*TW: Eye Injuries and a brief mention of breaking bones

[20 DAYS LEFT]

Docm77's POV:

Even if my life (and the fate of the world) is on the line, quests become a haunting and tiring task after a while.

It's always the same, get an object, find a god or two, fight a lot of monsters, rebuild anew.

And frankly, I'm sick of it. All I ever wanted to do is to live a peaceful life with my dearest friends or maybe even have a family. But I can't when all my brain can think about is if I can even make it to tomorrow. Shrugging it off without complaint, not a single sound for the Gods less their ego be broken.

Once again, we are walking the path to Olympus even if I personally only token this path once in my life, I had it memorized into the robot bits of my brain.

Take the train to the city of Larissa. From Larissa, take another train to Litochoro train stop, followed by a walk to the village of Litochoro then just follow the hiking route to Mount Olympus.

I remembered that it wasn't a direct path to Olympus, but it was the fastest, clocking in only 14 hours if there is no random monster jumping onto us out of nowhere, but I have no high hopes of that happening any time ever.

"The train to Larissa City will soon be arriving, please make sure all your personal items are safe." The microphone spoke out in a soft gentle voice which did not soothe my nerves at all.

I glanced around us, so far not a single monster has crept around. Just humans going about their days, leaving from work, or starting the night shift and it just doesn't feel right.

I had expressed his emotions to Etho, Beef (and B-dubs if he was awake) and they all said that the lack of monsters is deeply disturbing. Which is an odd thing because I remember just complaining that there were too many monsters at one point in the past.

Or maybe my brain is just disoriented to the labyrinth of lights around us. Mazes in between the nightlights blinking, the towering houses around us hiding shadows, running roadless through the madness of the market, screaming at the top of our lungs to the numbness of it all. (And that at any moment, monsters may just attack)

Eurydice is definitely having a rough time understanding the meaning of madness, looking around for the source of the voice within the microphone.

"That's a recording of a person, don't worry." I heard Iskall explain to Eurydice, who still didn't look eased at the sound of that.

A man passed by, holding a picture of a kid. Maybe that could have been me in another time, in another life.

The hundreds of people that pass us by, all with their own lives and dreams. Never aware of the demigods that stand eye to eye with them; never aware of the dangers that are around every corner and living a life far from ours.

"Sonder." A voice reached my ears.

"What? Sorry?" Waking up to real life, I turned to face Ren.

"Sonder, the feeling of realizing that everyone has a life as complex as your own. That's what you were feeling right?" He looked into my own eyes.

I looked back to the incoming of a train, the haunting silence was quickly filled in with the relief of people getting off their jobs and the quiet mumbling of the night-shift workers plus the nervous jokes that the Hermits were passing around.

"Yeah, I like that word," I whispered to myself and stepped onto the train.

A few people (mostly the live guards) always give us weird looks whenever we board on any public transport, maybe it's because we are a group of 25 right now and Etho and Beef are doing that weird thing when you stepped into someone's way and gesture each other to go first.

Neither won and they just both stepped onto the train at the same time because they are both Canadian. (And partly because the people behind them were starting to complain.

Unfortunately, because we are indeed a group of 25 that means that we can't all fit into one train carriage. Silently muttering sorry to the people, I bump into, squeezed into a seat between the previously mentioned Canadians (and B-dubs who is... kind of awake? Maybe.)

"This train ride is going to be a long one." Etho nonchalantly said as he started to fiddle with his jacket.

Having to token his path to Olympus before, this train usually lasts for about five-ish hours, landing us at the Larissa train stop at an unholy time of three AM, because that's the time that monsters strike; they believe that we are fast asleep and stab us before we can do anything about it.

"I don't see the others through the mass of people." Beef commented, sounding a bit worried. (I mean, the last time they let another out of their sights, they just went missing. I would be paranoid as well.)

"I'm sure that TFC, Xisuma, Exy, and Wels will take care of them." And I knew that after all of this, they won't let us out of their sights, especially Ex.

