"Find death between two horns, taking a pledges of rules. Save only the love of three,carry the opposites of power to war."
Mythology: (1)Cornucopia,(2)ancile of Mars,(3)Sword of Perseus
Goal: A monster attack hit a supply truck containing many magical supplies. Questers must find the stolen supplies before it is too late.
Number of questers: 3
This quest was more of a blow-out: 1 survived.
Find death between two horns,
Eros son was on this quest,and everyone called him Jersey Benz. He was famous in camp for starting mess with being the,"most seductive demigod history has met." Anyways,in order to not die he was given a task by his grandmother to be the one to find the rest of the ashes of Rome or more specifically,the next ancile of Mars.
Of course he didn't tell anyone his grandmother was visiting him when he was at camp. Having camp supplies being ransacked by mortals was one thing,having supplies that contained crucial details of CHB and chances of being public was another. Jersey was up for think about hallenge.
Eros gave Jersey Benz a rose.
"Sub Rosa,"He said. He pressed the rose gently in his sons hand,and placed it to his chest."It means privacy,Jersey."
"I'm flattered,but what's this for?"
"It's for your lady friend over there."Eros nodded his head toward the blonde with coke-bottle glasses. He didn't know her name,nor did he want her on the quest.
Eros could sense his son's thoughts. "You did the right thing having her come on board."
"Wait- is she going to fall in love with me?"Jersey appalled. He frowned,looking at the flowers red petals.
"You wish."Eros hopped off the fence post first,"Don't forget what I said about giving it to her,yeah?"
Before Jersey pulled his head up,his father was already gone.
Once they got into some trouble with a Monster Doughnut,he cried in frustration about how they were ten steps behind. Out of the Demeter girl and the other camper,a daughter of Dolos,it was the Demeter girl who calmed Jersey down enough to keep going.
He gave her the rose,and explained to her what his father told him. She couldn't figure it out,and left it in her backpack still thinking about it. After two days did she realize what Eros meant by Sub Rosa.
She explains about how her mother has a cult-like ritual that is secret-private- to enter into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Throughout the temples roses were decorated. The Demeter daughter added one specific key factor:
The rose symbolised the "Labyrinth of rose" where the minotaur lives. The rose is a mini-map of the labyrinth and at the center is where the minotaur lived.
They had to go in the labyrinth,and face the minotaur. It made sense to Jersey then what find death between two horns.
taking a pledges of rules, this refers to the pignora imperii which is what is suggested throughout the series of quests.
So Jersey was preparing himself to sacrifice one of his mates,and it was the Dolos girl.
What he didn't know was that the Dolos girl had other plans other than dying(obviously everyone on quests are ready to sacrifice themselves,but not actually do it);
(Subplot)at this time a war was brewing amongst the minor gods and gods. Because it's easier for minor gods to get into contact with their kids,Dolos asked his daughter to not fail him in killing off the others. She was told the one to survive the quest would be the one to carry mighty treasures back home.
He didn't know what the pledges of rules meant,but she did. She knew that a shield out of the twelve will be waiting by the minotaurs lair.
When they got there,the minotaur had taken the Dolos girls life,but by the hands of the Eros boy who left her there.
Save only the love of three,
There were three questers,and only one was the son of a love god.
When he got the supplies and shield out from the labyrinth,the Demeter girl was lured in by the sword of Peleus. He climbed out first from a Long Island sewer hole in the middle of a road. Not many cars. As he looked down he could see the floor crumbling under the Demeter girls feet. He let go of the shield immediately and caught her hand before the ground shook,the floor now gone with nothing but darkness.
"I can hear them." Her words echoed on the never ending walls.
"Hear what?"Jersey asked. He wanted to make a calm environment for her anxiousness."Grab onto my hand."
"I can hear them calling me,Jersey. My dad and sister."She looked up to him with tears filled to the brim. Her smile pained Jersey.
"The sword's allowing me to see them! My sister wants me...to come back to them."
"What about me?You can't...leave me. Just grab onto my hand."He tried to reach for the other hand.
"Do you have the rose?"She said quietly.
He didn't respond to her question.
Behind them a supply truck could be heard,its engine rumbling. The noise grew.
"Get out of here,Jersey." She swiftly put the sword in his hand,and said her last words to him,"Thank you for being my first kiss. Take care of my family."
Things happened so fast for Jersey as she let go. Before he knew it he had rolled out of way from traffic harm with the ancile strapped to his arm. The sewer hole already capped when he looked back.
He felt empty inside. This isn't how movies go,he thought. Where was his happy ending and closure? All he could about was leaving the two behind.
There was no going back,he needed to report to the Camp Director.
carry the opposites of power to war.
A shield and a sword. One has the power to protect(shield),as the other has the power to harm(sword).
Benz bore the Ancile of Mars,and the sword of Peleus out of the labyrinth with a backpack full of all missing CHB supplies,Demeter kids waiting for their sister. The only thing Jersey could give them was the rose he gave her,and the sword she sacrificed her life for. Jersey didn't see anyone waiting on the other side for the Dolos daughter besides the Camp Director.
As soon as he started talking ,the sin of leaving them behind corroded his pride as he started to cry.
Update to pass time: The daughter of Ares from the last quest still mourns for her dead friend. She blames the Roman ancile for the bad luck she's received and asks her father in quiet why he didn't ask her to sacrifice her life for it. She didn't understand why.
Campers are getting strange dreams of war.
"Under the mask a fire lurks,drowning in lifeless memories. eye for an eye the past rebounds falling short of drops."
Mythology: (1)Mnemosyne,(2)Pyros,(3)Nemesis
This was more of a filler type of quest.
goal: Get Mnemosyne river water back to camp. Fastest way to restore many of campers memory loss.
