Bab 15: Warring Interlude
It's been a while since I've last updated, so here's a short recap:
A kid awakens with knowledge of Rick Riordan's books and other things, but no concrete memories about a previous life of any sort, and he's raised in the deep forests of Alaska until he's 13 years old by a mysterious woman that teaches him how to get started in manipulating the Mist.
Once he leaves, he reaches New York and sets himself up in an abandoned house near Long Island. Eventually, Thalia, Luke, Annabeth and Groover seek respite from the hounding of monsters in his home.
Forced to abandon his home, the kid (whose name is Icarus) follows them to the Halfblood Camp, and his presence is enough to avoid Thalia turning into a tree.
Luke, Thalia and Icarus become friends and the latter gains a form of respect from Dionysus because he sets up wild parties that get demigods drunk and randy, thusly reinforcing the domain of the God of Ritual madness.
Icarus eventually discovers that he's the son of a demigod of Poseidon and Hekate, which is ultimately responsible for the metaknowledge and rebirth of the Main Character.
When Luke asks for and gets assigned his mission to steal the Golden Apples from Hera's garden, he doesn't invite Icarus, who nevertheless sets off on his own, anticipating the members of the actual Quest.
Icarus meets Atlas and after tricking him, he holds the sky from the sunset to the dawn, while the titan takes a branch from Hera's tree (with 6 apples). Icarus kind of gets Atlas to drink himself into a stupor with a magical flask of wine, and they chat a bit.
After that, Icarus sends the branch and the apples (minus one) though Hermes-express back to his own hut in the Camp Half-blood, and enters the Queen's garden, where he gets the Nymphs of the sunset drunk and gifts them the single apple he's kept on his person.
Time gets wobbly for Icarus, but eventually, Luke (accompanied by Thalia) reach the garden, and in a fit of teen angst, the son of Hermes attacks Ladon, forcing both Icarus and Thalia to try their best in order to survive. They manage to escape, but Thalia is wounded with the venom of Ladon.
During the return trip, they meet Hera, who curses them (the consequences are not clear yet), and just as they reach Halfblood Camp, Thalia gets turned into a tree, confirming that Fate is an actual thing and not something that can be escaped from.
Luke and Icarus have a big fallout since the prophecy given to Luke by the Oracle kind of foretold that Thalia would get punished for her father's sin, but the son of Hermes ignored it.
Icarus strikes the Oracle, gaining the enmity of Apollo, and he fights against a Huntress of Artemis immediately after.
While preparing in order to restore Thalia to life, he asks for Hekate's help in order to gain the kind of power Percy Jackson wields in the books, and his mother accepts in exchange for 3 golden apples (another is taken by Hermes as payment for the expedition), leaving him with only one. Even so, she mysteriously states that there is still something that needs to happen in order for Icarus to become powerful as Thalia is.
Icarus takes up a crew of demigods and sets sail to the Sea of Monsters in order to retrieve the Golden Fleece, despite the lack of permission from the gods, and as such, the sailing is anything but smooth.
Annabeth (who is 10 years old) is a stowaway on the ship, and on the first island, she is tricked by Prometheus, and she frees him.
On the next island, Icarus is wounded while killing the Hydra.
A member of the crew is Hiley, daughter of Hypno, and she's told/discovers about Icarus metaknowledge, thinking him a seer of sorts, while Thanatos starts to get interested in him (he knows that there is something wrong).
After healing, the Adamas (that's the ship's name), reaches Circe's island, where Icarus outsmarts her.
Chapter 15: Warring Interlude
First part:
Adamas' Logbook
5 May 2001
As I write, we're sailing East after my confrontation with Circe and subsequent invasion and raiding of her home.
The invasion of Aeaea, a.k.a. Circe's Island, took us more or less ten hours, ten hours of frenzy and savagery.
The several dozens of apprentices of Circe that tried to fight back got swiftly defeated, since most of their magic made use of small rituals or potions to enact their will, while I tore apart with gleeful abandon every attempt to turn the Mist aginst the Adamas' crew.
Unknowingly, as we took over section after section of the building hidden in the side of the cliff that had been turned into a resort on the side opposite to where we had made land, I found myself seeing everything under a thin purple tint, and I fuzzily recalled that I may have shaken the ground as I thundered my challenge to the residents of the island.
