There was silence in the room, even saying the name caused an ominous chill to sweep through the room.
Tartarus
Then all at once, everybody reacted, all saying the same thing.
"What?!"
"How did this happen?"
She took a slow shuddering breath as she remembered how Percy had sacrificed himself to save her.
No. That's not right. Not a sacrifice. They would save him.
Everybody was still staring at her, expecting an explanation.
"Before she fell, Arachne managed to wrap a strand of web around my ankle. We didn't notice... there were webs everywhere and I would have been pulled in but P-"
She took another breath before she could say his name.
"Percy leaped over and just managed to cut it before that could happen. His momentum, it carried him over the edge. I just managed to grab his hand, but I couldn't hold on. I'm so sorry"
She buried her head in her hands, letting fall the tears that she had been holding back since he had fallen.
Piper and Hazel immediately came over and comforted her as well as they could while the boys were just silent.
Frank stared at seemingly nothing, but you could see the tears gathering in his eyes. Even Jason, still stoic as ever, had a small amount of fear and sadness in his eyes as he looked at the empty chair at the head of the table.
Leo just got up and left, mumbling something about how he would be on the intercom if they needed him.
Wiping the tears from her face, Annabeth tried to clean up.
"We have to go meet him. We have to rescue him"
"How?". Hazel looked at her with wide eyes.
"Before he fell, he made me promise to meet him at the doors. He made me promise". Her voice grew quieter at the end as they all absorbed the meaning of those words.
An oath to keep with a final breath.
Finally, Piper broke the silence.
"It's probably nothing, Annabeth"
"Yeah. You know how difficult it is to try and interpret a prophecy".
But even they didn't believe their own words.
A heavy silence once again took over the room as everybody looked at the empty chair at the head of the table where Percy should have been sitting.
After a while of sitting in silence, Leo's voice crackled over the intercom.
"So where are we off to lovelies?"
It was nice that he was still trying to joke around. And nobody mentioned the unsteady wobble his voice had.
"To rescue Percy of course"
Annabeth responded with no question, but the others were a little bit more conflicted.
"Shouldn't we take the Athena Parthenos to camp first? I mean the two are at the brink of war", Jason said.
"How can you say that? Percy is stuck in Tartarus right now. Tartarus. Our main priority should be getting him out", Annabeth argued.
The two demigods glared at each other across the table.
"Percy sacrificed himself to save both you and the Athena Parthenos. We have to bring the two camps together first".
"No. No, he made me promise him. I promised him that I would meet him at the doors. We can't let him down".
"Jason's right".
Everybody turned around as Nico di Angelo emerged from the shadows in the corner of the room.
As usual, he was thin and ghostly pale, looking like he hadn't slept in days.
That didn't fool anybody, though. He exuded a sort of quiet power, and darkness flowed off of him in waves that made the entire room seem darker.
His dark eyes were heavily guarded, though Annabeth could still see the pain that flickered through them at the conversation topic.
He was one of the youngest ones on board, but when he stepped forward to speak, everybody immediately listened.
"It's impossible for Percy to make it all the way through Tartarus is just a few days. The journey will take a couple of weeks minimum. If we went now we would arrive way before he did. Not to mention the area is heavily guarded, it would be impossible for us to just sit there and wait without being captured or killed".
Everybody just stared at him with open mouths.
"What?"
"I think that's the most I've ever heard you speak", Hazel said, smiling.
He just scowled back at her. But everybody could still see the small smile that made its way onto his face.
Annabeth heard none of this, though. She was too busy considering what Nico had said.
No matter how desperate she was to save Percy, she knew that he had a point. They still had a quest to complete, and no matter how much she hated it, Percy would most likely be down there for quite a while.
Finally, she spoke up.
"Okay. Here's the plan. We get to camp Half-Blood as fast as we can with the Athena Parthenos. I talk to Reyna to explain to her what happened, and she gives the statue over to the Greeks as a peace offering. The war is called off, the gods go back to normal. Everybody gets back to Greece, we save Percy, close the doors of death, defeat Gaea, and then go home".
She nodded to herself, then looked up to find the rest of the crew agreeing.
"Okay! Sounds like a plan! So, back to Camp?".
Leo's voice sounded over the intercom. They had almost forgotten that he was still there.
"Yeah, back to camp. And let's see if we can't get a message ahead of us to warn them that we're coming".
With that, everybody started moving again.
