A shiver ran down Junjie's spine as he woke up. He could feel that almost his entire body was covered in goosebumps, so he pulled the cover up over his shoulder and tried to get comfortable.
Cracking his eye open, he saw that it was still the middle of the night. In the faint light trickling through the window from the glowing trees outside, he could just about see Perry curled up on the camping bed nearby. Why she'd insisted he take the proper bed was something that eluded him.
It was no good. The goosebumps were still there, and he shivered again.
"Cold wake you up too, lad?"
Her eyes flickered open.
"Ain't nice, is it?" she asked. "You probably won't be able to get back to sleep if there's no way to get warm. So..."
Junjie watched as she stood up, staggering a little from exhaustion, and laid her bedcover over him. He instantly felt warmer, but before he had a chance to thank her, she climbed into the bed next to him.
"Really didn't want to have to do this two nights in a row," she commented, "but if the choices are sitting freezing or sharing a bed, I think option I'd rather go for is pretty damn obvious."
"Indeed," Junjie muttered, wondering if he'd ever accept how shameless this woman could be.
"Anyways, try to kip, okay?" said Perry, and she settled down. "If we really are heading to Fogfall Island, we're going to need our wits about us."
"You never did properly explain what makes that place so frightening," Junjie pointed out. "All you said was that it "ain't nice" and that people didn't like spending the night there. Forgive me, but that barely sounds like a good premise for one of those awful horror movies I've seen Trixie enjoying while everyone else - myself excluded - cowers behind the couch."
With a sigh, Perry rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
"It was meant to be the North's answer to the Western Mech Forge," she explained. "Big reserves of iron and tin got found there a couple of centuries back and they set up a factory for refining the ore and building stuff. Trouble is they didn't have the kind of workplace safety blethers you get nowadays and plenty of folks pegged it. Some were fumes, others got crushed in machinery, some fell into the vats of metal while it was still molten, and even when they weren't working, their dorms were right above the forges so some of them would die of heatstroke in their beds."
Junjie blinked in shock. He hadn't expected that to be the answer. He had prepared himself for some sort of legend about a dragon or a ghost ship or the island itself being alive.
"Didn't help that the place is almost always covered in fog, hence the wonderfully imaginative name," Perry continued. "Meaning supplies, food or medical or whatever, got delayed a hell of a lot, seeing as it were pretty hard to avoid crashing into the rocks around the island or running aground."
"I would have thought they'd show their workers a little more consideration," said Junjie. "Didn't any of them have spouses or children?"
"You what?" said Perry. "JJ, they were children."
Junjie had to consciously keep his jaw from dropping.
"You don't know nothing about history, do you?" asked Perry.
"You mean in the North?" said Junjie. "I spent a majority of my life in the Eastern Caverns, so how could I? But still, are you serious?"
"Aye, totally!" Perry insisted. "Kids weren't always seen as the precious little bundles of joy you see being touted about these days. Back then, if a human were less than four feet tall, they were expendable. Little bodies and hands meant wee bairns could get into way tighter places than any bigjob could, for cleaning and stuff, but nobody gave a rat's arse about them until the century were almost up. Weren't until the 1880s that Linnhe McLinden finally managed to convince those fatcats running the show that the reason the population was dropping in the Britannia region was none of them were getting any chance to grow up!"
The man she lay next to almost recoiled from her sudden anger.
"So they revamped the place and got in adult workers," she continued. "Took 'em the best part of 60 years to realise their mistake, but they got there. Quality of work and produce went up, of course, since the people refining the metal and making the machines were actually old enough to know what they were doing, but a couple of years later, the complaints started."
"Complaints?"
"Of... strangeness. Real proper eldritch stuff. Choking noises where the old dorms used to be in the middle of the night. Screaming around the vats and the bigger machine parts that was way too high pitched to be anyone working there. Strange pools of blood appearing in the night and disappearing before the morning. Small silhouettes being seen out of the corner of the eye and then vanishing whenever someone turned to look. Grey figures walking through walls and closed doors and vanishing into nothing, only to come back the very next night."
