Mark of Athena | By Rick Riordan | Obstacles

There are two main obstacles, but I will just describe one in much detail. This obstacle involved all of the characters, so I thought it would be the most interesting. This is when Nico Di Angelo goes looking for the doors of death, these doors are what keeps monsters in Tartarus and lets them out. When monsters are destroyed they turn to ash and go to Tartarus; then they start reforming within Tartarus. When they are done reforming they find the doors of death and exit, the doors are basically an elevator. Nico does find the doors of death, but there are hundreds of monsters waiting there for him and they trap him. The twin giants, Otis and Ephialtes, trap him in a bronze jar and transport him to Rome where they plan to stage a huge event which involves the killing and torture of many people. Each giant is created to oppose a god, Otis and Ephialtes were created to oppose Dionysus/Bacchus; he is the god of wine and parties. Th
e twins try to do stunts that are big and noticeable, while staying in line with what the plan is for destroying the gods and taking over earth. Nico in a jar is part of their next stunt, and they will release millions of wild and dangerous animals in to the city of Rome.

That is the obstacle that the 7 demigods of the Prophecy of the Seven have to face. The way to overcome the obstacle is to locate Nico. To find him they split in to groups and search the city. Jason, Piper and Percy find he is under the Colosseum. Then they have to kill Otis and Ephialtes, the only way to kill a giant is to have the help of a god or goddess. They specifically needed the help from the giants arch nemesis, Bacchus, because he had defeated the twins before. Jason and Percy take on the giants while Piper helps Nico out of the jar and feed him some food. They manage to get the attention of Bacchus only to find out that he needs them to prove they are worthy of his help. He restores the Colosseum to what it was in the roman times and prepares it for a battle between the giants and Jason and Percy. The pair prove worthy of Bacchus' help and he destroys them (with a pine cone - long story), then the Argo II comes to "pick up" Jason, Piper, Percy, and Nico.

I found that obstacle the biggest most important one in this book, with many smaller obstacle inside of it.

I hope you enjoyed!

KF