Bdubs woke up in the middle of the night, which was extremely unusual for him. Usually, he slept like a rock and was about as hard as one during the day.

But this was one of the rare nights when he slept shallowly.

The smallest noise woke him up. He opened his eyes and looked toward the door just in time to see it close.

But it wasn't the door that alarmed him.

It was the thread that was caught in it.

In the moonlight that came through the window, Bdubs could see a red wool fiber caught in the door. It was a piece of a sweater. Of Grian's sweater.

Why was he sneaking out?

Bdubs reached over to wake Scar or Gem, but decided against it. He was twelve. He could do this on his own.

Bdubs cracked the door open, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He needed to find Grian before the mischievous teenager got into trouble. Last he had heard, the punishment for breaking curfew was being fed to the cleaning harpies. Bdubs did not want his friend, however annoying, to end up dead.

Bdubs spotted three people running uphill to the Big House. If one was Grian, then the other two were probably Connor and Travis Stoll.

Glancing around nervously, Bdubs followed them.

Bdubs padded inside after them, his footsteps as silent as a mouse. But he couldn't see where they had gone. Sighing quietly, Bdubs went I to the living room. Whatever the hooligans were doing, Bdubs was determined to find it out. And he was determined to get them to go back to bed.

"Bye," someone said from upstairs.

Then a few seconds later, a very loud creaking noise.

Bdubs went to the bottom of the stairs to intercept them.

"I suppose you think you're brave," he said, in his best impersonation of Mr. D, which was pretty good.

One of the twins - Bdubs couldn't tell them apart - nearly screamed out loud. Grian did scream out loud.

"Shhh, it's me!" Bdubs said, mischief instantly dissolving into panic.

"Bdubs? Oh, Notch," Grian said. "I thought you were Mr. D."

"Gods of Olympus," a twin said. "What are you doing here?"

Bdubs crossed his arms. "What are you doing here?"

"You're supposed to be asleep!" Grian said.

"I had a nightmare."

"Oh, that's bad," the other twin said.

"What?" Grian said.

"It's just a dream," Bdubs said.

"We should get out of here," the first twin said. "We can explain later."

The four of them ran out of the building and across the lawn, stopping only once they were back at the cabin.

"That was an adventure," Grian panted.

"You three are morons," Bdubs said. "Now explain."

"Too late," one of the Stolls said. "Let's do it in the morning."

"Agreed," Grian said.

Bdubs could never resist a chance to sleep. "Fine," he spat. "But you're telling me I'm the morning. And you're promising not to do this again."

"Sure," Grian said, exchanging amused glances with his friends.

In Bdubs' opinion, that wasn't quite good enough. But he got back down on the floor and went back to sleep.

------

"Bduuubs," a voice sang. "You're gonna miss breakfaaaast."

Bdubs chucked his pillow in the voice's general direction. The deep, familiar chuckle told him that he had missed. And worse, now he didn't have a pillow.

A shoe nudged him. "Wake up. Do you want me to dump you out?"

"Ooh, do that. That would be funny," a new voice said.

"NO!" Bdubs yelled, and sat up. "I'M AWAKE!"

"Grian told me he thought you were Mr. D," Scar teased. "You're definitely short enough to be."

Bdubs got out of his sleeping bag and jumped at the terraformer.

"Now he's awake," Grian laughed.

Two seconds later, Bdubs was on top of Scar. The former may have been smaller than the latter, but he was definitely faster.

"Bdubs," Gem said, peeking up from her book. "Stop murdering people. It's not nice."

"Bdubs, get off of Scar," Luke said, coming out of the bathroom. "Gem, put the book down. Travis, David's sword is not a toy. It's breakfast time, everyone."

The demigods of the Hermes cabin hurried to change, shower, and get ready for the day. Soon, as everyone put on camp shirts, the cabin became a mass of orange. Except for Grian. Grian stubbornly kept his sweater on despite the heat.

The Hermits spent the day circulating around the various activities. Gem managed not to get tipped by the naiads in the lake. Bdubs fell asleep in Arts and Crafts. Grian got to the top of the climbing wall, and Scar fell off, as usual. It was a pretty normal day.

Bdubs and Scar puzzled over their godly parents whenever they got the chance. They borrowed books from the Athena cabin about the Greek gods, but couldn't find any like them. Bdubs even started to look into the minor gods long after Scar gave up.

If Bdubs was the son of a minor god, he would stay in the Hermes cabin. He didn't really mind that. It was cozy in there, and it seemed pretty normal, not bright or shiny or seemingly trying to draw attention. Although it could be prettier. But Bdubs couldn't help that, because diorite and spruce trapdoors were not easily accessible in this dimension.