Even though he knew this was likely to be nothing more than superstition, a shiver ran down Junjie's spine which had little to do with the cold.
"So the place lasted until the 50s," Perry told him, "then finally got shut down. The papers say it was 'coz of tax evasion, insurance fraud, embezzlement or some shite like that, but I'm willing to bet it's because whoever ran that place didn't want to run a shop where loads of kids had died horribly. Would you?"
"Of course not," said Junjie. "I'm lucky enough to have been born into a world where common sense was more important than money."
Perry smiled at his remark.
"Now do you see why I'm not too happy to be heading to that hellhole?" she asked. "Fogfall Island is rumoured to be the single most haunted locale in all of Slugterra. And it ain't no phony soul-sucking crap like whatever was going on in that Deadweed place. I'm talking genuine lost souls with no way of ever escaping the place where they died all kinds of horrible deaths."
"And those people," muttered Junjie, "whoever they are, they went there without knowing about all of this."
Perry nodded.
"So try to get some sleep, okay?" she said. "And try not to think too much about it. I know I'm bloody well not."
Feeling his eyes hurting from staying open when they shouldn't have been, Junjie rolled onto his side, facing the wall, and pulled the covers up over his shoulder. He felt so much more comfortable now that there were two layers rather than one.
He closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep, and silently prayed that his dreams would be absent of the screams of dying children.
"Oi."
It felt like only seconds later that he was awoken by a light slap on his upper arm, as well as the aforementioned call for attention.
"Time to get up, lad," said Perry. "Benny's just arrived, he's got our gear, so we're suiting up and heading off. And don't worry about making the bed."
Time already?
Junjie rubbed his eye and sat up, just in time for Perry to disappear through the door. He quickly got up to follow her, not wanting to be left behind, and almost fell over because while his mind may have been awakened, his body hadn't quite got there yet.
His sleep had been surprisingly dreamless, he recalled as he pulled on his gear and followed the Northern woman down the stairs. After what she had told him about Fogfall Island, he had expected nightmares about ghostly children throwing him into bubbling vats of molten metal, but no. It was as if he'd blinked and then it was...
...was it morning? It still seemed pretty dark.
As they descended, he recognised Lenny's voice in the hallway below.
"...in only a few days?"
"Of course I didn't manage the entire ridge," said a voice Junjie hadn't heard before. "I may be fantastic, but I'm not that fantastic. I managed to get the Northernmost region and I'll head back as soon as possible to map the rest."
"Yeah, sorry to pull you away from work like this," said Lenny. "I do appreciate you doing this for us."
"I would say it's no trouble," said the stranger's voice, "but I've been riding all night and I'm just about dead on my feet."
They finally emerged to where the hallway was visible, and Perry quickly trotted down to greet the newcomer.
"Hey, Benny!" she said. "It's good to see you again!"
"I could say the same about you," said Benny. "When I heard you would be riding across the Cavern Sea, I started collecting brochures for funeral parlours."
Benny Harper was, of course, blue-skinned like the rest of his siblings. His hair was the same colour as Lenny's and neatly combed over his head and his glasses looked thin yet strong. He was of a similar physical construction to Denny, save that he seemed noticeably taller and somehow lankier. His clothes were rather reminiscent of a teacher, somehow mathematics or geography specifically, and Junjie got the feeling that if he were Eli's age or younger, he would definitely inadvertently refer to him as "Mr Harper" or "Sir".
"You must be the 'other' Lenny informed be about over the phone," he said, and Junjie (who was still only a little less than half asleep) realised he was being spoken to. "Benjamin Disraeli Harper."
"Junjie," said Junjie.
Benny raised an eyebrow. Somehow that one motion felt more patronizing than any insults he could have dished out.
"Indeed," he said. "In any case, I gathered the garments you requested."
He passed Lenny a bag containing... something.
"Now," he said, "if you'll excuse me, there is some important business I must attend to."