The Argo II cut through the waves of the Atlantic like butter.
But the sight of sea foam on the water only served as a painful reminder of Percy's absence, so Annabeth busied herself below deck.
In a quick Iris message to Chiron, she found out that the two camps were already readying themselves for war, and Chiron expected the war to break out within days.
Very few people actually knew about the Prophecy of 7, and Chiron warned her that when they arrived, they would have quite a problem convincing the demigods on both sides about the imminent war with Gaea.
Chiron agreed to do as much as he could to delay the war, but if they didn't get there soon, there would be nothing they could do to stop the two camps from destroying each other.
Looking around the open plain, Percy was suddenly aware of how exposed he was. Especially with the light from the river that he had called. It was like a big glowing arrow that said 'Here I am! Come kill me!'
He refilled his bottle once more before letting the river sink back into its normal banks.
Despite this, he looked around and found that there were no monsters. Normally this would have been a good thing, but Tartarus had a way of putting your nerves on edge, making him wonder why.
Where had they all gone?
This was bad. He needed to follow the monsters to get to the doors. But if there were no monsters to follow, how was he going to do this?
The large field spanned out in front of him, and for the first time, Percy realised just how big it was.
It must have extended for miles, and eerily reminded him of the Fields of Asphodel in the Underworld. Although the underworld was sounding pretty good to him compared to where he was now.
Percy had no idea where he was supposed to go, but he knew that somehow, he had to cross this field. And it wasn't going to be easy.
There was absolutely no cover, the only markings in the otherwise flatness of the plain being large yellow pustules that reminded him of zits on skin.
There was no doubt that he would be attacked when out in the openness of the field, but in a way this was good. He needed monsters to follow. Maybe if he waited for long enough one would walk by and he could follow it.
He decided to stick to this plan, and sat down to rest in the relative cover of the few boulders that surrounded him.
After what felt like a long time of waiting with still no sign of monsters, Percy felt his eyelids began to grow heavy.
He knew that he had to sleep, but he had been putting it off for as long as he could. Pure adrenaline keeping him going. There would be no way to protect himself if he fell asleep. It would be so easy to kill him.
All these things ran through his head. But eventually, pure exhaustion won out, and his eyes began to close.
He had dreams that night, like demigods usually did.
At first, they weren't so bad, more like happy memories from when he was younger.
Playing in the water at Montauk with his mom.
Laughing with Annabeth as the other campers threw them into the water after the Second Titan War.
That quickly changed when they morphed into nightmares. He saw everybody he knew and loved killed. Both Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter in flames. Frank and Hazel murdered on some sort of sacrificial pedestal. Last of all, he saw Gaea rising. Whenever she appeared in his dreams her eyes were closed, her voice seeming to come from everywhere at once.
In his dream, her eyes opened, and the sleepy calm expression that always composed her face changed into that of rage.
With that he woke up. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and grime, and his heart was beating so wildly in his chest he thought it would explode. Demigod dreams always meant something.
Was that a glimpse of what was going to happen?
Or was Gaea just trying to get under his skin?
He hoped it was the latter. She was famous for her behind-the-scenes manipulation, and he wouldn't be surprised if she was behind this.
Despite this, a nagging feeling poked at the back of his brain and refused to go away.
When he had fallen asleep, he had been so exhausted that he had barely noticed the deep claw marks that had been raked down the right side of his back during his fight with the empousai.
But now his attention was almost entirely focused on the waves of agony that seemed to radiate from the wounds.
Gently, he poured some of his small reserve of water onto the wound, hissing in pain as it began to take effect.
He had used almost a quarter of his reserves by the time the wound finally stopped bleeding and closed.
Unlike with ambrosia or nectar, Phlegethon water didn't heal wounds without leaving its mark. His skin was angry and red from the heat of the water, and the wound itself, although healed, left a mark on his skin that almost looked seared at the edges. He could tell that there would be quite a scar left over. But at this point, he didn't care.
Looking around, he noticed a group of cyclops lumbering across the valley. He hung back, watching as they slowly made their way across and entered a canyon on the other side.
On the one hand this was good news. For the first time since falling into the pit he now knew what he was supposed to do and how to do it.
But on the other hand, the canyon was the exact opposite of where he wanted to go right now. There were so many ways that he could be ambushed there it was ridiculous. And he couldn't climb over, the cliffs extended for as high as he could see, maybe even being a part of the ceiling of the cavern itself.
His only choice was to follow. So he did, albeit reluctantly.
The field was way larger than it looked. At his every step his destination seemed to grow farther and farther away.
It didn't help that there was no cover. He could already feel the tingling sensation on the back of his neck from being watched. But every time he turned around there was nothing there.
And those strange pustules in the ground were actually monsters regenerating. As he walked he tried to pop as many as he could to stop them reforming, but there were just so many, he knew it was hopeless.
When he finally reached the canyon, the strange tingling feeling on the back of his neck seemed to increase tenfold.
Whirling around, he was able to catch a glimpse of shadows running behind him before they disappeared again.
Just walking through this area was nerve-wracking. There were so many places that monsters could be hiding: in small caves, crevices, around one of the many bends the path through the canyon had. It was impossible to tell.
He walked through with Riptide already drawn and in sword form. It was a good thing, too. Because he only had a split second to react when he heard a low growl from somewhere behind him.
Whipping around, those same shadowing creatures that had been following him earlier materialised into a pack of hellhounds. Each one as big as a truck and with teeth as long as his forearm.
He slashed out blindly as the first one pounced and got a lucky shot. It didn't kill it, though, instead just causing it to limp away to join the pack.
He immediately knew that there were too many of them for him to fight all at once. His only chance would be to get to higher ground.
In a flash of inspiration, he began to climb the wall of the canyon that the hellhounds had cornered him against. About sixty meters above his head, there was a small cave. It looked big enough for a person to fit in, but he couldn't tell. And that was a risk he was going to have to take.
They pounced immediately. Swatting wildly with their paws and sharp claws. One good hit and he was as good as dead.
Once he was high enough, he began to relax a little bit. That sloppiness was the problem.
Hellhounds could jump amazing heights, despite weighing close to two tons.
One of them did just that, and managed to grab him with its claws around his right stomach and hip. The momentum of the creature almost pulled him off of the wall entirely. Almost.
Instead the huge claw ripped its way through his flesh, taking a huge portion of it with it as it fell back down.
Holding onto his grip on the wall with only one hand, he just managed to pull himself up into the small cave before passing out.
He floated between consciousness just from the blood loss and severity of his injury. Despite this, he was somehow able to muster up the strength to pour some of the river water on the injury.
It hurt like hell, and he yelled out in pain as the wound began to sizzle and then slowly close.
He was probably attracting the attention of every monster in the whole of Tartarus right now, but he couldn't help himself.
The hellhound had hooked it's claw around the side of his stomach, and when it fell, it ripped its way through his flesh, leaving four long wounds that extended from his side all the way down to his lower back.
The floor of the small cave around him was stained from his blood. So much so that he was surprised he hadn't died.
The wound still burned and hurt like hell, but he was able to keep his groans relatively quiet.
When he had stumbled in here Percy hadn't even had enough time to check if any monsters already occupied it.
Luckily, there was none, as the cave was just barely big enough to fit him.
As his senses slowly began to work again, Percy became aware of the hellhounds that were still trying to get to him.
He shifted and tried to sit up to grab his sword, but his side and back screamed in agony.
He could feel Riptide on the stone floor next to him as well as the water bottle filled with Phlegethon water.
He knew he had to pour more on to stop the blood that was still slowly leaking from his wounds. But he could hardly bring himself to do it, memories of earlier playing through his mind.
The water burned his flesh closed. It had the intended effect of stopping the bleeding, but it hurt so much it was all Percy could do to keep from passing out again.
He knew he couldn't spare any more of the water. He still needed to drink it to counteract the poisonous air in his lungs. So he capped the bottle again after taking another swig of the vile liquid.
He had no idea for how long he had been in the pit. But it felt like an eternity and he felt that maybe it would be easier if he just gave up and let the monsters kill him.
But he couldn't. He had Annabeth. And no matter how bad it was for him, he couldn't bring himself to give up on seeing her again.
His eyelids began to grow heavy, and he reluctantly settled into a restless sleep.
Gaea once again came to him in his dreams. Thankfully her eyes were still closed, but her words infuriated him.
"Oh poor little hero"
Her voice was mocking, but also held an element of malice in it.
"My husband is having such fun playing with you. It would be a shame if you were to die before he could drive you insane".
Her laugh echoed around in his brain, sending a shiver through his body and placing a strong sense of foreboding in his mind.