ATLOP: Trial by Fire

A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers

I still wondered why I dreamed that. Who were all of Them?

Pontus was the swirling currents, They'd referred to Him as that. It must've been a scene from a long time ago, Pontus has been asleep for thousands of years but no one knew why. Those other beings though... the way some of them eyed Pontus.

Were they-

Did they-

"Ahah!" Annabeth cried victoriously.

She led us to an empty do-it-yourself car wash.

We veered towards the stall farthest from the street, keeping an eye out for patrol cars.

We'd already had to duck around twice to keep out of their sight. I knew we looked suspicious, especially now that we were at a car wash with no cars.

"What are we doing?" This seemed like a sea method, using water.

"It's seventy-five-cents," he grumbled. "I have two quarters left, Percy?"

I pulled out a quarter, "Here."

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do this with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good and my arm gets tired of pumping."

I stared baffled. What were they doing? If they needed water why didn't they just ask me to use my waterskin? Did it need fresh water?

I made a note to learn how to separate salt from the water as I questioned them.

"What are you doing?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."

I blinked, wait, did he mean... "Iris-messaging?"

"Yeah," he looked at me a bit surprised. "You know about it?"

"Uh yeah, we do it in the sea too. You just gotta reflect the light right to make rainbows, or use a rainbow stone."

"What's a rainbow stone?" Annabeth asked.

"It's an enchanted stone, made to refract light to make a rainbow, I had one in my dorm, remember Grover?"

He frowned in thought, "Um, you had a lot of sparkly things."

"Well yeah, I had the star globe, and the sparkly lights, and a few other things, but I kept the rainbow stone out. It's the black stone with the splashes of color."

"Shaped kinda long and the ends curving up?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, that's a rainbow stone?"

"Yes, Grover. That's a rainbow stone."

"You'll have to show me when we get back to camp," Annabeth declared as Grover turned on the nozzle.

"Okay, but just curious. Why are we using the spray nozzle when I could just make a mist with water from my waterskin?"

They both stopped and stared for a long moment.

"Er... that... Okay how much water does that bag have?"

I shrugged, "It's connected to the ocean, so... how much water is in the ocean?"

She stared for a long moment, her gaze flicking to the bag, then back to me. "Riiiiigggghhhhtt."

I stared, she stared back.

"Well..." She said. "We'll keep that in mind for future reference. But we already have the nozzle out, so... Drachma?"

I handed her a Drachma.