He walked into the nearby lounge room, and Junjie jogged down the rest of the stairs just in time to see him position himself in front of the couch and then, slowly and deliberately, as though he were a mighty tree that had just been felled, he fell face first onto the cushions.
After a couple of seconds, he could be heard snoring.
"...right then," said Perry, and she took the bag from Lenny and started rifling through it. "I think there should be- ah!"
She pulled out and presented Junjie with a pair of earmuffs in a dull gold fur and a scarf of a matching colour that bore navy blue and black stripes across its ends. He took them from her hand and looked them over.
"Put those on," Perry said, and she and Lenny made for the stairs. "Trust me, you'll need 'em. Len and I have more kit, so you'll have to wait. You okay with that?"
"...yes," said Junjie, feeling that he didn't have any other options.
He hesitated, waiting until he heard the closing of a door, then examined the articles he had been given.
The earmuffs looked old. Not falling apart, but the fur was a little rough and clumped together in places and the colour must once have been a bright yellow-gold, but now it had faded and become murky and more closely resembled the colour of the actual metal than the artificial over-saturated eye-burner it probably was to begin with. He slotted them onto his head and was surprised with how comfortable they were, and how they didn't itch around his ears and threaten to cause an ugly rash.
The scarf didn't look too bad either. It was dirty and faded, certainly, and the tassels on its ends were looking more than a little ragged, but the wool was still neat and felt soft on his fingers, to the point that they felt dried out. It must have been tucked away for rather a long time to be in this condition. He wrapped it around his neck, tucking it into his collar, and almost instantly felt warmer.
"Comfy?"
He looked back to see Lenny descending the stairs, having exchanged her short sleeved light green turtleneck shirt for one with long sleeves and put on a pair of vibrant blue earmuffs that looked in far better condition than Junjie's.
"Those are pretty ancient, I know, but it would be a waste to throw them out," she said. "I'd appreciate it if you could go up there and tell Perry to get a move on, because she does like to take her sweet time getting ready. Don't blame her though. Has she told you about Fogfall Island?"
"About how it used to be a manufacturing plant staffed by children which is now supposedly haunted by their restless lingering souls?" asked Junjie. "Yes, she may have mentioned it at some point."
Lenny rolled her eyes.
"That's Perry for you," she said. "Anything supernatural, she latches onto it like a leech. I'm betting she told you about the reports of hauntings, but all the people who went ghosthunting there never found anything conclusive so those aren't much more than rumours now. Don't get me wrong, the child labour part is true, but the haunting is up for dispute."
"So what's the real reason the forge was closed?" asked Junjie.
Lenny hesitated, her expression thoughtful.
"You know," she said, "it never was perfectly clear. I heard they ran out of money, but other people said it was because the owner was dodging taxes, I read one old report saying it was because of corruption and money laundering and another saying it was insurance fraud. I don't think the truth will ever come out, but I highly doubt they shut down the factory because of things going bump in the night."
Junjie wanted to feel reassured, but mysterious pools of blood appearing and disappearing for no reason could hardly be described as a thing going bump in the night.
Then again, this was Perry talking, so they were probably little more than stray patches of oil.
"So if you could chivy her on," said Lenny, "I'll bring our mechs out and set them up so we're ready to go. Just brace yourself though, because she never actually learned what shame was, so there's a good chance she'll undress in front of you and not give a damn."
"I'd already gathered that," Junjie commented, recalling how gladly she'd showered in front of him during his first morning in the North.
So while Lenny departed through the front door, Junjie headed back up the stairs - doing his best to ignore the still-snoring cartographer not ten metres away - and jogged up to the room he and Perry had slept in last night.
As he approached the open door, he heard speaking coming from within, and it was pretty obvious who it was.
"Now listen, lads," she said. "I'm going to need all of you to be on top form today. The best behaviour it's possible for any of you to have. You especially, Fury. I got my eye on you."
Junjie heard an indignant squeak.