Hundreds of animals tried to swarm us, failing horribly, since it had been centuries since the last time Circe had turned people into wolves or pigs, preferring instead to humiliate those she bound within the forms of guinea pigs or colourful parrots. Even the occasional leopard isn't that much of a challenge after the kind of shit we've faced this far.
The people of the Adamas, led by me, took over swiftly, casually applying the wild energy that breathed just beneath our skin. Our blades fell, our shields bashed skulls, and if Emily and Charlotte used their knives to take scalps to offer to their father, nobody mentioned it.
"The city-stormer is with us!" one of them sang at some point, referring a rictus grin of savage glee on her face as her sword fell upon one of the relatively few wolves that attempted to attack us.
As I write these words, more to maintain a ladder of the accomplishment of this group of demigods that moves without needing the permission of the blessing from Olympus, I find myself drifting more and more often into considerations about the nature of divinity and faith. faith in ourselves, faith in each other, it's surprising how much camaraderie actually impacts our successes.
We lost Julia and Eric in the first storm Poseidon threw at us in a fit of outrage for some imagined slight, and I know that they're waiting on this rive of the Styx for us to find their bodies and perform the funereal rites.
6 May 2001
Ares is the distasteful aspects of brutal warfare and slaughter. I remembered that Ares used to be was accompanied in battle by his sister Eris, known as Strife, and his sons by Aphrodite Phobos and Deimos, respectively Panic and Rout.
I write this down in order to remind myself that even if charlotte and Emily are among the best of us, prolonged enough battle tends to bring out a feral instinct asleep deeply inside of them. Against the Hydra they were all control and training, at least that is how much I can remember, but as I write now, the haze of the last days finally abating, I realize that while our power to affect the world grows the deeper we sink in our heritages, how much we are still ourselves and how much we express our divine parent's power is a very debatable thing.
I remember that as we stormed the home of Circe, gone were the golden tinted armours and happy go lucky attitude that was nurtured and maintained in Camp Half-Blood, it remained something primal and heavier, difficult to contain. I remember feeling myself almost fall back from the forefront of my mind, witnessing my wild swinging and random destruction of everything that I didn't immediately identify as useful or interesting to keep.
Some part of me, likely the same undeniable part of my soul that refuses to be bound, also refuses to bind others unless in combat. I can see myself growing to be a patron of some sort as my identity grows and my name gains weight, I must be extremely careful then, about the choices I make and the instincts I allow myself to follow, lest I became less than what I am, slave to something beyond my understanding.
During our invasion, the daughters of Ares found themselves taking point more often than not, and I was happy to follow them.
The only distinction that I was capable of making was between us and not-us. Distractedly, as we moved in the corridors hot with the smoke of the fires we spread and slick with the blood of Circe's people, I remembered that historically, at Sparta, in early times at least, human sacrifices were made to Ares from among the prisoners of war.
Maybe someone of the tentative sorceresses managed to escape, but we paid them little mind.
We brought panic and agony, leaving ashes and dead in our wake.
For a single night, we went at war.
We left the island with the dawn, Circe-as-a-snake asleep under bags of dry ice, for the shape she took was vulnerable to cold.
We raised great pyres for the bewitched food that we offered to Dionysus, since I thought that he would get a kick out of it, while Emily and Charlotte slaughtered in their father's name the ones that were captured alive.
Even so, while Charles remained with Hailey, ready to help (we took a page out of Odysseus' quest and had him put wax into his ears in order to not be sung into a death-like state by Hailey), I managed to restrain myself from the impulse of raping the fleeing women, and I saw David stop in several occasions, frowning heavily as if confused by his own actions when he took a step to pursue.
I am once more glad that I chose my crew to be composed mostly by women, as I don't know if I would have been able to peacefully contain my people had they been horny and bloodthirsty enough to take the Sorceress' apprentices by force.
9 May 2001
Today I was running on abrosia and greedy intentions as I steered the Adamas East, pointing us into the direction of the rising sun.
While the waves and winds were calm around us, I had to actively push against the subtle current that was trying to lead us back into Circe's domain.
It took me nine hours at the helm, without distractions, in order to overcome the umpteenth attempt from Poseidon to make us fail.
Only today I noticed that Emily and Charlotte gutted and skinned a boar each during the battle on Circe's island, and that now they don it as a cape whenever they can. They may or may not have seduced David in order to have him modify their elms so that they now sport the tisks of their preys.
