Chapter VIII: Disappearances

Chapter VII

Sean

I turned away from the other battle an focused on the path ahead of us. One weird hydra cat thing? Too easy. There were bound to be more monsters this close to the enemies gates. We moved forward, I took the lead and Brian took the rear, Anna in the middle to provide covering fire for either of us. We used that method for hours. We encountered a few monsters here and there, nothing too difficult. Probably stragglers or deserters from the battle that was going on in the valley blow us.

“So,” I said. “Anyone have any idea where we are?”

“I think I might have heard about this place before.” Anna said, but didn’t finish.

“Don’t leave us hanging girl, what did you hear?” I asked.

“Supposedly, Jupiter was worried that Olympus itself would be irreparably damaged or destroyed from a monster they could not defeat. So, one day, he had Vulcan build a backup Olympus in a hidden location. Before you ask, yes it took more than one day - on one day he asked Vulcan to do the job. Anyways, once Vulcan completed construction, Jupiter and Trivia put...well...a switch essentially, a switch that, once activated would cause the things that tie the Olympians to Olympus to move from the old Olympus to that city - thus preserving the Gods. Once the process was completed they hid the city so that no mortal, or enemy of the Gods, could find it again. Of course in the process of hiding it, they forgot where they hid it.” Anna explained.

“So, what your basically saying is that this is a backup Olympus?” I asked.

“And if the Gods are transported here unawares...” Brian trailed off.

“They would be pure energy floating around for a while until they found it again,” Anna finished. I thought about that. Without the Gods running around and doing their basic jobs, the Mortal world would be in chaos. Electricity might stop working, important information could be lost, mechanics might not be able to fix things, wine would always be sour. This was bad.

“So...we make sure nobody flips that switch right?” I asked.

“That seems like a good plan,” Anna greed. Just then, from the city proper, a giant beam of light shot into the sky. Once it hit a certain altitude it shot off in another direction.

“I think were too late to stop whoever it is.” Brian said.

“Then we just have to figure out how to reverse it,” I said. That sounded like a lovely plan.

“How do we do that?” I asked Anna.

“Why are you looking at me?” She asked.

“Because of the three of us, you seem to know the most about this place.” I countered.

“Good point,” she conceded. “I don’t know how to stop it, but if we can clear out the enemies, we might be able to request the presence of a God who can stop it.” That was better than what I was coming up with (my plan was to run around in circles and panic for a bit, then regroup and figure out something better), so we went with that.

We continued down the path towards the city.

Let me say something about mountain paths. They suck. Rocks in the way, or some goats decided that it was a nice place to go to the bathroom, or something along those lines. Not a single monster or clay solider was in our way. I don’t blame them, not only are we so awesome our mere presence would have defeated them, but the path was covered in droppings. We avoided those the best we could, and after what seemed forever, we reached the walls of the city. The doors were, unfortunately, closed and the sun was down.

“Think we should climb over?” Brian asked.

“No,” Anna said. “Monsters are stronger in the dark. I think we should find a nice place to make camp and get to work again in the morning. The process, if I remember correctly, is going to take a couple of days, and I do not want to run around that place with whatever is in there.” This, it made sense. So we made camp.

“What do you think is in there?” I asked. “I mean, what monster would be stupid enough to try and disrupt the eternal cycle?”

“I don’t know,” Anna replied.

“Might have something to do with the strange monster movements that have been going on since Christmas.” Brian commented. Apparently, since the 25 of December, Monsters would not die for very long. No matter which monster, the shortest it would be dead for was about 30 seconds, and the longest was a day. This was an unprecedented event, and very dangerous for Demigods like us.

“Probably. Listen, I’ll take first watch.” I said, I just couldn’t go to sleep. Anna volunteered for second watch, which left Brian for third. He didn’t have a problem with that and quickly was wrapped in his blankets and asleep.

“You should follow his example,” I told Anna. “Tomorrow is going to be very interesting.” She agreed, and went to sleep. I stared up at the sky for a little bit, then practiced some sword maneuver's I could do without making too much sound. When my turn for watch came, I went to sleep.

I was woken by Anna, seemingly seconds later but the sun shown into my eyes.

“Sean, Sean, wake up.” She was saying. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. The camp looked like it did before, Anna’s bedrolls next to me, the fire in between us and Brian’s missing equipment.

Brian’s missing equipment?

“Where is Brian?” I asked.

“Missing. I got up a minute ago and was going to yell at him for letting us sleep for so long, but he is gone. Along with all his stuff.” That chilled me to the bone. If your captured, you don’t take your stuff with you.

Brian abandoned us.

Chapter 9