Camp Year 1 Part II
Monk Penguin
Way of the Open Flipper
- Location
- USA
[X][Activities] Train your Chlorokinesis outside of your daily sessions with Cabin Four
[X][Activities] Focus on the Concept of Growth, see if plants so suffused in magic help you at all
[X][Activities] Archery Range
[X][Activities] Arena/Close-Quarters Combat
[X][Activities] Climbing Wall
[X][Activities] Explore the forest.
[X][Activities] Train your Chlorokinesis outside of your daily sessions with Cabin Four #2
[X][Activities] Arts & Crafts
[X][School Turns] 5 Months/Turn (2 Update per school year)
[X][Activities] Focus on the Concept of Growth, see if plants so suffused in magic help you at all
[X][Activities] Archery Range
[X][Activities] Arena/Close-Quarters Combat
[X][Activities] Climbing Wall
[X][Activities] Explore the forest.
[X][Activities] Train your Chlorokinesis outside of your daily sessions with Cabin Four #2
[X][Activities] Arts & Crafts
[X][School Turns] 5 Months/Turn (2 Update per school year)
Lily ends up being the one to take you on a tour of the camp. You go to the Mess, and then follow her to the Arena, Armory, Stables, Northern Forest, Strawberry Fields, Big House, Volleyball Court, Arts & Crafts building, Lake, and finally, the Amphitheater. Oh yes, and if anyone is watching or reading about you, perhaps in some form of fiction, yes, Lily has red hair, but it's not the auburn of Blossom or Lily Potter, it's simply a strawberry blonde that's more strawberry than blonde. No, she does not have green eyes, her eyes are the same brown that yours are. She's also a year-round camper, which means that she's not going to Hogwarts, which would be in Scotland or something. Her name is just a coincidence. She's also way too young to be Harry Potter's mother considering that if the timeline were to remain the same, she should be like 40 and dead, but Lily Evans, Head Counselor of Cabin 4 is 17 and very alive.
You're not even sure if you can make jokes about Harry Potter yet since the last you recall the second or third book just came out. You haven't exactly been paying attention. You have no need to read fiction books to distract you from your mundane life since your life is anything but mundane. Case in point, you're at Camp Half-Blood. When she's sure that you can make your way around Camp Half-Blood on your own (everything is within line of sight of everything else, excepting the forest) she takes you back to the cabin to meet your half-siblings. She bursts through the overgrown door of the cabin with all the gusto she used to tell you about camp.
"As I'm sure you've all heard, we have a new family member with us today! Everyone, please say 'Hello' to Sam."
There is a chorus of "Hello"'s from the cabin's occupants. Four teenage girls. Three of them have blonde hair, while another one has a lighter shade of brown compared to you. The youngest is probably around 14, while the oldest is Lily at 17. Some of them are sitting on their beds, while the others are sitting on the wooden floor. You're pretty sure they were all talking about something, likely you. They are all watching you like hawks.
"Hello, I'm Sam," you say politely, "It's nice to meet all of you." You note that the luggage you left in front of the cabin when Lily dragged you off has been moved inside. That was nice of them.
Lily nudges (read: shoves) you forward into what someone less charitable might call a den of hyenas. "Go on, don't be shy, claim a bed for yourself."
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For someone who is an only child, you muse to yourself, you have far too many older sister figures. You are currently sitting on the edge of Lily's bed, while she lays down behind you. You were initially reluctant to make yourself the center of attention, but for every question they asked you, they were willing to answer your questions in return, which helped a lot. First, you should mention who your older half-sisters are. First is, of course, Lily, who is, as you suspected, 17. She also has four camp beads, the most out of anyone here.
After Lily in age is Willow Turner, 16. She's the one with hair of a lighter brown than you. It's straight and travels all the way down to the small of her back. She has a somewhat bookish look about her, and so far she seems a bit shy. She's asked you the least questions about yourself compared to the others, but she did seem to know the answers to your questions when no one else did. She has three camp beads and is a year-round camper like Lily. She's sitting on her bed, which is actually the closest occupied one to your own, though it is spaced out away from the others.
