Among others, Mount Delhi was an unbelievably tall hill that almost resembled a mountain. The place was a solicit area, almost grazing the mist barriers of the academy. At its peak, a cabin stood in the middle of nowhere, planked with rusty, old wood.
Apollo would fancy calling it a restricted area, but so long there wasn't an active sign explaining how restricted it was, then it didn't matter to Victor.
He'd found himself often coming all the way up here, grazing butt to a bench as he conversed with the oracle— or at least, he tried.
The oracle of Delphi had never once spoken to him, let alone whisper a prophecy to him. Usually, she stood like a petrified mummy in an Egyptian styled coffin while Victor narrated his experiences, pretending she had no consciousness.
But it did. Occasionally, she would wake up and hike all the way down to the stream at the hill's foot. The students she encountered at the stream had been the supposed victims of horror. They explained how devilish her purplish eyes glowed whenever she was awake.
Although it was one of his life-long dreams, Victor had never once seen the oracle awake. Other than that, this place was his safe haven, somewhere he had constantly returned back to for reasons even unknown to him.
Maybe it was because the cabin looked like a typical western horror setting, or maybe he just liked going against the rules.
"Frustrating, isn't it?" Victor started, resting his head against the cabin's window shade. "I'm sure I awakened my bloodline, and yet that asshole power chamber acts like it's broken."
He twitched his eyeballs and sighed. "And now, I'm stuck in this dreadful school for a month." He looked over at the coffin where the oracle had been crested. "I guess this is what it feels like huh? Being stuck."
". . ."
Nothing. If a cricket would suffice, then its chirpings had been his reply.
"That night on Mount Etna, I had this huge cut in my chest." Victor continued, feeling his hands around his chest. "The pain was so real that it still burns whenever I remember it. And yet, I don't have a wound to show for it. Not even a scar."
He paused, and a new thought dropped into his mind. "That girl. . .who the hell is she?"
And why did she steal my first kiss? Victor brought his fingers to his lips and pinched it softly. Of all things, he'd expected his first kiss to be grand, magical, overwhelming.
It had been all that— except in a bad way instead. The kiss had caused him to magically spiral through to a dark throneroom that was overwhelmed with scorching heat. For a second, he had assumed that he was already dead.
And in the next, he was revived.
"I'll bet you'd know something about that." He raised his head and looked questioningly at the mummy, awaiting an answer.
But he should've known better. The oracle had always been silent at him from the very beginning. It was quite certain that that wasn't bound to change, even if he'd gotten a system.
"Well. . .? Damn you too." He sighed heavily and was going to leave when he heard a slight crunch.
And calmed breathing.
Behind the oracle's coffin, he could hear a slowed footstep against the floorboard. He looked, but the oracle still stood frozen shut, her arms wrapped around her bare, bandaged body.
Victor arched an eyebrow surreptitiously. He crept slowly towards the coffin, stiffing his arms out in a defensive manner. When he reached, something hurtled out from behind it and kicked him in his gut.
Victor groaned as he skidded through on the floor. His assailant was a fiery headed demon with one bronze foot and the other of a donkey's.
An empousa.
The monster charged at him, almost slamming her shiny foot into his skull. However, Victor rolled to the side, and it broke through the floorboard instead.
He grabbed her donkey leg and yanked it with force. The latter was her spiralling to the ground and crashing with a resounded thud. Victor didn't hesitate. Didn't waste a second. He pounced on her, locking her arms to her backbone.
"Who are you!?" He demanded.
But that wasn't the supposed question, was it? The academy was heavily shielded by the Mist, which protected it from humans and monsters. But why was this one here?
"Who's your contact?"
The empousa groaned, struggling to break free from Victor's trap. If only she'd a ten-year solo monster hunting experience, then she could have pulled that off.
"Speak!" Victor forced, spraining her elbow to inflict more pain.
"Filthy, unclean children of the gods!" The monster's voice was a disgusted screech. "Get off of me!"
"Speak for yourself, donkey legs." Victor tightened his lock around her arms. "I ask again, who do you work for?"
The monster didn't answer. Victor crouched, spotting a tiny scroll tucked into her sleeve. He reached his fingers and pulled it out, and just when he was going to open it,
"For the fellowship!!!"
Suddenly, she breathed—apparently her last— and a cloud of white gas protruded from her mouth. The Dying Breath, Victor recognized. It was a seed that contained a gas so powerful that when it was broken, it could kill the entire audience in a room.
Victor's survival instincts yelled, and he threw a hand over his mouth and nose, protecting himself from the gas. He scampered through the fog, and when he reached the door, he kicked it open and jumped out.
He landed, shoulder on against the wet grime. He huffed through the icy air, his eyes widened at the starless sky above him. What was that about?
Suicide?
When he clenched a fist, the scrolled in his hands fondled. He pitched it over his face and slid it open. On it was the sketch of a blueprint. It looked like an architectural plan for a tunnel network, but it was incomplete.
No, not incomplete. Ripped off. The title head had read, "THE LABYRINTH OF. . ." The rest of the sentence had disappeared with the ripped off piece.
Victor's head thumped with questions— many unanswerable. Why did the empousa have this scroll? Apparently, she was working for a major assailant. The fellowship? Was that a new cult that was scheming against the academy?
What did they want with the map of a labyrinth?
Except that labyrinths trailed underground to even defended spaces, were they supposedly trying to invade the academy?
Oh no.
"I need to alert Apollo."
.
.
.
Author's Note; Questions? Ask me.