A/N: heyy guys! Enjoy
Tuesday, June 10, 2005
Dear Diary,
Hi. I'm Annabeth Chase. Today, Grover Underwood, my friend who is a satyr, Percy Jackson, a vapid son of Poseidon, and I, an intelligent daughter of Athena, started our quest to find and return Zeus's master bolt to Mount Olympus. We have ten days to complete this task, which will not be easy. But we have to, because if it is not returned in ten days (the summer solstice) then there will be a war among the gods.
So quite obviously, there is a lot riding on this quest. This is my first quest ever, so I'm half excited half nervous. People die on quests. Kids just like me.
Chiron asked me to keep this diary. He says it will become valuable one day. Obviously, we are supposedly going to do something great on this quest that will be worth remembering. I sincerely hope that means we find the bolt. Otherwise, that would be a serious mood killer, considering we would most likely die in the process of failing our quest. Yeah. Definite mood killer.
So. The first day of the quest. Well. It started out with Argus, one of the people who work at the camp, driving us to the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side. When we got there, we waited for what seemed like hours for the bus to come. Really. We decided to play Hacky Sack with one of our apples that we brought to pass the time. This worked fine until Grover ate the whole apple. Which pretty much ended our Hacky Sack game.
When we finally got onto the bus, everything was just great for about two seconds until I saw the Furies, the three worst monsters from the Underworld, board the bus. Of course, I wasn't surprised, because a half-blood can barely go anywhere without getting attacked by monsters. That's just the way it is. I kept my head though, because that's just what a daughter of Athena does. I looked around for exits and everything, but just our luck, there weren't any. Which was just as well, because we were inside the Lincoln Tunnel. Which pretty much guarantees death if you jump out of a bus going fifty.
So I did the sensible thing. I gave Percy my invisibility hat and tried to distract them. This was not really working, so when Percy (in a rare occurrence of wit) snuck invisibly up behind the driver and swerved the bus and pulled the emergency brake I was grateful because it was a great distraction. Even if I thought I was going to die. Details, details.
We defeated the Furies with difficulty. But we definitely did it, with some rather unorthodox methods, such as jumping on their backs. It was a very eventful bus ride. Of course, when we abandoned the bus (Percy's interesting driving had kind of crashed it), it immediately exploded. I hope no mortals got our picture. That would be very bad. I don't feel like writing. I am understandably in a dreary mood.
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Tuesday, June 10, 2005
Dear Diary,
Yes. Just when you think your day can't get any worse, the gods have to throw something scary, deadly, and difficult to defeat at you. Just to keep them entertained. Something like Medusa. We went to this old garden gnome sale shop and the woman there was all veiled and in black. How were we supposed to know that she was Medusa?
So anyway, after we ate a great meal, she tried to turn us to stone for eternity. We fought a monster for the second time that day. Percy chopped her head off with trouble, seeing as he couldn't look straight at her. Grover got a good bash to the head, and I remained unscathed, somehow. We escaped as fast as we could. We got far, far away from that place and decided to crash in the woods. They think I am asleep right now. I am very tired, and something tells me I am going to have a very long day tomorrow. Goodnight.
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Wednesday, June 11, 2005
Dear Diary,
Today, I woke up at about nine o'clock. Grover was MIA and Percy was still asleep, drooling as usual. I didn't waste any time. Grover was probably out trying to find a path, and I was not worried about him.
However, I was worried about food, which we did not have. I went back to the garden gnome place and nicked some nacho-flavored chips from the snack bar. Breakfast.
I sprinted back to the campsite and found Grover sitting on the floor conversing with a hot pink poodle. I decided to ignore this. But when Grover said that all I had to do was say hi to the poodle and he would tell us where a train station was, I said hi to the poodle. I quickly woke Percy up and we forced him to say hi to the poodle. Then the poodle told Grover where the train station was (Grover can communicate with animals. It's a satyr thing.), which wasn't far from here. We're on the train now, headed for St. Louis.
I don't exactly like Percy. I mean, sure he's a great fighter and he can be funny, but I don't know. It's like he tries to be stupid and childish. If he weren't my key to finally getting a quest, then I would have ditched him long ago and finished the quest without him. Seriously. He's gonna get us killed.
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Thursday, June 13, 2005
Dear Diary,
We are in our second day on the train. Nothing very eventful happened. Percy asked a bunch of annoying questions. Grover was passed out the whole time, so he couldn't save me from answering. Stupid little satyr. Always sleeping. Anyway, I saw the Gateway Arch from the train, which was something I've always wanted to see. See, I want to be an architect someday. Percy, when he learned this, totally laughed at me. He doesn't understand anything. Yeah.
And then after he completely laughed at me, he asks why we can't be friends. Gee, let me think. Is he really that thickheaded, or does he just act like that? I don't know. All I know is that I can't stand him. Oh yeah, and our parents are rivals. That should be reason enough. Right?
