Session 8 Overview

Yay we did it, we managed to get through an entire summer with very few demigods being transformed into dolphins. BUT we can't forget about what happened session 8. We last left our brave demigods wondering how the heck they're suppose to free Courtnee from Homer when the only way to do that seemed to be shooting her with a bunch of Apollo's arrows. (Not fun.) Session 8 kicks off with more ambushing, plotting and smileys, not to mention River seems to think he's some comic book character. Finally we're able to free Courtnee from Homer and where is she going? Mexico! TK comes back to our side thankfully and our campers can go home knowing they've done a good thing. A warning to those campers who might run into some trouble, always keep your eyes peeled for things lurking about the mortal world and if you see something, give us a call. We'll see you all next summer.

Teen Week #2 (Session 7) Overview

Teen week is usually one of the hardest weeks because older demigods attract more monsters. Courtney/Homer read out two of our old enemies from last year, the Kerkopes brothers and this year they've given up their carnival and swapped it for an ice cream business. Every day at free time one of them would pull up in a white van and sell ice-cream. Not only would it be one of the Kerkope brothers but also a Smiley and former CIT TK, who had betrayed us and now seriously needed to brush his teeth. TK bothered us on many if not all of this weeks quests so why an entire cabin still asked him to demigod prom is beyond us. Yes, demigod prom #2. There were many promposals through out the week including pranks provided by the CIT 3 (WHAT ARE THOSE!?) On thursday they scared the entire camp when Ringo showed up and asked if anyone wanted to join the league but instead turned it into one big prank on Ringo. Demigod prom #2 was much more eventful than #1 because right when the dane was about to be over, we were attacked by lightsabers! Yes, Courtney read lightsabers out of a book. Thankfully Krone, Simone and River had all been given lightsabers of their own and rushed to the rescue as the entire camp watched a real life light saber duel. Session seven concluded with a visit from Coach Hedge as well as Eris, the goddess of discord and a daughter of Ares. Eris ended up saving us, or so we thought at first but discord works both ways. When the Counselors power was drained, the CITs took down the bad guys in an epic, camp half blood style fist fight. Eris almost drove Krone mad, literally, making him think he was back four years ago and set out to destroy us and take the land for Rome. Topher was able to stop Krone and bring back his memories. Did I mention he rode River around like a dog earlier this week because he was under a spell that made him and Bailey think they were part of the Labyrinth movie? (He doesn't want anyone to know that... whoops.) Thankfully none of the older kids managed to annoy Mr. D too much and we could have a dance party.

Session 6 Overview

Mummies. That's the first thing you should know about this week. It was full of mummies. Not only did we get a phone call from Sadie Kane herself but also numerous SOS callings from all over the US. Topher began to pinpoint where all the mummy outbreaks were occurring and they seemed to be encircling, you guessed it, Austin Texas. Hollowers are the only people who can stop a mummy because greek magic won't work against Egyptian. The only problem was that the camp only had two hollowers, Topher and a CIT named Sofia, and way too many mummies. In order for a hollower to channel their magic they needed a wax tablet. The problem with this was that it had to be a special type of wax and the only place still in possession of the wax was the Stoll Brothers up in Long Island. So we were stuck here in Austin with only two hollowers until the wax got here on Hermes Air. By Wednesday we were down to one hollower after Topher's wax got used up so Sofia tried to fend off the mummies on Thursday until finally the wax got here and Topher was able to select new hollowers to train. The weeks quests were no different from what was happening back at the Dining hall, they were chalk full of mummies but now we had another enemy we had to face, Kidaleon.

Kidaleon started working with the league, or so we thought. Our main problem this week happened when he told us that he'd placed a bomb inside a box that contained 1/7th of Topher's animus and that if we didn't play his games, he'd blow up on Friday. Each day the questers had to make it back by a certain time limit or the box would explode a day earlier. Unfortunately Wednesday quest didn't make it back in time so the bomb's explosion date was moved up to Thursday. Instead of begging, we tried bargaining. Courtney was able to read a hammer out of the book and when we gave it to Kidaleon he got so emotional he revealed that there was never a bomb in the box the whole time. (Can you imagine our reaction?) Friday concluded with each group of questers managing to close a portal that let mummies into our world and the camp was safe for another week, or another two days because session 7 was another teen week and that sure attracts a lot of monsters.

