The cyclops took his still hot work piece and dunked it in the water. The subsequent steam explosion launched our boat forward. "So, this is what the Cyclops forges look like" R concluded. "They're… bigger than expected" "Well, they're cyclopes. Cyclopes happen to be really big" "You know what the most annoying part of this disorder is?" "Being triggered but not knowing why because you don't remember that traumatic event?" "I'm guessing someone else asked you that question already" "Probably, but that's not the reason I knew, I just figured you'd be triggered" "Could you tell by my voice or something?" "Nope, I just know that very large cyclopes are a negative trigger for you guys. Annie, if you're hearing me, you're safe. I am here and the cyclops is not. Also, he likes us now" "Okay" "Are you scared?" She nodded. "Hug?" R asked, though Annie's voice was definitely coming through right now. "Sure. R, you okay with that?" "I am" When I touched her, I noticed she was shivering so I pulled her in until she stopped. "Thanks. Flashback averted I guess" "That's great. And look where we are" Our boat reached a wall with a tunnel entrance just above the water line, similar to where we had gotten in. I pulled the boat on land and disassembled it again.

I put the parts into our backpack and we got going again. After a while, I smelled something: rotting flesh. Or maybe it was a volcano, they're quite similar. "Should we follow the smell?" I asked. "Well, whatever caused that death is likely gone now and the corpse might have something useful with them" "Okay, but we should make sure we don't die from whatever gases the decomposition is producing" I summoned a shield of water that cleared the air in front of us. We followed what little smell came through the shield until we found what we were looking for.

Whatever fight had taken place here, the human had lost. All that was left was a severed arm, together with a pile of clothes and a backpack that looked like they had been eaten and spat out again. The shirt was torn to shreds, but the print on it was unmistakable: SPQR. "Check the backpack" I suggested. R did so. "Let's see: a flashlight, batteries, a sleeping bag with a mattress, a one-person-tent… ah, perfect, warm meals" "Warm?" "It says: add water to start the heating process" I looked at the bags. "Looks like military food rations. Whoever this person once was, I don't think they'll mind if we take their food" "Agreed. But first let's get away from here" I grabbed the camper's back pack (R had ours" and we went to a more H2S-free place, where we activated the heaters and ate our soup.

"Well, let's continue" I said. "We have to find a way out of here eventually" "Yeah, once we get out, I'll get to see so much cool stuff" Her enthusiasm was really contagious and I was starting to feel hopeful as well. We continued walking to find the exit. But before we were able to do that, something else found us…

Okay, let me back up a bit. As we were traveling, I started to get tired and eventually, I heard R yawning as well. "How about this" I suggested. We keep going until we find the nearest sufficiently large room and then set up camp there" "Great idea"

After a while, we came across said room. It only had the one exit we'd come from, so it'd be relatively safe. I got out our sleeping bags and mattresses and began to assemble everything. "Okay, everything done. Ready to go to bed?" "Yeah" "Good night R" "Good night Percy" But before I could fall asleep, I heard a loud roar.

Annabeth

I was suddenly woken up by a loud roar. I didn't recall going to sleep, but that wasn't too unusual for me. "What was that?" I asked. "Annabeth?" "Correct" "I have no idea what that was, but it probably wants to kill us" "I hate that part of my life"

Seconds later, the wall next to us collapsed, revealing a massive lion. "With my luck" Annabeth said "It's that one lion that has impenetrable skin" "The Nemean one?" "Yes, thank you" "I'd say it's him. Wish I had some frozen pizza right now" "What?" Before Percy could explain, the lion charged at us. Percy got riptide and tried to stab it, but its skin was, in fact, impenetrable. I didn't even bother getting out my knife, I just jumped to the side. The lion spun around in the small room. I realized that the close quarters were probably the only reason we were still alive. The lion's tail caught me and slammed me into a wall, knocking me out for maybe a minute (I could tell by how schisty I felt after coming back). When I did, Percy was still fighting the Nemean lion and it was not going great for the former. Suddenly, the lion had Percy under its paw and he would have been crushed had the lion not gotten distracted by a sound coming from behind it. It turned around and a second later, it was nothing but monster dust and a very large pelt. Behind that, I saw two girls and a boy. "Hi there" said the middle one- Julia.

