Cryptic investigation
Chapter Twelve – Frantic Hunt
The next day, Rudy was still frantically trying to think of a way he could help ChalkZone. He was staying home from school, and while that did give him more time to try to think, it also meant that he was separated from Penny. They had planned to meet up during lunch time, but his parents had insisted upon him eating lunch with them, so he hadn't been able to get to ChalkZone at the correct time. He hoped Penny would understand when he explained to her later.
He'd already told Snap why he hadn't appeared at the planned time, and Snap had explained that he and Penny hadn't been able to think of anything together either. Rudy wished he could have been there, even though he wasn't sure he would have been able to help them with their ideas much. He had not had the chance to try to move the hotel in ChalkZone to a safer location, but to his relief, there wasn't any sign of the termites heading out to invade other parts of ChalkZone, and he guessed that Penny's estimation about them waiting a week could be correct. However, he was also keenly aware that it could possibly happen at any moment, and there would be no way to tell. There might not even be any real warning, and that thought scared him the most.
He was glad that his parents seemed to be done talking about the incident the previous night. He hadn't wanted to talk about it at all, and he'd honestly tuned out most of what they said. He'd replied quite frequently that he certainly had no intention of wandering into old buildings again.
As he'd predicted, his parents frequently checked on him whenever he'd been in his room, so he'd had to make his trips into ChalkZone short. Luckily, Snap had been content to wait outside his portal for whenever he could arrive, and for that he was grateful. In the afternoon, as he waited for Penny to get home from school, Rudy decided to let Snap stay in his room and try to come up with any ideas there; it wasn't like he could find a place to move or redraw the hotel in such short bursts of time anyway. He would probably have to do it at night. He made sure that if they heard one of Rudy's parents coming, Snap was to quickly dart back into the portal, or, if that wasn't an option for whatever reason, into Rudy's closet. So far, they'd had good luck, and hoped that luck would continue and Penny would be allowed to stay over. That was far better than having to take quick trips into ChalkZone to meet her.
"Okay," said Rudy while they waited until it would be time for school to end, "since we couldn't find anyone who could help us stop these things…maybe we can look for another book. There has to be other libraries. I know Biclops said they wouldn't have the same type of records the one we were looking for had, but they've still got to have something. Do you know of any other libraries?"
"Uh…I think there's a few in towns near ChalkZone City," Snap explained. "I guess we could check 'em."
"Yeah…" Rudy sighed. Spending time looking through books in libraries had been his last resort, seeing how time consuming it would be as well as being unlikely that they'd find anything, but they didn't have anywhere else to turn. They were getting nowhere trying to come up with ideas themselves, and they certainly needed some kind of outside help or advice. "Penny would be good at that," he stated, a bit more positively. "We could tell her after school and she could help us search."
He was worried, however, that Penny wouldn't agree to sneaking into ChalkZone during the night. Earlier, she had insisted that he should rest, despite his repeated claims that he was fine, and that helping ChalkZone was more important. He knew she was probably saying that because she knew there wasn't much they could do anyway, but he wasn't ready to give up.
ooo
Once Rudy knew that school was out, he called Penny, but to his disappointment, she told him that she wasn't allowed to stay over. With a long ChalkZone trip still out of the question due to the risk of his parents checking on him and finding him gone, Rudy and Snap were forced to stay in his room, frustrated that they couldn't start searching one of the small libraries that Snap had mentioned. Rudy was trying not to think of the previous night's events, but it kept coming back to his mind, as it had all day, and he realized how impossible everything seemed. His only comfort was that there was no sign of other newly erased dangerous drawings around.
Later in the evening, Penny managed to sneak into ChalkZone and meet up with them at Rudy's portal. They quickly told her about their idea to search the smaller libraries, and she agreed that it might be worth it. They made a plan to do a quick search of each of them during the evening to see if they had any of the type of information they were searching for, and if not, abandon the search to try to find more Zoners to talk to.
ooo
By nightfall, the trio had managed to arrive at and search for books in three of the libraries, but each of them seemed to have the same type of books, and nothing remotely related to underground monsters. In the end, they were completely exhausted, and Penny had told them, in spite of the dangerous time limit ChalkZone was under, they needed to rest. Reluctantly, they had agreed, realizing that they would probably get closer to forming a plan when they were rested and awake, and most Zoners were more likely to be active in the daytime hours as well. Maybe one they hadn't talked to yet would know something.
However, as night fell, Rudy wasn't willing to give up on the library idea, at least not yet. There were still a few other libraries that they could search, although they were small and not likely to have much of use. He could also go back to one of the others they had been to and possibly look through other types of books rather than just the ones they thought might relate to the termite threat. It was a long shot, but he figured it was worth a try. He couldn't sleep anyway, and he didn't think he'd be able to rest at all until he had some sort of plan.
As he snuck over to his chalkboard, he knew he was taking a risk, as he knew it was possible that his parents would want to check on him in the night, especially soon, because it was still early compared to when he usually went to bed. However, he disregarded it, thinking it at least a somewhat unlikely possibility, before changing out of his pajamas and into his normal clothes and then drawing a portal.
Landing on the grass beneath the portal, he heaved a sigh of relief when he noticed that there were still no signs of any terrible destruction…yet. Everything seemed as it normally did, save for the fact that the place was vacant of Zoners. He realized that all of the ChalkZone inhabitants in the nearby areas were very well aware of the threat that loomed over their heads, and it was likely that many of them had tried to flee to areas further away from the city. Pushing the thought from his mind, he climbed onto the scooter he'd been using and rode toward the hotel, hoping that Snap was still awake. He didn't like the thought of spending hours searching in a library alone.
When he arrived at the hotel building, he walked up to the front doors, a bit uncertain. He realized that even though he'd drawn it, he'd never actually set foot inside the building, and now he couldn't quite remember the layout he'd thought of when he'd created it. He was wary of disturbing anyone, knowing that most Zoners would be asleep or getting ready for bed by now. He confirmed this thought by glancing upward at the windows, many of which were covered with star-print fabric. Carefully, he edged the door open and peered inside, recognizing and then remembering the type of interior he had imagined when he'd created the hotel, and closed the door.
The building was truly massive, and he could see from where he stood in the main lobby that it stretched upward many stories, and each level had several hallways. He'd known it was big when he'd drawn it, but somehow it seemed more enormous when he was standing inside it. The lobby was completely dark, with thick nighttime themed fabric pulled over the windows, and he could see no one around, which alarmed him a little. They had simply left the door open with no one guarding it, and he quickly turned around and locked the door, thinking of Dooth and Boorat or other unsavory Zoners who could just waltz right in. As he resumed looking around at the empty place, he wondered if most of the Zoners here had simply fled, leaving the hotel unguarded and without anyone in charge. It was a very disconcerting feeling.
