36 Chapter 36 I'm not as brave as you.

"No, lass." Mimir said this time. "Governing a realm of the dead is no easy job. Hela, the daughter of Loki, rules the realm of Helheim where those who die in dishonour go. Criminals, the sick, the old, and the only thing preventing the City of the Dead from being full up is the Valkyrie. I doubt Hades wants the same for his own domain. Jakob is right, there's more to this than we know."

"i agree." Grover nodded. "The Fur-the Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy… why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

"They were asking about something, not a person." Jakob frowned, recalling Mrs. Dodds' words. "They saw us in plain sight and were asking 'where is it?'. If Hades has the Master Bolt, what could he be searching for that he sends his chief torturers to interrogate us?"

After a beat of silence, Andromeda sighed. "Guys, I haven't been straight with you. I really don't care about the lightning bolt. I am going to the Underworld so I can get my mum back."

"No, no! That's something you shouldn't mess with!" Mimir said with wide eyes. "Messing with the balance of life and death greatly upsets the universal balance!"

"Mimir, I would do the same for my own mother." Jakob said quietly and softly. "Not even death would stop me from finding her soul... if it wasn't already passed on to the Lake of Souls. But things are different in our cultures. Perhaps there is a way for Andromeda to rescue her mother from the Underworld. I there is, Andie, know that I'm with you."

"Same here." Grover nodded. "But are you sure that's the only reason you're going? Both of you?"

"Andie's here to rescue her mother from the Greek realm of the dead, I'm going to prove my innocence in all of this." Jakob said firmly. "And... I'm also doing it to prove I'm not as cold and evil as my father is."

Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, guys, I'm not as smart as Annabeth. I'm not as brave as you. I'm not as strong as you, Jakob. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. Andie, you are glad that you're dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you had done. And Jakob... well, your emotions speak for itself in regards to your own father."

"I've seen it." Andromeda said softly, remembering Jakob's reaction to seeing just an illusion of his father. "Thor wasn't that great of a father, was he?"

"No." Jakob muttered, clenching and unclenching his fists. The memories came back to his mind but he shoved them aside forcefully, then sighed and decided maybe talking a bit about it wouldn't be that bad. "Here's a inkling about how his 'parenting' went. he made me spend an entire year in Niflheim with nothing but my own hands."

"Niflheim?" Andromeda asked with a frown.

"Aye the Primordial Realm of of Fog and Ice, one of the first two Primordial Realms actually." Mimir explained. "Muspelheim is the second Realm. it's nothing but a barren and frozen wasteland, the warmest it gets is forty degrees below freezing. That's not counting how it has eleven poisonous rivers running through it, so you also can't drink the water unless you want to die. And of course the poisonous mist that slowly kills you the longer you stay inside it, plus anything there that manages to survive and wants to kill you."

Andromeda and Grover stared at him with wide eyes of shock and horror. Unbeknownst to them all, Annabeth had woken up and was listening, her own eyes wide in the same emotion as Andromeda and Grover.

"Most of the 'parenting' from Thor was training." Jakob spat with hate and disdain. "And being stuck in Niflheim for a year, forced to survive with nothing but my bare hands, was part of the training. And believe me, that wasn't even the worst of it."

"You... you mentioned you've faced worse monsters than Medusa." Annabeth's voice said, causing them to look and see the Daughter of Athena sit up, looking at Jakob with concern. "What kind of monsters?"

Jakob exhaled before he started. "Better question would be which ones I haven't I gone against. I've killed practically one of everything I could find, Draugr, Trolls, Ogres, Ancients, Wulvers, Hel-Walkers, Berserkers, even a Dragon."

"Woah, woah, woah! You've fought a Dragon?!" Andromeda said in disbelief that he fought a Dragon.

"I've killed a Dragon, but it wasn't easy. They're some of the strongest monsters around, but if you know how to kill them, they get easier. My Uncle Baldur actually has a Dragon as his mount, helps him get around faster." Jakob said, with their eyes widening that his uncle basically had a pet Dragon.

"What…what about those other monsters? What are they like?" Annabeth asked, wondering if any of the other monsters were less dangerous compared to a Dragon.

"Well Draugr are the most common type of monsters you'd find, they're undead warriors that refused to be brought to Valhalla by the Valkyries, fighting them to stay on Midgard while becoming burned from the battle and driven by hatred and a desire for revenge. They're pretty easy to beat, but they make up for it with appearing in large numbers and different types that use different weapons, shields and magic. While being either really strong or fast. Trolls can be a real problem as they're smarter than your average monster, along with being very strong, they also usually carry around stone columns as a weapon, sometimes even having control over an element. Ogres are basically just smaller, dumber versions of Trolls, think of them like really big, angry gorillas." Jakob explained before taking a breath and continuing.

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