They had completed the simple quest and were ready for the Exploration quest. It read as follows:

  Wow, Josh thought. A lazy quest giver and writer. But they had signed up for it, so they went about doing what was asked of them. The cave was an hour west of town. The entrance was blocked off with a rope and a warning sign. The warning read: “Beware all ye who enter here. Certain Death awaits!”

  Pepe the Intrepid hadn’t even paid attention to the sign. Instead of reading it, he had gone under the rope and was ready to head in. When he didn’t hear any footsteps behind him, he turned around, looking at his friends. “What?”

  “Primo, did you read the sign?” Manuel asked. His cousin shook his head. “That’s why we got into all sorts of problems back in Texas.”

  “We did sign up to do the quest, so I guess we should go ahead. Just be careful, all right?” Bobby said. He didn’t really want another encounter quite yet; he was still somewhat shaken from the previous one.

  They went under the rope, and Josh cast a spell, as it was dark, and after only a few feet, no light but the entrance light could be seen. “Light Orb,” he incanted. It was a small light that he held in his hand and provided about three feet of light ahead and behind them. Not much, but enough to see by. They made their way down and down. There was nothing at the entrance but the sign and the rope, and farther in, there were some spiderwebs, but nothing more.

  Continuing, they came to a fork. They chose the left fork. After proceeding, the light from the tunnel entrance was no longer visible. Josh’s small orb of light helped, but not much. They continued. The sounds started after they had been walking for ten minutes. There were small scratching sounds, as if rats or other small rodents were scratching the walls. They moved their light left and right but found no rats in sight. A few more steps, and one of them yelped, having felt something.

  “Hey! Something touched my leg!” Erin’s voice echoed in the dark cave.

  A small wind picked up inside, and they could feel it coming from the direction ahead of them. The smell of something rotting came with the wind. The stench of rot made them gag, but they continued, as they needed to find out what was there and report it. As they walked, they saw a light blue glow ahead of them; it seemed to be coming from an entrance to another section of the cave. The smell was coming from there as well.

  They continued toward the area, slowing as they reached the entrance. They extinguished the light spell and cautiously investigated the chamber. It was mostly empty. In the center of the room lay a large animal corpse; the smell emanated from this dead thing. There was also a nest, and inside it, a large, gold-colored egg. Nothing else was around, and there was no offshoot leading deeper into the cave.

  “Are we taking it?” Everyone looked at Pepe.

  “Why in the world would we take it? What if the mom shows up?” Erin exclaimed. He did not want to fight an angry mother.

  “Well, the quest did say ‘bring back whatever you find.’ And this covers the ‘whatever.’” They didn’t like it, but Pepe had a point.

  They picked up the egg and stashed it in Erin’s pack. It was just big enough to fit. The moment they picked up the egg, everything went wrong. Seconds after lifting it, they heard gears moving. They were far enough from the entrance that they had no way of escaping before a gate came down, trapping them inside the cavern.

  “I knew it! We’ve seen this movie a thousand times, chicos. Never listen to Pepe. You know how much trouble he got me into back in Texas?” Manuel lamented.

  “Oy, primo, that hurts! It was just poquito.” Pepe said, smiling as he remembered the mischief they had gotten into.

  “There should be a way out of here. Let’s look around.” Josh started toward the blocked entrance.

  After searching for several minutes, they stopped; they hadn’t found anything.

  “These bars aren’t going to budge unless someone has a torch. And I don’t think my spells are going to do much to this pretty thick stuff. But I can try,” Josh said. The others nodded. He prepared himself and took out his wand. “Fireball!” he incanted, sending the spell against the steel bars. As soon as it touched the bars, it was snuffed out. Josh shrugged at his friends; they would need to find another way.

  They were all disappointed by the results. How were they going to get out?

  The wind they had felt earlier picked up again. But where was it coming from? It took another minute for them to find the source: it was coming from behind one of the walls—walls they had thought were solid. As they got closer, they could feel a draft from the bottom of the wall.

  They began feeling around the bottom and found soft dirt. They dug and dug, and after working for a long time, they broke through. The other side was pitch black. Josh cast his spell again, illuminating the area. They jumped back at what they saw. On the ground sat a skeleton; it wore what had once been clothes, now only rags. A rusted shield, a sword, and some pieces of armor lay next to it. Beneath the armor, a pack could also be seen.

  “Ooh, this is getting interesting!” Pepe exclaimed. The others just shook their heads. Here they were, risking their lives, and Pepe was excited? He was having fun; the others, not so much.

  Bobby looked at the pack and picked it up, the leather breaking as he tried to lift it. Instead, he removed the contents to place in his own pack. They would examine whatever it was if they made it out. “We’ll just need to report this and hand over what we found,” he said.

