Victor is the first through the gateway that leads from the summit of Mount Olympus into the palace of the ancient Olympians. He steps beyond the threshold and further into the courtyard as his eyes fight to take it all in at once.

High above, the sun shines brightly, illuminating every inch of the courtyard. Ivory and marble can be found throughout in the style of the Ancient Greeks. Columns that reach high and long staircases that stretch far. It was like stepping back in time.

The courtyard itself does not hold much besides some minor foliage, a stone pillar that stops at waist height and the gateway which leads back into the mortal realm. Standing there, Victor waits for his sister and Luc to follow, but his eyes and mind are obviously elsewhere.

Second to arrive to the courtyard is Victors twin sister Melinda. She basically mimics her brothers actions without realizing she does so. Her eyes roam around the courtyard, picking up the style it is laid out, and relating it to being very old. (Well that is just a duh Mel..)

She shakes her heads at her thoughts, and heads towards her brother. "Well.. Anything like you thought it would be? Looks almost like it could be right out of a history book." Raising her lips up in a smile, the only one to come now is Luc.

Last, and perhaps least of the gathered witches, comes Luc. But though he was the least powerful in terms of magical ability, this was his quest, and Luc was glad to have the finish line in his sights.

The quest had been - as quests are wont to be - a massively importnat learning experience. The Luc that had started, and the person that steps away from the portal, are very different people. He'd learnt to appreciate his powers more, for one. For another, Luc had come to realize the importance of friendship. Or whatever it was that he and Victor shared. Without the Halliwell twins, Luc would never have accomplished all he had. And though the old Luc would never have admitted this, the teleporter took pride in the strength of the bonds the three shared.

The stocky blond steps out of portal and into the sunlight courtyard. He touches Melinda on the shoulder, and smiles at her. A small nod tries to convey just how grateful he was for her support. Luc moves on to stand beside Victor. His hand, hanging limp from his side, turns sideways so that his fingertips touch Victor's. The contact lasts no more than a second.

Luc flashes Vic a grin, though the Halliwell's mind and eyes seem elsewhere. (So this is it. The End.) Finally Lucfier McCarthy moves ahead, approaching the short stone pillar standing in the centre of Hermes' Courtyard.

The words of Melinda Halliwell fade away without response. The arrival of the teleporting witch ceasing Victor's reply before he is able to form the words. He pays no mind though, allowing the moment to pass without fuss. It was only idle chatter. Their mission went beyond appreciating the exquisite structure of living history.

The touch of Luc's hand against his own draws Victor's attention, surprised at the action. He turns to look, but Luc, always the adventurer, had already moved on to explore the stout pillar in the center of the courtyard.

A frown exhibits Victor's own curiosity, though more controlled than Luc's. He makes no move to join his fellow witch, but continues to study the thing from afar.

"Careful, Luc. We don't want to disturb anything that could prove fatal unintentionally."

Luc knew better than to ask just how dangerous a pillar could be. Knowing his luck, the thing was probably a dormant rock monster just waiting for some juicy witch to awaken it. And Luc certainly did not relish being crused in the stone jaws of some ancient greek trap.

(Or. We could just be overthinking this. It's a pillar.)

The witch reaches out to touch the pillar. But heeding Victor's warning, he doesn't actually make contact, simply letting his finger come within a centimeter of touching the stone construct.

"Seems normal enough..."

Luc twists his upper body to face the twins. The sunlight falls into his eyes, making him have to squint somewhat. Ever the action hero, he wonders if the Halliwells had a clue of their next move.

"So any thoughts on what exactly we're supposed to do here?"

"Seems normal enough..."

"It always does," is Victor's reply, said in a hushed tone as if the telepath were talking to himself. He continues to eye the pillar and decides that it best to study it. Afterall, who places a random stone pillar in the middle of an exqusite courtyard such as this?

Ignoring Luc's question, Victor crosses the distance between himself and Luc, coming up beside the witch. His blue eyes roam over the formation for any remant of a clue to its purpose. Yet he can find nothing remarkable about the pillar... with the exception of slot upon its otherwise smooth surface.

"Now that's odd."

Luc's gaze follows Victor's - landing on the same slot that the boyish-looking blond had spotted.

