Chapter 5, Act II - Negotiating with War.
We were on the coast of South Carolina when I stopped, the thermos about two-thirds full still. I put the thermos back into my inventory, and I directed us to the shore. I quickly made a rainbow, and pulled out a drachma.
"The three of you might back up." I warned them. They heeded the warning. I tossed a drachma into the rainbow, and it shimmered. "Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show me Ares, on Mount Olympus."
The face of the brutal war god shimmered into existence. "Ares." I called out. He turned sharply to me. "Punk. Come back for a beating?" He barked out. "No, I actually came with a very valuable gift, to ask for assistance on our current quest, to do your father's bidding, once again." I tried to be diplomatic, but it was honestly hard.
I brought out his shield from my inventory. A glint of interest appeared in his fiery eyes. "That's not all. I have a gift for your girlfriend, too, to apologize for the date Hephaestus interrupted at Waterland." I brought out Aphrodite's scarf. "How'd you come across those, kid?" He asked, less hostile than before.
"I just stole them from number one on Olympus' most wanted list, for the two of you. But before I give them back, I'm asking for a favor. You wanted to help with our quest before for the stakes of your shield, and I just upped it. I want a ship durable enough to get past Charybdis and Scylla. We're on our way to the Sea of Monsters, to find the Golden Fleece." I told him.
He laughed. "Sacrifice the shield and the scarf for us, and I'll think about it." Honestly? I think that was his way too masculine way of saying yes. I ignited my sword, and touched it to the scarf and the shield. "To Ares and Aphrodite." The two things went up in flames, and the shield appeared on the war god's arm.
The last thing I saw from him was a smirk. "Thanks, kid." He waved through the message, and the ground rumbled, the water becoming choppy as a huge vessel slowly emerged from the sea. I turned to the trio behind me.
Annabeth was shocked that I just negotiated with Ares, who hates my guts. Percy seemed disgusted that I bartered with him, which was honestly fair. I wanted to vomit from how much I just sucked up to him. Tyson, bless him, was completely unaware of the significance of what happened.
"Welcome aboard, cap'n." A skeleton, clad in a German navy outfit, said. "Glad to be here, admiral." I said, guessing his rank from his outfit, and how it differed from the other skeletal crewmen. "Where to?" He asked, as we walked along to their navigation area, whatever the navy term for it was. "The Sea of Monsters. Specifically, thirty, thirty-one, seventy-five, twelve." I told him.
He gave me a critical look. "That's suicide, captain. But we'll deliver you and your crew there if we can." I nodded. "Good. Sail closer to Scylla. Don't exhaust the engines, so we can sail smoothly by. Leave some of the crew on the deck, so Scylla would stay distracted as we pass. But no more than you can afford to lose. My allies can also assist around the ship, if necessary, so you needn't fear too direly about losing crew." I explained.
"Aye. For now, rest. I will alert you when we are coming up on Scylla and Charybdis." The admiral assured us. "Are you sure this is a good idea? There's gotta be another way." Annabeth insisted. "This is what Odysseus did, was it not? Discredit him if you will, he was still tricky. If he didn't see another way, then there isn't another way that's achievable for us. We can't realistically fight them off, can we?" I posed to her.
"But can't we all just stay below deck?" She shot back. "Scylla could tear apart the hull and sink us. Better that she gets a meal, than have us drown. Alternatively, she may realistically have the strength to push us towards Charybdis with her heads." I countered.
She hesitated, but relented. "Tyson, can you go oversee the engine room? We have to make sure the engine doesn't overexert itself." He grinned, and bounded off towards the engine room. We followed Tyson belowdecks, only to turn towards the crew quarters, where we had some hastily made cots.
"We should be arriving by dusk. So it's best we rest now, as this may be our last touch of rest before we get back." I warned them. Annabeth flopped onto her cot without a complaint, but Percy just sat on his cot for a while. As soon as he knew Annabeth was asleep, Percy spoke quietly. "What did you see in that room, on the cruise ship?" He asked.
"Kronos, in a golden sarcophagus. I think he was being empowered by magical items, to include Ares' shield and Aphrodite's scarf, which were there because we didn't get them on Ares' miniquest last summer." I explained. Percy sat there, thinking. "Do you think Luke's out of the picture?" He asked.
I snorted. "He's resilient. I know what he wants, and this is just delaying him. We'll see him again, sooner than you might think." I said cryptically. "How did your hand reattach?" He asked. "You're asking a lot. You know the powers I mentioned, just a couple days before your birthday, during our talk in your cabin?" He nodded.
"That's part of the power. I can still sustain only so much damage in a certain period of time, and I can still die, but it's very hard to kill me, unless you strike me lethally, or hit me enough, and fast enough." I explained.
"Last question. The prophecy." I went completely still. "You told me the Fates don't hold you. Does the Oracle still tell the future if you're guiding a quest?" I shook my head. "You're smarter than you give yourself credit for, Perce. There's no prophecy. We're sailing into the dark, though I still do have a prophecy to work off of, but it likely doesn't apply, as from the future I knew, Clarisse was actually taking this on as a solo quest."
That was how I told him the original story, up until this moment.
"That's...a lot to take in." He said. "So don't. We should be arriving soon, so get all the rest that you can." I advised him. He put his head to his pillow, but I could tell his heart wasn't set on sleeping.
