Percy Jackson and the Child of Victory (Annabeth Chase x Reader)

We Meet The (Other) God with Two Faces

~~~~~Y/N's PΩV~~~~~

We made it a hundred feet before we were hopelessly lost. The tunnel looked nothing like the one we had stumbled into before. Now it was round like a sewer, constructed of red brick with iron-barred portholes ever ten feet. I shined a light through one of the portholes out of curiosity, but I couldn't see anything. It opened into infinite darkness. I thought I heard voices on the other side, but it may have been just the cold wind.

Annabeth tried her best to guide us. She had this idea that we should stick to the left wall. "If we keep one hand on the left wall and follow it," she said, "we should be able to find our way out again by reversing course." Unfortunately, as soon as she said that, the left wall disappeared. We found ourselves in the middle of a circular chamber with eight tunnels leading out, and no idea how we'd gotten there. "....because of course that's how it decides to be." I mumble as Chimera eats something dead off the floor. 

"Um, which way did we come in?" Grover said nervously. "Just turn around," Annabeth said. We each turned toward a different tunnel. It was ridiculous. None of us could decide which way led back to camp. "Oh for fuck sake!" I yelled "Left walls are mean," Tyson said. "Yes they are, Buddy, Which way now?"

Annabeth swept her flashlight beam over the archways of the eight tunnels. As far as I could tell, they were identical. "That way," she said. "How do you know?" I asked. "Deductive reasoning." "So...you're guessing." "Just come on," she said. "Your lucky your pretty"

The tunnel she'd chosen narrowed quickly. The walls turned to gray cement, and the ceiling got so low that pretty soon we were hunching over. Tyson was forced to crawl. Chimera was completely fine. I had an especially hard time because of the wings.

Grover's hyperventilating was the loudest noise in the maze. "I can't stand it anymore," he whispered. "Are we there yet?" "We've been down here maybe five minutes," Annabeth told him. "It's been longer than that," Grover insisted. "And why would Pan be down here? This is the opposite of the wild!" Chimera made a noise as if to say 'Can we go home now? I wanna go eat some rats that are not two thousand years old'

We kept shuffling forward. Just when I was sure the tunnel would get so narrow it would squish us, it opened into a huge room. I shined my light around the walls and said, "Whoa." The whole room was covered in mosaic tiles. The pictures were grimy and faded, but I could still make out the colors—red, blue, green, gold. The frieze showed the Olympian gods at a feast. There was Percy's dad, Poseidon, with his trident, holding out grapes for Dionysus to turn into wine. Zeus was partying with satyrs, and Hermes was flying through the air on his winged sandals. The pictures were beautiful, but they weren't very accurate. I'd seen the gods. Dionysus was not that handsome, and Hermes's nose wasn't that big.

In the middle of the room was a three-tiered fountain. It looked like it hadn't held water in a long time. "What is this place?" I muttered. "It looks—" "Roman," Annabeth said. "Those mosaics area bout two thousand years old."

"But how can they be Roman?" Percy asked. "The Labyrinth is a patchwork," Annabeth said. "I told you, it's always expanding, adding pieces. It's the only work of architecture that grows by itself ."

"You make it sound like it's alive." A groaning noise echoed from the tunnel in front of us. "Let's not talk about it being alive," Grover whimpered. "Please?" "All right," Annabeth said. "Forward." "Down the hall with the bad sounds?" Tyson said. Even he looked nervous.

"Yep," I said. "The architecture is getting older. That's a good sign. Daedalus's workshop would be in the oldest part." Annabeth said, That made sense. But soon the maze was toying with us—we went fifty feet and the tunnel turned back to cement, with brass pipes running down the sides. The walls were spray-painted with graffiti. A neon tagger sign read MOZ RULZ. "I'm thinking this is not Roman," Percy said helpfully. "Shut up, Sea Boy"