Ren was an idiot. He knew that now.

Well, he had always known that.

He had never really been afraid of spiders. He had killed thousands of them back home, and he knew that all the other Hermits had ahs well. And those ones were half the size of the Hermits themselves. These were tiny compared to them.

But Annabeth was very obviously scared of spiders, and she was screaming her head off.

That was all Ren could concentrate on. Stupid people and their stupid arachnophobia- wait, not stupid. Annabeth was far from stupid.

Unlike Ren.

But hey, the shield was cool.

"Live to HephaestusTV in 60, 59, 58..."

"Oh no, now we're gonna be on TV?" Percy yelled, pulling out his sword. Several creepy-crawlies flew to the side."

"Why did you touch the stupid shield?" Zedaph yelled. His sword was out as well, but he looked a little green to the face.

"I'm sorry!" Ren moaned. "I didn't mean to!"

"OW!" Bdubs yelled from up top.

Annabeth stopped screaming once she realized that the spiders couldn't get to her. Then she started up again when she saw that they very much could get to the demigods in the pool.

"45, 44, 43..."

It sounded like a bomb.

Ren had had bad experiences with bombs. He had yet to meet a Hermit who had met Grian and hadn't.

The only person making any progress against the spiders was Tango, and that was probably because this trap had been made by his dad.

It was still weird to think about it that way.

"Everyone, get ready for a very painful waterslide!" Percy yelled.

"WHAT?" Someone screamed back.

Up at the top, Gem got tired of Annabeth screaming and clapped a hand over her mouth. "That's enough," she said calmly. "Your vocal chords are probably tired."

"But- but spiders-"

"Someone give me an elytra! I wanna kinetic energy this thing!"

"I am not giving you an elytra!"

"I don't have an elytra! What the heck is an elytra?"

"Too dangerous!"

"SHUT UP ABOUT DANGEROUS, GEM!"

"SHUT UP ABOUT ELYTRA, GRIAN!"

"STOP COMPLAINING, YOU'RE NOT-" Ren started before he was silenced by a torrent of water.

It was nothing like water back in Hermitcraft. This was not the water that would stay calm no matter how many people boated on it.

This was the water that hit him like a freaking wall.

Ren didn't even have time to think before he panicked.

Nobody ever drowned except for Scar. That was a fact of life.

Something grabbed Ren's arm and pulled him down- wait, no, up. It had to be up, because air didn't go down.

Ren gasped for air, then started coughing as Tango pulled him onto the boat.

They were in a tunnel, rushing with the water past pictures of mortal things that Ren didn't know the meaning of. The boat was swamped and crowded - probably because there were four people instead of the intended two.

Everyone screamed as they turned, spun, somehow ended up going backwards, and went down a steep hill.

"UM, CLOSED GATE DEATH THING AHEAD!" Tango yelled.

"On my mark!" Percy said, getting ready to jump.

"You're going to get it all wrong!" Zedaph protested. "No, on my mark!"

Percy pursed his lips but didn't argue.

"ZEDAPH?" Ren panicked. "WE'RE GONNA CRASH!"

"NOW!"

They all jumped.

The three Hermits sailed over the golden gate and glided safely to the ground on wet but still functional elytra.

Ren glanced back and remembered that some people didn't have wings.

"OH NO," he yelled, turning back and taking off into the air. "PERCY DON'T GOT ELYTRA! PERCY DON'T GOT ELYTRA!"

Because the son of Posideon, in fact, could not fly. And the momentum from the jump was taking him over the pool and toward a splatterrific death on the pavement.

Was splatterrific even a word?

Ren had never been one to use a normal human vocabulary.

Ren knew he was going to miss, though.

Enter the goat boy.

Instead of Percy meeting a splatterrific death on the pavement, Grover grabbed the back of his shirt and they crash-landed into a colorful board thing that had holes cut into it.

Everyone flew (and ran, in the case of Grian and Annabeth) over to make sure they were okay.

"Ugh," Percy said, dumping a splintered bit of wood off of him as he got up.

"That was fun! Let's do it again!" Tango said.

"No!" Everyone else yelled at once.

"Did anyone get the shield thing?" Grover asked, sitting up as well with a dazed look.

The Hermits and Annabeth exchanged glances.

"Uh," Grian said. "I'll go get it."

"No, you won't," Gem said. "You'll crash into the gate and die."

"Oh, come on!"

"Think about it," Ren agreed. "When you die, it's usually from fall damage or kinetic energy."

"Guys..." Zedaph hissed. "You realize they're listening?"

"I'll go get it!" Bdubs declared, and flew away.

"When you die?" Percy sputtered.

"Nothing," Zedaph, Tango, and Grian chorused at the same time that Ren said, "None of your business" and Gem said, "Don't worry about it."

Annabeth furrowed her brow. "You people are frustrating," she grumbled, and stomped off to gods-knew-where.

"She'll come back," Grover assured them. "She's just angry that she can't figure you guys out."

"I can't either," Percy whined.

"Good," Grian said.

Bdubs came back with the shield that had caused all the trouble.

Ren winced. It wasn't the first time.

"I GOT IT!" Bdubs yelled. "Why do you need it again?"

He shoved it at Percy, who growled, "I don't want anything that stupid god touched."

"Which stupid god?" Ren asked curiously.

"Your dad. Ares."

Ren considered that. "I guess I know where I get it from now," he said.

"Where you get what from?" Annabeth said, coming back.

"Stupidity," Ren said.

The Hermits laughed. The others didn't seem to know what to make of it.

"Your siblings are jerks," Percy said.

"That's not nice!" Gem gasped.

"I know," Ren said. "They are to everyone. Even each other, in a way. You get used to it."

Bdubs handed the shield to Annabeth instead, since Percy wanted nothing to do with it.

"I guess we go back to the diner, now?" Grover said.

"Thanks for your help," Annabeth said grudgingly.

"You're welcome," Zedaph said, then turned back to the other Hermits. "Now we can give Grian an elytra. It's time to go back to camp."

Grian reverently accepted the pair of mechanical wings from Bdubs, put them on, then yelled, "BYE!" and flew away like the demon he was.

"Oh, goodness," Gem sighed.

"Well, he's dead," Tango said.

"How do you say that so calmly?" Annabeth said.

The Hermits shrugged. They were used to each other dying all the time.

But Percy and Grover and Annabeth weren't.

When someone died here, it was permanent... so they had found out with Scar.

It still didn't really seem real. But Ren knew that when they got back home, it would be painfully obvious.

"HA, YOU THOUGHT I WAS LEAVING!" Grian yelled, circling back and landing. "But no. I'm going to see this quest through."

Ren coughed lightly. "That's why we came, G. Hades is after us, and we're safe back at camp."

Grian frowned. "I bet it's because of the respawn."

Annabeth stamped her foot. "Would you just stop with the mysterious terms? You sound like you're from another world or something."

The Hermits exchanged amused glances. Then Ren dragged Grian out of earshot of the three residents of this world. But not out of their line of sight, so they could perfectly see the suspicious glances they earned from Percy and Annabeth.

"Why is he trying to kill us?" Grian asked.

"Because we can't help but respawn when we die. He's after everyone from Hermitcraft," Tango said.

"But he couldn't get to us until we came here," Bdubs added. "So we have to stay at Camp Half-Blood until we go back."

"Like we're supposed to," Gem said.

Grian sighed. "So, survive until summer's over and we can get back to a nice safe place."

The other Hermits nodded. "It's probably not safe to come back next summer. Or the next. Or the next," Gem said.

Grian's shoulders slumped, but he followed the others back to the people who were actually supposed to be here.