Roll DC: 60 Result 84 – Pass!
Her nails roam along the side of your face, drawing a line from your jaw to your temple. Out of the corner of your eye you see the knife left sitting on the bench, the one that she'd been using.
You remember that overwhelming urge to 'run' that you'd told your father about at the hospital. The urge to do something.
You hear her scream before you realise you've moved.
Her nose is bent out of shape, and a knife. No the knife is sticking out of her shoulder.
You're gripping the handle.
When did you turn around?
There's a lot to take in, and you only have moments to do so. It's not blood that pours out of her wounds. It's dust. It pours down her face and her shoulder, dissipating into the air before it even hits the ground. As you watch it fall the world blurs and changes focus once again. In place of her legs there is now a tail, running down from her waist. Silvery, blue scales that almost glisten under the kitchen lighting. You're so focused on everything you hadn't seen before that you almost don't see her swing at you.
Claws rake towards your midsection. You don't have time to dodge, instead you take a deep breath and watch as her hand shears through the air where your stomach had been just seconds earlier. You take another step back and kick the cooler off the fridge, the plastic breaking with a crunch. You then lurch to the side, trying to put more room between the two of you. Finding yourself on the opposite end of the kitchen bench.
She runs her hand up to her nose, fingers tracing the new shape it's taken before she holds it under the pouring dust watching it run between her fingers. "I'm going to rip you in half for that." She says, as she looks at the knife sticking out of her shoulder. She grabs the hand of the knife and yanks it out of her shoulder, staring at it for a few seconds, before she snorts and throws it behind her far away from you.
On a some level, you'd succeeded. You weren't already being nicely broiled in her stew or whatever she was making. Now though, you'd lost your weapon, pissed her off even more and the threat she was making to split you in half, was probably something she could do if she got in arms reach.
Luckily, there's a whole kitchen bench between the two of you, and you have a chance to breathe, to try and avoid her for as long as possible.
Except, you forget one very important detail as she's suddenly slithering over the counter.
She doesn't have legs.
She darts towards you, closing the gap and just like before, when you needed to move, you move.
You're not even thinking. Your body is just moving as if it's been ready for this it's whole life. All you have are instincts you didn't know existed.
And with those instinct you take one of the pots that's on the bench and you throw it straight at her.
It hits her head with a satisfying gong, obscuring her vision for a moment and you duck as she sails past you crashing into the stove and her screams nearly shatter your eardrums.
All four corners of the stove were aflame, and all you can do is turn around and watch as her tail is scorched on all sides, embers catching fire on different parts. Whatever she'd been preparing earlier is now all over her, molten to the touch and she thrashes around, a poor imitation of the stop, drop and roll you'd had drilled into you during all those years of fire safety as she tries to get everything that burns off of her. In doing so, her tail catches you and you feel your air leave your lungs as you get launched.
You feel yourself pass through something solid. You then feel yourself crashing to the carpet, rolling with the impact and you idly wonder if this is what it's like to be hit by a truck. Dust swirls around you as you force yourself to your feet. You look around and immediately know where you are. Your computer sitting in the corner, your bed behind you. She's sent you crashing through the wall into your own room, and judging by the pain rolling through your shoulders and upper back, it's something you're going to remember for a while.
You roll over and slowly rise to your feet.
She lunges at you with her claws again, you duck underneath, kicking out at her still smouldering tail. She hisses in pain but bears through it. Closer and closer she slithers towards you and you're running out of space to move. Any exit is behind her and to get there you need to get in arms reach. Instead of swiping this time she punches you, and you go to block it with your arms but the force behind her blows almost snaps it in half. She unleashes a flurry of blows, forcing you further back.
And then there's nowhere left to go.
You're trapped and she realises this with a wicked smile.
"Got you."
Her hands wrap around your throat, lift you up and then they begin to squeeze.
Your first action is to pry her hands loose from your neck but her hand is like a vice. You try to kick out, but she's taller than you and your legs only hit air. All your left with is clawing at her arm desperately, but she ignores you like you're little more than a fly.
