Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26063058-20150131224420/@comment-3146930-20150217125427

Kronos300 wrote: Percy Jackson 17 wrote: and Annabeth just tricked Arachne, no real fight, I hated the end of Mark of Athena... so the best characters in the series just fell into Tartarus and you want me except that!!! Exactly. The quest had only two challenges: The ghosts of Mithras and Arachne. So I really wondered what was so difficult about the quest that many children of Athena didn't succeed. Either they were non athletes or really dumb.

However just getting to Rome in the first place is a challenge by itself. Plus Otis and The Big F have been helping Arachne capture demigods for untold centuries. They may not have done so with Annabeth as they were waiting for Percy, Jason, and Piper at the time.

As far as the challenges go, some are set up where you need items from previous tests to keep going. We also know that the Athena kids are very logical, so if given two options, it may not occur to them to pick a third one. Plus Annabeth wants to be an architect, which is probably the only reason she noticed the key stone at all. Despite there only being a few challenges, there is still room for error. Then there is also the giant spider monster in the basement.