The Sacred Lot Cards Chapter 6- Yes, I Updated
They set out that morning.
They had no idea where they were going. Conrad set out heading vaguely in the direction of New York City, Bernadette explaining that they were going to the Empire State to ask where the sacred lot- cards were. No one else seemed to like this idea- Kenji snorted when she explained it, and Akilah actually laughed.
"Do you have a better plan, Miss Know it All?" Bernadette snapped.
Akilah deigned to look at her, skeptical. When Bernadette kept looking at her expectantly, they entered a stare-down that almost seemed to have rounds. Neither girl backed down.
"Hey!" Ayra snapped, "Miss Barbie, Miss Too-Cool-To-Care, can we get a move on before Hades, oh, I don't know, takes over everything?"
Both of them snapped their necks toward Ayra. "Well?" she asked, extending the sound out for much longer than necessary. Bernadette flared her nostrils and said, "Fine!" and stomped off toward the city skyline.
The group slowly broke into little groups for chatting as they walked. Ayra found her way next to Dessa. "Wassup?" she asked, popping the p.
"I don't know. I feel like something bad's about to happen," Dessa said.
Ayra shrugged. "Well, it's a quest. Something bad is always about to happen."
"No, I don't mean like someday in the future, I mean like, now."
Ayra disregarded this warning too. "Dude, seriously. You're probably right. But we're all armed. There is literally seven of us. We could probably take down any threat."
Dessa allowed the conversation to fall into a tension-rich silence. The others seemed to know that something was up, too. Akilah slowly strung her bow and nocked an arrow, still having its point face the ground. Ayra and Conrad unsheathed their weaponry, and Dessa pulled out one of her throwing knives.
Something rustled in the bushes.
Everyone pointed some sharp edge at it.
A snake slithered out, baring its obviously-poisonous fangs at them. 'Snake' did not adequately describe it. Sure, it was roughly snake-sized, if you fed a cobra a cow a day for a week. There was just something about its frank, in-your-face, totally-not-afraid-of-all-you-noobs-with-pointy-things attitude that screamed demon.
Ekon sensed this and punched it.
He howled like he had been bitten, but his fist had only glanced off is enormous side. He screeched and hollered, and Dessa saw that the skin on his knuckles was rotting and peeling off his flesh. Akilah, not really wanting to fight anyway, started bandaging it with her daughter-of-Apollo skills.
Conrad somehow took all of this as a cue to heft his sword and charge. Thankfully, Dessa managed to just grab the back of his shirt before he dove on in. "Wait," she said, "If it can do that to Ekon, I hate to think of what it'll do to you for charging at it."
Apparently, his pair of brain cells agreed and he fell back.
The snake seemed to be examining them, as they in turn examined it. "I think I recognize it," Bernadette breathed, "From war stories. A basil-"
Once it heard its name begun, it turned and attacked.
Everyone went on defense mode, trying desperately not to touch it. Except Dessa, who used her knack of being invisible to hang on the fringes with Akilah and Ekon.
Everyone else had contact weapons, Dessa thought, except me and Akilah, who's not fighting, so… She took a throwing stance, hefted her weapon, and threw it at the thing.
It hit in on the tail, enough to distract it as to not attack Kenji. Useful, but not what she was going for. She needed to aim way farther forward than necessary.
She tried again, and a couple of total misses later, one sunk in true near its front, and it dissipated.
"What. Was. That." She asked as everyone turned to her in the post-battle silence with newfound respect.
Dessa hated that everyone was staring at her. Hated it, hated it, hated it. It was like she was supposed to be God or something just because she killed a gigantic freaky snake.
Bernadette shook her long black curls back into alignment as she said, "As I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted, it's a basilisc."
"That's Harry Potter, Bernadette. Stop stealing and tell us what it really is," Ayra said, her style not cramped at all by the big-freaky-snake attack.
Bernadette whirled on Ayra. "Oh, so you're Miss Smarty-Pants who knows the deets of everyone's quests? You know that basiliscs kill demigods for kicks? You know that their breath and skin is so deadly that the slightest contact kills you? Really?"
"Maybe I did and maybe I didn't, but never have I been talked to with so much sass," Ayra retorted.
Bernadette's big blue eyes widened as she said, "Well, maybe you should get out more."
"Hey," Akilah interrupted, "Maybe Black-head Barbie and Miss Social Reject could stop arguing for like five seconds so that Ekon doesn't, I don't know, die?"
That was the first time Dessa really heard her talk and react to anything. Somehow it seemed fitting that it was to sass everyone.
Kenji put one hand on her arm. They had a weird sibling stare down before they both turned away at the same time, Akilah's angry expression softened.
Wordlessly, Kenji began making camp. Dessa and Ayra immediately knelt to help him, Conrad following soon thereafter. They had a pair of tents, standard camp-issue, assorted spare weaponry, some bedrolls, nectar and ambrosia, spare sets of clothes, and other odds and ends. Soon the basilisc clearing was a sparse campsite.
The four of them who set up camp looked awkwardly at each other for a couple minutes before Ekon walked over, his hand heavily bandaged. Akilah took one look at the canteen of nectar before sighing, "Now I see nectar. Pour all my effin' energy into saving you and NECTAR was in the bags? Ugh."
Again without saying a word, Kenji took Ekon's hand, un-bandaged it, bathed it in nectar with some colorful language on Ekon's part, re-bandaged it, and broke off a little ambrosia for him.
There were a few minutes of awkward silence with all seven of them sitting around what would one day be a campfire. Clearing his throat gruffly, Ekon volunteered to go grab some firewood and kindling, Ayra shadowing him.
Akilah walked off a few minutes later, returning after another couple of minutes holding a rabbit out at arm's length. She dropped it into the firepit, still as-of-yet cold and uninviting, and sat back down with a shudder, cleaning rabbit blood off her arrow.
Glancing at the others, Dessa began skinning it (gross) and hacking it into cubes to roast (grosser).
Ekon and Ayra returned to a scene of incredible awkwardness, and inwardly reprieved themselves for being mildly surprised.
More than at any other time, all seven felt the supreme awkwardness that this quest was made of. There was three pairs of close siblings, each set kind of at truce with the others. Rivals, but at a truce. If it were only the six of them, it probably wouldn't have been so awkward.
Throw in a socially awkward loser that no one knew (Dessa) and the whole thing was just too much.
They managed to stumble through making dinner of cubed rabbit meat on big pointy sticks that Ekon sharpened without too much awkwardness.
Eventually, as the sun was setting on their first day of questing, they all dropped into the two tents- one of girls, one of boys- thankful that the day was over and desperately hoping that the next day would be better.
I'm really sorry for the super-long wait. Please review.
xoxo,
bekeyboo ;)