Memories 40-45

[divinewisdom]

Memory 40 / Significant Negative
You're the only one who could have saved him. (LO ch. 9)
Lancelot, Day 281. Leather tankard of wine; drink a glass to use. [1/3]

Percy calls Annabeth's (secret, illegal!!) cell phone and tells her to meet him in Midtown; she's still confused but the camp is on their way. Forty demigods meet him at the Empire State Building, including Annabeth. Percy is named as the leader of the tiny army, and they head up to Olympus. It's being targeted, so they quickly march up to the thrones, where Bessie the Ophiotaurus greets them happily. Hestia is there, and shows Percy some quick backstory from Annabeth, Luke, and Thalia's past. Percy crumbles to the ground and Annabeth catches him, concerned. No one else saw the memories. Then Hermes appears, very snide, and tells them that they're on their own: no gods will be coming back from their fight with Typhon to help them. They have to hold the city, and Olympus, on their own.

"Please, Hermes," Annabeth said. "You said my mother wanted to come. Did she give you any messages for us?"

"Messages," he muttered. "'It'll be a great job,' they told me. 'Not much work. Lots of worshippers.' Hmph. Nobody cares whatI have to say. It's always about other people's messages.”

Rodents, George mused. I'm in it for the rodents. Shhh, Martha scolded. We care what Hermes has to say. Don't we, George?

Oh, absolutely. Can we go back to the battle now? I want to do laser mode again. That's fun.

"Quiet, both of you," Hermes grumbled. The god looked at Annabeth, who was doing her big-pleading-gray-eyes thing.

"Bah," Hermes said. "Your mother said to warn you that you are on your own. You must hold Manhattan without the help of the gods. As if I didn't know that. Why they pay her to be the wisdom goddess, I'm not sure."

"Anything else?"Annabeth asked.

"She said you should try plan twenty-three. She said you would know what that meant."

Annabeth's face paled. Obviously she knew what it meant, and she didn't like it. "Go on."

"Last thing."Hermes looked at me. "She said to tell Percy: 'Remember the rivers.'And, um, something about staying away from her daughter."

I'm not sure whose face was redder: Annabeth's or mine.

"Thank you, Hermes," Annabeth said. "And I . . . I wanted to say . . . I'm sorry about Luke."

The god's expression hardened like he'd turned to marble. "You should've left that subject alone."

Annabeth stepped back nervously. "Sorry?"

"SORRY doesn't cut it!"

George and Martha curled around the caduceus, which shimmered and changed into something that looked suspiciously like a high-voltage cattle prod.

"You should've saved him when you had the chance," Hermes growled at Annabeth. "You're the only one who could have."

I tried to step between them. "What are you talking about? Annabeth didn't—"

"Don't defend her, Jackson!" Hermes turned the cattle prod toward me. "She knows exactly what I'm talking about."

"Maybe you should blame yourself!" I should've kept my mouth shut, but all I could think about was turning his attention away from Annabeth. This whole time, he hadn't been angry with me. He'd been angry with her."Maybe if you hadn't abandoned Luke and his mom!"

Hermes raised his cattle prod. He began to grow until he was ten feet tall. I thought, Well, that's it. But as he prepared to strike, George and Martha leaned in close and whispered something in his ear. Hermes clenched his teeth. He lowered the cattle prod, and it turned back to a staff.

"Percy Jackson," he said, "because you have taken on the curse of Achilles, I must spare you. You are in the hands of the Fates now. But you will never speak to me like that again. You have no idea how much I have sacrificed, how much—"

His voice broke, and he shrank back to human size. "My son, my greatest pride . . . my poor May . . ."

He sounded so devastated I didn't know what to say. One minute he was ready to vaporize us. Now he looked like he needed a hug.

"Look, Lord Hermes," I said. "I'm sorry, but I need to know. What happened to May? She said something about Luke's fate, and her eyes—"

Hermes glared at me, and my voice faltered. The look on his face wasn't really anger, though. It was pain.Deep, incredible pain.

"I will leave you now," he said tightly. "I have a war to fight."

He began to shine. I turned away and made sure Annabeth did the same, because she was still frozen in shock.

Good luck, Percy, Martha the snake whispered.

Hermes glowed with the light of a supernova. Then he was gone.

Annabeth sat at the foot of her mother's throne and cried. I wanted to comfort her, but I wasn't sure how.