I am conflicted about reminding them that those boars were more than likely transmuted humans.
Even so, I know that the boars are sacred to Ares, and thusly I can't quite bring myself to interfere. I'm still wondering if the camaraderie that keeps everyone together under my command is something I'm entirely responsible for, or if I have to thank Hailey' dream-related efforts and Hestia for her fire in the galley.
On another note, Hanna's vertical garden shows clearly that she's a worthy daughter of Demetra, and the fruits that she grows there make sure that we'll never risk scurvy as we sail.
That she managed to maintain such a variety of plants through hydroponics only spoke clearly of her heritage, and I am ready to admit that she is one of the more important members of the crew. Her role is mostly for support, there is no doubt about it, but she keeps everyone fed and rations the food (even if with a bit of help from Jillian, my 2nd mate.
The snowdrop-like flowers that we had brought with us from Circe's island are, as I suspected, moly. The Sorceress tried to occult them under a quite impressive set of illusions, but my talent to dispel those is second to none, and after my confrontation and exposure to Circe's sneaky magic, I feel myself growing... sharper, if it makes sense.
I report here what I remember of the plant that I know from the stories having a black root, while the flower is as white as milk:
The gods call it Moly, dangerous for a mortal man to pluck from the soil, but not for the deathless gods.
Proving that there is something unnatural about Hannah's knowledge, she confirmed my thoughts as she looked the plants over: "In the story, Hermes gave this herb to Odysseus to protect him from Circe's magic when he went to her home to rescue his friends. The Moly is grown from the blood of the Giant Picolous killed in the isle of Kirke. The ally of Kirke who killed Picolous was Helios. The combat was hard, malos in greek, from where the name of this plant comes. I'm glad that you managed to move the dirt around them in crates and to bring them over, I'll see if I can figure out something, maybe dew taken from their petals can be refined and strengthen us."
I hope that in the books we raided we'll learn enough to make use of the rare plant.
19 June 2001
We've been sailing for over a month, facing the occasional storm without too much issue. Apparently, either Poseidon forgot about us, or he's waiting for me to lower my guard. I find it hilarious since he's the one to recognize me as of his blood (at least standing to what Dionysus told me back during my first summer at the Half-Blood Camp).
I managed, with some help from pretty much everybody, to find a way to decrypt the tomes and parchments we took from Circe's island. Transmutation, Necromancy, a bit of Illusion. It's difficult to tell, as most of the knowledge seems to slide out of my thoughts just after I feel like I've grasped it.
I understand and can perform the more simple Illusions, as I was able to do the same before, but practising on my own, or even on my crewmates doesn't seem to grant me any deeper understanding of the art, and Necromancy is beyond me for the time being.
On a related note, Sofia and Abigail seem to have taken a shine to Transmutation. It's about exalting or subduing a characteristic from this or that concoction, and while I've got an instinctive grasp of toxic plants, likely inherited by my less than innocent mother, they seem to have grasped a better way to use the little ambrosia we have in their potions, which seem to rely less and less on their father's benevolence (Apollo), and more and more on their skills.
Of that at least, I can be satisfied with.
24 June 2001
We first set sail on the 17th September of the year 2000, that means 280 days spent together, even if most of them have been wasted on me having to recover from the Hydra's battle with Apollo actively opposing his daughters' efforts to nurse me back to health.
Annabeth is growing up reasonably well, from what I can tell. I have insisted on having her practice with English, even if everybody tends to slip more and more into speaking Ancient Greek without thinking about it, apart from that, everything is quiet.
24 July 2001
The attack today has come out of nowhere, but I'm glad it happened, even if the price paid is...
We finally sighted an island, apparently a rocky one, and we cheered.
A boulder of the dimensions of a minivan crashed through our bulwark and killed Helena before we realized what was going on, and the Adamas has proven herself worthy of her name as the following two boulders have caused way less damage than they should have.
Even so, we've got pretty pissed about the whole throwing rocks thing.
Our range isn't enough to counter from the ship, even if Abigail, collaborating with David, has managed to put up a Burning Mirror (roughly 3 meters tall), which coupled with a prayer to Apollo, allowed us to set fire to the forest that we spotted over the cliffs we were approaching, granting us some cover with the smoke as I manoeuvred us nearer to land.
