“Aw man!” Toni cried. “I thought we escaped her clutches—we were so cool. And now we’re back to square one!”

  Usk was similarly fed up, as he was presently fobbing coin purses to each of the group with no small amount of force.

  “Ow!” Oak rubbed at his shoulder, and bent down to pick the small bag up. It was crudely stitched together from olive green felt.

  Usk flashed a smirk before he schooled his expression. “Do not lose these, or you’re dead.”

  Wisely, he merely tossed the last bag to Fig with a gentle under-throw. She caught it without blinking as she stared coolly at Lady Tegan, arms crossed. Her stillness was unnerving—like watching a child packing a grenade with gunpowder, while his best friend tested blowtorches.

  “I apologize, but…” Roy said, as he gingerly opened his own patchwork bag. “These don’t seem to be important heirlooms. Why such concern?”

  Usk pointed to a clear object hanging in the air at the center of the pavilion.

  “There’s the dungeon. Bring back valuable materials.” He immediately marched back to Tegan’s side.

  “Don’t just ignore him,” Toni said, annoyed. “Hey! Answer him, Usker!”

  The man turned his back to her with a sharp, practiced arc, to stand next to his Mistress. She, in turn, sat relaxed under a wisteria sipping tea.

  “I don’t think he likes us.” Oak said, approaching Fig. “You doing okay over here?”

  “I’ll say more when we’re alone.” She said simply. “That Butler guy though? I think he just hates you specifically.”

  “He could tell I knew how ugly his suit is, then?” Oak said, shoulders deflating.

  “What? No! It’s because his pure, upper-crust Lady nearly hopped on your lap side-saddle and rode you until dawn! Is that suit really so bad, anyways? I kinda like the look of it—”

  “FIG!” Oak shouted, aghast. “You can’t just say things like that.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll leave fashion to the three of you.”

  Flushing horrendously, Oak shoved Fig as hard as he could, and she stumbled—slightly—a laugh finally cracking out of her.

  He shook her as she warded him off with a grin. “You—you—Agh!”

  “Come on!” She barked happily, grabbing Oak in a headlock. “Let’s figure out what this dungeon is all about.”

  “Toni? Roy?”

  “Sorry, but as cute as those puppy-dog eyes are, we know a losing battle when we see one.” Toni said with a smile.

  “Next time it will be youuuuu…” He crooked a finger at her ominously. She rolled her eyes, and stepped up next to the floating object with the rest of them.

  It was strange. It didn’t bob in the air, or listlessly float. No spinning, no turning, no weaving, no movement of any kind. It just… was in that space, without any support. Excluding that, It was a perfectly normal jar of glass, with a metal lid secured on top. Inside was something slightly wet, and amber-colored. Except for the uncanny placement, it looked as mundane as ice on a glacier.

  “Roy, go touch it.” Fig said.

  “Of course.” He said, without question. Roy stepped forward, and placed his fingertip on the side. His brows fell down in a furry chevron as he felt around it from all sides, and found no interruption.

  “It tickles, a bit.” He confessed. “On contact, It’s like my finger is filled with Brownian radio-static.”

  Fig gave Oak a questioning glance. He raised an eyebrow, and tapped the arm still imprisoning him in a headlock. Given that his face was all smooshed up, it wasn’t a particularly sexy attempt at begging. But like how all infants are ugly, yet we still love them, so too did Oak’s dough-boy face appeal to Fig’s sensibilities. Or she got bored.

  Either way she released him, and closed her hand around the jar. Her eyes teared up at the discomfort.

  “Yackh! I see what you mean.” Fig pushed and pulled on the thing, but it didn’t budge. But then she used her brain. The intricacies of her mind are a bit much for a general, sleepy audience, so let’s just say this: she realized it was a knob.

  So, appropriate for all knobs, she twisted it, and opened the dungeon. Fig and everyone else in the pavilion were sucked into the spatial portal, like boba swirling down the drain of the bathtub.

  …I like sweet tea when I’m soaking okay—Is that such a crime!? No I don’t mean I brew a bathtub of tea, sometimes I just spill when I’m reading a book and it just happens that—nevermind, everyone shut up about my hygiene!

  The roar and rush of air gushing into the dungeon made Lady Tegan Scowle’s dress flutter in the wind. And finally she slumped in her seat, rung entirely dry.

  “That was almost a disaster.”

  ***

  Ah, the sweet sweet allure of dungeons. Once thought—foolishly—to be the dreary locked cupboards for the gentry; special little toy chests to keep prisoners tucked away for as long as necessary. Now though, there is a vibrant zeitgeist of understanding that dungeons = a fun, contained location; Often filled with monsters, riddled with traps, and most important of all… There be loot!

  Now, despite the promise of vast wealth, most would know it wise to check-up on a strange new place before entering it… Then the promising youth would know where to abandon the adventure, lest they only hope for slow, painful death, instead of the vastly worse alternative…

  Good thing none of that applies here!

  Oak and his friends collapsed onto a big lucky rock, and did their best to keep green pastries from revisiting the world of the undigested. Groaning, Oak rose to his feet, and scanned his surroundings.

  “Rocks.” He said. And it was true! Good job buddy!

  Roy, the only one who seemed to be totally fine, nodded appreciatively.

  “I don’t see anything else out there. No weeds, or even lichen. Though that might just be the elevation.” He paused. “Elevation is… means height.”

  “Thank you Roy.” Oak said, as he peered down the big lucky rock. One might call it a mountain, but I don’t feel like it. I like the big lucky rock. And from the bottom stretching outwards was dipping rolls of stone, some cresting like waves. It was… well, it felt empty.

  “Not even wind…” Toni said, softly.

  A shrill whistle brought their attention to Fig, who waved at them from the other side.

  “Let’s talk while we head down and check things out.”

  As they more-or-less carefully descended the big lucky rock, Fig let her thoughts out to dry like laundry on clotheslines.

  “We have to find out what that bench knows. As long as she has that secret of how we return, she has us hostage. Actually, everything in this situation stinks like helm.“ She lowered herself onto her butt to better scoot down a tricky incline. ”I don’t like how much we have to depend on her for. The next time we get the chance we have to find places of our own nearby—even if we have to build a shack in the woods. The less she has control over us, the better.” Fig said.

  “Oop—!” Oak slipped on the ledge, and Roy steadied him immediately from behind. “Thanks… I think we need to talk to way, way more people. If we have a presence in the local community, that might give us some extra rope to play with.”

  “Rope to play with? Like shibari?” Roy asked.

  “It’s… what? I don’t know… More rope is better than less rope? I didn’t think about it much. I’m not a boy scout.”

  Toni rolled her eyes. “I think I get the picture. Roy, anything else your mysterious and possibly sordid past wants to contribute.”

  Roy frowned at her smile. “I… I’m not sure. There’s one Idea.” He said. “We could supply Lady Scowle with the minimum materials, and sell the rest locally? Or utilize another resource, or skill. If we have all our financial eggs in more than one basket, we can mitigate more risks.” He paused—But Fig barked before he could finish.

  “We all know what an egg is, Roy.”

  He opened his mouth to correct her, but Fig continued.

  “And I think that’s a great idea too. We might be in a pinch, but we can handle it. Together.” She gave the group a grin, and they replied with their own. “Now… What the frog around here is valuable?”

  Oak and his friends slid down after her, and spread out to search.

  “Rock, rock, rock…” Oak picked through a bunch of sharp pieces of stone. “Toni, do you know what we should be looking for?”

  She stood at the base of the big lucky rock, and examined the sheer cliff. “Not much more than high-school earth science, sorry. All I can tell you is that nothing here is sedimentary! Which actually gives us a really interesting question about how old this place is. Without wind, or water, the only erosion that would happen here is from people coming in and out.”

