AN: Er . . . Hi? *waves* Thanks bunches to the only reviewer to the last chapter, Anmynous. You are awesome! (Or at least I think so, and my opinion is the only one that matters, right?) You were definitely right about the lack of reviews in this category . . . So, thanks!
Disclaimer: I had a dog once that owned something . . .
Had I really seen her? Or had my senses given way, under the burden of horrors to great to bear, and conjured up a phantom? Either way, I could not rest until I had found her again.
Chapter 3: The Stranger-who-is-alive
"Wait! I won't hurt you!"
Farah started to lag a little, but when I ignored the Prince and continued running, she followed my example. Good thing, too. If she had gone even a little bit slower she would have been crushed by the ceiling caving in.
As soon as that happened, I slowed down a bit. Farah came up beside me. "How did you know about the Sands? For that matter, how did you know that that door was going to collapse?" She sounded slightly less hostile than last time, but her tone was still frosty. It was surprisingly easy to come up with a plausible lie.
"Like I said, I'm not from around here," I told her, pasting my most innocent look on my face. "Where I come from, there are tales about your land; one of the ones I heard included the Sands. I thought it was just a story until I saw the Hourglass for myself. As for the doorway, I was just paying attention."
Farah still looked suspicious, but she nodded, albeit warily. "Alright. Why didn't we wait for the Prince?" Ohoho! You like him!
Out loud, I said, "He has the Dagger, and there's no way we can get it from him, but we really don't know what kind of man he is. He could be in league with the Vizier, for all we know. We should try to learn a little more before we confront him." Farah nodded again, this time reluctantly. I noticed with surprise that we'd stopped running, and were now proceeding at a brisk walk. I thanked my lucky stars for all those hiking and mountain-biking trips I'd been on that summer; I was fitter than I'd been for years.
"You have a point," Farah admitted. She hesitated. "Although . . . I have heard that he is brave, and good. I haven't heard any bad reports, for that matter."
I smiled briefly. Muahaha . . .
"Oh, look! Water," Farah said, sounding pleased. She walked over to the fountain and drank, giving a long sigh when she finished. "That's good . . . I hadn't drank any water since before that awful desert trip. It's incredibly rejuvenating." I realized that I hadn't either, and I was thirsty. I found myself wishing for a tube of chapstick as well. Oh well. I was grateful to have the water, at least.
I was about to drink when a thought paused me in mid-scoop: were the healing and energizing properties of the water in the game just game-stuff, or was it something that the Sands did to the water? Well, no better time than now to find out. Carefully watching the bloody mark on my hand, I took a sip; it healed before my eyes, leaving only a circular scar, with a small divot from where the stone had been. "Whoa," I whispered. Now that was awesome.
"What?" questioned Farah.
Pretending ignorance, I said in an awed voice, "The water! It— it healed me!" Farah looked at me carefully, as if measuring my words. "What do you mean?" she asked finally.
"Just look!" I showed her my hand, still covered in dried blood. She went very still.
"Your hand was cut, you drank the water, and it healed you," she said for clarification. I nodded, wiping my wet hands off on the white sarong and leaving a bloody streak across it.
"Jenny . . . how?"
"I don't know," I replied, shrugging helplessly. "Maybe it's something that the Sands do to the water. Whatever it is, I'm not complaining." Farah didn't argue, just started down the hall again. I noted with pleasure that my sunburn had stopped hurting as well, and was swiftly fading into a tan. I never tanned. After a time we came to a large gap in the floor; Farah jumped over it without a second thought and continued walking.
"Um . . . Farah?" I called. She turned around, raising an eyebrow when she saw that I was still on the other side.
"Is there a problem?"
I peered down into the hallway below, trying not to feel squeamish. "Ah . . . it's just, I'm not very good at jumping things . . . at all."
Farah shrugged. "Well, you never know until you try. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Gee, I don't know . . . Maybe, me falling and breaking my neck?" My tone was laced with sarcasm. Farah ignored the sarcasm, merely gesturing at the gap. I backed up a few paces, took a deep breath, ran forward, and leaped.
