For a horrifying second, we were in free fall, then the rapidly expanding water pushed the air away and we were hit with a strong upward wind, which carried us up. We steered until we were above the exit and waited for the stream of rising air to subside. Eventually, we fell back down and caught the ledge just in time to make it into the next corridor.
The first thing I noticed was that it was small. With her backpack on, Annabeth would not have been able to turn around. "Are you okay?" I asked. "Yeah, you?" "Hit my right knee pretty badly, otherwise I'm alright" "Can you walk?" I tried it and fell back down. "Not really. Maybe with your help" "I'll see what I can do. I think there's a bit more space maybe thirty meters down the corridor" I tried to stand up again. Annabeth supported me on my left, on the right I used riptide as a walking stick. Covering the thirty meters took almost five minutes, but when we got there, we had a few square meters of space where we could sit down. "We'll need to do something about your knee. You have two options, either you take off your jeans or I make a cut at the knee" "Considering it's already got a few holes and tears, I'd say option two"
Careful not to reach my skin, Annabeth cut a hole over my knee to have a better look at it. She was silent for a few seconds. "Is it bad?" I asked. "Not horrible. Just a dislocated kneecap" "A dislocated anything sounds pretty bad" "I'll try my best to fix it" Annabeth kneeled down in front of me, my right leg between hers. "Come closer" She said, so I leaned forward. The feeling of her lips on mine almost drowned out the stabbing pain in my knee. "Sorry, that's all I could do against the pain" "Well, it worked. So, I'm fixed now?" "I hope so" I tried to stand up. "No my friend, you're not going anywhere. When Bobby dislocated his kneecap a few years ago, the doctor gave him two days of bedrest" She checked her watch. "What a coincidence, it's already ten pm. I'd say we spend the night here. That should be enough recovery time for you" Annabeth reached deep into her bag pack and got out a box of ambrosia. "That is, if you take this" I thankfully ate the square and felt warmth filling my body.
Annabeth got out our sleeping bags, inflated them, adjusted them to the temperature (of course they had adjustable isolation, Annabeth has standards) and we climbed inside.
"Percy" I heard after a while. "Yeah" "I can't sleep. It's too scary" "Good thing we're communicating our needs now and you allow me to comfort you now" "Technically, we were already at that stage last time we were in the labyrinth" "Right, in your cabin before archery practice. I gave you a hug" "The fact that you still remember that" "I had a dream about it like two days ago. Wait, didn't you say that the sleeping bags can be connected to each other?" "That is possible. Can we?" "Sure" Annabeth unzipped the sleeping bags, then connected them to each other, similar to how you'd connect two Ziploc bags together. She made her way over to me and curled up in my arms. After that, we quickly fell asleep.
Annabeth
We were woken up by the sound of footsteps, though they were definitely not human. They sounded too heavy. "Percy, how's your knee?" "I'm good I think" "We need a strategy. Whoever this is is coming out of the right tunnel" While saying that, she faced away from the tunnel we'd come from. "I'd say you go to the left tunnel and block it off, I hide next to the one on the right. Once it's in and we don't die immediately, we can force it towards the tunnel leading to the lava hole" Sounds like a plan. There's just one tiny drawback: if it decides to chase one of us, we might get separated" "That chance exists in every scenario where we are chased, but true. I think we'll take that risk, unless you have a better option" "I don't" We got up and went into position. Just a second later, a man walked past me. At first glance, he looked like an average mortal, but the pattern in his hair gave away his true identity: a Manticore.
He stopped in the middle of the room to inspect our stuff. I made eye contact with Percy and counted down on my fingers. At zero, we both charged. Startled, the Manticore took a few steps backwards and into the tunnel. Only now did I realize how good my plan had really been. In their true form, Manticores could easily defeat ten demigods, but in their human form, they were manageable. I had been so lucky to make a plan that forced our enemy to stay in said human form. For his true form, the tunnel was simply too small. Only now did I get a good look at his face and sensed an opportunity to do what I did best. "Dr. Thorn" "Am I supposed to know you?" While we were talking, we slowly made our way through the tunnel, away from our camp. He didn't seem to notice. "You kidnapped me" "Doesn't ring a bell" "You were the principal at Westover Hall. Two of your students, Nico and Bianca di Angelo were your students. I showed up with him, Grover and Thalia. We had a little fight that ended with you falling down a cliff and taking me with you" "Oh, you were that annoying kid who wouldn't stop talking about architecture" Percy gave me a judging look. "What, I figured if I annoyed them long enough, they'd eventually let me go. Also, in case Kronos ended up winning, he'd need a good looking palace to rule the world from" By now, we had reached the end of the tunnel and Dr. Thorn had the lava filled chasm right behind him. I nudged Percy's right hand, he handed me his pen. "Normally, I wouldn't do this, but for you I'll make an exception" I said. "Do what?" He asked, clearly a bit confused. His confusion only increased when I glowing bronze blade extended right into his face. I used the short moment to slam into him. He stumbled backwards, only there was no ground to stumble onto, so he fell down into the shaft. "He deserved that" I concluded before giving Percy his sword back.
