Perseus Castellan

Chapter 47

"Again, I ask, for the twentieth time, why are we here?" Pleione asked, floating alongside the demigod.

"And again, I ignore you in favor of  walking through this mush." The said demigod replied. Percy furrowed his eyebrows when the half corporeal deity  beside him sighed in that annoying way only she could. He ignored that for the umpteenth time and continued walking through the dark tunnel.

How long had he been here again? It became hard to keep track of time when you're in a constantly changing landscape. He couldn't even tell how far he had walked, couple of miles or across an entire state?

Daedalus, that evil genius, he'd have to slap the shit out of him when he saw him.

In the meantime, he kept trudging through the rotten egg smelling tunnels of the modern and continuously growing labyrinth. The thing reeked of malice so potent it was almost poisonous. How the hell had that old maggot breathed life to this colossal structure? And why in the first place  would he even do that?

Crappy old geezer!

He sighed. He was getting worked up again, as had been the past hours or days, whichever. Having Pleione as his company definitely didn't help matters.

"How far do you reckon the  legion is from Mount Tam?"

"If we're still on schedule, then they haven't  even left yet, so very far. Let's not forget, Camp Jupiter was stationed in San Francisco to keep watch on the Titan's base "

"This is with the knowledge that no Titan has surfaced for the last five thousand years, right?"

"Probably Minerva's idea, Jupiter can't come up with something like that without blowing a blood vessel or four "

"Again, I find myself awed by the  reverence you show for the king of the gods. My awe simply knows no bounds"

"Can it with the sarcasm Pleione." He growled as he squeezed between two narrow walls. Damn he hated this place. The one place his speed was a major disadvantage. It didn't matter how far you ran or how fast you did, it was never the same, no pattern to be followed between each shift of wall.

Plus the trail he was following wasn't something he needed to rush on. Given he wasn't nature tuned in any way, he couldn't afford to mess it up. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that he was a tree for three years, he wouldn't have been able to do this at all.

But he had to hand it to Grover. That satyr had come up with one amazing deduction, and turns out it was exactly what he needed, the final piece in this long puzzle game.

With a final shift through the narrow corridor, he burst through a cavern full of all manner of flora, so thick in green he couldn't see past ten feet. Reeds, grass, ferns ,oaks and many many climbers, all of them thriving in rich healthy green shades  despite being so deep underground.

"Oh." Pleione straightened next to him " so this is what you were after."

"Yeah." Percy said. With a flick of his hand, Riptide grew to full length and he went cleaving past the plants,  following a straight path towards the aura he had been tracking within the labyrinth.

The Flora parted ways when he got to the center. There was a spring that flowed around a small island. The ground was even richer green, flowers blooming every few seconds. The spring was the clearest flow of water Percy had even seen, the liquid so pure it was almost crystalline.

On the island were animals that should have been considered extinct. A huge hairy mammoth with monstrous tusks that could overturn  an apartment with no problem, a sabre tooth with a growl that made every molecule in his rattle and a bird whose name he didn't remember.