Session 5 Overview

Session 5 was up and running with a whole new batch of demigods. Monday and already one of our counselors Chris, a CIT named Tj and a camper named Shai were beat to a pulp in an various fights. Red gems started appearing and the demigods didn't really know what they did yet, they just knew they had to collect them. Another mummy reappearance happened and the campers were once again put in mortal danger. (Are they ever not?) Creepy dolls, minotaurs, league bugs and it's not even friday yet! Not only did Mr. D's thrysus get stolen but we ran into the Mother of Bones, Athena cabin had to decode a message, and even more mummies appeared. Great job surviving week 5 demigods!

Session 4 Overview

Session 4, we've survived half the summer with no camper casualties. Mr. D turned only a few kids into dolphins so far but they were regrettably turned back and their memories modified. We started the week off with one of CITs (Nell) becoming possessed by none other than the creator of the League of Machines and Monsters, someone that has been read out of the diary by Courtnee. Some more craziness went on within the camp when a camper grabbed Cullen's Staff of Shadows and started waving it around at snack. Cullen, the Iris cabin counselor has one rule when it comes to his staff. You do not touch my Staff of Shadows The staff has caused some trouble for us demigods in the past. Session 1, it was stolen used against several of the counselors, driving them into darkness only a child of Hades could retrieve them from. This time a camper thought it would be funny to drive some of our staff insane, literally. Mr. D thankfully, was able to cure them of this and probably turned that camper into a dolphin. On Wednesday Cullen used his staff to free TK, another staff member who had been turned into a Smiley. Instead of helping him TK decides to betray the camp, even after all we've done for him.

Smileys (Because your never fully dressed without a smile.)

Mummies pop up again, The Hidden Wisdom is just plain evil and we find ourselves another Friday. The Hidden Wisdom is a daughter of athena in fact who has turned her back to the gods. A big fight happens between Cates, Taylin and the demigods until finally Topher captures The Hidden Wisdom and saves the day.

Teen Week (Session 3) Overview

Older demigods meant more monsters wanting to sniff us out. All week we collected arrows that were said to belong to the goddess Artemis (or Diana) the huntress. Not only did we encounter, Cates Taylin and Ringo again this week but the demigods were in the presence of the olympian goddess Aphrodite. Our poor CIT Simone was kidnapped and returned only to have strange marks on her forehead. (She was kidnapped in session one as well but this time seemed a little different.) Counselors and villains went insane, Lycaon returned and to top it all off the demigods own instructor General Krone as well as a group of fighters were forced to fight not just Lycaon but Ringo, Cates and Taylin as well. Luckily the demigods banded together and were able to cast a spell with the arrows that stopped Lycaon in his tracks and the camp was safe, or as safe as Camp Half-Blood can be these days. At least we know know that Courtney is actually being possessed by Homer, the author of the Iliad and the Oddesey.

Demigod Driver's Ed

Session 2 Overview

Ever since 13 was read out of the diary we've been on the look out. Our first sighting at camp came early monday morning when the campers were touring the camp grounds. This time around we thought he was good and all we wanted to do was help him until he attacked some of our staff and we found out Agent Ringo had finally mastered control over him. This week we discovered the horrors that were the Doll Master, an incredibly creepy person hidden deep in the woods that actually helped point us in the right direction for quests. Over the course of the week we started to discover these things called babble stones that were smooth stones with mouths in them. By Wednesday we started to realize we had a serious mummy problem this week to the point that they actually showed up at camp. CITs and counselors were getting injured and Sofia got kidnapped only to be rescued by Wiki, the camp's resident monster. Topher thought about putting together another gang of hollowers which are people that are trained to finish off mummies. We had another unfortunate run in with the Mother of Bones which is a monster only people under 18 can see. Last week us CITs and the campers had a lot of trouble getting the counselors to believe us when we pointed it out to them. Friday rolled around again and we assembled The Curly Hair Squad... I mean a team to beat down 13. The group consisted of River, Bella, Bailey, Thomas and General Krone. After the whole camp got back from individual quests 13 returned from the forrest carrying items of clothing worn by the 13 Attack Team and we all thought he'd finished them. Then out of the woods they appeared and took down 13 together. Things weren't going well until Zach came running out of the forrest and finished 13 for good. One Zach is enough for this world.

The Doll Master

(Yes those dolls in her hands can talk.)

