A/N: And I'm back! I hope everyone's holidays were wonderful, I hope everyone's 2019 was wonderful, and I hope everyone's New Years was able to be remembered. Sorry I took such a long time getting this chapter out, vacation with my family was busy and I went immediately back to my job which was busy as hell getting ready for the New Years. But that's all behind me now, and I have time to start up with the story again. Anyways, thank you for your patience.

Demigods almost never have dreams about something good. Ninety percent of the time it's some prophecy about doom, death and the inescapable current of time and fate. A bunch of bullshit if you ask Samuel! Not that he doesn't believe them, mind you, because he totally does. He just thinks they're shit because they always end with a monster or something looking at you while you can't move and lunging at you just to give you a fright before you wake up.

It's annoying as hell! One time he had a dream of a dog peeing on a fire hydrant before turning around and jumping at him. Though there is a small chance that dream happened because he got super drunk on his honeymoon with Hylla. Who knows.

Either way, the dream he's having now is clearly not a drunk dream, mostly because he's in a cave somewhere hiding behind a rock while a bunch of fucking cultist weirdos prostrate before a giant hole in the ground and chant in some language that somehow makes his brain start to hurt.

He can see the cultists in better lighting now, even the strange, dancing runes on their dark cloaks. Samuel watches carefully as one of the cultists takes a dagger to his wrist and slices it carefully, dripping his blood into the abyss before handing it off to the next one so they can do the same. Each cultists that sacrifices their blood somehow increases the pressure in the room, it becoming so great that along side their chanting he starts feeling faint from the intense migraine attacking his brain.

Samuel shakes his head and keeps watching the ritual carefully, he just needs to push through to see if he can get any kind of useful information before he wakes up.

The last cultist drips his blood into the hole and quickly shuffles away. All stand in silence for nearly a minute before red, misty wafts of smoke gently rise from the pit they were sacrificing blood into. The center-most cultist drops to his knees and carefully crawls towards the hole and twists his head so his ear and head just barely peek out over the edge.

Faint whispers like ghosts touch Samuel's ears. The words are in the same language as the cultists, but something is different. These words feel... sweet, somehow, like they're gently trying to lull him to sleep. His eyelids slowly start to close, when in the back of his mind he hears a frightened shout.

Samuel!

Instantly his eyes blast open, his heart pounding and his brain feeling like it's on fire. What was that?! It felt like his very will to be was slipping away! The once sweet words are now harsh, full of malice and hate. He cups his hands to his ears and squeezes tightly, desperately trying to save himself from the awful, crawling words. He looks up and sees one of the cultists now standing over him, the ceremonial dagger held high in his hand.

Samuel rolls his eyes as he knows what's going to happen just as the man brings his knife down. Before the dream fades, Samuel quickly memorizes the shape and details of the dagger just in time as he feels the biting sting of the cold blade slide effortlessly into his neck.

000

Abigail was having a fairly nice morning cooking eggs with her spear before Samuel suddenly jumps out of his bead with a shout and starts tearing into his clothes mumbling something or the other. She watches carefully as he tears a small notepad and pen from an interior pocket and quickly doodles something in it. In a flash he's in front of her, shoving a drawing in her face.

"Do you know what this is?!" He shout-questions. Gently she takes the paper and examines the knife drawn on it. The knife is simple, basically just a pointed blade with a handle that curves in slightly as a grip. No guard, no pommel or any kind of markings. Ironically this makes it easier for her to identify it, simple daggers like this were common in the middle east in ancient times.

"This is a Babylonian dagger, back when they were around." She hands the paper back to Samuel who sighs dramatically in relief. Abigail goes back to cooking eggs on her spear tip, gently using the blade's electricity to cook them. Samuel goes to say something but pauses when he sees the eggs before shaking his head and continuing.

"Listen! I had a demigod dream-"

"Did something attack you and wake you up?"