"Annabeth," I said, "it's not your fault. I've never seen Hermes act that way. I guess . . . I don't know . . . he probably feels guilty about Luke. He's looking for somebody to blame. I don't know why he lashed out at you. You didn't do anything to deserve that."

Annabeth wiped her eyes. She stared at the hearth like it was her own funeral pyre.

Annabeth puts the pieces together and learns that Percy has the curse of Achilles -- meaning he is only vulnerable to death in one particular spot. She also works out that this is the only way to defeat Luke because he must have done the same thing -- and she worries for him, because what has he done? Percy gets super defensive, and Annabeth is really upset because Luke :(

But before they can really get into it, they're interrupted by Connor Stoll and go out to find that the entire mortal population of Manhattan has fallen asleep. No buses, no subways, no people yelling or cars moving. Nothing. The entire city is completely silent.

And that makes everyone fucking angry.

---
OKAY SO: this memory also comes with two other scenes that aren't actually in this from Percy's PoV, but are clearly supposed to be remembered by Annabeth at this point. Hence, they will come with it for the sake of memory completion.

FIRST:

The three demigods were running through the woods. It must've been several days later, maybe even weeks. All of them looked beat up, like they'd seen some battles. Annabeth was wearing new clothes—jeans and an oversize army jacket.

"Just a little farther!" Luke promised. Annabeth stumbled, and he took her hand. Thalia brought up the rear, brandishing her shield like she was driving back whatever pursued them. She was limping on her left leg.

They scrambled to a ridge and looked down the other side at a white Colonial house—May Castellan's place.

"All right," Luke said, breathing hard. "I'll just sneak in and grab some food and medicine. Wait here."

"Luke, are you sure?" Thalia asked. "You swore you'd never come back here. If she catches you—"

"We don't have a choice!" he growled. "They burned our nearest safe house. And you've got to treat that leg wound."

"This is your house?" Annabeth said with amazement.

"It was my house," Luke muttered. "Believe me, if it wasn't an emergency—"

"Is your mom really horrible?" Annabeth asked. "Can we see her?"

"No!" Luke snapped.

Annabeth shrank away from him as though his anger surprised her.

"I . . . I'm sorry," he said. "Just wait here. I promise everything will be okay. Nothing's going to hurt you. I'll be back—"

A brilliant golden flash illuminated the woods. The demigods winced, and a man'svoice boomed: "You should not have come home."

This is then followed by an angry argument between Luke and his father, and also Annabeth being treated to cookies while Luke gets things from his mother's house. They then run away again into the night, leaving her completely brokenhearted, because her only son as left her. Again. Annabeth doesn't really understand it, but it's still important to her idea of family.

SECOND: The actual happenings of this recounting.

"Last year, Luke came to see me in San Francisco."

"In person?" I felt like she'd just hit me with a hammer. "He came to your house?"

"This was before we went into the Labyrinth, before . . ." She faltered, but I knew what she meant: before be turned into Kronos. "He came under a flag of truce. He said he only wanted five minutes to talk. He looked scared, Percy. He told me Kronos was going to use him to take over the world. He said he wanted to run away, like the old days. He wanted me to come with him."

"But you didn't trust him."

"Of course not.I thought it was a trick. Plus . . . well, a lot of things had changed since the old days. I told Luke there was no way. He got mad. He said . . . he said I might as well fight him right there, because it was the last chance I'd get."

"You don't understand, Percy. Hermes was right. Maybe if I'd gone with him, I could've changed his mind. Or—or I had a knife. Luke was unarmed. I could've—"

"Killed him?" I said. "You know that wouldn't have been right."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Luke said Kronos would use him like a stepping stone. Those were his exact words. Kronos would use Luke, and become even more powerful."

"He did that," I said. "He possessed Luke's body."

"But what if Luke's body is only a transition? What if Kronos has a plan to become even more powerful? I could've stopped him. The war is my fault."

Effects:
LUKE DERE 8( 8( 8( oh god this is The Luke Memory like the penultimate THESE ARE MY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS BOY HERE memory
Unfortunately she's going to be even sadder because she's already kind of condemned him to being A BAD GUY here in aather and remembers doing that at home but what if she was wrong :c
Because her first memory here was him promising to always be her family ;n; oh no
+10000029348308320498310493829508 guilt
so much guilt
and sadness

Memory 41 / Trivial Positive
Percy saves us with Poop. (BoL ch. 8-9)
Odile, Day 282. Cloth mask; put it on to receive.