Next is Violet Foster, 15. Her wavy blonde hair is cut just as it touches her shoulders. Out of all of the people in the Demeter Cabin, she seems the most athletic. Her personality seems to match Lily's in that she's a bit of a chatterbox and generally outgoing. She has two camp beads and is a summer-only camper. She's currently on the bunk above Lily's bed, leaning over the edge and playing with your hair. You could ask her to stop, but you don't feel like it's particularly important. That and every time you tell Blossom to stop messing with your hair she looks like a kicked puppy.
The other 15-year-old daughter of Demeter is Kalina Nowak. Her bottle-blonde hair is straight, though not as long as Willows. Her name and features are obviously Eastern European, though you don't know exactly where from. You suspected that, based on the pattern that the others established, her name either meant flower or was a flower in some Eastern European language. She's sitting on the floor in front of you with the last-to-be. She was the most curious about you and how you ended up at Camp Half-Blood so early. She is a summer-only camper and has only a single bead like the girls she's sitting next to, both of them are on the floor in front of you.
The youngest-up-until-you-showed-up member of Cabin Four is Primrose Green. She has curly blonde hair about the same length as Kalina's, and a round face. She seems kind of nervous, and you learn that she was only claimed a month ago, which means that she's been staying in the Hermes Cabin for most of her time at camp. The other cabin members all call her Rosie.
The things that they are most curious about are your family and how you met Blossom (who is apparently friends with Rosie). Then, when you let slip about the Vrykolakas, they all want to hear about that. When you finish telling the story, they are all "very proud" of you for surviving such a dangerous situation and "keeping Blossom safe." They don't seem to find your level of chlorokinesis unusual, or at least if they do they don't say anything.
As to the questions you ask them. You find out general things about their lives, like that all of them are only children with single parents. No siblings, step or otherwise, for any of them. None of their fathers have found another partner either, though Willow and Rosie's dads don't know anything about the supernatural and as far as they are concerned, this is a perfectly ordinary summer camp.
The majority of the questions you ask them are about camp, the kind of thing that you have either forgotten or which was never mentioned in that book series you haven't touched in a decade. At least you wrote down a series of general events to remember, and you're sure that hearing the prophecies will do a decent job of jogging your memory. It's hard to believe that even though you've been in this world for so long, events that you know of are still the bigger half of a decade away.
Back to what you find out about camp, though is that there are generally anywhere between 60 and 100 campers at any given time. Each cabin, like yours, has six sets of bunk beds that make for a total of twelve beds. As to the actual populations of the cabins. Cabin Eleven currently holds roughly twenty campers, making them the largest cabin by far. Next highest on the population list is Cabins Five and Ten, Ares and Aphrodite. They usually hover around capacity. The next most populous cabins are the Athena and Apollo Cabins, that have between 5 and 8 campers each. Then there are the least populous cabins, other than the empty ones, of course. Of those, Demeter currently has the most, with 6 campers, Hephaestus has 4, and Dionysus has a single camper.
Other than the population of the Camp, you also found out about Quests. Generally, there's a single quest every summer, though there have been times when there are none and times where there are two, those are both quite rare. Usually, the beads end up being designed after the quest. Campers who aren't counselors aren't supposed to know what the Prophecy or goal of the quest is, but Lily confesses that she usually ends up telling the rest of the cabin the gist of the quest.
While you are having this chat, you are also examining the cabin. The inside reminds you of your room. There are neat wooden floors and beds, and then just about every inch of wall is covered in some sort of plant, along with most of the bed-frames. You note that the ceiling appears to be dirt, and yet it is firm and unmoving, because magic. The only decorations that stand out are that each girl's bed is uniformly framed with their namesake flower. Lily has some pink lilies around her bed, Willow has some light pink willow flowers, Violet has violets (duh), Kalina appears to have gone for light-green roses, which are rare enough that you've never actually seen one in person before, and lastly Rosie has white primrose flowers. You realize that this represents an important decision. How will you decorate your bed?