Sadly, not much is known about Lestrigons beyond their human-eating habit.
Of Ulisses is said this: "His soldiers, with a dozen ships, arrive at 'the rocky stronghold of Lamos: Telepylus, the city of the Laestrygonians'."
Lamos is not mentioned again, perhaps being understood as the founder of the city or the name of the island on which the city is situated. In this land, a man who could do without sleep could earn double wages; once as a herdsman of cattle and another as a shepherd, as they worked by night as they did by day. The ships entered a harbor surrounded by steep cliffs, with a single entrance between two headlands. The captains took their ships inside and made them fast close to one another, where it was dead calm.
Odysseus kept his own ship outside the harbor, moored to a rock. He climbed a high rock to reconnoitre but could see nothing but some smoke rising from the ground. He sent two of his company and an attendant to investigate the inhabitants. The men followed a road and eventually met a young woman on her way to the Fountain of Artakia to fetch some water, who said she was a daughter of Antiphates or Antiphatus, the king, and directed them to his house.
However, when they got there they found a gigantic woman, the wife of Antiphates who promptly called her husband, who immediately left the assembly of the people and upon arrival snatched up one of the men and killed him on the spot, presumably then eating him.
The other two men, Eurylochus and Polites, ran away, but Antiphates raised an outcry, so that they were pursued by thousands of Laestrygonians, who are either giants or very large men and women. They threw vast rocks from the cliffs, smashing the ships, and speared the men like fish. Odysseus made his escape with his single ship because it was not trapped in the harbor; the rest of his company was lost. The surviving crew went next to Aeaea, the island of Circe.
So we find ous in a pickle: Poseidon has kept us away from dry land long enough that our food storages have grown too thin for us to brave the sea without restocking.
If I have to believe to the Odyssey, and I have little reason for not doing so, we're up against thousands of relatively giant people capable of throwing boulders far enough that we can't escape without additional damages to the ship, forcing us to brave the Sea at less than peak form.
And leaving Helena unavenged.
Yeah, that's not happening.
30 July 2001
We recovered Helena's body and performed the correct rites to send her over the Styx, even if a part of me immediately considered pumping her full of venom and making sure that the Lestrigones ate her body.
We left Annabeth on the Adamas with Madison, Hannah and Charles, anchored to a high outcropping of rocks that jut out of the water just enough to give the ship cover from the island. We found signs etched into the stone, washed away by time, but it's pretty clear that it's were Ulysses left his ship back then.
I didn't have to point out what was necessary or what I intended to do, everyone was up to speed with the legends about the Laestrygonians, and they had killed one of ours, mercy was far beyond us.
The only problem is that there is me, David, Jillian, Hailey, Alexandria (eager to avenge her sister), Emily and Charlotte (always eager for war), Hailey (I fear that we'll make a great use of her gifts in order to survive), Evelyin (our uncharacteristically adrenaline-junkie daughter of Aphrodite), Abigail and Sofia (our healers).
So, 9 demigods against thousands of Laestrygonians: which I feel like I have to remind myself, are giant man-eaters.
26 August 2001
We need to keep moving, at least the deep woods seem to bend relatively easily to my enchantments, and we're kept hidden long enough to sleep. Sadly, the Laestrygonians seem to be quite immune to direct manipulation through the Mist, as we've discovered today when we ambushed a group of 5.
As for their appearances, there is little to say: they're savages, not like they ever needed to develop technology beyond the idea of 'throwing boulders at it' in order to overcome an obstacle. They're around five meters tall, and deceptively fast, albeit not exceptionally bright from an intellectual point of view.
They have very fine senses, in particular, their sense of smell seems to be our worst enemy, since it's dragged by the always present breezes towards our enemies, and my illusions cannot reach that far.
We filled with toxic herbs a couple of those we killed, hoping that they would get eaten by their brethren when found: we had no such luck: Hailey tells me that the poisoned ones 'shall be avenged' by those that found them first.
I find myself grateful for the Hydra's tooth turned-blade that I won off that Hades be damned creature: at least that venom is fatal.
I am acutely aware of the fragility of the tooth, however, that thusly can be used only for sudden stabbings in the flesh: I'm sure that it would break were I to use it for anything else.
