Under normal circumstances Shelby would have taken the time to check on how Rinier was doing, but these weren't normal circumstances. The Hephaestus Cabin was buzzing with energy, for good reason as well, the small Roman delegation to the camp had come bearing news – Leo Valdez was alive. Nyssa had been doing her best to keep the cabin's morale in good shape but that was never going to be easy with the cabin going through three head counsellors in two summers. Leo had spent most of his time at camp working on the Argo II but when he was around, he was a breath of fresh air especially comparing his constant joking to the other campers in the cabin around their age. No one in the Hephaestus Cabin that took Leo's loss harder than Harley, the cabin's youngest. Harley never accepted Leo's 'death' and ever since then he'd been working to make something to bring Leo home. Now Harley wasn't the only one working his beacon, the whole cabin was. All four of the cabin's year-round attendants were in the forges coming up with, working on and shooting down ideas to make Harvey's initial design workable. The design process took them through the night and into the morning, and they had ultimately managed to settle on something functional. The idea behind it– like many brilliant ones before it - was simple. Leo had disappeared with one of his greatest achievements, the dragon Festus. who had magical circuitry – some of which Leo was forced to replace. The remaining pieces, however, resonated which each other when in close proximity and attempting to amplify this effect led to the completed Dragon (and Leo) detector. Since they were in the twilight hours and the idea had just been perfected, the children of Hephaestus decided to settle with a blueprint that would have to be built later on. Shelby herself had made her own prototype; it was a simple device, but she'd missed the mark with the circuitry's resonance. She went too much sentient being too little mechanized dragon in Nyssa's words.
Shelby had fallen asleep peacefully while fiddling with her prototype of the beacon and her dreams were peaceful, a world of difference from the rest of her day. After her cabin's first session she decided it was finally time to check in on Rinier. As she approached the Apollo Cabin, Shelby felt her hands begin to shake. She took a moment looking down at her hands to steady them. It was then that she realized it wasn't just her hands that were shaking, her legs were as well. She tried taking a step forward and tumbled to the ground and it then dawned on her, she wasn't what was shaking at all, the ground was. It was an earthquake – at Camp Half-Blood. It took Shelby a while to recollect herself between all the shaking and the understanding of what was happening. People were spilling out from activity centres and cabins both as an evacuation measure and to grasp what in the world was going on. Shelby fought her way to her feet and looked around, and it didn't take long for it to catch her eye. Just beyond the boundaries of the camp, there was a massive hole and things were crawling out of it and if Shelby were a guessing girl – she wasn't – she'd bet it wasn't anything good. Almost as to confirm her thoughts alarm rippled through the camp as news reached the campers' ears of the monsters crawling out of the hole in the ground. The rumbling soon came to a pause and then both Greek and Roman demigods were running around getting their weapons and armour, in preparation for the fight that was coming. As Shelby herself turned around to arm herself, she noticed someone making a beeline from behind the Apollo Cabin into the forest. There weren't many people who were at Camp Half – Blood at this time of the year, so seeing the silhouette of a person that she didn't recognize behaving so suspiciously every fibre of Shelby's being told her to follow the person. So, she did.
It didn't take too long for Shelby to regain sight of the mystery person, Shelby regarded herself as pretty fast so it was no surprise to her. The person stopped running and turned. Shelby still couldn't see enough to describe the person properly but they made a motion that suspiciously looked like someone drawing a bow, revealing their hostility. Instinct took over as Shelby ducked into a roll just as an arrow passed overhead, hitting a tree behind her. She flicked her head up to see the mystery person, who was much shorter than she'd expected, sauntering toward her bow in hand. He had a cocky smile about him, Shelby initially assumed that it was because he found that his pursuer was an unarmed demigod but seeing the wrinkles around his smile maybe that was his default expression.
"Easy there now, don't make this any harder than it needs to be okay." He said. Shelby tensed her muscles; he was still wearing the same expression if he thought whatever he was trying to do would go well for him he had another thing coming. He started twirling his bow on his fingers of his left hand clearly showing how little he felt threatened by her - even allowing her to stand.
"All you have to do is send a message for me okay, I already left it for someone to see but a little extra insurance can't hurt." he continued with the same stupid grin on his face which Shelby quickly realized that she hated. "The arrow that you so splendidly dodged," he pointed to the tree immediately behind her. Shelby, however, didn't look, not daring to take her eyes off the person in front her. "It's got a special arrowhead. Make sure an Apollo kid goes on the next quest and make sure they take that with them. If they happen to have the one that I left at the cabin. Then you can do whatever you like with that one." He shrugged.
"What? Why?" Shelby started to object but she was cut off. In the time it took for Shelby to blink he had already readied his bow and loaded an arrow in it, and was aiming it right at her.
"No questions girlie. Now of course you don't have to listen to me, but I think it would be in both our best interests if you did what I said, okay. Well bye bye now." In a swift motion he pointed his bow to the ground and fired. When the arrow connected it released a flash so bright that when Shelby regained her bearings, she considered herself lucky to even be able to see. She turned around and plucked the arrow from out the tree. True to his word the arrowhead wasn't just celestial bronze it was lined with gold – imperial gold Shelby guessed – all around the edges. She broke off the arrow head judging the rest of the arrow to be useless and stuck it in her jeans pocket. With that she made her way back to the camp, when she got there the fighting had already ended so she headed to the Apollo Cabin. For one, because she expected it would be highly trafficked since there was just a large-scale fight and secondly maybe she could tell one of the cabin's occupants – hopefully their counsellor Will - about the arrowhead. When she saw the crowd around the cabin her heart sunk. If she'd left the camp to chase after one stupid person and this many people got injured or Gods forbid worse, she'd have a hard time living it down. As she got closer to the Apollo Cabin, she noticed another oddity. Now the Apollo Cabin, as you'd expect of something made of gold, was bright, extremely so. As it was now, the cabin was glowing and it was getting harder and harder to look at by the second. Then she heard the voice.
In the land of night lies the soul of the sun
One shall sacrifice for the deal to be done
He shall fall to the end of the earth
And view from darkness the third threats birth
The arrowhead in Shelby's pocket grew cold and heavy.
A/N: Drop a review if you like it, I don't really know if it helps but it's just nice to see.