It had been days since I surfaced and I had experimented with what had changed. Because still even after all this time, I was still a child of my father, albeit quite literally a dead one.
My control of water had increased again. I could now feel the water molecules around me, move them and accumulate them as I wished.
Earthquakes were the next power I had checked and a curious thing had happend when I channeled it through my body. Beats, my heart had beaten again, but only for as long as I maintained the power. But with every quake and beat of my heart, I had seen the live drain from my surroundings or be obliterated from soundwaves. Eventually I regained even my voice and noticed changes. My vocal range had enhanced itself, as had my ability to change my voice. When I had tried to speak with someone, even though I didn't understand a word he said, I felt power emit from mere words, power that broke language itself as the man before me suddenly seemed to understand what I said. Only for him to visibly melt as if he had been an ice cube in a microwave.
I tried to stop it, not that I even knew what I had done to begin with, since I didn't even know what I had said atleast not until I felt something deep inside of me stir. A whisper in my mind gave me the answer. Knowledge. Forgotten and Forbidden knowledge. And even if I myself didn't know what I had told the dead man before me, I knew it had broken his mind and killed his soul.
Suddenly more whispers filled what was a silent mind before, whispers telling me where and most importantly when I was. Whispers that informed me of the language and taught me to speak it. Knowledge of all the differences and changes I went through burned itself into my brain.
My fatal flaw loyalty had disappeared. I was still loyal to those I deemed worth of it but it was not only earned but when lost, I knew I would hold a grudge. Just like a certain cousin of mine.
Besides the obvious changes to my body, I knew there was more. My bones were now black, even the unexposed ones and they definitely weren't made out of calcium or whatever human ones are out of. My still heart was able to amplify my powers and then there was what I hadn't discovered just yet.
I was now more than able to seduce someone, even if that was currently the one thing I didn't want to do, merely through my words.
Carnal pleasure and more were as easily caused and withheld from those under my influence as breathing.
Death and undeath clung to me like a mantle, covering and hiding, creating and changing beneath my skin and inside of every shadow.
Knowledge was being gathered, derived and created behind my milky eyes even as voices and whispers of insanity echoed through my mind.
I could feel the flesh, blood and bones of those around me, ready to peel off, run dry or break through.
And then I knew, even as I realized how ancient the world in this dream truly was, my nightmares were not bound to time. I knew this because out in the distance, almost on the horizon, I saw a ship and it wore the colors of Ithaca, the home of Odysseus.
I woke up and I knew two thing, first of all, I would not enter the lotus hotel and casino without wearing my battle mask since it was able to filter out gas. The very thing that was used to drug me in my nightmare. And number two, if I ever meet a rapist in this world, I would take their genitals and rip of their limbs. Probably also bash their teeth out. No way in hell will I allow people like that to walk around.
The truck was still driving, continuing it's way to Las Vegas, Nevada, but I couldn't sleep, not anymore. I couldn't get the whispers I had heard out of my head, whispers that had me almost going nuts just remembering them nor could I get rid of the ship I had seen leaving the port of Ithaca. One I was certain had the very knig of that island on it.
Still, even after I woke up I felt the changes from the recent nightmare, changes that had begun to settle in as I began to feel like my bone grew heavier with every second, while my heart, something that was beating furiously up until now, begin to still and eventually stop entirely. I knew this was nothing I had to worry about. With a simple thought I made my heart beat by using my growing connection to flesh, ergo muscle. If I could have an actual heartbeat then I might as well just fake it. More changes began to happen now that I was basically using my own power to circulate my blood through my body, I became more sensitive to changes, more aware of possible futures and then my mind was again filled with whispers, this time ones that were thinking up ideas, deriving inspirations and more from what I already knew and then, finally as the growth began to settle again, an idea formed. One meant to help maximize the two last class skills I had with one creation each.
Grover and Annabeth took longer to wake up, not that I was particularly trying to since I was currently buried under a visibly more healthy lion, a wolve somehow having gotten behind and under my head, one that was also chewing on my horns, as it appeared that my disguise spell had slipped during my sleep, and a zebra lying on the ground as if it were on drugs. Legs straight up in the air while it's head was on the side. Actually it looked more like a zebra that had entered rigor mortis recently.
Finally, after everyone inside woke up and the zebra scaring both Annabeth and Grover when they suddenly found out that the damnd horse wasn't even dead, we heard the drivers talking about how they had reached Las Vegas already and that they would have to feed the animals again.
Grover and I shared a look, both of us agreeing on the idea we saw in each other's eyes.
"What's that supposed to mean? You guys know that I can't help you figure out a plan if you don't tell me."
I sighed. "Annabeth, we're going to release the animals and Grover will give them a minor blessing of the wild so that they can find their way to safety."
"So how are you going to achieve that?"
"Well, I for one will just wait for them to open the back and let the animals out. The lion for one is already waiting to take his pound of flesh."
"That's a bad plan and you know it."
"Well that's to damn bad because we don't need a more complicated one. Let's go, I can already hear them leaving the drivers cabin."