Reminder, the full story is out on Wattpad. If you wish to read ahead, go to Wattpad, same username/story.
Can I just say, sailing on a river is BORING.
The Ohio River is winding and these meanders make the distance frustratingly long, but at least my car-boat and my magic makes the process much smoother. The naiad of the Ohio must be very weirded out by my choice of vehicle, but hopefully, she won't let a monster attack me. I've hedged all of my bets on river travel, considering there seems to be a shortage of river monsters in Greek and Egyptian history, but I don't recall most of the Norse creatures. My modded Avalon is a giant risk should I be proven wrong, but I've already fought monster after monster on my overland trek, and I don't care to fight another cross-pantheon hybrid. The first couple were hard enough to figure out, and my nerves aren't going to let me figure out a way west any faster.
Speaking of time, today's only May 23. I still have almost three weeks until I have to be at the Underworld. My boat contraption is making good progress. From my estimates, I'm travelling at eighty-five knots, which is way too fast for a standard riverboat, but I'm not piloting a standard riverboat either. By my estimates, I should be where I need to be later today, although that would be quite late.
The scenery is pretty much a blur of greens and maybe a few reds if I'm lucky. Although I'm grateful for this moment of peace, those demigod instincts are as active as ever. Sitting in a car sailing on water is still sitting in a car, it seems. I don't have a nice deck to walk around in or anything else to do. I take another look into the glovebox and find lots of old insurance information. Apparently, the previous insured's name is "aPol hsBlofiw.", which is probably my dyslexia corrupting the text. As usual, numbers read fine in my head, and looking at his other insurance stuff, it seems this guy has a pretty crappy driving history. His premium is pretty sky-high.
The car-boat does a pretty good job going downstream, but I haven't tried going upstream. Only Hephaestus can forgive me for such a bad engineering job, but you got to do what you got to do. Running out of stuff to read, I write another note and put it next to the first unanswered one in the Duat safe. I really hope Sadie doesn't mind these favors, for everyone tells me behind her back that she's not usually this sweet. So far, she's been very helpful. I'm just going to not think about it.
The river's steady current pushes me faster to my destination. Pleasantly, the river's current speeds up as I get closer to the confluence, meaning the journey's going to be much faster than expected. I now estimate I'm travelling at 100 knots, making me as fast as I was on land with much less effort, not to mention the ability to travel while sleeping.
For the next few hours, everything is peaceful.
At roughly noon, I take a look out the windshield. Then, the car-boat abruptly stops despite there being absolutely nothing. The current in the river is still flowing, though. The engine is still running, and I have a sneaking suspicion if I were to cut the engine, the boat will start moving backward. Finally, I decide to open a window and take a good look at what's stopping the boat.
I feel the slightest projectile miss my head by the hairs on my head. I immediately pull my head back in and conjure the first thing that comes to my mind. Immediately, a fifty-caliber Barret appears in my hands. Its barrel is that dark obsidian material, while the stock and lower receiver are of that silver-gold alloy. The magazine is celestial bronze. If I'm not so scared right now, I would think this is a pretty sick airsoft rifle. Although, I assume the bullet is not going to hurt mortals either.
I poke my head slowly back out the window, being wary to "slice the pie" as my grandpa once said. As my vision slowly passes by the B-pillar of the Avalon, I once again feel something whizz past me. Either that first thing was not a bullet, or this thing is really bad at aiming.
To enhance my vision, I dip my left eye into the Duat through the Mist. As expected, a shadowy figure hovers above where there should be a monster. The shadow is quite solid, indicating this creature is at least part-Egyptian, although I can't see it very well. I look harder into the air and still see not much of anything. Then, taking a wild shot, I shoot into the wild blue.
Immediately, a creature pops into existence. Its figure is hazy, translucent, and shifty, as though it stands in thick fog, but I can make out its features. It is very clearly a female humanoid, though. She stands tall and slender on the surface of the water. She has translucent blue hair and yellow eyes. Her face is soft and rather pretty. She's wearing what appears to be Greek robes, but she wields an Egyptian magician's staff in one hand and a similar sniper rifle to my own. Her expression is extremely determined.
"Who are you?" I demand, pointing my rifle dead at her and not daring to move.
She takes aim at me and fires, and I quickly deflect the bullet by manipulating the wind.
"Spawn of Zeus, it's time you meet you end!" she yells.
"I won't meet anyone I don't want, and if you don't want to either, I suggest that you stand down!" I snap back.
"Bold one you are, but your days are as numbered as the precious gods you protect," she says.
Who the hell is this? Oh. I should have remembered this earlier.
"You're a jinn!" I shout out. "Unfortunately for you, I'm supposed to be the unaffected one, and I'm totally solo."
"I never liked that stupid myth anyway, for I'm only half-jinn," she retorts. "Unfortunately for you, child of Greece and Rome, you can't stop me."
Way to give off a massive hint, but I knew already.
Thinking fast, I whip out my Egyptian wand and do the only logical thing I know. I jam the wand under the end of the barrel of the gun. Suddenly, I no longer wield a multicolored Barret sniper, but a gold M1 Garand from World War I. The wand transforms into a gold bayonet bearing the hieroglyph of Set.
The half-jinn's eyes widen.
"What are you?" she demands. "From your smell, you're a Greco-Roman demigod, but you wield a magician's wand. From the looks of that thing, you're a disciple of Set."
She tries another shot at me, which misses once again.
"Shifty water spirit, you have no domain of the air," I condescend to her.
"Nonsense, my father is an Anemoi Thuellai!" she screams.
For someone who's trying to shoot me, this chick loves to talk.
"Who cares, you monsters are all the same to me," I dryly say.
"I. AM. NOT. A-"
Bang!
I fire a few rounds at her, and one hits her dead in the neck, muting her.
"Next time you chat up your enemy, remember to kill them first," I say dryly. "Corpses don't have unkind words to say."
With that, the spirit disappears into a cloud of golden smoke.
The next few hours of sailing are business as usual. The weird Ventus-Jinn hybrid lady did manage to waste a few gallons of gas and take away all of my initial momenta, but I do manage to get the Avalon mostly back up to speed.
Once Apollo has called it a day, I finally see the massive fork in the river. The much smaller stream is the Mississippi, which is quite weird to think about. As tempting as it is to head downstream and sail home, I have a mission to complete. I aim the car-boat upstream and head northbound.