Knowing that we had to split into five groups just to fit into a train that was already packed with night-shift workers and people that are working overtime filled the Hermits with a lot of stress. Without the mortals, I think we will fit into one or two carriages simply fine.

I can already see a few of the humans drifting off into sleep, knowing full well that in a crowd this big that they don't have to worry about their stuff being stolen without the thief making a fuzz. But a quick look at us will see that we are on high nerves, for at anything a monster can reveal its true identity, and no one will notice.

As we waited for a jump-scare that may never happen, part of me wonder what it will be like to look through the protective cover of the mist. To see a demon in disguise as your local newspaper boy, to never worry about if you are going to have to fight for your life each minute passes.

Maybe I'm just jealous of a world I can't be a part of.

"I can do the watching honors if you want." Beef politely stated, but Etho felt his own Canadian urge to say something else to stop Beef from doing it. However, I also have a solution.

"I'll do it," I said to the two beside me.

However, this just raises the politeness of Beef and Etho by tenfold and I was tasked with handling this because I looked at B-dubs with a pleading look to talk Etho out of it but because it was B-dubs I was pleading for help for, he just opened one eye then looked into my eyes and lowered his mossy hood. And fell back asleep.

I will never get how sassy he could be even without speaking a single word.

"Look, I biologically will sleep so you don't have to worry about exhaustion, and my robotic eye will scan everything and enter that information into my subconscious mind," I explained, tapping on the robotic parts on me.

"Plus, you're so tall that nobody will ever come close to you without cowering in fear." I heard B-dubs mutter in his sleep. (Sleep-talking for a child of Hypnos is quite common from what I heard, but I don't think he's sleep-talking)

Maybe he would be right in another life but being bigger doesn't seem to help if you are a demigod. I would argue that it puts you in bigger trouble. I might be physically stronger than B-dubs, but I can't hide as easily, and finding food was a pain back when I was still growing.

"But..." Etho started to protest.

"No buts. Look at your eyebags." I shushed him up.

With a lot of complaining, they both drifted to sleep while I turned on the most sensitive settings for my robotic eye and closed my biological eye.

The scanner function of this was really useful, I have to give props to Mumbo and Impulse later. But it can be crazy sensitive and overwhelming at times.

But then again, most games were barely holding together by code. Poke at one line of code too much and all falls apart, I would know because I was around technology all the time when I was a teen.

I remember when I was a child, I never had many friends, and it didn't help that I was homeless and was a demigod. (Oh, did I mention that I looked weird as well? My green skin may have been hidden by the Mist, but it did me dirty)

But I met a small group (no not the hermits, they come later in the story) who were tech geniuses and just didn't care what people looked like, they just wanted to push the limits on game coding and see what kind of farms they can make.

I became quick friends when the small group and went on to suggest insane ideas that they actually took and made.

But I was a bit of an angry child (still am on account of being the child of Lyssa, goddess of rage) and would lash out on the tech, becoming frustrated whenever an idea fell flat, even if I had been rather nasty to them on a few times, they just joked it off.

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to-uh-yell at you." I muttered to myself, trying to convince myself that I won't be in any trouble, but my heart was jumping to the worst of the worst.

"It's fine. Really!" The group member had said to me but even if they had forgiven me... I don't think I had ever forgiven myself.

Forgive and forget: That's something that Xisuma always said. And something about that quote bugs me to no end.

Maybe I just don't tend to forgive myself that easily, a sudden cold stab of pain entered my robotic limps and had blanked my sight for a while; along with the phantom pain, it dragged forth a memory that I had suppressed.

Iskall.

I opened my eye and looked at the next cabin over, knowing that Iskall was somewhere in there makes it feel a little easier to breathe.

I was on a rather high alert that day, not having food for three days and the pains started to numb my senses. Glancing behind me at every step I made, careful not to step on some unknown monster's toes.

I didn't know I was a demigod yet, so I was getting fed up with the monsters attacking me for no reason to my knowledge at that time.

Scar and Iskall fought me at the end of a back alley, Scar hiding his goat legs with a wheelchair and Iskall... well they didn't have their robotic eye at the time.

