LOST AT SEA | jason grace

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧. 𝑂𝑡𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐸𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑠

𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙳𝚁𝙰𝙸𝙽𝙰𝙶𝙴 pipe smelled better than Lorna imagined it would be. Maybe it was because she was drowning in toxic water earlier. After crawling about thirty feet, it opened into a wider tunnel. To their left, somewhere in the distance, Lorna heard rumbling and creaking, like a huge machine needed oiling. She had absolutely no desire to find out what was making that sound, but Percy led them towards the noise.

Several hundred feet later, they reached a turn in the tunnel. Percy held up his hand, signaling for them to wait. He peeked around the corner.

"What is it?" Piper whispered.

He gestured for them to come forward and take a look. The corridor opened into a vast room with twenty-foot ceilings and rows of support columns. The creaking and rumbling came from huge gears and pulley systems that raised and lowered sections of the floor for no apparent reason. Water flowed through open trenches (oh, great, more water), powering waterwheels that turned some of the machines. Other machines were connected to huge hamster wheels with hellhounds inside. Lorna couldn't help thinking of Mrs. O'Leary, and how much she would hate being trapped inside one of those. Suspended from the ceiling were cages of live animals—a lion, several zebras, a whole pack of hyenas, and even an eight-headed hydra. Ancient-looking bronze and leather conveyor belts trundled along with stacks of weapons and armor, sort of like the Amazons' warehouse in Seattle, except this place was obviously much older and not as well organized. 

Leo would love this, Lorna thought. 

About twenty feet inside the doorway, a life-size wooden cutout of a gladiator popped up from the floor. It clicked and whirred along a conveyor belt, got hooked on a rope, and ascended through a slot in the roof.

Jason murmured, "What the heck?"

They stepped inside. Lorna scanned the room. There were several thousand things to look at, most of them in motion, but one good aspect of being an ADHD demigod was that Lorna was comfortable with chaos. About a hundred yards away, she spotted a raised dais with two empty oversized praetor chairs. Standing between them was a bronze jar big enough to hold a person.

"Look." She pointed it out to her friends.

Piper frowned. "That's too easy."

"Of course," Percy said.

"But we have no choice," Jason said. "We've got to save Nico."

"Yeah." Lorna started across the room, picking her way around conveyor belts and moving platforms. The hellhounds in the hamster wheels paid them no attention. They were too busy running and panting, their red eyes glowing like headlights. The animals in the other cages gave them bored looks, as if to say, I'd kill you, but it would take too much energy.

Lorna tried to watch out for traps, but everything here looked like a trap. She remembered how many times she'd almost died in the labyrinth a few years ago. She really wished Hazel were here so she could help with her underground skills (and of course so she could be reunited with her brother).

They jumped over a water trench and ducked under a row of caged wolves. They had made it about halfway to the bronze jar when the ceiling opened over them. A platform lowered. 

Standing on it like an actor, with one hand raised and his head high, was the purple-haired giant Ephialtes—about twelve feet tall—but he had tried to make up for it with his loud outfit, Hawaiian shirt that even Dionysus would've found vulgar. He had a ten-foot spear strapped to his back, which wasn't a good fashion statement with the shirt. He wore bright white jeans and leather sandals on his...well, not feet, but curved snakeheads. The snakes flicked their tongues and writhed as if they didn't appreciate holding up the weight of a giant.