My fingers just barely caught on the other side before I was falling. "Jenny!" I heard Farah cry in horror. I didn't scream. I fell silently, wondering if I would wake up in the real world when I died here.
Yeah, what's the worst that could happen? I thought with grim amusement as the floor approached. But I never made contact. There was a strange, brassy noise, a flash of gold, and suddenly I was standing on my feet, right about where my bloody remains should've been splattered. I blinked.
"Holy armadillos," I said in blank astonishment. "I'm not dead!" Farah's face appeared in the hole above me, changing from horror to surprise when she saw me alive and well.
"You're alive!" she exclaimed. "How did you survive the fall?" I shook my head and spread my hands expressively, giving her my best 'I-have-no-idea' look.
"I was falling, then all of a sudden there was this flash of gold and Poof! I'm down here safe and sound. I don't get it." And I didn't. In the game, when the Prince fell, he fell. There was no mysterious gold flash of light to save him. Although he could always use the Dagger to turn back time if need be.
"Well, how do you get back up here then?" I was about to shrug, but then I remembered what came next in the game.
"How about we meet back in the Reception Hall?" I suggested. Farah considered, and then nodded.
"Alright," she agreed. "I think I know how to reach the Reception Hall from here, even with those cave-ins, although it'll require a bit of a detour."
"Good," I said, satisfied. "I'll see you when I get there." Farah nodded, and was gone. Off to ambush the Prince, I presumed. Sighing, I examined my surroundings. I was in a hall, very similar to the one above it. Except, of course, the notable lack of holes in the floor. On one end there was a door, blocked with fallen debris, but the other side was clear. I went that way.
This sucks. I need to find some familiar territory, I thought grumpily. It would also be nice to acquire a weapon. Too bad the sand creature's weapons dissolved along with them when they . . . uh, died. Disintegrated. Whatever.
I stopped in my tracks. Why wasn't I a sand creature? I knew that Farah was protected by her amulet, but what about me? I could be changed at any moment. I shuddered. But . . . there was Sand floating all over in the air where I was standing. I should have changed a long time ago. I ran a hand through my already tangled and messy hair and growled irately when it caught on my ring. Wait− ring?
Being careful of my hair, I extracted the blue stone and looked at it. Blue stone that I thought I had seen glowing. Dark metal band similar in material to what made up the Dagger's hilt. Of course it's a magical Sand-artifact, what kind of dream-hallucination-thingy would this be if it wasn't? I closed my eyes wearily. I just wanted to be home.
Taking a few deep breaths to calm myself, I opened my eyes. "Alright Jenny, since there's no way you can get home right now, you might as well do something useful in the meantime," I said out loud. "Reception Hall. Right." I strode confidently out the door— and straight into a group of sand creatures. There were harem-girls with knives, and fat men with clubs. I shrieked and took off before they could attack.
"Armadilloooooooos!!!" I wailed pointlessly. The sand creatures pursued, of course, thumping along slowly and teleporting when I got too far away. I thanked whatever luck I had left that they weren't intelligent. Coming to two archways, I swiftly chose the left one. But— oh crap. It was a dead end. There was another gate, but it was shut. The only other thing in the room was a fountain; nothing to use for a weapon . . . I frantically clawed at the gate. "Lemme out! LET ME OUT! AAAAAH!" One of the sand creatures growled, and I cringed at the noise.
I turned around, putting my back against the filigreed gate and trying not to cower. If I was going to die, it wasn't going to be screaming, from a stab in the back. I would go down fighting, even though it was utterly pointless, seeing as the sand creatures would come back to life anyway. And that was assuming I could kill any. I wondered wildly if my ring could absorb the sand creatures' Sands.
I didn't get a chance to find out. The sand creatures were still several feet away when the water from the fountain suddenly shot up, then towards me, forming a swirling, twisting, partially opaque shield over and around me. True to form, the sand creatures seemed to forget I was there. After just a few minutes they had wandered off. The water returned in a smooth stream to the fountain, but not before pushing open the gate for me.
In a haze of astonishment at having my life spared yet again, much less by floating water, I walked through. "Thanks," I said quietly. The gate closed behind me. I brushed it gently with my fingers, staring within at the fountain. What's going on?
