Chapter 15- Maze and Choice

All I could see is darkness. No light. No objects, just darkness. I walked forward, my left arm on the wall taking the direction it took me. I moved forward relying on my non-ocular senses.

I could feel the the darkness around me letting me know where I should not venture and I could also feel the Mist, so dense that it could even mess with my senses and I grew sure of one thing.

This labyrinth, this ever shifting maze, is alive.

Alive and actively trying to kill all it considers intruders which includes me. I could feel the shift of passages in the maze through the Mist. So I used my different thought processes to focus on different things.

One focused on the Mist and observation of how it changed my perception and how it affected reality.

Another focused on how I felt empowered in the dark along with sensing my surroundings through it.

The last focused on analyzing the changes being made and how I would walk through it.

People fear darkness because they fear the unknown. The dark robs people of their senses and is more often than not associated with negative aspects of life.

But for me the dark is power and I understood in the dark I will be stronger, faster and I can endure for longer. The dark even helped me recover faster.

I didn't realize it earlier as earlier I had yet to grow enough to feel this power and connect to it. I always felt more powerful in the dark but it was negligible and the nights were usually spent sleeping and training with Scathach.

Even though I am not able to see anything I find myself easily navigating through the dark. I keep walking, alert for any traps until I finally find a source of light ahead.

The room I find is elliptical in shape with three paths branching out to the front and the sides. Four if you count the path I used walking in. In the center if the room stood a pedestal which supported a torch in which a dull fire burned. The fire shone like a light in a fog rather than the blaze that is normally seen.

The walls are covered in murals carved onto the walls. The murals depicted many scenes but the common point between all these scenes is the fact that all of them seem to indicate the making of a decision. A choice taken between crossroads.

And I understood. I stand at a crossroads of my life. A very important one if the goddess of magic and crossroads, Hecate, herself is manifesting before me.

The goddess didn't appear but in the fire I can see my choices.

If I took the path to my left I would go on to find a pack of wolves who would test me before letting me into some military camp for demigods.

If I took the straight route I would end up at some kind of demigod shelter and would also meet Lady Artemis at one point and probably join her hunt.

If I went back using the path I came through I would again reach camp where I could have fun with friends but stay restricted in camp.

The path to the right is the most tempting and at the same time the one I dislike the most. This path is filled with images of failure where I try and fail to save a young girl from two weak yet powerful gods. I fight monsters, giants and even Titans and in most of the images I fail. The only vision which doesn't seem bleak is the one where I can meet Percy and Sally though there is someone disgusting with them who I will need to take care of.

It irked me. The fact that the fire showed this path is meant to be my failure irritated me.

This path tempted me with the many battles and hunts that I get but I hate how the fire, or rather Hecate, assumed I could and would fail. I do not know if this is her power over crossroads that allow her to glimpse the future but I will NOT fail.

So, even though I myself felt it a bit stupid I decided to take the path on the left. Not the fun hunting with a wolf in the wilds and fighting with militarily trained demigods. Not the shelter of demigods and immortality with Artemis. Not the safe haven that is Camp Half-Blood but the most dangerous and likely torturous, both physically and mentally, path.

Also there was a cute young demigoddess who needs saving,doesn't she.

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The labyrinth is quite a deadly place for the average demigod and even for the more powerful ones.

With how the maze subtly guides us to the deadliest and trickiest traps to the most dangerous and difficult to kill monsters.

It becomes very irritating when some monsters have a kind of conditional immortality.

An example being the Giant I am currently running from. I mean some conditions are OK and easy to finish in some way or another, but the only way to kill a Giant like Picolous is with both demigod and god together.

If it is just about killing him I have already done so. Multiple times. Yet he somehow still gets up every time but seems to finally be getting tired.

I have been playing games of cat and mouse with Picolous and whenever I had a chance I killed him. But he is like a cockroach with wolverine's regeneration.

Finally I got him tired and lying on the ground gasping for breath as I stabbed him again. Still not dead. Apparently, though his regeneration is slightly connected to his stamina and it slows down when his stamina is running low but his immortality itself is still in effect and he isn't dying.

One good thing is that Picolous was stupid enough to tell me his own weakness and basically boasted how he could not be killed unless a God and demigod work together.

While I killed him Multiple times he also told me the ones to kill him in the first place were Helios and Circe. Though I killed him Multiple times it is all because of my superior speed, mobility and reflexes. Also the giant was just dumb.

As I couldn't kill him and I really didn't want to call on the gods while running away from camp, I decided to bind him inside the labyrinth so that he doesn't pret on anybody else.

Using my power over shadows I tried something new. I bound him with darkness and partially shadow travelled him into a wall leaving parts of his body inside.

When I was done he looked to be joined into the wall and even if someone destroyed the wall Picolous would still be trapped in the shadows.

He could possibly break out or get help but I already did what I could and this should be enough for now.

After fighting the Giant, two pit scorpions, a group of blemmyae I finally got out and ended up in Palm Springs, California.