The week went about slowly. They went to their activities and enjoyed camp. There were only two weeks of summer left and though neither of them intended to leave camp for the school year, camp would slow down considerably when misting the campers left for school.
The next notable thing was the next dungeon. Alexander and Thalia stood in their cabin as Alexander activated his skill.
[Dungeon: the gem war
Difficulty: hard
Do you wish to enter?
Y/N]
Oh hard dungeon? Oh this was gonna be interesting. This was the first hard dungeon he had encountered. As he pressed the yes button, the cabin around them dissolved and they stood in the middle of a small battalion of monsters- peapole? With strangely colored skin. In front of them was an army of similar humanoids.
[Quest: a losing battle
The crystal gems have angered the gem empire. You must help them. Survive an hour in the war until the reinforcements can arrive
Reward: two random attribute rank ups; three random skill rank up]
"We have to survive the battle for an hour."
"An hour? Doesn't that sound a bit extreme? I don't know what these things are but they don't look weak"
"Yes I-"
"Chaaaaarge!!!"
Fuck, the battle began.
The humanoids on both sides rushed at each other. Within minutes, the battalion thinned. There were just too many enemies and even with Thalia and Alexander, they were losing. The humanoids didn't die, they poofed into smoke, becoming gemstones which fell to the ground.
Alexander began losing health, quickly. He had already eaten five ambrosia squares by the time that 40 minutes were up and he could feel his mortal existence burning slowly as it came into contact with so much ambrosia and Thalia was not any better.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Alexander murmured as he and Thalia were slashing at the gem warriors, "this isn't working… you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Giant storm?"
"Giant storm", he nodded, "anemo"
He flew high above the battle field and began channeling everything he had left in him into one giant storm. Thalia did the same from the ground. The sky darkened and winds picked up. A swirling vortex of lightning, wind and hail started. They could feel their energy draining fast. If this didn't work, they would surely die. So, they did their best, pushing past their limits. The gem warriors thinned out as they were poofed and eventually, when they were too exhausted to keep their eyes open, the gems were all defeated. The world around them dissolved and they fell asleep on the couch, in each other's arms. Normally, he didn't have to sleep but he had pushed his demigod powers way beyond their limit. The next morning, he awoke to a notification.
[Quest completed]
{hidden quest: defeat all the enemies, completed. Additional skill granted: summon weapon}
"That was… something, Thalia said as she groggily woke up.
"Yeah, my power told me it would be hard but I didn't expect it to be that hard. I mean, we almost died from exhaustion. Good thing we took those ambrosia squares with us, if we hadn't…" he shuddered.
"Yeah, that was quite… something. Let's skip the dungeons for a few weeks"
"Agreed. I don't want another run in with Thanatos like that for another month or so", Alexander shuddered.
And so, they continued their life. The summer break ended and they fell into a routine, going on dates, practicing sword fighting and Alexander even persuaded Thalia to try out Pegasus riding, on the ground of course. They kept away from dungeons and enjoyed the relative calm. When Percy returned to camp in November, the two of them decided to recruit him for their next dungeon clear. With three demigods ,and two big three kids at that, they would feel much safer.
So, Alexander and Thalia approached the son of Poseidon after swordfighting lessons and explained the situation, "... so what do you say?"
"Sounds… awesome! Why didn't you invite me sooner, Bro?"
"I only got the power to generate the dungeons myself after you had already left", Alexander shrugged, "let's meet up after the sing along today to enter into a dungeon"