"Seeing as there isn't any choice in the matter, we're all heading up to Fogfall Island," said Perry, "and I don't think I need to tell any of you what that'll mean if we mess about. You remember that theatre back in Symphogna? It'll be like that, only surrounded by the cries of the damned and an inescapable torrent of freezing, watery death. If you lot aren't on tip-top form, that'll be our graves and nobody will ever think or dare to come looking for us. You got that?"
Squeaks of approval could be heard from within the room.
"Good."
With the consultation apparently over, Junjie knocked on the door.
He found Perry wearing a red cloche hat with a black ribbon, a red scarf with its ends tucked into her jacket and a long sleeved black shirt worn under her jacket and dress, but over her gloves. Her leggings seemed a deeper, richer shade of black (yes, somehow it was a different shade of black); presumably she'd switched them out for a thicker set more suited to the climate they would be entering.
She held her belts forward, showing that there were enough canisters for all of her slugs to hop into - which they did so - and holstered her blaster on her back as she stood up.
"You ready to go then, mate?" she asked.
"Yes," said Junjie.
"Good," Perry replied, and she strode past him down the corridor. "So let's set off before any of us get cold feet."
The day was finally bright as they set off, cantering along the track cut through the wood and surrounded by early morning birdsong.
"Are you hungry, JJ?" asked Perry from beside him, and he saw that she was offering him a sandwich tightly bound in cling wrap.
Junjie realised he hadn't had any breakfast, and gratefully accepted it.
"It's that chicken from last night," Perry told him. "I noticed you liked that one a lot, so put this together for you before you woke up."
"You'd better appreciate it," Lenny said. "That's as good as Perry's cooking gets."
"Oi, that ain't true!" Perry argued while Junjie eagerly unwrapped his sandwich. "I made those scrambled eggs that one time, remember?"
"Scrambled eggs?!" Lenny exclaimed. "Everybody thought that was rock-cake flavour chewing gum!"
Perry rolled her eyes, and Junjie took a bite of his sandwich. It didn't taste as good as it had last night, but it was still very nice.
"Just to let you know," Perry said as Lenny bit into her own sandwich, "we'll be cutting through Highland Cavern on our way to the ferry, so you'll get a bit of a glimpse of the place I grew up in. Neat. eh?"
Rather than struggling to swallow his mouthful and risking choking, Junjie simply nodded.
"I don't suppose it's too late to back out," asked Lenny once she had swallowed.
"You don't have to come in, Len," said Perry. "You can wait outside for us where there ain't any ghosties or ghoulies or wee screaming beasties."
"That," said Lenny, "is the best idea you've had all weak."
"I'd just like to know something," Junjie said, having downed the first bite of his sandwich. "I overheard you talking to your slugs earlier about 'an inescapable torrent of freezing, watery death' and I'd like to know if you're saying that because the waters around the island are dangerous or because you wouldn't be able to get out without help from either of us."
"If you must know, it's both," Perry replied. "I'll tell you more when we get to the ferry, lad. It'll be much easier to explain it there where you can see it than it would be talking about it while trying to ride and eat at the same time, you ken?"
She unwrapped her own sandwich and took a bite, somehow managing to smile while she chewed.
Resolved to the situation, Junjie continued eating, but kept his attention on where his companions were heading.
As they rode, he noticed that the region seemed to be growing colder with every step of their mecha's feet on the ground. Even though he was fully dressed, even equipped with a scarf and set of earmuffs, he could feel goosebumps creeping up his back and all along his arms and legs. Since he was fully awake this time, he was able to resist shivering, but only barely.
No wonder Perry was so aggressive. Somehow her hot temper would probably keep her warm. And if she had equipped herself for a cold apparently beyond this place, that meant the temperature was likely to drop even more.
As they approached a large tunnel, he glanced at the other two riders. Neither looked too concerned about the direction they were moving in, no matter how cold it was getting. At least Snowdance Cavern, from what he had seen, seemed fairly insulated and the cold mostly remained within the ice, but since there was none of that here, it just lingered in the air. Hopefully they could reach their destination before their mechas began to ice up.