The weeks passed without much interesting happening. Gem and Grian, who actually had hopes of being claimed, became increasingly angry at the gods as their parents remained silent. But the other Hermits managed to make them forget about it most of the time when they hung out during their daily activities.

Capture the Flag was every Friday, and usually, Athena was against Ares, with Hephaestus and Hermes going between the two. That made it so that most of the time, Hermits were against each other. But it was still fun when Ren, Scar, Grian, Bdubs, and Gem cornered Tango and Zedaph and took them as prisoners for Red Team.

They became closer and closer friends with other demigods, but Travis and Connor remained the only ones who knew where they were from, and that was just because Grian couldn't keep a secret. Part of it was that he didn't want to keep a secret, and that made Bdubs mad, but it couldn't be helped.

Bdubs and Scar still had a hard time getting along. Sometimes they were best friends, and sometimes they were worst enemies. It depended on the day. Bdubs knew that the rest of his cabin was sick of their arguing, but Bdubs still couldn't restist attacking Scar every so often.

One mildly interesting thing happened when Bdubs, Scar, Grian, and Ren were in the woods. Zedaph and Tango were working on adding redstone to the camp since it was a safe alternative to electricity, and Gem was in the strawberry fields, hanging out with the dryads as always.

The four Hermits wandered in the forest, looking for some monsters to kill just because they were bored. Grian had said that Scar coming spelled disaster. Bdubs had also said that Scar coming spelled disaster, for a different reason. But Scar had come anyway.

Scar (unwisely) led the group, hopping over tree roots and waving to nature spirits. Ren eagerly followed close behind. Grian was a few steps behind them, jumping around with his Celestial bronze sword in his hand and several times nearly impaling Bdubs, who was last in the line.

"I'm tired," Bdubs complained.

"Then go back and sleep," Ren replied without looking back.

"But I'll be even more tired then," he said.

"That makes no sense," Grian laughed.

"Oh!" Scar tripped on a rock that appeared out of nowhere.

The other three Hermits laughed.

And then the monster came out.

It was like a scorpion, but gigantic and terrifying.

"Not one of these things!" Ren said, and pulled out his axe.

Bdubs took out his sword as well. They had gotten options to use different weapons, but they had decided to stick to what was familiar: Celestial bronze swords for Grian, Bdubs, and Scar, and a Netherite axe for Ren.

Scar, being the idiot he was, got up from the ground charged. His sword flashed in the sunlight that filtered through the leaf canopy as he slashed it. Grian, Ren, and Bdubs ran foreward as well, but not before the scorpion seized Scar in its pincers and threw him.

"Not agaaaaaaain!"

Ren let out an angry cry and swung his axe. The heavy blade smashed the invertibrate's hard exoskeleton. The monster dissolved into dust.

"If Scar died, I don't know if he'll respawn," Grian said nervously, looking in the direction he had been thrown.

They ran in that direction and found nothing but some armor, a Celestial bronze sword, and some various leaves and flowers that Scar had collected.

"He just disappeared," a girl's voice said. A dryad emerged from the forest.

"What?" Bdubs said.

She shrugged. "If you're looking for the guy who flew out of the air, he was falling and screaming a lot, disturbing the birds, and then he landed and just disappeared."

The Hermits exchanged hopeful glances. Maybe he had respawned, probably in the Hermes cabin, unless sleeping bags on the floor didn't count.

"Thanks," Grian said, and then they ran back through the forest.

They got to the Hermes cabin and went inside. "Scar?" Ren called, then said to the others, "I'm not really allowed in here."

"So what?" Bdubs said.

Scar was not in there.

"Maybe he left," Grian said nervously.

They went all around the camp, but Scar was not there. The other Hermits joined them in their hunt as they went to their different locations.

"Oh, I hope he's not dead," Gem said, when they had searched the whole camp with no success.

"IF HE'S DEAD, I'MA KILL HIM!" Bdubs yelled, earning some stares from the people nearby.

"We need to tell Chiron," Zedaph said. "He can help. Maybe."

"Maybe," Tango agreed worriedly.

They headed for the archery range.

"Why aren't you six with your cabins?" Chiron said as he coached the Apollo cabin. Bdubs didn't really think it was necessary, since they were such accomplished archers already.

"We can't find Scar," Grian said.

Chiron frowned. "I haven't seen him."

"Well, he sort of died, but we never found a body, so we think he..." Ren lowered his voice to a whisper. "...respawned."

Chiron looked sympathetic. "It's possible," he said. "He might be back at your home dimension. But it's more likely that your friend is gone."

WHAT WAS THAT CHAPTER ENDING oh my gosh it was terrible

-Indigo