Rudy started to walk toward the center of the lobby, his shoes echoing loudly on the tiled floor as he looked from left to right, examining the plain-colored walls that stretched far above his head, and the faint lights shining through the many hallways – none of which had windows – up above. The place felt almost eerie, and he wished there was some Zoner around he could ask for help. He had no idea what floor Snap was on, let alone what room he was in. Snap had never had a chance to tell him; they had always planned to meet up by his portal since Snap had had to stay there.
Sighing, he headed over to a nearby staircase and began climbing, choosing the first hallway he saw and walking down it. Almost immediately he noticed that most of the doors were thrown open carelessly, and when he peered into the rooms, they were completely vacant, some of them still containing belongings that had been hastily left behind. He tried knocking on a few doors, and the first few times received no answer. On the fourth try, he got an angry response, and when he tried asking where Snap was, the Zoner only shouted back at him that he didn't know.
Disheartened, he walked back to the main lobby and was about to try another hallway when he heard footsteps coming from somewhere up above him, and he peered upward, surprise and relief flooding through him as he realized that the Zoner was someone he knew well – Blocky.
"Blocky!" Rudy called, making his way back up the staircase and up a few more floors to reach the one where his drawing was standing.
"Rudy!" Blocky called cheerfully, running up to him and grinning widely. "Did you find a way to stop those monsters yet?"
"Er…no…" Rudy replied, feeling almost ashamed as he realized how much faith Blocky seemed to have put in him with that question. "But…we're going to come up with a plan," he added quickly, seeing the green rectangle's crestfallen look. "But I need your help. Do you know what room Snap's in?"
"Yeah!" Blocky replied happily, his confidence in Rudy seeming completely restored. "He's in room 4D, just in that hallway." He pointed, and Rudy grinned.
"Thanks!" he called, dashing to the hallway Blocky had pointed out. Due to the lack of windows, it was dark, but luckily he had envisioned lights set up at intervals along the dark parts of the building when he'd drawn it, and it wasn't difficult to locate the door with a large golden '4D' emblazoned on it.
Lifting his hand, he knocked on the door, waiting a moment after he got no response. He was worried that Snap might have tried to go to sleep early, like he had, and was contemplating going off to search on his own after all when his friend suddenly opened the door.
"Rudy?" Snap looked alarmed and rather shocked at seeing him there, and he peered into the hallway, looking left and right. "What's goin' on? Is anyone bein' attacked-"
"No, it's nothing like that," Rudy quickly interjected. "I just…couldn't sleep, and I wanted to look at one of the other libraries or…maybe one of the ones we searched again. We didn't have time to look at any of them for very long, and there might be other books that can give us some idea of what to do." He waited for Snap's response, realizing only as he said it that his plan sounded hopeless and desperate.
Snap gave the hallway another glance, as if expecting that there was actually something terrible approaching, before turning back to Rudy. "You really think that's gonna help, Bucko?"
"I don't know, but what else are we supposed to do?" he replied, trying to keep his voice to a whisper so as not to disturb any other Zoners nearby. The building was almost deathly silent, and any sound they made seemed much louder than it was. He turned back to Snap, who looked much more exhausted than Rudy felt. He knew Snap had hardly gotten a proper rest since the kidnapping incident, and he felt guilty asking him to accompany him, but at the same time he couldn't stand the thought of trying to find something without one of his friends by his side at the moment, and he knew it was probably too late to ask Penny. "Please, Snap?" he asked. "We could…we could just go to one or two and if there's nothing we can go back, and Penny can help me tomorrow instead."
"Well…all right," Snap sighed. "You know I wanna help ChalkZone as much as you do."
"Thanks," Rudy said gratefully, making a mental note to himself to make it up to Snap later. "This is really the only thing I can think of to do," he admitted as they began to walk down the hallway, finding that when they reached the lobby, Blocky had already gone to wherever he had been headed. They passed the front door, Rudy making sure to lock it again before closing it.
After the darkness in the hotel, the bright sunlight seemed abnormally strong. Shielding his eyes, Rudy walked over to the scooter as he tried to remember which of the libraries was nearest. He told Snap that going to the closest one would be the best use of their time, as it was just as likely – or unlikely – to have anything useful in the books they hadn't looked at as one of the other ones would, and he wanted to make their trip as brief as possible for Snap's sake.
They rode the scooter to a small nearby village made of brightly colored buildings, each of them oddly shaped and uniquely designed and painted. They had been there earlier in the evening, and Rudy had thought it would have been a nice place to visit, had the circumstances been different. They stopped right in front of the library, a small building with one main room that from the outside looked like a giant row of books, each one a bright, vivid color with patterned designs. As they walked in the front doors, they noticed, though not with any great surprise, that it was mostly empty, one sole librarian being the only person there.
The librarian – an owl, Rudy noted with amusement – didn't look up at them as they passed, immersed in reading a book herself. They walked into the main room, gazing at the neat row of shelves around them. The tables in the center, however, were anything but neat, and there were piles of books strewn all over the place, a reminder that there had been several Zoners there earlier.
"You know, they really should put these back where they belong instead of leavin' 'em out here for everyone to trip over," Snap grumbled as he followed Rudy toward the center of the room. He peered at the shelves. "So…where do we start?"
"I don't know," Rudy replied. "We looked through all the books on ChalkZone creatures, and all the ones about things underground…so maybe we should start looking for books about places. Maybe there's something we missed and one of these might talk about how to deal with danger lurking under the ground." He picked up a nearby book and flipped through it, Snap doing the same. Finding nothing, Rudy put it back on the shelf, then grabbed an armful of them and carried them all back to one of the tables, pushing aside the books someone had left there earlier.
Once Snap joined him, they began looking through their stack of books, taking care to move quickly through the pages while trying to be thorough enough to spot anything that might be of interest. It wasn't long before Rudy set the first book down and reached for the second, only to find a few minutes later that it was just as useless to their cause as the first.
After around an hour, they had both gone through not only that stack of books, but several others as well, leaving their table and a large area of the floor covered in them. Completely exhausted, Snap muttered something about how he now realized why the Zoners earlier hadn't bothered to put the books away. Rudy was going through them much quicker now, searching desperately for anything that might aid him, only to end up tossing each book aside to add to their growing accumulation of useless books. Sighing, Rudy slammed another book cover closed and leaned his head down, crossing his arms on the desk.
