Camp Hermit-Blood: a Hermitcraft fanfiction

Ren

Percy grabbed the first newspaper he could find, and the look on his face scared the heck out of everyone.

He looked up with a grim expression. "Hey, guys... remember how people from 1966 are in there?"

Everyone nodded slowly, starting to catch on.

Percy held up the newspaper. "It's been five days."

"We have one day left," Gem gasped.

That brought down the mood even more.

But then Annabeth had another idea.

Not that it was a bad thing. Annabeth had good ideas and only good ideas, but sometimes they were only good for her.

Like the whole IOU thing.

Ren was not thrilled about that.

For one, IOUs were just bad news. And second, she could use it to make them spill all the secrets of Hermitcraft.

But that hopefully didn't matter right now, because Annabeth had an idea.

And that idea was the hail two taxis, load everyone into the back, and use the LotusCash cards to pay.

Somehow, it worked.

The drivers were a little skeptical about it at first, and both Annabeth and Grian lost their cards, but then she told them they could keep the change if they went fast. And one of the drivers called her "Your Highness," which she obviously liked.

It triggered some memories for Ren.

Grian didn't seem to mind the "loss of money = fast" part.

Percy started to get into the taxi with Annabeth, and then she pushed him out. "No, I'm taking Gem and Grover. They're the least likely to drive me insane."

Gem shot the three boys a smug glance as she climbed in with the daughter of Athena, but maybe there was a little bit of nervousness as she went as well.

And so Percy, Grian, and Ren went into the other taxi, feeling incredibly sorry for the driver.

"That was..." Grian said. "Terrifying."

Percy and Ren nodded.

"I couldn't even remember home," Ren said. "Doc. The Octagon."

He said "The Octagon" in a low and dramatic tone, as he always did.

"I miss Boatem," Grian moaned.

Percy just stared at them. "My mom's in the Underworld," he said finally.

"I know," Grian said. "And we shouldn't be complaining about our situation when yours is worse. Sorry, Percy."

"Hey, one of your friends died to a giant scorpion," Percy said. "My mom's not dead. Speaking of which..."

Grian's face hardened. Ren looked away.

He went on to tell them about a dream he had had, that sounded terrifying.

"The thing in the pit is probably Hades or something," Ren said after a long silence where everyone was lost in their own thoughts. "Ares said Hades was holding her hostage."

"It's the or something that I'm worried about," Percy admitted.

"This whole demigod thing is stressful," Grian complained. "Way more stressful than just hiding from phantoms every night, which I would think is the most stressful it can get."

They laughed, but it was bitter.

Ren tensed. "If we don't sleep here, do you think we'll attract phantoms?"

Grian shrugged. "We've slept most nights since we came."

Percy examined them, and Ren got the feeling they needed to stop talking about their home world.

"Are you guys, like, resurrected from the dead or something?" the son of Posideon asked. "Is that why Hades is after you, and you're talking about how your home has swarms of undead?"

Ren and Grian exchanged glances. He couldn't be farther from the truth.

"No, we're not from the Underworld," Ren answered. "We've never been there."

"Well, you're not from here," Percy said, crossing his arms.

Ren looked down at his red tennis shoes. He was getting kind of guilty about hiding everything.

Grian seemed like the opposite. But after all, he didn't even try to hide it, which frustrated Ren and Gem.

"Should we tell him?" Grian muttered. "I told Connor and Travis. It's only a matter of time before everyone else finds out, too."

Percy leaned forward to look at Ren's face.

Ren turned to stare out the window.

It wasn't a question of whether they wanted to tell him. It was a question of whether they trusted him not to tell anyone else.

Trust was a hard thing to come by. Ren knew that from experience. But sometimes the only way to get trust was to offer a little in return.

Forget the question of whether they trusted Percy. It was whether they wanted Percy to trust them.

"Fine," Ren said.

Percy raised his eyebrows, obviously not expecting that answer.

"But you can't tell anyone," Ren continued. "Not even Annabeth. We'll tell her later."

"What about Grover?" Percy asked.

"He already knows some of this," Grian said. "So anyway-"

"You know that Minecraft game I was playing at the Lotus Casino?" Ren interrupted. "So our world works almost exactly like that..."

He didn't leave out any of the details.

There were only two days left to finish the quest, but somehow it felt like they had all the time in the world.