Chapter 5

Alex, Heroesofolympus, Cairi, Beau, Yi, Hazel and Starlight had fallen down into a room full of mirrors, that were so mesmerizing and blinding it had taken them a while to finally find the door, which was a mirrored panel much like the others.

“Over here,” Starlight said, prying open the smooth panel.

Alex crawled through first, and helped Heroesofolympus through the small doorway, the AEs and Beau getting through with ease.

She turned around, and immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. “Heroes?” Alex whispered in a voice five octaves higher.

“Yeah?” Heroesofolympus asked.

Alex pointed at a dark mound in the corner. It looked like some sort of creature, and it was rising and falling with every breath.

Heroesofolympus looked closer, and jerked back. “It’s a cyclops, I saw the eye,” she whispered.

“It’s asleep though,” Hazel said.

“Right, letus leave befor wakes,” Beau said in their peculiar captcha talk.

Alex nodded, and Cairi was first to tiptoe across the room to a doorway, and disappear into the blackness beyond it. Yi and Starlight followed, and Heroesofolympus went through as well.

Alex crept across the room, Hazel and Beau behind her.

One step at a time. Step. Step. Step.

The cyclops shifted.

Step.

It shifted again.

Step.

The cyclops roared.

Oh no.

Alex faced the cyclops bravely, though she was trembling. Hazel and Beau still needed to get by, so she just needed to distract the cyclops for long enough . . .

She spied its club on the floor. “Fetch!” Alex yelled, tossing the club toward it wildly.

It struck the cyclops straight in the face. Not what she had been aiming for, but it worked.

The cyclops toppled over, and promptly vanished in a puff of black smoke.

“Alex! Are you okay?” Hazel asked, rushing forward.

“Terrified, but fine. Let’s get out of here before another one appears!” Alex exclaimed.

The three hurried through the door. It was dim where they were, but the slight outline of a trapdoor above with white light showed them to be in a cellar.

“Guys, this trapdoor is locked,” Cairi said, rising panic in their voice.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, there are more doors,” Yi said, “We’ll find a way out of this, right Heroes?”

Alex turned to look at Heroes.

Heroesofolympus was looking down with a shocked expression, at the knife that had just sprouted from their shoulder.

“Heroes!” Alex cried, rushing forward to catch Heroes who had fallen down on the floor.

As soon as she got to Heroes, she disappeared like the cyclops, with a swirl of black smoke.

“There’s no way that was fatal,” Starlight said shakily, “the wound was cauterized. It would’ve been fine, well, as fine as a stab wound can be. Someone teleported her out.”

“That’s right,” Alex said determinedly, “Heroes isn’t dead. We just need to find where she is.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Hazel shrieked.

“Why are you screaming?!” Yi exclaimed.

“I THOUGHT SHE WAS DEAD THAT’S WHY I’M SCREAMING!”

“Well she’s not, we have to go and find her!” Alex said.

Suddenly, Beau hissed “Hidee!”

Alex could hear it too - the sound of running feet. She looked around for a place to hide, but the room was empty and plain.

“Oh, it’s just you guys!” she said with relief, as soon as she saw who it was. 

Agent Winter, Reese, Summer, Night Vision, Autumn, and Arithmancy had all come running through a door.

“What happened?!” Agent Winter exclaimed.

“Heroesofolympus got stabbed and then someone teleported her away!” Cairi explained.

Agent Winter hurriedly rummaged through her backpack. “My knife is gone!”

“Yeah, someone must have stolen it. What matters now is that we find Heroes!” Alex said.

Everyone nodded in agreement. It was quite a large party now, with over ten people. However, Alex and Night Vision both didn’t feel safe splitting up, since whoever was responsible for Heroesofolympus might still be around, so they all decided to travel as one large group.

They went looking through a bunch of passageways, and finally ended up in a waiting room for a reservoir. Alex couldn’t find the door to the actual reservoir though, because the facility was a bit of a maze, so after a lot of deliberation, they all decided to spend the night (at least Alex thought, it was always dark down here) in the large waiting room.