"What's the matter?" Snap asked. "Another headache?"
"No," Rudy sighed, "I just…thought we'd find something by now." He realized how silly this idea had been, but somehow throughout everything he had still held onto that hope that by some miracle, they'd come across something that could help them figure out how to stop Newland's creatures. "I guess we'll just have to keep trying," he said, picking up another volume. He watched as Snap, looking half asleep, reached for another book and began flipping through it, hardly registering what was on the pages. "Find anything yet?" Rudy asked, feeling like he was starting to fall asleep himself as he tried to focus on the words in front of him.
"Nah," Snap replied. "This one's talkin' about mountain climbing. I don't even think it was one of the ones we picked up. Musta' been left here from before. Look, here's the Mist Mountains."
He showed Rudy the book, which depicted the iconic mist-covered blue mountains, causing Rudy to sigh. "Who in their right mind would want to go mountain climbing there?" he muttered.
"No idea," Snap replied, still flicking through the pages.
Rudy tried to concentrate on the book he was holding, but his eyes wouldn't focus on the words. He shook his head, trying to stay awake, and narrowed his eyes, trying to make sense of what he was reading, when he felt Snap tapping his shoulder.
"Hey, Rudy. Look at this!" he stated, showing him another picture in the book he'd been looking through.
At first Rudy thought it just another random photograph of the Mist Mountains, but as he looked at it, he realized there was no mist. Not only that, but the blue of the rocks looked a lot brighter. Reading the short text beneath it, he realized that the photograph was taken a long time ago and was very old, hence why he hadn't noticed the lack of mist at first – the quality was very poor, as if the photograph they'd scanned for the book was decades old. "Is that the Mist Mountains…in the past?" he asked, pondering what it must have been like before the horrid mists took hold of such a large part of it. Snap shrugged and the two of them leaned over the book to see what it said, more out of curiosity than anything, but Rudy had a faint, wild hope that it would tell them how to navigate through the tunnels beneath the mountain or show some other sort of shortcut.
The book didn't seem like the type to show anything of the sort, but halfway through skimming one of the first paragraphs, Rudy's gaze stopped on two words. "Indigo Mountains," he said aloud. "That's what the Mist Mountains must have been called back when this picture was taken. It says here that the name changed when…" He trailed off, causing Snap, who had started to nod off, to look up at him in surprise. "…When it was overgrown with forest," Rudy finished, looking a bit confused. "There wasn't much forest in the Mist Mountains."
Curiously, he turned the page, wondering to himself how much ChalkZone could have changed in that space of time. Was that why they had been unable to accurately follow the map? He began to feel a strong, desperate hope, thinking the book might give him a clue they might have missed. He knew that there was no way they would be able to have enough time to cross the mountains again, but that hope and curiosity, although irrational, drove him on. Flipping the next page, he was met with a picture of a desert with captions saying that what lay beyond the Indigo Mountains was dangerous to cross on foot. The page after that, the end of the desert, then a jungle, the next page, a series of lakes, the next, a jumble of canyons and odd shaped rocks, another page, a black wasteland, then another mountain range, and then the book resumed talking about mountain climbing and the hazards of that particular mountain.
"These were the places on Biclops's map," Rudy stated in a stunned voice, "or at least they were before they…before they…" He paused, turning back to the photograph of the Indigo Mountains. As he stared at it, closer than he had before, he noticed a few new things he hadn't caught when he'd first looked at it. A clump of small blue trees in one place, and in another, more obviously, a strange patch of snowy area that stood out brightly amongst the green of the rest of the land. In the foreground of the picture, where the edges of the photograph had faded so much he hadn't seen it at first, was a tall, cylindrical object…a candle.
Suddenly he was transported back to a day of the previous week in his memories. He and his friends were sitting atop one of the giant candles and peering out a scene very much like the one in the book. He saw the blue trees, the snowy patch, and, beneath the strange sunset-colored sky which he knew was a new addition to the area, a mountain range covered in forest. Biclops's words came back to him as he remembered the conversation they'd had in the Chalk Mine…
'They were described as a range of blue mountains that did not lie too far from this one…'
Shocked, he stared blankly at the page a moment before slamming the book down on the table. The librarian shushed him and gave him an annoyed glare, but he didn't notice. He stared at Snap, seeing his shock reflected in his friend's face as well as he too peered at the picture.
"We were going the wrong way the whole time…"
There was stunned silence between them for a moment, and then Snap cried, "What? You mean Biclops told us ta go the wrong way?"
"No!" Rudy replied. "I mean, he wouldn't have known. He must have never been to the Indigo Mountains back when they had that name. There were two blue mountain ranges and he picked the one he knew of…he couldn't have known there was another one or he would have told us, but…" He shook his head. "That's not important right now. We need to find Penny."
Without waiting for a reply from his friend, Rudy grabbed the book and ran to the front of library, dropping the book on the librarian's table. "I'd like to check this out please!" he said hurriedly, and she gave him an annoyed look and told him that he'd need a library card. Rudy considered going through with the sign up process as she presented him with a sheet of paper and a pen, but in the end decided that there was simply no time. "Never mind!" he said quickly, picking up the book and running to a nearby table. Leaving it lying with the page depicting what were formerly called the Indigo Mountains, he hurriedly drew a sloppy looking camera and photographed the relevant pages in quick succession, then he and Snap ran out the door.
"Isn't Penny gonna be asleep by now?" Snap asked as they climbed back onboard the scooter and set off toward Rudy's portal.
"I dunno, but we need to talk to her as soon as possible, so I've got to try," Rudy replied, determination clearly outlined in his voice. Snap wasn't sure what the huge hurry was, but he remained silent throughout the rest of the ride, too exhausted to question it.
Once they'd stopped at the portal, Snap sat down on the grass to wait as Rudy climbed back into his room. Knowing that he had to act quickly if he wanted a chance to reach Penny on the phone, Rudy snuck downstairs as quietly as he could and picked up the phone in the kitchen. Dialing Penny's number, he held his breath as he waited for someone to answer, hoping he wasn't too late. They had cancelled their plans to meet up at night, so there would be no other way to tell her before tomorrow. After a few moments, he heard someone's voice on the other end.
"Hello?" the voice, belonging to Penny's mother, stated.
"Hi, it's Rudy," he said, trying to keep his voice sounding calm. "I need to talk to Penny really quick. Is she still awake?"