"Now that's odd."

Odd, certainly, because Luc didn't figure that stone pillars sported neat slots for aesthetic reasons. "So what do you do with a hole?" The recently re-empowered teleporter asks under his breath. The answer is a simple one.

"Stick something in it."

(And I'm betting that 'something' is in our hands.)

Luc pulls out his bag of goodies; trinkets gathered as a result of his journey. He fishes in among the three items - pulling out his latest prize: an ornate, ancient, and disarmingly light-weight cadeus. He tosses it to Victor. "Catch!"

"Stick something in it."

Melinda reverts her eyes from her brother, and moves them to Luc just as he throws the item. Which by itself could prove dangerous but she trust her brother to be on the alert of it. So need not worry at that, Melinda was smirking at the comment. Luc was great about uplifting spirits even in the mix of this commotion.

The empath doesn't say anything though, this quest she has been the quiet one, which is unlike her, but she knows when to play this role and this is the right time. So she adverts her eyes back to her brother, waiting for him to stick 'it' in the hole.

Victor snatches the caduceus from the air with ease. He twirls the golden rod between his fingers while staring down upon it. Each revolution causes the sunlight to glint off of its surface, causing a small flash on the metal.

After a moment, though it felt like longer within Victor's mind, the telepath looks up at Luc and shakes his head. With a swift upward motion, Victor tosses it back to the recently re-empowered witch, hoping that blonde's reflexes are as good as he thinks.

"No. This is your journey Luc; your destiny. So stop running from it already." Victor's words quite obviously hold meaning beyond their current situation, and purposefully so. Besides being quite fitting towards their relationship, it held true for Luc's magical heritage too. Luc is a witch who was, until recently, was blissfully unaware of that fact. Well, it was time to face reality and realize a witch's true purpose in this world was.

A three on the reflexes, but enough to catch the caduceus flying at him. Well, almost. The twirling metal grazes the tip of his fingers and starts falling. But Luc is able to reach out with his other hand and save the metal rod from crashing to the ground. Good thing too, since it probably isn't a good idea to throw around one's hard-won magical artefacts.

"No. This is your journey Luc; your destiny. So stop running from it already."

Once upon a time, Luc might have been offended by the insinuation that he was a coward. But he had come to realize that this was Victor's way, and the not-so-passive blond was simply stating what he believed.

"Alright, blondie." Luc nods; it is high time he earned his place as a witch. "No more running."

With those words, the teleporter guides the long shaft into the waiting hole, watching as the gleaming metal is driven into the stone. The sexual connotations aren't lost of the blond, and the ever present childish part of him finds it absolutely hilarious. The rod settles into the slot with a *click*, with only the ornate wings sticking out like a mast.

As the caduceus sinks down and out of sight, Victor maneuvers himself closer to Luc and his sister. He doesn't allow the slight tremble to upset him as it does not seem to be doing harm at the moment. Instead, he allows his focus to be upon the pillar as the a large golden urn rises up.

The ground stops shaking and with the urn's ascent finished, Victor springs forward, apparently faster on the draw in this timeline. He grabs a hold of Luc's bicep firmly, preventing the former thief from touching the urn. "Don't even think about it."

Giving a little tug backwards, Victor releases his hold on Luc and steps forward. Squatting down so he can examine the urn more closely, he makes out some writing on the side. "Looks like Latin."

"Latin? I thought the greek gods would be... well, greek!"

Lucifer shakes his head, not even pretending to understand why a long metal pole being stuck in the hole would result in a glorified golden pot presenting itself out of the ground. (Just goes to show that life often makes even less sense than comic books.)

He heeds Victor's, good-naturedly peeved at the telepath at having been so right about warning Luc. The impetuous neophyte wicca had almost instinctively started to reach for the urn. The fact that Vic knew him so well in such a relatively short time, had to make Luc smile.

"So, big guy, what do we do with it?"

He turns back to Mel, giving her a wink, before gazing back at the expensive looking urn. Luc, though he'd never admit it, is already running a rough calculation at how much money an ancient pot like this could fetch.

"Latin? I thought the greek gods would be... well, greek!"