And all that movement is driving the air out of your lungs and there's no way to get it back in. Soon your vision starts to wobble, dark spots begin to replace colour, your lungs feel like they're about to burst but there's nothing you can do.
This is it...
"Hey, kid!"
Lamia's grip slackens for a moment and you start gasping for air. Each second filling your lungs with the most precious of resources before Lamia realises her mistake and your supply is cut off once more. The both of you turn and look behind you, there's a girl, a couple of years older than you.
Is that a sword in her hand?
"Another one for the dinner table." Lamia says, licking her lips. Drool runs out of the corner of her mouth as she sizes up what you are praying to any god that exists is your would-be-rescuer. "You're even more delicious than he is."
"Unfortunately, I'm off the menu." The girl tells her, as she looks past the monster and locks eyes with you. She gives you a nod which she probably hoped was reassuring but does nothing for you while you can't breathe.
As she finishes her sentence a discordant melody begins to echo through the house. Uneven and torturous, its speed quickens and quickens, the floorboards begin to shudder and sway. They tear through the carpet and begin to twist and turn, lengthening into vines which crawl step by step along the floor as they begin to make their way towards Lamia, crawling up her legs and wrenching you out of her grip as they leave her immobilised, fighting and failing against their strength.
You drop to the ground, managing to land on your feet as you massage your neck and breathe. Spots in your vision slowly start to fade away and you can see properly again. Next to the girl a man saunters into frame, wielding a flute which he plays with a single-minded purpose. As he begins to stare at the demon in front of you the melody shifts and thorns sprout from the vines, digging into the monsters' flesh.
More dust than before begins to pour from the monsters flesh. She tries to wrench her hands free but the vines hold strong. She tries to bite at them, only for the vines to wrap around her mouth.
She cannot escape, and what was once confidence is now anger and fear?
"Catch." the girl calls out and she throws what looks like a pair of keys at you.
They flow through the air in slow motion. Lamia, too busy trying to tear herself free can't stop you.
You reach through the air, and grab the keys, on them a button.
You press it and it shudders, before taking on a new form entirely.
You're holding a spear, the end of it now lodging in the chest of the monster in front of you as it explodes outwards.
The Lamia stares at you, then at the spear in her chest.
She blinks.
And then she crumbles into dust.
"Well… That was unceremonious." The girl says as she walks over to you.
"It was an absolute mess is what it was." The boy who'd been playing the flute says.
"But hey," she says as she carefully takes the spear out of your hands and presses the button you did earlier, reversing it back to the keys it was before. "How does it feel to kill your first monster?"
You don't really know what to say, but when you open your mouth anyways, all that comes out is a feeble croak.
"Let's deal with that first." The boy says.
Ten minutes later you're sat down in the living room. The boy, Birch as you now know has spent it rearranging the house and the mess that's been made. The vines have now turned back into floorboards, the carpet vaguely placed back over the top but as he tells you he's only good with nature, and getting anything that isn't a plant to work for him is difficult at the best of times.
"Think of it this way." He'd said to your still mute self. "At least your dad needs a new carpet, and not a new son."
The girl came in a few moments later, carrying two glasses and a can of coke. One of the glasses is empty and the other contains a golden liquid, that seems to almost be warming you up from over a foot away.
"This should help out." She tells you as she slides the glass over and opens up the coke can, pouring it into the remaining one. She then throws the can over to Birch who promptly starts to chew into it like an enthusiastic toddler.
You blink rapidly as you take that in before you pick up the glass the girl gave you. Swirling it around… Before you shrug and take a sip.
It feels warm to the touch, and it feels even hotter going down, seeping into your body and rendering everything blissful in moments. Your back, a constant ache since the fight soothes until you can almost feel nothing. You feel a crick in your neck as the marks you'd felt around it dissipate and something in there rearranges itself until it's in proper order. Any cut or scrape you've collected itches for a second, before new skin almost instantly applies itself. Removing any scrape of the fight you just had.
You know how it's always said that medicine tastes bad? Well this, this is the greatest medicine you've ever known and it's tastes just like the banana thickshakes you and your dad would order at the burger store a couple of blocks over when you felt lazy on Saturday nights.