A depressed 100-armed monster offers to jump into a pit to Tartarus, and Annabeth tells Briares to not be silly. They find out that monsters and gods can fade if no one remembers them; Briares is the last monster of his kind, he's totally alone. He leaves in shame and sadness. After that, Annabeth insists that people take some rest; she takes watch. Percy drags his sleeping bag over to her and they talk.

“You should sleep,” she said.

“Can’t. You doing all right?”

“Sure. First day leading the quest. Just great.”

“We’ll get there,” I said. “We’ll find the workshop before Luke does.” She brushed her hair out of her face. She had a smudge of dirt on her chin, and I imagined what she must’ve looked like when she was little, wandering around the country with Thalia and Luke. Once she’d saved them from the mansion of the evil Cyclops when she was only seven. Even when she looked scared, like now, I knew she had a lot of guts.

“I just wish the quest was logical,” she complained. “I mean, we’re traveling but we have no idea where we’ll end up. How can you walk from New York to California in a day?”

“Space isn’t the same in the maze.”

“I know, I know. It’s just...” She looked at me hesitantly. “Percy, I was kidding myself. All that planning and reading, I don’t have a clue where we’re going.”

“You’re doing great. Besides, we never know what we’re doing. It always works out. Remember Circe’s island?”

She snorted. “You made a cute guinea pig.”

“And Waterland, how you got us thrown off that ride?”

“I got us thrown off? That was totally your fault!”

“See? It’ll be fine.” She smiled, which I was glad to see, but the smile faded quickly.

“Percy, what did Hera mean when she said you knew the way to get through the maze?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Honestly.”

“You’d tell me if you did?”

“Sure. Maybe...”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe if you told me the last line of the prophecy, it would help.”

Annabeth shivered. “Not here. Not in the dark.”

“What about the choice Janus mentioned? Hera said—”

“Stop,” Annabeth snapped. Then she took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Percy. I’m just stressed. But I don’t...I’ve got to think about it.” We sat in silence, listening to strange creaks and groans in the maze, the echo of stones grinding together as tunnels changed, grew, and expanded. The dark made me think about the visions I’d seen of Nico di Angelo, and suddenly I realized something.

“Nico is down here somewhere,” I said. “That’s how he disappeared from camp. He found the Labyrinth. Then he found a path that led down even farther—to the Underworld. But now he’s back in the maze. He’s coming after me.”

Annabeth was quiet for a long time. “Percy, I hope you’re wrong. But if you’re right...” she stared at the flashlight beam, casting a dim circle on the stone wall. I had a feeling she was thinking about her prophecy. I’d never seen her look more tired.

“How about I take first watch?” I said. “I’ll wake you if anything happens.” Annabeth looked like she wanted to protest, but she just nodded, slumped into her bedroll, and closed her eyes.

They get lost in the Labyrinth some more, Percy runs ahead (no Percy no), and then they come across a pasture of the red cows of Apollo -- and Eurytion, the rancher who owns the beautiful ranch where he raises mythical creatures for profit. Nico has been here; that makes everyone alert. They meet Geryon, who has three waists and bodies and is actually really horrible (Annabeth gets upset because he's using an almost-extinct species' eggs for omelets), but also kidnaps Annabeth, Grover, and Tyson and makes Percy attempt an impossible task of cleaning out a man-eating horse stall of all of its poop! After he tells them that he's working for Kronos and feeding his army Apollo's red bulls!

I smelled barbecue before I reached the house, and that made me madder than ever, because I really love barbecue. The deck was set up for a party. Streamers and balloons decorated the railing. Geryon was flipping burgers on a huge barbecue cooker made from an oil drum. Eurytion lounged at a picnic table, picking his fingernails with a knife. The two-headed dog sniffed the ribs and burgers that were frying on the grill. And then I saw my friends: Tyson, Grover, Annabeth, and Nico all tossed in a corner, tied up like rodeo animals, with their ankles and wrists roped together and their mouths gagged.

“Let them go!” I yelled, still out of breath from running up the steps. “I cleaned the stables!” Geryon turned. He wore an apron on each chest, with one word on each, so together they spelled out: KISS—THE—CHEF.

