Demigod Camp! discussion

The demigods have stopped Tartarus from taking over the world, but had to leave at least two billion mortals asleep and halpless under the Tower of Ossus. Now they must return to Germany and save the mortals.

"Matoro," Fener said, "everything you know about Tartarus' recent projects."
"The Circle of Ossus has been breeding myrmekes, setting them up as a backup plan in case of failure. If the plan was to fail, the Myrmekes would tear across the Eurasian landmass and kill everything."
Had Fener been the joking type, he would have said, "pleasant," but he wasn't.

Leah was about to say something optimistic like 'Hey Fener, you're awake', but will the whole world in crisis thing made it feel like not the right time. "Gods, well this is peachy. Now what?"

"The Vahki transport we used to escape should be good for the return," Matoro said, giving it a prod in case it fell apart (BTW, this is the next summer), "But we need something a lot bigger to bring the mortals in until-"
"Why not just wake them up after the Myrmekes are defeated and let them rebuild?" It was a question that someone as brilliant as Fener shouldn't have been arrogant enough to ask.
"Um," Matoro said, unsure if this was just a test. "Because it would take at least a thousand fully armed and trained warriors just to neutralize a single ant queen, and there's bound to be hundreds. Because we would be torn apart even getting close to the ant hills? And lastly, we can't beat these Myrmekes, okay? The U.S. government can't even get rid of their cousins, the small fire ants. How do you expect three kids to destroy all of these ants? We can't. Their main function will be to guard the mortals, and if we take those, then we win. The mortals are saved, we can bring the entire camp in and stop the myrmekes, no one hurt, no one killed."

"No one killed does sound pretty good. But with the people awake, won't it just be chaos? Oh wait, the mist would take care of that, right?"

"Of course it won't be chaos, and of course the mist won't have to do anything. The Myrmekes will have been driven away by then and they'll just resume their normal lives," Fener said impatiently.
Matoro was rather shocked that one of Fener's intelligence would make such a foolish plan. "Do you have any idea what these ants can do!? You saw them tear Gina apart. You watched them swarm all over our pet dragon, Foplau, and devour him to the bone in six seconds! We can't fight these things!"

Duh Leah cursed herself mentally, but knew now was not the time to get down on herself. "Okay, so let's find something big to transport people, how hard can it be?"

"Matoro, you're overthinking this. We don't have to eliminate every single ant. They're being controlled by something, remember?" Fener reminded him. "The list of allies," he prompted.
"Perses and Eris?" Matoro said uncertainly.
A nod from the son of Tartarus. "And to answer your question, I think that our first problem is getting to Germany. Our vahki transport has sprung a leak, and powers are down so much that it could kill me just to make a mini-abyss. ((Please be on.))

((Shockingly, I'm still here :) ))

"Great...umm okay, hmm...no..we could..not shadow...wait!....noo...I've got nothing on how to get to Germany. And as far as Peres and Eris I don't really know what that is...so yeah, I'm no help right now" Leah finally finished. (please still be on after me taking forever to post.)

((And I missed five minutes of it))

"Maybe there are chutes that run under the ocean," Matoro said doubtfully.
"Maybe. You and Leah explore that option. I noticed something rather odd over at the rock wall over there."

And so they parted ways. Fener approached the solid rock wall and pressed his palm against it. Surprisingly, it split open. No time to gather backup, he decided. He unsheathed Blacksblade and slowly stepped into the tunnel entrance. The wall was littered with old vahki transport parts. Fener almost twitched his mouth into the barest hint of a smile and bent down over the parts, examining them. They were relatively sea-worthy, with a bit of tweaking, and-

...and his thoughts were interrupted by the building of intense heat in the tunnel.

((Don't sweat it, you make up for it with how you post extremely fast. I take FOREVER!)

"Deal" Leah agreed, happy someone had come up with an idea, looking around with new focus.

Matoro listened to the wind. It told him a few things, its voice was not as strong as it used to be.
"oh boot," he said, confused, "yelp tennis. I must've heard that one wrong."

At that moment, Fener was facing a very strange creature. Its skin seemed to be half organic, half metal. fused by venom, and not the Circle's, his intellect told him. It seemed to be enveloped in flames. And not jsut any flames, he decided as he felt the blistering heat and utter unwelcome, hellfire.

((and I missed your second post but I red it now (message11) ))

Leah laughed "Yeah, lets hope so, but the wind god...is sort of what's the word, different" she was unaware something was wrong with Fener, but did feel uneasy in a way.

"He's asleep. That's the problem," Matoro said. He ran through a mental list of anything that sounded like that. "Oh no," he said. "No chute. Help Fener."

Fener was, in fact, at the moment, wishing for Matoro at the moment. The heat was super intense, driving him back, and Matoro's power of cold would help to clear his mind. Cold, he thought with a smile. Perhaps I do not need Matoro for that after all, he decided. Then he proceeded to begin to draw in the hellfire. First inches, then feet of the hellish flames were drawn into him. Every drop of heat, he decided, has to be drawn in.

The tunnel was freezing. Fener was glowing like a star. And the beast was retreating.