16 September 2001
I am forever grateful for the books we stole from Circe. Madison, Annabeth and Hannah have slowly come to understand the few tomes on Transmutation we have on the Adamas, and while they're unable to brew the drinks that Circe seemed to use to turn people into animals (I'm not sure they would work on the Laestrygonians) they tell me that Transmutation is all about 'bringing out a property of something, while smoothing over the others: in any case, the food we eat feels magical even with the lack of ambrosia or nectar.
The routine of the On-Land group consists of brief ambushes for a few days, followed by a hasty retreat in the deeper woods, confounding our traces and hoping that remaining unseen keeps the Laestrygonians from hurling boulders across the thick vegetation (as I said, they don't appear to be particularly bright), then we carefully bring those animals we hunted to the Adamas, along with wood and whatever else Madison tells us to.
It's honestly draining, and at some point, I fear that we'll make a mistake, that will be enough to significantly lower our chances of success.
Poison is out, but how can we eradicate these creatures?
19 September 2001
Evelyn, daughter of Aphrodite, died today to cover for a failed ambush, we didn't succeed in recovering the body.
We need a different method to fight this war, or we'll be all dead before we can manage to make a dent in their numbers.
28 November 2001
The last month had been hectic, apparently a Laestrygonian has taken charge of a group made of few hundreds of them: he is the strongest around, luckily, he's an idiot, and has brought the concept of united against the enemy to the extreme, and he's currently waging war against all those that oppose him: we'll retreat to the Adams until the Laestrygonians are done killing each other.
Hailey may have had a hand in pushing his dreams in the direction we wished for.
We're calling this unbelievably idiotic Laestrygonian Antimetus, and he's by far our favourite, if we can, we'll keep him for last, after all, as Jillian says: 'never keep an enemy from making a mistake'.
25 December 2001
Christmas doesn't mean that much for us, given our heritage and situation, still, some gifts (for Annabeth in particular) have appeared out of nowhere: we threw a quiet party in the galley, and we finished our reserves of wine: once we're done with this war, I'll have Charles sing grapes out of the bodies of the Laestrygonians, at least their bodies can be useful to something.
4 January 2002
Even if it's winter, the cold doesn't seem to take. The wind is a bit sharper than what we were used to in the summer, but the rain remains the same, and the temperatures are clearly ignoring the seasons, which is great, since we can keep moving in and out from the deep woods without issues.
7 January 2002
We've lost the count of how many Laestrygonians are left even if it appears like our beloved Antimetus perished in his attempt of taking over his people. Luckily, he had several sons, and Hailey is heavily playing with their dreams, if we manage to push them in the same direction of the father, then they'll likely kill each other once they're done subjugating their own people.
From what I knew Antiphates was king of the man-eating giants at the time of Odysseus, but now they're separated in 'tribes' that divide among them the territories of the island. There is potential there if our magical influencing of Antimetus' brood fails.
17 March 2002
The last two months have been hectic, it's difficult to express in words how much works it is to keep up false flag operations among a population of five meters tall idiots.
On a related note, the Laestrygonians seem to have completely forgotten that all the trouble began with our arrival and the ship they failed to sink, so keeping quiet and playing them one against another appears to be the wisest option.
On an unrelated note, on July 12 Annabeth turns nine, I'm writing this down because Abigail seems incensed that I tend to ignore birthdays. It's not like they actually matter, do they? We tend to throw random parties every time we can get away with it, even if I realize that they're less than fantastic for a child that doesn't get drunk.
Leaving her on the Adamas is still the only option, being discovered now would set us back significantly, and while she's witnessed her dose of horrors since she ran away from home, I'd like to keep that dose to a minimum, knowing the kind of shitfest that Fate is brewing.
I need to figure out a way to say 'Fuck You' to Fate.
On an unrelated note, I'm still waiting for the 'change' that I have bargained with Hekate for: the sea remains sluggish in its answers to my will, while there is no 'switch' or power in my gut capable of summoning either storms or earthquakes.
10 May 2002
To our count, there are less than 1500 Laestrygonians left. Sadly, they somewhat realized how few they are, and thusly happily follow their peaceful (if we can call him so) man-eater in charge, who has killed the one before him because he wished for the bloodshed to keep going. I want to point out that people that stupid and that strong seem capable of driving themselves on the brink of extinction in little more than a year (even if we helped them along).
