Chapter 16: Exploring a freezing cold ice tomb

Now you might be thinking, "Rose! You can't just enter the tomb, you're probably going to get attacked or something!" You're probably right, but we needed the first mask, so we didn't have much of a choice but to enter the tomb.

As we walked up the icy staircase, we entered into the tomb. The room gave off an extremely creepy vibe. It felt like walking into some haunted temple with the dimmed lights and absolute silence. The main room of the tomb (that rhymes!) had four pillars, each in its own corner of the room. On each pillar, there were Ancient Greek words embedded into the cement material. The walls were made out of ice and looked similar to the walls outside the tomb.

The roof of the tombs was triangle shaped, and about sixty feet tall. There were also icicles hanging off, much to my distaste, along with crystals. The room was mostly empty, our breaths seeming to echo off the walls.

"Whoa," Alexander said. "This place doesn't look like Elsa's castle."

Kai nodded slowly. "Yeah, I can see that. Anyways, where is the mask? I was kinda expecting it to be right in front of us."

I shook my head. "And why is it so quiet?" My voice echoed around the tomb.

"Yeah, that is strange. Khione should be here, unless I was wrong," Amethyst said.

"Maybe we should look around. We could find something that way," Geneva suggested. Amethyst nodded as we began scouting around the room, looking for where the mask might be.

After a while of searching in which we found nothing, the ceiling suddenly collapsed, icicles and crystals falling down like rain and shattering on the floor.

Dropping down from the hole in the ceiling was a woman with lush black hair, chocolate brown eyes, and snow white skin. She was wearing a long, silky white dress and a silver crown on top of her hair.

"Wow, she's pretty!" Alexander exclaimed, looking at the woman in awe.

I stared at the woman in disbelief. "Who is that?"

"Khione," Amethyst answered, taking out her bow. We quickly took out our weapons as Khione strutted towards us, smiling coldly.

"Correct," Khione answered. "I am the great Khione, goddess of the snow and queen of the winter!"

Khione raised her hands in an upward motion, ice forming on her palms. "I know why you're here, mortals. You will not reach the mask!"

She blasted a wave of ice at us, Kai intercepting the shot by shooting a wave of flames at her. The two elements cancelled one another out, both waves dissipating.

Khione looked at him in disgust. "A pyrokinetic? You're pathetic."

Kai furrowed his eyebrows. "Pathetic just cancelled your ice blast, Elsa."

I cringed. Kai had just triggered Khione. Her face scrunched up in anger and her eyes glowered in hatred.

Before I could even blink, Khione thrusted her hands in an outward motion, sending out a wave of ice that knocked us all down. Her blast of ice had taken my breath away, and penetrated through the heavy layers of thermal clothing I was wearing, leaving permafrost coating everywhere. My skin froze on contact, and I felt quite ill as my body temperature was starting to drop.

Kai got up quickest out of all of us, not affected by the blast. He lit up his sword and dashed at the goddess, with his flames enveloping the rest of his body as well. He tackled her with his blazing body, sending her into the back wall. He sped at her again, his sword lifted and ready to strike, but she shot a powerful ray of ice at him, throwing him backwards.

While she was distracted, Arthur and I slowly got up. As the others were getting to their feet, Arthur groaned, "We're not going to be able to overpower her in her domain. We need to come up with a plan."

"I think I have an idea," Amethyst said as she recovered from the blast. "We can't kill Khione because she's a god but we can try to distract her so that one of us can get the mask."

"She's not stupid, though," Geneva said. "She'll notice if one of us is gone."

I quickly got an idea. "I'll go search for the mask."

Geneva stared at me, confused. "But won't she notice that?"

"Maybe, but I've got an idea," I said.

But before I could elaborate, Khione got herself off the wall. "Making a plan, I see? Nothing can fool me, you incompetent mortals!"

Kai reached for his sword. "Watch me."

We all jumped back into battle, our weapons up. Khione conjured up ice in her hands, ready to battle us. This is where my idea kicked in.

I joined the battle like everybody else, but after a couple of seconds, I created a clone of myself, remembering what Arthur's mom had taught me. My clone quickly jumped into battle, as if I were there the entire time.

Meanwhile, I sneaked away from the group and began searching for the mask, checking around the tomb. After thirty seconds of checking for a passageway of some sort, I touched the wall and realized how soft it was compared to the rest of the hard, rocky wall.

I blasted a fire spell at the spot, busting a hole in the wall big enough for me to fit in. Thankfully, Khione didn't hear the sound of the fire breaking the wall as I walked through the hole. I found myself in a large, ice hallway with glowing crystals illuminating the cave with a dazzling light.

I slowly walked through, my knives raised warily. Whatever was in here was not going to be good.

The hallway started becoming narrower, forcing me to squeeze through the icy walls. I made it to the end of the hallway, squeezing through one last slit in the wall before entering into a large room.

It was somewhat dark, with the only source of light being a silver chandelier in the middle of the roof. The room was the size of a ballroom, with two staircases that led up to a second floor. The floor was made of ice, making it extremely slippery to walk on. On top of the staircases, six arctic wolves awaited me, their fangs bared.

I tried to keep my balance as I slid along the ice floor, trying to keep hold of my weapons. The wolves jumped down and began running at me, their balance perfect unlike mine. I shot a large fire spell at the group, which was able to slay two of them, but the rest of the four sped around it.

I plunged Merlin into the gut of one of the wolves, turning the monster to dust. The last three dashed at me at one time, forcing me to duck down. (Or fall down on my butt thanks to the slippery floor).

