Hi, I'm not dead! And I've got the second hint for you. Or maybe it's the continuation of the first hint. Because the first hint basically just showed you the way to this one. Anyways, here's the Hint:
The thing that didn't make sense which I mentioned last time was " I know it's not very long, but I wanted to get it posted today, and I also didn't want to give away too much right of the bat", specifically the today part. I wrote this because the 23rd of February actually relates to the reason for the things happening with Annabeth, so try to find any trauma-related holidays that take place on 23.2. I can't really give any more hints because I can't get any closer to the "secret" without actually revealing it.
Also, (and my will to not give you false hope with the update) tells me I need to post some sort of story here, so follow me down to the deepest depths of Tartarus.
Bob
The doors closed with a subtle ding and the elevator started. Percy and Annabeth were safe from monsters now. Now all we had to do was press a button for twelve minutes. I think minutes. Oh, and we had to defend ourselves from an army of monsters and Tartarus himself. So basically no problem. So far Damasen was holding up well against Tartarus, but Tartarus was quickly getting used to his physical body and it was only a matter of time until he would overpower his son. All we could do was hope that it would be more than 12 minutes from now, when Percy and Annabeth were safe. Once that happened, well, best case scenario was that Tartarus would let us go since we were no longer standing in between him and his goal of stopping the two demigods. Worst case was he'd kill us once he got the chance to.
I saw Damasen slowly being pushed towards the doors. I had no idea how much time was left, but I hoped it would run out before Tartarus reached me. After what felt like hours of fighting, Tartarus was finally able to overcome Damasen. He knocked him to the ground, (So basically he knocked Damasen to himself. Once Damasen was out the way, Tartarus came for me. He swung his sword at me, making me tumble over. Slowly (or maybe really quickly, time is weird down here and killing Kronos didn't make it any better) my thumb slid off the button. Percy and Annabeth were lost.
But then, I heard another quiet ding and the elevator started shaking. But this time, there were no chains to hold it and it disappeared. Somehow I knew that the elevator had arrived on time, that Percy and Annabeth had survived. That just left me and Damasen. Luckily for us, the disappearance the doors of death had brought confusion into the armies of monsters waiting, so now we "only" had Tartarus to deal with. "You let the children escape" he roared. "Now you will pay!" We were clearly at every disadvantage. We were on the ground, Tartarus above us, but also everywhere around us. That's just how it is when you're fighting a primordial.
But then I noticed someone else that wasn't confused, or rather something. The drakon, previously tamed, had now seemingly remembered what his job was: kill Damasen. And it charged towards us at an astonishing speed. Damasen started at it in shock, which was weird since he had fought this battle literally hundreds of thousands of times. When the drakon had almost reached us, I jumped up. Damasen tried to jump too, but fell back down. Both him and Tartarus were run over, or, judging by its open mouth, swallowed by the drakon. "Hey, that's not fair" Tartarus mumbled (which was still more audible than any mortal shouting, before being silent. Tartarus was, for the time being, defeated.
But so was Damasen. He had finally fallen at the hands (or rather teeth) of his ancient enemy. Now I had to deal with a wild drakon all by myself. The monster turned to go where its instincts told it to go: the swamp. We crossed the border and the drakon made its way to Damasen's hut, probably to destroy it. But then, it's mouth slowly opened and Damasen came out, badly wounded but alive. I had no idea how he had survived that. "Looks like the prophecy was true. I cannot be killed lest a god and demigod work together. But it still hurts"
I slid off the drakon's back down to Damasen and healed his worst wounds. Damasen then jumped over to where the drakon had last died and pulled the oak tree from the ground. He then embedded it into the drakon's mouth. The beast was slain once again.
"So, Iapetus, where-" "I think I like Bob better" I interrupted him. Damasen started again. "So, Bob, where are you gonna go now. Will you become Hades' janitor again?" I thought about my options and finally came to a decision. "Hades is a terrible employer plus I can't really get out of Tartarus anyways so the choice is only between different regions of it. And you look like you need a friend, so I have decided that I will stay with you."
So, looks like they're Bob and Damasen are still alive. Not that that would influence the story in any way-or will it? *Vsauce music* But anyways, think about the hint and tell me your theories.