My Awesome Life at CHB

Scorpions

We turned back to the doorway and saw pieces of the wall falling apart, dust breaking out as it formed an arch doorway leading to darkness.

" Its a trap" Rachel sensed, "There is nothing down there"

I had an idea, I pulled out Poseidon's sunglasses and put them on. 

Poseidon's sunglasses could see through traps and many more, it was enchanted by Hecate and Hermes.

" Yeah but there are stepping stones." I said. Nico pulled out some rope and started tying everyone's hands together.  "Just in case"

I stepped on the first stone, then I used my  glowing waters powers to outline the stone so they know where to step.  Finally we made it across even though some of us slipped. 

We walked into a low room with no light.  Nico snapped his fingers and ghostly green flames lit up the several torches.

These murals were written in ichor, blood of the gods. They showed Eirene huddling in the corner of a big cage as an unknown shadow approached her. This room had no keyhole but still...

Suddenly we heard shuffling sounds.  We formed a circle with our backs facing each other. 6 1.5 metre scorpions scuttled into the room. Each had red silk blankets strapped to their backs. "Game plan, kill the scorpions finds out whats in the backpacks" Connor murmured. 

"Obvious enough" Reyna sighed.

Rachel unsheathed her twin daggers. "May the gods be in your favour"

"Cut of the poisonous tails first" Percy reminded. 

We charged and I admit, a scorpion scraped my arm with its leg.

Rachel's POV

Being the Oracle of Delphi, I don't really train much but i just copied what the others were doing,  dodging and stuff.  I found the opportunity to plunge two daggers into the eyes and as it was confused,  I cut of its tail and stabbed it to death. 

The others were already done with the killing and on the floor lay 6 red silk blankets. 

We walked to Bella's first. She picked it up and furrowed her eyebrows.  "This is not red silk.This is white silk soaked in mortal blood." I shuddered as she unwrapped it to find... nothing. 

We quickly unwrapped all the red silk blankets to find nothing at all. Finally we were down to mine. I unwrapped it to find. .. a knife. 

"I think that .." Reyna started but we all knew what was going to take place.

"I got this" Nico muttered and stepped forward. He summmoned a zombie and asked it to splatter its blood on the wall. But nothing happened.

" Of course it didn't work!  It should be the blood of a hero! This dude was a janitor"  Percy said nonchalantly as he motioned to the zombie's old uniform.

"There are no hero zombies in this region" Nico murmured.

Bella grabbed the knife from my hand walked to the nearest wall before anyone could stop her, scraped up her blood from her arm with the knife and rubbed it against the wall.

Nico and Percy immediately got into worry mode.  Nico muttered something about unicorns as he wrapped her arm in bandages, with Percy healing her with water.

Bella rolled her eyes. "Percy I can heal myself you know"

Percy pouted. "Are you trying to mean that you don't need me?"

Bella playfully punched his arm. "How about you? Your leg got scarred!" Bella reminded as she had her turn in healing her brother. 

Nico already had minor injuries with the hellhounds but the scorpion attacked the exact same place so we had to tend for him too.

We patched up the rest before another note fell.

Nico snatched it away.

The injuries you hold will only increase.  You sure about this? Might as well turn back. It requires more than the hero's blood to win this race.

We looked at each other nervously.  It was that part of every quest that the regret starts pouring in.