Her eyes widened and she whirled herself around for the cave. "Let's go!'" she barked as if that wasn't what he'd already be doing. You know how she gets when she panics, not the most pleasant to be around.

The creature folded up and disintigrated into frost. Fener fell to his knees, letting the temperature rise again, knowing that he had just fought-and conquered- the beast within himself.

But I don't think I could do it again, he thought before he blacked out.

"Why is it that whenever we find him, he's napping?" Matoro asked minutes later.

She looked equally puzzled "Beats me. Better than dead though" she said, feeling they'd missed something big, but had no way of knowing what. She sighed, "We have to let him heal again, right?"

Matoro scooped up some water in his hands (the remains of the creature) and splashed it in Fener's face. "Nah," he decided. "He can rest on the way."
Before the sentence had finished leaving his lips, there was a blade at his neck. "Someone wakes up jumpy," Matoro tutted, and Fener put his sword away, sighing.

Leah grinned "No kidding. Oh he joys of being a half blood" she said sarcastically. "Okay, you're awake, and me and Matoro totally missed everything. Then again we have to get going so I'll hold you to filling us in later" she decided, but knew better.

"No you won't. And I'll probably never decide to tell you. There are some things that you jsut don't say," Fener predicted. "The point is that we have a ship now."

Two hours later, and they were on the water.

See, Leah knew he'd say that. So two hours later, she was still wondering, but she wasn't asking. And so now she was going to have to forget, which was okay. Maybe it was best she didn't know. "To Germany!" she announced.

"No, we were planning on lashing a ship and heading to Europe so that we could be tourists in Paris," Matoro said sarcastically.
"No we didn't," Fener said quizically.

"Sarcasm Fener, sarcasm" Leah reminded him, smiling with a good natured roll of the eye.

"He's never been good with that," Matoro said reduntantly. "So, I know you won't get into the details, but will you give us a summary of what happened?"
"There was a fight. I won."
"Some storyteller you are."

"Come on, we're your best friends." she pleaded even though she hated when people said that to her. "Well...okay, so you won, but you were asleep. So whatever it was it must of been strong, so good job beating it?"

"I accept your congratulations," Fener was not visibly affected by her pleadings.

"Here's how I think it happened. Something comes along and beats Fener up, but it hears us, and runs away from our might," Matoro said with false bravado.
"Which explains how you managed to splash me in the face with its remains."
"That wasn't water?"
"Oh, it was water."
"Any chance of explanation?"
"None."

"So close" she said sarcastically. "Okay maybe this is what happened: An insane water nymph attacked Fener. Fener beat it, but since a water nymph is like partially made of water or something so water was left when it died? Genius if you ask me" she said even though she knew the story was not correct.

"Nah, Fener would've told us. The only way he wouldn't have told us is if he had been beaten, or the enemy was connected to his past, or he discovered some deep, dark secret while fighting it. I suspect the second one, because I don't think there's a monster alive who doesn't fit that description."
Fener didn't react, but he was thinking, wrong.

"Yeah, that's true. But if it's something from his past, how are we going to ever guess it? I mean you know better than I do, but we could be here all day, couldn't we?" she asked, trying not to sound harsh. Mean while she was studying Fener's face for hints but it wasn't giving away any hints. It was the mask again.

"That reminds me, did anyone prepare the ship for sea monster attacks?" Matoro asked.

Then the boat rocked violently.

Just before Leah was tossed to the other side of the boat she held onto the side. "Oh come on!" she yelled at the monsters, trying not to show fear.

"Is that the shore?" Fener asked, peering at it. "Yes...," Matoro said. "I have a plan. Everyone to starboard."
"That's the right of the deck," Matoro notified Leah. Fener stepped to port, left. A giant snake reared up his head and struck at him. "Naitaka," he named it before easily bounding away, landing on starboard.

The ship acted like a catapult sending them hurtling toward the sand.

A reptile searched along the shoreline for fish that sometimes washed up after huge waves like that. It was a genetically enhanced reptile, and was very good at spotting food. A head popped out of hte sand, and it made a run for it. "Well, that stunk," Matoro, the head in question, commented. He dug himself out of the surf.

"Okay, that was genius." Leah said looking around "But where are we?"

((Sorry if I'm not replying to Leah in this post))

The reptile kept on skittering until it ran headlong into a web. It might sound preposterous, but there is a certain species of ants that use webs to sew their homes in Africa. Obviously, this ability had been enhanced for the plan of killing things. Two pincers, ant pincers, closed around the reptile. The reptile tried to explain everything. Maybe if it explained why it had trespassed, the ant would let it go.
Esplin 2098765 was a warrior ant, and soon found herself listening very intently to the reptile. The beings it described sounded much like those that Eris had warned them to kill on sight...

"More importantly, where's Fener?" Matoro asked.
"Are we going to stand around all night," a voice answered, "or are we going to rescue the mortals?"

((from this point on with an open circle (meaning not what he just said) I want Leah to question Fener's orders some, his judgement. Matoro will participate, too.))

((The reptile is gone. It's far, far out of earshot. And it's just a scavenger.))

Deleting recent post 38... complete.

