Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I 031. I
𝑪𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒔
❝ mount st. helens ❞
ARIADNE THOUGHT THEY'D LOST THE SPIDER UNTIL TYSON HEARD A FAINT PINGING SOUND. They made a few turns, backtracked a few times, and eventually found the spider banging its tiny head on a metal door.
The door looked like one of those old-fashioned submarine hatched—oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the petal should've been was a big brass plague, green with ageGreek zeta inscribed in the middle.
They all looked at each other.
"Ready to meet Hephaestus?" Grover said nervously.
"No," Percy admitted.
"Yes!" Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.
As the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson right behind it. The rest of them followed, not quite as anxious.
The room was enormous. It looked like a mechanic's garage, with several hydraulic lifts. Some had cars on them, about others had stranger things: a bronze hippalektryon with its horse head off and a bunch of wires hanging out its rooster tail, a metal lion that seemed to be hooked up to a battery charger, and a Greek war chariot made entirely of flames.
Smaller projects cluttered a dozen work tables. Tools hung along he walls. Each had its own outline on a Peg-board, but nothing seemed to be in the right place. The hammer was over the screwdriver place. The staple gun was where the hacksaw was supposed to go.
Under the nearest hydraulic lift, which was holding a Toyota Corolla ( she didn't know what type, she wasn't as into cars as Percy was), a pair of legs stuck out—the lower half of a huge man in grubby pants and shoes even bigger than Tyson's. One leg was in a metal brace.
The spider scuttled straight under the car, and the sounds of banging stopped.
"Well, well," a deep voice boomed from under the Corolla. "What have we here?"
The mechanic pushed on a back trolley and sat up. She'd seen Hephaestus a few times before, briefly on Olympus during the times she had visited, but she wasn't prepared.
She guessed her cleaned up when she saw him on Olympus, or used magic to make his form a little less hideous. But in his own workshop, he apparently didn't care how he looked. He wore a jumpsuit smeared with oil and grime.
Hephaestus, was embroidered over the chest pocket. His leg freaked and clicked in its metal brace as he stood, and his left shoulder was lower than his right, so he seemed to be leaning even thigh he was standing up straight. His head was misshapen and bulging. He wore a permanent scowl. His black beard smoked and hissed. Every once in a while a small wildfire would erupt in his whiskers then die out. His hands were the size of catchers mitts, but he handled the spider with amazing skills. He disassembled it in two seconds, then put it back together.