Sand has been successfully transmuted in extremely fine glass, and in particular, Annabeth has thought about using some more Transmutation (I ignore the mechanics) to keep the edge of each minuscule shard of glass as sharp as humanly possible. Given our heritage, I suspect that the result will be more than simply terrifying, so I gave order to keep Annabeth in the dark about the applications I thought for this.
David and Madison crafted goggles and masks in order to keep ourselves from accidentally dying or going blind as we could inhale the glass-powder. Just to be sure, everyone is been given earmuffs that filter the air: while they dampen the sound somewhat, I still think that it's better than the risk of grinding holes in our eardrums.
The constant breezes that roam across the island will be our carriers, it's my hope that if the glass-powder won't kill them, it will at least severely blind them, and now that I think about it, it could even scratch their airways so that they have difficulty breathing (I fear that they are far too sturdy to be properly damaged by this, but we're still vastly outnumbered.)
10 June 2002
We dispersed the powder around what passes for their city while being mindful of the direction in which the wind blows: it should give us enough time for the damage to be optimal. We attack during the Summer' Solstice, since I fear that some god could interfere during an open battle.
Second Part:
Abigail's POV
24 June 2002
We ran quickly across the trees, being careful to let our feet produce only the faintest sound against the roots and rocks we moved upon: we had quickly learned that leaving tracks for the Laestrygonians to follow was an awful idea, even so, I felt a strange mixture of tiredness and elation at the thought that we had come so close to performing something worthy of the greatest legends.
Or we soon would, in any case.
I was Abigail, daughter of Apollo, and for all that pride and self-appreciation was a common trait among my brothers and sisters, I couldn't truly think anything less of us for that. We deserved each praise we were so ready to rain upon ourselves.
Almost a whole year of what amounts to an endless series of ambushes and false flag operations in hostile territory, led by Icarus, in order to avenge a single member of the crew. I wanted to scoff at the thought, Icarus was a powerful and dangerous demigod, there was no denying that, but he was also extremely callous and ruthless when the situation asked for it. I wonder if he would use my death with the same ease in order to launch the Adamas against another impossible task?
It had been a long time since we last lost someone, I shook my head as I ducked under a pine branch, and it's true that everyone bar Annabeth sort of knew what we were getting into, but... Even this whole Odyssey is done more to spite the gods than to help Thalia, I think.
I frowned, ignoring my undisciplined thoughts as I jumped over a small creek, my breath was a bit heavy, but nothing else betrayed that we'd been running for hours in the wilderness of the island.
I slowed to a trot as I saw the others crouch hidden in the underbrush of a small clearing before quickly climbing up a tree and unslinging my bow from my back, preparing an arrow I turned my head to look around, my ears managing to focus both on the whispered conversation we were having and the surroundings.
"It's done." Icarus voice cut clearly across the small clearing, reaching each of us without fail, despite the fact that he was looking towards the broken wooden gates of what passed as the Laestrygonians' capital.
"What do you mean, 'it's done'?" I frowned as I looked forward, "Unless the last of them killed himself once he realized he was the last, we still need to deal with at least one of them, don't we?"
"You can thank Hailey for that, it turns out that six months of nightmares and sleep without rest turns even bloodthirsty cannibals into a bumbling mess, the last few died of consumption, or got done in by others of their kind, convinced that eating each other would heal them." Icarus turned towards us then, and I suppressed a shiver at his far too-wide grin.
Months of unending ambushes and constant vigilance had made him even sharper than normal, more relentless, and I knew that if I were to look myself in the mirror, I would see the same differences. Wasn't I there every step of the way? Wasn't I the one that supported him when the others raised doubts about his decision of pursuing genocide against giant cannibals?
A part of me, a... frail part of me, the part that hurt because of my inability to fit in before reaching Camp Halfblood, the same part that had once urged me to simply fade in the background of the Camp's activities, if only because there weren't other viable alternatives, had shivered and wilted under Icarus' expectant gaze, again and again, leaving behind what I could only guess was the divinity I inherited from Apollo, my ever absent father.
Like for many of the others, when Icarus first approached us, not long after his declaration after the loss of Thalia, I had been conflicted. On one side, he urged me to leave what little calm and acceptation I had managed to find after years in the mortal world, where dyslexia and ADHD hadn't helped when I saw things that simply weren't there according to everybody else; on the other hand, he offered a direction for what I knew I was wasting.