  “I see!” Roy said, stepping up next to her, and placing his hand to the wall. “So this local, sans a natural cycle, could be exponentially older than anything found on the outside with the same level of wear-and-tear.”

  “Exactly!”

  Fig waved her hand in front of Oak’s glazed eyes until he snapped back into reality.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “What?”

  She held up a rock.

  “Wanna smash?”

  Oak folded his arms. Snorting, she tossed it to him, and picked up another.

  “Are those jokes ever going to get old?”

  “Nuh-uh.” Fig said, and slammed the rock in her hand to pieces, and examined them before finding another poor stone. “We’re never going to knock boots, so they’re just wholesome fun!”

  “Wholesome?” Oak said, the word bubbling up like phlegm.

  “Yes!”

  CRUNCH!

  “Guys get all stiff--” She waggled her eyebrows, and Oak covered his face with both hands. “When I tell them those jokes. They take ‘em seriously, and it suddenly becomes a ‘thing.’Not with you though.”

  CRACK!

  “You’re safe.”

  Little shards clattered off the wall, and fell to the ground.

  “Well I know that! I just… don’t see you making those jokes with the others.” Oak looked at his rock, then chucked it at the wall.

  Clack!

  It didn’t shatter, and instead rebounded back to Oak’s feet.

  “Eh, there’s a reason. Here—Next couple are about them, ‘kay? Then you’ll see why they aren’t as fun.”

  “Deal!”

  RUNCHK!

  So. Rocks can be un-exciting. But there’s a couple elements we need to address. This little pocket world wasn’t just a bunch of scattered-around rocks, but rock—as in the substance of this place was stone. That’s the… canvas let’s say. And what do you do with a canvas? Uh-huh, yup, yup, y—What? Why in the world would you do that to—you paint on canvas! Obviously, ugh….

  Today’s watercolor? What else could it be, but Magic.

  “Do you hear that?” Oak said, his head cocked. Fig grunted in question, but he just shook his head. “It’s like… chalk on the sidewalk. Light, and grindy.”

  He placed his ear against the side of the big lucky rock, and closed his eyes. Yes, it was in there. Half a dozen sounds rumbling away quietly, like bustling white-collar workers on a slow day.

  “What is that?” Fig said, once she had joined him. Oak shook his head again, as lost as she was. When one of those sounds grew louder, he felt a lil’ nervous.

  “Toni, Roy?” he said, his voice rising, “I think you should come check this out.”

  “Discover something?” Roy asked, and walked in Oak’s direction.

  “Ouch!” Toni yelped. Roy spun around and held out his hands as if to steady her. But she was fine. And as Fig and Oak ran up to her, she only seemed perplexed. She sucked on her finger, and stared up at the big lucky rock.

  “Scratch yourself?” Fig asked. Toni shook her head, and held up the wounded finger. It only looked wet to Oak. Toni continued as held her hand, and examined it.

  “I was just rubbing my hand down the wall, when… it was weird. For just a moment I felt it give way, then it went back to normal. It pinched me.”

  Everyone, frowning, turned to the wall in question. Now, If I was cruel, I’d say that it took them another twenty-five minutes to uncover the truth. But I’m also filled with so much mercy it squirts out my ears sometimes. Nasty stuff to clean up by the way, it sticks to clothes and hair like no other and tastes like grape medicine for some reason. Eugh, disgusting.

  “Woah!’

  They each flinched when carvings appeared from the walls. Extremely simplistic in design, they were constructed out of sharp lines. A circle, a square, two stick figures with no expression, and a squiggle. And they moved! Oak watched the square slide down the wall and approach his foot, the traversal accompanied by the sound of a mortal and pestle cuddling.

  He stepped back to avoid the square, but it moved slightly too fast. It slid underneath his shoe, then retreated into the stone. The empty space his heel was in refilled with rock, and pinched the sole.

  “Hey!”

  Oak tugged it back without trouble, though now his converse had a slight indent in them.

  “So curious.” Roy said, lightly pulling from his own ineffectual trap.

  “They’re like— anti-creatures.”

