The Sacred Thievery

Chapter XX: Plasmaiads.

Okay, I'm not going to lie. The next five minutes were probably the most traumatic moments of my life up to this moment.

First, we were trapped under the subtle threat of death. And even though Squirrel Girl wasn't holding on very tightly, that made me start thrashing around in fear. I was pretty sure I was making a fool of myself, but didn't care and kept flailing, so she held tighter.

Chari seemed to find this whole situation very amusing for some reason. She recovered from her initial shock and laughed. "Please," she offered. "Go ahead. Make. My. Day."

And then I stopped thrashing. Because I realized a few things. First of all, Chari wasn't all over the plasmaiads already, even though they were about to kill us. Second of all, the animal nymphs didn't kill us on sight, as Chari had said. And third, Squirrel Girl released me.

She and the black-clad boy released us and looked us over. The former had a look of shock on. "Bryan, these aren't krasiads. They're mortals."

Bryan seemed to realize this, too. Now, he held his dagger in the air as if ready to fight Chari. "What were you going to do with them?" he growled in question.

Chari didn't answer. Instead, she flicked her fingers, and the ground erupted.

It reminded me of the hellhound attack. Thick vines of grapes, thorns covering them, burst out of the ground like a dozen living snakes, lashing around. Even though this had initially scared me, I realized that Chari was supposed to be on our side, so I wasn't to worry. At least, that was what I thought until one whipped towards me, bristling with thorns.

Bryan saved me. He chucked his curved dagger through the air, and it sliced cleanly through the vine, and almost my head. I ducked, allowing myself to live and Bryan's dagger to redirect and head straight for Chari.

The krasiad didn't seem fazed. She simply ducked down in a curtsy, demonstrating the theatrical aspect of the wine god. The dagger flew over, and began to change.

I thought this had something to do with Chari, but then it turned into a bird. The dagger curved unusually, and the tip became gold. Feathers sprouted from the blade, and the hilt became two legs, while eyes like those of the Stymphalian birds appeared as well. As the dagger curved backwards in the air, it became a large raven and began viciously attacking its target.

At least, it would have if it had a chance. Chari whipped a vine toward the bird, which grabbed it as it dived for her, its beak centimeters from her nose. Then it began to squeeze, and soon, the bird gave a final defiant squawk before falling to the ground, motionless.

Bryan gasped as his dagger/bird was destroyed/killed. His sister leapt into action at his shock. She pulled some kind of nut from her pocket and had it grow into a staff of the same color. With a fierce roar, she lunged forward with a somersault and brought it down on Chari's head.

"Ava-" was all Bryan managed to say before the sound of wood on wine nymph interrupted almost as rudely as the animal nymphs had. Somehow, her attack worked. But before Ava could add a flying kick to her attack, as she seemed to intend to, Chari slapped her away.

And no, not the way you'd smack a housefly. Chari sent Ava flying into the tree above me with a backhand, and I had to catch her before she collapsed on me.

Despite everything going on, Jesse pulled an arrow as she ducked down to avoid the flying body. She shot directly at Chari, now completely convinced the krasiad was evil. Somehow, this attack worked too. The arrow pierced her side, and purple liquid flowed out from her dress. Fortunately for her, the color wasn't going to stain her dress.

Bryan took his sister from me. He shouted, "Run!" and dashed back towards where he came from. Leroy scrambled up to run after him, and Jesse tried to pull another arrow.

Chari pointed towards Jesse and muttered in Greek, but then a tune sliced through her voice. I didn't know where it came from, but I instantly felt very calm. Or at least peak tranquility during the most traumatic moments of your life. I turned to see Leroy holding his pipes to his mouth.

Grass began to wind itself around Chari's legs. Blades of it began to swirl around her in a quickening cyclone. She stopped her spell, and looked down. The redirection of her gaze finally allowed me to move. I got to my feet and pulled on Jesse's arm and snapped her arrow by accident, pulling her as I rushed back out of the clearing.

I burst through an opening in the trees, Jesse on my heels, and as soon as we were out of the clearing, it didn't seem to appear in our view. I put that down to a trick of the Mist. But as I rushed forward, my foot clipped a lengthy root of the trees ringing the clearing, and I hit the ground nose-first.

Jesse jumped right over me and looked back. She pulled me through and helped me to my feet. I found that we were now on a gray stone path akin to the one in IHP, so I figured we were on that path.

Even though we were out of the clearing, we weren't out of the woods. Chari was right behind us. I ran down, following Bryan, with Jesse following me.

On the way, I shouted to Bryan. "What's going on here?"

He caught his breath and responded. "We caught wind of Chari's presence. She's been trying to kill us since Heaven came down. I apologize for assuming you were in league with her and dragging you into this."

Heaven. Chari said that Heaven influenced the plasmaiads. What did that mean?

"We thought we could defeat her by force," Bryan continued. "but it seemed I'm still not capable."

"Where are we going?"

That got a grin out of the plasmaiad. "Chari has her own magical base. So do we."

He turned back and continued running, quickly catching up with a still-running Leroy. But as he turned around, I realized that Ava wasn't in his arms anymore. Instead, a tree squirrel scampered up to his shoulder and stayed there, its nose twitching as it looked around.

And then, in continuation of everything, Leroy collapsed. My satyr friend simply stopped running, and tilted to the side, snoring peacefully on a tree to his side, either because he liked to sleep, or because of that bit of magic he'd just done to save our lives. Bryan looked worried, but then Jesse came in and hefted him on her shoulders, where his head's angle made his snoring more audible.

And with that wonderful addition to the situation, we headed off to the plasmaiad's magical base.

Things actually seemed peaceful from then on. No monsters attacked, and no evil nymphs jumped us either. We wound down the path, and soon stopped at a tree near enough to the entrance to see the woman in the ranger outfit.

"Where are we?" Jesse asked.

"Wait," Bryan called. He pushed open two tree roots, which revealed the entrance to a tunnel that went below the tree at an angle. The roots, now bent even more than usual, ringed the entrance.

"Follow me," Bryan said, waving for all of us to follow him down. It was pitch dark, and we couldn't see anything for the minute we walked through it, although it seemed much longer in reality. After what felt like hours, we emerged into their base.

It was a small cave. A shelf was on the farthest wall, and a few chairs were on the ground, some fallen. A bunk bed was at the leftmost wall of the place, and a brown and a black bunk were both on it, acorns piled on the brown one. A map of Inwood Hill was hung on the wall by what looked like large fangs and thick silk, and bottles of Fiji water were grouped together under it like an army ready to attack at orders and douse its enemy. In all, the place looked like a badly-made apocalypse bunker.

"This," Bryan started over Leroy's awakening commotion, "is where we'll wait until we can come up with a way to defeat the murderous krasiad who wants all our heads. Want some water? It has lots of minerals in it."