...I think you can connect the dots.

We ended up badly rupturing each other's right eyes and Scar just stared at us, frozen in fear.

By the time Scar had gained back the blood needed to move, I was knocked down into the ground hard by him, disfiguring my left arm and breaking a few bones in the process.

The last thing I remember before I passed out by the pain was Scar's terrified expression, and I don't think I have ever seen someone more mortified by the scene he found himself in.

The hermits were horrified to see our conditions and the fact that we even came out of this with fully functional limps was amazing.

"Your arm actually can be healed. You know?" Joe told me at the camp.

I sit in silence in the white bed of Joe's cabin, the hermits joked that a hurricane built the inside of the lodge, a random spread of furniture covering the small space, and books about whatever Joe found interesting at the time lay around.

"... I don't think Iskall's eye can be healed," I muttered meaningless words to Joe, who quickly switched to local therapists' mode.

"Don't blame yourself for this. Iskall knows very well that you didn't mean to" Joe smiled.

I shot a warning look, a sign that I wanted to be left alone. (He wasn't a friend at the time, at best he's, my doctor.)

He backed up a bit in understanding my message but still remained in the room with me.

"I get it you know. Not forgiving yourself... just shout if you need me." Joe nodded politely and picked a random book from his messy room.

He still didn't leave the room, but that's ok. Maybe if there was another person there, I wouldn't have to be on guard.

But nothing ever seems to ease the shadow of a feeling I had since I was young, performing another scan of the body temperatures of the people around me. And since monsters don't have the means to make heat, their bodies are much colder than ours, I can conclude that no monsters are around.

So why do I feel watched?

Nobody on the train was really paying attention to us, most were just checking their phones or watching the sights past the windows.

This uneasiness never fails to bother me; I just wish that I was... well as normal as I could be. I want to experience life through the lens of a mortal. No more thinking about when food will arrive at my mouth, no more dreaming that monsters will stop wounding the people that you loved.

I had exchanged an arm for an eye because I was just too on guard, to prove that I was sorry to Iskall for just... clawing their eyes out. (Yet, a small part of me still is waiting until Iskall had enough and kicked me out of the Hermit group.)

So, I waited with hypersensitive controls on my robotic eye. Scanning... just scanning.

...

[19 DAYS LEFT]

...

"We have arrived at our next stop, Larissa City." The gentle voice of the train conductor broke from the mics, waking me up from a light sleep state.

I look at the time, it was freshly three am on the dot, people were grumbling about being awake and just being moody, filling up the silence of the night with tired energy.

After fast-tracking all my scanners on my robotic eye, I found it weird that no monsters were even near us or if there is, it's keeping itself very hidden. Even weirder was the fact that B-dubs was awake.

B-dubs? Awake? At an unearthly time like three am? What kind of weird fantasy alternate universe of fanfiction am I in?

I supposed that I didn't keep the shocked reaction very well hidden as because B-dubs took one look at my gaping mouth and hastily spat out:

"Look! I can wake myself up... sometimes. I'm a big adult!"

His tan face turned a few shades redder, and he hushed my next sentence by cutting me before I even started talking.

"You wake Etho up and I'll wake Beef, I rather not have my beautiful face frozen off." He decided for me.

Too shocked to say anything else, I just went on to wake Etho up, who seemed to be dead on his feet as we wobbled outside of our train and regrouped with the other Hermits and Eurydice just seemed to be falling asleep as she stands.

"No monsters within ten feet, this is getting too worrying," I mutter helplessly to Iskall. They breathed out a raspy laugh and said:

"I can't believe that I am actually kind of missing the monster attacks." They tried to lift the mood; I returned a warm smile to my new friend.

"It's a good indication that we are doing things correctly," I replied and started the lead to the train to the Litochoro train.

It was a calm walk to the train platform, the hermits all making small talk to make sure the other stayed awake and not fall over asleep in a public area.

There was a bit of a line to get the train tickets because remember, there are 25 of us just waiting in the queue for the ticket machine.

