As Howard plunged head-first into the darkness of the square hole, he could only see the lights slightly ahead of him from the beetle. The passage, due to the water flowing from the waterfall and constant flow of the water over countless years smoothed the stone to a slick surface that acted much like a water slide.
All and all it was a fairly pleasant experience. Much more so than Howard's brief experience with what he figured was interdimensional travel, or Howard's brief slide across the cavern floor when he entered this strange world. Howard was immensely grateful for the robes that he had pillaged from the trash pile as Howard slid head-first down the dark passageway.
Howard landed with a splash in an ill-lit cavern much more natural in appearance than the square-holed entrance had suggested. The cavern's interior was lit by more of the bulbous green mushrooms that had collected on the garbage piles of the above chambers. The low light of the cavern made it difficult for Howard to pick out the edge of the deep pool that he had splashed into. The Beetle having no such issue drove over the water's surface to the end of the pool, beeping at Howard impatiently to follow.
As Howard pulled himself onto the shore he took stock of his surroundings. He was on a perfectly circular island surrounded by water on all sides. The circle's seclusion from the rest of the chamber was only broken by a large rectangular block resting on the circle leading to the wall of the cavern. The rectangular block looked as if it by itself had journeyed through the square hole as though pushed by some massive hand in defiance of common logic, landing on the circle and falling away from the square hole to rest on the edge of the cavern opposite the square hole.
There were a handful of columns of stone but a large number of stalactites that made their presence known with their constant dripping into the pool below. Filling the quiet air with echoes and adding a cold mist to the chamber, that once again made Howard grateful for the sticky robe. The stalactite ringed the top of the camber congregating mostly by the edges of the cavern's walls as if in fear of what may rise from the water.
Around the square hole that Howard had exited out of, there was a series of shapes carved into the flowstone of the cavern walls. Interestingly there was a triangle, arch, circle, semi-circle, and rectangular hole all seemingly not in use, unlike the square hole. These holes stare blankly back at Howard with no water or any movement or sign of life in their vicinity.
Howard thought that the cavern felt much like the dealership in the early morning. As if it too were waiting for Mr. Donnovan's arrival to add the acrid smell of burnt coffee to the morning.
“So much for the treasure behind the waterfall. what a scam!” Howard exclaimed to the echoing cavern.
Howard plopped down dejectedly on the weirdly smooth surface of the circular island and glanced over at the little beetle. The beetle which had already driven around the island a few times looking for anything of interest and finding none returned to Howard’s side.
“Listen buddy you gotta help me figure out a name.”
“ And don't beep at me angrily for not knowing,” Howard said quickly as he noticed the beetle gearing up to beep angrily.
“It's not my fault I've just been born. I only vaguely know who I am. How can you expect me to know who you are?”
The beetle flicked its lights in slight annoyance but refrained from beeping.
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“Ok before I was born here, did I know you?” Howard received one beep in the affirmative from the beetle.
“You're probably not Mr. Donnovan, since you don't have hands to brew terrible coffee.” Howard mused.
“And you're not my mother, that might be the guy with the silly voice and the angry fans. Though I'm not sure about that one either.”
“Hold on, I think I got it, you are Edith right?”
The beetle turned to Howard and partially dimmed its headlights delivering what could only be described as an incredulous look before beeping twice in the negative.
“Ok ok Mr. stubborn if you're not Edith I'm just gonna call you James. Not to be racist or fishest or whatever but I had a fish named James once and if you don't shape up I'll just call you that. ”
The beetle hearing the name James beeped in jubilation turning its lights on and off while spinning in a circle before bumping into Howard's leg affectionately.
Howard chuckled, patting the beetle’s hood.
“Alright Alright, James II it is.”
As Howard happily patted the car's hood the chamber seemed a bit lighter and less damp.
—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rel
Rel, like many of the others, had descended into the waterfall's descent. Into the cold mist and trash-filled room to find that the despoiler had disappeared without a trace. The order had been throwing trash into this hole for years at this point, which had gathered into piles. These trash piles had then been essentially torn apart in the search for the creature, Howard as it had named itself.
When tearing apart the trash piles they found to no one's surprise more garbage and the occasional rock. It was as if the creature had teleported, which was strange as Rel did not detect any of the faint traces in space-time that teleportation magic generally left. Rel was far from a time, space, or teleportation magic expert, but that kind of magic left traces that all but the most incompetent of magic users could detect.
Some of the order had even dived to the bottom of the chamber to look for any path out that the creature could have taken. They reported a strange flow in the water but nothing else.
Rel dropped a pre-prepared wind rune onto one of the sturdier trash piles, to shoot himself out of the hole back to the ritual chamber where the order was once more gathering, now having lost the creature.
Rel stood over the bone run as the symbol carved onto the surface began to glow. Rel was shot into the air as a concentrated beam of air blasted out of the rune. Once back in the ritual chamber, Rel noticed that the majority had gathered around the now-conscious Grand Master.
The Grand Master looked slightly worse for wear as a crack in his mask had widened the eye hole. Blood had stained the edges of the eyehole as more blood trickled from the grandmaster's forehead.
The Grandmaster drew himself to deliver a speech to the gathered mass of cultists after losing their quarry.
“Bwothews this is not the end. Pewhaps we have lost the blasphemew tempowawiwy but all is not yet wost. No, Wisten Bwothews, we can stiw compwete ouw goaws. We must wetuwn to ouw wives tempowawiwy.” ( Brothers this is not the end. Perhaps we have lost the blasphemer temporarily but all is not yet lost. No, listen brothers we can still complete our goals. We must return to our lives temporarily.)
Rel listened with rapt attention until the grandmaster mentioned wives, as Rel was not married and didn't think the majority of the order was married. Deep ponderings of the void and ancient magic didn't tend to leave much time for a social life.
Not that Rel had ever been particularly popular. Even back in wizard school when Rel had been the most social he hadn't been particularly popular. Rel had been so excited to be accepted to The Hizward School of Theoretical Magic and Cantrips. When he had finally arrived he had been sorted into the school house most often associated with jerks and evil wizards by a talking plant, a plant. It didn't seem fair to him to determine his entire future as a 12-year-old via plant. It didn't help that Professor Thisilwick Wandplucker also clearly had favorites. There were a handful of students who could get away with almost anything. They broke the rules every-single-year and always got away with it, even winning the school wide competition via their rule breaking.
Rel was startled out of his musings by the closing remarks of the grandmaster having missed the instructions entirely.
“ We wiw be in contact bwothews. We wiw wetuwn and we wiw prevaiw.” ( we will be in contact brothers. We will return and we will prevail)
With the conclusion of the grandmaster's short speech, the throngs of hooded cultists began to disperse. Some of them by teleporting, taking a few of the others with them. But most began to funnel out through the cave entrance.
Rel figured there was nothing to do but walk home. He had to figure out what had gone wrong with the ritual. There was no way that the strange creature that had come through the portal had interfered magically. Rel had always hated mysteries, and this mystery was one of the worst ones yet. He would discover the secrets of this strange creature, this despoiler of rituals or he would die trying.
What do we think about in chapter captions for the grandmaster? ( I think it detracts a bit from the humor but it might be necessary for readability.)
