OOC:Below are all the published chapters of Sandman: Homecoming, for your convenience. Enjoy!Chapter 1 - The Forgemaster's AssistantChapter 2 - The Shelf CloudChapter 3 - The Birthday PresentChapter 4 - The Old and the NewChapter 5 - The Son of PhobetorChapter 6 - The Guilty and the InnocentMy longsword materialized into my hand as I stood alone in the arena, a white moonlight shining into the empty space as I prepared for another training drill. I usually trained on the beach, but I didn't want to be on a beach right now.It was three in the morning, but after a nightmare like that I couldn't bring myself to sleep. I'd been up for 25 hours, only keeping myself awake with constant busy work. I'd cleaned the Stables and the Forge today, reorganized the weapons in the Arena, but nothing was able to take my mind off of Nicholas for too long. Who would have guessed that in such a short time he would leave such a lasting impression.I realized I was slumped against the training dummy I should have been whacking at, my forehead placed firmly on the chest of the straw man like a headbutt from a thirteen year old was the most efficient form of combat. I yawned as my eyelids felt like stones, impossible to keep open. "Damn," I said through another yawn. “Shit,” I said afterwards.I clearly couldn’t hold out any longer, and I admitted defeat as I packed away the arena before heading back to the Oneiroi cabin. The road was long, and much colder than the road normally was. At three in the morning everything was eerily still, like the flat surface of a pond hidden in the middle of the woods that had never been disrupted. I passed along the side of the Oneiroi cabin, noticing the door that always remained closed. On it’s wooden surface was the image of a dark mare.The Phobetor section of the cabin. I wondered if Nicholas had been in there this whole time.My sword was still in my hand, and my grip tightened around it as I stopped my walking. The dream-catcher door, the one that led to the Morpheus section of the cabin, was still a few paces away. I walked towards the mare door, turned the knob, and through it open.There was nothing inside but four empty beds.I closed the door, and took the final paces to the dream-catcher cabin. All the while, I thought for sure I felt someone looking over my shoulder. Someone grinning a wide smile with rows of serrated teeth.I looked behind me, and there was no one. I opened the door to the Morpheus section of the cabin.It was five in the morning before I finally shut my eyes. Sunlight was peering into the Morpheus cabin as my sister rested peacefully, and I tossed and turned in my covers. It was another half an hour before I stopped thinking about a beach beneath a blood red moon, before I knew that if I didn’t get any sleep I’d be useless, and I couldn’t make that mistake. I felt sleep come easily to me as it always does, and the transition of nothing to dreaming soon followed. I braced myself for another nightmare.Instead, my feet found the soft sand of the Dreamscape, and endless, off-white dunes beneath brilliant blue constellations greeted me. I sighed in relief, and made my walk towards the tent that always awaited me. It’s odd, Egyptian furniture decorated as it always was, I threw open the flap of the tent only to find I wasn’t alone. And I didn’t have my weapon, like I normally did, since I hadn’t even expected to come here.Luckily it was Albert. Unluckily, though, he was back.“Barry,” he said, dressed in simple clothes. He looked like he hadn’t slept since I’d seen him last. Which, really, was only yesterday. I hadn’t really slept either. He continued. “I hadn’t expected you to make it, but I figured I’d try, just in case.”“What do you mean?” I said. “You didn’t think I’d come here?”“Typically,” Albert said, rising from his seat and beginning to pace around the room, “when Nicholas gives you a nightmare, it takes a little while for you to… kick the visions.”“You knew,” I said, looking puzzled as I pressed him for information. “You knew I’d have a nightmare.”“I had a feeling. In fact, I was counting on it.” Albert knelt beside me as he did when we’d first met, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I knew you would be strong enough to take such a vision, and I needed to find where Nicholas was hiding. He made it pretty obvious, don’t you think?”“Vancouver,” I said, still wondering whether I should feel pride in Albert’s faith in me, or disgust in his lies. He hadn’t told me about Nicholas before, and now he was using me for bait? What else was he hiding from me. “The skyline, it looked like Vancouver.”“Your family is in Vancouver, aren’t they? I think that’s his plan. After Vincent, he has reason to hold a grudge against Morpheus children.”I suddenly felt guilty, his hand on my shoulder feeling heavier than it should have. Nicholas had reason to hate Morpheus children. If I'd known about Nicholas before I'd done all that training... I wasn’t just his puppet. He was trying to make sure I didn’t die. “So… you were training me so that I’d be safe?”