“Did you, now? How’d you manage it?” I was pretty impatient, but I told him. He nodded appreciatively. “Very ingenious. It would’ve been better if you’d poisoned that pesky naiad, but no matter.”

“Let my friends go,” I said. “We had a deal.”

“Ah, I’ve been thinking about that. The problem is, if I let them go, I don’t get paid.”

“You promised!” Geryon made a tsk-tsk noise.

“But did you make me swear on the River Styx? No you didn’t. So it’s not binding. When you’re conducting business, sonny, you should always get a binding oath.” I drew my sword. Orthus growled. One head leaned down next to Grover’s ear and bared its fangs.

“Eurytion,” Geryon said, “the boy is starting to annoy me. Kill him.” Eurytion studied me. I didn’t like my odds against him and that huge club.

“Kill him yourself,” Eurytion said. Geryon raised his eyebrows.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Eurytion grumbled. “You keep sending me out to do your dirty work. You pick fights for no good reason, and I’m getting tired of dying for you. You want to fight the kid, do it yourself.” It was the most un-Areslike thing I’d ever heard son of Ares say. Geryon threw down his spatula.

“You dare defy me? I should fire you right now!”

“And who’d take care of your cattle? Orthus, heel.” The dog immediately stopped growling at Grover and came to sit by the cowherd’s feet.

“Fine!” Geryon snarled. “I’ll deal with you later, after the boy is dead!” He picked up two carving knives and threw them at me. I deflected one with my sword. The other impaled itself in the picnic table an inch from Eurytion’s hand. I went on the attack. Geryon parried my first strike with a pair of red-hot tongs and lunged at my face with a barbecue fork. I got inside his next thrust and stabbed him right through the middle chest.

“Aghhh!” He crumpled to his knees. I waited for him to disintegrate, the way monsters usually do. But instead he just grimaced and started to stand up. The wound in his chef’s apron started to heal. “Nice try, sonny,” he said. “Thing is, I have three hearts. The perfect backup system.” He tipped over the barbecue, and coals spilled everywhere. One landed next to Annabeth’s face, and she let out a muffled scream. Tyson strained against his bonds, but even his strength wasn’t enough to break them. I had to end this fight before my friends got hurt. I jabbed Geryon in the left chest, but he only laughed. I stuck him in the right stomach. No good. I might as well have been sticking a sword in a teddy bear for all the reaction he showed. Three hearts. The perfect backup system. Stabbing one at a time was no good.... I ran into the house.

“Coward!” he cried. “Come back and die right!”

Basically Percy wins through a godly miracle. Nico is upset and crying because everyone wants to leave him behind and his sister is deaaaaad; Percy confesses that Bianca has been sending him Iris messages so he can catch up to Nico and keep him safe. They decide to attempt to commune with her one more time. Annabeth warns them that this is a terrible idea, but no one listens, and they march out back to the septic hole.

Effects:
+50 insecurities about being a leader what if she's not as smart as she thinks :(! Thankfully Percy assuaged most of these so it's a bit null but it's still a lingering worry.
+1000 Percy dere, even if he smells like Poop (percy /////)
+500 indignation when someone mistreats rare/endangered/special creatures!!!
-400 like of Nico.
• Unlocked: Knowledge that Nico and Bianca are the little kids from their rescue mission to the super fancy private school, and that they are siblings!
• Unlocked: Knowledge that Bianca is dead, and that she died recently enough that Nico is still upset about it.
• Unlocked: Knowledge of Nico's powers. Nico is a son of Hades, he can raise the dead and commune with dead spirits.
+200 heebie jeebies about hades kids!
• Unlocked: THAT FEELING you get around kids of the death god. It's mentioned several times in the series, how everyone is unsettled by Nico, and at other times unsettled by Hazel, so it's definitely a thing. Hades/Pluto demigods are meant to make people feel bad.
- Which means that once Hazel remembers her demigod powers she'll probably make Annabeth feel a little weird about it at first :'( my fran!!!
+100 APPRECIATION OF GOOD FRIENDS
• Unlocked: Knowledge that Luke wants to get to Daedalus. That's bad for reasons she doesn't quite know yet, but it explains why this mission was so crucial.
---

Memory 42 / Significant Neutral
We borrow a pair of wings. (BoL ch. 14-15)
Guinevere, Day 284. Pair of handkerchiefs, give one to someone, both receive memory.