"Yes, now shut up and listen! The cult or whatever was in a cave somewhere sacrificing their blood to this hole, and the hole tried to brainwash me but it didn't work, and the head guy I think had-" He points at the drawing, "-this in his hand when he stabbed me!"

"Okay..." She says slowly, "What does that mean, then?"

Samuel almost visibly deflates and sits himself down on a rock, "Yeah, I don't know."

He looks up at the sky and sees the morning sun starting to peek out over the horizon, "So, she didn't come back?"

"Nope."

"Alright cool," More silence, "What do we do, then?"

Someone gently clears their throat behind them. Samuel and Abigail turn around and see a young girl with a dress made of Ivy leaves standing with her hands behind her back. She looks around anxiously and scratches her arm quickly before shoving it back behind her again. A Nymph, easy to guess, and an incredibly anxious one at that. Kinda cute too.

She clears her throat and extends a hand for Samuel to shake. He raises an eyebrow but stands and gives her a light handshake. Quick as a flash she takes her hand away and looks everywhere but his eyes.

"My Lady wants you to follow me to her temple. We must make haste, her temple is in great peril and time is short."

Samuel turns to Abigail who shrugs and flicks her eggs somewhere into a bush, "What are we looking at, then? Any idea on what we're facing against, and what we have to stop them?"

The Nymph freezes in place, an empty glaze covering her eyes. Samuel snaps a few times in her face, and after a moment she shakes herself from her daze and spins around and starts marching into the forest.

"Follow me when you're ready."

Abigail and Samuel look at one another, the Son of Eris pointing at the odd Nymph with a bewildered expression on his face. Abigail just shrugs with an equally perplexed expression. Samuel just shakes his head and moves off to a large bush.

"I've gotta pee right quick."

The Nymph peeks at Samuel quickly before whipping her head to look back into the forest. Hoping to diffuse the strangely tense situation, Abigail comes to the Nymph's side, making her flinch for a fraction of a second. Taking note, Abigail takes a large step to the side to the relief of the shady nature spirit.

"So... gotta name?"

"...Ivy." Abigail nods. More silence. She sighs seeing how Ivy isn't going to start a conversation easily, "No surname? There's more than one type of Ivy, like poison...Ivy..."

"AAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!"

Slowly the two turn around as they hear Samuel's scream of agony. Abigail sighs and turns to Ivy, "...Why did you shake his hand?"

Ivy flushes in embarrassment and turns away, hiding her face under her bangs, "...I thought it was polite."

000

Samuel crosses his arms angrily and glares up into the sky as he's dragged across the forest on a makeshift sled. Abigail glances at him over her shoulder and sighs before turning back to following Poison Ivy while dragging Samuel on a sled.

"C'mon, you can't be that mad at her."

"Like hell I can't! I touched my dick with a poison ivy filled hand! Do you know how much this sucks right now?!"

"Well, I'm a girl, so no."

"Exactly! So shut up and let me brood, dammit!"

Abigail rolls her eyes and continues marching forward, "Ivy, how long until we get to the temple?"

"Only a matter of moments," She says softly, "My Lady is using her powers to send us faster through the forest. If you look around you can see we're in a different biome."

Samuel looks around and sees the trees are a completely different breed than from where they were before, Pine trees instead of oak and birch. Even the air is different, far colder and sharper. How did he not realize the clear change? Well, he fell in a river next to a city one time and was washed up on shore next to Camp Half Blood thanks to Demeter, so maybe that kind of stuff just messes with perception, who knows?

Ivy pushes brush apart and gestures for Abigail to enter. She enters through the opening and is taken away by the beauty of the ruins before her. Marble columns, no less than a hundred still standing, sparkle in the rising sunlight, grass and vines grow around them with bright purple flowers sprouting between the cracks in the stone. The Parthenon-looking temple extends back several hundred feet, over four hundred if Abigail were to guess and is half that wide. It stands at least three stories high, and even though many parts of the temple have eroded or fallen apart the vines wrapping around the columns also seem to wrap around much of the structure itself, seemingly holding the entire thing together for the most part.

