The Wayfarers

Maggie joined the rest of the group a beat late, just in time to hear the words 'hydra blood' immediately before one of the strangers poured a blood-like liquid over the wounds of a battered person on the ground who hadn't been with the group before. They looked like they'd dived right into the rocks.

The newest stranger - and one of few who hadn't yet been assigned a name - slowly woke and groggily commented on the situation. They thought they were dreaming.

Your confusion-induced delusion will be your most closely held wish in the minutes to come.

Maggie stepped closer, stepping around the Russian who hadn't been with the group a minute or so ago, to get a better look at the newest person's injuries. They looked...gone. There was hardly a mark left by the time Maggie managed to get a look.

Spoiler

I just wanted to sneak a reply in before @VioletFantasy replied - I realized that Lykos probably wouldn't stay silent after seeing the hydra's blood being used to heal.

Lykos stared as the injuries healed themselves. He ignored the newcomer, and he even ignored the moment when the boy suddenly awoke. The thought that this might be a very strange dream didn't even cross his mind - it felt too real to be a figment of his imagination.

But this being real prompted some very pressing questions.

"It's not actual hydra's blood, is it?" he said, giving Annabeth a confused look. "It's just a potion of some kind that has the name."

Spoiler

I want to get a quick reply in before @VioletFantasy does. I realized Annabeth should answer Lykos

"It's a little shocking, and an even longer story," Annabeth said, "but it is actual hydra's blood. Long story short, I found the hydra while my parents and I were on vacation in Greece. I managed to calm it down and lead it back to the underworld, and an old woman extracted its blood.

"A hydra's blood is poisonous, but the old woman purified it," she continued. "Now the blood can regenerate wounds, lost limbs, etc." She showed the boy the vial.

Annabeth put it back in her pocket and looked up at the newcomer. He looked thirtyish, very strong, and a small scar rested on his cheek. She guessed he looked threatening in normal circumstances, but right now he looked sympathetic and a little confused mixed with horror. Annabeth smiled at him and the boy kindly.

"It's harmless, but I can't waste it," she said. "I'm Annabeth. What are your names?" She introduced the others. "And I'm afraid you're not lucid dreaming. It's very much real."

Annabeth looked down sadly.

Samantha and the others are all crowded around the newcomer. Annabeth is tending to his wounds with something she calls “Hydra’s blood”. The name sounds vaguely familiar to her, but she can’t remember where she has heard it before. She realises that she probably learned about it during one of her college classes. She took dozens of classes, hoping that it would make her a well rounded person instead of just a math genius. It’s too bad that most of the information didn’t stick. Numbers will permanently brand themselves in her head, but words usually float away.

While Annabeth introduces herself to the boy who jumped off a rock and a man who seems to have appeared out of thin air, Samantha looks over to the mist again. It is definitely moving closer at a rapid rate, close to a few feet each minute. This discovery is very alarming to her, and she feels the need to mention it to the others. She steps closer to the group to get their attention.

“I don’t mean to interrupt the introductions and I can’t wait to get to know all of you, but I believe we have a more pressing matter to deal with.” She points to the mist. “This mist is gradually approaching us, and if we stay much longer, we are going to figure out what it is in it, whether we like it or not. We need to move.”

Maggie didn't find the idea of hydra blood being turned into anything non-toxic - let alone something with actual healing properties - very convincing, but before she could stand still and say nothing about it for any longer, the woman with a nest of unstyled, unbrushed hair the color of an oak trees' bark pointed the mist out once again.

'We need to move' may be an exaggeration, she thought, It's only a bit of fog.

She'd always lived in foggy, seaside cities. Long coastlines, rocky shores, and low visibility were her home. Her comfort often laid in the cover of the fog. Those early hours where it was thick and cool, wrapped around whichever still city she found herself in that year like the blanket oversized blanket wrapped around the shoulders of a child on movie night. There was rarely not a show to find in the murk and gloom.

Maggie did, however, give a slight nod and scan the fog around them.

The fog was safe for her because she got around on foot, she knew how to navigate the gridded streets blindfolded, and she needn't worry about being harmed by those who sought her ill from the shadows.

Here, those things may not be true.

She had to force herself not to be tricked by familiarity into feeling any sort of security. Her acquaintance with the tangled hair was correct, if a bit dramatic. This place was not to be trusted.

As though the ground itself had read her thoughts and now sought to prove her right, another, less comforting familiarity made itself known. Just a soft tremor. Then another.