"She's getting ready for bed," Mrs. Sanchez replied. "Is it really so important that it can't wait until tomorrow?"
"It'll only take a few minutes!" Rudy replied, realizing that he sounded a little desperate. "I promise. I just need to ask her a question about…about school. My parents said I might be able to go tomorrow."
There was a pause, and then, "All right. But make sure it's quick." Rudy heaved a sigh of relief and waited until, a minute or so later, he heard Penny's voice over the phone.
"Rudy?" his friend asked, sounding extremely worried. "What is it? Is something happening in ChalkZone?"
He realized she must have assumed he was calling her because of some sort of emergency, and he felt bad for worrying her. "No, no danger yet!" he quickly assured her. "That's not it…nothing's changed, but-"
Penny sounded confused now, and Rudy realized she must have picked up on how excited, and even hopeful, he'd sounded. "Then what…"
"It's about the library! I mean, the hidden library Biclops told us about!"
"But Rudy, we-"
"I think I know where it is."
There was a pause, and after a moment, Penny replied, "But…but what do you mean? We had the map, but we couldn't even follow it accurately. How do you know-"
"As soon as it's safe, come into ChalkZone and meet me by my portal," Rudy replied, realizing that the longer he stayed out in the kitchen, the more chance there was of his parents discovering he wasn't asleep. "I'll explain everything there."
Penny agreed, although a bit hesitantly and with much confusion, and Rudy quickly set the phone down and rushed back upstairs to his room to wait.
ooo
Back in his room, Rudy had spent the time waiting for Penny to arrive pacing back and forth restlessly, his previous tiredness completely gone. He and Snap had tried to pass the time reading his comics, but Rudy couldn't focus, his thoughts continuously dragged back to his recent discovery as he looked through the photographs he had taken over and over again. They weren't the clearest, as he had taken them in quite a hurry, but they showed the images from the book well enough.
"So…Rudy?" Snap asked, peering at Rudy over the edge of a comic book. "What do you suppose we're gonna do now that-"
He broke off as Penny's voice called quietly up to them through the other side of the portal. Running over to it, Rudy watched as she climbed up the ladder he had drawn, taking her hand and helping her through the portal until she stood in his room.
"You don't think your parents are going to come in here, do you?" she asked nervously, taking note that all three of them, plus the open portal, were in plain view.
"I don't know," Rudy said quickly, "they might want to check on me, but I'm not sure. You two can just go into ChalkZone if we hear them coming. But look!" He showed Penny the photographs he'd taken, explaining what had happened and what he'd found out.
Penny realized he was happy to finally have some beacon of hope, but she couldn't understand why he was in such a big hurry to tell her, or even how he thought he was going to manage finding the time to get there in the first place. She was as shocked about the whole thing as her friends had been upon making the discovery, but as she analyzed the photographs…it all fell into place.
"….and that's why we couldn't find any of the correct landmarks! It all makes sense!" Rudy continued, in a voice a bit louder than Penny thought was safe.
"I…I did think it was strange that there were hardly any ruins around that temple spire we found," she continued, speaking much more quietly. "If it was knocked down, there should have been more remains or at least signs that it had been cleared away. The spire we found must have been something completely different. And the rocks…none of them matched up…" She looked up to see that Rudy looked so lost in his own thoughts that he wasn't paying any attention. She glanced to Snap, who merely shrugged, and back at Rudy. "Rudy, what do you think we should-"
"We're going to find those hidden books," he told her, and without waiting for an answer, he walked straight to the chalkboard and began to climb inside.
"What? Now?" Penny cried.
"Yes," Rudy replied firmly. "Right now. What if Newland's creatures weren't told to wait a whole week? Those monsters could attack the rest of ChalkZone at any moment! We don't have any more time! What if the attack is really tomorrow morning? People are going to get hurt! Or killed! We have all night to reach the library and come back. There won't be any flying monsters, so this time, we can fly over the mountains, and…and there won't be any ice tunnels that we have to navigate to find anything in; we'll probably be able to see all the landmarks from the air!"
"But…"
"Going through the Mist Mountains alone would have taken up two days total of traveling if everything had gone to plan. We would still have had time to cross the other areas there and back and look at the books. We have all night to find them now, and if we use a fast method of transportation we can be back before my parents wake up. I really think we can do it!" He stood with one foot up on the edge of the portal, looking at his two friends, both of whom looked fairly shocked as they tried to take in what he'd just said.
"Rudy…I…are you sure?" Penny began. "The trip would take, at minimum, a few hours each way, and that would leave us with maybe…three hours at best to search the cave. And that's if nothing slows us down, or-"
"We have to try!" Rudy replied, feeling a sense of desperation at Penny's words. He knew that she would want to help, but that she was also thinking about this more logically than he was, and if it turned out they would not be able to make the journey, he had no idea what he would do.
Penny seemed conflicted herself, her worry for both the fate of ChalkZone and what the journey could mean for her and her friends both prominent in her mind. However, she knew as much as Rudy did that time was running out, and acting quickly could mean the difference between life and death for Zoners who might not be able to get out of the path of destruction quickly enough. "We'll…have to be careful."
"Well, let's get started then!" said Snap, jumping up from where he was sitting. "We don't have a lotta time."
"Right," Rudy agreed, relieved that he had the support of both of them. He had no idea what they could face on the way there, and although completing the entire journey from the sky was safer, he was still wary about it, and he was very glad that his two closest friends would be alongside him.
"We'll need to pack some supplies," Penny told him. "Just basic things like food, water, magic chalk…a first aid kit…" She trailed off worriedly.
"Good idea," said Rudy. "I'll go get some water from downstairs. I'm sure we have a first aid kit around too," he added.
"Wait!" Penny hissed in a whisper as Rudy neared the door. He looked at her in confusion. "What about your parents?" she stated worriedly. "You said they might check on you sometime in the night…what will we do if they look in the room and you're gone?"
Rudy thought for a moment, realizing that the scenario Penny had presented them with was a very real possibility. It was still fairly early in the night, and it could be likely that his parents would check in the room around 10:00 or so. Luckily, an idea came to him quickly. "I know!" he whispered back, running to the ChalkZone portal with his magic chalk. Leaning into the portal, he quickly drew something with the chalk on the ChalkZone side, and turned back to the others with two objects in his hands. One was a tiny video camera, and the other a small watch. "Here's what we'll do," he said, briefly pulling in the ladder from ChalkZone to allow him to climb up and set up the camera over his window, so it was overlooking the whole room. Afterward, he pressed a button on the top that made the device vanish, rendering it undetectable to anyone who walked into the room.