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Thursday, June 13, 2005. Later.
Dear Diary,
Why we ever go anywhere is beyond me. I mean, ever since we've been on this quest, we've barely gotten a break from monsters. We went sightseeing today, since we had a three-hour break between getting off our old train and getting on the train to St. Louis we went to the Gateway Arch. Well, I kind of forced them to come. Having a dagger can help you with these kinds of situations. I love my dagger. A very good friend gave it to me a long time ago.
Anyway, back to my day. We went to the top of the Arch. It was not that impressive, to tell the truth. I was telling Percy and Grover exactly what I would have done different if I had designed it. They looked like they were only half listening to me. Also, Grover looked ready to go into a sugar coma from all the jellybeans he was eating. I was getting bored myself, so we decided to leave. But, the elevator was full when we got there, so Percy said he would go with the next group. Grover and I weren't too fond of this idea, but the people he would be with looked relatively harmless. There was a couple with a small boy, and an enormously fat lady with her little dog. Grover and I went reluctantly down without Percy.
We got to the bottom of the Arch and waited for Percy. He didn't come down for about ten minutes, so we figured something was wrong. When a huge jet of flames came bursting through the Arch with a huge chunk of the Arch wall blasting off, we pretty much knew for a fact that Percy had met a monster. A moment later, we saw him freefalling down towards the Mississippi River at an amazing speed. While seeing this I thought to myself "Oh, pity. Looks like we'll have to finish the quest without him!" Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, much to my secret regrets.
Percy landed in the water and his father spared him. Catching up with him, we found out that he had met Echidna and her fire-breathing chimera. I was secretly kind of glad I didn't have to fight them. They are really scary monsters, so I've heard. Anyway, Percy got a direct order to go to Santa Monica from his father, so we have to go there too. Dirty rotten Poseidon. Always getting in the way of everything.
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Friday, June 14, 2005
Dear Diary,
Finally, we got to Denver. I was seriously getting sick of trains. We decided to contact Chiron, ask him about Percy's father's untimely summoning. We went to a car wash and tried to Iris-Message Chiron. Instead, we got Luke. Luke is someone I can't talk to without completely making a fool out of myself. He's just too awesome! Thankfully, there were people in the other lane playing loud music. I excused Grover and myself to the other lane. As soon as I got over to the other car with the people playing the loud music, I asked them if they could please turn the music lower. They just stared at me and turned the music louder. I smiled at them and took out my dagger. With it, I sliced one of the guy's seatbelts off his shoulder. He omitted a very high-pitched scream, which was very amusing, and they drove off in a whirlwind of screeching tires, big black smoke and noxious fumes.
That was definitely my favorite part of the day.
Later, when we were eating dinner, Ares, god of war, came and payed us a little visit. He wanted Percy to get his shield for him from this stupid water park. Seriously. What is it with Percy and gods asking him favors and summoning him every other second? It's crazy. And annoying.
So we went to Waterland. We lifted some brand-new clothes and supplies and backpacks and stuff from the gift shop, since our other stuff was falling apart. After we were done with that, we searched for the Tunnel of Love ride. Percy and I had to go on it together in order to get the shield. I do not want to go into details. Anyway, the good news: we got the shield. The bad news: Percy and I were broadcasted live to Olympus, which means that ALL the gods got to watch us. Talk about humiliation. Especially during the part where the spiders came and I completely freaked out on Percy
When we got back to the diner, Ares was waiting for us. Percy was a complete jerk to him, so it's a wonder he didn't incinerate us on the spot. Instead, we got a free ride to Vegas in the back of a truck housing a live zebra, antelope, and albino lion. Talk about bizarre. And smelly. He also gave us a backpack, which was random. But whatever. It gave me somewhere to hide the extra stolen goods from Waterland.
Grover fell asleep right away, leaving Percy and I there to make conversation. Or attempt to make conversation. I felt like I kinda owed Percy an apology though, because of the way I had acted at Waterland. He said that it was no problem. We talked a little and ended up talking about my family. I do not have a good relationship with my mortal family. When he asked me about my camp necklace and about a ring I have on my necklace, I got all defensive. But then I realized that Percy wasn't this insolent little jerk. He was actually really nice. I just had too big a grudge on Poseidon to realize it. Here he was, being a great fighter and one of the nicest people that I had ever met,, and I'm just being a baby. So we talked a little more, and I told him a little about my family. When we finally drifted off to sleep, I felt like Percy and I were on our way to being friends. Very, very strange thing, too, considering just yesterday I was secretly rejoicing when I thought he was dead…
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Saturday, June 15, 2005
Dear Diary,
Okay. I'm going to make this short and sweet. There's an awesome architectural game downstairs and I want to play it. So, the whole story of the day was we rode in the truck. Blah blah blah. When it was time for the truck drivers to check the animals, I created a diversion while wearing my invisibility cap by knocking on the outside of the truck so the guys would go check it out to see if anything was wrong. While they were over there, Percy and Grover snuck out also and we were free!
