Okay, so I know I don't make notes very often, but this is somewhat important. Not really, but just...go with it. Anyway, when I first conceptualized TINM in my head, I envisioned something that was big and how I've planned it and doing the prep to write all 5 parts, I have prepared it to be big in more ways than one. One way is the scale of the adventure, which you'll see as the story progresses. The other is the relationships.
If you read Hunter, which most of you probably didn't because no one did ( .com for future reference), there really weren't many relationships. Mostly because of the main character, but even when they did come into play they were not so great in my opinion. And that is something i'm trying to fix in TINM. So far, you've been presented with two options more or less: Jillian and Lindsey. Now this was fully my intention. I want a shipping war to break out. I want people to be killed over-No, I'm only kidding, but I really do want this to be a center of involvement for the reader and the way I'm going to do that is as follows:
I have planned endings for both ships. I am prepared to end it either way, but I don't know who to end it with. That's where you come in. In the reviews, I want you to vote for who you ship or who you think should be endgame. You can vote multiple times and you can vote for either, but I'll keep a running tally and whichever ship is in the lead when I write the ending will be endgame. So read! And vote! And tell your friends to vote for your ship! Thank you and now for your irregularly scheduled Peter chapter.
I was hesitant to move around camp. Lindsey was welcomed into camp. I was happy for her, to be honest, but I did find myself feeling jealous. Who would choose being some strange outcast over being a person readily accepted. I was glad that she was there. And I was glad to have Freddy. I hadn't known him long, but he was familiar. And that was good for me.
He led me back toward the fire where Lindsey got claimed and now that the crowd had cleared, and I wasn't in rage mode, I noticed the cabins around. In the shape of a closed horse shoe, were twenty cabins, but it looked like there was space for more. We stood by the fire and Freddy turned to me.
"These are the cabins." He said with a nod. "At that end is Zeus' cabin."
"Wait…There was that oath thing." I said, remembering back to his earlier explanation of everything.
"Yeah. Just ignore that for the most part. All of them kind of broke it already, so…" Freddy shrugged and pointed to the cabin next to Zeus. "That's Hera's. She doesn't have kids, but if we hadn't built her one then we'd be a little soot mark on her palm. We try not to go in there." I nodded and Freddy moved on. "Now, from those two cabins, you can tell the rest of them.
"Well, the blue one is probably Poseidon and the green one is probably Demeter, so I'd assume that those are gods and those are goddesses." I deduced, pointing to the left and then right. "I just saw Lindsey walk into that one, so that's Apollo. That one looks like a place, I would never want to go, so I'm guessing that's Ares. That one is smoking, so I'll guess Hephaestus. Meaning Hermes is on the end." I turned to Freddy. "There's a problem though."
"What do you mean?" He asked, looking around.
"There's 7 Olympian gods and 5 Olympian goddesses. Not counting Hades, that is. I'm guessing Hades is that big death-y looking one at the very end there next to the rainbow one which I'll guess is Iris." I turned to Freddy again. "Does Hestia have a cabin then? She can't have kids, but neither can Hera or Artemis, right?"
"Why do you know so much about this kind of stuff?" Freddy asked, a smile on his face.
"Well…MythoMagic." I said with a shrug. Freddy chuckled.
"No. Hestia does not have a cabin, but we gave her this fire to represent the hearth. Dionysus has the cabin on the end of the goddesses." Freddy said, pointing to an empty looking cabin that's covered in vines.
"Interesting." I said with a nod. "What are all of those cabins in the line then?"
"Well, after that war that I told you about, we had to build new cabins for the minor gods and Hades." Freddy said. "There's Hecate on the end. Tyche. Hebe. Nike. Nemesis. Hypnos. Then Iris and Hades."
"Hypnos? Really?" I asked with the image of a bunch of people falling asleep in the middle of a fight.
"Say what you will, man, but they were vital in the insurgence a few years ago." Freddy said with a nod. "Saved a lot of lives. Not to mention the fact that if you ever need a nap, just go there."
"I'll remember that. Now before I get settled in, can I get my stomach settled?" I asked. "It's currently swearing at me for not feeding it."
"Yeah. Come on. The mess hall is this way." Freddy said, walking toward the top of the cabins. "Then after that we'll drop off your stuff and then we can set you up with a weapon." We headed past Zeus and Hera cabins toward a large outdoor pavilion, tables riddled throughout, a large crack in the ground decorating the floor. "Don't ask about the floor." He said quietly, like he could read my mind. I nodded as we entered and I got in line behind him, filling my tray to the limit with food.
