any minute now." Lia said.

As if on cue I heard bells ring, so loud I had to cover my ears but Liv just smiled and said,

"You'll get used to it."

They guided me to a huge room with stained glass windows of all the different gods, with a little description underneath for each one. There were two huge tables but they were huge and probably could have fit four hundred people each. Everybody seemed to bustle in all at once with smiles and excitement on their faces, even the genies and the selkies were coming in.

"It's not every day we get a newcomer," Liv started. "We don't have the resources or the people to go find them, sometimes their parents lead them here. Others die by a monster and some grow up without even realizing they are a child of the gods."

Everyone was just sitting down wherever they wanted, boys sat next to girls and flirted with them, selkies were laughing as humans told them jokes. It seemed like one big happy family.

"We believe in gathering a close bond." Lia shouted over the bustled crowd.

I was going to sit down with Liv and Lia when Solomon just seemed to appear and put his arm around my shoulder as he guided me up to the front. I could feel the people looking at me, whispering I even heard a couple people making bets of who my godly parent might be. He led me up to the front where there was a desk stand with a microphone. Two of the biggest windows shined down upon me, the king and queen of the gods, both were beautiful, Both radiated power.

"Greeting students." Solomon started adjusting the microphone. Once it was in place he continued "As you all know every time there's a new student, we all have a feast, followed by a celebration and then a game of hide and seek." Everybody cheered at this, why teenagers were getting excited to play a child's game I had no idea but everyone seemed to be giving me evil looks like they were judging how fast I could run. I gulped down a bad feeling as Solomon continued,

"And at the end we shall see who his godly parent is... if he survives."

He patted me on the shoulder and motioned for me to go sit down. "Everybody, eat, enjoy and remember no killing on purpose on any occasion especially not tonight." He said this while shooting a dirty look at a few mean looking people in the crowd. I was going to sit down between Liv and Lia but a random guy got up from his seat and introduced himself.

"Hey, I'm Fredrick Johnson but everyone calls me Freddy." He smiled with a crooked grin. "Here come sit."

Frederick was an older kid probably about fourteen with a bunch of freckles and comb over haircut.

"Uhm I was going to sit with."
"Great," he interrupted.

I felt like I had no choice, and I really didn't want to make any more enemies while I'm here. As soon as I sat down at least a few hundred little chubby people with pointy ears and scruffy beards came running in carrying silver platters that were bigger than their own heads. Some of the platters had fresh bread, everything looked fancy even the snails that a few of the selkies were digging into. There were nice juicy slices of meat so big I didn't know how they were able to carry it.

"What are those?" I asked as they stood on the tips of their toes. Push the platters on the table.

"Dwarves of course, they are great with cooking and building stuff." Freddy said. "Solomon pays them in gold, they are pretty much like leprechauns but without magic."

I watched as they ran away as quickly as they came.
"Naturally." I replied, like this made any sense.

"They take special orders, they like people who like their work. Just don't say you don't like something they made." Freddy continued.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well you see that red head over there his name is Bill and he used to have 10 fingers now he has eight. Nasty little things dwarves are." He finished taking a big slice of roast beef with mashed potatoes and poured the gravy all over it. I grabbed at least six mini burgers, a bowl of caesar salad and a little bit of poutine. By the end of the meal I didn't think I could walk nevermind hide. Maybe I could pass for a boulder I thought to myself. Then the dwarves came back holding more silver platters carrying cake three feet high, rainbow Jell-O, there were even chocolate fountains and ice-cream milkshakes. I groaned as my stomach couldn't resist and grabbed a bowl of lemon Jell-O. When everyone was full and had stopped eating Solomon shouted,
"Let the games begin. Dean you have five minutes to hide if you can get to the armory go for it otherwise run."

I just sat there not knowing what to do. Freddy nudged me and whispered " Don't just stand there run."

I looked at him if he was serious, the other kids had started laughing. "Unless you want to be impaled."

"You now only have four minutes, thirty seconds. Mr. Ryder." Solomon said into the microphone. At that I ran as fast as I could out the dining hall and up the first flight of stairs I could find. May as well not go outside into the open field. The barracks were somewhere on the first floor but I had no time to look for them. I turned corner after corner speeding down the hallway I opened a random door on my left and stood behind it trying to catch my breath. I heard shouts coming closer. I turned around to see where I was and apparently I was in the girls bathroom. I sighed as I went into the farthest bathroom stall away from the door. At least no one would come to look for me here I thought. I sat there in the stall as I heard footsteps go by in heavy armor. How long would this last I wondered.

About an hour later someone opened the door,

"Walk away, walk away" I muttered to myself. I listened as one by one the bathroom stall doors slammed open. My heart was thumping, there was nowhere for me to go. So I stood up at the last second and barged out the bathroom door and I ran straight into Freddy, knocking him to the ground.

"I'm here to help." Freddy wheezed.

"How did you know I was in here."

"My father is the god of wisdom, evolution and probability."

"Oh and you thought the most probable place I would be was the girls washroom?" I asked.