The tunnel was only barely wide enough for the three of them to ride through side-by-side, and there would probably have been more space if Lenny's vehicle hadn't been so wide.
But as they rode through, Junjie noticed the walls around them becoming less and less bare the further in they traveled. The roof and the stalactites hanging from it were veined with a faint yellowish shimmer that a longer period of inspection proved to be gold. Streaks of lumino ore stood out here and there, lighting their way more effectively than lamps probably could have, as well as a grey metal of too dull a shine to be silver and far thicker stripes of brownish-orangish-red that looked powdery, yet somehow solid.
"Getting a good look?" asked Lenny.
"We'll be coming through to the cavern proper soon," Perry said. "Word of advice though."
"What?" asked Junjie.
"Duck."
Looking up ahead, he saw that the exit to the tunnel was somewhat smaller than the entrance they had come through, even from this distance.
"Len, you go first!" Perry commanded. "Yours is the biggest, so if you get wedged we can just push you on through!"
"I know that!" Lenny responded.
She revved her engine and sped up, pulling ahead of them by a considerable amount.
"You next, JJ!" said Perry. "Wait 'til she's through and then do your bike thing!"
Junjie nodded.
Up ahead, Lenny maneuvered her ride through the tunnels' exit, so Junjie pulled his earmuffs down, donned his helmet (just in case) and switched to bike mode.
Perry fell behind as he sped forward, the light from the glow in the walls flashing past him as he zoomed to the tunnel exit, then leaped through and skidded to a halt on the ground outside.
Quite an exhilarating five seconds that had been.
"So then," he said as he surveyed their new surroundings, "this is Highland Cavern."
"Yep," said Lenny. "It's pretty obvious where the name comes from."
The tunnel they had emerged from lay at the base of only one of dozens of immense hills that stretched into the distance, varying in size from only small mounds to immense mountains that almost touched the cavern roof. They were covered in trees and bushes and solid, sharp-looking rocks, while the smaller ones simply bore coatings of soft-looking grass. One nearby had a large boulder on it which seemed to have a spring spouting from underneath, as a steady stream of water was flowing down and near where Junjie transformed his mecha back into beast mode, it babbled into a brook.
Amazingly, it wasn't frozen. It didn't even have ice in it. Yet still, the air felt frigid and frosty. Junjie checked his hair as he put his earmuffs back on to make sure it didn't have icicles hanging from it.
"Nice, ain't it?" Perry said when she had joined them. "Come on, we're following the brook."
She steered away and led her followers along the side of the babbling stream, which grew wider as they rode with more springs joining the flow and pouring water into the open air. Junjie guessed that if he were to touch it, it would be horrifically cold.
"You say this is the cavern you're from," he said, "but where?"
"What do you mean?" asked Perry.
"I don't see any settlements of any sort in these hills," Junjie pointed out, "and they look far too barbarous for any sensible person to comfortably dwell in, so-"
"Same hat!" Perry suddenly shouted, standing up in her saddle and waving to something up on a ridge.
"Same hat!" yelled a young woman who was, indeed, wearing the same hat as Perry.
Junjie looked closer.
She was watering flowers in a window box, with the window itself being a hole in a rock face.
"Now you see, lad?" asked Perry. "There ain't any people living on these hills 'coz they live inside them. Used to be full of mines, this place was, 'til they turned out to be ruining the ecosystem or something and it all got shut down. That's why you see a couple of hills what're smaller than others. 'Coz they got hollowed out too much and collapsed in on themselves what with no-one thinking to put better supports in."
So she lived in a mine. Somehow that seemed fitting for a woman of her nature.
Junjie looked around again. Now that he knew for sure this place was inhabited, he could see little signs of life all over the hills and ranges. Trees that had laundry pegged out to dry on their branches. A little waterfall tumbling over a rock was connected to a gutter system that led through a hole in a cliff and, presumably, into somebody's home. When he properly listened, he could hear distant conversations, and with how muffled they were they could only have been coming from somewhere under the ground.
Sure enough, in the side of a hill up ahead, there was another tunnel. This one held up by wooden beams reinforced with props of metal.
