The New Demigods

Chapter 6: The Guides

Admittedly, I had no recollection of walking through a hallway the previous times I had entered and exited the main room, but this whole experience felt like a hazy blur. The hallway was long and narrow, with no visible lights or windows, but was somehow still perfectly lit. The walls had wood paneling that went from the floor to the middle of the wall where it met with white paint that continued up to the ceiling. Barely any of the paint was visible as it was covered by numerous framed photographs, all featuring a collection of different people holding swords, spears, shields, bows, and weapons I had never seen before. Every person seemed to have a victorious smile on their face, as if they had just won a soccer tournament... if soccer tournaments had swords.

We walked in silence with Poseidon leading the way. I looked to my right at my sponsor as she walked, noticing she was much taller than I realized, she must have been around 6'6". In fact, the more I thought about it, all of the sponsors were easily over 6' tall. I hadn't noticed before, since the warehouse was so spacious, with high reaching ceilings and large doors.

When we reached the end of the hallway, Poseidon gestured to open the doors without even touching them. We were greeted by all the sponsors and teenagers on the front step waiting for us.

"And that makes 16!" squealed an excited voice at the bottom of the front steps. Everyone turned around to face the person talking, but I was unable to see anything since I was the only teenager who had an unfortunate spot behind all of the sponsors who had arrived on time.

"As I am sure your generous hosts have alluded to by now," started a second person who was out of view, in a much lower voice. "Today marks your first day of training to become a hero of Olympus!" Zeus, Hera, Ares, Poseidon, and Athena clapped and cheered, while the majority of the other sponsors looked as though they were mentally planning when they would do their laundry next. I looked up to my sponsor who was smiling and nodding as she watched the speakers.

"Before we bring you into your own personal training arena, we must first introduce ourselves and cover a few ground rules." Explained the higher, excited voice. As I looked around at the sponsors, since they were the only thing I could see from behind them, I noticed Hera was mouthing every word being said as if she wrote their speech herself - which she probably did.

"I'll start things off," said the low voice lacking any enthusiasm. "My name is Nathaniel."

"And I'm Eleanor," squealed the second voice.

"And we'll be your guides for the next 3 days," they said in unison with a strong contrast in excitement. Hera silently clapped her hands together in excitement like a proud mom.

"Now for the rules," Nathaniel sighed. "Rule #1: you are not to kill one another." I shifted uncomfortably at the fact that had to be a rule at all.

"Rule #2! You are not to explore the city outside of your living quarters and the dining hall!" Eleanor's excited tone couldn't hide how suspicious this was all starting to sound.

"And Rule #3, you are not to defy the Gods of Olympus." Hera finished with an ominous pause, having taken a spot at the front of the walkway to make eye contact with the teens in the front row, then me, and finally her gaze narrowed in on my sponsor. She continued to smile as Hera stared her down for an uncomfortable amount of time.

"Who's ready to learn how to kill!?" Shouted Ares abruptly with a smirk. The vein in Hera's forehead made another appearance and she quickly turned to walk down the steps and usher our guides back up the stairs. She held each of them by the arm and dragged them through the crowd.

"Hey, careful with the fur," Nathaniel muttered under his breath as Hera dragged him past me to the doorway. I have to admit, he looked nothing like I pictured... because I had pictured a human. If I had only seen Nathaniel's torso and arms, he maybe could have passed for a very hairy human. From the waist down, Nathaniel was a goat. He had long brown hair that covered the majority of his body, especially his legs, and poked out of his bronze breastplate. He had hooves for feet and horns growing out of his head that were so long they twisted into almost a full circle. His face was a cross between human and goat with his nose leaning more to goat and the rest being human. I watched him, with my mouth hanging open, trying to process it all when the voice inside my head came back to explain, Satyr. Having a word for what Nathaniel was seemed to help my brain wrap around the whole situation, which is good because then I saw Eleanor.

Eleanor was over 7' tall and was as wide as a school bus, despite her huge size, Hera still dragged her by the arm like a child. However, Eleanor's height wasn't what shocked me about her, it was her other qualities. Such as the fact that she only had one eye, that was large and in the middle of the face, every single one of her teeth were sharpened to a point, and her skin appeared to be the texture of either leather or rock or mixture of the two. She had long blonde hair that she had pulled into a ponytail at the top over her head, and wore a bronze breastplate with an armoured skirt. Cyclops.

Hera let go of Nathaniel and Eleanor right in front of me, at the entrance to the warehouse, and gestured for them to continue.

Eleanor crouched down to Hera's ear "uhm, ma'am, this wasn't in the script," Eleanor's whisper could be heard by anyone in a 20 foot radius.

"Well then improvise! Just get everyone to their arena!" Hera hissed. Eleanor froze like a deer in headlights and began to clear her throat, visibly nervous about going 'off script'. She looked to Poseidon nervously, as if seeking comfort, but he averted his eyes uncomfortably.

Nathaniel came to Elanor's rescue, "follow us this way, future heroes of Olympus, on the first steps of your long journey." Despite his monotone voice, Nathaniel's 'improvising' appeared to satisfy Hera.

Nathaniel and Eleanor opened the doors to the warehouse we had just come from, but instead of the previous hallway full of pictures, the doors now entered into a long hallway made of stone that featured a series of 14 large wooden doors. The walls were lined with wooden torches that had blue flames blazing from them. I stood, stunned by the inconsistent floorplan of the building, as everyone nonchalantly walked past me into the hallway.