Eurydice seemed to be a bit overwhelmed at the new sights and was flinching at the new sounds around us. I wonder what was going through her head, to have never seen a train and touched a big steel machine that spat out tickets.

"Holy...Zeus? How does this thing work?" I heard her mutter breathlessly at the ticket machine asking her what language it should show.

Seeing Zed moving up to go help her, I returned back to eavesdropping on Xisuma and Joe Hills retelling some old stories to Pearl and Gem.

"So, Joe Hills, Hypno, and one other decided to prank Biffa by promising him breakfast, but they just filled up Biffa's bowl with sand instead." Xisuma retold an old prank as classic as any, But Joe took offense with the fact that his name was even mentioned at all.

"I did not do anything like that, they used me as a scapegoat. I am not involved with the prank at all." Joe crossed his arms to seem a bit more imitating to Xisuma, but Hypno seemed to have a different memory of the whole prank.

"I remember you holding me hostage to get the sand." Hypno narrowed his eyes at Joe. But Joe just brushed that comment off whistling that Xisuma ended up cooking him breakfast and that they still had the bowl, affectionately named 'Biffa's Bowl'.

I laughed rather meekly at the joke, Pearl and Gem looked in awe of the pranks that were had on each other and I was quite sure I looked in awe of the years back then.

I was promised a better life, I was promised to stick with these years for as long as I wanted to. And I wanted to stay, I wanted to have this better life.

But now, I look around we were just waiting on a train to go save the world. Putting it into words like that makes it feel...

I was promised to say with these Hermits, and I said yes. And I would answer the same thing again, so where are two of them?

"Doc?" Mumbo walked up to me, snapping me out of my train of thoughts.

I didn't respond. I could see Mumbo at the corner of my robotic eye and just wait for the equally tall man to recollect his thoughts.

As if the train knew, the sound of the wheels hitting steel got louder. Distracting me to turn around and look at where the train will stand soon.

Mumbo, at this point, had given up offering his wise words; instead, he nudged my shoulder with his own and whispered sometimes like:

"Stay strong, ok?"

I smiled at the suited man, he has a big heart, and I would not be surprised if he was a 'peace-love-and-plants' kind of guy in another life.

Iskall and I ended up in the same cabin of the train this time. Zed looked at us helplessly as we quarrel over who gets to watch over the other Hermits in the same cabin.

"Well, you see! I have a longer scanner range so it would be better if I watch over you all." Iskall yapped, but their words are meaningless in my ears.

I argued that I have more sensitive controls and would be better suited if there was a monster in hiding and we got all up in each other's faces until Zed pointed out:

"You know that you can both watch over us, right? I mean, it makes more sense than fighting like a married couple." He pushed in between us.

Whoa, what a mad scientist. I never would have found of that, nope, never in my life will I think about the basic human activity known as sharing, meaning that I and Iskall will be distributing our duties with each other. (Thanks Zed! Crisis avoided!)

I sat in my seat and started to push my settings to the most precise functions, it takes a bit of a toll on my physical body as even if I moved just a little bit, every scanner would sense that change and send a signal to my brain, causing me a headache.

It's not fun in short.

But I will bear it just to make sure that we are safe. To make sure that the passengers (though not many) of this train are safe and not caught up in the web.

I could tell from the slower breathing that the most of others at this point had fallen asleep or is starting to drift off into dream world, funny that guy that I would assume to be dead asleep would-be B-dubs but nope, he was talking to someone just out of my scanner range.

From the bits that I would hear, I will presume that the moss-covered man was talking to Eurydice about... well everything.

From the train to the neon lights to the lights above our heads. (But from what little my scanner is picking up, Eurydice seemed to be half-asleep at this point.)

"I just... keep thinking about how I and Orpheus are going to wake up and this will all be a bad nightmare..." She muttered, the last bit of her consciousness barely holding on.

B-dub stiffed his laughter while his moss leaves rustled just a bit too loud for my liking and whispered, "I would know if this were a dream, and trust me, this's not a dream!"