  “These little guys are defined by the absence of rock, which is good news since, they can’t seem to do too much to us.”

  “That’s a relief.” Oak said.

  “Well they all are.” Toni said with a disgusting grin. Oak let out a guffaw, then quickly covered his mouth with a hand. Fig glowered at the two of them which finally made Toni laugh. Fig turned away with a grumble.

  “Both of you can flax off.” With a deepening frown, she squatted down to look at the stick-figure feebly trying to chew off her toes. “I hate this place. It makes me sound like a moron.” She poked the carved line that made up the stick-figure’s head, and it shook it, annoyed.

  Roy pursed his lips, but Fig’s glare stopped him from picking the low-hanging fruit she’d just opened herself up to. Yes, this situation was different from normal, thank you very much!

  “You know, I kind of like them.” Toni said. “They’re cute!” She traced the line of the other figure’s arm, and it shrank away, nearly pinching her a second time.

  “Ah!”

  The pictographs grew more aggressive, waking up from their long slumber. They hadn’t had blood in a long, long time; It was a faint memory they now yearned to recollect. And collect marrow they would.

  The ‘bites’ from the circle sharpened, and the superficial damage to their shoes became true.

  “Stop that!” Oak stepped up a rock, and managed to separate himself from the little bugger.

  Fig jabbed at the indents with her fingers, somehow agitating the things even more. Frustrated, she smacked it with a rock.

  “Agh, now I hate these guys. But they have to be the secret to whatever cool junk this place has—Ack!” She flinched back from a pinch on her thumb.

  “Let’s scope out the rest of the mountain, we might be able to find where these came from.”Roy offered in suggestion.

  “Yeah! I heard them come from inside, so there’s a good chance there’s something special in there.” Oak hopped from one boulder to another.

  It was ridiculous. Four grown adults jumped from rock to rock as if they were pretending the ground was lava! Like the good ol’ days at the Mr. And Mrs Chasten’s place. What’s that? You never played the ground was lava!? Oh lord, I’m getting old.

  Devastatingly, all things must pass away into the ether, never to fill the hearts of children with simple joy again. As such, Oak’s strategy fell apart when the carvings became a little too frustrated.

  “Eeeep!” Toni managed to stay on top, but her sudden flailing threw her phone and coin purse awry.

  By ballooning up into larger two-dimensional shapes, the carvings could grab hold of the boulders, and jostle them. At first, the slight shift didn’t affect the balance much, but the petroglyphs—like foolish dwarves, and overly critical film students—decided to go deeper.

  “Alright everyone, get ready to run!” Toni called. Then dashed from her spot, and snatched her phone from the ground.

  “Ouch!”

  “Ooh!”

  “Waha!”

  They tried to protect their tender feet, but the speed of the combined assault meant that each person got a big ol’ nip! Toni might be used to it, since her grandma was a kindly old walrus—because of the mustache—and happened to be anathema to cheeks of all kinds, but she still didn’t like it. Roy was mostly good since he’d been trained to resist torture. Allegedly.

  “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

  Fig jabbed her hand into the enlarged circle racing along the wall, and the force of the blow sent the carving backwards. But this time, instead of disappearing into the rock, the missing space sunk into the rock. Grinning, she kicked the squiggle rearing up to take her piggies to market.

  It too drilled into the big lucky rock!

  “THIS IS OUR TICKET!” Woah, does Fig’s teeth look sharper to anyone else or is it just me?

  “Toni you dropped this.” Roy said, with her purse in hand.

  “Oh, thank buddy!” She said.

  “Here we go…” Oak said with a wince.

  Following Fig’s lead, He, Toni, and Roy joined her in skipping about like leprechauns and pommeling the shapes into the ground. Stone gave way to open air, and in no time flat, something changed.

  Thunkkunkre….CHUNKKCLKCJK

  The holes of stone accumulated into a point-graph too well documented support the weight of the big lucky rock. Cracks formed, and when Fig gave that circle a final punch, a tunnel formed from the collapsing wall. One at a descending slope!