"The camera will show me if anyone comes in," Rudy explained. "I'll be able to see what's happening on this watch!" He held it up and then quickly strapped it to his arm. "I'll keep track. This way, if I see them coming into the room, we'll turn around and go to your house, and make up some excuse as to why I was there, okay? And…and if I miss anything, I can just rewind it quickly when we come back and see if my parents came in, and if they did, we'll know if we need an excuse."
"Good idea, Rudy," Penny said, though he could tell she was worried. At least she knew that it would seem a plausible enough excuse, and wouldn't cause her mother to worry about her as well, as she knew there would be no reason for her own mother to check her room during the night. "However, I'm not sure if it'll be able to transmit the video unless you keep the portal open."
Rudy shook his head firmly. "I'm not risking that," he stated. "I'll…leave a tiny bit open on my portable chalkboard." He ran to his desk, picking up the object in question and drawing the tiniest portal he could in one corner. "I'll make sure no one can find this," he stated, opening his closet door and burying it beneath a pile of his other belongings. "That should work," he said. "Let's get the supplies."
Rudy picked up his backpack, pausing to empty his school supplies on the floor near his closet, before reaching into his drawer for his box of magic chalk. It was running a bit low, but that didn't bother him, as he had another hidden supply. He grabbed all the pieces that weren't broken and dropped it back in the drawer before quietly heading out the door to get the water, food, and first aid kit.
Fifteen minutes later, they were all standing beside the heap of numbers beneath Penny's portal, Rudy and Penny each carrying the supplies they needed. To Rudy's relief, the camera idea had worked, and he could see the video screen showing his room clearly on the watch. There was no sign of his parents. Everything was going according to plan.
"Everyone ready?" he asked. The other two nodded, Penny briefly checking the backpack she'd brought from her room. "And you remember the map?" he asked Penny.
"Yes, every detail of it," Penny replied confidently.
"Good," Rudy replied. "Now let's go find those hidden books."
ooo
Rudy held tightly onto the reigns of a gigantic red pterodactyl as they soared over a landscape teeming with color and life, the multi-hued light of the SunsetZone streaming down on them. This hadn't been Rudy's first idea for a travel method, but after Snap had mentioned something about pterodactyl sailing and then remembered that there were some who were used to flying long distances in exotic locations, they had visited a Zoner who owned several of the magnificent creatures. Snap had told them that the pterodactyls that flew over large distances were experts at avoiding dangerous areas, especially ones they knew well, and the Zoner who owned them eagerly lent one to Rudy once he explained why it was needed. At first, Rudy was afraid the mode of transportation would not be fast enough; they needed to follow the landmarks as quickly as possible, but now he knew he needn't have worried. The creature was amazingly fast – startlingly so, even – but not so fast that they missed anything as they peered below. And it knew the areas beyond the mountains by heart; the addition of the sunset sky to the lands in front of them made no difference to it.
Looking down, Rudy could see the strange blue trees he'd seen in the library book, only now much bigger and more numerous, as well as the funny patch of snow he'd taken notice of on his first sighting of the place a week ago. Looking upward, the brilliantly colored sky was even more breathtaking from the air; the vast array of colors seemed to be all around them, bathing everything in a warm orange light. The wings of the pterodactyl stretched to either direction of him, soaring effortlessly on the wind currents, and Penny and Snap sat behind him, both also marveling at the scene around them.
"Here we are!" Snap cried from behind him, resting a hand on Rudy's shoulder, and Rudy could see that they were almost upon the mountains. Beyond the first peaks, he could see where the SunsetZone gave way to normal DayZone again. "Now our journey really begins!" Snap shouted.
Rudy couldn't help but smile, in spite of the dire situation. It was great to see Snap sounding so hopeful, especially after all that had happened. They had gotten a second chance to find the library, and Rudy was determined to make sure it did not go wasted.
For several minutes, they soared over the mountains, passing its peaks and ridges at an astonishing pace. They left the SunsetZone behind, and were once again flying under bright DayZone sunlight. "Look!" Penny cried after a short while, pointing excitedly past Rudy and Snap's shoulders to something beneath them.
Rudy's eyes widened as he realized what it was. A gigantic, crumbling temple ruin appeared from behind a peak as they flew overhead, its five spires jutting up into the sky. "It's just like the one on the map!" he cried, and as the temple faded into the distance with the pterodactyl's astounding speed, he peered ahead, intent to find the rock landmark.
It wasn't long before the end of the mountains came into view, and Rudy guided the pterodactyl lower, knowing that the rocks were likely to be smaller, and they scanned the mountainside until Rudy pointed them out, the circle of rocks looking just as the ones on the map had. From here, they could see the river they were meant to cross, heading straight forward from the point the rocks had been, and beyond that, a desert with several bizarre looking towering stones.
The stone formations proved to be no difficulty to them; as they flew above the desert, they could still see the landscape clearly, as the rocks did not hide it like the ice cliffs had done. Once or twice the pterodactyl had veered off course to avoid some potential danger or other, but thanks to Penny's calculations, they quickly got back on track, finding the next few landmarks with ease.
They then arrived over a strange looking jungle, which Rudy recognized from the photo in the library book. This one was much smaller than the Mumbo Jumbo Jungle, and they had no problem keeping on course there either, with the pterodactyl avoiding any dangerous spots as it carried them above it.
The time flew by as they crossed over the area with the massive lakes, which by now had simply formed one giant one, and luckily the landmark there was still recognizable, and then soared above a land riddled with canyons and odd rock formations. Rudy looked up in amazement as the pterodactyl dove beneath a massive stone arch spanning across one of the largest canyons, then carried them up above again to give them an astounding view of the canyon and the river winding at the bottom of it. All around them were towering masses of stone, each of them banded with bright colors, some that would be impossible to find in the Real World. After a short while they soared even higher, seeing the many canyons snaking below them. "We can see everything from up here!" Rudy cried in exhilaration, grinning as Snap pointed out the next landmark, a massive rock that was shaped a bit like a muffin or cupcake.
After they passed the land of canyons, an odd, flat landscape stretched out before them. The dirt – or sand, or whatever it was – was pitch black, and stretched on far into the distance, the sky above it looking oddly hazy. Rudy felt a sense of awe as he looked at it. This has been the last area on the map before the mountains that held the cave entrance. It had been left blank on the map apart from the landmarks, and now he could see why. There was really nothing that seemed distinguishing about it, though he wished the creator of the map had thought to label his or her drawings. Now, however, it didn't matter. They were on the right course.
