[ he stops the moment vex pulls his hand, falling silent to allow her the time to listen. and percy follows suit, allowing his eyes to scan the surroundings.

vex (as always) is right. no sounds, no undead giants, no hordes of zombie creatures . . . nothing that haunted whitestone in this past memory seems to haunt it now. which only reinforces his belief that this mockery isn't real. ]

This is absurd.

[ he can't help it; exhaling between his teeth in a hiss, as he continues to move forward. away from the inner city, toward the shops that are supposed to line the town. away from the castle, more to the walls, to the forests. he knows every street, every building, every sidewalk. this isn't right. ]

There's no explanation for how we were on the prime dimension and suddenly wound up in a bastardized version of where we once were. You can't spontaneously plane shift. [ and if you can, that only proves him right, that magic is stUPID ] Who would even have that amount of power . . . [ ugh. ] And whoever it is, how do they know?

[ he's just talking out loud to fill the silence, at this point, to run through ideas, to figure it out, to try and get to an answer -- but as they step into a sidestreet, to where the slayer's cake is supposed to be, percy and vex are met with nothing but an empty building, shuttered up. like it was, before vox machina took the city back.

a dead end. ]