by Emery Pugh
Chapter 14
Percy
I woke up.
My vision was blurry, and the peripheries were dark as if I was viewing the world through a binoculars.
I had no idea where I was. The walls around me were constructed of simple gray bricks with a single dull wooden door. Everything was plain.
I grasped my mind for memories – why was I here? What happened? Where was Annabeth?
Suddenly, I remembered. I’d been struck by a droplet of venom in battle. I wondered whether this was what it was like when you died. It’s quite possible that I was in the Underworld.
My fears of being in the realm of Hades disappeared as the door opened to reveal Annabeth.
“Percy!” Annabeth ran over to my bedside.
“Annabeth, I thought I was in the Underworld until I saw you.” I tried to sit up on my elbows, but my right arm was still injured. I collapsed back down.
“Ow!” I winced. “Dang, that arm still hurts.”
“It’ll take at least a few days to heal,” said another voice at the door. I recognized him as Pranjal, one of the camp’s medics. “You’re lucky that it was a small droplet of venom, and it hit your arm instead of your head, for instance. Some others were struck by much larger ones, and…”
He didn’t need to explain further. The three of us fell silent.
“So… how do we fight the siege tower?” Annabeth pondered. “Even Imperial gold won’t hold up against the venom – and that’s the strongest material we have.”
I shrugged. Pranjal didn’t have a response either.
Frank and Hazel, the praetors of New Rome, entered the room.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Hazel murmured. “You’re okay.”
Frank gave me a thumbs-up and grinned. He had some eagle feathers stuck in his hair, likely from transforming into an eagle. Other than that, the battle left him unscathed.
“I’m just as glad that you’re alright,” I said. “Any details about the fight after I went out? And speaking of that, how long was I out?”
Frank tilted his head and frowned, trying to recall the memories of earlier. “You’ve been unconcious for a few hours. About the battle, turns out the venom can only shoot at a relatively short range, and it’s pretty inaccurate. Most of the campers successfully retreated.”
“Ballistae should do the job, then,” I remarked. “It’s a ranged weapon, and we can all just stay out of range of the venom.”
“It should,” Annabeth agreed. “But the tower has some sort of magical protection, and our projectiles can’t get anywhere near it.”
The memories of the battle suddenly flooded back to me. I remembered how the ballista cannons failed to penetrate an invisible barrier. “Oh. Yeah, I remember now. That’s gonna be a problem.”
“Well,” Annabeth continued. “All magical barriers have some way to deactivate them. We’ll have to somehow sneak inside the siege tower and disable the protective magic.”
Nobody was excited about that. It was practically a suicide mission. You’d have to wade through hundreds of monsters, evade the venom, somehow find out how to turn off the magical barrier (undetected is optimal, but not possible), and get out alive.
“Those people are going to need a lot of unicorn horn shavings,” Pranjal murmured.
“Someone is going to have to do it,” I said. “It doesn’t look good, but that’s what we do, right? We do hard things.”
We do hard things sounded like an advertisement. Call us at 999-999-9999 and we’ll do all your hard things for you!
Frank sighed. “We’ll assemble a team for that soon. Camp Half-Blood contacted us a little while ago that their part of the quest team is ready to go. We’ll have to decide who we send for that quest too.”
I noticed a small window just behind me. Outside, Jormungandr’s image flashed again, and was gone as quickly as he had come.
Suddenly, the room darkened and the window shattered and was replaced with bricks. The door toppled over and more gray bricks flew in to replace it. Thousands of projections raced by on the walls, depicting scenes of monsters overrunning Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood. In another, Jormungandr rose above the camps and spat swimming pools’ worth of venom, devouring the camp in poison.
Then, I realized I was alone. Annabeth, Frank, Hazel, and Pranjal had vanished. The flashing projections had been replaced by one massive serpent on the far wall.
I reached into my jeans and thankfully found Riptide in pen form. I uncapped it and the gleaming Celestial Bronze blade shot out. It wasn’t much, and it was going to do anything to an illusions, but it gave me confidence.
The serpent laughed a deep, guttural, and cruel laugh. He whispered, Come to me. You cannot keep your precious little camp… or should I say, camps, safe.
I yelled and tried to throw Riptide at the serpent, but no sound came out. Since I was using my left arm, I threw the sword short and it clattered onto the floor.
The seas will rise and flood the earth. I can finally exit my freezing waters and enjoy warm, tropical waters. Humans, spewing gases with their factories, aid me greatly, he hissed. As a son of Poseidon, shouldn’t you be happy about this? The whole world will be your father’s realm. I will destroy Poseidon, and I will be the sole god of the sea. All land will be flooded with endless ocean – in fact, I have to thank you for that. Gaea’s power is no longer here to stop me. In return, I will let you and your girlfriend, Annabeth, roam anywhere you please. I shall protect you from the wrath of Tartarus… who has not forgotten you. Or… you can choose to fight me, and you will die in a pathetic defense of your camps against a force so powerful you cannot stop.
I’ve been tempted with many offers before. But honestly, this one was the weakest. Yeah, I like the sea, but the world shouldn’t be drowned in it. I would love roaming free with just Annabeth… but I would never let all my other friends die without me. Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter would be demolished – I would never allow that to happen.
Unfortunately, he was right about the factories – climate change caused dangerous amounts of rising sea levels. Humans were accelerating their own destruction.
One thing puzzled me, though: the wrath of Tartarus. I escaped Tartarus with Annabeth during our quest to stop Gaea and the giants… but why would he bother chasing after a mortal? I recall him remarking that he didn’t even care about the Olympians themselves.
“No! Never, slimy serpent!” I yelled. This time, my voice reverberated around the room, gaining volume with each echo.
The serpent growled with annoyance. Fool. You will be destroyed with everyone else.
The illusions disappeared, and the window and the door reappeared in their proper places. The four others reappeared in different locations in the room. Annabeth clutched her dagger with white knuckles and looked like she was ready to throw it. Frank had his bow at the ready. Hazel was in the process of summoning hundreds of millions of dollars worth of jewels. Meanwhile, Pranjal menacingly held a fork.
“You guys saw that too?” I asked. “The illusions with Jormungandr and all that?” Annabeth gave me a sharp glance. I suddenly remembered that I wasn’t supposed to say his name.
Frank nodded. “I did. He told me that he was going to destroy the world by flooding it or something. He offered to spare me, and he said I could morph into a sea creature and have the seas to myself.”
Annabeth looked shaken. “He gave me an offer similar to what the gods gave me on Mount Olympus… the serpent said he would let me design an underwater mansion for me to live in.” There was something else implied – for Percy and me to live in.
“He offered me the chance to live with my father, Pluto,” Hazel said. “I never really knew him.” She sighed, and Frank put an arm around her.
“You guys have such cool weapons. Look at mine.” Pranjal glanced at his fork. “Anyways, the serpent offered me a selection of medicines that could cure anything… something I’ve always wanted.”
“He’s offering something that each of us wants,” Annabeth noted. “Not exactly a new tactic, though, and it’s not hard to resist his deals.”
Frank nodded. “I’m not tempted at all.” The rest of us echoed what he said.
“Well… that still leaves the venom siege tower problem,” I said. “And the quest problem. And the monsters problem.”
“We’ll have a Senate meeting sometime later today or tomorrow,” Hazel’s eyes seemed distant, as if still in the illusion. “As of now, Percy, get some rest and heal up.”
The Lighthouse 