Of course, he found out the answer to that all too soon.
After about an hour of staring at the elaborately carved box, he shoved it under the emerald bed and left the cabin. He would deal with the contents later.
He had been planning to walk over to the dining pavilion and see whether the others were back from defeating the monsters he'd called for them, but plans, especially ones made by demigods, change quickly.
A group consisting of a shaking Annabeth; a trembling Calypso; Percy, Jason, and Piper, all looking a little put out; Leo, Frank and Hazel dragging a struggling Clarisse; and Reyna approached down the path. Ducking into the bushes so as not to be seen, Nico watched them make their way over to the Big House.
He followed at a distance, but could still hear Clarisse's cries of "Let me go! I need to find whoever did this! And kill them!"
He decided not to follow them inside. They may not have twigged that he was behind the defences to the cave, but he guessed that if they stopped to think about it, even an idiot could add it up. He didn't want to be in the firing line when that happened.
So he took up a perch by the open window, where he could listen and not be seen.
"CHIRON! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
"Clarisse, I - what?" He'd never heard Chiron at a loss for words before.
"Calm down, Clarisse. Well, we-"
"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, HAZEL LEVESQUE! WE JUST WASTED OUR ENTIRE AFTERNOON LOOKING FOR AN EMPTY CAVE!"
He could hear Chiron's confusion. "Clarisse, please. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking-"
"Wait, so you didn't find a cave, fill it with monsters, and then leave a message instead of treasure?" Leo sounded thoughtful. It wasn't something he was good at.
"No, Leo, I did not. Annabeth, can you-"
"S-s-spiders," Annabeth whispered. He heard someone move, and assumed it was Percy.
"Can't you ask someone else, Chiron?" Yup, it was Percy. He sounded irritated.
"I'LL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED! WE FIGHT OUR WAY THROUGH A HORDE OF NEAR INVINCIBLE MONSTERS, ONLY TO FIND AN EMPTY CAVE WITH THE WORDS: 'NO TREASURE FOR YOU' WRITTEN ON THE FLOOR!"
"I don't-"
"There was a smiley face too, as I remember," interjected Leo.
"So we just wasted our whole afternoon for a message," put in Reyna.
The others started talking all at once, and for a few seconds Nico could not distinguish anything that was said. Then a banging noise - he imagined that Chiron was banging his hoof on the wooden floor.
"Silence! I will ask one of you a question, and one of you will answer it! Hazel, where was the cave?"
Hazel described the location of the cave.
"And Leo, you said that there was just a message saying, 'no treasure for you' written on the floor?"
"And a smiley face, yes."
"Frank, did you see how the message was written?"
"Uh, in something white, I think..."
"I- it was bone, Frank." Calypso's voice was quiet and trembling.
"And what type of monsters were they, Jason, Reyna? Did you recognise them?"
Jason started speaking. "Well, first there were these giant spiders, and then some skeletons..."
Reyna finished for him. "A rotted stygian bird, and a hellhound."
"And was there anything special about these monsters?"
"Well... they kept reassembling themselves..."
"What do you mean by that, Calypso?"
"Well, they were all made of..."
"Bone," Annabeth finished for her.
There were a few seconds of silence as this sank in. Then-
"NICO DI ANGELO YOU ARE SO DEAD!"
"Clarisse, please, calm-"
"DON'T. TELL. ME. TO CALM. DOWN CHIRON! I HAD TO BABYSIT HYSTERICAL CAMPERS BECAUSE OF HIM!"
"I was not hysterical, Clarisse!"
Leo spoke up, unhelpfully, "Yes, you were, Sunshine. And Annabeth definitely was."
"Thanks, Leo," the girls snapped.
Nico chuckled. It was a mistake.
"Percy?"
"Yes, Jason?"
"I think we have an evesdropper."
"That's what I -"
Their conversation was cut short by Clarisse's howl.
"ANGELO! COME HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!"
Not likely, Nico thought, and tried to shadow travel away.
He didn't have enough energy to do it properly, however, and landed just inside the room he was trying to get away from.
"Hi, guys," he waved weakly at the eight scowling faces before him.
Clarisse stepped towards him, followed by Reyna, Jason and Percy. Annabeth and Calypso stayed sitting, Annabeth shivering; and Hazel shook her head. He was on his own.
He turned and ran out of the Big House and into the sunny afternoon.
Soleggiato. He almost chuckled at his brain's timing.
So now he had a box of treasure under one of the beds in his cabin, a new nickname for his boyfriend, and a small crowd of angry campers (Clarisse, Reyna, Jason, and Percy had been joined by others who had also figured it out) trying to kill him.
Whoever said you should try something new every day, he thought, should be fed to a hellhound.
A/N I love reviews.
Also, I started a Jiper (sort of) fanfic. It's called Lightningstruck Dove, or something.
As such, I may end up only updating every other day...
Or not. Depends on how much time I have.
~Fi