We carefully moved towards the abandoned "ship" as the cupid statues stared us down from above. Grover was currently clacking around, trying to either see if any robots would appear or if there was another exit to this ride, one that didn't lead back here.
Annabeth soon reached for the Shield, careless of any possible traps constructed around it. Or maybe she was reaching for the scarf, one of Aphrodites collections.
My hand shot out, grabbing her wrist and stopping her from touching the Shield even slightly.
"Look, there, right behind it." I said, pointing and directing her attention towards the string Thad had been tied around the back of the shield.
Annabeth took a moment before she showed any reaction, then she shoved me to the ground, away from the Shield before she just took both, it and the scarf. Therefore breaking the string that had kept the trap from going of. She mumbled around about: "He doesn't deserve you." "You are mine." and finally, the one that almost had me snorting if it wasn't for the net of celestial Bronze being woven above us and mechanical spiders coming out from the tunnel before us. She muttered those legendary words, known to only the Hobbits and Golum.
" My precious!" "You are my precious!"
The girl didn't even notice the impending wave of spiders, just staring at the scarf, almost like she was hypnotized by it, petting and letting it slide through her hands.
Seriously, whatever that Love-magic inside the scarf was, it reminded me more and more of demonic magic or curse magic than any other school of magic I was aware of.
The net above us was completed by now and the spiders crept closer and closer. If I decided to flood the area now, we could die either because of the net or because of the spiders. My titles as Frist Spider didn't have any effect on them either since they were barely sentient enough to perform their duty.
But I knew I didn't have any other choice then to crack open the floor and let the water flow. However what I could do was control it's intensity, if nothing else. So I began to exert mor force on the water in the pipes, creating cracks in them and the concrete above from the pressure alone.
Soon there was a geyser inside of the ride, mechanical spiders flying around when they came in contact with the violent eruption of boiling hot water.
I lessened the pressure I exerted, turning it into a calm but powerful current that dragged more and more black water out of forgotten pipes, through the crack in the concrete and into the drained ride. But something unexpected happend. I once again felt the water connect to something but this time it was familiar and my suspicion was proven as soon as the first shark fin broke through the surface.
The water, already connected to my domain of the deep sea, somehow had managed to connect itself to the Forgotten Lake from my Home-Dimension. And for some reason the Hellfin Titans, behemoths of demonic sharks, bigger than the great white, had decided to go for a little walk, or swim in their case.
Within seconds the water, previously the definition of still waters go deep, had turned into a whirlpool of movement as more and more of demonic fish, excuse the pun, "pooled" in.
The spiders, previously as uncountable as the stars, dissappeared in the hungry stomachs of demonic fish. When every single one was devoured, the waters became silent and still again, as if there hadn't just been a gigantic school of multiple fish inside.
Annabeth was still staring at the scarf, bewitched by its inherent love-magic. Grover stood outside, staring baffled at me and I stared right back.
"Welcome to the famous Liverstream of Olympus. How do you feel being captured by Hephestus Inc.?"
Came a clearly automated announcement from the cupid statues, each of them now fitted with a camera focused on me and Annabeth.
"Pretty bad, considering I doubt that you intended to capture two demigods that are currently trying to get your Kings favourit toy back while also being accused of being its thief in the first place. Also I think Aphrodite should keep her scarfs to herself for the foreseeable future since this fine specimen of a demigodess has gone golum. Seriously I think we need Divine intervention just to make her let go of it. Because I'm certainly not going to try. No one gets between a woman and her fashion and gets away with all their limbs intact."
I responded, barely containing a sarcastic grin from my face, not that I was actually trying to.
There was of course no response since I doubt that Hephestus had installed a mic in his throne.
The statues soon wired down, their lenses closing and the net unweaving and retracting.
Then, further away inside the amusement park, I heard the sound of steps, two to be exact. They hadn't been there before and from what I could tell, one was wearing high heels, probably Aphrodite since it's her scarf, and the other walked with a limp and a cane, clearly Hephestus.
I turned to Grover, while Annabeth was still raving on about how the scarf was "hers" and how she would never let it go.
"Judging from what I just heard inside the park, I think we're going to meet more Olympians. That makes 3 out of twelve. Wanna take a bet on which one we meet next?"
And with that, both Aphrodite and her husband Hephestus stepped forward. I didn't know why he was here but atleast Aphrodite came to collect her scarf.
"Good evening Percy, Grover." she said with a soft and soothing voice, much unlike what I had expected from her.
Hephestus gave us a huff. Then he told us why he was here.
"You set off the trap, no doubt because my brother put you up to it, and somehow managed to survive. But that was probably because the spiders didn't trigger. I've got to check."
He said, with a deep and rough voice, evidently rarely used. Then he disappeared into the tunnel while Aphrodite approached our resident demigodess. At first Annabeth was behaving like a feral cat, hissing and clawing towards her but then, once the goddess had stepped closer, she stopped. Drool was running out of her mouth like she had just seen something incredibly tasty. Or hot, yeah. She probably just fell in love with the goddess.
What followed was as anticlimactic as it could get as Annabeth, still drooling, handed Aphrodite her scarf, then the immortal disappeared.
Limp steps echoed from withing the tunnel as soon as she had. Then Hephestus came back. He regarded me with a questioning look.
"So, Percy Jackson. I just checked and saw that the spiders did in fact trigger. Would you happen to know where they are? Or did you somehow dispose of them?"
I swallowed a lump in my throat. How did that get there?
"Yes, about that. I somehow summoned water that had live fish in it. They ate them. Sorry." I said, looking down.
Contrary to what some might have thought, I respected the god quite a lot. Not because of anything he had done but because I had learned from his children that he had actually visited them during their childhoods. So atleast this one showed genuine interest in all of his kids. That was something I could respect.
He stared me down for a few seconds. Then he gave his response.
"When you return to camp, I want you and my kids to work together to make new ones. I will send you their blueprint once you return."
And with that, he too, disappeared, but not before handing me Ares shield.
The walk back was entertaining to say the least. For Grover and me, not for Annabeth though. We teased her relentlessly about her golum phase and how she had hissed at the goddess of love.
It was all in good fun.