Lone Gamer

Chapter 7: It All Begins

It took until the first week of December for the satyr that Aiz had mentioned to me to show up. And, to my surprise, I knew the satyr in question.

Grover Underwood.

He was a friend of mine from back at Yancy, my dormmate in fact. He kind of just vanished right before the end of the school year, along with Mr Brunner, and some Latin teacher I'd never seen before replaced him.

He didn't look like he'd changed all that much. He still had his crutches, and had definitely grown a bit... And he also had a goatee. Maybe it was a satyr thing, nobody seemed to think it was weird that he had it.

What I found strange was that he was completely avoiding me. To be fair, I didn't exactly try to approach him, but I knew he recognised me based on his expression when he first lay eyes on me on class. But even so, he acted like he'd never seen me before.

Why?

Perhaps he didn't realise I was a demigod, so he didn't want to get me involved?

No, wait... Why was he back at Yancy in the first place, now that I thought about it? He then vanished, and then people began to act like he'd never existed...

Did satyrs have some kind of illusion spell, or a spell to re-write people's memories into believing they never existed? Or was it just a spell that all monsters, satyrs, and various other creatures knew in order to stay hidden? It would certainly explain why no news of any monsters ever appeared on the television.

I was slowly starting to put pieces together in my mind about why Grover had been back at Yancy, and perhaps even why he'd been my friend... If he was ever my friend to begin with.

He was a satyr, and Aiz had said Satyrs looked for demigods. Which meant Grover had been at Yancy for me, no doubt to try and take me to Camp Half-Blood. But then, towards the end of the year, he'd vanished and used that memory re-write trick to make people think he was never real.

Why though? Why hadn't he escorted me to Camp Half-Blood? Did he only suspect I was a demigod, but eventually determined I couldn't be so he left?

Or had there been something else? A situation that had forcefully dragged him away from Yancy and back to the camp?

Whatever the case, Grover was avoiding me. That was his choice, I was happy to spend my time with Nico and Bianca.

I did notice something about Dr Thorn, however.

Firstly, his name was now orange as opposed to the red it had been before. And secondly, he'd been looming around Nico, Bianca, and I far more than before. I noticed several times Grover made to approach us, specifically Nico and Bianca since his gaze was fixed on them, but Dr Thorn seemed to appear out of nowhere and get between them.

There was no doubt in my mind that Thorn was going to be making his move soon to abduct Nico, Bianca, and I. Probably take us to the titan army and leave us with the choice to join or die trying to fight our way out.

There wasn't much I could do to prepare besides doing my daily quest, and occasionally diving into the Westover Woods... Which was strange, considering we were in Bar Harbor. Shouldn't they be called the Bar Harbor Woods?

I was nit-picking, sue me.

I didn't gain any levels from diving into the dungeon, but I did manage to pick up various drops from enemies I sold to the store. The weapons were worth a semi-decent chunk of gold, and some of the materials were worth a lot too.

I only kept the first of Kalgolb's swords that I obtained after killing him and sold the rest. My gold wasn't exactly the highest, but I'd recently hit a hundred-thousand gold. So, I was now able to stock up on the highest grade of potion when needed.