Artemis Child

Artemis Child Ch58

  The man stood taller than all of us, around his twenties. He had an Elvis style hair cut, only very curly hair that held firm together bringing his head a tight shape. His eyes were dark green against his tan complexion that rippled down his muscular body. His left arm had runes and hieroglyphics in random patterns from his shoulder to his finger tips. His wood cutting axe had the same runes, but no hieroglyphics.
  He was a man out of time and it showed with his weapon. Andrew had a wounded leg, Cory had one arm, Marc was bleeding from his ear, Serena had a broken shield, Toni, Kaylyn, and Lexi were our best bet of fighting at this moment. I was certain this man wouldn't attack us, but they weren't.
   "Who is the leader here?" He asked looking around but back to me slightly to smile. They pointed to Cory, which seemed to surprise him. Maybe he believed he was just good at advise or something. Cory approached the man now, cautiously.
   "My name is Gebatic, I was born to be a guardian of the gates. My father is the earth guardian God, Geb. You may call me Geb in his stead." He said placing his right arm with his weapon across his chest. "I'm Cory. Child of Artemis." He said mimicking the actions of the man.
    His arm began to glow, certain runes and hieroglyphics were picked out to glow. Little buds grew from his skin and fell to the ground. They sank beneath the soil as they continued to grow. "This soil is kind if tricky to grow in." He said as trees started to shoot from the ground building a perimeter. Soon the trees were binding together to make walls. The branches moved horizontally above us connecting to each other. Fluorescence flowers of all colors, bloomed on the walls and ceiling above us making a well lit building made of raw living trees. "You are closer to Gods than humans." Cory said looking him over. "And you are closer to monster than the other two categories." Gebatic said back to him. "I have awake for one purpose, completing it returns me back to my post. But I do not know what the purpose has led me to wake this time." He said before glancing back towards me. "I first assumed it was to protect her from those tears. But doing so hasn't changed my position." He looked back to Cory. "I believe now that I am to lead you to something." Different runes started to glow, and the flowers began to shine light on the wounded people. The bleeding stopped and healing began with a faint glow on each person. Cory's arm made no changes unfortunately, he didn't seem to care much. He glanced down at the bones, his bicep moved like he was flexing muscles to see what he could still feel. He shook off the look he had accepting his lost arm.
  "First you will need weapons." The man said but paused, "I see the small gear those two have are made from monsters, they must have a skill for monster craft." He was referring to Marc's arrows, and arm guards, and Lexi's sword handle and belt.
  "Yes sir." She said in a low voice somewhat standing behind her brother now. "Toni, go with Geb here and scout out some monsters. You have the best eyes out of us all." Cory said giving his last order as our unofficial, official leader. "Sure, no problem." He said giving Serena a reassuring grin as he holstered his guns.
  Geb opened up a large wooden door that was seamless against the wall of trees. They left and we all grouped up. "We just keep getting thrown in a hotter fire." Andrew said rubbing the back of his neck. "Not like we have a choice since we keep getting ourselves into this."
"Yeah but that creepy being from the tomb place made it seem like it was all his doing." Kaylyn argued against it. "No it seems like gaia is still working against us. These trees an..." Cory started but I cut him off. "No gaia was only a small part of this, we have to focus on us as a group right now, not that deity."
   "This guy seems genuinely caring." Max stated, being an emotionally intune guy, made it seem like we were looking at this all wrong. "But what were the odds of that chimera of all monsters to be right there. It's like we are being messed with." Serena said analyzing the chances.
  "Yeah, Cory is still down an arm, we are in monster hell, our weapons are broken until we make new ones, and even if we make new ones what then?" Lexi asked looking at Cory's branded wound intently. The runes from the chest burned into his wound distinctively.
   "Its pointless." Andrew said, sounding like me. "Suicide pact?" I chimed holding up a noose made from the celestial bronze ring. "No way, if you die here you come back where you started remember? I don't feel like fishing you out of molten monster blood." Andrew rebutted, he wasn't acting like he normally would.
   "We will figure this out." Cory said taking a seat on the ground to think. He looked at the pillar where Geb had emerged. He was in a trance of some sort.
  
 
  Looking at the stone the man's words were still in my head. "Guardian of the gates." The runes on my wound looked similar to the runes on Geb. I approached the pillar looking it over. I would have to really study this before I could understand how it worked. But from my mother's ability of identifying beings, this gate was alive somehow. It pulsed with the familiar identity of MeGrucho, but also Geb. "Something wrong?" Lexi asked behind me. I spun around to meet her gaze. She was much shorter than me, maybe five feet tall. She was curvy, with small dimples on her cheeks. Her dirty blonde hair was kind of wavy, sometimes straight. Her sword was still mostly intact. "There is something I have to figure out about this pillar." I said to her, she made a smile creep across my lips. Even in this danger she was just this calm wind in his life.