It was 6 am the next day, when the three demigods were outside in the middle of the cabins ready to go. Nico was wearing a black vest, black combat boots, a pair of tight gray jeans held to his slim waist by a black belt on which his Stygian iron sword was hooked. Jason was wearing his purple camp Jupiter t-shirt, a pair of blue denim shorts, blue converse shoes and a brown belt on which his Imperial gold gladius was hooked. Due to being a ghost Percy was still wearing the same clothes he was yesterday.
Anyway Nico managed to gather enough energy to shadow travell them to Gaza, where it was already noon, but they still had to find the grass which wasn't exactly easy considering they had no idea how it looked like. That is why Jason had brought a book about mythological herbs in ancient Greek given to him by Leila, the dauther of Ceres. along with some ambrosia and nectar. He still had no description of the plant but he had a location.
"The book says that the divine grass can be found in a secret chamber in the ancient Gaza synangogue." - explained Jason
"But all that's left of it are ruins."- said Nico.
"How do you know that?!" - asked Percy surpriced.
"I read." - said Nico with a duh expression on his face.
"But what about the whole dyslexia thing?" – asked Jaon.
"Jason, you can hear me?!" - asked Percy in shock.
"I was able to use my powers over the dead to make your the sound of your voice receivable to Jason's ears. Anyway I found a way around the dyslexia thing by reading books in Greek, not as easy as ancient Greek but not nearly as hard as English." - explained Nico.
I never even thought about trying stuff like that, Nico is so smart.- thought Percy.
"Ok, well if we've learned anything over the years it's that nothing is what it appears to be, so let's just go to the ruins and see what we can find." - decided Jason.
The journey to the ruins was not long but that doesn't mean it wasn't hard. The sun was high in the sky making it like 90 degrees but that wasn't the worst part, half way to the sinagogue they ran into 3 snake-women.
It was an intense battle. Jason managed to kill one of them, but the other two now had there eyes on Nico. One of them launched at him, but Nico swang his sword and stabbed her in the chest turning her into dust.
"Amateurs" – commented Nico. Just then the thirt one stabbed him in the stomach with a dagger. Jason was quick to cut her head off with his gladius but now Nico was bleeding heavily. Jason got fed him some ambrosia and nectar.
"How is he?" - asked Percy with ghostly tears running down his cheeks. He had been observing the whole battle, unable to do anything.
"He's gonna live but we need to rest for a bit." - answered the son of Jupiter.
"I think a saw a motel a few blocks away." - said the Sea Prince.
"Where would we get the money to rent a room?" - wondered the blonde.
"My Pocket" – mumbled the son of Hades barely able to speak because of the pain he was in.
Jason reached in Nico's pocket and pulled out an universal credit card.
"Where did you get this?" - asked Jason, surpriced.
"Really now, I mean my dad is Hades for Gods' sakes!"- grunted Nico.
So the three boys went to the motel and managed to rent a room.
"Ok, guys let's rest for a while and then we need to go to the sinagogue, that shouldn't be far from here." - said the son of Jupiter.
It was around two in the afternoon when the boys were finally at the ruins. With their demigod eyes they were able to see through the mist and there was writting on the floor in ancient Greek. It said If you wish to open the door to eternal existance follow the stars during daytime. Nico thought for a moment and then the noticed that at certain spots on the floor there were crystals which reflected the light of the sun so much they resembled stars. He followed them to a column and there was a torch attached to it. He pulled the torch, realising it was actually a switch and it lit up all on is own. Next thing he knew, the column sank to the ground leaving a hole in the floor.
"Hey, guys over here!"- shouted the Ghost King.
2 minutes later they all jumped in the hole and were now in a dark corridor leading to a room where light seemed to be coming from. They walked into the room. It was a big round room, there was nothing in particular except for a lot of sceletons which were human. On the other side of the room there was another door. Something told Nico he didn't want to know what was on the other side of that door (that something being the sceletons), but they had no other choice. When they opened the door a small cloud of yellow smoke escaped and then the door closed firmly with no chance of opening it. The cloud floated to the other side of the room. There it turned bigger and bigger and all of a sudden it vanished, but what it left behind was one of the nightmares of all children of Athena. Standing on the other side of the room was a giant spider, covered in gray hairs, looking at the demigods with its glowing red eyes, venom dripping from its huge black fangs.