Within seconds, the ground was shaking furiously as though attempting to toss them from its very surface. Cracks appeared in the stones beneath their feet, small, then wider, and wider, and Maggie didn't watch to track further.

Her eyes went wide for only a second, her hesitation lasted no longer, and she scanned the ground for the location of the cracks. There were no structures in danger of falling down upon them, but those widening fissures took away the idea that perhaps staying where they were would be the safest solution.

"Get away from the cracks," she unnecessarily warned, backing away from the one that opened its maw ever wider beside her in bursts.

Things were hitting the fan fast. Kazimir felt the tremors in the ground and spread his feet to steady his stance, feeling the shaking travel up his leg. The throbbing of his wound didn't seem to match the throbbing of the ground. But that wasn't his biggest concern at the moment.

Without asking, he grabbed the concussed kid under the arms, starting to lead him away from the quickly-cracking earth beneath them. They needed to get away from the mist, and now survive an earthquake. Fantastic.

He looked down the rocky beach and looked upwards. The rocks piled up on top of each other, some of them loose, and some of them already a part of the earth. A few rocks were beginning to crumble, but he couldn't imagine their chances would be better running into the spooky mist and the ocean.

He started carrying the boy, using one arm to prop the kid up against himself, and heading inland, up the rocks. Maybe they could find some stony shelter of some kind that wouldn't crash down on them.

God, his leg hurt.

"Come on," he barked loudly to the others.

Lykos opened his mouth to protest the apparent origin story of the hydra's blood - because they certainly didn't exist, and if they did exist, they weren't in the underworld - but he didn't get a chance to. The ground started shaking in a way that he had never experienced before. He almost lost his balance and went stumbling towards one of the cracks, but he caught himself before he reached the edge.

(A little bit of darkness wrapping around his feet helped.)

He stared down at the fissure before him, still dangerously close to the edge. He couldn't help be fascinated by it. This fissure wasn't like the kind one of his best friends had concocted; the descent downwards was much more gradual that way. But he would always be interested in the earth and darkness below it in a way he knew the other people here probably weren't.

...In a way Kore wouldn't.

He pushed the doubtful voice that sounded suspiciously like his brother out of his head and joined the others again. He glanced back at the fog as they headed inland. Being around magic so much had made him magic sensitive, supposedly, but he couldn't tell why he felt the tingle of magic again. Maybe it was because they had all been transported here by it; that would make sense. Even the outfit change could be the culprit.

He let out a tiny groan. He was useless without the guidance of his friends in situation's like this. All he seemed to be able to do was talk back to his brothers, and the little voice that still sounded like the one he actually liked a little more proved he wasn't all that successful with it, either.

Everything was moving way too fast. One minute the red-haired girl—Annabeth—was explaining something about a hydra's blood and that this was all very real, and then the next minute the ground was breaking. Like, full-on cracks and rumbles. It was as if the ground was made out of glass, a giant stomped down on it, and everything was breaking slowly. And also... the mist? No time to think about that, though, espeically when—

SWOOP. A crack was just forming near Elias's feet when all of a sudden the giant man with a funny accent plucked him up off the ground and plopped him away frrom the cracks. Maybe it was because the pain from hitting the rocks was slowly creeping in and giving him the worst headache ever... or maybe it was because he had been wide-eyed and gaping at everyone and everything around him since he realized that this was all real life and not a dream, unable to give a proper answer or reaction to anything... or maybe it was a combination of both, and abrupt chaos was the perfect cherry on top. Either way, the man must have seen the deer-in-the-headlights look Eilas had while peering over the edge of the crack, because he decided to carry him like a ragdoll.

Everything seemed to blur together. Gosh, his head hurt a lot. The man was already carrying him, so would it be weird to ask for a massage right now? Never mind, that would be weird. His hands were like rocks so it would be very uncomfortable.

The two of them seemed to be headed inland and Elias barely registered the others from the corner of his eyes. They seemed to be in a rush, but his mind certainly wasn't, because it finally registered to him that Annabeth asked for their names. "I'm Elias," he muffled out, squirming under the man's arms.

As they fled from the growing crack in the ground, Lykos realized that he needed to introduce himself soon - and that he needed to figure out who he was going to introduce himself as. He wasn't sure who it was best for him to be at this moment. He didn't want formalities at the moment, and he didn't want questions he couldn't answer. But having that version of himself there might have been more comforting than the version he currently presented himself as, even though Lykos was ironically the more genuine of the two he could pick from.

