Child of Zeus {Interactive Story} (PJO/HOO/TOA)

NINE: What Was Stolen

"As most of you are aware," Rachel spoke, "the Pithos of Pandora has been refilled. And now it has been stolen."

Thunder boomed loud across the valley, as if to illustrate her point. Mike was visibly dying on the inside. A few campers gasped, others turned white like a sheet, I was more-or-less confused, and the other three new campers seemed to have the same idea as me; ask questions.

"Pandora's box, you mean?" Eric, who had previously only cared about his reflexion, asked curiously. "And isn't Pandora's box empty? Isn't that why - in myth - we are plagued with things such as disease, poverty, misery, death, and sadness?"

"Lots of words coming out of that kid's mouth. Damn." Thomas whispered.

"It's not 'in myth'. And in the original story, it was a ceramic jar, not a box. This did happen, you're right, but, like all monsters after they're killed, these spirits reformed. I can see from your confused faces that you have no idea what I'm talking about. You fought the Vandari, yes?" She focused on me, and I nodded. "When you killed those monsters, their spirits were sent to a place called Tartarus-"

"That's the place where Ouranous sent some of his unwanted children, right?" I guess I remembered more than I thought when it came to our Greek Mythology unit in school.

Rachel smiled. "Yes, good. In Tartarus they take time to reform before coming back up here to attack more demigods. This could take millennia, or a few years, or a few weeks, or a few days, some monsters even get out within the time period of three hours. When the spirits from Pandora's Pithos, in their natural forms, are slain, it does not get rid of the plague it represents, but the entity is sent back into the Pithos instead of Tartarus. The Pithos is full again, so Zeus took it from Hestia and had it put under his immediate care. But now it's been stolen."

"Yes, you mentioned that." Tina agreed rather unimpressed. We still didn't understand why this was such a threat.

"But everything's already in the world," I pointed out. "You said that even when the entities are dead the plague is still there. So what harm can come from stealing a jar which has already been opened?"

Eleo's face darkened. "Y/N, you definitely aren't a child of Athena. If the Pithos is opened again, then the plagues will come back and hit the world twice as hard. There's no guarantee that us mortals would survive another blow from anger and death, or the other nastier plagues."

I looked down. The realization hit me. Jar, gone. Jar breaks, me gone.

"Oh."

"A prophecy has not been issued yet," Rachel continued. "And we cannot get to the Sacred Grove in this storm--"

"We think we can help with that." Fiona cut in. "The storm, I mean. It might take a while."

"So we just sit here doing nothing until that happens?" Lee asked incredulously. "I thought heroes didn't wait for quests! I thought they just...went."

"If that were the case, and we could start a quest, we'd still need to know where to go. We have no leads. Nobody knows who might have stolen the Pithos - only that it wasn't a god and that monsters would love to get their grubby little paws on it. But monsters can't get onto Olympus, unless it's someone like Typhoon, but even then..." Rachel trailed off, and shivered like a nasty thought had come to her.

"Wait, so we are doing nothing?" I questioned, looking at Freddy and Thomas.

"Until a prophesy is issued, yes." Chiron looked panic-stricken, but I could see that he was trying to keep calm and collected, as a leader should. "Rachel, please follow me to my office so we can...converse more on the matter. Brandon I ask that you watch Angeline as Fiona, Tina, and Terra try to calm this ever growing storm." And he and Rachel marched out of the room.