As they began to fly over the strange land, Rudy looked down and could make out that the dark substance seemed to be glittering black sand. As soon as he had gotten a good look, the pterodactyl suddenly veered sharply upwards, causing Rudy and his friends to grip onto the reigns tightly. "What was that for?" he asked once they were far above.
"I dunno. Must be some sort of danger down there," Snap replied, peering at the blank landscape below.
Rudy only shrugged, knowing their pterodactyl would know what it was doing, and scanned the area for the landmarks. Even at their speed, it was a little while before one appeared in the distance, an odd shaped jagged rock that towered above the area, standing out starkly against the haze that seemed to fill the air above the place. "Was that on the map?" he asked Penny.
She stared at it a moment before replying, "No…no, that must be new. We should just pass it by."
Rudy nodded, and as they approached, he realized there was something strange about the rock. It took until they soared above it for him to figure out what it was. The massive object wasn't a rock at all, it was a gigantic formation made of the same black sand as the rest of the area, and as they passed overhead, they could see that sand was seeping out of the top, adding onto the formation. Penny remarked that it must seep up from the ground and form these strange towers as it was pushed up to the surface.
"So those things on the map weren't landmarks?" Rudy asked her.
"No, I don't think they were," she replied, "just the formations the traveler saw when they were here. I don't think we need a landmark anyway. We should see the mountain any time."
"Yeah, it's not like a mountain is hard to miss," Snap agreed.
"Exactly," Rudy replied with a nod, his eyes scanning the horizon.
A loud, rumbling sounded from somewhere behind them, and the three turned around to see a gigantic pillar of sand erupting from the wasteland surface like a gigantic geyser. Unlike the slowly seeping sand that formed the strange formations, this was fast and violent, spraying masses of sand in all different directions at its base. They felt the pterodactyl start climbing steadily higher into the air, probably to ensure its safety a bit more. Luckily, the strange 'geyser' was far behind them, and didn't reach high enough that it would have struck them had they been flying over it.
As he turned around, Rudy could finally see the outline of a small mountain range through the haze up ahead. "There it is!" he shouted in excitement, his friends echoing their own exclamations of wonder and relief. "We're almost there…" he said to himself. Now he needed to count on finding those books of old records, and he trusted what Biclops had said about them standing out from the normal books. 'We can do this…' he thought. 'We can save ChalkZone…'
They passed the remainder of the sand wasteland without incident, seeing several more sand formations and a few other geysers, though they were distant. A ways before the foot of the mountains, the wasteland ended to give way to a lush green prairie with a river snaking through it and several exotic ChalkZone plants.
It looked friendly and inviting, but they knew that now was hardly the time to stop and explore. They were rapidly approaching the mountains, which they realized were very small, even without being compared to the Mist Mountains, and a few minutes later their pterodactyl mount began to head downward and alighted gracefully on a peak about halfway up the mountain.
The trio carefully jumped to the ground, looking at their surroundings. The mountain was rocky, but was also covered in trees and vegetation in places. Penny was mildly surprised that it didn't look strange at all. The trees and plants looked like things they usually came across in ChalkZone, and they could even see the familiar sight of eyeball bushes dotted across the slopes. Compared to all the places they'd been to, this one looked 'normal.'
Rudy suddenly remembered that he hadn't been checking the video watch nearly as often as he should have, and in fact hadn't checked for the past hour or so. He glanced at it, and was surprised to find the screen completely blank.
"What's wrong?" Penny asked, seeing his worried look.
"The watch signal's gone," he muttered, watching a small red flashing light that he'd drawn to tell him in case the signal from the camera failed to transmit. "I think we're just too far away."
"Don't worry," she told him, "we can rewind the footage when we get back like you said. If your parents came in during the night…we'll go to my house."
He nodded. However, he didn't feel right about not knowing whether his parents had entered the room or not, and not having the ability to check made him nervous. He dearly hoped for their sake that they hadn't thought to check on him that night. If they saw him gone and panicked, it would be several hours before he'd be able to get back and see them again. He knew that if they had gone to check on him, it would have been before now, probably an hour or so ago. He also realized that they hadn't thought of the possibility of his parents calling Penny's house. He knew they'd have to come up with a different excuse then, and he hoped they would be able to create a believable one if it came to that. He tried to put the thought out of his mind, knowing there was nothing he could do until he got back to his room, but the uneasy feeling still haunted him. He put the watch in his backpack, knowing that he would need to focus on the task ahead, and he followed Penny as she began to walk across a sloping part of the mountainside.
"You stay here an' wait for us, all right?" Snap told the pterodactyl, who obediently settled down and curled up, as if ready to take a nap, on the flat topped peak.
"So where did the map say this entrance was going to be?" Rudy asked, looking around.
"It didn't say," Penny replied. "Just specified a general area. It was on this side of the mountain, likely somewhere along the middle here, near where we are now."
"Well, let's start looking," he replied, and the trio split up, knowing that there wasn't a whole lot of ground to cover, and figuring that it would probably be easy to see the entrance to a relatively large cave.
Rudy had thought about searching from the air, but he realized there was no need. Apart from the occasional tree, the mountain was smooth with little that could block their view of a tunnel entrance. However, as he scanned the mountainside, he saw no sign of any entrance at all. Even after checking behind trees and bushes in case the entrance was unusually tiny, he soon had to admit defeat and meet back with Penny and Snap.
"Find anything?" Snap asked as the trio met up.
"No," Penny responded, sounding confused. "There's no sign of an entrance anywhere, or even that there ever was one. Nothing seems to have caved in, and there's not much it could be covered by, and whatever we saw that could be in the way, we checked."
"Do ya think we went the wrong way again?" Snap asked, giving Rudy a horrified look.
"N-no!" he cried. "It has to be here! I know what I saw in that book!"
"Maybe it's on the other side, then?" Snap suggested.
"No, the map specified that it was this one, facing out toward the way we came," Penny replied, pointing toward the black landscape in the distance they had recently crossed over. "If the entrance is here at all, it's in this area somewhere."
"I don't understand…" Rudy muttered, looking around at all the mountain slopes, realizing that Penny had been right. There was no sign that anything had caved in or that there was ever a tunnel at all; a lot of it was solid rock. "This can't be right!" he cried, running up a slope to get a better vantage point of the surrounding mountain. He was met with a similar sight. Gentle slopes and huge rock walls, but absolutely nothing that could conceal a tunnel. He sank to his knees, giving the area around him a devastated look. They'd come to a dead end.
