"Do those mountains look funny to you guys?" Rosaline asked.
Percy focused into the distance, squinting through the waning sun.
When they had reached the shore, Rosaline, Adriana and Psi refused to rest (well, more like Rosaline and Adriana; Psi collapsed of exhaustion when they reached the shore, but Rosaline spurred him into action by kicking him in the side), and began leading Percy towards the mountains.
Hours had passed as they trekked through the dense jungle, and the mountain range they had decided as their destination didn't seem to be coming any closer to them. Even Percy was getting tired now, but he was too afraid to voice his thoughts lest Rosaline kicked him in her cranky state. But now, it seemed like there was another thing wrong with the mountains.
"The sunlight's streaming through them slightly." Adriana heaved an exhausted sigh. "Just great."
"Maybe it's because of sleep deprivation," Percy suggested, keeping his eyes fixed on the mountains, worried about his mental health. The mountain range seemed to fade slightly out of view every few seconds, as if it was made out of the same mist that seemed to make the forest they were traveling through smell a bit musty, and not rock.
Rosaline shook her head in disagreement. "It's something else," she insisted. "I can feel power coming at me from every direction."
"Power?" Percy immediately uncapped Riptide, ready for action.
"Not that kind of power. More passive. Like someone cast a spell over the land. Something doesn't feel right. Keep on your toes."
At her words, Percy relaxed. As he moved to cap Riptide again, however, he saw a glimpse of the green, grassy ground on the shiny Celestial Bronze blade.
It was golden sand.
Percy frowned. Maybe he was hallucinating. He'd pulled many all-nighters—even multiple consecutively, but the only symptoms he had was extreme tiredness and the desire to collapse right there and then and take a nap. But now, he was just exhausted, as one would be after running a marathon.
So it had to be real.
For the sake of being thorough, he bent and touched the ground.
It wasn't dry, wet, or any of the things grass would've been in a rainforest. It was grainy, cold, and seemed to suck out all of the heat in his hand like a leech.
Exactly how sand felt in the night.
Next, he straightened up and attempted to put his hand on a giant sequoia whose trunk was as big as a small car, and whose leaves were blocking the sun.
His hand passed right through it.
He definitely was hallucinating. Maybe he had passed out on the shore, and now he was in a hyper-realistic dream of what his mind thought would happen next. He certainly felt stronger and more energetic than ever before, but he had pegged that upon adrenaline, which, in the number of quests he'd gone on, had been a playing factor of why he didn't drop of exhaustion after every fight. But now it didn't seem like the case.
"I'm definitely dreaming," Percy muttered under his breath as he jumped over a log.
"What's that?" Adriana asked, hot on Percy's heels.
Percy blushed, not expecting anybody to hear what he said. "Nothing . . . I was just thinking of what Rosaline said."
He suddenly realized he could only see Adriana. "Where are Psi and Rosaline?!"
Adriana looked around and drew her sword. "I don't know! Psi was a few steps ahead of me, grumbling about how he should be paid for his hardships."
Percy didn't know how to respond to that for two reasons:
1) He was too anxious about what happened to Rosaline to be in the mood to joke around.
2) The forest dissolved into different hues of green before he was rematerialized next to Psi and Rosaline, who had their weapons out.
It seemed like they were still in the same forest, but there were stark differences. Given that the sun was rising, and not setting, it seemed as though it was day and not the middle of the night. While the forest they were trekking through seemed dense and endless and eerily empty, they were now in a clearing full of chirping birds and shrubbery that rustled as animals passed through it. There was a crystal clear lake in the center of this all, making it seem like the best hiking spot in the world.
Adriana appeared, and she too drew her sword. "Where are we?" she asked.
We all looked at Rosaline. She threw her hands up in exasperation and asked, "How would I know?"
"You're the oldest among us (A/N-It's necessary to the wording, okay?)," I pointed out. "And you're the only one who had the slightest idea of something wrong. Of course, we will look at you for assistance with our problem."
Rosaline glared at him after his first sentence. "Are you calling me old?"
Percy reacted to this with panic.
Out of all the fights he had been part of in the Greek world, he had killed half of the evil female monsters and immortals by simply distracting them and stabbing them by calling them old (It was true, wasn't it?). Given this information, paired with his observations, he could clearly say Rosaline was absolutely mad at him—and in a few moments, he would become dead meat. Burnt-to-a-crisp dead meat.
Percy didn't want that. So he tried to placate Rosaline—even though it wasn't meant to be an insult. "I meant to say you're wise," Percy said, glancing back to decide on an escape route lest his tactics didn't work.