"Good morning, Miss McLinden!" called a man who was sitting just outside puffing on a pipe.
"Morning, Arnold!" Perry replied as she passed, and to Junjie she quickly whispered, "That's Arnold. He's a bit of a tosser but he tries his best."
Now that he knew what was going on, Junjie finally realised that the babbling of the brook had grown somewhat louder in the time he had been riding, and when he looked down he saw that it had expanded into a river wide and presumably deep enough for comfortable swimming - in his case, at least - though somehow he got the feeling that its calm, rippling exterior was not to be trusted.
When he looked ahead, he saw that it grew wider still, though luckily its bank was still large enough for all three of them to comfortably fit.
"Keep an eye out while you're here," Lenny said to him. "You might see a Mistspitter somewhere. They like cold, dingy places."
"This place ain't dingy!" Perry argued.
"You're only saying that because you live here!" Lenny replied. "How is it you people can live like that? Underground all the time?"
"Underground is warmer!" said Perry. "And you'd be amazed how much the natural lighting of lumino ore can cut down on your energy costs!"
"If you like COLD showers!" said Lenny.
Perry rolled her eyes.
"For the record," she said to Junjie, "we do have water heating here. It just takes a while 'coz of the stone being cold as crivens."
"Right," said Junjie, who hadn't exactly been concerned about this caverns' plumbing systems.
They kept riding, occasionally passing a bridge that led over the growing river and Perry greeting folks she knew every now and again. With how roughly she behaved, it was odd to think that a woman like her even had a home to begin with, let alone that she could be so friendly with the people who lived there. Picking fights in taverns and shouting and swearing didn't seem like the actions of a person who would gladly say hello to random citizens and passers-by just because they happened to be near.
Maybe it was because this was her home, so this was where she felt most comfortable?
In any case, it felt strange and somehow a little invasive to be seeing this side of her. Saying good morning and passing compliments to people she didn't have any obvious personal connections to.
The river kept widening until they reached its end, where it opened out into a vast expanse of water which would easily have been mistaken for a part of the Cavern Sea if Junjie didn't know better. They all drew to a halt to get a better look at the view.
And out on that expanse was a dense cloud of mist.
"You see it, don't you?" asked Perry.
"If by 'it' you mean the immense bank of fog that's impossible to miss," said Junjie, "then yes, I see it."
"Yes," said Lenny. "And we're going to have to go into that."
"S'alright," Perry said confidently. "We got the ferry, after all. I weren't about to make us go swimming. Definitely not in Dead Man's Dardanelles."
Dead Man's Dardanelles? Was that the name of this strait? It sounded like the result of a brainstorming meeting to come up with the most threatening possible name for a stretch of water.
"C'mon," said Perry. "Let's be there and back before night comes, because I do NOT fancy sleeping over on Fogfall Island."
They rode along the side of the water, the shoreline widening before them as if to grant them entrance. It wasn't long before Junjie caught sight of an arrangement up ahead: two houses, a jetty and a small ship floating nearby as if waiting for someone to board it.
"I assume that's the ferry we'll be taking?" asked Junjie.
"You assume right, lad," Perry responded. "We'll have to call out the blokes what run it though. Shouldn't take long. You got the cash, Len?"
"Yes I do, six gold coins just like we need," said Lenny.
"Only six?" asked Junjie.
"Aye, two for each of us," said Perry. "Cheap, I know, but I already said they get a lot of customers."
"And that's because we do anything..."
"Anywhere..."
Junjie almost leaped back in shock when he caught sight of a trio of Molenoids standing mere feet away where only moments ago there had been nobody, and two of them were angrily glaring at a third, who was paying more attention to a tablet device in his hand.
"Quincy!" hissed one, who seemed quite lanky and bore combed hair and a waistcoat.
"Hmm?" the second, who had sideburns and glasses, said absentmindedly.
"Oh, why do we even bother with this rubbish?!" exclaimed the third, who was squat with messy hair and a beard. "We spend two weeks coming up with a good catchphrase and you can't even be bothered to do it properly!"