Behind her though, I saw something even more interesting: A door with a small sign on it. "Hey guys. I'd greet you properly, but I just saw that there's a toilet there, which currently has a much higher priority" With that, I sprinted past them and to the door. I knew I was taking a small risk, but staying with them was technically also a risk, so I didn't care. I pressed down on the door handle, but it was locked. A moment later, something moved next to me and the door opened up. I rushed in.

After a few minutes, I came back out and only saw Percy and the other boy. "Where'd the girls go?" I asked. "They followed you in" About a minute later, Julia came back out. "Let's try that again. Hi, I just saved your life" "Yeah, sorry. It's just that I haven't gotten a chance to do that since right after waking up" "Oh" "And by that I mean yesterday morning" "In that case, your reaction was completely reasonable. Now, you're probably wondering why we're here" "Indeed I am" Percy said. By the way, this is Annabeth. Annabeth, those are Martin and-" Percy pointed at the girl coming out of the bathroom "-Amy" "Percy told me about you. You're the sword enthusiasts, right?" "I'd call myself that" Amy said.

I saw that she had just picked up one of the most fancy looking sword I had ever seen. It had an ergonomic leather wrapped hilt and a black blade with many engravings. The sidebars had a nice forward curve and also covered the area above the blade for maximum protection. "I'm assuming you used that on the lion?" "Yes. And on the bathroom lock" "So that's what that fast motion was. So, what is the blade made of? Carbon steel?" "Girls, would you please stop talking about swords" Percy interrupted. "We're still in the Labyrinth and I'd like to know how you got here and how we'll get out" Julia began to explain

"Annabeth, I'm assuming Percy told you how he ended up here?" "Yeah. Someone got possessed and trapped him" "Well, that was me. When I got back control a few minutes later, I of course felt guilty, so I went back to find the doorway still blocked. I called for you, but you weren't there, so I figured that you must have found a different exit, but then I compared the door you'd gone through to the evacuation plan and there was no other exit. In fact, the corridor you were in was only supposed to be a small storage room. From that I figured that you were probably in some pretty big trouble. I of course couldn't leave you there, not after you had personally saved me from bullies, so I decided to get some help…

I wondered who'd be best suited to help me with my plan. Probably the people who owed Percy just like I did. Technically, that was almost everyone, but there were only two people he had personally supported; Martin and Amy.

I found the latter a while later in the school library. She was sitting in the only bean bag that wasn't moldy and reading a book for which the same was true. Well, not quite, but we did have a few… decorated books. Now I just had to ask her for help. The thought made me nervous, not because I liked her or anything, just because I didn't feel deserving of help. But I wasn't the one whom the help was for, so it'd be fine. "Hey Amy" She looked up from her book. "Hi" "So, remember when Percy helped you out of a desperate situation?" "Yeah, it was like two days ago" "What would you do if he was in a desperate situation?" "I guess I'd help him out as well" "Good. Because Percy is in a difficult situation and needs our help" "Cool. Count me in. This book is boring anyways. " "Then why are you reading it" "because the effort to payoff ratio for getting to read about Sapphic romance is very bad, but not zero" "Sure. I'll get Martin as well"

I later had a similar conversation with him and we ended up in my room in the early evening. "So, what situation did Percy get himself into?" "Well, I showed him the basement. He went into a corridor alone and the door collapsed behind him. From what I saw, the door led to a sort of maze and by the time I'd recovered from the shock, he was no longer in calling distance, so he's probably lost somewhere deep in the maze" "And your plan is to explore the maze and find him?" "Exactly"

We decided that right now, we'd quickly get too tired to be of any help and to look for them the next morning, where we had another meeting in my room. "Okay, time to make a plan" I said. "What can you contribute" "You said the ceiling collapsed" Martin asked. I confirmed. "I could come up with a chemical compound that will clear the debris for us" "Great, Amy?" "If anyone tries to attack us there, I'll defend us. If that's not enough help, I'll provide food" "Great, then I'll take care of navigation. Then how about we meet up here again after lunch?"