[][Decorations] Tulips
-[][Decorations] A single color, as everyone else has done
--[][Decorations] Red
--[][Decorations] Orange
--[][Decorations] Yellow
--[][Decorations] Green
--[][Decorations] Blue
--[][Decorations] Indigo
--[][Decorations] Violet
-[][Decorations] As many colors as you can fit.
[][Decorations] Philodendron
[][Decorations] Rubber Plant
[][Decorations] Aloe
[][Decorations] Write-in.
Before you can pry the info on the previous years' quests from them, you have to leave for dinner. Lily dutifully performs a headcount despite every single Cabin Four camper having spent their afternoon chatting with you. When that is done, you step out of the cabin. Your cabin actually goes first, both into the mess hall and first up to the brazier, because you're the lowest-numbered cabin that actually houses people. The dinner for the night is barbecued pork chops and potatoes. When you get to the brazier, you slide the best-looking pork chop on your plate off into it and mentally give thanks to Demeter. You're not sure whether to call her Demeter or mom, so you settle for the more formal address. As the pork chop burns, you smell the familiar earthen smell of the forest. It reminds you of all the parks you've visited with your dad.
Then, you sit down and start eating while the other cabins go up to the brazier. When Cabin Ten enters the mess hall, you look for Blossom. She's rather easy to spot because of her crutches. Wait. You don't know a lot about how the hell demigod healing works, but at least from your limited knowledge and memory, nectar and ambrosia should be able to heal her of her crippling injury. She spots you as soon as she gets her food, likely because you stick out like a sore thumb at Cabin Four's table, what with being the only guy and being like two-thirds the size of the next smallest cabin member. She stops to wave as she puts down her plate at Cabin Ten's table, but she doesn't make any move to approach. You see that she's sitting at the edge of the table, and you're not blind enough not to notice how the rest of the Aphrodite campers ignore her. It makes you angry. You want to invite her over to sit with the Demeter campers, but not only are you new, you also already have a lot of attention drawn your way from being claimed on your first day at camp. Apparently, that's pretty rare. You are not comfortable with drawing more attention to yourself. You distract yourself from your shame by chatting more with your new half-siblings. You manage to drag out the story of last year's bead, which has a panda bear riding a unicorn. The story is more straightforward than you think. You don't find out much about the quest, but apparently, no one had died, and the leader had returned triumphant while dressed as a panda mascot and riding a unicorn. She, the quest leader, was a daughter of Dionysus as it turns out, and has not returned this year, though she's old enough that people assume that she moved on rather than died. It's apparently easier that way.
After dinner, you make sure to seek out Blossom before curfew. She gives you an awkward crutch hug.
"Sam, it's good to see you! Isn't camp great?"
"Yeah, it's wonderful. How have you been?"
"I've been really great," well, whatever's going on between her and her cabin, it apparently has not affected her spirits in the slightest. Then again, perhaps she's simply good at putting on a brave face. "I've been practicing my sculpting and painting, and some of the Hephaestus campers are even teaching me how to forge. I'm not very good at it yet, but I'm working on it."
"That's great. But…" you look meaningfully down at her legs.
"Oh, yeah, regular nectar and ambrosia didn't work. Sean, that's the head counselor of the Apollo Cabin, and Chiron had a look at it. They're both pretty sure there's magic preventing me from healing it. Another gift from my lovely mother," you glance nervously at the sky, but apparently, sarcasm is A-Ok. "Don't worry though, I've been managing. Rosie even managed to find a pegasus that I could ride. She's a sweetheart. You must have met since you're both in Cabin Four."
"But-"
"Sam," someone who is not Blossom calls out to you. You turn and see that it's Willow. She's shifting nervously as she interrupts your conversation. "We should head to bed early tonight. I need to show you what we do in the strawberry fields tomorrow morning, and then show you how to take care of the pegasi. You're a bit young to be teaching lessons, but you should know how since it's our job."
"It's our job to take care of the pegasi?" you remember seeing Aphrodite campers when Lily took you on the tour.