"Will you stop complaining?" the second said angrily.
"No, he's right, I don't know why I bother," said the first, crossing his arms in a huff.
"What's all this about then?" asked Perry. "You lads ain't thinking of leaving, are you?"
"Well, what sort of life are we supposed to have if all we do is take people to an abandoned island and back?" asked the first sadly. "No, we want a life of adventure! Where every day is different from the last and you never know what's coming next!"
While he continued rambling, much to the bearded one's annoyance and the bespectacled one's chagrin, Lenny leaned over to Junjie.
"John is the one with the combed hair and waistcoat," she muttered, "Quincy is the one with sideburns and glasses and Adam is the one with the beard."
"Understood," said Junjie.
"No, you're barmy!" Adam angrily cut John off. "There's no way a sissy wimp like you would last 5 minutes in a duel!"
"And you have absolutely no way of knowing that," John said smugly.
"But that spider on your shoulder might," said Quincy without even looking up.
John jumped about a foot into the air with a high-pitched whimper, and Perry rolled her eyes at the prank.
"Look, I'm sorry," said Quincy, finally looking up from his device, "but some of us are actually invested in the job we have at the moment. I'm keeping an eye on the forecast!"
"Oh really?" asked Adam. "And what's the forecast?"
Quincy looked back to his device.
"Wet and deadly," he said.
"And what was it yesterday?" asked John.
The four-eyed Molenoid swiped his thumb across the screen.
"West and deadly," he reported.
"So just taking a guess, what's it got a good chance of being tomorrow, Quince?" asked Perry.
Quincy meekly pocketed his device.
"Wet and... deadly," he said weakly.
"It's always wet and deadly!" Perry pointed out.
"Especially for you," Junjie muttered under his breath.
"What's that, JJ?"
"Nothing."
"What do you expect?" asked Quincy. "It wasn't called Dead Man's Dardanelles for nothing!"
"In any case, we'd like to cross to the island before next week," Lenny interjected, "so if we could get a move on..."
"Right, right!" said Adam. "C'mon, lads!"
The trio ran over to the jetty and the boat that sat beside it.
"They don't seem like they're native to this cavern," Junjie commented as they slowly rode over to the jetty.
"That's 'coz they ain't," said Perry. "The Companimole brothers are from Ludgate Cavern. They set up this ferry because people wanted to see the island and the bros needed some cash."
"They've had other schemes for money," said Lenny, "but none of them worked out."
"Don't worry about your rides," Perry informed her companions as they dismounted. "The day a moron tries to rob Perry McLinden is the day hospitals get extra patients."
So Lenny and Junjie dismounted, and the three of them jumped down onto the ferry.
"And we're off!" Quincy said proudly, and true to his word, the boat rumbled away from the jetty.
"So you're all thinking of starting a new business?" asked Lenny.
"Absolutely correct!" Adam replied cheerfully. "We're opening an all-purpose instant aid organisation doing anything, anytime!"
"That sounds like an interesting concept," Lenny commented. "Just as long as it works out better than your lighthouse keeping."
"Well..." John said.
"Or your attempt at veterinary psychology."
"There was a reason-" Quincy tried.
"Or teaching martial arts."
"That, erm..." Adam trailed off.
As the listing continued, Junjie looked over the rails at the passing water below. It was extraordinarily clear, like crystal, and he could see all the way to the bottom of the channel. From where he stood, it looked shallow enough to only come up to his waist, and he was tempted to jump in and go for a swim.
"Pretty, ain't it?" asked Perry as she joined him at the railing.
"It is," said Junjie. "So I can't help wondering..."
"...why it's called Dead Man's Dardanelles?" Perry finished for him. "Take another look."
He did. He looked down again at the pale floor of the strait.
And then he saw it. The bent, warped, punctured shapes of metal hulls, bleached almost completely white. Scattered steering wheels, rudders and propellers long since broken away from their original positions. A round, smooth, creamy-white globe that was unmistakably a human skull.