Around the temple are mostly intact statues and fountains, each carved in Artemis' image to fine detail with faint sparkling gold still visible despite the wear of time. Even though the temple itself will never hold a candle to the beauty of those built on Olympus, the fact that human hands created something so remarkable without modern tools is a testament in of itself, a true work of art.

"Wow... I forgot how beautiful they were... I haven't seen a temple like this for, well, millenia."

The Nymph manages a small smile and graciously presents them to the wondrous ruins, "Welcome to the Grand Temple of Artemis, one of the Ancient Wonders of the world and the last great temple on Earth dedicated to My Lady, Artemis."

Samuel whistles appreciatively at the sight, and even though he finds the ruins to be magnificent, he's still conscious of the greater threat looming around them.

"Not that I care about being the asshole here, how are we supposed to defend this place? Even with Artemis it's still a tall order if Diomedes has an army at his command."

The tiny smile on Ivy's lips pulls upwards just a bit, "The temple was never unguarded. Great Hunters live in the walls, the last of Artemis's true Priestesses. We must meet with them, with their help we can save the temple just yet. Just be careful, they an I don't quite have a, ah, good relationship."

"The hell does that mean?" Samuel's question is answered by an arrow embedding itself in a tree right next to Ivy's head. She yelps and jumps behind the tree, Abigail and Samuel quickly doing the same much to Samuel's chagrin.

"Ah! Fuck! Oh my gods it hurts to run! My dick is on fire!"

"Wrong thing to say here specifically," Ivy shouts, "The Hunters must think we're plunderers! Also, you're a man, and these women are really old school!"

"Then the fuck are we supposed to do?!"

"Surrender."

Instantly everyone spins around at the mysterious voice, weapons ready to attack but it's meaningless, dozens of spear are held to their throat with just as many arrows strung and ready to fire in a split second. Two dozen women each fierce and determined hold them at a stand still. Their arms are tattooed with neolithic style drawings and their armor is a mix of old colorful Greek Chitons and armor.

Their entire presence reminds Samuel of the Amazons, only the old versions you'd hear in the myths about them. He has a feeling that maybe these are Amazons, but the old fashioned ones and probably the last remnants of the first tribe of them.

He has to admit, the eerie similarities to Hylla really does something for him.

The lead Hunter tips her spear down and points it directly at Samuel's crotch. He gulps and puts his hands in the air to surrender, hoping his little fella will make it through this just fine.

"You shame us by being here, Ivy," The fiercest Hunter says, her spear still ready to castrate Samuel, "But now you bring an admittedly handsome boy here to tempt us?! You'll get the Bronze Bull for this, you treacherous Nymph!"

"Wait, WAIT!" Abigail yells, shocking even Samuel as he's never heard so much emotion from her before, "Artemis sent us here to save the temple! We're about to be attacked by a dragon and a horde of monsters! We don't have time to be pissy about any of this!"

The leader glances at Abigail before turning her Medusa-like gaze to Ivy who visibly shrinks under the intensity. Whatever she sees in her eyes convinces the leader somehow, and as she lowers her weapon so too does the rest of the hunters. Samuel sighs in relief, and Abigail helps him to his feet where he has a brief stare off with the scary hunter before she turns to Abigail with the faintest hint of a bow.

"Welcome, lady Avigail, it's nice to see you again."

"Arethusa... it's been a while." Before she can do anything, Arethusa quickly snags Abigail into a bone-crushing hug. She wipes a faint tear from her eye and gestures for everyone to follow her into the temple.

As the group leaves, Samuel quickly leans over and whispers to Abigail, "You know her?"

Her expression is unreadable, but Samuel gets the feeling that there's some kind of bad or unpleasant history around them, "...We were hunters together, years ago. She was around when I was betrayed by my old friend."