"Yeah. You'd think..." Victor muses to himself more so than anyone else as his eyes roam over the wording. His Latin wasn't the greatest, but he was now certain that the script on the urn was exactly that, and the oddity of that is not lost on the telepath. Of course, this only confirms his instinct to proceed with caution.

Reaching out, he runs a single finger underneath the scripture as he attempts to decipher it. Eyes squinted slightly, Victor wades through the mire of knowledge he possesses as he tries to recall his understanding of Latin, mumbling lowly.

Lost in his own thoughts, his own world, Victor loses track of all else and pays no mind to Luc or Melinda while he examines the ancient artifact. Seconds become minutes as the telepath fights to pull meaning from the strange tongue, getting lost and frustrated more than once.

Finally, with a defeated sigh, Victor rises. He gives one more look of longing to the urn before turning to Melinda and Luc. His hands find their way to his hips as he begins to spill the details of what he had discovered. "I wasn't able to translate it fully, but from what I can gather the words describe the Olympian gods; from their creation by some higher beings - and I'm not talking about the titans - to their destruction."

Still unable to understand it fully, Victor shakes his head. A lot of the details did not match up with what was generally accepted in myth to be true. It was rather confusing and Victor could not mask this in his voice. "It says something about a speedy rise to power that was tainted then goes onto describe a large battle. There's something about a trap and... a vow?"

The telepath's shoulders drops and he smiles apologetically at the pair. "I'm sorry. That's all I got." There's a pause and it becomes visibly obvious that he is thinking on something else. "Well... there's this."

He bends down again, but off to the side, placing the urn in full view of those gathered. His fingers points to a section of text near the bottom. In fact, it is the last grouping of words on the urn. "See how it's set off from the rest? I think it might be the vow mentioned earlier."

"Some sort of promise?" Luc asks in a disinterested manner. Not that he was belittling Victor's discovery; it's just that the teleporter was more into the X-men than Xena. He knew very little about the Olympian Gods - he'd barely settled into the idea of witchcraft - and finding a story about them upside an urn didn't hold as much of a fascination for Luc as it might perhaps for Victor.

"Like what? One day, they'll return...? Jesus, Arthur, and now Zeus and Co. - maybe it's the promise of the second coming or something?"

Luc's eyes graze the urn, studying it and the the writing on its side. He folds his arms across his chest as he takes heavy breath in. Looking at both of the twins in turn, the action-hungry witch asks the question heavy on his mind.

"So... what next? I'm starving."

Victor pauses, his gaze still upon the urn as he processes Luc's word. His face contorts into one of confusion over this statement as he turns upon the teleporting witch. Crossing his arms, Victor hardens his gaze and stares Luc down.

"Are you kidding me?" The tone of Victor's voice is one of pure annoyance as he continues on. "We travel across an entire continent on an obviously predestined quest and all you can think about is food?"

There's only a slight pause. Barely enough time for Luc to reply properly before Victor continues on his tirade. "We are here for you. This is all because of you. Now this... thing is obviously important. So how about we try and focus, huh?"

"Man, I'm always hungry."

It's true, Luc's voracious appetite was nothing new. He walks up to Victor, relishing greatly the fact that he stood ever so slightly taller than his telepathic counterpart. When Luc speaks - a part of him is grateful for getting the chance to speak and hopefully stave off a further scolding - he also jabs his finger into Victor's pecs to punctuate his words.

"Food helps me focus." The impetuous blonde turns back towards the golden shiny urn. "Now blondie," Victor gets a playful little smack on the bum, "how about you figure this thing out, huh, and you, me, and twin sis can go get some eats." Luc finishes off the request with a coy wink.

Melinda's brow raises up slightly at Luc's rather brazen act and she must move quickly to suppress the hint of a grin that starts to form. It does not take much effort though as through her telempathy power, Mel is able to feel the surge of very strong emotions well up inside of her twin brother. None of which Luc would want to contend with.

Feeling it is her duty to keep the peace between these two, she immediately steps forward, in between them. Her hand finds its way to Victor's chest in a nonmagical calming way. She tried not to use her powers on Victor all willy nilly as he gets touchy about it, and for good reason. She knew that she'd be pissed if he messed with her thoughts at all without her permission especially if there was another way around it.