Rachel leads the way into the Labyrinth, which makes Annabeth so happy (not, she really hates that girl). Rachel is jumpy and weird and a mortal, all things that put Annabeth on edge.

After fifty feet we came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots. I pointed left. “That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took.”

Annabeth frowned. “Yeah, but the architecture to the right—those old stones—that’s more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus’s workshop.”

“We need to go straight,” Rachel said. Annabeth and I both looked at her.

“That’s the least likely choice,” Annabeth said.

“You don’t see it?” Rachel asked. “Look at the floor.” I saw nothing except well-worn bricks and mud. “There’s a brightness there,” Rachel insisted. “Very faint. But forward is
the correct way. To the left, farther down the tunnel, those tree roots are moving like feelers. I don’t like that. To the right, there’s a trap about twenty feet down. Holes in the walls, maybe for spikes. I don’t think we should risk it.”

I didn’t see anything like she was describing, but I nodded. “Okay. Forward.”

“You believe her?” Annabeth asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t you?”

Annabeth looked like she wanted to argue, but she waved at Rachel to lead on. Together we kept walking down the brick corridor. It twisted and turned, but there were no more side tunnels. We seemed to be angling down, heading deeper underground.

“No traps?” I asked anxiously.

“Nothing.” Rachel knit her eyebrows. “Should it be this easy?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It never was before.”

“So, Rachel,” Annabeth said, “where are you from, exactly?” She said it like, What planet are you from? But Rachel didn’t look offended.

“Brooklyn,” she said.

“Aren’t your parents going to be worried if you’re out late?”

Rachel exhaled. “Not likely. I could be gone a week and they’d never notice.”

“Why not?” This time Annabeth didn’t sound as sarcastic. Having trouble with parents was something she understood.

Before Rachel could answer, there was a creaking noise in front of us, like huge doors opening.

“What was that?” Annabeth asked.

“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Metal hinges.”

“Oh, that’s very helpful. I mean, what is it?” Then I heard heavy footsteps shaking the corridor—coming toward us.

“Run?” I asked.

“Run,” Rachel agreed. We turned and fled the way we’d come, but we didn’t make it twenty feet before we ran straight into some old friends. Two dracaenae—snake women in Greek armor—leveled their javelins at our chests. Standing between them was Kelli, the empousa cheerleader.

Only they get captured :( Boo! Percy is forced into an arena while Annabeth and Rachel are held back. Luke is at the head of it, conducting terrible killings in which the giant Antaeus mauls while they watch and hope he'll let them cross through his territory. Annabeth yells at Luke and asks him to stop, and he seems honestly surprised that she's there; but Antaeus is too excited to kill Percy so the fight begins anyway, and Annabeth isn't allowed to shout helpful hints like "His mother is Gaea!" you know, the earth goddess.

When Percy refuses to kill another demigod -- Ethan Nakamura -- Antaeus decides to come and fight Percy to the death instead. Annabeth and Rachel are like NO NO NO but he totally does it anyway because Percy Jackson, and he wins by tying him up off of the earth where Gaea can't help him and stabbing him. Luke decides "yes, now is my chance to kill Percy Jackson!!" and jumps down to fight himself, telling his minions to spare Annabeth because he'd like to talk to her before their final triumph.

Every monster in the audience drew a weapon or extended its claws. We were trapped. Hopelessly outnumbered.

Then I felt something in my pocket—a freezing sensation, growing colder and colder. The dog whistle. My fingers closed around it. For days I’d avoided using Quintus’s gift. It had to be a trap. But now...I had no choice. I took it out of my pocket and blew. It made no audible sound as I shattered into shards of ice, melting in my hand.

Luke laughed. “What was that supposed to do?”

From behind me came a surprised yelp. The Laistrygonian giant who’d been guarding Annabeth flew past me and smashed into the wall.

“AROOOOF!”

Kelli the empousa screamed as a five-hundred-pound black mastiff picked her up like a chew toy and tossed her through the air, straight into Luke’s lap. Mrs. O’Leary snarled, and the two dracaenae guards backed away. For a moment the monsters in the audience were caught completely by surprise.

“Let’s go!” I yelled at my friends. “Heel, Mrs. O’Leary!”

