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Chapter 3

“Quill, I’m scared,” Harper’s wavering voice said, coming out through the darkness, accompanied by Basil’s chirping.

“I can’t help you, I am too,” Quill groaned, getting up from the hard floor.

One moment she had been in the train, next thing she knew she was flying through the air and crashing down in some dark room.

“Do you have a flashlight Ace?” Quill asked.

“No, only a penlight. Well that’s better than nothing. Let me turn it on.”

After a brief moment, the penlight was clicked on, surprisingly bright, and Quill could see again. She looked around, taking the penlight from Ace.

“Hold on!”

Quill put the penlight in between her teeth, and scrambled next to a pile of rocks. “There’s someone here! Harper, Ace, help me!” she exclaimed, shoving the rocks away.

“Quill? Is that you?”

Quill helped a battered and bruised Mahriel out of a sort of depression in the ground, with Galaxy hopping out afterwards.

“Mahriel! Are you okay?” Quill asked, rummaging in her bag for some bandages for Mahriel’s cuts.

Mahriel didn’t say anything.

When Quill looked up, Mahriel’s face was white, and her eyes were huge, looking at something behind Quill.

She slowly turned around, clutching her dagger.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. This isn’t good. This is not good at all.

Right in front of Quill stood a seven-foot tall troll, wielding a large, nasty-looking axe and glaring down at the two of them with terrifying malice.

Thank goodness Harper was quick thinking, even in her own fear. Moving quickly, she snatched up Quill’s camera, and tossed it straight at the troll’s eyes.

The troll roared, temporarily blinded.

Jolted into action by the loud noise, Quill ran forward, and squeezing her eyes shut, drove the dagger straight into the troll. She heard a horrible noise, and then it was all silent.

“Quill, you can open your eyes now,” Mahriel whispered.

Quill opened them. The troll wasn’t there anymore - only a wisp of black smoke and the smell of something burnt.

“Oh my salami . . .” Harper squeaked.

Quill collected herself, and grabbed the camera. “Let’s explore, and try and find a way out,” she decided.

Mahriel screamed.

Quill whirled around again. A dark figure was there, standing above Mahriel with a knife. The shadows seemed to wrap around them, shielding them from light and preventing Quill from seeing their face.

“Grue!” Basil chirped.

“Grue?” Harper asked.

“Grue!” Basil confirmed.

“Mahriel!” Quill shrieked, and ran forward.

As soon as she stepped closer, the dark figure darted away, dropping a knife with a clatter. Mahriel dissolved into black smoke.

I think . . . I think she’s gone.

Quill sat down. She stared at Mahriel. Hot tears came to her eyes, and they wouldn’t stop.

Quill didn’t know how long she sat there, crying without emotion, but when she finally stopped, her limbs were stiff and sore.

Galaxy looked up at Quill. “You’d better come with us,” Quill sighed.

Harper picked up Galaxy, and the five of them departed through a narrow passageway.

They wandered around through a maze of twisting passages for quite a while until Ace realized it was actually a maze and pointed it out.

This day is getting worse and worse. First we fall out of a train, and now Mahriel’s gone, and now we’re lost in a maze.

“Light!” Basil chirped.

“Wait, yeah! There’s light over there!” Ace exclaimed, pointing to a faint glow coming from somewhere else.

They all followed Basil through more twisting and turning passages until they turned a corner and Quill found herself in a tomb.

Yes, an egyptian-style tomb. The walls were made of sandy brick, with hieroglyphics that Quill couldn’t identify carved into the walls. Small depictions of scenes dotted the walls, but Quill couldn’t make any sense out of them. In the center of the room was a relatively small, but nonetheless shiny golden sarcophagus, with elaborate carvings and decorations.

“I wonder what’s in it,” Harper said, opening the lid and peeking inside.

“Harper!” Quill exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing inside,” Harper said.

Quill looked inside too. The golden interior had nothing in it, except for an extraordinary amount of dust.

“Hey, we should take it!” Ace suggested.

“Um no, we shouldn’t! That’s thievery, vandalism, and probably breaking about twenty laws,” Quill said.

“I’m taking it!” Ace said, not listening.

He picked up the sarcophagus, and by the power of magical bookbags, managed to stuff the large golden casket straight into his bag.

“Um . . . wow. That’s a big bag,” Harper said, momentarily stunned.

Quill sighed. Most of her AEs had the shortest attention span ever. “Okay, you do you Ace, I don’t care anymore. Let’s find a way out of here.”

“Quill!”

It was Barnswallow, coming out of a separate door, followed by Kestrel!

“Barnswallow!” Quill exclaimed, running and hugging Barnswallow.

“This is crazy! I fell down in the middle of a maze, and I just found my way here,” Barnswallow explained.

“We saw a grue! It was so scary!” Kestrel said.

“What’s a grue?” Harper asked.

“It’s like a half human half bat thing that lives in the dark and feeds off blood,” Kestrel explained.

Quill shivered. That was scary.

“We fell down with Galaxy and Mahriel,” Ace said.

“Where’s Mahriel?” Barnswallow asked, looking around.

Then the realization hit her.

“Oh . . . oh my salami, I’m so sorry.”

Quill sighed. “I know. It’s bad. We’re in a bad place right now though, and we should get somewhere safer, I don’t want to get eaten by a grue.”

Barnswallow nodded.

The two of them set off to find somewhere safer.

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Chapter 4

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Agent Winter had fallen down and wandered around for a bit with Reese and Night Vision, trying to find other people. She made her way through all sorts of strange rooms, and even a maze, until she finally entered probably the strangest room she had been in yet.

Winter entered a large room with golden walls. It was so loud. The smallest scuffing of her shoes, the rustling of her clothes, the shifting of her backpack, every sound was magnified into a thousand.

She noticed that Summer and Autumn were in the room. “Hey, Summer!” Reese exclaimed, and they all immediately clapped their hands over their ears.

The sound bounced off the walls, growing steadily louder, until it stopped suddenly.

“The echo’s too loud!” Summer whisper-yelled.

Her words started to grow louder, but as soon as she said ‘echo’, the sound stopped.

Winter took her hands off her ears cautiously. “I think we can talk normally now,” she said.

Right enough. There wasn’t any more echo, at least not the supernatural kind. Of course there was a small echo, with such a large room, but no more of the piercing loud sounds.

“You fell down too, huh?” Summer said.

“Yeah. I wonder where everyone else is. I hope they’re okay,” Agent Winter said.

“They probably should be fine. If we fell down so far and we’re fine, they will be too,” Night Vision said, adjusting the Star Wars blanket draped around them.

“Wow look, this is heavy!” Reese yelled.

Agent Winter turned around Reese and Autumn were trying to lift up a large platinum bar. As she watched, Reese managed to heave it into her backpack, and put it on like normal.

Winter sighed. That was technically thievery, but seeing as this place seemed to be abandoned . . . well, it couldn’t do too much harm could it? So she let Reese keep it.

“Hey look, rope. Can we take that? Rope is always useful,” Night Vision said, picking up a coil of strong rope.

“Sure,” Winter said, taking the rope.

“So . . . where to now?” Autumn piped up.

“I guess we should find more people,” Summer started but Reese cut in, “LET’S EXPLORE!”

“Same thing really. Let’s go then,” Winter said.

They came across a large dam, and made their way through several narrow crawl ways before they found themselves suddenly in a forest. After just a little bit more exploring, they emerged from the shady forest into a large field.

In the center of the field was a white house, like a colonial manor but much larger. The five of them circled around the house about five times (the front door was boarded up, and the mailbox looked like someone had taken a bite out of it), before Night Vision pointed out that there was a window in the back that wasn’t completely shut.

Autumn wiggled under it, and the window screen went crashing in, leaving a large enough opening for everyone else to crawl through.

“Guys, this is really weird!”

“Arithmancy!” Winter said, recognizing the voice.

Arithmancy was there, holding a brown sack and a sword. Not just a regular sword, it looked suspiciously like Sting from The Hobbit.

Winter took a little time to look around. They seemed to be in a kitchen, neat but full of dust. A narrow staircase led off to one side, and a door led to what looked to be a living room on the other wall.

“I found this sword in the living room,” Arithmancy explained, “And someone left this sandwich with some garlic and a water bottle here.”

Reese peeked into the living room, and Winter followed. It was pretty nice, with an oriental rug, an outdated newspaper, and a trophy case.

“Is there anyone else here?” Night Vision asked.

“No. I was just chilling in the living room. I think I heard some voices coming from above the stairs, but there were bloodstains on the walls, so I was too scared to go up and check it out,” Arithmancy said.

“This is a nice house, do you know how to get out? I mean, other than the forest. I’m sure there’s something peculiar here - this whole thing has been extremely peculiar,” Summer said.

Winter stamped her foot on the carpet, clearing away some of the dust on it. It sounded hollow.

“Hey guys, help me move this rug will you?” Winter asked.

Reese had it off in a flash, tossing the rug unceremoniously into the kitchen. It revealed a trapdoor, with metal bolts. 

They all gathered around it, and Winter flipped it open with her toe. It led down into darkness. She turned on her phone flashlight.

“Down we go,” she sighed.

As they went down, Winter last, the trapdoor crashed shut. She whirled around. “Who’s there?!” she called.

Nothing.

“It’s fine,” Arithmancy said in the blue glow of Winter’s phone, “We just have to go on ahead.”

“Shame I don’t actually have night vision,” Night Vision said sarcastically.

They pressed on ahead, walking through a long crawlway in which Winter bumped her head multiple times.

After a while, choosing paths and getting nowhere in particular, they all stepped into an art studio. The walls were splattered with 69 different colors of paint, and there were spaces for all sorts of paintings, and a fireplace at the end of the room. 

It seemed that evil persons had probably stolen all the paintings here, but on the wall at the end of the room was a masterpiece of unparalleled beauty.

The first thought that came to Winter’s mind was, We should take it!

Since when had she been so prone to crime? Well . . . it was abandoned, and nobody would really take care of this anymore, judging from the amount of dust.

Aware that all eyes were on her, Winter walked up to the painting, carefully removed it from the wall, and put it in Arithmancy’s bottomless bag.

“Why?” Summer asked.

“No reason,” Winter shrugged, “It’s just really pretty.”

“Guys come, there’s a way to get up here!” Reese said, poking her head out from the fireplace in cat form.

There was actually a way to get out of the room, other than the entrance, which was a dirty chimney. Grudgingly, they all followed Reese who was determined to make as many complications for herself as possible, and crawled out into the kitchen where they had just been.

Winter picked herself up, dusting off her clothes.

“Where to next?”

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So dramatic! 

Please keep going we love your story <3