Hermes' mission of messages
Chapter 12- A walk through Rome
Nyssa
After a while, they appeared in a town, standing on the concrete ground.
Nyssa dropped her things and scratched her head, looking around, "This must be what Chiron meant. Teleporting."
She turned around and gasped, "Hey guys. Look! We are infront of Achilles pizzeria."
The other three turned around as well, just as surprised as Nyssa. The restaurant still looked the same… except for the fact that the place was really busy. On the table where they sat was a couple sharing a medium sized pepperoni pizza. There was nothing special about the man, but Nyssa thought that the woman vaguely reminded her of Aphrodite. She blinked her eyes several times just to verify if it was her, but it was a totally different lady. Just incase, she would try to behave. It might or might not be her, spying on them.
"Ok," Jake said, "This is weird. This place suddenly got busy. Anyway, where should we start looking first?"
Louise looked around. She didn't exactly need a map. She was the group's living map itself.
"Well," Louise started, "Let's walk straight for a couple of miles then let's work out where the Pantheon is."
Nyssa picked up her stuff and they started travelling. It was starting to get a bit dark, which made it a bit harder to see any signboards. She was also a bit sleepy and tired, though she tried to forget how exhausted she was.
After a while, they came across a signboard written in Latin with an arrow pointing to the left.
George frowned. "I thought the national language of Italy is Italian."
"Yeah," Louise said, "But I guess this is a message for us halfbloods because this sign just magically appeared, if you guys didn't notice."
Nyssa concentrated on the signboard. It was noticeable enough, but the edges of the borad shimmered in a faint grey glow. It must have been a sign from Athena.
Jake also seemed to notice it too. "I think it's a sign from mom. I could feel she's near."
"Then go ahead and lead the way." Louise offered.
Jake nodded and took a turn to the left.
"It's so beautiful here!" Nyssa said in awe. The architecture was influenced by the ancient and medieval times. They passed by loads of trees and a couple of fountains. It was getting dark now, but the buildings still looked fantastic with the lights highlighting every single part of the buildings' design.
After a few right and left turns, they found the way to the Pantheon. It looked amazing up close. All of them stared at the building. There were numerous columns holding up the roof of the monument. Even though the stone looked old, it must have been a wonder that its structure stayed strong for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years. The carvings must have been done by famous artists at the time. Nyssa touched one of the intricate carving she saw nearby. Even Beckendorf's designs couldn't top the design of the Pantheon.
There were fewer tourists here right now, due to the fact that it was night. Nyssa looked around and saw a faint aura of an owl with a grey glow floating near the side of the landmark. The owl lifted its left wing, which must be showing the way to Athena.
"Guys," Nyssa said, snapping George, Louise and Jake from their gaze, "There's an aura of an owl. It is showing the way to where Athena is hiding."
George and Louise gave her perplexed looks. Jake saw the owl and pointed at it, "Oh yeah. It's here. C'mon!"
They half-walked, half-ran towards the owl, who was actually pointing to a tunnel leading to the bottom of the Pantheon. Once they got near, the owl disappeared. Jake crouched and pointed toward the tunnel. "The owl is inside. We gotta follow it."
Nyssa looked inside and it looked pretty dark. She scavenged into her tool belt. Sometimes she couldn't trust her belt. One time, in the forges, she was finding for her pair of pliers. So she practically searched for those for half an hour that time, pulling out various objects from her tool belt. Her siblings were almost done with their projects while she barely started with hers. She sometimes thought the belt was some kind of a prank gift from Hephaestus, though it could be very useful and handy most of the time.
Now it was easy to find what she needed. After pulling out a few breath mints and a couple of screws, she found two torches and handed one to Louise. "here take this. You and Jake should go in first since you guys could find Athena easier. The tunnel looks big enough for two people to squeeze in together. Me and George will follow after you guys and we'll guard you guys if any monsters come hunting from behind."
Louise smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "If that suits you better. C'mon Jacob! In we go!" Louise went in and Jake followed. George and Nyssa bent down and went inside the tunnel.
Once they were inside, Nyssa switched on the torch. There was a screeching sound. She turned around and focused her torch at the entrance of the tunnel. The entrance seemed to have closed by itself.
"George," she whispered, "The entrance closed by itself."
He turned around and nodded nervously. "Let's just keep on going." He suggested.
They went on walking. The tunnel wasn't that big or that small. Two people and a couple of bags could pass through it without any problem, even though they have to bend down just to walk through.
There were loads of bugs and loads of spider webs, which obviously meant lots of spiders. Whenever they see a spider, Jake seemed to get scared and clutches Louise's arm tightly. This was no surprise though. Nyssa knew about children of Athena being naturally scared of spiders because of Athena's rivalry with Arachne. The Stoll brothers played a prank on cabin 6 one time early morning, before they woke up. They crept into their cabin and hung plastic spiders above their bunks. At around 7:15 am, everyone in camp woke up to a loud start. Everyone in cabin 6 was freaking out. Loads of paper flew out of the cabin. Nyssa could hear Annabeth trying to control her cabin, but she could hear the fear in her own voices. The largest spider must have been hung over her bunk. The scene was hysterical. Thinking about the Stoll brothers, Nyssa thought about the beds she owed their cabin.