You can't get enough, and luckily neither of them try to stop you as you drain the glass dry.
"Amazing, isn't it?" The girl says when you're done.
"It's Nectar," Birch tells you between mouthfuls of steel. "Can't drink too much of it or you'll burn from the inside out, but a little bit of a top up here and there and you'll feel invincible."
"Burn?" You ask, coughing slightly as you get the word out.
"Yeah, literally." The girls tells you. "Ambrosia and Nectar, great for us, until you have too much and they'll be picking your ashes up off the floor."
"Us?"
The girl looks at Birch, who shrugs in response, an impressive feat considering he doesn't stop chewing while he does it.
"...Demigods." She tells you.
Your first instinct is shock, and then you laugh, quick and uneasy. "What? You mean like Achilles?"
"Don't know why you're surprised." Birch says and he gestures back to the rest of the house. "Did you not just almost get murdered by a half-woman, half-snake lady?"
"I mean, monsters yeah." You say. "Bigfoot, Aliens, I've never really believed in that stuff but between the bull this morning-"
"A bull?" The girl cuts in, face a shade paler than before.
"Yeah, giant, smoking, made out of metal. Drove me and my friends off the road."
The two of them stare at each other, a whole conversation playing out silently before Birch stands up.
"We've got to get him to Camp Half-Blood now, Jade."
"Two monsters in a day, should he even be attracting that many?"
Birch gets up right in your face, and hits you with an apologetic grimace before he starts sniffing you.
"What the hell, man." You say, backing up about three steps.
"Play a lot of sport? Keep fit?" He asks you.
You nod slowly, still glaring at him for being weird.
"That'd be it then," Birch tells Jade. "From his scent one of us should have picked him up about a year ago, and he'd only be getting more appetising to anything that comes across him."
"How'd you miss him?" Jade asks. "Washington is only a couple of hours away and you've been bringing in kids all over the country."
Birch shrugs. "Could be an oversight, maybe his dad masks his scent well. I'll have to talk to the others when we get back to Camp and see how often we've been out here."
"We? Scents?" You ask, looking between the two of them like they're speaking an entirely different language. "I've got about a dozen questions."
"Monsters can smell us." Jade explains. "Because we're half-God, they're attracted to us, we're their dinner. The Bull and Lamia? They're just the start. Stay and more are going to show up, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week but now one's found you, they're going to keep coming."
"Camp Half-Blood is a training centre." Birch continues. "You come with us and we'll train you so you can stay alive, how to fight off monsters, how to hunt them even if you end up wanting to go down that line of work."
"Your dad was planning to send you here when he got back from his trip." Jade tells you. "If you'd actually been attacked by something."
"Seeing as you've been attacked by two, we're inclined to get you out of Washington right now." Birch finishes.
There's a lot to unpack there, but it's the last sentence from Jade that hits you."He was going to send me away?" You ask, ashamed of how small your voice feels.
You look over to the side of the room, photos of you and your father decorating the table. You immediately look anywhere else, finding yourself staring at the ground until you find a hand on your shoulder. "Look, there's not much he can do for you kid." Birch replies. "Don't hold it against him. If anything, blame your mother."
"Birch!" Jade hisses, staring up at the ceiling with a hint of fear, breathing out a sigh of relief when nothing happens.
"What? It's true." The man says. "So how about this? You come with us, you get to ask any questions you want on the way because we'll have a few hours to drive and once you get settled into Camp Half-Blood we can deal with all of this safely."
At this point, the decisions already been made for you and you nod. "Let me grab a few things?"
"Sure." Jade says and you leave the two of them and walk off to your room.
What do you get? (Pick 2)
[] A Photo of you and your dad.
[] A Medal, from a competition you were at this year. Your greatest achievement (so far)
[] A journal
[] A necklace - Your dad gave it to you two years ago on your birthday.
[] A Baseball
Also, write down any questions you want to ask the characters, three most voted will be included in the story.
Questions
[] Write-In
A/N Laptop has had to go away for repairs, so wrote the last half on my phone. Hopefully it gets back soon and we can move slightly quicker next time.