Forbidden Quests

Chapter 29

Annabeth

When my eyelids flew up, I was greeted with the sight of Mount Olympus. A breeze drifted through the air, rustling my clothes that weren't covered in armor and my hair. I was standing next to Piper and Percy, and the rest of the demigod group was either behind us or at our side.

The sun was just setting over the horizon, and it cast a breathtaking glow upon the home of the gods. The rays of the sun seemed to point towards the majestic temple, illuminating the columns, and making the gems glitter even more. It was beautiful, and I noticed a lot of the demigods in our group admiring the scene set before us.

"Wow," Thalia stated. Everybody nodded or muttered an assent.

"Well, I guess we should get going. Athena said we had to be there by the sun's fall. We're cutting it close," I said.

Again, heads nodded, and we started walking down the pathway towards the home of the gods.

The bridge we were walking on didn't have any supports. It just floated. It was made out of smooth white marble, and all of our boots clanked on it as we walked. The squares of the marble tiles each had intricate designs, and so far I hadn't found one with the same design as another. Whoever had made this put a lot of time, thought, and creativity into it.

Behind us, the bridge ended with a drop off. Again, there were no supports, and no rails or fences. The drop off went down onto clouds, and after that, the clouds blocked our view. It was a least a three mile drop down towards ground. I decided it would be best if I stayed towards the middle of the bridge.

The bridge curved a little, sending us straight towards Mount Olympus. As we walked, we exchanged stories of what happened. We started with Jason and Nico's first.

"So, I summoned a few skeletons to help us," Nico explained. "Kampê did fly, but Jason also flew up and managed to slice one wing and totally cut off the other. Well, not totally, but it was hanging by only a strand of bloody flesh." Lacy shuddered and muttered a quick "ick."

"So after that, Jason kinda had to rest so I took my naturally good sword skills and chopped up the monster, expertly dodging her viper like attacks, and slashing with my super strength, and-"

Jason interrupted Nico, putting a hand on the son of Hades mouth, "Oh shut up. If you're going to tell the story, you might as well tell it right." The son of Zeus continued the story. "I was tired, so I did rest. The skeletons held off Kampê, but she isn't totally dumb. She managed to restrain them by getting one stuck in a tree- don't know how she pulled that off, I wasn't looking- and another two fell in a crevice, unable to get back up. She got rid of the others similarly, then came at me and Nico.

"She was a really good with her swords, surprisingly, and Nico and I could barely hold her off. During the fight, she cut Nico's arm a little bit, and so he had to get ambrosia fast, or else that poison would get to him. So I threw my shield at her and knocked her unconscious-"

Leo stopped him, "How in Hades did you manage to knock her out with just a shield and arm strength?"

Jason gave him a "duh" look and said, "I have power over winds... I can make things that are flying through the air go a lot faster than they normally can go."

Leo "aaaahh"ed and said, "Right. Carry on, Mister."

Jason shook his head, and was about to continue when Percy barged into the conversation, "Wait. We totally forgot about our shields you gave us, Jason. Whoops."

"Oh yeah!" I said, pulling out the bronze cube from my pocket. Jason had explained that Percy and I could make them small again, into the little cube that they came from, so we didn't have to carry them everywhere. And when we did that, we slipped them in our pockets, and we just totally forgot about them.