  Lurching into the hidden cave, Oak coughed at the stone dust swirling through the air. As his friends filed in behind him, shielding their mouths from the particulates, The carvings shot past them. Embedded into the wall was a simple pink crystal. It glowed with a slight, buzzing light.

  “Not bad. The clarity might be low, but it has good coloring.” Oak said appreciatively.

  The carvings formed up behind the crystal, growing and shrinking as they went. As they settled, Oak and his friends were confronted with a round, silly face, with similarly round eyes.

  Oh! I forgot about those natural lines at the top! Ahem. They saw in all its glory: a wound, angwy face.

  “A pet rock! I used to have one that looked just like that.” Toni said.

  If it could bellow out in rage, it would have. But since the lack of sound only gave the scene a moment of pause, it grumpily moved on to try and kill them. The carvings separated once again, but this time as they raced about, they left permanent gouges in the stone.

  A rapidly widening and shrinking circle dropped hemisphere’s of stone from the ceiling as it approached, while the squiggle crop-dusted a hail of dust and small rocks. The square dug out an ever-deepening trench in front of the crystal.

  “Oh Shrapnel! Let’s kife that thing and get out of here!” Fig darted forward with wild abandon.

  “Fig!”

  Oak tried to follow, but the pair of stick-figures closed the distance, and were busy forming spikes from their heads, for him to fall onto. Better not trip then, eh?

  Roy was the second person to jump into action. He caught a falling ball of rock and chucked it at the speeding circle above.

  “Toni, go with Fig! Oak and I will keep these others busy!” He shouted.

  “We will?” Oak said.

  “Got it!” Toni darted past Oak. The other stick-figure pursued, and in a moment of panic, he blurted something inconceivable.

  “Fatso.”

  Oak had no idea where that came from—insults weren’t really his style, and he immediately felt bad. He had no inkling what context this one was supposed to fit! But it worked.

  See, stick-figures, by their very nature, are made by simple lines. Thinness is built directly into their core identities, so by calling one fat, Oak was declaring to this little creature that its entire being was antithetical to its base existence. A complex ontological attack that stabbed the tiny carving directly in its feeble little heart.

  The stick-figured veered back around to Oak, vibrating with rage!

  “Oh… boy…” Oak ran. Not away, but… about. Around. The little carvings had formed spikes in the ground so he couldn’t step there, and their rage meant they were underfoot nearly constantly, so a strategic chase wasn’t ready to be ordered from the tactics catalog. Frankly, it was kinda embarrassing! So unlike Roy who danced with the rain, and sent tribulation back up to heaven. But—oh dang we spent too much time on Oak so we missed it all. Whoops!

  Roy, entranced in his remarkable feat, didn’t notice Oak in time to dodge, so when his friend's head smashed directly into Roy’s diaphragm? He, uh… well he was surprised.

  “Oomph!?”

  Oak fell to the ground, breath ragged… and found Fig next to him… doing something insane. Toni’s foot was planted in Fig’s hands, and with a great big heave, she launched Toni over the fathomless trench. Toni flew through the air for barely a second before she landed on the opposite ledge. She recoiled from the impact, and teetered on the edge

  “Oh shin!”

  Except there wasn’t any water to catch her. She flailed her arms, then desperately struck out with an arm, and grabbed hold of the glowing, pink crystal. It broke away from the rock in a cloud of sweet-smelling dust, and Toni’s balance shifted backwards.

  “NOOO!”

  Oak, Fig, and Roy dove to catch her, but they were too late. Toni screamed as she slipped through their grasp, and plummeted below.

  And… uh… Well, see there’s a problem when you unthinkingly dash to save someone from certain death. If you’re not careful, you and your friends might fall in after her.

  Toni’s body struck the bottom of the pit, then exploded into a cloud of pink smoke. That was the last thing Oak saw before he crashed head-first into the ground.

  PAY 10 COPPER TO BE REVIVED?