Eurydice stayed silent, appearing a bit more alert and attentive to everything around her, "You said that you uh... what's the word... kind of grok dreams?"

Grok, that's a word I haven't heard since the stone age. But the more pressing question is the fact I just heard Eurydice just a slang word. (And that scares me)

"I guess you can put it like that. It's more like I compare the dreams of my fellow hermits to the lots that I had seen as a child of Hypno. Even if the future seems to be random, history does repeat itself." BdoubleO explained.

I remember him talking about his own powers before, that he could 'see' the dreams of others and compare parallels to our own. He always described it really weirdly, he was in a white void and shards of glass all laid out, all showing different images.

I had asked Hypno about his side of the powers, but he was rather vague about it as well. Something about purple and screens. (I always thought of it like tabs of a computer, all tabs are showing different videos, we normally just see one video but B-dubs and Hypno can see all of them)

"Well, I had a dream not so long ago, and I can't grasp what it may mean." Eurydice sat in a straighter pose, looking rather tense and nervous.

B-dubs lowed his voice a fair amount to show that he's slipping off his mask and really listening.

"I don't know how to describe it. It's almost like walking in a forest but you just can't reach the end, but it wasn't a forest, it was like a weird in-between of time and space." Eurydice muttered with her voice rough. B-dubs nodded allowing her to continue before he comments.

"Then I wasn't in that... area anymore, I was just standing in the ruins of a city and the ticking noise. I wanted to run up a wall with how loud it was." Eurydice laughed un-humorously.

"..."

"B-dubs?" She asked the silent men next to her.

"The later parts feel more like a warning of sorts. A mirror view of what will happen." B-dubs spoke, his voice deadly serious. (Rarely do I ever hear this voice and this tone before from him, and if you ever do hear this tone from him: Listen.)

I waited for B-dubs to continue this speech of his, the mild bumps of the train and the sound of rails suddenly just became a bit more noticeable.

"But that first part?... I don't know. And that scares me."

Oh, of course, the Fates are ever so cruel. Sending us messages that we can never understand, a branch in the river that no one ever found.

The two fell into a deep silence, fear crept around the walls, and you can basically smell the tension from the whole train.

The temperature dropped just a bit more as we headed further into the night and near the houses of Litochoro.

Litochoro is a quiet city, especially for a town within walking range of Mount Olympus, it's a rather warm town so the fact that it currently feels so cold is a bit of a mystery.

As we travel closer to this city, the sound of rain outside was becoming clear to my robotic senses. The people around are beginning to stir up from their sleep as well.

It was nice to rest my biological eyes. Even if it was for a little while.

Iskall was already awake when I opened my eyes fully, they looked drowsy and, in all honesty, I probably looked the same. But that does make me wonder if Iskall could have heard B-dubs and Eurydice's whole conversation as well... that's a question for later.

A soft ding rang throughout the train, the speakers started up again; most of the train's passengers got up and started shuffling towards one of the many exits.

Rather cryptically, as I was allowing B-dubs to go first out of the train, he turned to me with a strange look in his almost-black eyes.

"Don't you know it's rude to listen to someone else's conversation?" And with that creepy-butt hint that he knew me and by extension Iskall was listening to the whole discussion between them, B-dubs just walked out into Litochoro City.

We rather outside of the train platform making sure that we aren't blocking anyone's path and started to plan.

The fact that it is raining hinders us a fair bit because Jevin will just straight up melt into the rain and my robotic limps don't enjoy electricity-conducting water a lot... Oh and the idea that the hiking path may be closed but when has that ever stopped us before.

"I can protect myself with my magic, forming a small air bubble isn't as hard as it may seem," Jevin argued because we only had one umbrella. (Which is barely big enough for both of us to fit in, so I don't know why he's complaining)

"It's not too much of a bother, I don't mind sharing this umbrella," I said, my voice still sounding half-asleep.

"Quit yelping slime boy, we are on a roll of least monsters encountered on this quest! You ain't freaking this up because you are scared of a goat." Ex helpfully inputted his two cents on the matter.