"Let's take the pterodactyl and circle the mountain," Penny suggested. "That way we can be sure if there's nothing here." She was trying to sound hopeful, but the others could sense the doubt and confusion in her voice.
"Come on!" Snap cried, racing back to where they'd left their mount. The pterodactyl looked up at them as they approached, getting to its feet and stretching its wings as if eager to go for another flight. Snap leaped onto its back, waiting for Rudy and Penny to climb up behind him.
They took off, Snap telling the creature to fly low as they swept up and down the mountainsides, searching for any sign of a tunnel. Yet even after circling the entirety of the small clump of mountains, there was no sign of a cave entrance, or anything it could possibly be hiding behind. Nothing.
With a heavy heart, Snap led the pterodactyl back to its perch, slipping off its back and staring around wildly, desperate to spot something that he knew he wouldn't see. Rudy climbed down after him, not willing to leave empty handed after coming so far. Penny glanced at the other two, having no idea what to say to them.
"We can't just go back," Rudy said after a moment. "Come on, Penny! Let's keep looking!"
Penny slowly climbed down from the pterodactyl's back, following her friends as they began walking, searching the slopes of the mountain with desperate eyes. She looked as well, hoping against hope that her theories on the matter, however logical, were wrong.
"No…no, we can't have come all this way for nothing!" Rudy cried as he was again met with the same sight. "I can't go back a second time without finding anything!"
"You did the best you could," Penny told him. "And…" She tried to sound more optimistic. "We're not done looking yet."
"Of course we're not done!" Snap replied. "Come on, Rudy. If there's no entrance, we'll make one! Let's drill into the mountain and find that cave! If it's big enough to hide most of a library, it should be easy enough to find-"
"Wait!" Penny cried, looking suddenly alarmed as Rudy took out his chalk in response to Snap's statement. "If there's a cave down there, you could cause a collapse that could damage or destroy the books, not to mention…it could collapse on us." She watched as the other two gave each other worried glances, realizing her point. "It's not the same as drilling into the Chalk Mine where you know what the cavern beneath it is like. And…there might not be a cave to find," she finished, unable to stop herself from saying it.
"There has to be!" Rudy yelled. "We followed the map and everything was like it was drawn!"
"Maybe there's another mountain around here somewheres?" Snap muttered. "Maybe we took a wrong turn at those newer sand formations?" As he said it, the three of them looked toward the horizons, but there was no sign of another mountain.
"Maybe there was no hidden library…" Rudy said after a moment, and he was numbly shocked that it had been him to say it. The others did not respond to try to correct him or offer words of hope, which made him feel much worse. He turned his gaze downward, not wanting to meet their eyes.
"We can't give up just yet," Penny told him after a minute, and he looked to her in surprise. "I know there's no sign of an entrance now, but…maybe this landscape changed…at least a bit…" She trailed off, and Rudy knew that she would have realized if the mountains looked different to the drawings on the map, and from her worried expression, he could tell that they didn't. "Let's keep looking," she said firmly. "One more time. To see if there are any signs."
"All right," he replied shakily. He didn't have much hope in her plan, but he was determined to try. He was glad that Penny and Snap seemed eager as they took off in different directions, and he tried to put his doubts about the map and the legend behind him.
Soon the sound of the others' footsteps faded into the distance, and Rudy set off on his own route. This time, he headed toward the foothills of the mountain rather than trying to go further up. When he thought he was far enough down, he peered upward, hoping to see something different in the mountainside from that angle. There was nothing.
Drawing himself a pair of binoculars, he held them to his eyes as he scanned all around him, seeing nothing but brush, trees, and rock. After a moment he gave up and shoved them into his backpack.
Still hoping there was something to his 'looking from down below' idea, he started walking along the lower edge of the mountain, pausing every so often to look up at the slopes overhead. Everything looked much the same, and he was starting to feel silly for having such a strange and pointless idea.
As he walked, he came across a shallow gully a few feet above where he was walking, though it was immediately clear there was no cave entrance in it. He felt infuriatingly frustrated; the gully, apart from the small mountain peaks, was the only place the entrance to a cave might have been concealed from sight if one wasn't looking head-on, but here it was just as empty and flawless as the rest of the mountain. He started to head past it, still glancing upward at the peaks overhead.
As he was doing so, his foot struck a rock and he cried out, leaping on one foot as he gripped his other shoe, nearly stumbling backwards. He heard a worried cry from Penny somewhere up ahead, and he steadied himself, calling back, "Don't worry! It was just a rock!" Looking back at the stone he'd stumbled on, he picked it up momentarily out of curiosity, wondering if it had fallen from somewhere. However, it was smooth and round and obviously hadn't been chipped off the mountain or come from a collapse, and in sheer frustration he hurled it into the nearby gully.
Instead of striking the bottom of it, the rock vanished in midair. Rudy stared in pure shock, and a moment later he shakily picked up a small pebble, tossing it into the gully to be sure he hadn't been imagining things. Once the pebble reached the back end of the gully, it too vanished.
"Penny! Snap!" he cried, glancing up to where his two friends had started to meet back together while carrying out their own searches. Noting his tone of voice, the others could tell he'd found something, and hurriedly ran down toward him.
Rudy, however, wasn't sure what he'd found. Whatever it was, it was certainly out of the ordinary, and he waited until his friends had approached before picking up another pebble. "Watch this," he told them, flinging it toward the gully and watching as it vanished as well.
Penny and Snap stared at the place where the rock had vanished, and then at each other. "You don't think that's the hidden entrance, do ya?" Snap asked after a moment.
"I'm not sure," Penny replied, "but it's certainly something."
"Exactly," Rudy replied. "Let's go."
"Wait," Penny told him, putting a hand on his shoulder and stopping him. "There was no sound of that rock hitting the ground after it vanished. We…we can't be sure it's safe."
Rudy immediately understood her concern, and for a moment he thought of the void that had chased them while they were wandering around the changing building. "Maybe it….keeps sound out too?" he asked. 'Or maybe the tunnel goes so far down we just didn't hear it hit the bottom…' he thought with a shiver.
"I'll go first," Rudy told the others after a few moments. "And I'll…be careful." He could see the others were terrified as he stepped toward the gully, stopping just before the place he'd seen the rock vanish. Taking a deep breath, he reached his hand out in front of him.