What was the point of being trained in archery, in the art of the sword, what was the point of performing impossible feats in the safe quiet of Halfblood Camp's obstacle course? What was the point of my whole life, when I knew that eventually, I would venture into the mortals' world once more, only to be killed when my guard or strength failed?
I could push through dyslexia, a few tools to aid learning here and there would not have been amiss, and surely my natural ability with greek could make me obtain a degree of some sort, and yet... the idea of being born as a demigoddes, only to work behind a desk like every other mortal did out of necessity sat ill within me.
Icarus knew that, he knew that because he claimed he felt the same way, and at the time, I remembered thinking that he truly was living up to his namesake: intruding upon another's Quest first, only to announce to the world and the gods that he would be taking a task upon himself, going so far that he hit the Oracle, and tussled with a Huntress, wielding his knowledge of the greek lore as skillfully as a blade... Icarus was truly something else, of that I had no doubt, even when I didn't know him personally.
The occasional debauchery that he brought into Halfblood Camp was something hilarious and very welcome, and if he managed that only because he somewhat managed to befriend Mr. D., well, who was I to point it out?
And so, knowing that we would probably be killed by a god willing to punish us for our hubrys, we had set sail, and since then... yes, we lost someone, Julia and Eric in that first freak storm, and Helena to the monsters we had just finished exterminating. And we had to put up with the extremely aggravating Annabeth, which forced us to spike her water with something to put her asleep when we gave a party with Mr. D.'s blessing, letting out whatever lingering tension we had. Even so, facing the Storm, the Hydra, Circe and then the man-eaters felt... good.
There wasn't a true reason ar necessity behind most of what we did, but we could, and that was enough.
I put away the arrow I had previously notched on my bow and straightened my crouched position, slowly walking closer to Icarus, who had turned back towards the empty city: "We'll need to set up a few pyres, but after that we can bring the others from the Adamas and finish what we have from the galley." he spoke confidently, and it managed to steal a smile from me.
To call the place we walked in 'a city' was giving it more credit than it deserved, the houses were proportioned to the 5 meters tall man-eaters, but they were roughly built out of simple wood. So, while climbing the barricade slash wall that the man-eaters had built around their settlement resulted challenging (for its height if for nothing else) I was less than impressed about our conquest, and I could tell, the others were too.
"Well, we'd be better off by setting everything on fire and living on the Adamas, the gods know at least it's comfortable." I muttered as I walked around, my eyes scanning the empty streets.
On the side of the large plaza, there was a pile of boulders, presumably the one where the Laestrygonians kept their ammunition, given the rather spectacular view on the bay, it seemed like a wise place to keep them. Which, now that I thought about it, was pretty against-character of them: their stupidity had been our best weapon during our brief war after all.
I kept walking besides Icarus after he split us off both to look for stuff we could pillage and wood for a big pyre for the Laestrigonians that hadn't been eaten by their own kind: "The point was exterminating them, not conquering the island." he spoke while my eyes kept scanning the surroundings.
"Well, to be fair, it's kind of obvious that the two things are one and the same." I quipped with a grin, surprised that Icarus, with all of his knowledge and mad ambition, had apparently not considered the consequences of the campaign he had set us upon, "at least we have somewhere to return to that is safe from monsters and not Half-Blood Camp."
Icarus whipped his head towards me as my words left my mouth, surprise clearly etched on his features as he asked: "You don't wish to return to the Camp after we're done?"
I scoffed, not buying his disbelief for a single second: "Camp was the best option we had since we didn't have a home in the normal world, but do you seriously think any of us will return to obeying Chiron and Mr. D after what we've accomplished?"
Icarus stared at me for a while then, slowly coming to a halt: "To found a city, not in name of the gods, not under a patron, but built by demigods, for demigods?"
"Calling the city New Athens would ensure that no god would strike us down from the sky." I pointed out immediately, knowing that the natural instinct of Icarus would be naming the whole island as an insult to Olympus out of spite.
As we walked past another alley and into a plaza, I realized that we had completed a circle of sorts from our starting point, since I could spot the small mountain of boulders that the man-eaters had stacked in clear view of the bay below.
Icarus opened his mouth to answer when a deep chuckle made his head snap to the side, where a man was chained to the wall, his steel-grey eyes staring at us under a crown of shadows cast by his brow.
"How the fuck did you manage to get yourself captured again?" Icarus asked before I could free the man, and I frowned when his hand clamped around my shoulder, stopping me from helping the poor sod.
