CH4: Barriers, Tests, Trophies

Annabeth has entered the world.

Annabeth awoke to the oh-so-pleasant sensation of being dropped on her back, and blinked open her eyes to take in the new environment- One that was drastically different from the desert city she was in just a moment ago. Was it a moment? Gauging time was difficult to do when one was unconscious, so it was difficult to tell.

Her vision was still a bit blurry, but even she could make out the shape nearby: That of the strange thing that had beaten her into unconsciousness in the first place. She came up to a sit, scouring the ground around her for her glaive, only to find that it was gone. However, that particular detail was soon overshadowed by the fact that she wasn't on the ground. Rather, she was sat upon one of the slants of a shallow rooftop, with only slick shingles to stand on.

With this realization, she forgot her weapon and her target, and instead scrambled up the roof to get as far from the edge as possible, not daring to try standing on her feet. All of a sudden, she was significantly more awake now.

The roofing- which must have actually been some sort of permanent awning -gave way beneath them, and both were sent downward through it. Once Annabeth landed, something that didn't turn out to be too painful of an ordeal in itself considering she somehow ended up on her feet, there was still more to come. The end of a plank landed on her head before falling to the side. A second followed shortly after. The broadside of a third struck then, and split in half in the process. Those three, combined with the loud noises, set her head to aching once again, and she held it for a few moments. "Oww..."

Even that distraction couldn't keep Annabeth from noticing that the... Ugh, what was it, anyway? Some kind of void person? Whatever it was, it was on its way out. "Hey, wait, wait!" she called to it, still rubbing her head with one hand. "Just where are you running off to? All my..." She checked herself over before continuing for the sake of confirmation. "...All my stuff's still with the Venture, and you're just leaving me here?" True to her word, even the glaive she'd just bought was gone, likely at the site where this guy showed up to assault her. Her Munny, on the other hand, was safely stored away aboard the Venture II, the ship that was currently parked in the middle of a certain bandit-filled desert town. This was the second time she'd gotten ditched by some stranger, and each incident was getting less productive than the last. It was a rather tiring cycle.

Annabeth was considering letting the thing go when she saw it pull the entirety of her brand-new glaive from its sternum. "Oh, you've gotta be kiddin' me!" she whined quietly to herself as she took off on a run to follow. How it had gotten there was still a mystery to her. From what she could recall, there was just about no way to even touch the thing, let alone bury a polearm into its chest. "Y'all'd better not be running off with my stuff!" she called after the thief in warning.

Annabeth followed her target into a different area. In front of her was a long sort of courtyard, surrounded by raised walkways that connected a veritable wall of buildings like clothing shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, she didn't really have the time or the Munny to investigate any of them. Directly in front of her, a fence blocked much of her vision, with a fountain directly on the other side. She peeked around its left side, trying to catch sight of the void person once again.

Meanwhile, her mind wandered in a combination of confusion and frustration- Two things that were rapidly becoming familiar to her. If this whatever-it-was could do all that fancy stuff with its bare hands, why would it even need her weapon? Maybe it was the pawn of some black marketeer. In her concentration, she completely ignored the Shadows that wandered to and fro in many of the darkened corners of the strange town. Of course, none of them paid any mind to her either.

There it was. The thing she was running out of names for was trying to get into a shop, still carrying her weapon with it. In a sense, her black market guess must have been a small bit correct. In addition to its absurd strength and speed, it apparently had the ability to move through objects as well, as it was simply walking through the door instead of... well, walking through the door. It succeeded for the most part, but the glaive didn't follow, so it had to come back out to pick it up off the ground and open the door manually.

Of course, Annabeth had already broken into a sprint the moment her eyes met her target, and so when it returned to the outside to pick up the weapon, she latched a fist around it as well. "Stop right there, thieving scum!" she shouted in its face, half-quoting one of her favorite video games back on Oasis. There was a small bit of crippling grief in that she would probably never play it again. Truly, it was a catastrophe. She got over it rather quickly, of course.

"I'd appreciate you giving this back to its owner," she said, already trying to tug the glaive out of its grip as she glared at its empty-looking face. Behind her, several Shadows had split away from the darker corners of the area, having sensed her anger and been made curious.


(Continued Elsewhere.)