Roadtrip

He nodded, took a(nother) deep breath, and followed. He focused on the blur of light until it went out, waiting for the sudden shift that would tell him that 'down' was now 'up' and trying, with less success this time, to set aside recent experience and focus on what was to come. He couldn't put the crow out of his mind.

Mel struggled through the murk, her light extending mere feet now. She dove, finally pausing to reorient as the shift in gravity caused a brief moment of vertigo. Never a strong swimmer, Mel strove for the far surface of the water, increasingly panicked as her lungs began to hurt. She couldn't make out the surface, but forced herself to be calm, all the while thinking she might have just made two more sacrifices to this damnable place. As that thought washed over her, her hand hit air and Mel gasped as her head broke the surface.

She had time to take in the recessed well in which she found herself before Simon likewise reached the Labyrinth.

Swimming wasn't something he did a whole lot of these days, but he knew the basics, and he was in rather good shape over all. It was still a relief when he broke the surface, feeling a little disoriented after the gravity shift. He glances around to get a sense of where they were, and over at Mel, who seemed to be still catching her breath. he saw a little closer.

"You okay?"

She coughed a few times before replying, "Yeah. Just, just catching my breath."

Mel treaded water in a circle, taking in the chamber in which they found themselves. Faded blue and dirty white mosaics covered the walls where the tiles hadn't completed fallen out. Seeing a ladder carved into the stone, Mel made her way over and pulled herself out of the water. She turned around to offer Simon assistance, commenting,"Minoan. Interesting."

Simon took the offered hand, and was soon standing beside Mel, dripping wet. He looked a round a bit more carefully, trying to get his bearings and wondering if that mattered here. As he did so, he unslung his bookbag, then checked the plastic-wrapped contents inside and released Nam, who settled on his shoulder and began to preen.

"Well I guess that fits? Did you study classics or something?" She seemed to have a pretty wide base of knowledge, but he didn't really know that much about her.

Mel laughed, short and somewhat bitterly. "No, ah, literature, actually. But Khai was a fanatic for this sort of thing. You pick up a fair bit of other people's knowledge when you're around them long enough, and it is pretty interesting. Not to mention, the weirdest things go from esoteric to essential in, umm, our line of work."

As she spoke, she walked over to the wall, tracing the outline of a youth leaping over a bull. She seemed lost in thought for a moment before turning back to Simon.

"I suppose we should get on with it, huh?"

Simon nodded, though he didn't have any idea who Khai was. Another friend, or companion, he guessed. And one in the past tense....

"Yeah, I've noticed. So, follow the trowel, then?"

"Essentially, yes. It should provide what you called metaphorical string, leading us through to Jeb."

Mel pulled her pack out of the plastic bag, slinging it over her shoulder and rummaging through it. She replaced her glasses and drew a large dagger with a bronze blade.

Seeing Simon's look, she shrugged and said, "Just in case."

"Well, no, that actually makes a lot of sense. I just... wasn't expecting it?" He didn't know why though, and again, it was kind of embarrassing. Of course she would need some way to defend herself, and especially if she'd been on her own at all. Shaking his head again, he strapped his glove on as well, then picked up the trowel in his left hand, and GPS in his right, wondering just how this would work here. Nevertheless, when he called up the 'program' he'd written, there was a target marker on the screen, and a relative bearing.

As soon as he flickered on the screen, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Okay. He's this way."

"All right. Lead on." Mel tapped her glasses, again producing the golden glow which seemed more muted here. She fell into step just behind Simon, alert and possibly more tense than ever.

The thread of Fate grew ever clearer, leading them from the ruins where they entered through what appeared to be an abandoned subway line, a natural cavern, and more Simon couldn't precisely identify. There was a sense of them being followed, or possibly following someone, an unshakable feeling of otherness that permeated the place.

Simon'd set the device to record the route, mostly as an experiment, but the accuracy of the data that was coming in surprised him, especially as they got closer. Occasionally he paused to capture a waypoint or record some other bit of potentially pertinent data, or just stop and take stock of where they were, and make sure they weren't about to walking in to any obvious data. It would be neat, he though, just to explore some ad see what all was out here..... Neat and, if what Mel had told him earlier was true, very very stupid.

