I mean exploded. Like, pieces of Rick went everywhere. Gross, huh? But it gets worse. Everything dissolved…into dust…like a monster.

I whipped my head around to the door, and then the hole in the wall, expecting…I don't know. An attack, maybe?

Anyway, I was looking around…and then I heard a voice. Deep, deeper than anything. Old and powerful. I looked at Percy. He mouthed Tartarus.

The voice said, "Heroes…Leave this place. Leave me in peace, or you will suffer…I will march on Olympus. The mortal was foolish to think to control me…foolish to give into your hands the one thing that we could use…Leave…"

Everyone had frozen, and listened completely. Now we looked at each other, still quiet.

"That was…" Nico said, and Annabeth finished, "Tartarus."

I sat down. I was a mortal. I shouldn't be mixed up in this.

If I'd known her then as well as I do now, I would've known that she had her 'thinking as hard as she can' face. But I didn't, so it startled me when she said, "Part of the prophecy was completed!"

Jason took it. "How?"

"Find Athena's son's new home. That's here…" she stamped the floor. "And defeat the stone before the pit awakes. That would be…" she pointed to Haley. "You."

"Me?" he asked, pointing to himself. "The pit?"

"No. The stone! Alabaster!"

We all nodded and said clever things like, 'ahh' and 'aha'.

"So now…" Jason said, trying to remember the prophecy. "What was the next line?"

"When hope has risen, then will fall, The young king's ancient childhood hall."

Everyone looked at the floor, or their shoes, or something.

Then Percy looked up. "Hey Wise Girl."

She looked at him. "What?"

"Everything changes with Western Civilization? Right?"

"Everything moves, but yeah," she answered.

"So…we're going to Olympus next."

"Why?"

"Zeus is the young king."

You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone's mouths opened a bit, and Annabeth put on her 'really thinking, if you mess with her you will be cut' face.

"Hope…Childhood hall…Seaweed Brain, you are right. For once."

Ignoring his 'Hey!", she turned to the rest of the group. "I've got it. Well…Seaweed Brain got it first. Anyway, when Zeus was a baby they hid him in a cave, right? With Amaltheia and the nymphs and everything, to take care of him. So that cave must be his…hall, or whatever."

Everyone nodded. She was right, I felt it. "Okay," she said. "Let's go."

Percy tapped her on the shoulder. "Sorry, Wise Girl," he said. "This isn't our quest."

She looked stunned for a second, then shrugged sadly. "Now we kick back and relax…and let the mortals quest," she added with a glare at me.

Will Solace raised his hand. "Why did no one tell me he was a mortal?"

So yeah. That was how I got on the bad side of Will Solace. For a few minutes, at least. Nico assured me that I was probably the first person to do so since he and Will knew each other.

Anyway, we took a taxi to the Empire State Building. New York, of course, the 'city that never sleeps,' was busier at three in the morning than the city in California where I came from at four in the afternoon on a Saturday.

Anyway, I paid the driver, we got out, and stood in front of the Empire State Building. Looking up, I realized something. "Guys?" I said.

"What?" Nico and Will answered.

"Olympus isn't for mortals!"

Nico looked at me. "Rachel got up there just fine…"

I shrugged. "I'll try, just I'm ruining the quest."

"You're fine," Nico said. "Though I do envy you being a mortal."

I shook my head. "Much rather be a demigod."

We walked in.

The lobby was thankfully empty. The security guard was reading a big blue book with a dragon on the front. He looked up when we came in.

"Olympus," Nico said to him. He must've recognized the son of Hades, because he gave him the key card without any argument.

But when he saw me, his eyes narrowed. "Is he half-blood?" he asked. Nico shrugged.

We got in the elevator. Nico inserted the card in the slot, and the red 600 appeared on the panel. He pressed it.

At first we went up floor by floor, but once we hit 102, we went up by fifty at a time – probably because there was no 432nd floor. Once we hit 600, the doors opened.

"Look away," Nico advised. I didn't.

I should have. The brightness and general godliness of the mountain city made my eyes hurt. It definitely wasn't for mortals.

We walked along, I holding onto Will's shoulder so I could just stare at the ground.

We stopped by a minor god, whom Nico asked where Zeus's baby cave was. In those exact words. So the minor god looked at us funny, but then when Nico explained himself he pointed it out.

It was kind of a landmark on Olympus, with signs saying 'Come see where the king of the gods grew up!' and stuff like that.

We went inside. There was no one there, so we explored freely. But I didn't understand what it had to do with the quest.

After about ten minutes, I asked, "Hey guys? Maybe there's nothing here. Maybe the line was a warning."

Nico was looking at some drawings by baby Zeus, on display in a glass case. He looked at me. "Well, then, we'll have to think about the next line. What was it? Something about me."

"Yeah," I said. "Hades' child's ground. Do you have ground?"

"Erm…not really," he said. "I have my room in the Underworld, my cabin here, my…yeah, not really."

I thought about it. "Maybe it's not you," I said. "Maybe it's anyone."

"But who had ground?" he asked. "Well…Mussolini and Hitler had a lot of property…I guess…but it would seem like we could be more sure."

"Guys," Will said. "How about what Tartarus…" As he said the name, a roll of thunder sounded. "Erm…I mean…well anyway, what he said about giving us the only thing that he could use, or something?"

"Yeah," I said. "The mortal was Rick, right? Tar– I mean, the pit, I guess, he said Rick had tried to control him? How can anyone control Tartarus?"

More thunder. "Sorry."

Nico said, "But the thing he gave. He didn't give us anything. Except food? Right? What about the weapons and flashlights you guys used at the truck clearing?"

"What about Pandora's jar?" I said. "Hope. And the line in the prophecy! Now it makes sense!"

"What?" Nico asked.

"Hope! Hope is important somehow. Maybe it started here when baby Zeus survived! So when Hope is lost…this place will crumble…But why is this cave important?"

Will said, "Annabeth would probably be better at this. Let's get back to her."

We had left the seven and the freed demigods moving away from Rick's house (or HQ, or whatever,) so they were probably safe. The not-safe ones were the half-bloods Nico hadn't had time to free.

"Okay," I said. Just then, a voice came over the cave's loudspeakers, used by the nymphs to calm baby Zeus down and hide his crying from Kronos. It said, "Cave closing in one minute. Cave closing in one minute."

We left.

However, as we left, we failed to notice the sign on the wall that I only noticed later, saying, "Please refrain from vandalizing the cave walls. Cave and Olympus are connected, what you do to the one happens to the other."