We all agreed on that and followed through. Martin brought a flask with a dangerous looking liquid and Amy brought a sword as well as a basket full of snacks. I had also brought something: a bunch of fluorescein we had synthesized a while back, as well as a spray bottle that I had modified a bit, hexamethylenediamene, cyclohexane and adepoyl chloride. I then led us to the collapsed corridor. "Well, let's see if your substance works" Martin got out his flask and poured a few drops onto the pile of rubble, which disappeared after a few minutes. "Ladies first" he said. I went into the corridor, making sure to push the button on the spray bottle. The reaction between the different chemicals created highlighter colored nylon, which would be great for finding the way back. We spent hours going through the maze, until we finally heard something. "Did you guys here that" "Martin asked" "Sure, let's follow it" I suggested. "But we don't know what it is" He said. "It could be dangerous" "That's what my sword is for. It's our best hint so far as to where Percy is" "Fine" We followed the sound until we saw a massive lion and, well, you know the rest.

"How did you kill him though? His hide is impenetrable" "It is? Well, I just stabbed my sword into his throat, which was seemingly not impenetrable. I expected him to bleed out or something, but he just straight up dissolved"

"So, you mentioned glowing nylon, where is that now?" Percy asked. "The line ends just there, if we follow it we should find the exit. Wait, why am I so tired?" "Because it's late" I said. Julia got out her phone. "No, it's like 3:30. What about you guys, are you feeling tired?" All four of us agreed. "Maybe it's something with the air. Laughing gas or something. Maybe just low oxygen" She checked her watch. "Wow, my heart rate is at 95. Yeah, probably low oxygen. Let's get out of here before we suffocate" We followed the line Julia had left behind her. I had to give her credit for the idea. While walking, she collected the nylon on a spool. While walking, I approached Amy. "Hey, I think we just got interrupted. I love that sword. What is that, carbon fiber? Steel?" "Coated aluminum" "With what? It can't be paint, it's too shiny for that? Maybe bronze?" "Too expensive. Also, bronze takes decades to turn black. What actually happened was that we were doing electroplating in chemistry. I was supposed to zinc plate an iron bolt, but I got the polarity wrong and instead coated the zinc source in Iron. More specifically, iron(II,III)oxide, which is black. At least that's what my teacher thinks happened. I thought that looked kind of cool, so I did the same with my sword" "So your sword is made from aluminum and rust" "Essentially" "That just makes it look even cooler by contrast. So, what are those engravings for? Just decorative?" Amy pressed a button and the entire sword collapsed to just a few centimeters in length, then went back to its original length. "I couldn't make the fold lines seamless" She explained. "I think they improve the look quite a bit. By the way, how sharp did you get it? I mean, you did slice through the lock" "The bolt was so rusty that you could have cut it with a butter knife, if a butter knife had the momentum of my sword that is. But it is pretty sharp. I've tried it and you can peel a grape in multiple layers. Oh, and it can do that" She pressed another button and the rim started glowing like a toaster. "I've integrated some li-ion batteries into the hilt, but they only have a few minutes of runtime. Oh, and it can do that" She pressed another hidden button and the engraved lines on the sword started to glow blue, forming strange runes. "That part is actually aesthetic, the symbols don't do anything, though it would be cool if they did. I vaguely based them on ancient Norse runes" "They probably give you some advantage by captivating the enemy. That would work even better if it was animated"