The Adventure That Lies Ahead | PJO x HP

CHAPTER 22

The way Tantalus saw it, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if Annabeth, Percy and Isa hasn't disturbed it with their bad chariot driving. And Tyson running into the middle of the track and towards the finish line (where the three were).

This was so completely unfair, Percy told Tantalus to go chase a donut and Isa told him to drink some Rootbeer, which didn't help his mood. He sentenced them to kitchen patrol — scrubbing pots and platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with the cleaning harpies. Isa usually wouldn't have minded since she could control water and all that, but that wasn't the case. The harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get the extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so Annabeth, Percy and Isa had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.

Tyson didn't mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but Annabeth, Percy and Isa had to suffer through hours of hot, dangerous work, especially since there were tons of extra plates. Tantalus had ordered a special luncheon banquet to celebrate Clarisse's chariot victory — a full-course meal featuring country-fried Stymphalian death-bird.

The only good thing about their punishment was that it gave the three of them a common enemy and lots of time to talk. After listening to Percy's dream about Grover again, Annabeth looked like she might be starting to believe him.

"If he's really found it," she murmured, "and we could retrieve it —"

Then it hit Isa like a bulldozer. "Of course!" She cried out. "I'm so stupid! That makes so much more sense now."

The thing that could heal Thalia's tree was the Golden Fleece, and if she remember correctly the story Grey Sisters told Percy was the story of how Jason was able to retrieve the Golden Fleece. They knew the location and they were the ones who told Jason where it was.

"What? Hold on," Percy said. "You act like this... whatever-it-is Grover found is the only thing in the world that could save the camp. What is it?"

"I'm such an idiot," Isa grumbled under her breath.

"I'll give you a hint," Annabeth told him. "What do you get when you skin a ram?"

"Messy?"

Isa snickered at that.

Annabeth sighed. "A Fleece. The coat of a ram is called a Fleece. And if that ram happens to have golden wool—"

"The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?"

Annabeth scraped a plateful of death-bird bones into the lava. "Percy, remember the Grey Sisters? They said they knew the location of the thing you seek. And they mentioned Jason. Three thousand years ago, they told him how to find the Golden Fleece. You do know the story of Jason and the Argonauts?"

"Yeah," He said. "That old movie with the clay skeletons."

Isa snorted earning a pointed look from Annabeth.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh my gods, Percy! You are so hopeless."

"What?" He demanded. "Isa, tell me, do you know the story of Jason and the Argonauts?"

"Erm... yeah," Isa said after giving it some thought. "The one about Cadmus and Europa."

"Just listen," Annabeth told him. "The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent his magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important."