Eventually, Louise got really annoyed by how Jake was reacting to the spiders that she scolded him. "JACOB BLUEWOOD! STOP ACTING ALL SCARED AND START ACTING LIKE A MAN! I mean c'mon! A spider?!" she flicked a spider which was dangling infront of them. "See!? No harm!"
Jake let go of her arm and started walking carefully, trying to avoid the spiders.
After a while, she started feeling really tired and sleepy so she suggested that they should all get some sleep, especially her and Jake who were awake in the train ride a day ago. "Sure," Louise agreed, yawning, "Let's just find a place to sleep first."
They didn't have any trouble finding some shelter for the night. Later on, Nyssa felt the tunnel getting wider on her right. She looked to see if it could fit 4 people in the space. Luckily, it can. It was actually a small cave, but it was big enough for all of them to camp in it. She told Louise and Jake to stop and said, "Hey. I think we could rest in here for a while."
She stepped into the cave. It had a rocky ground and smooth walls. There were no signs of spiders and spider webs, thankfully for Jake's sake. It was dark inside so Nyssa would have to find for a bigger torch and use it as their light source for the night. It was actually pretty spacious inside, even for a small cave. The others then followed into the cave and soon settled in.
It was a little cold so they found some wood to make a fire. Nyssa knew how to make a fire, but offered the job to George, while the other two made it comfortable for them to sleep by taking out some blankets.
George started to make a fire, but out of curiosity Nyssa whispered to him, "Remember you said you could touch fire."
"Yeah."
"So," she suggested, "Why don't you try, well, summoning fire."
George looked surprised and gulped, "I never actually tried…"
"It's worth a shot." Nyssa encouraged him. George sighed and tried summoning fire.
Normally, it would be pretty useless asking a child of war to make fire, rather than asking it to a child of fire. But Nyssa noticed something different about George. His ability to touch fire, or maybe even control fire, was very rare for even children of Hephaestus. How could he have the power to do it, even if he's not a child of Hephaestus? Nyssa just had to find out.
George was still not succeeding in the fire making situation. He was concentrating so much, his eyes had the colour of fire burning, and if she was not wrong, with small flames of fire dancing in his eyes. Then a small flame formed at the tip of his finger and it started growing. When it was big enough, he placed his finger on the wood and it caught on fire. He pulled his finger away and blew away the flame.
Nyssa didn't know what to say except "Good job". George blushed, though it was not that visible in the dark and muttered "Thanks."
"Hey! It's bedtime!" Jake announced and jumped into his sleeping bag. Nyssa had to admit, Louise and Jake did a great job setting up the place. She also never knew that they even had sleeping bags. Louise settled two identical purple sleeping bags side by side and opposite of them were two identical blue sleeping bags. Their stuff has been organized and was positioned near their sleeping bags for an easy escape when they needed to.
There wasn't much to do later on so they went to sleep with Louise on the lookout. But Nyssa herself found it really hard to sleep, so she decided to think about what George did. She was still surprised about George's abilities. Was his abilities related to his family background? If it's not related to his ancestors, then how did he have the ability to conjure up fire? Maybe some part of the prophecy would help her figure out more about him. She just had to know.
Child with a possession. If she was not wrong, it had to be Jake, unless it's describing someone else in the group. One born with Technokinesis. That had to be Nyssa, as she is the child of Hephaestus. Siblings of different parents. That's the most confusing line of the prophecy. Who are the siblings?
She decided to talk to Louise while she was awake, just to tire her out a bit. "So, Louise" She asked her and sat up, "Just to get to know you a bit. How's your family?"
She looked at me, "I thought you were sleeping. Anyway, my foster parents are so far… well they're fine-"
"Foster parents?"
"Um, yeah. I have foster parents."
"No I meant, you know your birth mom…"
Louise seemed uncomfortable but she just explained slowly, "Well, I actually don't remember how my mom looks like. I don't remember her at all. How about you? How's your family?"
"Oh, well, my mom's fine. She is kinda like an all-around mechanic. Yeah, and I have two other step brothers, Rico and Angelo."
"So you have a step dad?"
"Don't remember him much. But for now, it's just me, mom, Rico and Angelo."
They fell silent for a while. "I think I'll just go to sleep." Nyssa finally said.
They both said goodnight to each other. She finally fell asleep and she jumped into a dream.
x-x-x-x
In that dream, it was pitch black. Then, a floating calendar appeared out of nowhere. A voice boomed, "Vanyssa," She flinched at her name. She had almost forgotten that it was her name. It was a name her mom and Hephaestus gave her before he left her mom. It was pronounced like the name 'Vanessa', though now she only used the 'Nyssa' part of her name. She looked around and try to find the owner of the voice.
"The date today is the 12th of May." The voice continued, though Nyssa could make out now that it was Hephaestus' voice, "Two more days till you turn 17."
Great! Nyssa thought. She actually forgotten that her birthday was coming soon. A circle formed around the number 14 on the calendar. The calendar faded and it was pure darkness again. So this dream is just a reminder that I'm 17 on Monday. She thought and had a peaceful sleep for the rest of the night.
Note: so i made up a couple of things about Nyssa cuz she was just a minor character in The Lost Hero and I also found it hard a bit to end this chapter. I'm updating as much as I can. thanks for reading and follows/favourites/reviews would be appreciated :)
