I sat down on the edge of the cliff. Usually this would be insanely dangerous, but the inner world had this useful feature of braking your fall once you got fast enough to get hurt, so the worst thing that could happen was losing a bit of climbing progress. After looking down into the fog for a few minutes (I know, not a terribly interesting thing to look at. Surprisingly, it wasn't scary. I had never been a huge fan of the dark. If you've ever been a child you'll know how scary that dark corner in your room could be, especially after watching a scary movie. Now imagine you know for a fact that the scary movie was a reality and you were likely to become a victim. You'd probably hide under the blanket. Technically, under the blanket it was even darker, but for some reason that darkness was the opposite of scary. This was the kind of darkness the fog had) I realized that I should have probably brought something to eat. On the other hand, how would I have even carried it? I saw the sun set over the horizon. I hadn't even noticed it getting lower, but time could probably be a little weird here. There was no reason for me to stay up here, so I decided to go down. I figured the easiest way to do that would be to jump. It took me a few attempts to overcome my survival instincts, but eventually I managed to get myself to fall off the edge.

The feeling of free fall brought back some unpleasant memories, like when I had fallen off a cliff while trying to get Nico and Bianca to safety. That was the last time I had ever seen her since she died on her way to save me (Fine, on her way to save Lady Artemis who happened to be at the same place as me. I guess the only one who had actually been interested in saving me (apart from Grover, whose job was to save half-bloods) was Percy, which may or may not have led to me falling in love with him even harder. Pretty much as hard as you could love someone in the immediate presence of the goddess of maidenhood. Bianca's fate – dying after two days with the hunters- hadn't exactly made me a fan of Thalia joining them. But right now, it looked like she'd stay alive for a little longer, probably longer than she would have normally, and her not starting the final battle of the titan war by fulfilling the prophecy had also been a nice bonus. That role had been taken twenty months later by my beloved seaweed brain. We more or less got together during that battle so in a way, Artemis was responsible for Percabeth. I was getting kind of off topic, but it was better than going to other falling related memories. Thalia being a huntress also meant that my first family probably wouldn't be united for a few hundred, if not a few thousand, years. The thought made me a bit sad. The broken trio, as I liked to call us, would probably stay broken for a very long time. I realized that over my life, I had done a lot of falling. Falling down the aforementioned cliff, falling into Tartarus, falling in love with Percy, okay, that was a good thing to think about. It had been long process, and every time I thought I had reached my maximum of love for him, I found some way to kick it up a notch, an effect known as the end of history illusion. The most recent change would probably be reaching a new type of attraction to him. It was not an attraction I particularly liked since in addition to making me want to do things I didn't want to do, it also awoke a fear of it being used I hadn't felt since I had first developed romantic feelings for Percy. Sure, I was like 99% certain that Percy would never turn against me, but the way he had completely taken over my brain simply by taking his shirt off made the remaining one percent scarily high. Like, I'm not saying I'm scared of Percy, but, okay, maybe I am a bit scared of him (but not in a dangerous-to-the-relationship kind of way), but have you seen the guy? Only a complete sociopath would not be scared of him. On the other hand, I got a free pass, because apparently, he was not only unwilling but also incapable of harming me. Apart from cuddling me hard enough to crush my ribcage that is. I looked at the cliff next to me. I was falling slowly enough to make out individual rocks and after recognizing a specific pattern, I figured I was around 80% of the way down. On my other side, I saw the sun setting. It was absolute beautiful and I had no idea how my brain was able to simulate all that. Not long after that I finally reached the ground. As always, it wasn't painful in the slightest. It was getting dark now and I really hoped that the color of the grass was the only thing this world had in common with Minecraft. Before I could find out otherwise, I ran along the shaft, through the garden (where I grabbed an apple from a very conveniently located tree) and through the back door. I suddenly realized that if I planned on staying here, in the inner world, I'd need some place to stay. I couldn't just keep wandering the world and only stop by at the house to get something to eat. I'd probably also need some place to spend the night because apparently, needing to sleep was a thing here as well. Speaking of sleep, I was starting to get tired. Unfortunately, I didn't have a designated room for myself, so I'd have to find some other place to sleep. When I looked in the storage room, I saw a few bags of flour. Not ideal, but I had had to sleep in significantly worse places. I rearranged the bags into a pattern somewhat resembling a mattress and quickly drifted off to sleep.

I was woken up by sunlight falling in through a small window. I had no idea how much time had passed in here, and was even more clueless regarding the real world. What if I had missed several days of my life? On the other hand, I would have probably come out once needed, and since my job was regular living, that happened very frequently. In my experience, almost fifty percent of switches resulted in me. But then again, I obviously didn't notice all switches. I got up from my makeshift bed. From what I could tell, the bags had not covered me in flour over night the way you'd expect from a fine powder in a bad made of fabric. It seemed like another example of the physical laws of this world being bent to one's convenience. When I opened the door and walked into the central room, I didn't see anyone there, but just a few seconds later, I saw someone I vaguely recognized coming through the front door. "You're Thalce, right?" "That is correct" "So I was right. When I was first told about you, I thought 'hey, that sounds a lot like the guy I met on Percy's birthday' but you hadn't given me your name, so I wasn't completely sure it was actually you. Any idea what's going on outside?" "So, we're at Percy's school-" "Good, that means I didn't miss too much while I was asleep" "And Annie decided that she wanted to come out to, what was it again, restore a sandbox" "Right, Percy told me about that. Apparently, the school has a sandbox, but all the sand was stolen." "And now Annie wants to get new sand?" "Seems like something a seven year old would do" "I just hope she doesn't get the body into trouble" "Percy is probably with her. He wouldn't even think of leaving us alone while we're so capable of making stupid decisions" "Your trust in Percy is so insanely high. Well, I should expect that, your trust for him is pretty much the reason I exist. And also your trust for Thalia, those two each created an alter, and those two then fused to make me." "Interesting origin story I guess" "And quite confusing. Anyways, I'll make myself something to eat now" "Sounds good"