"Yes, though Cabin Ten often helps out since they are more numerous than us. Nominally, it is the duty of Cabin Four to take care of the pegasi." Damn, Demeter's children really did have a lot of responsibilities. Kind of like Demeter herself.
"We'll talk later," you promise Blossom.
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The next morning, you're up bright and early so Willow can take you out to the strawberry fields.
"You may be wondering why I'm doing this instead of Lily." You weren't, but it's not as if you don't want an explanation. "Next year will be Lily's last, as she's planning on leaving the state to go to college. As the next oldest and most experienced, it will fall to me to be the head counselor. As such, I need to start learning my future duties, one of which will be showing new campers around."
"Ok," you say agreeably.
Willow looks relieved that you're not protesting. "So, you mentioned that you've had luck growing plants before. Now, this is slightly different. Instead of focusing only on one plant, you need to spread your focus out among as many plants as you can."
'I've tried that before, but I always end up with headaches."
"How much of your focus did you try and give each plant?"
"Well, when I tried with 4, I'd say maybe a quarter for each one?"
"That's the mistake," she says, petting your hair. What is it with people and your hair? "You won't be able to accomplish splitting your focus like that with 100% efficiency, at least not until you're much older and more skilled. I know Lily could do it, but that's beside the point. What you want to do is instead of trying to focus on each of the plants, you should try and focus on all of them generally. They won't grow as fast, but that's convenient for us since it would be suspicious if we constantly put out strawberries like nobody's business."
You nod and try it. It's odd. The vague sense of contentment you're feeling from each of the plants suddenly grows much stronger, more vivid. You're used to that for just a few plants, but having a whole bunch at once is still new to you. Rather than try and focus on each one individually and make it grow, you try and group them all together. It seems to be working, at least Willow thinks so.
"You're doing great!" she tells you.
Surprisingly, by the end of the hour, you don't feel drained from the chlorokinesis, but rather just from standing out in the sun for so long. You head back to your cabin to shower before lunch.
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Caring for the pegasi is not much different from what you expected. They're all very prideful and finicky, and each one has a preference for the way their coat and wings are brushed, which are two separate things and if you ever get them confused the pegasus in question will likely never look at you again, at least, according to Willow.
Once you finish with that, it's off to the Arena for your mandatory sword-fighting session. It's not actually sword-fighting, technically melee combat, but most campers just opt to use swords. As it turns out, Cabin Four is paired up with Cabin Five this month, which means that your first session will be with the children of Ares. Great. You know that you shouldn't judge them before you've even met them, but they have a reputation. Violet assures you that "it won't be that bad," but as far as you can tell, she's looking forward to it.
When you get there, the Ares campers are already there, milling about. None of them come up and greet you or the other Demeter campers. The girls go off to the women's changing area to put on their armor and gather their weapons, leaving you unsure of what to do.
One of the Ares campers approaches you. He is by far, the largest of them, standing somewhere over six feet, his black hair closely cropped against his scalp.
"So you're the new kid, claimed on day one, huh?" He sticks out a dark-skinned hand towards you. You shake it.
"I'm Samuel Woods," you introduce yourself.
"Justin Gatlin, Head Counselor of Cabin Five and Sword Instructor." He rubs his chin and examines you. "I doubt we have any armor small enough to fit you, but I could probably find some weapons that you could pretend are those same weapons a grade larger. The balance will be off, but it's better than nothing."
You're honestly somewhat surprised he didn't write you off or exclude you because of your age. From what he says next, it must show on your face.
"Don't worry about being young, kid." He gives you a grin full of teeth, "The best fighters always start young."
He leads you to wear the weapons are being kept.
You pick out a…
This will be your melee weapon for the foreseeable future.
[][Weapon] A shortsword you will use as a longsword
[][Weapon] A dagger you will use as a shortsword.
[][Weapon] A light hammer you will use as a war hammer
[][Weapon] A quarterstaff that was broken in half.