Celebrate

Camp Half Blood Staff celebrates the Supreme Court's decision on marriage equality. #solagelo

13

About 2 years ago one of our Councilors Zach was kidnapped by The League and experimented on. He became a mutant monster called 13 because he was the 13th in a line of failures. The League gave him super powers and made him extremely deadly the only problem was that he didn't obey them. When he came back to camp and us demigods saw him as a monster we didn't know who he was or that he was just trying to help us. We attacked him, he attacked us until at the end of the summer we realized who he was a turned him back into Zach. That meant when Courtnee read 13 out of the book last week there were now two Zachs. One as a human and one as a monster.

Session 1 Overview

We quickly learned that we had a minotaur problem. Every time we killed this thing it kept coming back. On monday we thought we finally had it, Kat the archery counselor completely dispatched of it but later that week it returned. One of our CITs, River was thrown off a cliff by Agent Ringo, yes another person wanting to kill us and only survived because of his minor god abilities. Cates and Taylin are also people out to get us and they kidnapped Simone, another CIT for Camp Jupiter. Thankfully Simone was rescued but she apparently had some weird device on her head that had to be ripped off.  Friday rolled into utter chaos when the whole camp split off into different quests only to reconvene back at camp in more pandemonium then we left. Suddenly Ringo, Cates and Taylin all appeared and so River, Simone and General Krone fought them off. The fight was going badly for us until suddenly not only did the minotaur appear again but so did 13, a monster we hadn't seen in a long time. Courtnee had literally read him out of the diary. That's when we discovered she could read things to life. 13 and the minotaur faced off but instead of attacking us they attacked Ringo, Cates and Taylin, dragging them off into the woods.

Camper learns how to Superman punch

The Vargo

Session 1 and already we have a problem. Courtee did find a place to live at camp or more like she brought a place to live. On sunday, the day after the claiming ceremony when all the CITs and Counselors were getting the camp ready for campers to arrive a little house appeared called the Vargo.

The Claiming Ceremony: Courtnee

The Claiming Ceremony is what every new camper looks forward to because it is when they will finally discover their godly parent. This year at the claiming ceremony we had an unwanted visitor. Topher Bradfeild, the director of camp was talking about how the diary of HG Wells had been stolen when suddenly an odd looking woman interrupted and walked in caring the book. We all soon learned that she was blind but somehow she had read the diary, multiple times. She said her name was Courtnee but Mr. D our resident god saw something else. He said he saw her as an old man which confused everyone. Topher took the book back and was ready for her to leave when she demanded hospitality. Unfortunately Topher had to agree to this rule and said she could stay at camp as long as she brought her own place to live in.

The Cabins

Here at Camp Half Blood we have 14 cabins:

• Zeus
• Poseidon
• Hades
• Demeter
• Dionysus
• Athena
• Apollo
• Ares
• Hermes
• Aphrodite
• Hephaestus
• Iris
• Hecate

We also have the option of demigods choosing Camp Jupiter which represents the Roman sides of all the gods. Camp Jupiter is where the demigods are not separated by their cabins but are all united into one legion.

The Diary of HG Wells

HG Wells was a former League member and when he was in The League he kept a diary. This diary fell into our hands and continued to write itself after Wells died. It tells us a lot of the League's secrets and draws pictures of things that happen in previous weeks the only problem is that it's written in code. Us demigods have to learn how to read the code in order to read the diary.

The Foundation

Another foe that the demigods faced in past years was called The Foundation. Basically they're government affiliated people who want us demigods to answer questions for them about the gods. The Foundation got way in over their head though because they started causing a lot of trouble for us and we had to retaliate. Known members include Agent Smith.

The League of Machines and Monsters

About seven years ago the campers first encountered a group called the League of Machines and Monsters when they tried to create their own master bolt. Since then they've continued to come back and attack us. The League is made up of children of Hephaestus who have turned away from their godly parent and hates all the gods. Their genius in technology helped them to create a way to let monsters by pass the camp borders by injecting them with the animus of a fallen demigod. The animus is what the camp borders look for when letting in a demigod so the monsters can just charge in whenever they want.

Camp Half Blood

Camp Half Blood is a literary camp in Austin run by BookPeople. Every week campers experience a new chapter in the unfolding story line starting with Session 1. Check out the blog throughout the summer to find out what happened to the story in sessions that you missed.