I followed him into the kitchen. Since we grew all our food ourselves (because who else would?), there wasn't a whole lot of variety and especially no highly process foods, so no triple choc crunchy cereal or cake frosting (I know frosting isn't really food, I just needed an example for something that is processed) "So, I can just take anything that's here" "Sure, as long as it's roughly in balance with how much you contribute" I decided to go for a simple bowl of cereal. It wasn't exactly the most delicious food I had ever tried, but I had also had significantly worse. "Want some apple juice?" he asked. "Sure" "Then let's see if this thing works this time. It tends to break at inconvenient times" He placed an apple into a hole in the wall, and a cup (probably glazed clay) under a spout below that. He then pressed a button and a hidden mechanism crushed the apple, spraying juice everywhere. Despite that, the cup ended up surprisingly full after a while. "How is it this clear if it was just pressed?" "A terracotta filter, combined with a bit of inner world magic." I'll save you the rest of the explanation. Apparently, said inner world magic also explained why I had way more juice than what should have been left after the device had sprayed us.

"So, I was thinking, if I'm gonna visit here more often, I'll need my own place to stay." "Are you thinking of your own house or just a room in here with us?" "Good question. Haven't really thought about that. I guess here I'll only need a room with a bed while in my own house I'd also need at least a kitchen and a bathroom. Speaking of a bathroom, where was that again?" He showed me the way there. Looking around, I saw a sink, a shower, a (surprisingly large) bathtub and… "Okay, but like, where's the toilet?" "Just press that button over there" I went over and pressed it, expecting a toilet to pop out from the floor or something. What happened Instead was that I just stopped having to go. It was almost like I had used it but had an amnesia gap of the few minutes when I had done so. I sometimes had these memory gaps, but they usually weren't so perfectly seamless and also probably shouldn't happen in the inner world because in here, I had this body to myself. "Okay, how does this work?" "It's really simple actually. Everything inside you that needs to leave is just transported out. It's essentially teleportation." "You still use water wheels to power your machines, but you have teleportation?" "Outside world people use water wheels to make electricity and then use that to power their machines, we're just cutting out the middle man." "Fair, but still, teleportation" "Annie's tree house has a corridor that bends spacetime twice. We have magical barriers in the door. We have a water wheel that can withstand 100 atmospheres of pressure. But this surprises you?" "I'll have to admit, this world is pretty weird. I just want to know how it works" "I actually don't know. You're not the only one in the system who's utterly clueless. Though this usually applies more to others since I'm one of the oldest, so I know a thing or two about our system. However, I'm still based on a certain seaweed brain so I'm not like insanely smart like you are." "Percy isn't dumb, he just does dumb things sometimes" "Well, I'm based on the person you pictured when for the first time, you were thinking 'I wish Percy was here'" "Well, that Percy was a bit stupid. He didn't even really comprehend that I liked him and was willing to become his friend (and later a bit more than a friend) until I specifically told him. But maybe that's on him being an outcast for most of his life before that. Apart from Grover, I was probably his first real friend. Speaking of Percy, I heard that he and Annie had some interesting plans-" "Yes, you heard it from me" "so I'll probably stay here for a while longer, so I might have a look around. Do you maybe have a map of the inner world?" "Sure" He led me to another room, then pointed to a pin wall. "There it is" "All I see is a black square" "That's weird. Well, sharing information within the inner world can be a bit weird. But it makes sense, you're overstepping the amnesia barriers that were created between us to keep us safe. You're basically working against the disorder itself, so information that could be bad for you just won't get through. I guess you'll have to make your own map. I think Annie invented this special kind of paper that you can like actually zoom in on." "Let me guess, magic?" "Magic is quite hard to define, don't you think? Magic is usually viewed as something that cannot be described by the laws of nature, but since the laws of nature govern everything and anything that exists, something that does exist can't really be considered magic, but by outside world standards, this would probably be magic. It's not based on an electrical screen I think, but Annie is the one who invented it, not me" "Sounds useful. Should I go ask her if I can use it?" "I'll do that" like on the first time I had talked to him, he zoomed away, only to return a few seconds later "She said it's fine and she has a few sheets in her tree house" ""Good. So, apparently there's this corridor that goes from here right to that tree house, where is that?" Thalce showed me the corridor, then allowed me to explore on my own. "But don't cause a Euclidean collapse again." "I'll do my best" I opened the door he had pointed me to and stepped into the corridor. When I passed the Euclid statue (why would you put a statue with the power to destroy non-Euclidian spaces into a non-Euclidian space) I made sure to stay as far away from it as possible. Considering I was in a narrow corridor, that wasn't very far, but I still tried. Luckily, the bookshelf hiding the corridor could also be moved from the inside. Like I had suspected, it was extremely light. Behind it was the familiar tree house. First thing, I checked if I had forgotten to implement anything into my model. Mattresses-check, fridge-check, overflowing desk-check, tiny bathroom corner-check. In the middle of the desk was a stack of papers that had a strange shimmer to them. One had a drawing on it and, as promised, I was able to zoom in on it. Perfect for making a map. I took an empty sheet, together with some pencils and began working.