Finally the doors opened and they two drivers suddenly stared at two carnivores growling at them, a zebra ready to trample them to death and a falcon that seemed highly interested in their eyeballs.
To their luck, none of that happend but they did get thrown around by an angry lion for a bit. Not to forget that one of them got kicked in the stomach by the zebra.
I could hear his ribs breaking even from this distance.
The three of us escaped the transporter and headed into the city, moving quickly through different narrow allys, past some homeless. Grover was the one leading us and the further we got the more I noticed a certain visual discrepancy. Everytime Grover had to make a decision, it looked like there were suddenly just as many versions of him as there were options. At first I was confused about it but chalked it up to me having been adopted by the fates, but then I got curious. I took a look into the direction a different version had taken and got a glimpse of where that would have led us. The skies were dark in that direction, almost as if all the stars had died. Blood and broken bones filled and flooded the streets while rats and strays were hiding and running through abandoned cities.
I didn't have time to investigate closely but this vision was enough for me to guess that something had happend. That somehow, we had failed our quest.
We continued to follow Grover who was leading us, almost like he was guided by an invisible string, continuously closer to the lotus casino. During that time I thought about how to approach the place.
Should I go in treating everyone and everything as hostile? Or should I keep to myself and eliminate any threats once they showed themselves.
To be honest, I just wanted to burn the entire place down, but first of all, Nico and Bianca were still inside and had to stay there for about another year. Second of all, even from this distance I could smell several demigods, some obviously Greek, others Roman and Egyptian. And those were just the scents I recognized. In total there were about a hundred if not more demigods trapped.
Then there was something I caught wind of, a man we walked by, smelled exactly like the place I had been trapped inside of during my recent nightmare. In that moment I decided that I would allow the casino to remain, but every lotus eater inside would definitely be replaced, violently if I must. No actually, it was the preferred way.
On that point I had made the decision to give both Grover and Annabeth a warning, put on my battle mask in its invisible mode (to filter out the gas and prevent myself from being chloroformed), while I would also keep an eye out for both of them.
This of course alarmed both of them and but neither Grover nor Annabeth actually questioned me. I understood why Grover didn't question me, since I had already told him of our next destination but Annabeth? I had expected her to ask atleast one question but instead she just nodded along.
Finally the casino appeared in front of us. Shining LED signs, music and a fog of dry ice rolling out of the entrance. The valet watched us closely from the moment we had entered his field of vision. As we passed him, I cought the smell of chloroform. I felt rage and hatred boil within my blood, suddenly I was aware of everything the valet did. I heard his breath, heartbeat and even the blood running through his veins and I could barley keep myself from stopping all three of them. Still I used the connection I had to death, my spirit domain, to put a nice little curse on him. What type? You will find out soon enough.
Finally we entered the building and as soon as we did, a server came to us and handed us the famous black casino cards. This one smelled like chloroform as well and I started to suspect that the place I was trapped in during my nightmare may be a "side hustle" of the lotus eaters.
I walked around, trying to keep an eye on my companions but I immediately lost sight of them in the crowd. Good thing my nose was good enough that I could sniff them out even here. I wandered around a bit, played a few rounds of different gambling games and won a horrific amount of money. During a round of poker, I met a certain Italian child that smelled a lot like the underworld and the dead. Guess finding Nico Di Angelo was easier than I thought. After he demolished me in the game, we hung around a bit playing different games and eventually I even met his sister Bianca. We talked for a few minutes, mostly about Nicos card game and other such things. Then I separate from them again. Another Lotus eater, disguised as a server, followed me even as I left the main area and walked towards my hotel room. I was cautious the entire walk and then closed the rooms door behind me before I hid in the room, out of direct eyesight. I was suspicious of the server and considering he followed me through the entire casino even to my room, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think he would try to break in as well.
I was proven right when the doorknob rattled and a key card appeared in the slit between the door. Within seconds the server was inside and he wasn't alone. Five more people, lotus eaters as well, followed him inside. They all snuck towards the bathroom, where they probably suspected me to be, not knowing that I had already snuck past them and locked them inside, with me.
You know, I haven't made a new undead Chimera in a while. Let's see what material I have accessible right now.
6 fine but likely unwilling and unknowing "human" materials.
An unending supply of Shriek Metal, you know, the one that traps, breaks and torments your soul.
Oh and look at that. Several other monster carcasses.
This is going to be fun.
Their pained screams were loud and unrelenting, filled with dispair and pain as I ripped out their limbs and organs, using magic and my blood control to keep them alive and conscious through the entire process. I drew a ritual circle, based from my grimoire, in their own blood while I placed several heads, all belonging to Greek hellhounds. I activated the ritual several times, transforming the ex-lotus eaters step by step more and more into a genuine Chimera, or more like a hydra but with hellhounds instead of reptiles. Then I added the Shriek metal, and it became grafted to their entire body. Their skin grew plates of said metal while their bones turned from white to a reddish black. Then came the final step. As much as I wanted others to recognize them and what I had done, a six headed human with a standard human body just wouldn't work.
Guess we go the cerberus route.
I added more carcasses, shed Hellfin scales, the muscle fibers of a recently deceased moose and more.
Finally there it was, a Chimera, a six headed hellhound who barely fit in the room, even as he was in his smallest possible form. A Chimera that was armored by an indestructible and corruptive metal. One that once it started moving, wouldn't stop unless told to. Six heads, fangs as long as a grown up legs, eyes that saw even in the absence of light, ones that saw even souls. Fire in its breath inextingishable and lethal hidden inside its body. And the souls?
The souls of the six men had been forced to melt together, get purged from their memories and personalities. The only thing that remained was a single soul, stronger than their original and ready to become what I want it to be.
This entire ordeal took less than half an hour. And ended with me having a Chimera of considerable might.
What can I say, even human trafficker and rapists have a use.