Blessings from Khaos

|Did I Mention I'm In Love With You?|

They sailed into some kind of lake cavern thing that was actually very beautiful if she was being honest.

And there were a plethora of crystals emblemed into the walls and her hands twitched with the need to grab ahold of some. Crystals directly from the source were better repertoires for holding mageia and similar to her enchanted knives, she could cast certain spells within. That'd be like bath bombs except with explosions or smoke or even food. She probably even trapped a snowstorm in there and go globetrotting in Norway and have them believe Ragnarǫk was on its way.

The boat came to a stop and the three of them shared looks before climbing down. They waited for Magnus to do his boat-whispering thing and watched as the ship folded into itself. She immediately drifted over to the crystals, digging into the earth with her hands and a few spells to remove them. She had a thought that she could make her Mother a pretty necklace and ring with the help of Tyson of course.

"Look," Medea said. Lea turned to see a tunnel. "Does this not give off the same vibe as the labyrinth?"

It did, but Lea really didn't want to go back in that maze.

Lea shared a look with Magnus who shrugged. Of course, he didn't care much. He just wanted to return to his family. Clapping her hands to clear off the dust, she raised one of her new crystals in her hand. She charged it, focusing on Percy's energy and the tracking spell that was finally working again.

(She hoped she could find a better one in Lady Eurybiê's books because she was literally getting static at one point.)

Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots. But smack dab in the middle, Lea could see bronze doors. They were about ten feet tall, emblazoned with a pair of crossed swords. From behind them came a muffled roar, like from a crowd.

The three of them shared looks before they walked out into the floor of an arena. Lea blinked at the light, eyes moving around it in one quick swoop. It was just about as large as the underground fighting ring that she liked to watch before Hermes started paying her to not go. It was actually a bit too familiar for her comfort if you replaced all the ugly monsters and skulls and a bunch of other disgusting things with actual mortals and honestly, probably a lot of illegal things that no pre-teen had any business being around.

(Alright, so maybe Usnavi and Benny and Hermes and Vanessa had a point that the rings were not somewhere she should be at.)

The dirt floor was circular, just big enough that you could drive a car around the rim if you pulled it really tight. The first tier of seats was twelve feet above the arena floor. Plain stone benches wrapped all the way around, and every seat was full. There were giants, dracaenae, demigods, telekhines, and stranger things: bat-winged demons and creatures that seemed half human and half you name it—bird, reptile, insect, mammal. But the creepiest things were the skulls. The arena was full of them. They ringed the edge of the railing. Three-foot-high piles of them decorated the steps between the benches. They grinned from pikes at the back of the stands and hung on chains from the ceiling like horrible chandeliers. Some of them looked very old—nothing but bleached-white bone. Others looked a lot fresher.

She wondered if she should take some. Alabaster liked using bones in his spells and potions, but Lea had never been fond of it. There was no way in hell was she about to be digging around corpses.

But what really got to her though after just leaving a place that felt like home; in the sense that it gave her the same comforting feeling of their apartment, the cabin at camp, and even the dorm she shared with Drew... it was the green banner with trident of Poseidon in the center.