Chapter 3: Dare

"Haxolo, please do take a seat."

So that's what I did. I sat down, took a deep breath and waited for him to speak. But first his attention turned to Alice,

"Alice, punching people in the face will not solve any problems here, you should know that by now. I want you to apologise to Ryan straight away for breaking his nose, then you can help Percy clean up the beach from the storm last night."

"Help Percy? You've got to be kidding me!"

"Just do it, unless you want toilet cleaning duty"

"Fine! I'll help Percy" and with that Alice leaves the room, leaving me alone with mister horse-man.

"Hello Haxolo. I never thought I'd do introductions twice but here I am. I am Chiron, and I'm activities director here at camp Half-blood. This is a place for training young demigods such as yourself for protecting themselves and also for quests that are given to us by the gods and our oracle."

"So you train us?" He nodded and continued

"Yes, quite a lot of activities here will be taken by me: archery being one of the many things you'll be able to do here."

"Cool...so uh, what else do we do around here? I guess swords and stuff would be used, right?"

Chiron rolled his eyes, but continued talking to me with his calm demeanour.

"You'll be fighting monsters, so yes, there will be 'swords and stuff,'as you put it."

Yeah, I guess this guy never really got on with me before. But as I really don't know what the hell was going on, I chose to be indifferent to it.

"So, Mr. Chiron sir, can you tell me more about the gods? Everyone has said that Greek gods are real, but first off I don't even know what Greeks are, let alone what the hell is up with me."

The centaur folded his arms and looked me straight in the eyes.

Haxolo, there are so many things that I could say about the mythical world, but I'm afraid we just do not have the time. However, I will try to cover the basics. So as Chloe has told you, there are twelve Olympian gods and a multitude of minor gods. What you need to know is that there are also monsters, Titans, and Giants that are intent on destroying everything we know and love. It is our job to protect the mortal world from such threats, but training is required to do so.

"The twelve Olympian gods are the powerful rulers of the Earth, which they do from mount Olympus on top of the Empire State building in New York" That clearly was meant to mean something but I just stared at him blankly "Never mind...anyway, The twelve gods are Zeus, king of the gods, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Hephaestus, Demeter, Ares, Hermes, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Apollo and Artemis. Each are of tremendous power and have a certain...expertise shall we say? Zeus is the god of the sky, Hermes the god of travellers, thieves and messengers, and Athena is the goddess of wisdom. So, all of the children you will see here are all part god, and that means you are too."

I look at Chiron again and I wonder how many times he has told people this.

"Now I must tell you, we do not know your parentage. Your godly parent should claim you once you are thirteen, but that has evidently not happened. We must assume there is a reason for this, but it is irregular for a seventeen year old to remain unclaimed by a god."

Just at that point A red headed girl walks in through the door and smiles at me.

"Ah, I'm glad you came Rachel. Would you mind introducing yourself to our guest?"

This girl was very attractive, but from her body language I could tell she wouldn't be interested.

"Well, we've been introduced before but I guess you'd never remember that. I'm Rachel Elizabeth Dare and I'm the oracle of Delphi. That means I can predict the future"

"Great, so can you tell me if I get out of this mess or not? 'Cause I'd appreciate it if you could."

Rachel now smiles ruefully and replies that she can't.

No, it only happens at times when I prompted to by the spirit of Delphi inside me. That usually means I make prophecies about really important stuff, not stuff like that."

"Well thank you Rachel for helping him understand. But I wonder if I can ask you to show Haxolo around. I'm sure he'd love to see the place." She curtseyed and said that she would.

"Come on Mr. Mystery, I've got a tight schedule so get on with it."

"Alright, alright! Give me a minute. Thank you for talking to me."

"Oh, it's just Chiron but you're welcome. I will see you again later, but for now, have a good tour."

And with that Rachel led the way out of the building to the open air. It took a good look around and it hurt my eyes. Not just because the light was more intense out here than where I'd been recently, but because my natural instinct felt diminished here. I was so drained I almost collapsed onto Rachel.

"Whoa! You okay? Want a medic or something?" You've done this before now but not as bad as this."

"Nah, I'm good. Let's get on with the tour or we'll never get anywhere!"

So, that's the end of this chapter, and it took ages to write! With me back at college it will take at least a week for me to write each chapter from now on so I apologise for any inconvenience. Please leave feedback and tell me what you thought.

Next chapter will have a tour of Camp, along with us meeting some more old faces along the way. Hope to see you all soon!