Lunamor

Somber

The lawyer fees drive you into bankruptcy and you are forced to sell the sandwich to get out of debt, which I promptly buy.

Granted. Everything you eat now becomes slightly undercooked. I wish for mosquitoes to not bite me.

“Hey, Roy? I think that skull is Ed’s, since he killed the cyclops.” Jenny squinted to get a better look at the skull, then noticed a glint of metal nearby. ”Oh, I forgot about Sword!” She slowly stood up, then hobbled over and scooped up her dagger. She checked it over to make sure there wasn’t any damage. It seemed fine, thankfully. Being embedded in the top of the cyclops’s foot had prevented the monster from stepping on it. @Weaver of Lights @Random Bystander

Jenny nodded, relieved. That was good. ”I am a bit interested in hearing the story, but it’s ok if you’d rather not share it. I promise I won’t judge you if you do.” Gods knew Jenny had too many embarrassing tales to tell about herself to do that. She attempted to give a reassuring smile and leaned on Ed a bit, still tired from the healing process. @Weaver of Lights

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Elsie must’ve run away for a reason. Hopefully her family was ok. Having a demigod for a kid was dangerous. Jenny wasn’t sure what else to say, so she stayed silent. She wanted to ask for some crickets, but couldn’t tell how sad Elsie was feeling. She tried to awkwardly pat her on the back in case she wasn’t feeling good.

“We didn’t bring any extra weapons, but I’m sure we can figure something out. Maybe you’ve got some offensive powers.” She looked at the knife closely. It would hardly count as even a regular weapon. Elsie must’ve been terrified while she was alone. ”Who’s Jerry?”

Jenny used Gift to help herself stand up and gave Ed a hug. She whispered to him. “You did amazing.” She then immediately sat back down next to Elsie. “You’ll get used to it. This isn’t even the weirdest thing we’ve seen on this trip so far- we had to fight Medusa, too!” Jenny realized that probably wasn’t very comforting. ”Things like Medusa aren’t super common, though. And we were able to defeat her without anyone dying, so you should be safe with us now. If you want to stay with us.”

Jenny whooped as Ed slayed the monster. That was some of the best fighting she’d ever seen from him. She was immensely proud. ”Great job, Ed!” She beamed when Elsie complimented her. She thought that Jenny was nice! ”When monsters die, they turn into dust and go to Tartarus, in the underworld. They’ll eventually reform, but this guy should be gone for a while.” @Weaver of Lights

It was good Elsie didn’t feel the need to ask for more information about the quest yet. Jenny needed to confirm her intentions before sharing more. “Yep! He’s really great. His name’s Ed.” She continued to smile a bit distractedly.

“I’m not really a runaway, and we don’t have time to go to a hospital. We urgently need to get somewhere, and I’d probably just get ambushed by monsters at a hospital. We have ways of accelerating healing, anyways. I was doing far worse two days ago.” Jenny smiled and blushed a bit too.

“Oh, sorry!” Jenny handed over Gift, feeling incredibly selfish for continuing to use it as a walking stick when Ed clearly needed it. She then proceeded to carefully sit down, feeling like a hypocrite after telling Elsie not to do that. It was either that or risking collapse, however. She tried to sit in a way that would allow her to quickly spring upwards if needed.

“I’m alright, thank you.” Elsie was a very considerate person. Hopefully she would want to be Jenny’s friend. ”Are you injured?” She didn’t look like she was, but it could be hard to tell sometimes.

An interesting choice of snack. Jenny had tried eating crickets before, but it wasn’t worth expending the energy to catch them. Plus, she felt kinda bad about it. They were pretty cute. She leaned on Gift again as her side began to ache more. She was quite peeved by her inability to fight, and shifted her weight from foot to foot anxiously. Jenny hated being unable to help, especially in battle- it was supposed to be her main role on this quest.

Jenny’s eyes lit up. A whole can of dead crickets! She could make an orchestra- no, a symphony! ”Can I have some?” The cyclops roared loudly, jolting her attention back to it. It probably wasn’t a good idea to get distracted with necromancy right then. ”Well, maybe once this monster is dealt with.”

“If you can get your parent’s attention by doing something impressive, they might claim you. That normally happens back at camp Halfblood, though. It’s where demigods tend to live once they need to go some place safe. We can’t take you there right now, unfortunately. We’re on a quest and currently traveling away from it.” Jenny paused. Perhaps she was giving away too much information to a stranger. She should probably steer the subject away from the quest. ”I’ll have to find a dead bug so I can show you some necromancy.”

“I can’t raise people right now, but maybe someday.” Jenny thought for a moment. Elsie could see in the dark. That was associated with night, and her godly parent was female. ”Maybe your mom is Nyx? She is the goddess of the night. That’s related to darkness and stuff.”

“Once we get old enough, we start to attract more monsters. And I’m not sure about your mom. Normally your godly parent will claim you, but sometimes that doesn’t happen and people don’t figure out who their parent is. We can try and guess, though.” Jenny looked Elsie up and down. ”Do you have any magical powers? I’ve got stuff like necromancy, for example, since my dad is Hades.” Hopefully she didn’t know enough about Hades yet to hate Jenny.

“So you know about the Greek myths and stuff, right? They’re real. Since you can see that monster, I’m assuming you’re a demigod, which means one of your parents is a Greek god. Everyone else in this group is also a demigod.” Jenny adjusted her stance so that she was half facing Elsie, half facing the cyclops. ”Monsters can smell demigods and don’t normally like them. This cyclops probably just caught your scent and decided to attack.”

“It’s ok. If the cyclops was already in the area, then it would’ve just eventually been drawn to our group instead.” Jenny awkwardly tried to pat Elsie’s shoulder without looking at her, still focused on the monster in front. She paused for a moment to try and locate the cyclops’s awakeness, wondering if it being a humanoid would make it easier to put to sleep. It didn’t take long to find what could best be described as a raging inferno. It felt like getting mentally close to it would burn her, so her changes of extinguishing it were essentially zero. ”How much do you know about what you are?”

Despite having been to places like London and Rome as an American, I somehow haven’t been to New York yet. TPBM is proficient in at least one programming language.

Granted. You are driven insane. I wish for a goldfish with very good memory.

Here’s an old ticket to Disneyland. I have an angry kitten.

Jenny sadly glanced at Sword stuck in the Cyclops’s foot like a massive splinter, the followed the girl. She stood in front of her in a ready stance. Maybe she could retrieve her dagger if the monster got close enough. The girl needed someone to protect her, anyways. ”What’s your name? I’m Jenny. Also, please stay on your feet.” Best to try and help keep the new person from panicking.