Demeter, the goddess of harvest and agriculture, claims Meg as her child by displaying her symbol of a sickle and sheaves of wheat above Meg’s head.Īt the camp, though Apollo finds himself still excellent at music, he is encumbered by his mortal shortcomings, such as a hand that cramps after playing an instrument. Meanwhile, as Meg defends herself against a prank, she displays her formidable powers. Apollo wants Chiron to prioritize his problems but learns that his fall and the events at the camp may be linked. More worryingly, campers have been mysteriously disappearing into the woods surrounding the camp. The Oracle of Delphi can longer foretell the future, and the demigods are unable to communicate in and out of the camp. Apollo learns from them and the camp administrator, Chiron, a centaur, that the camp is in the middle of its own set of crises. Waking at Camp Half-Blood, Apollo meets his demigod children Will Solace, Kayla Knowles, and Austin Lake. Apollo hallucinates about a man and a woman telling him to find a mysterious gateway and faints. Percy’s car having crashed in the fight against the nosoi, Meg and Apollo walk to Camp Half-Blood. Since the karpos keeps repeating the word “Peaches,” Meg decides to call him by that name. Meg inadvertently summons a vicious grain spirit or karpos, who defends her fiercely. Percy, the son of the ocean god Poseidon, summons water to drench and dilute the power of the nosoi. On the way to Long Island, the site of the camp, the three are attacked by nosoi, or ancient plague spirits. However, Percy agrees to help the two only get as far as the camp, after which Percy will leave them.

Meg immediately claims Apollo's service, which means that he is bound to her until she releases him or considers his service complete.Īpollo suggests that they seek out Percy Jackson, a demigod whom he knows well and has helped train, so Percy can take them to Camp Half-Blood, a training school for demigods, which features prominently in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books. Recognizing Meg as a demigod, Apollo reveals his true identity to her and tells her he can turn back into a god once he has been in the service of a mortal.

Twelve-year-old Meg McCaffrey rescues Apollo by raising a volley of rotten fruit against the muggers. Apollo is mugged and beaten up in the alley by two mysterious youth who appear to have been sent by someone to specifically target him. As punishment, Zeus has turned Apollo into a mortal teenager named Lester Papadopoulos, complete with acne and flab. Apollo has been cast out of heaven by his father, Zeus, who blames Apollo for helping facilitate a war between Greek and Roman demigods, the powerful offspring of Gods and mortals. The story opens with the book’s first-person narrator and protagonist Apollo, the Olympian God of the sun, prophecies, archery, music, and healing, falling into a garbage dump in an alley in Manhattan, New York.

The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan