RECLUSE - (n) a person who lives a solitary life and tends to avoid other people.
MAISIE ELLIOT WAS ANGRY.
Angry at the world.
Angry at the Gods.
Angry at the demigods who seemed to move on too fast.
And when forced onto a quest with three stranger...
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PERCY LED THE WAY DOWN THE DRAINAGE PIPE
After thirty feet, it opened into a wider tunnel. To their left, somewhere in the distance, Maisie heard rumbling and creaking, like a huge machine needed oiling. She had absolutely no desire to find out what was making that sound, so he figured that must be the way to go. Typical demigod stuff.
Several hundred feet later, they reached a turn in the tunnel. Percy held up his hand, signaling to the others to pause. He peeked around the corner.
When he didn't answer, Piper took her turn to speak up.
"What is it?" She whispered.
Like he was unsure how to answer, Percy gestured for his friends to take a look for themselves.
The corridor opened into a vast room with twenty-foot ceilings and rows of support columns. The creaking and rumbling came from huge gears and pulley systems that raised and lowered sections of the floor for no apparent reason. Water flowed through open trenches, powering waterwheels that turned some of the machines. Other machines were connected to huge hamster wheels with hellhounds inside.
Suspended from the ceiling were cages of live animals—a lion, several zebras, a whole pack of hyenas, and even an eight-headed hydra. Ancient-looking bronze and leather conveyor belts trundled along with stacks of weapons and armor.
How much Leo would love this was the first thought that popped into Maisie's mind. The whole room was like one massive, scary, unreliable machine, he would had a field day.
About twenty feet inside the doorway, a life-size wooden cutout of a gladiator popped up from the floor. It clicked and whirred along a conveyor belt, got hooked on a rope, and ascended through a slot in the roof.
Jason murmured, "What the heck?"
They stepped inside and spun around to fully scan the room. About a hundred yards away, Maisie spotted a raised dais with two empty oversized praetor chairs. Standing between them was a bronze jar big enough to hold a person.
"Hey, look over there," she pointed it out to her friends.
Piper frowned. "That's too easy."
"Of course," Percy said.
"But we have no choice," Jason said. "We've got to save Nico."
"Yeah." Percy started across the room, picking his way around conveyor belts and moving platforms.
The hellhounds in the hamster wheels paid them no attention. They were too busy running and panting, their red eyes glowing like headlights. The animals in the other cages gave them bored looks, as if to say, I'd kill you, but it would take too much energy.
They tried to watch out for traps, but everything here looked like a trap.
They jumped over a water trench and ducked under a row of caged wolves. They had made it about halfway to the bronze jar when the ceiling opened over them. A platform lowered. Standing on it like an actor, with one hand raised and his head high, was the purple-haired giant Ephialtes.