I turned around just in time to see a flash of green as something on one of the upper levels disappeared out of sight. I blinked. Someone else who wasn't a sand creature? Could it have been the Prince? But no, the person had been wearing a green cloak.
Deciding that magical moving water and mysterious alive strangers were too much to ponder all at one time, I pushed the puzzles to the back of my mind, instead looking around me for a way out. "Great," I said, exasperated. Short of doing some Prince-worthy acrobatics, the only way out was a crack in the wall. I eyed it distrustfully. Sure, in the game Farah always came out all right, but with the constant tremors I couldn't be certain that the crack wouldn't decide to un-crackify and smoosh me.
I shrugged mentally. Well, I didn't really have a choice, did I? I slid carefully into the crack. Good. I fit. After a little bit of uncomfortable wriggling and detaching my sarong from annoying bits of stone, I staggered out into the next room. My eyes widened and I grinned, pumping my fist into the air. Yes! Finally something that not only wasn't a death-trap, but was actually beneficial!
It was an armory. It was fairly small, so probably the private one of some noble. That also meant, however, that the equipment in there was of good quality. I did a crazy little happy dance, jumping up and down like a maniac, then stopped suddenly at the thought that someone might be watching. I looked carefully around and, seeing no one, spun around one last time before returning to planet earth. (Or whatever it was.) Time to pick out some weapons.
In the end, I just grabbed a light scimitar that balanced well in my hand, like the Prince's but considerably smaller, and as many small daggers as I could get ahold of. The scimitar had a razor-sharp edge and an ivory hilt, with a simple star-shaped cross-guard. I didn't want a big ole two-handed sword to lug around; that would be much too heavy for me to wield effectively. And the protection that armor or mail would provide wasn't worth the impediment to my movements; not that anything in the armory was my size anyway. I wrapped a leather belt around my waist, (twice,) attaching the scimitar's sheath to it, and just stuck the knives in my clothing wherever they were easily accessible and wouldn't stab me. I think there were about six, all told.
"Alright Jenny girl! Let's go!" I was much more cheerful now that I had some way to defend myself. I was about to go out the door, when suddenly I saw another exit down near the end of the armory. I frowned. Strange, I didn't remember seeing that there before. I decided to go check it out.
It was a hallway, paved with brown sandstone rather than the usual gray stuff or marble in this palace. Strange symbols were painted on the walls, and transparent curtains hung down from the ceiling. I grinned. "No freakin' way! Magic fountain!" I wasted no time in sprinting down the tunnel until everything grew dark, then brightened suddenly in the bridge room. I walked toward the blue-lit fountain in the center, looking around carefully.
I'd always wondered why the Prince never just walked past the fountain and went down one of those other bridges. Now I knew. When I got within a couple feet of the water, it pulled me irresistibly toward it, like metal to magnet. I couldn't help myself. I just walked up, and took the smallest of sips; sweet, seductive voices whispered of hidden things in my ears, then everything went white.
When I shook myself clear of the haze, I was back in the armory. The doorway was gone. And I felt fantastic. I felt as though I could take on a dozen boss sand creatures and slaughter them without breaking a sweat. Fortunately, my brain was clear enough to inform me that that was ridiculous; I'd just gotten a little stronger, that's all.
My heart lighter than it had been since I first woke up in this place, I left the armory, walking into the extravagantly decorated rooms of the noble to whom it had belonged. It didn't take much searching to find my way out of there either, and after going down a couple hallways, I was pleased to find myself back in familiar territory. This was where Farah had first met the Prince. So that meant . . .
I looked, and sure enough, there was the crack. According to the game, if I went through there I should eventually end up in the Reception Hall. I made a face at no one in particular, and got down on my belly. More wriggling. Yay.
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AN: Okay, so that chapter was kind of lame. A lot of important things happened though! Is Farah seeming a bit out of character? I'm not sure. Anywho, review! Love it? Hate it? Think it's okay, but not really worth wasting your time on? Whatever, let me know!
~Killer Zebra