"Under that pristine surface," said Perry, "are currents so strong and so fast that you wouldn't even be able to come up for breath. You'd be dragged down, all the way to the bottom, and you'd be pinned there until either hypothermia got you or you drowned. Even professional divers don't come up from Dead Man's Dardanelles. Nobody does."
Sure enough, as the ferry drifted past, Junjie saw the unambiguous outline of an oxygen tank, still strapped to the remains of its long-dead user.
"Yet another horror of Fogfall Island," he murmured.
While he stared, Perry leaned back from the railing.
"Oi, mole-faces!" she shouted. "You had any other customers in the past few days?"
"That would be a no," replied John. "We did see a couple of boats headed out into the fog over the past week, but what they were doing was their business and none of us wanted to get in their way."
"So they're dead," said Adam.
"Isn't it a little unreasonable to assume-"
"They were in flimsy little rowboats, so they're dead," Adam interrupted. "We've got a big proper boat here, but they were headed out in poxy little wooden things, so either they made it to the island or they didn't. Whichever it was, they're dead. Deader than a door nail in a ditch of duck dung."
The conversation presumably ended by that bizarre alliterative remark, Junjie looked back down into the water, finding himself sickly fascinated by the sight of all the decomposing vessels and unfortunate people who crewed them.
He remained captivated until tendrils of mist shrouded the water's surface from view, and his gaze was finally broken. One of the mole brothers switched on lamps atop the ship which pierced through the fog like a knife, and it wasn't long before another jetty came in view, this one in far worse shape than the one they had departed from. It seemed to be mostly supported by a metal structure that stood at one corner, and when Junjie looked closer, he saw a Phosphoro slug sitting in a well-furnished tank within it.
"Oi," Junjie heard Adam say. "Give that to Flare, would you? Should keep her going until the next bozos come over."
"Okie-doke," said Perry, and there was the rustling sound of a bag being taken.
The boat came to a rest by the side of the jetty.
"Thank you for using Companimole Ferries," John recited as the trio of passengers climbed off, "even though we know you didn't have any choice in the matter, now can we please leave because this place is already giving me the creeps!"
"Say no more!" said Adam, and the boat reversed out of sight.
While Perry emptied the bag of slug food into a hatch on the tube at the corner of the jetty, Junjie and Lenny looked up at the building that occupied a majority of the island.
It was an immense monstrosity of steel and concrete that loomed out of the fog like a shadow of inescapable dread. This must have been what the children who worked there must have felt like when they first arrived: small, insignificant, terrified of what fate might befall them once they were to step within those towering walls.
Junjie gulped.
"Yeah," said Lenny, "pretty much."
"Dear sweet crivens, this place is eldritch," Perry said as she walked over. "Let's deal with this issue and get the hell out of here before we get haunted to death or something. Lenny, I won't force you to come in, so if you like you can stay here and keep Flare company. Poor thing probably gets lonely out here all by herself."
"Thank you," Lenny said gratefully, and she walked back over to the Phosphoro's tank.
"As for you..." Perry looked up at Junjie with a face of apology.
"I've never been frightened of ghosts," said Junjie. "I see no reason why I should start now. I've seen abandoned structures before. Though I'll admit this one is easily the most intimidating I've encountered."
"Then we'll get it over with," Perry said. "You know how back in Firewall I said I owe you a drink? After this, it'll be a strong one."
Reassured somehow by the promise of alcohol, Junjie felt himself smile, and he looked back up at the massive building with his heart burning with determination.
D'Artagnan knew what they were doing was wrong.
They knew that there would be consequences if they were discovered.
They knew that they would be punished.
But they also knew that their sisters needed help, whether they wanted it or not.
The teenager kept this in mind, repeating it over and over, as they descended through the groaning building and found another maintenance entrance. There were quite a few dotted about. It wasn't surprising. It was, after all, a large factory.
So d'Artagnan unlocked it, and found a stick to wedge underneath it and prop it open.
Then they ran in search of the next.