"So, you actually gave Kronos design tips for his palace" "It's not like I increased his odds of winning the war (in which case you would have stood no chance), it was just a design. Also, if you could leave your personal note on such a potentially important monument, you wouldn't miss that chance, would you" "Makes sense. Let's find our way out of here" We had a quick breakfast. It wasn't much, but we weren't starving anymore, which I considered a success. We packed up our stuff, then decided to go down to the right corridor since we knew that was not a dead end.
After a while, we came across a set of huge oak doors with metal reinforcements, like you'd see on a medieval castle. "Should we?" Percy asked. "Could be a way out" "Let's try it then" Together, we pushed against the door, slowly opening it. Percy went through first. Seconds later, I heard him screaming "get off me". I stepped back and let the door close again. It had happened so fast I hadn't had a chance to react. I sat down outside and began to make a plan.
Percy had seemingly been captured. If I went after him, I'd endanger myself. If I didn't go after him, if I tried to escape on my own… I tried to picture the scene if the roles were reversed and barely avoided a flashback. No, leaving Percy in there was out of the question. I put on my cap and slowly opened the door. Once the crack was wide enough, I slipped through and closed the door again. Even if whoever had captured Percy couldn't see me, they could still see the door moving, so I had had to act fast. Once the door was closed again, I looked around. There was an armored guard on either side of the gate. I couldn't see what they were, but the fact that they wore human armor didn't leave many options. Their armor was black with a hint of purple, probably stygian iron.
In front of me was a large open area (open if you ignore the fact that we were underground) made from obsidian. There were no seems anywhere to be seen, so it was likely that the entire floor had been created right here by cooling down lava. The same thing applied to the walls of the cave, which measured around three hundred meters in diameter. The only light sources were torches all around the wall that appeared to burn Greek fire. The cave was filled with small houses, but the middle was dominated by a large, square building made from black marble. It was this building that I saw a celestial bronze glow disappear into. Percy! Well, it didn't have to be Percy, but celestial bronze users tended to be on my side, so I was still relieved. I sprinted across the plane and was able to intercept the closing door with my blade in the last second. I opened it again and looked inside, just in time to see Percy being carried around a corner by a guard. I took of my cap for just a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Percy to see me and know that help was on the way.
I slowly closed the door behind me and it slid into place perfectly. I couldn't even see the seam and as much as this was a dangerous situation, I had to give credit to the incredibly accurate work here. How had they cut it so perfectly? WireEDM perhaps? Focus, Annabeth. You can figure that out later. I followed the guard around the corner, but realized I'd lost him as after a few meters the corridor split in a T shape. The walls were cut from obsidian, but the floor was made from something lighter, limestone perhaps. Again, the only source of light was Greek fire shining through the walls. I picked one direction at random and quickly found a corridor full of cells. The bars where made from stygian iron, the walls were cut from the same obsidian. Some of the cells were empty, others contained monsters, but by far the most common inhabitants were demigods. Among them, I recognized some from camp half-blood. Out of those, most had been declared dead shortly after the battle against Gaia. The others seemed to be from camp Jupiter, but there were also ones without any camp-related identifications. After turning a few more corners, I finally found Percy. Once again, I lifted my cap to let him know I was there. He did the exact right thing in response. He began talking to the person next to him. "Hey, you, what's your name?" He asked. "Jake" "Jake from nr. 11?" "Percy?" "It's me. How long have you been here?" "I got knocked out during the battle against Gaia and I've been in here since then. Seems to be the case for most of the Greeks here" "And do you know why you're here?" "We're mostly forced to fight in this big arena, either against monsters or against each other. And instead of ambrosia, they only have this stuff that tastes like boiling pepper smothie and glows red" "The Phlegeton. Do you know who's organizing all of this?" "They just call him NH"
In that moment, someone came in. Or rather something as it was some sort of monster, though I didn't remember the name of it. "Time for your next fight" it told the prisoners. "And I need a volunteer" Naturally, Percy stepped forward. The monster pressed a button on his remote control and Percy's cell opened up. Still invisible, I followed the two of them.
After seemingly endless corridors, made even more annoying by a constant upwards slope, we arrived in a small arena. Like everything else, it was carved from obsidian, but there were rows of seats made from wood installed. A few rows above the ground was a box made from mirrored glass. Was NH in there? I forgot about that question when the gate shut behind me. A moment later, Percy's opponent appeared: a hyperborean.