Everyone was tired and weary, except for Agent Winter who looked deeply disturbed, so they let Agent Winter keep watch for any peculiar people. Alex couldn’t sleep, even though she wanted to, so she ended up reading a matchbook while she waited.

And so the night dragged on.

Chapter 6

Heroesofolympus had successfully sneaked past the cyclops, gone through a room of mirrors, fallen down from who-knows-how-far, and now she had just gotten stabbed.

All in all, her day was going pretty badly. As soon as Heroes found the knife sticking in her, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted. That was a pretty normal reaction to being stabbed, Heroesofolympus thought.

And then she had been floating through murky darkness, swimming through pinpricks of light and spiraling down into who-knows-what. Actually, Heroes spiraled down into a pile of sharp things.

“Ow!” Heroes exclaimed, her own voice resonating around the room. Apart from the sharp things poking into her back, the knife was still in her shoulder.

Heroesofolympus winced, and looked at the knife. It suddenly vanished, and her wound closed up like it had never been there.

“I-what-okay?” Heroes muttered to herself.

She looked around. She had somehow gotten into a large, cavernous room full of stalactites and stalagmites and piles and piles of jewels. The sharp things poking into Heroes’s back had been a pile of sharply cut rubies.

At the end of the cavernous room was an almost unnoticeable winding staircase leading up, and at the other end was a gateway. It was made of dark steel, shiny and new despite still looking old. It was encrusted with jewels and a large padlock was chained to the gates.

A messy handwritten sign hung over on one side. It read ‘DEATH FERRIES ARE PAUSED. CHARON IS ON STRIKE.’

Heroes looked at it one more time, slightly confused. She knew who Charon was, of course, the ferryman who liked tuxedos.

A river ran through the gates, and a cloaked figure stood on a boat with a large skeleton key.

“Excuse me, who are you?” Heroes asked, stepping closer to the cloaked figure.

“Tra la la, I am the river person,” the cloaked person said.

“Um . . . charon?”

“Tra la la, no, Hades hired me while he tried to get Charon back to work,” the river person said.

“I . . . see. What’s the ferry for?” Heroes asked.

“Down the river styx of course, tra la la, are you here because of your death?”

Most likely, seeing as I got stabbed.

“No, I’m not dead,” Heroes said quickly.

“Tra la la, perhaps you’re here to find the skull?”

“What skull?”

“Hades’s crystal skull, tra la la. He lost it.”

“Um . . . maybe?”

Hang on a minute. If this is where people go when they’re dead then maybe . . . just maybe . . .

“Hey, river person, are there more rooms?”

“Tra la la, of course, waiting rooms are just through those doors,” the river person said, pointing to a set of inconspicuous black doors that blended in perfectly with the black rock.

Heroes did a semi-wave-bow-thank you thing, and rushed off to the waiting rooms.

If this is where people go when they’re dead then . . .

Emekittycon and Mahriel must be here!

Heroesofolympus burst through the set of black doors, and cried out in happiness. Emekittycon and Mahriel were there, sitting on a row of benches!

“Emekittycon! Mahriel!” Heroesofolympus exclaimed.

Emekittycon and Mahriel’s eyes lit up, and they both jumped up and tackled Heroesofolympus in a huge hug. Heroesofolympus felt like she could run on water.

Heroesofolympus felt like she’d been doused in water.

The moment Emekittycon and Mahriel touched her, they fell straight through, landing on the floor.

“Huh? You’re not dead?!” Mahriel exclaimed.

“No! I was stabbed, and then teleported here!” Heroesofolympus explained.

“You’re taking it remarkably well,” Emekittycon said.

“I fainted,” Heroes admitted, “but why can’t you two leave? And are you ghosts?”

“Not ghosts . . . just . . . deceased? Idk man, death vibes,” Mahriel said, shrugging.

“We can’t leave the waiting room, because of some alarm wall thing. We wanted to find the crystal skull so we could solidify again, but we can’t leave,” Emekittycon sighed.