"Luc..." Melinda says as she turns from her brother, who she is sure has calmed down enough to be unattended to for a moment. "Victor's right. We have got to figure this thing out. It's obviously important."

A slight smirk showcases the empath's current playful mood as another thought dawns on her. "Besides, no one has been on this dirty old mountain in like a thousand years. Even if there was food to be found, would you really trust it?" She scrunches up her own nose in disgust at the thought of moldy, dusty and disgusting food being served up in a grand feast.

Luc's handsome features echo the slight smirk. He shakes his head, slowly. No, dirty, moldy old food certain didn't sound very appetizing. But the fact remained that the man was hungry. And for a person who can jump across a city in the blink of an eye, patience was not something he posseses in spades.

His shoulders slump, a signal of defeat. He tilts his head upwards - the golden sunlight accenting his similarly coloured hair - and looks over at Victor Halliwell.

"Okay."

Luc motions towards the urn. He walks closer to the unearthly object and lets his middle finger run across the same lettering that Victor had earlier.

"Um. Why not a spell?"

The idea was simplistic, even for Luc. Truthfully, to the teleporter the urn looks like it belonged to a museum. But like Victor said, pre-destiny had led them here, and the would-be witch was eager to finally find out why. And the best way to do that was to understand the strange language on the urn.

"To help translate the latin, or whatever."

Arms folded, Victor looks rather perturbed as Luc joins him beside the stone altar. Although Luc was now "willingly" helping, Victor knew that the neophyte witch had no interest in doing any such thing. He just had no other choice. (Well, whatever his reason, at least he's stepping up, right?)

"Um. Why not a spell? To help translate the Latin, or whatever."

Perking an eyebrow, Victor almost immediately goes to tear apart Luc's idea. Truth is, he probably would have been ready to regardless of the idea put forth. We'll call it "force of habit" or some such thing. However, before he forms any words (which is lucky for him), it dawns on Victor that this very obvious solution was probably their best bet. And leave it to the newb to figure it out.

"That could work..." (Now lets test his spellcraft, shall we?) "Have anything in mind? For a spell, I mean."

Lucifer scoffs. "Of course not. I don't do that rhyme stuff." He shrugs his shoulders in his typical nonchalant manner and starts tapping the urn with his finger. "You two are the witch-pros. I'm just the guy with the brilliant suggestions."

He grins widely, knowing that his words would irk Victor. After all, there wasn't anything that Luc enjoyed quite as much as irritating the little blond Halliwell. And indeed, there's a hidden motive behind Luc's immediate negative response. He knows that Victor is quite capable of making up a simple translation spell. And he wasn't going to give the telepath the satisfaction of seeing Luc struggle through it.

So, Luc folds his arms across his chest. His green eyes blaze as he fixes Victor with a glare, transmitting his thoughts to the fellow witch.

(This is all you, blondie. I'm through with the damn tests.)

The hint of a smirk that had begun to form quickly fades when Luc refuses to perform. Arms still crossed, Victor's face slips into neutral mode, which looks rather angry even though that is not his intent. Nor necessarily what he is feeling.

When Luc finally shuts his trap, Victor glances over at his sister, Melinda. He quirks a brow and the two of them share a moment before he faces Luc again. Strangely, Victor is smiling when he does so. "Well why don't you brilliantly suggest a spell to yourself?"

"We'll leave you to it." Victor unfolds his arms and reaches out, taking Melinda's hand in his. He starts off for the main steps of the Olympian palace. The two climb them with grace and ease before entering the building.

After the twins have disappeared, Luc lets out a snarling sound. It's not too human - and a sign of his exasperation.

"Just like blondie to pull something like this."

He mutters this to himself as he glares at the offending urn. As if to make matters worse, his stomach lets out a growl of its own. "Yea, yea, I know you're hungry. But we ain't getting anywhere until we solve this damn thing." Luc's gaze travels tot he entrance of the building. (And Vic's gonna make sure of it.)

Luc unfolds his arms and places both hands on the side of the urn. He stares intently at the shiny surface, trying to think about how much it would fetch on the black market, and instead trying to will a spell within his mind.