I turned around and then threw Marianne at the back of one of the wolves, slaying it. I then cast a time spell, slowing down the wolves enough for me to get up and retrieve Marianne. The wolves turned around, more angrier than ever. They leaped at me, their claws aimed at my face. I shot a Mist cloud at them, blinding them and making them miss their attack. I quickly threw my knives at the wolves and killed them, finishing off the entire group.

I retrieved my knives as I slowly slid toward the staircases. Similar to the walls, they were made out of ice. The both staircases were covered with a purple carpet that had a snowflake design. Thankfully, no more wolves awaited me as I climbed up to the second floor.

The second floor was more like a hallway, with narrow walls and icicles hanging from the roof. (Seriously, what is her problem?) The hallway however, wasn't as easy to navigate as a normal hallway would.

There were several fallen ice pillars in front of me, followed by stacks of debris, slanted ice crystals that made a zig-zag pattern, and a stone wall, that went up and down every second, waiting to smash me to death. At the very end of the hallway appeared to be a large room, though I couldn't see most of it since the "obstacle course" in front of me was blocking my sight.

I first climbed over one of the ice pillars, climbing over it pretty easily. The second pillar was a little bit more difficult, as it was about a foot taller than me. I used my knives to dig into the wall and climb up, eventually making it over the top.

The next challenge proved to be even harder. I struggled to climb over the debris as I kept slipping and falling to the floor. I thought about knocking it over, but I wasn't sure how I could push over a huge pile of hard stone. I levitated myself up and over the debris and dropped myself down, ready for the next obstacle.

The third obstacle thankfully didn't take as long. I limboed under a couple of sharp, slanted crystals and slid under the last one, leading me to the final challenge.

The last obstacle in my way was a big ice wall that went up and down, smashing into the floor. I obviously wasn't fast enough to run under the wall. The wall was made of hard cement rather than ice, so I couldn't melt it or slash at it with my knives. My only option was to try to slow it down and give myself enough time to go under it.

My first time spell barely slowed it down, so I didn't try to go under. My second one didn't go any better, as the wall was only slowed down by a few milliseconds. I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere by continually trying to slow it down and hoping it would give me enough time. I began counting how fast the wall would slam down into the ground and then come up.

After a minute of analyzing the pattern of the wall slamming down and coming up, I realized it came down and up in the span of two seconds, making it humanly impossible for me to slide under it. I just had to slow it down enough to be able to go under it.

I waited for the wall to go up and used a time spell. I didn't wait for it to go down this time: I just slid under, hoping I wasn't slammed by it. Thankfully, my time spell slowed it down just enough for me to slide under. Thank the gods, I had finished the obstacle course and had made it into the large room.

But my relief didn't last long. The room had four white golems blocking guarding it, with bodies made up of ice and cement, beady blue eyes, and ice staffs in their hands. The room had several ice pillars and on the walls were Greek encryptions. The ceiling had lots of icicles, and the floor was made out of cement.

I had no idea what the golems were guarding exactly, but it must've been pretty important, because the second I inched closer to them, they raised their staffs.

"Back off, mortal!" the first one exclaimed. I had no idea that ice golems could talk, so when they said that, I got kind of freaked out.

I pulled out my knives, ready to fight. This might be the hardest fight of my life, as I was extremely outnumbered, cold, and my energy had been drained from all the day's events.

The four golems pointed their golden staffs towards me as they began slowly walking towards me. Thankfully, they were pretty slow. I blasted a fire spell at the first one, hoping I could melt it somehow, but the cement armor it wore negated my spell.

I slowed down one of them with a time spell and got a few strikes in on it, but the other three golems made their way over, forcing me to retreat. I shot a Mist cloud at three of them and jumped in on the last one. If I was going to beat the golems, I needed to separate them.

I was able to dodge its slow strikes and cut off its head with my two knives, it's body slumping over. I turned towards the last three, who instinctively trudged in front of whatever they were guarding. I wasn't able to get a good look at what it was though, so I still had no idea what they were guarding.

I singled out one of them, running towards them and slashing away with my knives. The other two came in, but this time I couldn't retreat as they circled me in. I wasn't fast enough to block all of their strikes and slash at them, which led to me getting beaten down by them.

Eventually, I fell to the floor, not able to do anything as they beat me down relentlessly with their staffs. I could barely breathe and my vision began to blacken as I began to lose consciousness. The three golems beating me up reminded me of what those three bullies did to me three years ago.

Me and Marianne had gone to a local park, trying to find food, as we had gone two days without eating. We asked a group of three girls to give us food, almost begging them for just one fry. But they refused and began bullying me and Marianne, kicking me and mocking us. I felt so much anger and embarrassment in that moment. I wanted to kill them for making fun of us.

As my consciousness faded and the golems beat me down, I felt a rage that surged within me. I wasn't going to get beat down again, and I was renewed with newfound and momentous amounts of energy. I screamed as purple energy was blasted at the golems, turning them into puddles of melted ice. I slowly got up, my sides still hurting from the golems' staffs. How did I even do that? I was mesmerized by the pools left behind and in a state of shock.

In front of me, there was a small coffin encased in ice and gold. I realized that's what the golems had been guarding all along. I opened up the coffin, where a mask made of ice was laying inside.

There were gold and blue streaks on the jaw of the mask. It had slanted blue streaks for eyebrows, like it was looking at me angrily. On the forehead, an Ancient Greek line was written in large gold letters that read, "The Mask of Endurance".

I quickly grabbed the mask and stuffed it into my jacket. We had officially gotten the first mask of Olympus. Now we have to survive and escape from the wrath of an enraged ice goddess…yay.