  They left the skeleton and the rest of its belongings behind, needing to find a way out. They walked and walked but saw nothing else. Left, right, left, left, right, and then they stopped; they had seen another skeleton. As they got closer, they realized it was the same skeleton as before. Somehow, they had gone full circle, but that wasn’t possible.

  “Hey, how? How did we end up back here? That makes no sense. Maybe we missed something?” Manuel asked. That had to be it. Josh had been in the center, with the others close by and behind him. “Let’s try this again. One of you keep a hand on one wall, and another on the opposite wall,” he suggested.

  They moved like that for a while before Manuel called a halt. “I feel something—well, I don’t feel anything; it’s more of an entrance, I think.” He had been on the right.

  Josh moved the light to the right, next to where Manuel was, and shone it forward, seeing that, just as Manuel had said, there seemed to be a branching tunnel. “All right, we’ll do the same thing. Manuel, keep your hand on the right; Bobby, you keep it on the left,” Josh instructed.

  They continued like this, finding other tunnel offshoots, some on the right and others on the left. They had to backtrack from some, as they were dead ends, but they were making progress and hadn’t returned to their starting point. After what felt like hours (though it might have been less, as being in the dark plays tricks on the mind), the walls felt different.

  “Hold on. Josh, can you come over here and shine your light?” Bobby asked. Josh went over to Bobby and shone his light around.

  The wall looked different; it appeared more uniform. It was no longer a natural cave wall but shaped rock, more like constructed walls. Something had shaped this rock with tools. Josh went over to Manuel on the left, and the wall was the same on that side. They walked on, and after more walking with little change, they reached a larger room. Instead of a narrow walkway, the walls expanded left and right at an angle.

  The others waited at the entrance. Josh circled the perimeter of the room, his friends watching within his bubble of light. He noticed what looked like some kind of shaped rock protruding from the wall, containing a dark liquid—oil, he guessed. “I think there are some lamps in here. Erin, can you come light them?” he called.

  They had learned a little about entering places like this and had bought something resembling matches from the store before setting out on the quest. Were they prepared for everything? No, not really, but they learned from their mistakes and brought what they thought they might need, though torches should of been on the list.

  “Hold on,” Erin responded. Josh could hear him walking over. He came into view within the circle of light and began rummaging through his bag. He then pulled out something and struck it once, twice, and on the third strike, a spark flew into the substance.

  The substance caught fire, a bright light coming on, then another, and another. They shielded their eyes, as the sudden brightness after total darkness was overwhelming. It took them a few minutes for their eyes to adjust. What they saw amazed them.

  Sitting opposite the entrance was another corpse, wrapped in bindings—now a desiccated mummy. It must have been some kind of ruler, buried there long ago. They approached the throne—for that is what it was sitting on—slowly. A pedestal stood in front of the throne, with an idol covered in dust upon it. The mummy’s arms were crossed at its chest, a golden scepter in one hand, and whatever it had held in the other was now gone.

  “And here I am with my phone at home. No fair! This is the best maze I’ve been in,” Pepe exclaimed, ever the optimist.

  “Pepe, if you touch anything, I will kill you before something else does,” Manuel warned. He was not going to fight some undead mummy because of his cousin’s craziness.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “I wasn’t going to touch anything!” Pepe protested, even as his arm and hand moved downward. He looked at his hand. “Okay, sorry. I can’t help it. This is so freaking cool!”

  “It’s not going to be cool when this thing puts a curse on you and haunts you forever, or it eats you, and then the rest of us,” Bobby said, exasperated and unhappy with the situation.

  Josh didn’t have time for this. “All right, settle down, everyone. We need to figure out what we need to do here.”

  On the altar, the idol looked like some kind of bird. It was hard to make out, but it stood there, waiting. Waiting for what? They would need to figure that out. They looked around the altar and saw holes on different sides. After noticing this, they paid closer attention to the whole room. There were small holes in the walls, as if something was missing.

  “Seems like we have some kind of puzzle. I could be wrong, but I have no other ideas,” Josh said, pointing at the holes he had seen. They looked at everything around them, the light from the room spilling outside and illuminating the walls of the passage they had walked through. On those walls, pictograms were drawn.

  Bobby and Erin went out into the corridor to examine the walls, while Manuel and Pepe looked at the walls and ceiling in the room for clues. Looking closely, they saw what appeared to be small pictures around them, which they hadn’t noticed before.

  Erin called to them from the hallway. “Guys, come see this!”

  The other three joined Bobby and Erin outside. They were looking at the drawings on the walls, which Josh’s light hadn’t illuminated sufficiently as they walked through. Now, the light from the chamber was bright enough to see the drawings clearly.

  Erin was touching one of the drawings. “This looks like our friend in there.” He gestured back toward the mummy. “I think it’s telling a story, but it’s difficult to decipher. As far as I can gather, some great calamity happened, and the leader was able to do something to help. He called another man—I’m not sure what this figure means, but it’s different from the leader—and this other person did something and opened a door, and through that door came help. It’s faded, so I’m not sure who or what helped.”

  His friends looked at Erin, mouths agape. Manuel was the first to speak. “How in the world do you know all that? It just looks like weird stick figures and squiggly symbols to me.”

  An embarrassed Erin, color rising in his cheeks, told them about a history report he had done on Egyptian hieroglyphics. These symbols looked similar—not exactly the same, but they were a form of pictogram or hieroglyphic that he had been able to decipher.

  “Thanks, Erin. I don’t know how it helps us, but maybe you can tell us about the other wall. There seem to be similar drawings on it,” Josh suggested. Erin took a closer look at the opposite wall.

  He studied it quietly. After a few minutes of intense concentration, he looked at his friends. “I think I’ve got it. I won’t bore you with an explanation. Let’s head back into the room.”

  Erin went to the altar and examined everything about it. He looked at the idol standing atop the altar, circling it first one way, then the other. He looked at one wall, then the next, then stood in the center of the room and turned to face each of the four walls. He returned to the altar and looked at his friends. “I know we told Pepe not to touch anything, but well, I need to touch the idol.”

  Josh was a little worried but nodded. “Everyone, let’s get ready. We don’t know what’s going to happen.” Manuel took out his sword and shield, ready for anything. Josh raised his wand. Bobby began casting a protection spell on the group. Pepe had his twin daggers out, at the ready.

  Erin slowly raised his hands to touch the idol. Upon touching it, he waited, waited some more, making sure nothing would happen. After a few heartbeats, he turned the idol on the altar and heard a click. He tried to turn it further, but the idol wouldn’t budge. He looked down and saw that a secret compartment had opened at the base of the altar.

  “I think we’re clear. Come look; something opened back here,” he called. Josh was the only one who moved; the others stayed in their positions until Josh gave the all-clear.

  He and Erin looked at the compartment and then proceeded to open it. Inside were many different shaped blocks. “Guys, I think we found our missing pieces. Come help so we can put them in the places they belong,” Erin said. With the all-clear given, they put their weapons away and came over.

  Josh passed out different pieces to each of them and told them to search the room to see if they fit in the holes they had found earlier. It took some time to place the pieces on the walls. As they finished the first wall, another click was heard. They moved on to the next wall, and similarly, upon finding the last piece, another click sounded. They repeated this two more times, getting a click each time.

  Erin and Josh worked on the altar, placing the pieces as they found them. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, and there were many pieces. The other three returned to them with some leftover pieces, which they handed back to Josh. It took a few minutes to place those pieces. There was one left, and Erin held it in his hand. He tried to give it to Josh, but Josh shook his head. “No, you figured it out. We’d be stuck here for sure if you weren’t here. You place the last piece.”

  Erin raised his hand and placed the last piece, holding his breath as it clicked into place. One last click from behind a wall was heard. Then, to everyone’s surprise, the throne began to move and slide along the wall. They had found a secret passage—hopefully, it was the way out. They waited for the throne to stop moving before looking.

  It was a passage, as they had guessed. The chamber’s light extended partway into it, then it was dark again. Josh cast his spell again and held the ball of light in his hand, ready to move on. They went single file: Josh in front with his light, followed by Bobby, Erin, Pepe, and finally Manuel. As Pepe entered the passage, he glanced back at the mummy, raised his hand, and was about to grab the scepter. His cousins stopped him before he could. “No. Just no. I don’t want this place falling down on us,” Manuel said. Pepe nodded sadly; he couldn’t help himself.

  Their friends had moved on, and the orb of light was receding. They needed to catch up. With one last look, Pepe and Manuel sped up and rejoined their friends. They got in line and moved as one down the corridor.

  They didn’t run into any more surprises, luckily for them, but it still took much longer than they had anticipated to find the exit. They got lost and ended up going in a circle once. There was another large chamber, but it contained only natural rock formations—some sticking down from the cave ceiling (stalactites) and others rising from the floor (stalagmites), though if you asked the group, they wouldn’t have been able to tell you which was which.

  They walked and walked, finally reaching what they thought was a dead end; they could go no further. They looked around, Josh shining his light on the wall they had reached. The wall—for that is what it was—looked worked; it didn’t have the natural feel of the other walls. As they examined the wall, they noticed an outline, as if it were a door, and if it was a door, there had to be a way to open it.

  “This might be it, boys. Let’s find a way to open this,” Bobby said. Since Erin had figured out the puzzle room, they looked to him.

  “I can try,” Erin responded. He and Josh examined the wall carefully, scrutinizing every inch. Erin moved along the wall, then stopped and backed up. “Can you shine your light here?” He pointed to a spot, and Josh moved his light closer. There was something different about the area. Josh reached out, felt the wall, and pushed. They heard the grinding of rocks as the wall opened slowly. The noise was loud, especially after the utter silence inside the cave.

  It took time for the large piece of wall to open completely. They stepped through and continued walking. They reached a fork, and to their relief, they saw the light from the entrance. They had made it out alive. Their steps quickened as they made their way to the entrance. They stopped and took a long breath of the fresh air. Compared to the cave air, the outside air felt fresh. They saw that it was late afternoon; darkness would come soon, so they needed to hurry back to Avadur.

  “Yes! Level 2! Too bad I wasn’t able to help with the fight. I could have been Level 3 already like you guys,” Pepe lamented, still upset about the whole thing, even though his friends told him he shouldn’t be. That was Pepe for you—he missed certain death and was mad about it.

  The others were too tired to celebrate gaining a level; they just wanted to get back to Avadur.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  They made it back to Avadur with minutes to spare. Since Ms. Tebesa had already paid their fees, the check-in guard simply waved them through.

  They stopped at the Guild Hall to turn in the quest. Guild Manager Dog was working on paperwork (because no matter what world you’re in, there’s always paperwork). He had his round glasses perched on the end of his snout and was writing something.

  He looked up as they came in. “Welcome back. Did everything go well?”

  They proceeded to tell him everything that had happened in the labyrinthine dungeon they had ended up in. He nodded at some of their points and wrote things down as they explained them, asking a few questions here and there for his report. “All right, let me stop you before you go into too much detail. The quest giver will need you to explain everything you saw and did. Let me pull up the request and see who posted it.”

  He turned around and rummaged through a filing cabinet. It was interesting to watch him do this, as his paws weren’t hands, yet he still managed to do his job. He found what he was looking for, took out a piece of paper, and examined it, shaking his head as he finished. He put it away. “Ah, I am sorry about all you went through, but it was a request, and you fulfilled the request to the letter, it seems to me. The requester’s name is Professor Ilosia of the Archeologist Guild. He is a bit on the lazy side, hence the brief description in the quest.” He gave them directions to the professor’s office building.

  “Thank you, Guild Manager. We’ll go see him now,” Erin said, taking the lead as they made their way to this Professor Ilosia.

  They reached the small building and saw a sign hanging to the left of the door. It was green and depicted a crossed hammer and pickaxe, and possibly a magnifying glass, though they weren’t certain. Erin, who enjoyed history, found this trip interesting. He knocked and then pushed the door open when someone on the other side called, “Come in.”

  “Hello, Professor Ilosia?” Erin asked. He saw a small man who nodded. The man had long, pointed ears that stuck out to the sides rather than pointing upward. He was completely bald, with only a small white beard, and wore thick, goggle-like glasses. He wore a khaki button-up shirt and matching shorts that extended just past his knees. The office itself was rather messy, with scrolls scattered everywhere and various unidentified items on the desk, including a small hammer, some small chisels, and some brushes.

  “The adventurers! How exciting! You went and fulfilled my request, yes? How exciting! Tell me what you found!” he exclaimed quickly, his voice a little raspy but filled with excitement. Erin saw him rub his hands together eagerly.

  “Professor, yes, it was interesting, to say the least,” Erin replied. His friends nodded in agreement. They proceeded to tell him about the place, recounting their adventure and what they had found. Finally, they took out the egg.

  “Oh, look at that! I don’t recognize it, but I will send a description to my colleagues. Please bring it to my workshop in the back, and we can measure it and take notes,” the professor said. Erin was the only one who went with him; the others waited in the front of the small office.

  Erin followed the professor to the back, carefully carrying the egg. It wasn’t extremely heavy, and the shell seemed very strong, but he didn’t want to risk breaking it. Erin observed the workshop; it was much more organized than the front office. The tools were precisely placed—someone else must have organized the workshop.

  “Please place it here.” The professor pointed to the center of the table. The tools lay off to the sides, and opposite them were a lamp and some magnifying glasses. Erin placed the egg where indicated, and it stayed put.

  The professor began taking measurements of the egg with wooden calipers, then picked it up and placed it on a scale. All the while, he took notes about the egg, writing in a very neat script. “All right, all done. Please keep the egg, and I will contact you when my colleagues get back to me,” he said. They returned to the front office.

  They agreed on the reward, and the boys returned to the inn for the night. Erin was unsure what he was going to do with the egg but kept it in his pack, feeling it would be safest there.

  Unbeknownst to Erin, the creature growing inside the egg was beginning to move. It now felt the energy and emotions of another being keeping it warm, something that hadn’t happened for a long time. The creature was content with this energy and the emotions emanating from the young man.