A web of fates | Percy Jackson and the Olympians

V| Daphne has to wash dishes

The way Tantalus saw it, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if Percy Annabeth, Tyson, and Daphne hadn't disturbed them with their bad chariot driving.

Daphne argued that she hadn't even participated in the chariots race and that she was simply making sure her friends didn't get hurt but he didn't care.

This was so completely unfair, Percy told Tantalus to go chase a doughnut, 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.

The harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get that extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so Percy, Annabeth and Daphne had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.

Tyson didn't mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but the other three 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 Oliver's and 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 group of three a common enemy and lots of time to talk.

After listening to Percy's dream about Grover again, she looked like she might be starting to believe him.

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

"Hold on," Daphne 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'll give you a hint. What do you get when you skin a ram?"

"Messy?" Percy offered.

Daphne sighed. "A fleece. The coat of a ram is called a fleece. And if that ram happens to have golden wool-"

Daphne had debated whether or not to tell the duo about her dreams, but she wanted clarification first.

And for clarification she either needed to speak to Chiron or Luke himself.

"The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?" Percy gawked.

Annabeth scrapped a plateful of death-bird bones into the lava. "Percy, remember the Gray 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," Percy said. "That old movie with the clay skeletons."

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

"What?" He demanded.

"Just listen. 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 this 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."

"It was probably important to her." Daphne added.

"The point is, when Cadmus got to Colchis, he sacrificed the golden ram to the gods and hung the Fleece in a tree in the middle of the kingdom. The Fleece brought prosperity to the land. Animals stopped getting sick. Plants grew better. Farmers had bumper crops. Plagues never visited. That's why Jason wanted the Fleece. It can revitalize any land where it's placed. It cures sickness, strengthens nature, cleans up pollution-"