It worked. Slightly. "You better have," Rosaline grumbled, her glare growing hotter as the seconds grew by. "Otherwise you'll be limping back home to Artemis."
Fortunately, Adriana cut in, saving Percy from an unfortunate state. "I think I found a trail to civilization." She pointed to the left.
They all looked there. It took him a few moments, but after scrutinizing the ground very carefully, he could discern a faint dirt path leading into the forest. Given that shrubbery had completely overtaken it, almost hiding it from view, Percy thought it was either to only guide people on where to go and not a place to walk, or it had been a few years since somebody had maintained the path, probably showing if there was any civilization, it had been wiped out.
Percy hoped it was the former for obvious reasons. He was tired, hungry, and the same could be said of his comrades.
Their priority was to find civilization, so they immediately followed the path, being careful to be together and ready lest they get attacked—or gods forbid, teleported.
This took some time, since every time they looked away from the naturally camouflaged path, they would have to take a few moments to find it again. Plus, the forest was much thicker than the first; they had to use their swords to cut through branches, fight through thick shrubbery, and make sure not to prick themselves on thorns (since that would rip their clothing), which seemed to be on every plant.
It was a nightmare.
Fortunately, their nightmare didn't last for long. After ten minutes, each minute being as long as a century, the forest began to thin. And a few minutes after that, Adriana shouted and pointed forward.
They had arrived in another clearing. Although, this one was at least ten times larger than the other and had one of the most beautiful things Percy had ever seen in his life: a village.
There were at least fifty huts built out of mud bricks and thatch, centered around a huge house made out of the same materials. It was a small village, but a village nonetheless. Nobody seemed to be outside at the moment, which made sense, given it was very early in the morning. But the exteriors of the huts seemed to be thoroughly cleaned and the forest around the village seemed to be freshly cut to not intrude onto the clearing. They started approaching the village and sheathed their swords.
This took some time since the clearing must've been at least ten miles square. From his position at the edge of the territory, it didn't seem like a lot, but walking to the center, as Percy slowly realized, took a lot longer than he had originally assumed. Plus, he was utterly exhausted at this point. His full body ached and his limbs felt like they were made out of lead—not the optimal condition to walk about half of a marathon.
"What's our plan?" Percy asked Rosaline, wincing as he stepped into a particularly muddy patch of dirt.
"Honesty is the best policy. Say we're Chaos soldiers, tell them we need a safe place to rest for the time being, and we'll be out of their hair in the morning."
"What if they don't believe us?"
I have the credentials to prove it." Rosaline fished a sealed white envelope from the folds of her cloak. "A bit simple for holding the Creator of the Universe's emblem, I know, but that's the point: nobody's going to steal a simple envelope."
As they grew closer, Percy realized that the huts themselves were much bigger than he had thought from his original vantage point. They each probably had enough room to comfortably house a family of ten, and the mud bricks they were made of seemed to be sealed with some primitive-age penetrating sealer, which looked like a whole lot of work. In addition, the house they surrounded was as big as a mansion. Given that it looked slightly cleaner than the huts, it was where the important people lived.
Five adults came out of the said mansion. There were two women and three men, each wearing light leather armor and impossibly fit like they spent a few hours every day exercising—or killing people. They all had a tan, as though they spent most of their time outside. They immediately made a beeline toward us.
"They don't look happy to see us," Adriana observed.
"Relax," Rosaline reassured her. "I'd also be mad if four strangers waltzed onto their property out of nowhere carrying weapons." But Percy noticed her hand gravitated towards the hilt of her sword.
Psi snorted condescendingly. He'd been strangely quiet, not chiming in with his opinion (not that Percy minded—in fact, he was sad it didn't last any longer), but now, it seemed like he couldn't keep silent for any longer. "What's our plan if we're taken captive again? Everything seems to go wrong with him accompanying us." He pointed at Percy.
Percy took offense at this, but not because it was mean. (He knew that was true. He was the extension to Murphy's Law that the Fates essentially controlled.) He took offense because it was Psi saying it.
But before he could react to this, or even before Rosaline responded, the five people from the village stopped a few feet in front of them, creating a wall of muscle separating them from the village. Either the villagers heard them speak in English, or it was the only language they knew because they spoke in English also. "Who are you?" the biggest man barked, more of an order than a question. "And why are you trespassing sacred ground?"
"We didn't mean to," Rosaline said as pleasantly as she could. "We're Chaos soldiers—"
That's as far as she got, because upon hearing "Chaos" the villagers quickly slid their swords out of their sheaths and pointed them threateningly at them.
"Maybe we shouldn't have identified as Chaos soldiers on Planet Void," Percy said quietly.