“Of course,” Albert said, a smile forming across his face like a sibling might show pride in their family. “Nicholas is ruthless, and you were defenceless. You needed a teacher, but unfortunately our time has come. You’ve packed, haven’t you?”“Yeah,” I said, “but I don’t really have much clothes. Or money. Or food, really.” I was starting to feel even more guilty, but for a completely different reason. “But I’ve got weapons, and armour. I’m pretty good in a fight.”“Yes, you’ve shown as much,” Albert said, and he stood up as he began pacing around the tent. He moved to the tent’s entrance and opened the flap to look out beyond the dunes to the right horizon. After a moment, he closed the flap, looking back towards me. “You’ll need your skills in the real world. Have you left Camp Half-Blood since you arrived?”“Once,” I said, “on a quest, to the mouth of the Underworld. Well, okay, twice, but the other time is kind of weird.”“Okay, well... The Underworld, that’s no small feat,” Albert said, nodding as he folded his hands behind his back. “That’s good, but still that’s not much experience. Out there, now that you know you’re a demigod, monsters will feel that clarity. They can sense you better now, better than when you were younger and unsure of your lineage. They will come for us, many times. Are you sure you’re ready for something like this?”“We’re the only ones that can kill the nightmares, right?”“Yes.”“Then yeah,” I said, “I’m ready. I can’t make a mistake like that.”“Meet me in Manhattan in a week’s time,” Albert said. “There’s a hotel called The Henrietta. I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby. From there, we’ll organize our supplies and head west to Vancouver. We’ll be taking the train. It’ll be slower, and give us time to prepare.”“Shouldn’t we try and get there as quickly as we can?”“Nicholas will wait for you to arrive before he makes his move. Besides, if something goes wrong on a plane, our possibility of death increases tremendously. We keep the fighting on the ground, maybe more people survive a monster attack. The train across Canada heads right into Vancouver. We'll need to make it across the border as well.”I had almost forgotten about something. Vancouver had seemed like a mission destination, but it was also the home of the people that had been terrible to me. Reuben and Summer, and their nephew Gunner, they wouldn’t be happy to see me. I stole from them, after all, when I’d left with Trev for Camp Half-Blood.Trev, the satyr that rescued me. I hadn't thought about him in a long time.“He’ll come to us?” I said, my voice wavering as I once again thought of my family, “are you sure we can’t figure out where he’s hiding?”“He’s not gonna be more specific than Vancouver, Barry,” Albert said. “Is there a problem?”“My… uh, my family,” I said, “My aunt, uncle, and my cousin. I didn’t really leave them on good terms. I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to go back.”“Because they hurt you.” Albert seemed sure of this, without even having to ask the question. “They were horrible to you, weren’t they?”I looked down at my shoes. Brandon had made them for me, enchanted to fill with sand when I clicked my heels together, enough sand to bolster my capabilities as a demigod. There was more care and love put into these shoes than Rueben and Summer had given me my entire childhood.“How old is your cousin, Barry?”“He’s my age,” I said. “But he might still be twelve, I think.”“Your aunt and uncle are guilty for whatever it is they did to you,” Albert sat down on one of the pieces of furniture again, placing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Your cousin, he’s innocent. He’s a kid, learning from horrible parents. But however heavy their conscious, they all need you right now. Mortals needs heroes like us. Right now, they need heroes just like us.”He was right, of course. Gunner had always played along with whatever fowl things my aunt and uncle got up to, whether it was exchanging my bedroom door for a cell door or getting rid of a dog that liked me. Gunner clapped along with their schemes, but he was just a kid. He was just raised different, that’s all.“You’re right,” I said, “okay. Nicholas will come to us.”"Manhattan," Albert said, lifting the flap at the tent's entrance. "A week's time." With that, he stepped out of the tent, and into the dunes.OOC:Thank you so much for reading!Next Time in Sandman: HomecomingAlbert makes things easier. Barry gets a phone call. The cousins have trouble sleeping. via /r/CampHalfBloodRP https://ift.tt/3j4fqQ9
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