“The far exit!” Rachel cried. “That’s the right way!” Ethan Nakamura took his cue. Together we raced across the arena and out the far exit, Mrs. O’Leary right behind us. As we ran, I could hear the disorganized sounds of an entire army trying to jump out of the stands and follow us.

“This way!” Rachel yelled.

“Why should we follow you?” Annabeth demanded. “You led us straight into that death trap!”

“It was the way you needed to go,” Rachel said. “And so is this. Come on!” Annabeth didn’t look happy about it, but she ran along with the rest of us. Rachel seemed to know exactly where she was going. She whipped around corners and didn’t even hesitate at crossroads. Once she said, “Duck!” and we all crouched as a huge axe swung over our heads. Then we kept going as if nothing had happened. I lost track of how many turns we made.

We didn’t stop to rest until we came to a room the size of a gymnasium with old marble columns holding up the roof. I stood at the doorway, listening for sounds of pursuit, but I heard nothing. Apparently we’d lost Luke and his minions in the maze. Then I realized something else: Mrs. O’Leary was gone. I didn’t know when she’d disappeared. I didn’t know of she’d gotten lost or been overrun by monsters or what. My heart turned to lead. She’d saved our lives, and I hadn’t even waited to make sure she was following us.

Ethan collapsed on the floor. “You people are crazy.” He pulled off his helmet. His face gleamed with sweat.

Annabeth gasped. “I remember you! You were one of the undetermined kids in the Hermes cabin, years ago.”

He glared at her. “Yeah, and you’re Annabeth. I remember.”

“What—what happened to your eye?” Ethan looked away, and I got the feeling that was one subject he would not discuss.

“You must be the half-blood from my dream,” I said. “The one Luke’s people cornered. It wasn’t Nico after all.”

“Who’s Nico?”

“Never mind,” Annabeth said quickly. “Why were you trying to join up with the wrong side?”

Ethan sneered. “There’s no right side. The gods never cared about us. Why shouldn’t I—”

“Sign up with an army that makes you fight to the death for entertainment?” Annabeth said. “Gee, I wonder.” Ethan struggled to his feet.

“I’m not going to argue with you. Thanks for the help, but I’m out of here.”

“We’re going after Daedalus,” I said. “Come with us. Once we get through, you’d be welcome back at camp.”

“You really are crazy if you think Daedalus will help you.”

“He has to,” Annabeth said. “We’ll make him listen.”

Ethan snorted. “Yeah, well. Good luck with that.” I grabbed his arm.

“You’re just going to head off alone into the maze? That’s suicide.”

He looked at me with barely controlled anger. His eye patch was frayed around the edges and the black cloth was faded, like he’d been wearing it a long, long time. “You shouldn’t have spared me, Jackson. Mercy has no place in this war.” Then he ran off into the darkness, back the way we’d come.

Annabeth, Rachel, and I were so exhausted we made camp right there in the huge room. I found some scrap wood and we started a fire. Shadows danced off the columns rising around us like trees.

“Something was wrong with Luke,” Annabeth muttered, poking at the fire with her knife. “Did you notice the way he was acting?”

“He looked pretty pleased to me,” I said. “Like he’d spent a nice day torturing heroes.”

“That’s not true! There was something wrong with him. He looked...nervous. He told his monsters to spare me. He wanted to tell me something.”

“Probably, ‘Hi, Annabeth! Sit here with me and watch while I tear your friends apart. It’ll be fun!’”

“You’re impossible,” Annabeth grumbled. She sheathed her dagger and looked at Rachel. “So which way now, Sacajawea?” Rachel didn’t respond right away. She’d become quieter since the arena. Now, whenever Annabeth made a sarcastic comment, Rachel hardly bothered to answer. She’d burned the tip of a stick in the fire and was using it to draw ash figures on the floor, images of the monsters we’d seen. With a few strokes, she caught the likeness of a dracaena perfectly.

“We’ll follow the path,” she said. “The brightness on the floor.”

“The brightness that led us straight into a trap?” Annabeth asked.

“Lay off her, Annabeth,” I said. “She’s doing the best she can.”

Annabeth stood. “The fire’s getting low. I’ll go look for some more scraps while you guys talk strategy.” And she marched off into the shadows.

They run from an earthquake in the morning and arrive at Daedalus's workshop. Annabeth is stunned -- childhood hero, here we come.

