Chapter 1: How Did I End Up Here?[]
So here I was in the bottom of the Underworld being chased by a pack of hell hounds for stealing some fruit that wasn't even being eaten in the first place. It all started about a week ago when a friend of mine was attacked right outside the borders of the camp by a Hydra. She ran back to the camp but one of the heads managed to bite her arm and poison filled her systems. I had heard the sound of her screams and ran as fast as I could and was followed by several campers who just couldn’t seem to keep up. By the time I got to the scene, I saw Megan on the ground and the Hydra going in for the kill. Before I knew what I was doing I had already grabbed my weapon and knocked one of the three heads out cold. Why didn't I cut the head off with a sword?
First off, cutting off one Hydra head results in two more taking its place. Some dummy named Percy Jackson tried that about four years ago and almost got his friends killed, but they were saved at the last minute by Clarisse. Second, my weapon of choice isn't a sword, but a sledge hammer with a celestial bronze hammer head. Not the kind of weapon one would use for cutting but it sure packs a punch when combined with a demigod running at full speed, especially me. The two other heads noticed me right away and began to growl and snap at me. I tried to attack again but the middle head snaked under my arms and hit me right in the chest, knocking me to the ground. As it began to run toward me I was sure I was doomed until the head on the left that I had knocked out earlier actually got tangled in the monsters feet and it fell to the ground with enough force to make the ground shake. I used this moment to grab my hammer and slam it down on another head while it was still stunned. Two down and one to go, but I had made a huge mistake, in my rush to attack I had left myself open to an attack from the still moving head. It looked at me and went to take a bite out of my rib cage as I closed my eyes tight waiting for the pain to come but it never did. When I finally got enough courage to open them, I saw the Hydra turning to dust as the arrows that had flown into its head only moments before fell to the ground.
"Swift...one of these days I'm not going to be here to protect you when you run off and do something stupid like, oh I don't know....FIGHT A HYDRA BY YOURSELF!" It was my friend Malcolm Archer from the Apollo Cabin and he was unsurprisingly a very good archer even by camp standards.
I looked at him and gave out a small smile as I said "But that day isn't today so I have nothing to worry about. Hurry, Megan is over there and I think she is hurt."
The campers brought her back to the infirmary to see how bad the injury was. The hydra's poison had spread to almost every part of her body. Now obviously the first thing we went for was the nectar and ambrosia, but that only slowed down the rapidly spreading poison in her system and to much of the stuff could kill you. We learned that she would die unless a special kind of fruit was used to make an antidote, a fruit that only grows in one place in the world, or should I say the Underworld. The fruit that grows on the tree of Tantalus. In order to save her, I needed a quest, some help, and a whole lot of luck. I always hated going to see the Oracle. It wasn’t because she was scary looking or anything, she was actually kind of cute; but it was looking into the smoky green lights where her eyes once were that always gave me the creeps. During the summer she would stay in a guest room in the Big House, which was where I was headed. I ran up the stairs and pushed the door open shouting “Rachel, I need a quest!”
She looked at me confused for a second and then began to yell at me. “You idiot, what do you think you are doing! I could have been changing or sleeping or whatever. Did your parents raise you in a barn…”
The one thing Rachel was famous for was once she started talking there was only one way to get her to stop, and even then she would still be talking…well not her so much as the Oracle.
“How do I get the fruit from the tree of Tantalus?”
All at once she stopped talking as her eyes hazed over with green smoke and light. Then she began to speak:
You shall travel below to the land of the Dead,
but be warned, as your friends life hangs by a thread.
Two will be taken by the waves of the sea,
leaving one to remain, instead of the three.
And when your world is surrounded in Black,
take what you want, and never look back.
I had gotten what I wanted and not a moment to soon as her eyes turned back to normal and without missing a beat went straight back to yelling at me so I did what anyone would do, I slammed the door and ran out of the house. If I was going to the Underworld I would need some friends to help me get there. The first person I went to was of course my best friend Malcolm. We actually made a pretty good team, mainly because while I was running around taking down monsters with my hammer Malcolm could just hang in a nice spot up high and pick them off one at a time. I mean sure I didn’t like being the bait but I did like knowing that he had my back. As soon as I opened my mouth his hand went up as if to tell me to stop before I started. He then lowered his hand, smiled, and then said “You know that I always have your back, you don’t even need to ask me. So who is the last member of this rag tag team you’re putting together if I might ask? If you haven’t thought of anyone, can I make a suggestion.”
Of course by tradition, we needed to find someone else to go with us and we always ended up asking Erika, daughter of Demeter. I think Malcolm just had a crush on her, but he would always pass it off saying something like “she can grow food if we need it,” or “she is talented with medical herbs.” She was also good friends with Megan and had been in the infirmary looking after her even since the hydra attack. We saw her just as she was leaving the infirmary and called her name to get her attention. She stopped and looked at us and tried to wipe away her tears before we got to her, hoping that we couldn’t tell she had been crying.
“Erika, I know that this has been hard on you, it has been for all of us. But we need you to help us save Megan. We are going to the Underworld, we will get the fruit, we will bring it back, and we will save Megan. But the question is, will you come with us?”
Her face lowered to the ground, as if she couldn’t decide to come with us or stay with Megan. Then, all at once she raised her head with a face of pure determination and said, “Yes, I will go with you. I can’t do anything by staying here and Megan has saved my life on more than one occasion. We will succeed, we have to.”
