Quintus's grey hair made him look like a ghost. Seriously. It shone against the lit torches at the pavilion, and he might as well be a ghost in the gloomy light.
We were dressed in battle armour—as if we were going to play capture the flag, but that wasn't the plan. Quintus had these crates, you see. They had been in the sword arena all day; huge, with DO NOT OPEN painted all over them, and when I went to practice before dinner, I saw that they had disappeared. I knew they had something to do with tonight, so I knew we weren't playing capture the flag (and when my adoptive mother is also an activities director, I kinda got the snoop we were fighting monsters).
Even when people were unsure on what we were doing, they were still excited. There were murmurs as people gathered weapons, whispered as we huddled together in the pavilion.
"Right," as soon as Quintus spoke, everyone fell silent. "Gather round."
Everyone came together by the head table. Behind Quintus, his large hellhound, Mrs O'Leary bounded happily, foraging for dinner scraps.
"You will be in teams of two," Quintus announced. At this, everyone started to talk and try to grab their friends, and so he yelled, "Which have already been chosen!"
"AWWWWWW!" Everyone complained. I just rolled my eyes.
"Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And of course ... you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive."
This was easy—I've fought tonnes of monsters before. I feel like everyone else was thinking the same thing. Killing monsters is what we were trained for—this would be a piece of cake.
"Here are your partners," Hannah then spoke up, having stayed rather quiet throughout the whole thing. "No trading, no complaining—"
"Arooof!" Mrs O'Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza. Hannah turned her nose up at her. I don't think she particularly liked having a hellhound just casually walking around camp. But either way, she looked down at the list in front of her and began listing off names.