The first thing that struck me was the daylight—blazing sun coming through giant windows. Not the kind of thing you expect in the heart of a dungeon. The workshop was like an artist’s studio, with thirty-foot ceilings and industrial lighting, polished stone floors, and workbenches along with windows. A spiral staircase led up to a second-story loft. Half a dozen easels displayed hand-drawn diagrams for buildings and machines that looked like Leonardo da Vinci sketches. Several laptop computers were scattered around on the tables. Glass jars of green oil—Greek fire—lined one shelf. There were inventions, too—weird metal machines I couldn’t make sense of. One was a bronze chair with a bunch of electrical wires attached to it, like some kind of torture device. In another corner stood a giant metal egg about the size of a man. There was a grandfather clock that appeared to be made entirely of glass, so you could see all the gears turning. And hanging on the wall were several sets of bronze and silver wings.

“Di immortales,” Annabeth muttered. She ran to the nearest easel and looked at the sketch. “He’s a genius. Look at the curves on this building!”

“And an artist,” Rachel said in amazement. “These wings are amazing!” The wings looked more advanced than the ones I’d seen in my dreams. The feathers were more tightly interwoven. Instead of wax seals, self adhesive strips ran down the sides.

Then Quintus, the swordmaster from Camp Half-Blood, shows up for some reason? Annabeth thinks he's a traitor that's killed Daedalus, but in reality he is actually Daedalus himself, an automaton created to host Daedalus's soul and mind while his real body perished away. Except he looks exactly like a real human to the point where Annabeth doesn't even believe he's a robot...basically, he explains that ever since he killed his nephew and his physical body died, he's been keeping the Labyrinth alive with his own life force in order to hide from his death and judgment (from hades, from Minos, everyone...).

“Kronos promised me freedom,” Quintus said. “Once Hades is overthrown, he will set me over the Underworld. I will reclaim my son Icarus. I will make things right with poor young Perdix. I will see Minos’s soul cast into Tartarus, where it cannot bother me again. And I will no longer have to run from death.”

“That’s your brilliant idea?” Annabeth yelled. “You’re going to let Luke destroy your camp, kill hundreds of demigods, and then attack Olympus? You’re going to bring down the entire world so you can get what you want?”

“Your cause is doomed, my dear. I saw that as soon as I began to work at your camp. There is no way you can hold back the might of Kronos.”

“That’s not true!” she cried.

“I am doing what I must, my dear. The offer was too sweet to refuse. I’m sorry.”

Annabeth pushed over an easel. Architectural drawings scattered across the floor. “I used to respect you. You were my hero! You—you built amazing things. You solved problems. Now...I don’t know what you are. Children of Athena are supposed to be wise, not just clever. Maybe you are just a machine. You should have died two thousand years ago.”

AND THEN: Kelli the empousa shows up again with Nico and King Minos in tow, which terrifies Daedalus because Minos is his enemy! And so they start to fight with Annabeth and Percy as Rachel readies the pairs of wings on the table for them to make a speedy getaway. Annabeth stabs Kelli in the back just as she attempts to eat Percy, and she dissolves. Ms. O'Leary and Daedalus stay behind as Annabeth, Rachel, Percy and Nico jump out the window, each with a makeshift pair of wings.


Memory 43 / Significant Negative
Annabeth breaks the rules. (BoL ch. 4)
Pandora, Day 287. Candle in your team color. Light it to view. [1/9]

Chiron calls a war meeting; Luke knew about the entrance to the Labyrinth when he was at camp and attempted to use it. Juniper, Grover's girlfriend, knew about it but thought it was just a cave -- no one could blame her, because it was, as she put it, pretty "icky". Luke's been sending messengers/scouts through the Labyrinth but all of them are going crazy and/or dying. They have to convince Daedalus to help them -- if he's still alive, which wouldn't make sense since he's like 300 years old. MYSTERIOUS. They all decide that the best way to stop Luke from leading an army into Camp Half-Blood is to get to Ariadne's string before he can. Everyone volunteers Annabeth to go to the Oracle, though she looks uncomfortable, she accepts. ORACLES HAPPEN it's super spooky, Annabeth is very freaked out and receives a prophecy: You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise. You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand, The Child of Athena's final stand. Destroy with a hero's final breath, And lose a love to worse than death. SUPER FREAKY OMG. Does this mean she's going to die? What's going on? Who knows?