[][Weapon] A short spear that you will use as a spear
[][Weapon] Write-in. (Subject to QM. Approval)
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You spend the next day on your own in the strawberry fields. Violet and Lily will probably be out later to speed up their growth, which is what you're currently doing, though you're not trying all too hard. Instead, you're taking a bit of a break from people. You're not used to being around so many all at once, and that's on top of suddenly being in a new place. It's taking some adjustment, which is why you're currently basking in the contented feelings of some well-fed strawberry vines. They calm you. You don't manage to cross paths with Blossom all day that day, and you're smart enough to know that her cabin will likely be unhelpful, so you don't mind it.
At least they have a bow small enough for you to use at archery practice with Chiron, even if it is a short bow. You like to think you're preparing Chiron for raising the significantly less-mature Annabeth. Thinking about her reminds you that sometime in the next two years that poor seven-year-old girl will have several close shaves with death. It's not even a matter of whether you want to help her or not, you simply don't know where those happen. Perhaps at one point, you did, but it's been far too long to remember details like that. You do know that they made it all the way to Camp Half-Blood in 2001, which has to be enough information to act on if you are even going to act on it.
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You see Blossom at Arts and Crafts the next day when you join the rest of the Demeter Cabin. You spy Jordan drawing something, and he waves at you. Lily steps outside and grows a bouquet of flowers. You didn't see her drop any seeds onto the ground either, which means that at some point you won't need to do that. She sets them in a vase, and then the girls, Blossom included, set up their own easels and start painting it. You decide to join in.
As it turns out, painting is not one of your many talents.
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Friday rolls around, and with it, your first capture the flag game. You find out from Lily that the current flag-holders are the Ares and Apollo cabins. The Hermes, Hephaestus, and Demeter cabins are teaming up with the Ares Cabin, while the Athena, Aphrodite, and Dionysus cabins are on the other team. You don't feel particularly bad about going up against the Aphrodite Cabin since Blossom can't participate, and thus you have no chance of going up against her.
When the campers go to get their gear, you're pulled aside by Lily and a Hephaestus kid whose name you don't catch. Apparently Lily called in a favor to get him to make you some armor that fits. It's nothing special, but it is armor, which you didn't have before. You grab your weapon and it turns out that you have been assigned defense, like the rest of your cabin. You don't particularly mind, seeing as you've always been better at that sort of thing. What you didn't expect was for Lily to just straight up give you the option for where to defend.
"Yeah, it looks like the Justin is just going to put the flag down in a clearing and leave us and Hephaestus kids to guard it while he goes off to play attacker," she says casually. To be honest, with the Athena cabin on that side, they'll probably try and avoid us, since you know 'Forest.'"
"Fair enough."
"So yeah, your three options are essentially to stick with Willow near the flag, join Violet and Rosie in patrolling our side of the forest or join Kalina and me near the creek.
[][Defense] Stick with Willow near the flag.
[][Defense] Join Violet and Rosie in patrolling your side of the forest.
[][Defense] Join Kalina and Lily and travel to the creek.
If you are to encounter campers from the Apollo team, how much Chlorokinesis do you use?
[][Chloro] Minimal, you'd rather not reveal your capabilities until they are more impressive
[][Chloro] Intermediate, try and match your half-siblings. That shouldn't make you stand out, right?
[][Chloro] Maxima, the forest comes to your aid.
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Votes for the next chapter:
- Decorations
- Weapon
- Defense
- Chloro
QM Note:
As you may have guessed, like the first half of this chapter was supposed to be part of the last chapter. Also, skill gains will be updated at the end of each week. Yes, that's after weekly CTF.
Also, would you guys prefer to have the cabins referred to by number or god? (e.g. Cabin Five vs. Ares Cabin). Of course, there are situations where one or the other will used, but since Sam is a self-insert amalgamation of all of you, I figure you getting to decide his internal monologue makes sense.
I decided to offscreen some stuff since the chapter was getting long, mainly Sam's first experiences with training.
Expect the interval between this update and the next to be <24h. I'm thinking 16 hours or so before I lock the vote.
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