“Hang on, the river person said something about a skull that Hades lost.”

“Yep, that’s the one. It’s able to bring dead people back to life, which is why Hades is panicking so much - or at least that’s what I’ve heard,” Mahriel said.

“I can look for it! It can bring you guys back! I’ll do it!” Heroesofolympus said.

“Good luck I guess? We’ll be . . . moral support or something!” Emekittycon said.

Heroesofolympus nodded, and rushed out the door again. Time was of the essence. As she was running along the hallway back to the cavern, she tripped over a rock.

“Stupid rock!” Heroes exclaimed, jumping up and picking up to rock, ready to take out all her frustration and energy on it.

Her finger rubbed away the dark layer of ash covering it, revealing a translucent glow. Heroes rubbed away more ash curiously, wanting to see what it was.

It was the skull! Heroes turned right around, and ran back to the waiting room. “Touch it!” she said, shoving the skull in front of Emekittycon and Mahriel.

They both placed their hands on the skull, and suddenly, Heroes could feel their hands on hers!

This time, Emekittycon and Mahriel gave Heroes a real hug, and Heroes laughed with joy. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before someone else gets the skull!” Mahriel said, tugging at both of their arms.

The three of them ran out into the cavern, and Mahriel and Emekittycon started up the staircase. Heroes waved to a very confused river person, and followed them up the stairs.

As they were running along a darkened passage, wanting to put as much distance between them and the underworld as possible, Heroesofolympus slammed into someone.

The person whirled around, and gasped. It was Kitty!

“Squeaky! Gemstone!” Kitty exclaimed, her voice cracking at the sight of Emekittycon.

The two of them emerged from a bend in the hallway and gasped. Gemstone burst out crying, and the three of them hugged Emekittycon. “We thought you were gone!” Squeaky cried.

“Me too,” Emekittycon said happily, “but I found you guys again!”

“You guys, we have to show you something we found!” Gemstone said.

Heroes, Emekittycon, and Mahriel followed the three AEs through a passageway and up a flight of stairs, and out into an unbelievably bright place.

Heroes blinked. They were standing on a sunny grass lawn stretching out for miles, and a bright rainbow arched into the sky, the end of it, buried in the grass.

“Squeaky tested it, we can go over it! Gemstone was scared of being too high up though, so we didn’t go!” Kitty said.

“No reason to be scared Gemstone, it’s a rainbow! Who’s ever heard of falling off a rainbow? We should climb it!” Emekittycon said.

“Agreed! I wanna find a pot of gold!” Mahriel said.

Heroesofolympus was already running up the light, springy surface of the rainbow.

The six of them ran up the rainbow for a bit, and finally, they arrived at the vertex, where the rainbow started to slope down. Gemstone hesitantly put a foot on the rainbow, but Emekittycon lifted her up. “We’re supposed to slide down!” Heroesofolympus said.

They slid down, and Heroesofolympus tumbled down onto a similarly grassy lawn.

“Woah . . .” Mahriel gasped.

Right in front of them was a black cauldron full of glittering gold coins.

“Can we take it?” Heroesofolympus asked.

“Nobody here, and besides, haven’t you read the stories? Leprechaun gold disappears, so it won’t hurt if we take it anyway,” Emekittycon shrugged.

Kitty took the lead, stuffing the giant cauldron into her space-compressing backpack.

Heroesofolympus shielded her eyes from the harsh sunlight, and squinted out into the distance. There was a large white house that she had originally thought was a cloud, but she could now see it, along with a forest.

“Maybe we should go to the house?” Heroes pointed out.

Everyone agreed, and they headed to the white house.

Inside it was mildly bright and cool. Squeaky found a trophy case which was exceptionally large, and suggested they put the crystal skull and pot of gold in it, so they wouldn’t get stolen. Heroesofolympus plopped the skull inside without a second thought, and so did Kitty.

“Why don’t we just chill here. I think we all deserve a break,” Mahriel said.

Heroes nodded, and lay down on the couch, closing her eyes and falling asleep almost instantly.