Fener led on, confidently.
"I think that we are marching into a trap," Matoro mentioned for the eighth time.

Esplin quickly took to to Eris, and a slight tightening of her pincers persuaded the reptile to blab out the entire story again. "Hm... so, the hereos have returned, as he said they would. They will come to the Mortal's aid... I believe that they are charging straight into Perses' scouting patrol. Right into a trap."

((*Face palm* the reptile is gone, out of ear shot. How did I not see that? I like read everything except that. Okay, now it makes since))

"Yeah Fener, doesn't it seem kind of like somethings missing here?" Leah asked. Was she paranoid or was she right, at the time it was hard to tell.

Fener swung around, looking defensive. "We're already most of the way to the tower of Ossus," he reminded them.
"Surrounded by a lot of webs," Matoro commented.
"And there isn't a myrmeke in sight."
If there was going to be another comment, it was lost because suddenly they were surrounded by myrmekes.
Before anyone could make a wisecrack, they were sprayed with paralysis venom that comes from the ants' stingers and fell into a heap. Then there was black. And then there was Black.

Leah's first reaction was her mind was just tired and wasn't being practical. She blinked but the shocking turn of events, the betrayal, wasn't fading.

Perses was glad of his victory. He turned to Esplin. "Drop them," he commanded. All three demigods were suspended from a web high in the tower of Ossus, nearly a mile high. Esplin nodded, happy to carry out her orders. She turned to relay them to the myrmekes that were ready to cut, but a boot was then on her head and her brain was crushed. "Is it to be so simple, Perses? Their deaths should be... legendary, to be remembered and spoken about for all time."
Perses nodded, understanding her logic. Leaders are judged in time by how they defeated their enemies. "Leave them in the cocoons long enough for the myrmeke venom to take effect, and then drop them to die."

((This time I saw your edit finally. That changed my post big time))

"Wow, gee thanks. " she said above them. "Not that legendary of a plan" she grumbled

"Well, Fener, we can't say you didn't show us the country," Matoro said bitterly, they had a great view of Germany, "'Course, we can say that you got us captured, poisoned, and imminently smashed on the ground."
"What do you want me to do!?" Fener shouted. "I can't just instantly change." Then his cocoon broke open slightly and a bizarre limb popped out. With a shudder, Fener realized that his hand had been replaced by Blacksblade and his arm was more beastial... just like the creature that he had fought. Then Blacksblade/his hand set on fire.

There are few things that cause Fener to freak out. Having his own hand fused with his sword and randomly set on fire was one of them. He yelped and hollered, waving the blade around, trying to douse the flames. He felt more changes taking place, his body fusing with his armor, his knives all over him becoming permanent parts of his body, his bow latching to his left arm with auto-reload features. His eyes changed, they were faced forward. The eyes of a predator. He had become the monster that he had faced in the caves.

"I'd say that's pretty legendary," Perses commented as similar changes affected the other heroes. For Leah, her right hand became a sort of microphone grappling hook and her butter knives took residence on her back to be sent out and returned like boomerangs. Matoro's one white stout knife underwent a similar change, and his staff became a nice hooked blade that he could twist around stuf to pull them or swing on them. Each of them, at the end, were creatures unrecognizable and semi-metallic.

First she freaked out. I mean, what would you if your hand became mutated with a microphone? And her friends were also definitely no longer what they were a minute ago. Oh and she was so mad, I think everyone would agree those people, or things, got on her nerves. She so wanted to put them in there place. So she was freaked out, mad, and wanted to prove them wrong. Could she in this state?

Next, the worst part of all. Their minds felt like they were being torm apart and jammed back together again in a new pattern. "I'm not liking this!" Matoro shouted.
"You'll like it less in ten seconds," Fener managed to say despite his brain malfunction. The cocoons were starting to tear from all the punishment they were taking from their new very hsarp body parts. Fener was the first to go, because he had the most sharp bits and bobs. "I'm sorry that I- AGH!!!"
Matoro was next. "Leah, I'm about to die and I jsut want you to know that- AAIII!!!!!"

Alll she had time left to do was star wide eyed, let out a piercing scream, and fall below, terror for herself what was to happen next, and most of all what was happening to her friends

Fener spread out his body to create as much air resistance as possible. As if that will make any difference. They were going to die. He closed his eyes and accepted it. Impact! But not the kind he had been expecting. He opened his eyes to find that he was being carried by two creatures, one red, one blue. It is impossible to describe them as anything but diminutive and freakish. Quick glances at Matoro and Leah informed him that the same had happened to them. Matoro had brown and black, and Leah had green and white.

Leah was still wincing as if she was going to fall and very very slowly opened her eyes and looked around. How was this even possible? "Is everyone else...seeing this?' she double checked, she didn't want to be faked out and end up dead, like a trick or something.

((Darn, I gtg. Doesn't my dad know it's like supposed to a lazy day after you've been on a vacation where you hike the whole time? I'll be back later today, as long as I don't get too sick. It's been great rping!))

((By the time you're on, I'll probably be off, but yeah, it was great to get something done on here.))

Matoro woke up staring at his reflection in the water. The first thing he remembered was pure horror.