Blaze of Glory - a PJO fanfiction

19. Into the Maze

Lights Come On - Jason Aldean

- Time skip sponsored by the triumvirate -

It was a couple of days later, and I had finally finished all the weapons.

I'd been working for days nonstop, only taking short breaks to sleep. In short, I was exhausted. I handed a plain celestial bronze sword to the last dracaena in line, and shortly collapsed on the ground.

"Finally," I groaned. "I can sleep."

"Not quite yet," a voice above me said, grabbing me by the arm and hauling me to my feet. "There's still more to be done."

"Whoever you are, just leave me on the ground to rot," I told the voice, flopping back to the ground. "I swear to every god and titan out there, if you tell me that I have something to do within the next 24 hours, I'm going to jump off the cliff over there."

Xavier laughed, "Nice try Krys." He hauled me to my feet once again, holding my arms so that I wouldn't fall over. "But as your captain, it would be against my duties to let you come to any harm, and throwing yourself off a cliff is a form of harm."

"Yea yea..." I said, sweeping my tools off the anvil and back into their wooden crate. "I better get at least a full 10 hours of sleep before this invasion plan of Luke's." I started walking towards the direction of the main courtyard. "I'll also need to meet with the scouts from the maze, preferably all of them at once, how many came back?"

"Well... that's the thing," Xavier started. "None of them came back." I stopped in my tracks.

"And how many did we send?" I asked him.

"A lot," he responded. I started walking again.

"Cancel my meeting with the maze scouts, I need to talk to Luke instead. He'll be in the main courtyard, right?" He nodded in response. "Good," I said. "I also need a meeting with the Majors and their Captains, all of them, we need to discuss the actual battle plan. I have some modifications that I'd like to make." Xavier raised an eyebrow at me, usually I didn't make many changes to battle plans after I made them the first time. "Learned a few things on my mission," I clarified.

We entered the main courtyard, which was overflowing with demigods and dracaenae. Kampe stomped past me, and I swear one of the heads at her waist almost bit me. Luke was standing over in the middle of the courtyard next to one of the Emposai, though I had no idea which one, they all looked the same to me. Suddenly, the emposa lunged at the air next to her, making the air shimmer and distort a bit, before going back to normal.

"Are you sure she's sane?" I asked Luke, walking up behind him.

"Krys!" Luke said. "You're back! I'm sorry I couldn't come to see you while you were working, I had other manners to attend to. Exciting things, like paperwork, and meetings."

"Well," I said. "I'm glad you were having more fun than me. I haven't slept in at least 32 hours, but hey, everyone has sharp objects."

"Yeah, sorry about that," he apologized. "You're the only one here who knows how to make magic weapons. Unfortunately, we didn't all train with Circe."

"For the last time," I chuckled. "I didn't train with her, I was imprisoned by her." I looked around. "Where are the Majors, and their Captains? I need to meet with them. I learned a few military techniques at the Roman camp that I think we could implement into the invasion-"

"Shhhh, quiet Krys," Luke cut me off, putting a finger to his lips. "Anyways, you've been working nonstop, you should get a couple hours of sleep before we start our mission."