"What! I'm not scared, I am just afraid that-" Jevin puffed up to stare eye to eye with Exy.

"Afraid means scared." Ex causally cut him off with no regard to the rest of Jevin's sentence, I swear I see Jevin's skin turn into a redder hue.

"Ga! Fine! You shi-" Jevin was pushed away playfully by Ex at this point, very effectively shutting the son of a drunk German sailor up. (If you ever were around those guys, you can set up a swear jar and become rich)

I looked over at a similarly sober Swedish person, Iskall seemed to be rather deep in their brain mist, probably reflecting on what B-dubs said a few hours before.

The time away from the camp and on the run has changed their appearance a fair amount, the usual eye bags have only gotten darker, their smile feels a bit forced and tired, their beard and hair had only grown longer; their hair can touch their shoulders at this point.

When Iskall finally noticed me just staring at them, they give me a lot of hand signals, ASL. (Another aftermath of my whole fight with Iskall, I lost my hearing for a short while because of the lack of blood. Even now I sometimes only hear a loud ringing in my eardrums.)

All that Iskall signed in the air was "Later."

I wonder how long we can put it off until we have to tell the others, B-dubs always has this thing where unless you ask him straight-up, he will keep all of his dreams a secret.

'Show, don't tell' he told me.

I picked up the umbrella and Jevin got really close to me just to show Ex that yes, he is not scared of a goat.

I didn't mind, after all, he was my friend. And honestly, I feel a bit more at ease with someone nearby.

The rain switched from light drizzle to heavy rain, the wind blow rainwater right in my face and I can taste the dust and particles in them.

I can already tell that we are not going to climb that mountain, closed signs, and crossed off hiking paths we can deal with but a whole mudslide?

That's a bit out of our zone.

The hike to the foot of Olympus was only like half an hour, with any unlikely traffic gone because of said heavy rain.

Looking up at the gorgeous pile of dirt known as the home of the Gods, we ponder on what to do next as we can't just stand out here in the rain longer, that may get the other Hermits a cold.

As a small test, Stress digs up a small handful of soaked dirt and the hill just covered where she had terraformed with mud again.

"Can't dig out a small hole to just stay dry in." Stress said, brushing off the dirt that had remained on her hands.

Eurydice also further drove us away from the Mountain of the Gods, knowing that her husband will never play around in dangerous weather after an accident that happened when Orpheus was a young lad.

Zed closed his eyes and was quiet, waiting and sensing. Another drop of rain falls from the umbrella that I held up and at that moment, he started walking blindly to somewhere.

Zedaph as a champion of Hestia was good at looking for 'dark spots', areas that lack light that he was able to sense. (I'm not sure if Beef can do that as well as Zed can) So at this point, hermits learned to trust him.

And that trust was always rewarded, at no time at all we found ourselves in a cold but dry cave.

The floor of the cave was covered in a fungi-like plant, glowing a blueish light slightly whenever a light was shone on them and because of how spongey the plant was, every step we took sent vibrations off into the walls. It was rather dark and eerie for a cave that you can just walk into.

"This is where we will find a monster," I said rather ironically.

Jevin shared in with his laugh at my pretty poor joke, and when I wanted to close the umbrella. Something happened.

So, I moved my hand in an attempt to reach for the handle of the umbrella, but my hand got stuck. Thinking that it may just be stuck on the clothes of either Jevin or my clothes (Somethings that happens and that's fine) I just decided to pull my arm even harder until I heard a yelp of pain from Jevin.

Looking at the area where my robotic arm is, I see an issue right away, the slime was stuck to my arm like a sticky piston not letting go of a block.

To make matters worse at this point, our arms were stuck in a way that from the outside eye, it just looks like we are standing extremely close to each other.

So, we shouted for help, but Ex just laughed it off.

And we argued with Ex, something deep was lurking in the cave. In the deep darks was a monster with no face, and it was mad.

TLDR:

Liberosis: the desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone.

Author's Note:

Not dead! School has been handling my butt full.