BY fates design

Golden casket

Annabeth and Cassiopeia offered to follow Luke alone, since Annabeth had her invisibility hat and Cassiopeia could slip into the shadows, but Percy managed to convince them against it. Tyson didn't particularly like the all or nothing agreement they came to, nervously chewing on his finger nails as he reluctantly followed along.

They stopped by their cabin just long enough for them to grab their stuff, adamant that they weren't staying on the ship another night. Tyson carried all three duffle bags, much to Percy's dissatisfaction, and offered to carry Cassiopeia's too, she tried to refuse, but he was insistent.

They snuck through the corridors, following the ships signs to find the admiralty suite. Annabeth scouted ahead, warning them to hide whenever someone passed by despite most being harmless.

It unnerved many individuals in the hall to see people walking around under the enchantment, the idea of being strip of their choice and mind was sickening.

As they reached the stairs to deck thirteen, where the admiralty suite was supposed to be, Annabeth hissed, "hide!" and shoved the sons of Poseidon into a supply closet. They could hear a couple of guys coming down the hall.

"You see that Aethiopian drakon in the cargo hold?" One of them said.

The other laughed. "Yeah, it's awesome!"
Annabeth was still invisible, but she squeezed Percy's arm hard, her eyes widening slightly as she looked around for Cassiopeia.

"I hear they've got two more coming." The second voice said. "They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man - no contest!" The voice faded down the corridor.

"That was Chris Rodriguez!" Annabeth took her cap off and turned visible. "You remember - from Cabin 11." Percy could only sort of recall Chris from the summer before. He had been one of the unclaimed campers who got stuck in the Hermes cabin because his godly parent never bothered to claim him.

The Stoll brothers and Alex looked particularly solum at the mention of the boy, having spent many years sharing a cabin with him before the war began.

Outside the storage closet, Cassiopeia slipped along the shadows, slowing down slightly, but not stopping, when she saw a familiar face. Chris Rodriguez. She remembered him well, having spent many extra hours training him herself. She could recall late afternoons when she would slip away from the main camp to be alone, only to find him and keep him company while he expressed his desire to be claimed. It wasn't fair, but life seldom was.

With a sickening taste in her mouth, she kept moving forward, passing a glass wall over looking the promenade. At the bottom, outside a candy shop, a dozen Laistrygonian, two hellhounds and Scythian dracaenae had gathered. In the middle of them was a young man in Greek armour hacking at a straw dummy clad in a Camp Half Blood T-shirt.

Swallowing harshly, Cassiopeia kept moving, her pace increasing as she silently jogged through the ship to find Luke. At the end of the hallway, were double oak doors that looked like they led somewhere important.

"I wish you wouldn't always do things by yourself, dear, it's dangerous." Euphemia expressed, sending a worried glance towards her granddaughter.

Discarding rational thought, Cassiopeia didn't wait for invitation to enter, slamming the wooden doors open. The stateroom inside was as beautiful, as it was horrible.

The beautiful part: huge windows curved along the back wall, looking out over the stern of the ship. Green sea and blue sky stretched all the way to the horizon. A Persian rug covered the floor, two plush sofas occupied the middle of the room with a canopy bed in one corner and a mahogany dining table in the other. The table was loaded with food, too.