Howard's plunge into the dark chasm halted sharply as more cultists grabbed the web attached to Howard's back. Howard swung into the side of the chasm wall which was slick with moss. Thankfully the slick moss slightly cushioned his impact. Howard found himself hanging by his back facing the dark depth of the path carved by the waterfall. Howard began slowly ascending, scraping against the mossy wall, as the cultists began to draw Howard upward.
Howard began to consider his life choices since gaining consciousness in the void, he wondered which of his limited choices led to the disaster that was his life at this moment. Howard was startled out of his reverie by a series of beeps that sounded remarkably like LEEROYY JENKINS. A loud snap followed as the little car slammed the webbing into a protruding rock severing it, and causing Howard to Plunge into the chasm.
Howard plunged through the inky void of the chasm, chased by shouts of anguish from the cultists at having lost the blasphemer who had despoiled their ritual. The chasm walls were occasionally lit by the headlights of the beetle as they careened down the shaft. Eventually, Howard splashed painfully into a pool at the bottom of the waterfall, the sound of his landing echoing noisily in the chamber. Howard tread water as he looked around uncertainty, the chamber was lit by a sickly green glow from some sort of lumpy bioluminescent mushroom.
The chamber was a fairly small natural chamber and it was cluttered. There were piles of detritus made up of discarded robes, vials with fluids, and even animal skeletons. The trash had accumulated over time as the cult had discarded their trash down the waterfall. It was on these piles that the bulbous mushrooms seemed to grow in abundance.
Howard was splashed by the dirty water as the little beetle following Howard's descent finally reached the bottom of the falls. To his surprise, the beetle quickly bobbed to the surface as its tires inflated to double their size. The beetle beeped happily as it floated over to him. Howard took the chance to examine the beetle as in all the action he hadn't really gotten a chance to get a good look at the car. The beetle was a classic 65’ model painted off-white with racing stripes in black and a yellow 1 painted on the doors. The inside of the car seemed to be filled with water and was occupied, shockingly, by a fish wearing a racing derby helmet.
Howard shook his head in disbelief before just accepting the mess his short life had become. He tore the majority of the webbing off before swimming over to one of the sturdier-looking piles of garbage. Howard hauled himself out of the water, doing his best to avoid the sickly green mushrooms perching himself precariously on the pile. Looking at the little beetle Howard wondered where it had come from, before coming to a decision.
“ I can't just keep thinking of you as the beetle. “ he said to the beetle. The beetle flicked its lights happily.
“You, my friend, need a name.”
“How about Jeff?” The car beeped.
“Is that a beep, yes or no?” the car beeped again.
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“Ok, this is too confusing. Let's just do this: two beeps for no, one beep for yes.” The car beeped once in affirmation of this declaration.
“ Ok, so Jeff yes or no?” The car beeped twice.
“Hmmm ok, how about Lord Fishington?” the car beeped twice again, somehow managing to sound angry.
“Ok wise guy, no need to be so grumpy. Besides, what's wrong with Lord Fishington?” The beetle turned off its headlights in protest.
“Ok fine, so not Lord Fishington. We’ll think of something, but first, we need to get out of here.”
As the beetle turned its lights back on, Howard began to examine the room more thoroughly. The chamber was much the same as the first time he had looked at it, a small rough natural cavern carved out of the stone by the waterfall's continuous pressure. There was a small ledge around the edge of the pool that Howard could stand on if he pressed his back to the wall. Howard examined the pile that he was perched on.
Most of the pile was bones, wood, and old robes collected on the top of a natural rock. Howard selected one of the driest and least tattered robes as the constant misting of the waterfall made the already cool air of the chamber downright unpleasant in his state of relative undress. The robe was black and inlaid with gold around the sleeves and tattered towards the bottom. The front right of the robe had a sticky stain that had collected a handful of bone fragments and small rocks. How the robe had maintained its stickiness with all the water Howard could only guess at. Despite his reservations Howard shrugged and put on the robe, figuring that some clothing, unknowable sticky stain or not, would be better that nothing.
Howard looked up as he was startled by a splash of water from some falling debris and the sounds of movement from the mouth of the waterfall’s descent into the black void above. Howard heard some distant conversation as the light at the top of the hole he had fallen in was partially obscured by what he could only assume were the cultists trying to descend.
With a new sense of urgency, Howard began to reexamine the chamber and what he may have overlooked.
The splashing from the falling debris had drawn Howard's attention to the water, and he began to examine the pool more closely. Looking at the water's movement, now disturbed by falling pebbles, Howard noticed that there was an inconsistency with the flow of the water around the room given its size. The water seemed to bounce off the walls and back towards the waterfall where the water seemed to all but disappear.
“ The water has to be going somewhere” Howard wondered aloud, only to hear a beep of affirmation from the little beetle.
Howard jumped from his junk pile over to the ledge that ringed the pool and scooted his way over to the waterfall. Howard pulled a piece of floating wood out of the water and poked it towards the waterfall. When he didn't meet any resistance against the wood he kept pushing until the water reached his elbow.
“Of course, there's a secret passage behind the waterfall,” he said with resignation.
“I guess my life is a video game now. There better be some good loot behind this stupid trope of a waterfall.”
Spurred on by the sounds of clambering increasing from the waterfall's descent Howard leapt through the water getting thoroughly soaked in the process. At least he now knew that his robes didn't have water-resistance magic. Howard landed just beyond the waterfall in an even smaller cavern illuminated only by the pinpricks of light emanating from the Beatles' headlights. At the end of a cavern, there seemed to be a square hole carved from the surrounding stone and outlined by a darker brick made out of some sort of porous volcanic stone. The water seemed to be flowing into the hole at a steep decline.
Howard heard the sound of splashing as it became apparent that the cultist chasing him had finally made it to the bottom of the waterfall.
Howard looked over at the beetle “ I guess we too go in the square hole salmon pete.”
The beetle angrily beeped twice in the negative of the new name suggestion before diving into the hole.
Howard briefly considered his options before diving head-first into the darkness of the square hole.