"Oh, my heavens. I am going to eat well here." I said with a grin as I followed Freddy to a table near the back. The whole courtyard was empty except for him and me who sat across from each other.
"This is the Hermes table. You'll typically have your meals here with your cabinmates, but since your unclaimed you can probably just sit anywhere. I won't tell anyone." Freddy explained with a chuckle. "Oh. For future reference." He took his glass of the table and then spoke to it and set it down. I watched as it filled up with a steaming liquid. "Chamomile tea. Lovely. Just tell your glass what you want and it makes it. It can be anything. We had a camper here a while ago who would test the cups and see if he could name something that it couldn't make. He never succeeded."
"Did he die or did he leave?" I asked as I stared at my cup in amazement.
"Umm… both. In that order." Freddy said with a nod. I didn't realize the oddness of that sentence until after I told my cup to fill up with Game Fuel Mountain Dew.
"That doesn't make sense."
"Well, it was a bit of a long story. I'm sure you'll hear it if you stick around. Almost everyone who has been here for at least 4 or 5 years has at least one Hunter story."
"Hunter?" I asked. Freddy nodded and took a deep breath.
"Well, Artemis doesn't have kids, but she has a bunch of girls who become her hunters. She hates men. There were exceptions until Hunter. Hunter just ended any chance at Artemis liking guys. Anyway, she allowed a guy to enter into her hunters, due to certain circumstances, but things got a little messy and…yeah. It's a long story." Freddy paraphrased. I nodded.
"I'll listen to it later." I took a sip of my drink then took a large bite of food, my hunger almost immediately sated. "So, now that Lindsey and I are both here safe, what's next for Freddy Lipton?" I asked, taking another bite. Freddy chewed into a pop can.
"Well, I'll show you around for the rest of the day, campfire tonight. I might get one more day, but then I'll probably be sent off to some other school to look for more of you." He said with a shrug. "I'll need to speak with the council and my uncle, but odds are I'll be sent somewhere."
"Oh…" I muttered at the news. I kept eating for a few moments and I finally looked up at Freddy. "That sucks, man."
"Hey, it's just part of the job, you know?" He said with a small chuckle. His laugh died down and the two of us fell quiet. We are in silence until we were done. "Okay. I guess, we'll get you settled into Hermes. Let's go." Freddy said once we were both done and we had taken care of our trays. The two of us left the mess hall and headed back to the cabins, Freddy pointing out the arena to me in the distance and the climbing wall in the other direction.
"So, what kind of training do we do, typically?" I asked as we made our way through camp.
"Well, a lot of it is exercise. We run combat drills and strategic drills. There's basic weapon fighting. Greek lessons. History lessons. Wilderness training. Some people are chosen to work in the strawberry fields. Canoeing. Umm…Volleyball. Forging. And every Friday we play Capture the flag." Freddy finished.
"Capture the Flag? So this is really just a summer camp. What does Capture the Flag do to help us?" I asked with a laugh. Freddy shrugged.
"Oh, I don't know. Ask a child of Athena." He said with a laugh. We finally arrived in front of the cabin and I walked up to the porch, opening the door and walking in. It was empty except for one person who looked up in surprise as I walked in.
"What is—" I was going to ask, but suddenly I felt the walls creak. They groaned like there was this immense pressure and suddenly, I was flying backward out of the cabin and into the middle of the cabins.
"Peter, what in the world!" Freddy asked, running over as I landed hard on my back. I groaned and laid there for a moment. I could sense a bit of a crowd growing and I finally sat up, glancing around.
"What just happened?" I groaned, looking at Hermes cabin. I finally looked at Freddy who looked as confused as I was.
"It looked like Hermes Cabin shot you out like a cannonball out of a cannon." He said quietly. Freddy helped me up and I looked around again before walking toward the cabin again. I was about to walk through the door, but as I walked to the porch, the door slammed shut in my face.
"Umm…Explain this, someone, please?" I said, turning around.
"Well, maybe…" Freddy said, looking very unsure. "Actually, I've never seen anything like this before. It seems like Hermes is...rejecting you?" He said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Can we try another cabin? Maybe it has to do with me and not Hermes." I said, rubbing my back. Freddy and I turned toward the cabin next to Hermes. Freddy walked in first and nothing happened. He said hello to one person then walked back out. I nodded then headed inside, looking around and then noticing a quiet hissing noise. I furrowed my brow and looked at the other people in the cabin who were looking around me. I looked and saw several nozzles, each one resembling the nozzle of a flamethrower. "Oh, for the love of—" They suddenly all turned on and I was engulfed in flame. I could feel the heat, but I remained uninjured, fortunately.