As fascinating as it was, it was a little disconcerting - the feeling was similar to the one he had sometimes on the ranch back home that he really Didn't Belong there, only much much more pronounced.

For what felt like the millionth time in less than ten minutes,he glanced back over his shoulder, partly to make sure shew was still there, and partly to make sure she was the only one who was.

"It's not just me is it? Do you feel like you're being followed? or is is just always like that here?" He hadn't really meant to, but his voice came out in a hushed whisper.

"Oh, thank god. I haven't been down here with someone since, ah, since Jeb got lost, and I wasn't sure if it was just me or not. Well, that confirms some theories and disproves others." She seemed more relaxed for a moment before refocusing on the way ahead.

He half smiled at her reaction, figuring that she just didn't realize that she hadn't answered, well, at least not all of his questions. She seemed relieved that he'd even asked! Simon shook his head before pressing on.

"Okay then. How worried should we be about it?"

"If I'm right, not very. And I'd hazard to say that I am, though we're all biased to our own viewpoint, obviously." She kept her voice low, but it was more conversational than Simon had heard her speak so far.

"I think this place is sort of pieced together from forgotten bits. I'm not sure if that means that it grew out of Asterion's prison, or if Daedalus just built something which accessed it, or if they're even related, though I think they are. Certainly the original Labyrinth was meant to be a place where things were forgotten. This, in a way, amplifies that. Or, at least keeps them hidden and difficult to access. It makes me worry what else is locked away down here."

"Yeah... I can imagine. Of course if you ever really need to hide something away, I suppose its good to know about."

He stopped, looking up a a large column with a crack running through several of the drums. He knew he'd seen it before, and not only that, but the route said they'd backtrack by it at least twice. And yet they were getting close to the target - to Jebediah - and Simon was pretty sure *he* wasn't moving.

"Right." He sighed again, waiting for the display to sort itself out. It kept changing where it thought north was, and had a tendency to spin in circles for a bit before sorting itself out. Maybe he could turn the route track data into a fractal image. It would probably look pretty cool. "So....Asterion was the Minotaur, right?" He waited for Mel's assent before continuing.

"Yeah, cursed mom, blasphemous dad, all that jazz. Our parents can be real tools sometimes. Though, uh, I mean, help now would be appreciated, oh powerful Thoth...or Geb...or anyone."

"Thoth?" Interesting. He shook his head. "I'm kind of really wary of asking my 'father' for anything, but Thoth seems like he would be cool... Does he, ah, do much for you?"

But Thoth was who Ambrose had said was supposed to be his father too, wasn't it? And that Thoth had asked him to do something really selfish. But who knows what had happened...

"I can only give a relative answer, but, yeah, he's been helpful. The book, the dagger, the glasses; they've all been useful. He's even given some guidance on this quest, though, like most deific intervention, I suspect there's an element of enlightened self-interest involved."

"I'll take enlightened self-interest over backhanded threats any day." He sighed, taking out a pencil and scratching a question mark on the pillar they'd just passed.... again. "I'm probably not being fair. We do have a lot of support." He curled his hand into a fist, looking down at the glove Eitre had made, and frowned. "But Odin still terrifies me. Anyway, I think we're getting closer - if you ignore the landscape, at least, we're closing distance."

"Ok, good. Depending on the circumstances, this next part could be safe but tedious, or short and terrifying." She stared at Simon for a moment, considering. "You're a child of the Aesir. Have you dealt with giants or fenrir before?"

"Come on safe and tedious... And no. Well, not that I'm aware of, anyway..."

"Ok, well, I guess there's not much to tell. Giants are obviously big, and usually dumb. The ones we dealt with here were pretty tactically simplistic, as such things go. And I'm just checking in the fenrir thing. I think these were run of the mill giant wolves, but it helps to be prepared."

"You dealt with them here? I guess you really can find anything in here, then, hmmm. or well, anything can be down here, I mean, Finding things, well, uh... I *do* think we are close. But we need to swing left, and there haven't been any turns leading in the right direction for a while. I can see where we need to be on this thing, but not the path." Simon paused, scowling at the GPS. "If Bea or Aimee were here I might suggest trying to knock down a wall, and seeing what happens... But that seems like the sort of thing that has a fifty-fifty shot at either being a great or a terrible idea, down here."