The Chains That Bind Ch 13

Sneaking Into a Fort of Gold
We stopped the car about a quarter mile away and activated the cloak so that the car wouldn’t be seen as we got close as long as the security wasn’t that observant. Erika pulled out a few cloaks from the trunk of the car and we draped them around ourselves. They weren’t perfect camouflage like the mirror armor Hephaestus campers used during capture the flag, but the material was sown by the Athena campers and did the job of hiding us well enough. I pulled out the instructions and followed the path described in the directions.

“Where are we going,” whispered Erika from behind me. “And where did you get that note from? It isn’t like you could possibly have a detailed list of instructions on how to break into the most heavily guarded fort in America.”

“Sure he does. He got some help from some people that don’t want to see this thing wake up,” answered Kat. I wondered how she knew about my meeting but this wasn’t the first time she looked in on my dreams.

Before long we reached a large fence that had barbed wire at the top and I could hear the electric hum of the fence. I glanced back at the paper for what to do.

Walk ten steps to your right and pull up the entrance 

I did as it said and sure enough, an old manhole cover almost completely covered in moss was in the ground. I pulled at it as hard as I could and it started to budge just enough for me to move it to the side to reveal a dark passage.

“We might need these,” said Erika as she pulled out a familiar set of seeds. They grew and wrapped around our arms and the small flowers began to glow with enough light for us to see.

“This brings back memories,” I said remembering my time in the Underworld, a time I don’t normally look back on with fondness. We climbed down one at a time as the tunnel let us out into what must have been an old secret entrance forgotten about over time. The hallway was narrow with cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and the railing covered in dust. It looked like no one had been down here in decades.

“This way,” I called to them as I lifted my arm over my head a bit to give me a better view of the dark hall.

Follow the path until you reach a ladder labeled ‘N-11’

After about 10 minutes of walking I found what we were looking for. I started to climb and was about to open a hatch at the top when I felt like I had forgotten something.

Count to seven

I did and when I lifted the hatch, I looked around to see a security had just walked past the hatch. If I had opened the hatch when I was planning to, the entire army would have been after us. That sure was lucky.

Not luck, forethought

As I pulled up Erika and Kat, we found ourselves in a room filled with bricks of gold. Even one of these bricks would make me rich but as soon as I touched one, I’m sure some kind of alarm would sound or something. We followed the directions on the paper exactly, ducking when it said to and hiding from guards who would just miss us as we hid around a corner. We eventually made it to a small door made of solid gold. I wondered how had none of the guards ever noticed this before but I thought maybe the mist made the door appear as part of the wall or the entrance to the janitor’s closet.

''I cannot see past this part for the magic in this area is blocking my sight. The rest is up to you.''

“Who wants to go first,” I asked looking at my two friends who just looked back at me with straight faces, “Right.”

I turned the doorknob and entered a room made of gold. There were huge pillars from roof to ceiling and large golden statues lining the walls. The only thing in the room not made of gold was a marble fountain on the other end of the room.

“There it is,” called Erika as she pointed toward the fountain. Sure enough, the ring was being held in the air by the water propelled by the fountain. However, as soon as I stepped on the solid gold floor, a golden man appeared in the center of the room.

“Welcome demigods to the lair of King Midas!”

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive  01:01, June 16, 2011 (UTC)