Chapter 6

Water, empousa's and a touchy nymph on my!

After the not so fabulous start we had finally traveled till nightfall.

"So are we going to set up camp anytime soon or are we going to sleep in trees?" I said annoyed as we uselessly sat around our puny campfire. Not that I needed help putting my own tent up I have no idea what these people do out here….maybe they really do sleep in trees!

"Ok lets get a move on people! Times a wasting" Maia said slowly going insane.

Everyone looked at her including me like she was crazy.

"What? Percy, Annabeth stop being useless and go get some firewood! If you're just going to sit there staring at each other like some useless lumps then you might as well go home." She said using her hands a lot. They got up silently and did as told. I guess they finally learned after all these years that there is no sense in arguing with this girl however small she maybe.

"Hey hunter girl, goat boy lets go get dinner!" she said cheerfully and skipped off.
Some people get cranky when their hungry but I guess she got strangely happy when she. We set off to the nearest river and started scouting for some food. After their long but my very short effort we had enough food to last us until we set off again.

Sooner or later after the fish was eaten, berries and cans cleaned up we were all settling down for the night.

--

Once again we woke up early much to Maia's displeasure. She spent half her time grumbling and talking about weird morning people.

" Do we even know where we're going?" I asked as we were taking off on our pegasi.

"Okenfenokie National Wild Life Refuge." Annabeth stated looking through a book.



"Bless you." I guessed.

"Never mind you'll see." She sighed and that was the end of conversation for the morning.

ONE DEADLY HOUR LATER

"Were here!" Said a exceedingly happy goat boy.

"Ok." Sighed Maia "All we have to do is find a key in a wild life refuge, how hard can that be?" As it turned out she was very, very wrong it was HARD to find a key in Okefenokiee.

"Alright, maybe we are just looking for the wrong type of key." I said, looking around tiredly

As it turned out the nymph of the river was more then happy to give us a tour of her swampy terrain. We all piled into a canoe and were taken swiftly away by the current.

"Big trees…" I stated along with Grover who seemed just as interested in this ride as I was.

"Oh great now we have two tree huggers." Maia huffed and leaned over the side of the canoe totally bored out of her mind. Annabeth and Percy seemed to think the same thing. Though Percy HAD to look interested if he wanted to get us to where the key really was.

"This is a really nice…swamp you have here!" Grover commented and figured that he couldn't make the word "swamp" sound any better.

"Why thank you satyr that's very nice of you to say that. Most people think swamps are ugly and pointless but they aren't." She said with some heat toward the end.

"Can you blame them?" Said Maia who, it seemed couldn't stop causing trouble for more then one day.

The nymph who seemed to get 'hard of hearing' every time Maia said something was glaring at her like no tomorrow.

"That is such a typically human thing to say, and look where that got you I mean have you even heard of global warming? Do you know how hard we nymphs have to work to keep the preservation of our waters? It's not just a walk in the park." She said finally snapping.



"I'm sorry dear did you say something?" Maia said looking innocently at the nymph. "Because I think you should just get back to the pointless tour." She said it so sweetly I almost missed the 'pointless' she slipped in.

And once again the nymph became hard of hearing towards anything that Maia said.

"What's that weird green rock called?" I asked squinting to get a better look.

"Oh that thing? I actually have no idea it's been there for centuries I finally gave up on trying to move it." The nymph laughed and turned the boat in the weird green rocks direction.

Once we got close enough I climbed onto one of the big boulders and inched towards the fuzzy green rock.

"Careful child don't want to fall in. I may be control of the waters but I do not control what lives in it." The nymph said and disappeared back into the water with a smile.
I picked up the fuzzy green rock and found that the fuzziness was actually moss (darn I know.)

"Here Annabeth you should take it. I would probably loose it or something." I said and tossed the mossy rock to the child of Athena. After she put it her backpack I climbed back into the canoe and we started our way back.

Half way back to the dock and fully out of sight from the rocks original placement Grover sniffed and plugged his nose.

"ugh Persy theresh a monther here." He said sounding like he had the worst cold of the century.

"What? Grover speak English." Percy said from the from of the canoe.

"Percy look!" Annabeth yelled In his ear as she pointed to a blond girl and a darker tanned red head.

"Kelli? Aren't you dead yet?" He asked

"Yay you remembered my name! I feel so special and no I'm not dead yet. Far from it actually this is my new trainee. Percy meet Emily. Emily meet Percy Jackson son of Poseidon." She said like the were getting introduced at a cocktail party.



"Pleasure to kill- I mean meet you!" Emily's freckly face almost distracted you from looking at her what we call vampire like teeth.

Percy didn't seem to care, his eyes glazed over like he was in some sort of trance. Annabeth seemed to realize this to and she slapped him really hard, so hard that he lost his balance and fell into the water.

"Opps…" She said half heartedly.

While everyone was distracted, I got out my sword jumped up and stabbed the trainee without realizing how high I just jumped.

Kelli sighed and said "Why is it always the trainees? They die so young." She sniffled wiping a imaginary tear from her cheek.

"Asteria get down here!" Grover said throwing one of his special cans at Kelli's head.

That seemed enough to make up sleeping beauty (Maia.)

"what? Did I fall asleep again? Oh my gods Asteria watch out!" Maia said pointing at Kelli who was just about to jump on me.
"Ah!" I screamed and fell back thank Kelli's reflexes prevented me from falling but when I started to regain my balance she grinned and a zombie looking furry picked us both up and flew away.

"Let me go you undead, smelly, totally unhygienic bird brain!" (that is a lot of adjectives)

Wiggling like a flying worm we floated away and all I could think was how smelly this fury was.

--
"wait…what just happened?" Maia asked scratching her head

Everybody else was either in shock or looking at her crazily…maybe a little of both.