He blinked in shock as his hand vanished. He had been expecting it, but the sight was still utterly bizarre. Yanking his hand back, he was relieved to see it still in one piece. He looked to his friends, who seemed somewhat relieved, and then turned back around and carefully edged his foot forward. Even as it vanished before his eyes, he felt solid ground, and, taking a deep breath, walked through the concealing barrier – or whatever it was – to step into what was beyond.
Once he was through, he realized that he could still see the mountain, but the area he was standing in was much different. It wasn't a cave entrance, it was a narrow rock channel, and from what he could see, it snaked quite a ways further around the base of the mountains. There was no danger he could see as he looked around, and he turned to call back at his friends.
"It's okay!" he shouted, only a moment later realizing that they were probably unable to hear him. He stepped back through the invisible barrier, appearing before his very relieved friends.
"Rudy, you're all right!" Snap cried in relief as they ran up to him.
"Yeah, it's all fine," he told them happily. "There's a trail that leads around the mountain, and I think we're meant to follow it." He thought of something else, and asked, "You didn't hear me shout from behind there, did you?" He angled his head toward the gully.
"No, we didn't hear anything," Penny replied. "We were a bit worried something had happened."
"I guess whatever that is and whoever put it there, they really didn't want what was behind it to be found," Rudy stated. "Let's go."
The three walked into the gully, soon emerging into the winding channel that Rudy had first seen. Looking up overhead, he could see the bright blue sky, and he realized that there must be more cloaking devices to keep the channel from being seen from above. He briefly wondered what would have happened if one of them had stumbled into it, or whether there was something there to prevent that happening and the only way someone could enter was through the gully.
"All right, let's see where this leads," Snap stated, taking the lead as he walked along the winding path between the steep rock walls, which extended several feet above their heads.
The going was surprisingly easy, as the rocky ground was smooth and there weren't many places where they had to climb up a slope. The only difficulty was the fact that it was very long and winding, and the trio, who had not had much sleep at all in the past week, not helped by the fact that it was currently the middle of the night, were quickly becoming exhausted. Nevertheless, they continued on, wondering just how far around the mountain they would have to walk.
Up ahead, the tunnel veered sharply to one side, making it impossible to see what lay beyond the turn. A bit wary, Snap peered around it, before stepping back in complete confusion. The others caught up, realizing that the bend ended in a solid rock wall. Rudy ran up to it, running his hands up and down the rock surface, but it was completely solid. There was no cloaking device here.
"Is the entrance sealed up?" Snap asked, sounding alarmed.
"I don't know," Penny responded, perplexed.
"There might be a lever or something somewhere," Rudy called back to them. "There has to be something here. Why else would it be hidden?"
Determined to help, Penny and Snap began searching the area for any sign that there was something they were missing. Rudy took out his chalk, trying to draw an opening in the rock, but all it managed to do was create a shallow tunnel through solid stone that ended with only more rock.
"This isn't the entrance," he stated, walking away and examining the small space in the turn of the path. "It must be around here, though…"
"Maybe it's back along the trail somewhere," Penny suggested. "Maybe whoever put the books here wanted to fool others into thinking the end of the trail was where the cave was hidden."
"Good idea," Rudy replied, glad that she had thought of it. "Let's go back and see if there's any sign of where the entrance could be hidden."
They quickly doubled back, scanning the walls of the channel intently, searching for anything that might give them any indication of where the entrance was. The walls all looked the same, solid dark gray stone, but the trio refused to give up, checking frequently for any illusions that may be hiding what was really there.
For the next fifteen minutes they found nothing, but they were undeterred, moving back further along the channel and knowing that the entrance could be anywhere, even back where they had first started. Then, as Rudy was carefully examining a section of the wall somewhere in the center of the trail, but further back toward where they had started, he spotted something.
On one part of the wall, nearly hidden in the shadow of a ridge made by the rock, was a strange engraving. It was nothing but a simple rectangle, but it was clear that it had been carved at one point. He called the others over, and they quickly searched for any sign of a barrier, finding none. Touching the carving and the area around it had no result either, and the three wondered if it was another possible dead end.
"Wait…" Penny told the others, and they paused in their search to listen. "Step back." Rudy and Snap backed against the opposite wall along with her, examining the wall in front of them. "Do you see it?" she asked. "Those ridges form the corners of a rectangular shape. A door."
Rudy squinted at the wall, and after a moment realized that she was right. It was hard to see and barely noticeable, and the shadows of the light made two of the ridges more visible than the others, but it was there. Curious, he picked up a small pebble and tried to toss it over the rock wall, but it merely bounced back. Just as he'd suspected, there was an invisible barrier above the narrow passage as well as concealment, and it was obvious they weren't meant to climb over. How they were meant to open the door, he had no idea, but there was no need to spend the time figuring it out. Picking up his chalk, he drew a large opening in the wall, and this time, light streamed in when the drawing was complete.
It was daylight, and he was puzzled as he stepped through the rock wall, realizing that there was another path bordered by rock ahead of them. Snap and Penny stepped through after him, Penny remarking that it might not have been a good idea to leave a gaping hole in the rock 'door'. Rudy shrugged and quickly outlined the opening again, sealing it up with rock. He knew that she was worried about the possibility of some ChalkZone creature stumbling in and damaging the library, and she seemed to feel more at ease once the makeshift entrance he had created had been repaired.
They headed off quickly down the new channel, wondering if there was any more trickery they were likely to encounter. Rudy took the lead this time, following the winding path excitedly as he let his hand run across the rock, just in case there were any more invisible passageways. The others followed closely behind, and suddenly the path veered sharply again, and they turned and raced along it to find that they were suddenly standing in a fairly open area.
This place was also rimmed with rock walls, and daylight streamed down into it just as powerfully as it had on the mountainside, though Rudy knew there was no way to see or access the area they were standing in from above. They were on a flat space of ground facing a rock wall taller and wider than the others around it. This, however, was no mere solid wall.
At the base of the cliff was a six foot high opening that was about ten feet wide. A few misshapen stalactites hung down from its mouth, and a damp smell wafted up from it, along with cool air that washed over them, providing a welcome relief after so much walking and hiking in the DayZone sun. The jagged opening was pitch black, and from what they could see, it led sharply downward, far into the earth. The three friends felt a sense of awe as they looked at it, surprised to have come upon it so suddenly after so many disappointments and failed search attempts. Rudy moved closer, his voice almost shaking as he stared at what he'd thought, only less than an hour before, he would never find.
"This is it," he stated. "This is the entrance to the hidden library."