Number of questers: 3
How many survived: 2
Reason: A war was brewing between minor and major gods over the stubbornness of Aphrodite,Hecate and a daemon,Oizy who disguised herself as a child of Hades for a couple months. Things get more heated as Oizy brings up sensitive topics,radiating her powerful aura on slip-ups from Hypnos washes the memories away from many campers.
Behind the river Lethe lies the river Mnemosyne. Inorder to be re-birthed, the dead must drink from the river Lethe to forget. If they drink from the Mnemosyne river,they will hold all memories and stop the rebirthing...but what if someone is alive and partook of the waters?
Under the mask a fire lurks
It foretold a story of a past campers MIA story who was the son of Pyros(god of fire), on a failed quest from the 1940's.
It turns out the son was not MIA,but dead. His body was on the shores of the river Phlegethon, his body preserved down to the last detail before he died as it burns for eternity. Right above his body is a,"shadow"(shade) that sits on the burning chest,waiting for something. It is a shade of a gloomy girl with a mask,ripped clothes she wore indicating how she died: Death by drowning.
Oizy,at the moment disguised as a child of Hades,explained why the spirit could stay there for so long. She said that when a spirit is stuck they are,"earth-bound"- that's where Hermes comes into play to help them. Although,she admits in this situation it's a loose term.
drowning in lifeless memories
They walk up to the shade,the Hades daughter asking if she needed help to go back and make it to her next life.
"He's not coming back."She mutters,her rich accent was Southern for sure,but her vocabulary was from the West Coast. It was an odd mixture.
"Who's not coming back?"Scar squats down,but her hand was smacked away by the strange soul. The girl seemed mortified,but Scar gave her this look of knowing.
"He's not coming back for me."She says again,her eyes full of grey and clouded over like all the other souls. "He died,but he's not back from swimming." Her ignorance seemed almost sweet,but pitiful.
"What else happened?"Carmen asked. She was classifying the burning weapons and shields by the island bodies side."What happened when you died..."
"Pamela Smith,fourth cohort of the-"
" Romans." The daughter of Hephaestus chirped up,intrigued.
The girl nuzzled her nose to her see-through legs tight on her chest and continued. "I wasn't supposed to meet him that day in May of 1946..." She said the year as one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-forty-six,instead of nineteen-forty-six."We met every night when he was on a mission. Recruiting,he used to say."
"When the day came by to run away from Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood we were attacked by harpies."She looked at the rivers with intent.
"They dropped us. To hell. We almost survived if I hadn't gone crazy when I was alive." She nodded toward the darkness,"Over there. Lampads can't drive the dead crazy."She humoured herself after a moment.
"What was his name?"
"Mac. Everyone called him Mac for his last name,Macedonia."(Also...an rp reference. Foreshadowing)
eye for an eye, the past rebounds falling short of drops.
Or what is known as an equal balance- a life for a life. After Pamela showed them how to not die crossing the rivers,Mnemosyne ultimately found out they were trying to steal from her river.
Oizy looked her in the eye,and faced Mnemosyne head on as the others gathered the water through regular empty water bottles,and threw them in their backpacks.
Oizy had to stay,and transformed into the goddess she really was once they had turned their backs to run. They had to go home with lots of water,but one less camper.(Or so they thought. It was a big shock to everyone when Scarlette returns and greets everyone as Oizy at camp.)
The past rebounds falling short of drops it came into play after they accomplished the mission. Those who needed it had taken sips of it,but there was always a group of people who wanted more after they realized it restores perfect memory.
The daughter of Hephaestus understood now that at least with the dead,there was no way of them being addicted to something so under-worldly yet earthly like greed.
"Travel not near fiery torches,divide drops of the forgotten. Souls apart piece together where scars of red strays to trunks of white."
Mythology: (1)Daemons,(2)Lampads,(3)River Lethe,(4)Elysian fields,(5) Leuce
Goal: ...I wonder,are these too long? This ties in with the prophecy before this one. The one where Scarlette is "stuck" in the underworld when in reality that is where she is supposed to be. Nobody knows that when the campers want to save their beloved Hades cabin leader.
Why did no one bring up the thought she's a goddess? I don't know. Angst,I guess.
Number of questers: 3
How many make it back: 4
Travel not near fiery torches
Lampads. The quest was in the Underworld. Those who hold "fiery torches" are Lampads. They are Underworld nymphs who are under jurisdiction of Hecate after the Giant war when Zeus out of gratitude gave them as a gift.
It is said that when the torches are lit,don't look at them unless you want to go insane.
Since they are helping Oizy get out of the underworld,Hecate ordered them to attack demigods regardless of heritage in the Underworld.
The characters are on the run,but 1 of them still had gone crazy.
Divide drops of the forgotten
"drops of the forgotten" - river Lethe. This was the quest a daughter of Galatea (nymph,goddess of calm ) was able to lead,and the son of Proteus. The two combined controlled the river Lethe enough to cross over.
Souls apart piece together
"Souls apart",means that once there was souls who were close,drifted apart. Scarlette and the three others were friends. "Piece together"- the four altogether unite.
where scars of red strays to trunks of white
Scarlette after fighting Mnemosyne(and losing),can be known as a hero and stumbled upon the entrance of Elysium,only getting that far to Elysium. She rested after being wounded deeply by the Leuce tree or what is known as the,"White poplar".
The hero,Hercules,going to Elysium too had visited the Leuce tree. When Scarlette did this it symbolised she was a hero.
Scarlette means red,and Scarlette's nickname was Scar(though to her it was taunting rather than friendly).
A/N:Thank you for reading!Like all authors,I too would like to hear the readers thoughts and whether they like it or not through reviews,favourites and likes.