I was still getting used to my heat resistance and this was one case where I was glad I had it. I closed my eyes and I could suddenly feel the flames around me, like I could talk to them. I could see them without actually seeing them. I finally opened my eyes again and somehow I manipulated the flames away from me, forcing them back up their tubes and extinguishing the sources of the flames.
"Now that was cool…" I said, looking at the flame throwers and then at myself. I turned around again and waved to Freddy. "I think I'm getting the hang of this." I said, but I could feel the energy I used and it was pretty much all of the Mountain Dew I had had with my food earlier. Suddenly I felt something smack me in the side hard, shoving me into the doorway and then out of the cabin, knocking me down onto the porch. After a second, I realized that it was the door.
"Wow….Hephaestus, too." Freddy said, walking over and helping me up. I brushed myself off and I looked to find that I now had a large crowd watching me, Lindsey and Dimitri being part of that crowd. Freddy and I tried to ignore it.
"Are we just going to try all of the gods?" I asked, still feeling achy from the earlier attack by the Hermes cabin. Freddy chuckled, but soon sighed.
"What choice do we have? You've got to sleep somewhere, right?" He said quietly, walking past Apollo to Ares. "There's no way you're Apollo, but Zeus and Poseidon are definitely not to be trifled with."
"Oh, and Ares is?" I asked, feeling a little worried as to what might happen here. I took a deep breath and walked into the cabin, immediately moving to the center of the cabin. I looked around the cabin, observing the decoration. I spied Jillian in her bunk at the end of the cabin. She stood just as the wall shook in front of me.
"What are you doing here?" She asked, walking toward me. I observed the wall behind her, a large mural of what looked to be wars throughout time. On one end were soldiers fighting with swords and shields then at the other end, modern soldiers fighting in a desert. The wall shook again and I took a step away.
"Does that wall always do that?" I asked Jillian. She stopped and raised her eyebrows. She finally turned around just as the wall seemed to burst open, spectral soldiers of every era, bursting forth and heading straight for me. I backed away more, but I heard the door slam closed behind me. I finally drew the slingshot in my pocket and fired a pellet at the first one. It sailed right through it and tapped Jillian in the back of the head. She looked back at me angrily and then finally noticed that the ghostly horde was headed for me. She reached into her pocket and in seconds was holding several spears in her hands. She spun one and ran after the ghosts, slicing one in half, but they kept coming. I dove through a bunk and slid under another one, finding myself back to back with Jillian, a wave of ghostly soldiers circling us like sharks teasing their pending attack.
I didn't know what was happening. Here I am back to back with someone who hates me, about to die for trying to find a bed to sleep in. Again, I didn't know what was happening, but I was done with dealing with it. I grabbed a spear out of Jillian's hand and gripped it firmly, swinging it like a bat at the closest ghost. It slipped out of my hand and killed two ghosts before clattering to the ground.
"Good job. Now I have one less spear to kill all these ghosts with." She said before impaling a nearby ghost on a spear then throwing the spear into two more. "I can't believe I'm gonna die next to such a sorry warrior." She said with a roll of her eyes. I felt my skin immediately heat up. I realized that maybe if I got angry, I could stop these things, but it was just a matter of getting angry enough. Controling a constant source of fire was one thing, but creating fire from nothing was completely different. I tried to focus, but I felt a sharp pain in my arm and I shouted as a sword from an ghostly Japanese Samurai stabbed into my arm.
I cried out and dropped to a knee, clutching my arm which was now pouring blood. Everything got cold for a second and it felt like I lost control of my own body. Something took over for me. Like an autopilot. I reached up with my good arm and dragged Jillian down next to me before standing up. I closed my eyes and held my hands up. For a second, it seemed like everything slowed down, but I realized that I was calm. My heartbeat slowed down and the pain in my arm subsided just long enough for a warm feeling deep in the pit of my stomach start to grow. It expanded and expanded and suddenly everything got quiet. My eyes opened and I was glowing. All around me the ghosts were vanishing in puffs of smoke. The last one disappeared and I finally dropped to my knees, the glowing weakening until being completely gone. It seemed like the autopilot shut off and I gasped as I suddenly felt tired. I wasn't sure what it was that I had just done, but it took a lot out of me. I coughed quietly until I remembered that Jillian was also in the cabin. I looked at her and she looked at me in confusion.
"Yeah…Yeah…I don't know either." I said before finally passing out.