Annabeth chooses three companions even though the sacred number is two to make a three-person party. She insists, and Chiron warns her that last year, five left, and only three returned. She still says this is the best number. She runs off, and Percy comes after her to find her in Athena's messy nerd kid cabin.

“Knock, knock?” I said.

She turned with a start. “Oh...hi. Didn’t hear you.”

“You okay?”

She frowned at the scroll in her hands. “Just trying to do some research. Daedalus’s Labyrinth is so huge. None of the stories agree about anything. The maps just lead from nowhere to nowhere.”

I thought about what Quintus had said, how the maze tries to distract you. I wondered if Annabeth knew that already. “We’ll figure it out,” I promised.

Her hair had come loose and was hanging in a tangled blond curtain all around her face. Her gray eyes looked almost black.

“I’ve wanted to lead a quest since I was seven,” she said.

“You’re going to do awesome.”

She looked at me gratefully, but then stared down at all the books and scrolls she’d pulled from the shelves. “I’m worried, Percy. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. Or Tyson or Grover.”

“Hey, we’re your friends. We wouldn’t miss it.”

“But...” She stopped herself.

“What is it?” I asked. “The prophecy?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” she said in a small voice.

“What was the last line?”

Then she did something that really surprised me. She blinked back tears and put out her arms. I stepped forward and hugged her. Butterflies started turning my stomach into a mosh pit.

“Hey, it’s...it’s okay.” I patted her back. I was aware of everything in the room. I felt like I could read the tiniest print on any book on the shelves. Annabeth’s hair smelled like lemon soap. She was shivering.

“Chiron might be right,” she muttered. “I’m breaking the rules. But I don’t know what else to do. I need you three. It just feels right.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” I managed. “We’ve had plenty of problems before, and we solved them.”

“This is different. I don’t want anything happening to...any of you.”

Behind me, somebody cleared his throat. It was one of Annabeth’s half-brothers, Malcolm. His face was bright red. “Um, sorry,” he said. “Archery practice is starting, Annabeth. Chiron said to come find you.”

I stepped away from Annabeth. “We were just looking at maps,” I said stupidly. Malcolm stared at me.

“Okay.”

“Tell Chiron I’ll be right there,” Annabeth said, and Malcom left in a hurry. Annabeth rubbed her eyes. “You go ahead, Percy. I’d better get ready for archery.” I nodded, feeling more confused than I ever had in my life. I wanted to run from the cabin...but then again I didn’t.

“Annabeth?” I said. “About your prophecy. The line about a hero’s last breath—”

“You’re wondering which hero? I don’t know.”

“No. Something else. I was thinking the last line usually rhymes with the one before it. Was it something about—did it end in the word death?”

Annabeth stared down at her scrolls. “You’d better go, Percy. Get ready for the quest. I’ll—I’ll see you in the morning.”

I left her there, staring at maps that led from nowhere to nowhere; but I couldn’t shake the feeling that one of us wasn’t going to come back from this quest alive.

Effects:
• Unlocked: Knowledge of half-brother, Malcom! Also the knowledge that every single Athena kid really does look exactly alike. She had guessed at it before because of previous memories, but this confirms it.
+1000001092832 Percy dere Percy Percy Percy stupid Percy cute Percy
+100 PERCY
JUST SO MUCH PERCY 8( I DON'T WANT PERCY TO GET HURT
loev percy
cute
• Unlocked: Full knowledge of the Labyrinth prophecy.
+400 preservation of self! She doesn't want to die. At all.

Mostly this memory is negated in its terror because she remembers being older than this, so clearly she doesn't die! But it is still worrying because she also remembers that things go wrong later when they're in the Labyrinth. And clearly someone dies, so it's important to find out who.

Memory 44 / Trivial Negative
Clarisse blows up everything. (SM ch. 11)
Maleficent, Day 288. A feather in your team color. Think about receiving to view. [unlimited]

Basically this is the Scylla and Charybdis memory I'm pretty sure. The ship explodes, Tyson goes missing, everyone is mad at Clarisse for attempting to do this, she's been buttheaded and disappears. Also there are creepy confederate soldiers who stare at you as you pass. Annabeth doesn't like Tyson holding her hand. Etc.

Memory 45 / Significant Negative
Ares and the Tunnel of Love. (LT 224-241)
Old Joe, Day 289. Funky-smelling bone disk. Scratch to view. [1/2]