And also in Vegas. (Yeeeeeeeeeahhh!) From there we stumbled across this place called the Lotus Hotel and Casino. We decided to stay there because we didn't really want to go hotel-hunting. After we got up to our room, we all took showers. That is all. I am out of the shower and I want to go check out the architecture game downstairs. I'm gonna design a new mount Olympus. God knows they need a new one. That old one is getting way too 1600s, no matter how beautiful it is. Bye. I'm out.
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Thursday, June 20, 2005
Dear Diary,
I. Am. Freaking. Out. I know that daughters of Athena DO NOT freak out, but this probably should be an exception. We were in The Lotus Hotel and Casino for FIVE DAYS! Yep. It had some kind of charm that makes you think that you were only there for like two hours when you were really there for five days. Anyway, back to the disaster on hand. We now have ONE day to complete our quest. Talk about a nightmare. I'm too worried to write, but I have to. It's "my duty".
So we took a taxi to the Santa Monica Pier, where Percy's dad had summoned him. We got there about 30 minutes after we left. We basically never went below 90 miles per hour. It was kind of awesome. But mostly scary.
When we got to the pier, Percy disappeared down into the water and didn't come back up for about 20 minutes. After he returned from his underwater adventure, he told us about what had happened, which was basically that he had a chat with a Nereid, an underwater nymph, about going to the underworld and how dangerous it was.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that little fact. Our prime suspect is Hades, god of the dead and ruler of the Underworld. We're going to the Underworld to confront him. I'm scared. Understandably.
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Thursday, June 20, 2005
Dear Diary,
It's still Thursday as you can probably see. I am, for the second time today and probably not the last, freaking out. We were running from gangsters, trying to get to the entrance to the Underworld (which was like twenty minutes away from Santa Monica Pier) when we finally tried to get rid of them. We ducked into this shady-looking place where this uncommonly sketchy-looking man who was about nine feet tall greeted us. He introduced himself to us as "Crusty". Weirdly enough, he sold waterbeds. I felt dirty just looking at him and his disgusting waterbeds. I wouldn't buy one of those if you paid me a million dollars.
Anyways, to make a long, creepy, scary story short, he put us on the waterbeds, strapped us to the bed, and tried to stretch us out to exactly six feet, not caring if we died in the process. We got out of it because Percy was oddly diplomatic and got Crusty on the bed. Wait that sounds weird… ANYWAY.
Yes, Crusty's head got chopped off. In case you haven't guessed, he was Procrustes, the stretcher from Greek Mythology. I wonder how many times we are going to dodge death by quick thinking and quick actions and decisions. Probably not many. We are on our way to the Underworld. Literally. I'm going to sign off on that cheerful note.
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
Friday, June 21, 2005
Dear Diary,
Wow. Wow, wow. Wow, wow, wow. Happy summer solstice! Yesterday, sooooo many things happened. Once again, I am freaked out. This happens to me so often now that it seems almost normal. Almost. I don't want to go into specifics about exactly what happened down in the Underworld. I'm afraid that if I reflect too deep into what took place, then I'll become very frightened about some of the choices I almost made, and it might cause me to have some regrets. So I'm keeping this very broken down.
The Underworld was full of souls. We were the only living things down there. Not that this was unexpected, but it still was unnerving. Hades, the god of the Dead, was very scary. He is one of the big three gods, one of elder gods. He is very powerful. He was not happy to see Percy. Actually, I don't think he was all that pleased to have any of us in his domain.
Anyway, he hadn't taken Zeus's master lightning bolt. He had been framed, and he was innocent. This was all very well, but if it wasn't Hades, then who was it?
We left the Underworld with some obstacles to overcome, but we handled them. We had less than a day to get the bolt to Zeus and we didn't even have the bolt! What were we going to do? That was when Ares showed up. It turns out he had stolen the bolt in search of a family war. He had framed Hades. Percy got into a hissy fit (I guess the last ten days had finally gotten to him. I know they had gotten to me.) and challenged Ares to a fight. I know. How stupid can you get? Challenging the god of war to a fight? There was no way he could win. But maybe Percy has more brains in there than I thought. Since we were near the water, Percy used his powers over the water to help him defeat Ares. Well, he didn't actually defeat Ares, but he did manage to wound him. I was so proud of him! After that, Ares left. Such a brat.
Anyway, Ares had left the bolt with Percy long ago, when he gave him the backpack to be precise. He had hidden the bolt in the bag, so we really had it all along.
When he told us this, Percy decided that he would go to Olympus and present it to Zeus himself. After all, it was the solstice. Grover and I went back to Camp Half-Blood. Soon I have to return this diary back to Chiron so he can read of our adventures. I hope he finds them interesting. Anyway, it's been real. But now I have to go. Until the next adventure…
Sincerely,
Annabeth Chase
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