"Let's just say I have an educated guess," he smiled at me. "Now come on let's go, we have about four minutes before they come in here."

Freddy got up and grabbed my shirt pushing me to the door, he smacked my hand away as I was about to open it and put a hand over my mouth. We heard sounds of troops wearing armor clunk buy in a brisk jog. I heard someone shout "Someone says he went that way!" As soon as we heard the footsteps fade he pushed me out the door and ran ahead, signaling for me to follow.

"So you're telling me that they would check the girls bathroom for a guy?" I asked.

"You're not the only one that thought hiding in a girls bathroom trying to hide where least expected. Sometimes, hiding in the open is sometimes the best place to hide, because then no one will expect it."

He grabbed me and pulled me aside into a door we were passing and we hid while the soldiers clunked past. Freddy went and grabbed a chair to lock the door in place. He then went behind the teachers desk and grabbed a sword that was just laying there.

"We need to get you to the Barracks to get you a weapon."

"How, the halls are flooded with soldiers."

He smiled at me and looked up, "We'll go through the ceiling." He started stacking up a bunch of desks, he climbed to the top and removed the ceiling tile. Pulling himself up, I briefly followed so that I didn't get left behind. While pulling myself up my foot slipped and the desks went crashing down with a huge bang. I could hear people rushing to the classroom. I silently cursed my stupidity and pulled myself up and we crawled through. There was a loud banging on the door and then a loud crash as they forced the door open. Freddy stopped abruptly and me being clumsy my head hit his foot.
"Ow."

"Shhh" Freddy hushed me. I laid my ear to the ground ceiling tile. I heard people rushing about looking for us. "He must have gone through the window'' I heard someone say. He didn't sound so sure. I heard most of them leave the classroom but I couldn't be sure. I must have moved because I heard a creak and where my head was seconds ago was a sharp deadly looking spear. The spear must have weakened the roof as I just dropped through the ceiling tile and fell onto the soldier. I recognized him as Bill the eight fingered redhead. Freddy dropped to the ground gracefully and face palmed,
"I guess you'll just have to run for it," He tossed me the sword. "Follow the staircase upstairs until you get to the roof."

"Then what?" I asked.

"I'll meet you there, just trust me." He ran out the door as people came running by and he pointed in the opposite direction and seemed to be telling them I went that way and he led them away from me. I looked down at Bill, he was starting to groan. I took a deep breath and ran like mad to the nearest staircase I could find. I kept looking back to make sure I wasn't being followed. I ran up two flights of stairs and stopped so I could breathe. I looked around and the only stair that seemed to go up to the roof was curved like a waterslide until it seemed to be upside down. I turned around to go back downstairs but that's when I heard a voice, It was a soft feminine voice that embraced me, it made me want to curl up in a ball, underneath a blanket but at the same time, It made me want to take on any challenge given to me. Even if I had to slay a dragon with my bare hands. The voice was not in my head but all around me. It said,

"Follow the inverted path, to which you seek, is what you shall find."

Just like that the voice went away as fast as it came along with the feeling of comfort and courage it gave me. I don't know why but I listened to the voice, whether it was the feeling of home or the sudden burst of adrenaline running through my veins. I had a courage I had never felt before, even though whatever magic that was going through me had gone. I had my own courage, I had faith, So I turned back around and closed my eyes. Walking blindly I used my hands to guide me to the railing. I kept walking, I felt my hands touch the railing. It seemed to curve, However I went onward. When The railing was straight, I opened my eyes and I was upside down. The sight was unbelievable, I was literally upside down, I wasn't falling, I was just there. I continued to walk and with each step I was very careful as if I could fall at any moment. By the time I reached the other side side, I was at the entrance to the roof. A small hatch in the roof, or maybe the floor, I pulled on it and climbed through. I felt the fresh wind of the breezy night air on my face, I walked to the edge and look off into the distance, the moon was beautiful lighting up the valley below with the woods in the distance and the light of the moon reflected off the lake, I could see some of the Selkies in the water in seal form splashing about. I watched as soldiers went into the forest to try and find me. I watched as they came out with nothing.

I don't know how long I stayed up there. It must've been hours as the sun was starting to come up. The light crack of dawn with warm air coming in felt wonderful. I heard the latch on the door open, so I turned around expecting to see Freddy but Instead it was Liv, I was relieved that she was the one that came up instead of Bill. The look on her face made my heart sink. Her hand reached to her waist where there was a whip that appeared to be made out of some sort of leather with a silver shine to it.

"Sorry, about this next part." She smiled at me like she wasn't sorry at all. I held my sword out not really knowing what to do as I've never carried anything heavier than a backpack with two or three textbooks in it. So I put my feet in an awkward stance trying to imitate it like how they did it in the movies.

"Why are you doing this, I thought we were cool."
"Actually it's going to get quite hot, no offense but it's training and I take training very seriously and I'm a great tracker." She responded as she whipped the whip across the ground. Sparks flew from it and all at once it seemed to ignite on fire. She lashed it across the ground and with each slash the flames grew brighter and brighter.