"I'm Lykos," he offered.

Lykos would work for now.

Annabeth was tying up her hair when she felt the first tremor. She looked at the others; they seemed to notice it too. Then, the ground started shaking, and she tripped, scraping her hands on the rocks.

A large crack emerged two feet away from her, and Annabeth scrambled away. She picked herself up in time for the others to start running. The Russian picked up the boy -Elias- and ran inland. They followed him.

The crack kept growing, and the ground kept shaking. Earthquake, she thought uselessly. Annabeth looked past the Russian. She was starting to spot a grassy area. Hopefully, the earthquake would only affect the rocks. Maybe it was small too.

The man in black finally introduced himself as Lykos. Well, Annabeth thought, if we're going to die, we might as well know everyone's names.

"Nice to meet you, Lykos and Elias," she said.

Kazimir was a little too preoccupied with carrying the kid in his arms and looking for shelter in the midst of an earthquake to really retain anyone's names. He would have to ask for them again, or otherwise, be doomed to forget and keep guessing until their names were, by chance, said out loud.

He hurried as much as he could with his leg screaming at him.

There was a field up ahead that looked to be clear of tumbling rocks, and he bee-lined for that, leading the way ahead of the others. Once he stepped into the clearing though, he realized it was just as susceptible to cracking like the rock was as the earth started to rumble and shift. Soft earth could still become messed-up earth.

To his right, though, there was a cliffside, and a cave that didn't look like it was crumbling. With the rate at which things were falling apart, anything looked like a dead man's bet, but the cave and the cliffside looked like they weren't being shaken beyond repair, or beyond trusting. The cliff was a little too big for that. He hoped.

With Elias still in his hands, he hurried into the cave, dodging a small rock that came clattering down from the top of the cliff.

Once he made it inside, he found that though things were still shaking, it offered a small sense of security. It didn't feel like it was about to crush them, and that was good enough for the moment.

He set Elias down on the rocky floor as carefully as he could before he hobbled to the entrance

"Get in here!" he shouted to the others as loud as he could.

He joined the others in the cave.

He could see the walls of the cave shaking. Some of the rocks looked more unstable than others. He was trying his best to keep his true identity hidden, but it was hard when they were in such a dangerous situation. A chunk of rock on the ceiling had almost become dislodged and fallen right onto Elias; he had managed to hold it back with a little bit of darkness. Another had almost hit the man in the entrance, though it was a part that had almost rolled onto his foot instead.

Before Lykos knew it, he was weaving an accidental web of darkness throughout the entire cave. It was too small to notice unless you looked very close - or were aware of its presence already. And while it wasn't all that draining, it was distracting. If he let his focus wander too much, the more dangerous rocks would finally break from the cave.

The ride was rather bumpy—probably one out of five stars, would not recommend—so Elias was rather glad to be put down by the big man, although he did almost lose his footing since, ya know, the ground was shaking and everything was crumbling apart.

But it was all good! He was able to numb the headache and now everything feels great. And he's made new friends, too! First there's the fiery-haired Annabeth, then trench-coat-man Lykos.

Lykos. Lykos. Like... ohs?

"Hey," Elias barked over to the big man shouting at the others to enter the cave. "What's your name, anyways?" He paused to let him answer him, but he didn't wait very long since he quickly replied with, "I'm Elias."

His attention shifting very quickly, he peered over to look over at this Like-ohs fella. He looked extremely focused, he like was trying to find the meaning of life through these rocks. "Hey man," Elias said to him. "Let's just all relax, huh?"

He then sat down and smiled like everything was right in the world, because in his head, it definitely was.

...Maybe someone should check out his concussion.

Maggie hesitated before following the others into the cave. There were few places less safe in an earthquake than a place where the ceiling could collapse above you. In the open, they were in far less peril.

Regardless, she followed. The fog seemed to follow them. Creeping ever closer, never fast enough to truly track, carrying the very essence of unease like an honored guest upon it. The whispers of fate in her ears warned her, over and over, a drumbeat with infinite meaning, the fog was more dangerous than the falling stones.

So she ducked beneath the overhang and joined the others in their gloomy shelter. Soldiers sheltering from the barrage of bullets and bombs. Hardly acquainted, but united under the weight of an incredible threat.

Maggie seated herself on the ground near the injured boy and calmed her hair, silently, methodically, until she'd done all she could and she folded her hands in her lap.

"Are you alright?" she asked the injured one after a pause. "You must at least have a headache."