After finishing my training with the Stolls, I try to hit the target in archery, which I royally suck at. When my archery lesson was over I head to the dining pavilion for lunch, I make another offering to my father and Hermes then I eat lunch. I go find Chiron sitting in his wheelchair form playing pinochle with Lord Bacchus. I ask them where I can find the Oracle to get a quest, I tell him about my father visiting me then he informs me she is in the attic of the house.

I pull down on the rope that hangs in the hallway and a set of stairs fall from the ceiling. I climb and to the amount of dust, covering every thing there has not been touched in quite some time. I look around for anything useful. I find a weird pink bandana, which I find it calling me in some weird way. I pick it up and I feel different, I continue to look around and after I find several interesting things, I see a mummified hippy lady sitting in a chair.

I walk up to it and I kneel before it.

"Oh great Oracle please give me a quest." I say in respect of its power.

"Very well demigod."

She gives me a quest and I inform Chiron, I walk away to the Ares cabin to find a member for my quest. Clarrisse daughter of war she I would trust with my life, Luke Castellan son of Hermes. We meet at the crest of the hill and I wait for dusk. I feel a strong tugging in my gut and a crevice rips open infront of me. From the tare, three Hellhounds come forth. Clarrisse and Luke instantly bring out their weapons in a defensive stance. One of the hellhounds walks up to me and after smelling me, it brushes its face against me in affection.

I climb on its back and tell Luke and Clarrisse to get going, they climb on their hellhounds and I whisper in mine's ear where I want them to take us. We race towards the shadow of the tall pine tree we run into the shadow and it feels like I am being pulled inside out then in an instant, we are in the woods near a train yard.

"We can make camp over there in that small cave." I say while walking towards the cave.

I pull out my hatchet and I gather dead branches to make a fire to keep warm. After getting the fire going I pull out one of the MREs, I traded a few of my drachmas for. Clarrisse pulls out a small map of North America.

"So Fearless leader where in the hell are we?" She says laying the map out.

"We are some where in the south western part of Pennsylvania." I say pointing at the map.

I eat dinner and get a drink then I head to sleep. I wake up at dawn and after I pack up every thing, I wake up War girl and Luke. We sneak into the train yard in a hole in the fence, once inside I make my way to the command post. I silently thank the Stolls for teaching me how to pick locks. In side, I find a log of all the trains in the yard and where they are going and what they have in them. I find one called Speedster Shipping. I look around the room and I find some money in a desk drawer, which I pocket, and I find the soda machine. Suddenly I know about the secret codes you can punch into vending machines to get free stuff and money.

I punch in the codes and the vending machine spews out Pepsi products and gold dollar coins. I stuff them into my rucksack and I head to get Luke and Clarrisse, we get on Speedster Shipping and close the door as the train takes off. I look around the car and I thank the gods of Olympus that there are some air mattresses, but there is only two. Luke takes one and I offer the other one to Clarrisse but do to her damn pride she does not accept it. Therefore, in a compromise we agree to share the bed.

I take off my jacket and I get on the bed Clarrisse looks cold so I drape my jacket over her and it just about covers her completely. I fall into the realm of Morpheus and I am at the mouth of a large pit, I cannot see the other side or the bottom but I feel a dark presence coming from it.

"Help me rise and we can strike the gods down Austin, help me rise." A dark gravely voice says.

"I will not help you rise monster." I say with everything fading to darkness.

I open my eyes and I see Clarrisse looking at me with a faint blush, when I look down I see why. My arms are wrapped around her and she is pressed tightly to me. I let her go and she gets up then goes to get breakfast. I eat another MRE then I get ready, I take a swig of water from my canteen then I walk over to a sleeping Luke and I kick the sole of his shoe.

With a startled snort, he wakes up and looks at me with a death glare. I offer him my hand to help him up which he accepts. After I help him up, he gets breakfast then he asks me where we are.

"According to my scout we are nearing a town called Lisbon. We can get supplies there."

"Okay, wait is the train stopping?" Luke asks me.

"Where is the fun in that?" I reply with a smirk.

"Yay we get to jump off a train." Clarrisse says.

I open the train door, and I see the grass rushing by and I see cows grazing in a pasture. I grab my things and I run then jump off the edge. I see Clarrisse and Luke jump out after me and we land on the gravel that is on the either sides of the tracks. We head to the dirt road the leads to the main road into town. As we pass the Welcome to Lisbon sign I get a strange feeling, I tell Luke and Clarrisse to get their guard up.

We find a market selling fresh foods and I hear Luke's and Clarrisse's stomachs growl. I ask them if they want something from the market. I hand them each a ten-dollar bill and they head off excited like a kid in a candy store. They come back with a bag of food for each of them, I intro duce them to Kade son of Hephaestus that is the towns mechanic/blacksmith. He invited us to his house for dinner and he will give us something to help us on our quest.

We ride in the back of his pickup truck until we get to a dirt road then I see a barn and a nice sized farmhouse. Clarrisse and Luke offer to help Kade with the chores while I help get dinner ready. Kade introduces his mom to us and I can see why Lord Hephaestus fell in love with her. Mrs. Bryn it about five foot seven inches tall with a toned body from working on the farm. Her hair is tucked under a straw hat and her overalls have a grease stain on them.

We help out around the farm and over the next three days, we feel like a part of Mrs. Bryn's family. Luke and I help in the barn while Clarrisse works on the truck and in the kitchen. When it was time for us to start on our quest once again, we hug Mrs. Bryn good-bye then we pile into the beat up pickup truck.

As the morning turned into day, the sun beat down on us with unrelenting heat. I am glad that I filled my canteen at the farmhouse. As I take a swig from the canteen, I feel the cool water flow past my lips. As night approached, I remember the flannel shirt Mrs. Bryn gave to me. We pull off the road into a motel called the Crescent Moon Motel. We pay for a room and say good-bye to Kade.

As the first rays of dawn break threw the crack in the curtain hitting my eyes, I climb out of the worn bed and wipe the sleep from my eyes. I take the map out of my pack and I try to locate where we are. After a few minutes, I find that we are on track but our path crosses threw some woods. I wake up Luke and Clarrisse and we get the complementary breakfast that consisted of sausage with white gravy on biscuits and coffee.

After we thank the motel manager for the breakfast, we head out on our quest. We trek threw the woods all day and I am glad that Mrs. Bryn made us some Johnnycakes for the road. After a while, we reach a road that looks like it does not get much traffic on it. I ask the rest of the group which way to head and Luke suggest we flip a coin. Head we go right Tails we go left, I flick the coin into the air and as it falls to the ground, I catch it and I place it on the back of my head, when I lift up my hand it reveals a golden eagle.

We head left until we reach a strange building, the sign read Aunty Em's Garden Emporium.