Andy's Pov.
The first thing that I had to do when got back to camp was convince Will that I had not, in fact, gotten a concussion, and that I did not come, at all, because I missed him. Honestly, have some faith, I have standards. Standards that included being a shadow hunter, victor, dauntless, and, well, might as well put being Brad Pitt on the list, because this is already looking impossible.
Anyways, short story short, we got the information, I glanced guilty at the ground and BOOM! Shadow traveling again.
And were did we shadow travel? Why, a happy little bubbly mountain with great death risk and tinny, inny, little, wittle ewuptions of death that killed over 50 people and destroyed billions dollars worth of stuff, not to mention Percy went little boy and fat man while he was there. Wow! This is shaping up to be one exciting field trip, I mean, might as well get on the magic bus and grab Mrz. Frizzle while we're at it!
You feeling it? The sass? Yes? Good.
The now familiar sensation of falling on top of Nico over came me.... and I fell on top of Nico.
"Ow, gosh, for being skinny, you sure are heavy!" He complained.
I smacked him.
"Guys, break it up, Nico, stop being an butt towards your sister." Makai scolded before going to high-five me. "Nice slap." Nico pouted but picked him self off of the ground, pulling me up as well, "I'm not a butt," he muttered under his breath, "I'm a blueberry skittle."
I glanced at him weirdly but shrugged. "So where are we?" I asked.
Makai shrugged and pointed her thumb at Scarlet.
"On the ground," She drawled, "For Hades sake, do you guys pay any attention? We were talking about Saint Helen's, we aren't going to be traveling to freaking Disney Land." She paused to point at the looming volcano behind us. "This is were we are."
I put on a fake enthusiastic grin, "Oh yes! I always wanted to go to Hawii, Figi, Right?"
Cue hand spasm towards my face.
Just then a bright light exploded and there stood Apollo, in all his surfer boy glory, grinning. "By the way, you have 2 days to complete your quest, but moving on, I'm sure you've all deeply missed me. Having a fun time on your quest?"
He continued on, ignoring the looks we were giving him. "What a silly question, of course your having a fun time on your quest now that I'm here, and now that-"
Scarlet pointed an accusing finger at Apollo, "Now you warn us we have a time limit! And just popping up here and there like you own the place. Just hurry up so that I don't have to stare at your ugly face anymore.You've wasted enough of our time with your other escapades."
"So you do stare at me."
Before anything else could happen I dragged Scarlet away from Apollo and crossed my arms at him.
"Bug of Marco-" he raised an eye brow at the new nickname, "-none of us feel like putting up with angry huntress 2.0 this early in the morning, so please tell us the things that you were sent to tell us so we can go save your godly butts before the world ends. Again."
Apollo stared at me for a second with a blank expression before bursting into a smile and pointing a perfectly tanned finger at my face. "I like you. Good, strong, daughter in-law material."
My face caught on fire. "WHAT?!?!?!"
This time it was Makai's turn to step in the way. "Never mind that, we need information."
What did he mean? Did that mean that I was going to marry a cow? Did that count? I mean they are his sacred animal...
Nico leaned over, cutting of my train of though. "Wandy sails for your ship," he whispered, winking.
I smacked his face away. "Don't you mean windy? And I don't have a ship, I'm not captain Jack Sparrow. Are you on shrooms?"
Makai let out a snicker and I turned my attention back to Apollo, ignoring Nico's protests.
Apollo gave an annoyed sigh and fished something out of his pocket inside of his Bermuda shorts.
"Fine, I'll give you what I have, but first, a special haiku for you!"
We all groaned. "I the sun of time, the direction or cool, make enchiladas drool."
I glanced at Makai, sending her a message through my eyes, What was that supposed to mean?
Apollo smiled graciously. "I look forward to seeing your pretty little face sometime in the future, Scarlet." And with as wink Apollo vanished, but not before chucking a chunk or metal at my face.
"Oh I swear, the nerve of that idiot! The next time I see him I am going to rip his stomach out through his throat-"
Scarlet's angry rant was caught off when the spinning U.F.O.T.W.C.A.M.B.W.S (Unidentified Object That Was Chucked At Me By Wannabe Shakespeare.) Hit me square in the nose.
A geyser of blood erupted from my nose as my hands fumbled with the object. Once it was firmly in my grasp, my right hand clamped over my nose until the trickle of blood slowed.
"I tought tat Apollow was suppwsed to be ta god of tealing, not ta god of pain."
"Oh believe me, he already causes enough pain through his face." Scarlet fumed, still clenching her hands in fists.
Nico rolled his eyes, pushing past Scar until he was next to my hand that was clutching the object.
"So what is it?"
"Oh, why Nico, what a kind and brotherly thing to ask! Yes, why my nose is fine! It's not like it resembled the red sea a moment ago. So thank you, I Andrea Parker am absal-"
Nico glared at me and I sighed.
"Fine, here."
I unfolded my hand and revealed a small circular object. A compass. The metal was gold with diamonds embedded over each direction. Each letter was an emerald green and the arrow was an intricately created gold centerpiece fixated on a sun. The arrow was pointing west. It was broken.
"Well I guess I really am Captain Jack Sparrow, Bloom, find me a ship."
I felt something smack me in the forehead and I turned to see that Nico had thrown a black pebble sized thing at my face.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Coal," he said nonchalantly. "If you press it hard enough it will turn into a pearl."
"And your point with the Hunger Games reference is...?"
"Easy," He replied, his face taking on a mock seriousness, "That's your ship, Sparrow. The Black Pearl."
~~~
After I killed Nico for that horrible joke, the four of us tried to figure out why in the world Apollo would hand us a broken compass, with no instruction, when it would probably benefit him if we finished the quest quicker.