"Tick, tock, time to go,
Tell me what I need to know!"

It's a spell to translate the writing on the urn, and its the best that the neophyte witch can come up with.

Nothing seems to be happening. The sun continues beating down on the courtyards. Blades of grass wave lazily in the wind. The sunlight glitters off the urn. It's sort of cold up here.

"Forces of change, in this time and place,
Aid this final trial I have to face,
Translate the words and have them show,
All that I have the need to know."

Luc tries again.

The world once was overrun by titans - giant beings of immense power. Though they did not bother with the mortals that they shared this world with directly, the titans knew nothing but war and destruction.

The angels decided to interfere on behalf of the humans and chose twelve among them. These twelve, though all normal, had natural affinities which the angels progressed into supernatural talent and gifted them with immortality, thus creating the Olympians.

The Olympians and the titans battled long and hard. It was decades before the Olympians finally won out. However, the Olympians no longer had a purpose. They possessed all of this power and nowhere to channel it. So they declared themselves gods and forced the mortals to worship them as such.

Once again, the angels intervened and, through the use of deceit and trickery, were able to convince the Olympians to release the essence of their power. After this incident, the angels swore to never interfere so directly and on such a scale ever again.

There were unforeseen consequences. By removing the essence of power, the angels removed part of the host's soul. In trying to grant the Olympians a normal life, they had removed that part which makes them truly mortal - a death.

Yet they were too frightened of repeating history to right this wrong, hiding behind their vow to no longer interfere. That is why I stole this urn - the urn in which those essences are kept - in hopes that one day, someone will have the courage to fix it.

I have written an incantation that should allow the essences to rejoin with their missing halves in the Ghost Plane rather than locating new hosts. The incantation must be read before opening the urn or you risk releasing the power of the Olympians on the world again.

Luc carefully reads over the scripted words, magically able to understand the translated words. Now, you might not think so, given his crass nature - but Lucifer finds the story of the Titans and Olympians fascinating. You see, from his years as an acquirer of rare and priceless artifacts, Luc has gained no small measure of interest in the stuff he stole.

So, to him, the story of the urn represents a change to learn the truth behind an age old mythos. The story of the Gods, and how they truly came to be, well, it's simply incredible. (Elder Fedaar) Luc wonders about that one. Since he's never heard of Elders, he has no idea what the title means. He does guess, correctly, that Fedaar was/is a being of immense power.

A part of him thinks to call out to Victor. But another part of him, something deep inside, something fierce and proud and noble wants him to reach out and finally claim his witchy heritage. Maybe its the witch's blood pounding through his veins. Or perhaps it is his true calling, somehow making itself felt in this singular moment. But instead of calling out, Luc grasps the urn and reads the words out loud.

"Twelve souls lie in wait beyond," He reads slowly, deliberately; his voice growing stronger and more certain with each word. "Twelve essences lie within this urn."

(The twelve gods. Ares, Hermes, Aphrodite, Athena, Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Demeter. What's that other one with the 'a'? Apollo's twi- right, Artemis! Hephaestus. Hestia. And Poseidon.) One by one, Luc McCarthy draws upon his knowledge of the gods, something learnt through the old television he watched as a kid, various comic book plot curves, and searching the internet out of interest.

"I release you now to rejoin those that await your speedy return."

The words flow out of his lips. Luc waits a moment, feeling the cool caress of the wind that whips through the mountain courtyard. He wonders for a moment about these great creatures , these gods, and how small he himself is in comparison. And yet, for all their power, they lived in wretchedness. A measure of pity fills the teleporter. And without further ado, Lucifer McCarthy opens the urn and releases the twelve essences within, thus taking the next step in his journey towards becoming a true witch.

Immediately upon Luc opening the urn, all twelve essences rush to its edge and spill forth into the world. They attempt to spread outwards and into the world in order to connect with similar souls, but Luc's spell (even though it was not bolded or italicized) prevent them from doing so.

The spell acts as a leash, reigning them in. They are funneled back down into the courtyard. A small tear between planes forms and the twelve essences are sucked into the Ghost Plane, presumably to reconnect with their mortal halves and finally gain some peace.