I moved to the bathrooms. I sat there, using observe on all the magic items. Bellona's helmet, Nemesis' scales, Hecate's torch, Janus' key, Cupid's bow, Thanatos' sword, Somnia's crown, Bacchus' thyrsus, alongside the previously mentioned duplicates.
I sacrificed the ones belonging to Greek deities, so the scales, the torch, and the sword. I stored the rest in my inventory, but examined the duplicates of the thyrsus, the crown, and the torch.
The thyrsus gave minor control over select domains of the Greek and Roman god of wine. The only one that got my interest was madness manipulation. As for the crown, it could put people under my level to sleep, it can influence the dreams of people with a lower level than mine, or within twenty levels above me. It also granted, interestingly enough, minor shape-shifting abilities. It allowed the wearer to change minor features of their body.
It can also give insomnia to people who were ten levels above me, or to anyone lower than my level. The torch, out of all of them, was the most interesting. It was the first consumable item I've seen. If I absorbed its power, it would give me a twenty percent boost to my experience gain for all magic abilities, and increase my Wis by a whopping twenty points.
I don't think it's a question of if I consumed it. I pressed the button that said Yes when I observed it. It burst into a purple-ish mist, and it flew into my mouth. I coughed, but I felt the effects of the torch. I glanced at my stats for the first time in a long time, and did a double take at my growth.
Level: 161
HP: 610/610
MP: 4,780/4,780
Str: 84
Dex: 90
Con: 103
Int: 175
Wis: 235
Cha: 67
Points: 32
I knew I'd been studying like crazy, and I'd been applying my knowledge like crazy, but oh my gods that was insane growth.
I grinned. Just to balance things out a little, I distributed my stat points into Strength and Charisma, enough to get Strength to one hundred, and the remainder got Charisma to eighty-three points. "You're doing well, I hope?" I heard a familiar voice say. I snapped out of my thoughts, and turned my head to the Iris Message.
"Chiron!" I smiled. "Yeah, we're sailing to find the Golden Fleece. I'm still working on finding a way to get you back." I updated him about every detail I could. "That's deeply disturbing." He said in regards to the magical items from gods powering Kronos.
"At least Kronos' growth should be set back some. He shouldn't be slowing down time very much anymore." I offered. Chiron hesitated before he continued. "My suggestion to you is this. Go to Olympus after you return. Seek an audience with Hera. Explain to her what happened, and give her the remaining items. Hera may be reasonable about it, and might not wipe your memory. Zeus, however, might, and if that fails, he would attempt to kill you. I would ask Hera afterwards if she could speak with Zeus in regards to returning me to my post." He suggested.
"I had another plan, actually." I told him that Luke's vessel was likely headed to Miami. "Most strange things do tend to show up in Miami." He mused. "I will try to meet you there. If your assumption is correct, you may be able to carry that out."
"Good luck, Chiron. I'll see you in Miami." I swiped through the message, and I went back to the living quarters. As soon as I walk in, the boat shakes. "Annabeth, Percy, we need to go." I said grimly. "I'll get Tyson. Scylla is here, and I think she's got the admiral." Why else would we have not been notified of our nearing Scylla and Charybdis?
There was a crunch, and I saw a skeleton get snapped up, faster than I could perceive. I paled, and rushed down to the engine room. "Tyson! We need to go, big guy. Come on." I yelled. Then, before my eyes, the worst happened. One of Scylla's heads shot through the ceiling, snapped up part of the engine, and Tyson got tugged along. "Tyson!" I shouted. I charged up top, praying to Hecate and Thanatos to assist me, in return for what I had retrieved for them. I would pray to Nemesis as well, but I knew much better than that.
Tyson was a speck up in the air, falling debris from the engine parts that Scylla snatched up falling around us. "Percy! Annabeth! Scylla got Tyson." I said grimly, pointing up. A skeleton was on fire, coming up from the engine room. "The crew is gone, sir. Up in flames, with the lower deck." The skeleton crumbled, and I ran to the rowboats.
I knew Tyson would survive. "What about Tyson?" Percy asked. There was a large splash. From Tyson or from debris, I couldn't tell. "We can't worry about him. He'll live, and he'll find his way to us. I promise. We need to go, though. Now." I extended my magic outwards, using my photokinesis to blind any Scylla heads that were trying to snatch us up.
We got into the rowboat, and I brought out the thermos, cracking it open barely, and we, just barely, dodged a Scylla head. My MP ran dry just as we got out of range. I kept us going until it had about a third left to it. We stayed drifting along, and I sat, stunned at how wrong that went. I cursed aloud, muttering in Greek, or so I thought.
"What are you saying?" Annabeth asked, curious. I paused, thinking back to what I'd said. Wait. That wasn't Greek I was speaking. I froze, realizing the implications. "I was just cursing. Don't worry about it." I was hoping she wouldn't worry about why I'd been cursing in Latin. I suspect I might already have attention from Roman gods, though I'm not sure who.
I checked with Percy, making sure we were going in the right direction, and I helped him train with his powers more. We were in for a long ride, so why not?
A/N: Now, I know. Absurd stat growth, blah blah. Guys, remember Cyrus' absolutely nuts stat growth? Imagine that growth for three years, because that's how long he's spent training in this world.