"I'd imagine that I cannot trick my way out of my binds, giving to the young daughter of Athena something that your group already had likely angered the Kindly Ones, and so I'm here once more, to have my guts eaten during the day while they heal at night." and as he spoke, I instinctively recoiled, because clearly, the prisoner was no human. There was something, both in his voice an in the way he stared at us, that put me on edge, and if I had heard correctly...
"But how did you land here before us? For that matter, how did you leave the island where I found you at all?" Icarus asked Prometheus, because who else could he be? My eyes found the captain of the Adamas once more, knowing that he had let out a big piece of what had happened after we found Annabeth on our ship.
Prometheus' eyes seemed to shine with mirth at his questions, but even so, I could tell that he was assessing us both: "There was only a way open for me, only one path that could hide me from unwelcome eyes, and so I took it." as he spoke, I saw Icarus frown in confusion, only for that confusion to turn into... eagerness? What is Icarus about to drag us into? "You already know what I'm talking about, young Skyholder."
The head of the titan turned towards an impressive stack of boulders on one side of the plaza, where only then I spotted a large crack that seemed to be the opening of a large cavern. My eyes, acute as they were given my heritage, found the oddity on the surface: among cracks and the ashes from the pyres of the burning man-eaters, a single Δ shone of a silvery-blue light.
"The Labyrinth." Icarus whispered, and I felt both cold dread and excitement pool in my guts.
AN
I know that Italics gets annoying after a while, so to symbolize writing, I underlined everything.
I more or less overlooked the actual raid of the island because it's far less interesting than the MC interactions with this or that immortal. Even so, I told a little of Ares that I wanted to point out for a while now.
While Marte (roman Ares) was a blend of actual battle and military strategy, the greek Ares is much more visceral and violent, for he's the spirit of battle more than the god of war, impulsive and bloodthirsty, and I can see why he tried to jumpstart a war, since, in the Half-blood camp, there is very little that can actually please him.
Having said that, from Circe's island Icarus gained a little more understanding of shape-changing magic, since he had to dispel it when Circe tried to turn the satyr into a goat, and starts to figure out how to make count the result of his title as 'Skyholder'.
The crew of the Adamas is made by over the top demigods, they're almost asleep during the travel proper, coming to life only for the challenges that they meet. And they are 'over the top' both in the good and bad sense, as you've seen. Thanks to Hestia gifting them her ember to lit up the brazier they hold in the galley, they are a very cohesive group, but when push comes to shove, acts of savagery are well within their capabilities.
I needed something to become a time sink of sorts and to give me an excuse to thin a bit the crew, so to speak, enough that I don't need to keep referencing my list in order to figure out who I'm writing about. And since I picked Ares from the deck at the end of the previous chapter (and foreshadowed his interest when he set a boar against Icarus on Prometheus' island), I thought it interesting to bring it to a climax with the Lestrigons.
So, the Lestrigones are man-eaters in mythology, and I thought: since they're stuck on an island in the middle of the Sea of Monsters, what would they eat? Placing here a Labirynth's entrance sounded like a good wrap.
And shifting to Abigail's POV gave me a bit of leeway about the plans inside of the MC's head, so I don't need to exactly spell out all that he's thinking. It's done to add a bit of colour to Icarus, which doesn't spend all that time thinking about his emotions, preferring instead to focus on the several mythological episodes that he encounters.
Anyway, I roughly planned out the rest of this story, and yes it will involve both New Rome and the Giants, before breaking into different pantheons (I haven't read anything past Kronos' war, so I'll need to skim the books eventually), in any case, we're looking to an escalation train that I've never seen done in a PJO fic.
For now, we went from needing greek letters and focus in order to manipulate the mist, to holding the sky, to surviving Ladon, to face the storm, the Hydra, Circe and now man-eaters.
And in the next chapter, we'll finally get started with a more organic sequence of events, since I've realized that roaming endlessly the Sea of Monsters without a guiding plot is cool when you're Homer writing the Odyssey, or Oda drawing One Piece, but it simply doesn't work when you're cloud9stories playing with fanfiction.
One cannot simply avoid what the Fates place on his path, and while it's something that Icarus thought resolved with Annabeth, it is clearly not so easy.
And I know that this chapter has been somewhat a letdown, but it was extremely necessary.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone