When she slept that night, her slumber was interrupted with a dream. Not uncommon, though it always ensured she'd get no rest and need much more caffeine the following morning.

The room she sat in was unfamiliar and cold with dry, dusty air. It was dark with fancy black marbled flooring and crown molding. The people in front of her were certainly the opposite. Well, one of them, at least. A blond with a tense face and a poorly wrapped toga atop a bright purple shirt. Bold for someone with hardly any status. He was looking down, face paled and barely visible, though she'd be damned if she didn't recognize him. Octavian.

Beside him was someone she had never seen. He held himself with a bit more confidence, though he was still looking toward the floor with fleeting glances to something behind her, fear evident in his eyes. His toga was purple, representative of royalty, further proven by the flecks of golden thread and white tunic with a golden collar. Perhaps an emperor's descendent or a boy on a power trip with a flair for dramatics.

Though perhaps the most pressing of all, was the thing behind her. She tried to turn and see, but somehow she couldn't. She just felt something there, not fully aware of her presence but with enough power to keep anyone from bearing witness to whatever it was. In fact, it radiated the sense of acute power, causing every bit of her to tense up, sliding into a defensive stance. Little good that would do, but it was a good place to start to run. But she couldn't do that either. Instead, she was filled with adrenaline, hands balled into fists and shaking, with every sense hyper-aware, and all she could do was observe.

"They do not expect a thing," Octavian said, his voice trembling and barely audible. "Sir," he quickly added with a hasty mix of a curtsy and bow.

Purple Toga sent him a quick glare before looking back to the floor. "Everything is in place for my return. I've gathered the support of a few strays with connections to strong groups. The death of Robert was enough to bring the full colony to our side, and they are contemplating bringing in their allies." He turned to Octavian. "Which I assume you will encourage?" he asked.

Octavian paled and stiffened at the attention. "P-pardon?"

"I do not see what I need to clarify."

"Oh of course not, sir. I just don't think putting me in a colony of man eating monsters—"

"You will." The man in the purple toga sent him a glare paired with a bone-chilling grin.

"You may leave now, Octavian," said a deep voice, echoing through the chamber. She watched as the man in purple shrank and Octavian shook violently in fear. She could feel her heart beating out of her chest, itching for her weapons through her labored breathing, but whatever she felt at the moment was nothing compared to what Octavian seemed to be feeling. He tried to place his shaky legs firmly on the ground and dragged his chair back with an awfully loud screech, interrupting the dream and waking her up.

***

"I only have five minutes before Octavian walks out of there with his shitty coffee. What happened at the warehouse?" Jason asked, pulling Lavinia and Poison Oak into a secluded area behind the lone coffee shop in Camp Jupiter. The name of the shop was about as terrible as the coffee, since it was named after their monster-hunting agency, The Triumvirate, that ran the camp.

"Nothing," said Lavinia, way too quick to be true.

Jason narrowed his eyes. "I am risking my station for you and your gut feeling. What did you find?"

Poison Oak had heard that people were afraid of Jason, though they've never understood why. Throughout their training and initiation, Jason was one of the select few that didn't treat nature spirits like utter shit, and was the most understanding of all officers they'd dealt with since joining the Triumvirate. Still, he had a different aura to him than the rest of the demigods, an aura that Octavian tried his best to exude but failed, but came naturally through Jason.

Oak had been known for giving irritating rashes to anyone who came in contact with them, but they had a way with words. "Really, it was nothing. Just a few old boxes, we found some records saying it was an older warehouse. We think the monster was just looking for materials."

"Materials for what?" Fuck.

"Um, we're not sure yet, but it did make a bit of a mess in there," Lavinia replied after a beat, trying her best to sound convincing. Oak doubted it was working very well.

Jason sighed and leant against the brick wall of the shop, letting his shoulders slump for a half a second before Octavian came barging out of the coffee shop with his right hand holding a cup of his special shitty coffee and his left waving off a demigod from the third cohort that held the door open for him.

Octavian spotted their little group before they could even try to act like they weren't having a secret discussion. "Jason, for gods' sake, stop flirting. You have a girlfriend, you can't hit on two people together. That's simply outrageous," he sighed.

Jason, who did not in fact have a girlfriend, stared at him with wide eyes and a slack jaw. It was the most emotion he had shown besides whenever he was around a certain son of Hephaestus. "What are you talking about?" he asked, disbelief evident in his voice.

Octavian shook his head. "You don't even acknowledge her! She deserves much better than you." He walked off, muttering insults under his breath.

Lavinia leaned closer to Jason, "Dude, I think he believes you and Piper are actually a thing."

Before Jason could respond, someone screamed his name from the entrance of the coffee shop. Poison Oak didn't recognize the voice, but Jason's face instantly went red. "Dude, look at what I made last night!"

Jason practically dove to hide behind Lavinia, which was funny because Jason was more than a head taller than her. "H-Hey Leo!" He spoke in a voice at least two octaves higher than normal.

"Look! I made a nerf gun defense system!" Leo brandished an oddly configured bright green nerf gun with random bits of plastic and rubber bands and seemingly 3D printed gears. "Every time someone opens the door, it'll press this trigger right here," He pressed the little button, sending a foam bullet into Jason's shoulder. "Oh, sorry. Anyway, the trigger moves this little gear and releases the rubber band and makes the gun shoot, then it automatically reloads."

Jason cleared his throat. "How, um, how does it reload?" Oak was five seconds away from falling to the floor and dying of second hand embarrassment from watching Jason make a fool of himself.

"I am so glad you asked! You see this little pull-handle-trigger-thing?" Jason nodded, though looked thoroughly confused. "That is connected to that same rubber band that went off when it shoots. So after it goes off, the gears pull the band back, which pulls back the um... reload thing, I don't know what it's called. Now, if we put it on the door, it would happen much faster because when the door closes, it would move the gears for me, so right now it's just a child's project, but it'll be cooler when I put it up." Oak wasn't sure if that could be classified as a child's project, but sure.

Lavinia interjected before Leo could explain any further, "Hey, why don't you go with him Jason? That way you can shoot Octavian." Jason's eyes were about as wide as saucers now, shaking his head ever so slightly, but Lavinia grabbed his shoulders and pushed him towards Leo, who was grinning like a madman already.

She waved at Jason as he and Leo walked away. "Okay, that buys us time."

"Why do we need time?" Oak asked. Jason had practically dragged them out here without explaining why, and with so much urgency he had almost touched them. It always hurt to see people jerk their hands away.

Lavinia turned to face them. "To regroup. We need to get better at lying."

"Why can't we just tell him? I don't get why we have to lie about this. He's going to figure out sooner or later, he's our superior," Oak said. "Besides, I doubt he has anything to do with this."

"I doubt he's involved either but right now, I'm not sure we can trust him. He's still at the same level as Octavian, and that anemic ass will draw the information out of him if he wants to. And even if he doesn't, Jason's a general's wet dream. He's probably going to report something to someone with good intentions and it might fuck us all in the ass."

Before Oak could reply, the glass door to the coffee shop opened once more, with Nico and Will walking out together, doing an abysmal job at hiding their relationship that they still believed no one knew about. Nico grimaced as he took a sip of his coffee. "This tastes like creamy water, Will," he said, his accent making it sound like "Weel." He looked around for the nearest trash can, when he saw them and practically jumped away from Will. Embarrassing, honestly.

"Hey, batman!" Lavinia calls out, ignoring Nico's glare. "You aren't slick, you know."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Nico said, as if he wasn't turning beet red and his boyfriend wasn't staring at him with the most lovesick expression Oak had ever seen.

"Your man is staring at you like a fucking loser."

"What man?" Nico asked, tossing his coffee into the trash.

Oak snorted. "Will, how did you feel about that?" Will did not respond.

"Whatever," Lavinia said. "Um, Jason's on our ass right now. He totally knows that something's up. He just dragged us here to interrogate us."

"Um, interrogate is a bit strong," Oak said, "but he is getting suspicious."

Nico's monster-proof phone (Leo's proudest creation) dings loudly in his pocket, making him jump for the second time in the past five minutes. He pulls it out and reads his notification with a frown, with Will trying his best not to look over his shoulder out of curiosity.

"We need to go talk to Hazel," he says.

"Awesome. I love talking to Hazel. Where might she be?" Lavinia asked. "Is it going to be another wild fucking goose chase? Amazing, let's go."

***

They eventually found Hazel at the stables, with Frank cheering her on from the sidelines even though literally nobody else was there. She did laps around the large track, hitting targets atop a gorgeous horse. Granted, Oak didn't know anything about horses. They all looked gorgeous in their mind.

Nico decided the best way to get her attention was by booing as loud as he possibly could. Frank turned around immediately, possibly ready to fistfight whoever was insolent enough to discourage Hazel, but relaxed when he realized who it was. Once again, embarrassing. "Check your phone!" Nico yelled across the track.

Hazel quickly made it to the start of the track, dismounting the beautiful caramel horse, picking up a large golden nugget that appeared on the ground and feeding it to him before the horse ran off. "What happened?"

"I think you should see for yourself," Nico replied, handing over his phone to her.

Hazel's eyes widened as she read the message. "Oh," she said, followed by a pregnant pause where everyone waited for Hazel or Nico to start speaking. They didn't. Amazing! Oak was loving the details they were giving everyone. They just adored not knowing anything!

"What's happening? What's the message?" Lavinia asked, seemingly done with the siblings' bullshit.

"It's from someone in the Underworld," Hazel said, reading the message again. "Someone had a dream about Octavian."

"Dead people can dream?" Frank whispered, sounding equally confused and intrigued.

"No– Wait..." Hazel turned to Nico. "Do they?"

"Clearly, they do," Nico said, gesturing to the phone. Hazel let out a soft, "oh shit," but didn't elaborate further.

Nico continued. "Octavian was with an, and I quote, balding, ulcer riddled, mid-life crisis aged evil looking dude with a superiority complex, man was wearing royal togas when he clearly ain't shit. Not entirely sure what that means, but here we are. There was also–"

"Do dead people have phones?" Lavinia asked.

"Um, no, not usually. This was sent by Charon, he loves gossip and we had to get him a new phone last week," Hazel sighed. "He's annoying." Interesting.

"Anyway, there was also a god of some kind in the dream. But we don't know who. And the death of some guy named Robert was mentioned, followed by the mention of a colony of cannibals."

"So all we know is- wait, is the cannibal y'all met named Robert by any chance?" Will asked, after having been unnaturally quiet for at least half an hour.

"How the fuck should we know. Also why would a cannibal be named Robert?" Lavinia asked.

"I mean, he kind of looked like a Robert?" Poison Oak said. "So... maybe?"

"Okay, the name is irrelevant," Nico responded, growing impatient. "What we do know is that Octavian is not trustworthy."

"That's not exactly new information, dude," Lavinia said.

"I am going to murder every single one of you. But before I do so, I need to talk to someone about this cannibal situation. They haven't been acting normal lately and we all need more information before we can start preparing for a potential attack by an entire colony of them." Nico said. "Hazel, I need you to come along with me. And this time without any vomit, please."

"Where are you going?" Poison Oak asked.

"Yeah, I thought this was the time we were supposed to have our uh- best friend date Nico," Will said, with significant sadness in his voice. Wow, great save Will.

"Oh my gods, you are so stupid," Lavinia said.

Nico glanced back at Oak as he was dragging Hazel to the nearest shadow, "We're going to the Underworld. We'll be back soon."

"Oh, I'll see you soon, I guess. By-" Will started, but Nico and Hazel were already gone.