The Flames of Hope Ch 1

Chapter 1~Cyclopes in the Garden
“Hurry up you guys! Man, demigods are so slow” called John the satyr from above us on the cliff face. I hadn’t planned on spending my summer traveling around America searching high and low for a magical link that could hopefully stop the fallen god Leiomenos. Last winter, Melinoe and Prometheus and switch the last link of a chain that could trap Leiomenos forever with a fake and no clue as to where the real one was. Thankfully, the link was made of very powerful nature magic as the missing link was made by Demeter, so every satyr the camp had to offer was searching for any signs of natural energy, much like how the satyrs had searched for Pan, who had faded some years ago. I had been sent to Colorado to see if I could find it in the Garden of the Gods, but with so many monsters around I had to climb up the side of a cliff with my satyr guide showing me the best way up.

“Sorry I’m not half mountain goat!” I yelled up to him as I placed my hand in another spot that allowed me to pull myself up a few more feet. It was a slow climb, but it was better than trying to fight an army of monsters.

“You’re forgiven,” John said as he jumped up a few more feet. “Just hurry it up you three.”

“You know, sometimes satyrs can be really annoying,” Malcolm said to me from a few feet over. He had come with me along with me on my mission along with a child of Hephaestus named Mike Geres. As soon as he found out we were climbing a mountain, he turned almost completely pale and said he would be our look out on the ground. I didn’t understand what he was so scared about until I remembered the old story of how his father was tossed off Mount Olympus by Hera, so we let him keep his feet on the ground. We reached the top and poked our heads over the side of the cliff into the garden. In the middle of the garden was a burned building, a workshop that wasn’t destroyed when the labyrinth was destroyed, but that was before I ever joined the camp or even knew I was a demigod.

Around the perimeter were several Northern cyclopes and a Laistrygonian Giant who was dressed in armor and was most likely their leader.

“You!” he yelled as he pointed his large hand in our direction and all three of us ducked. John started shaking his goat legs as Malcolm and I held the air in our lungs. “You there, cyclops! Bring me food!”

We heard the cyplops jump to his feet as he ran somewhere, but we were just happy we weren’t spotted. The large cyclops’ steps shook the ground as he ran and the rock John was standing on broke. He let out a quick yell, but I grabbed his hand and Malcolm covered his mouth, but it was already too late.

“I thought I heard someone just now, yet none of my troops have made a sound. That can only mean we have uninvited quests,” he said. I looked over the rocks into the garden and saw his club raised in the air. He smashed it against the ground a shock wave of earth came at us like a torpedo in the ground.

“Move!” I yelled and we all scrambled over the ridge and into the garden. A moment later the ledge we had been standing on completely shattered and rocks went falling down the edge of the cliff. I got to my feet and pulled at the pendant around my neck and a second later I had Road Maker in my hands. Malcolm pulled out his bow and notched an arrow while John said he would see us later before jumping down the cliff.

“Did I already mention how annoying satyrs can be?” Malcolm said in an annoyed tone. I wanted to argue, but the giant signaled for his cyclops army to attack. As one charged at me, I hit his knee with my sledge hammer and watched as he fell to the ground. He had tears well up in his eyes and I almost felt bad when I hit him again, turning him to dust.

“Come on, we can hold up in the workshop,” I called to Malcolm who had just sent an arrow flying right into the eye of an advancing monster. By now the giant had called up the monsters that had been guarding the path up the mountain and before too long, we would be overrun. The workshop could at least have some useful tools inside and possibly the chain link we had come for. I cleared a path by smashing my way through the small army while Malcolm launched arrows at the monsters closing in behind us. We made it to the workshop and jumped through one of the broken windows.

“They’ll take this time to regroup,” Malcolm said. “I’ll go make some more arrows, you look around.”

I nodded and started walking around the burned building. I tables had half-burned blueprints and small damaged inventions. There was a small windup toy with a melted face. I winded it up and put it back on the table. It walked across the table top before bumping into a burned piece of wood. I thought that was it, but the toy opened up and a small buzz-saw chopped the wood into pieces.

“Swift, over here!” Malcolm called from the other side of the room. I ran over and instantly knew why he had called me over. He had found the link, but hundreds more. He had been using his abilities to turn old bits of scrap metal into arrows when he found a large container of chain links, all of them unconnected and a greenish color like Demeter’s link, but that could have been from patination. “This could take forever and we don’t even know which one is the real one.”

“Well, the link is made with strong magic, stronger than your ability to make arrows hopefully. Find a link you can’t transform,” I told him, but he looked at me in disbelief. As if trying to transform hundreds of metal links into arrows was impossible. I almost laughed at his face, but a section of the workshop collapsed and cyclopes could be heard entering through the holes in the walls. “You might want to get started,” I told him as I gripped my hammer. He didn’t waste any time and started getting to working, pulling out links several at a time and started turning them into arrows.

I started walking toward the sound of monster, snaking behind tables and counting to see how many were there. Unfortunately, about 10 cyclopes had entered the room and I knew I couldn’t take them all down. I looked around for something I could use and saw a box under one of the tables. I opened it to find an entire army of those little windup toys from earlier. I instantly got to work and let them walk across the floor toward the group.

“What is this?” one of them said. “They plan on destroying us with toys? Find them!” the lead cyclops said before kicking one of the toys away. All of a sudden, about thirty windup toys opened at once and they shot their buzz-saws into the air, fitting a few cyclopes and actually causing two that were in the front to get turned to dust. I used the confusion to rush in and destroyed two or three more with a few hits from my hammer before jumping behind another table. However, this idea didn’t last long as they started smashing tables giving me little room to move around. One of them came over to the table I was hiding behind, but before he could destroy it, I smacked him in the eye and turned him to dust with another hit over the head. This all had the unfortunate effect of letting every monster in the place know where I was.

“How are things going over there?” I called to Malcolm as I fought off the cyclopes who were pushing me back. He glanced behind me and he was still making arrows.

“I’m about half way done, but I need more time trying to find it,” he said, sounding somewhat tired and I couldn’t blame him. He was pushing himself as a mountain of arrows was next to him. I needed to stall so I gripped my hammer and the head burst into flames. I smashed it into the ground and a small wave of fire spread out. I thought I had given myself a few minutes at least until one walked right through the flames.

“Cyclopes are immune to fire demigod, better luck next time,” he said as he reached for me. I went to defend myself, but my hammer was knocked out of my hand by the monsters club. He picked me up and started squeezing me in a bear hug. I thought I was being crushed between two trucks when an arrow hit his hand and he dropped me.

“Found it,” Malcolm said, holding a green link in his hand and put it in his pocket. He then placed about five arrows in his bow at once and launched them at once, hitting every monster in their eye. I followed up by grabbing my hammer off the floor and destroying two while Malcolm just kept firing arrows until they were all gone.

“You couldn’t of found it before I was almost crushed, could you?” I asked him, but he just smacked my back and laughed, which kind of hurt. “So how do we get down the mountain?” I asked him.

“I found something else when I was looking around earlier, just follow me,” he said as we walked toward another section of the workshop. I wondered what he had found and how anything in this burned down place could help. However, once I saw it, a smile crossed my face.

Author's Note
Chapter One is done. Horray!

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive