Generation 12 Chapter 8

Chapter 8

After a nap, we swam back through the tunnels and found ourselves in another room with a plaque.

“Challenge of noon. They really take this theme thing seriously, don’t they?”

I grimaced at the sight of dried and desiccated food on the table in the next room. At least it didn’t smell too bad. Rats scurried off to the corners. The other doors in the room were locked. That left a giant pile of rubble that might conceal a doorway…or might not. My muscles objected to the idea of moving it all by hand, but it wasn’t like we had tools. That might be too easy.

“Frell it!” I shouted, pounding on the locked door. I couldn’t believe we’d moved all that rock just to discover that the door was locked.

“Calm. Solution to puzzle there is. We look,” Ril said calmly. “Keyhole. Under a pile of coins the key I found.”

“It doesn’t fit.”

“No, but keyhole in second tower I found. Fits there it might.”

“Lead on, MacDuff.”

“Ril my name is,” he replied in a puzzled tone.

He swiftly returned with another key. This one fit in the keyhole.

I entered the room. a pile of coins, a plaque, a hole in the wall and a training dummy for martial arts.

“A window is a hole, there’s nothing inside it…But within it like a great sight.”

I raised up on my toes to peer inside the window next to the plaque. I wondered if the food was actually edible.

I slammed my foot into the training dummy. This stupid maze!

In the next room, I read the plaque: “I’m a ghost…roaming the tower, but my powers grow weaker each passing day…All I ask, is for your forgiveness…” Creepy.

Across the way, in the west room, there was a bed. I glanced uneasily at it. I figured Ril probably wouldn’t be interested in sex, but I’d never even platonically shared a bed with someone I wasn’t related to. Actually, having two sisters, I’d never shared a bed, period.

“Rest now.” He lay down on one side. Reluctantly, I lay on the other. I was tired, but I slept poorly. There was food laid on the banquet table. A small room proved to be a bathroom. Great. I was feeling all icky from roaming around in a dusty labyrinth.

I idly browsed through the books on the bookshelf. Lockpicking for Dummies, Martial Moves for Mummies, who stocked this thing? No strategy guide for the tomb. That was too much to ask for I suppose. I ignored the racks of nectar. Getting drunk seemed like a very bad idea. There was a click as I pulled a novel book off of the shelf. Oh, gee. Another hole in the floor, leading to another well. I did wonder about the physics that would permit a well to exist on a second story room without affecting the room below it.

“Midnight’s Rest, feel free to enjoy our lovely pub.”

“Pub is what?”

“I think it means public house. People go there to drink and eat.”

“Drink?”

“Yeah, alcohol. Well, I suppose it’s ethanol if you want to get technical about it.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Consume large quantities of ethanol why?”

I laughed. “If I could answer that, I’d be a millionaire. People like the way it feels to be intoxicated, I guess. Personally, I don’t much like the taste. Um, don’t mention that to my dads.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m seventeen. I’m too young to drink alcohol.”

“There is age limit I not know.”

“I know, it’s stupid, ‘cause there’s beer and stuff at parties all the time. At least that’s what my sisters said. Not that they did anything like that, you realize.”

“Not truths you tell?” He frowned.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Why?”

“You know, Ril, we’re never going to get through this thing if you keep asking about philosophical things like that. I don’t know. We just do. C’mon,” I dragged him into the pub.