"I don't get it, Nico said for the eight time, "What's this supposed to do?"
I shrugged and continued trying to navigate the forest-y area surrounding the volcano. We had decided to see if we got anywhere by navigating in either direction, but so far nothing was happening.
Nico was having a total diva moment and had sat down on a poor rock before unconsciously summoning random little skulls till the ground looked like speckled snow.
"Come on, guys, Apollo had to have given us a clue." Makai said, trying to sound as optimistic as possible for Makai.
"Well you don't know him," Scarlet muttered darkly, but I already had a plan formulating in my head
"That's it!" I exclaimed, "He did give us a clue!"
Makai looked up eagerly, "Really?"
"The haiku-"
"Oh please," Nico rolled his eyes. "The only hint were going to get from his poetry is how to get kicked out of a poetry slam."
"Just hear me out, 'I the sun of time' Time. He gave us a compass-"
"Ohh, good eye Andy."
I gave Nico a pointed look before continuing.
"-That looks like the sun. 'The direction of cool.' So we know that it has to point us in the direction of some place. And, 'I make enchiladas drool' That one doesn't really make sense, but enchiladas sounds a lot like enchidus. Maybe if we examine the compass a little more..."
Scarlett snapped her fingers like a true Athena child and grabbed the compass out of my hands. "You're a genius Andy, if you look at the shadow-"
Makai leaned over her shoulder and gasped. "It's not a compass at all. It's a sun dial."
Scarlett grimaced. "No, that's a moon dial.
~~~
"A moon dial is kind of like an alphabet code," Scarlet explained, "Artemis has told me about them before, though I've never seen one. Artemis gives them to her lieutenants incase she ever goes somewhere and they need to fined her. She gives them a riddle before she leaves and they spell it out using the time and letters, and supposedly leads them to a portal taking you to wherever you need to go. Of course, they can't find her unless she wants them to, thats the thing about the riddle, it engraves its self on the back of the dial when it is time for them to come. But you need pure moon light for it to function. There's a while bunch of physics behind it, but believe me, you don't want to hear it, it's plain confusing, and that's coming from an Athena kid."
I looked up at the blazing sun, "But why would the god of the Sun give us something sacred to the moon goddess? And night is hours away, we don't have time to wait."
"This is hopeless," Nico scowled at the ground.
Well he is mooodie!
Makai stood up from the stump she had been sitting on. "Well, we'll have to find a place where we can have pure moon light anyways, so might as well get started. It sounds pretty impossible though, how can you have pure moonlight?"
Then it clicked, it was almost laughable, it was so painfully obvious. I could practically see the Fates laughing at me. Who know the oracle could be so direct.
The guidance of Apollo shall act as a compass.
Duh.
One of you shall count it as hopeless.
Double duh.
Artemis's maiden shall act like a scope.
So maybe Scarlet could help us with this.
I explained it to the rest of us before Nico cut in. "Andy, your just connecting dots that aren't there, prophecies are never that painstakingly obvious, there's always a deeper meaning. Believe me, I've been part of plenty."
I stuck my tongue out at him. "Well were just going to keep it simple, buzzkill."
Scarlet though for a moment before snapping her fingers. "Wait, we might not have to wait until night, and it's probably going to be as pure as possible."
"And one having re-runs of there and back again? No, okay." I muttered.
Ignoring my hobbit comment, Scarlet grabbed her backpack and un-zipped it, pulling out a horn that resembled the one that Susan carried in Narnia.
"This is a hunter horn. The horn used to 'announce' the hunt. Inside of it there's a tiny piece of moonlight, so if we just take the compass and.." Scarlet monuvered the horn so that the tip shone on the middle sun. It changed in instant. The gold simmered into silver and letters carved them selfs randomly in-between the NWSE.
Scarlet flipped it over and on the back you could see words slowly engraving them selves on the back until they formed a single line.
Follow your dreams.
"Haha," I said nervously, "Great time to tell you this, by the way, I just sort of had a bit of a demigod dream involving Enchidus. "
Makai face palmed. "A bit of a demigod dream?'
"Yeah, like, that small part in a bridle-"
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Never mind. Anyways, try spelling Enchidus."
Scarlet nodded and looked down at the compass. "Okay, Nico, hand me your pocket watch."
Nico looked startled but turned it into a glare. "What, just because I'm a son of Hades doesn't mean that you have to automatically assume that I have a pocket watch because its old and creepy. I mean, its not like I have one sitting in my pocket right now."
Scarlet rolled her eyes. "No, I asked you because your a dork and you don't know when to grow up and stop cosplaying."
"Oh," Nico blushed before putting his hand in his pocket and, lo and behold, pulling out an old creepy pocket watch with the word "mythomagic" scrawled on the top.
"Okay, E is placed on the compass where 15 is on the clock. That means we take 15 steps in the direction of E." Scar positioned it until the arrow lined up with E and took fifteen steps. "Next is N, which is at 46."
I groaned. "Do we have to walk all the way?"
Silence.
"Great, I almost forgot what great conversationalists we have in this group."
~~~
"S is the last one, five steps."
So far on our little walk, I had managed to force feed Nico eight snickers bars, because you're not you when your hungry. I also drank three red bulls, I mean I got to get my wings somehow.
"...Four... Five. Here," dream-crushing tour guide stated just as the world began to melt away. When my vision cleared I could see two giant monsters as tall as mountains leaning over us.
You shall face troubles mountains tall.
"Well then, anyone up for some snickers?"
A/N
All rights to uncle Rick. Sorry if I spelt Enchidus wrong, but I was too lazy to look it up. Also sorry it took so long, but whateves.
Signing out- bobby_the_ice_man aka. That idiot who wrote this chapter.