𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐄

𝐗𝐗𝐗

Oh, Lord, I think about
Jumping off of very tall somethings
Just to see you come running

𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐰, taylor swift

The mechanical spider scuttled along the tunnels so fast, most of the time they couldn't even see it.

If it hadn't been for Tyson's, Grover's and Selene's excellent hearing, they never would've known which way it was going.

They ran down a marble tunnel, then dashed to the left and almost fell into an abyss. Tyson grabbed Percy and Selene grabbed Annabeth, hauling them back before they could fall. The tunnel continued in front of them, but there was no floor for about a hundred feet, just gaping darkness and a series of iron rungs in the ceiling. The mechanical spider was about halfway across, swinging from bar to bar by shooting out metal web fiber.

"Monkey bars," Annabeth said. "I'm great at these."

She leaped onto the first rung and started swinging her way across.

"So she's scared of tiny spiders, but not jumping to her death from a set of monkey bars," Selene said.

Percy shrugged, "Go figure."

Annabeth got to the opposite side and ran after the spider. Selene followed right behind with Percy. When she got across, she looked back and saw Tyson giving Grover a piggyback ride (or was it a goatyback ride?).

The big guy made it across in three swings, which was a good thing since, just as he landed, the last iron bar ripped free under his weight.

They 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 hatches—oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the portal should've been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a Greek Ȇta inscribed in the middle.

They all looked at each other.

"Ready to meet Hephaestus?" Grover said nervously.

"Nope," Percy admitted.

"When you said he was bad looking," Selene said, "is he ugly-ugly, ugly-cute, cute-ugly or cute-cute?"

"Probably ugly-ugly," Annabeth replied.

"I'm already regretting every life choice that led me here."

"I am ready!" Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.

As soon 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, but 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.