Chapter 25! We've reached the estimated halfway mark.
Finland: It's pretty amazing how far this story has come.
Iceland: Reviews time. Apparently, everyone was quite entertained by Denmark in the last chapter.
Finland: Yeah, he says some pretty strange things sometimes. Well, let's start Chapter Twenty-Five!
The next morning, or at least they hoped it was morning, the nations and micronation gathered for a quick breakfast.
"Whatcha got in there?" Denmark asked Estonia, who was browsing through his kitchen cupboard.
The bespectacled Baltic took out a raisin danish. "Danishes, danishes and more danishes," he sighed, tossing it to Denmark.
"You mean... all we have in the kitchen is a lifetime's supply of danishes?" the Dane questioned.
Estonia retrieved nine more assorted danishes. "Well, yes..."
"AWESOME!" Denmark cheered, biting into his pastry.
Estonia carried the stack of danishes to one of the dining tables and dumped them onto a plate Lithuania had pieced together using his plate shards. "Here you go, Danish free-for-all," he announced to the waiting group, "I'm sorry I couldn't find anything else to eat in this mansion."
Norway shrugged and took a plain danish. "Well, it's better than nothing," he said pointedly.
Lithuania recalled that Estonia had found a box of unbaked plain danishes earlier. "Did you come up with all these from that box of plain danishes you found?" he asked, picking a jam danish.
"I had to do something while waiting for you to come back then," Estonia pointed out.
There was a brief silence as the remaining danishes disappeared off the temporarily repaired plate and were polished off. Lithuania carefully washed the plate shards in the toilet Estonia and Sweden had installed in the back of the room, wrapping them up in his handkerchief before returning to the table.
"Alright, let's begin our conference," he declared, "Who's going to speak first?"
Finland raised his hand. "That monster... It looked like an alien friend of America's, doesn't it?"
"You have a point there," Estonia agreed. "What if this is just America messing with us? He told us all about this place, after all."
Lithuania shook his head. "No, it's not Tony. I know America's alien friend well; he would never attack me like Steve did. Sure, Tony would beam me up to his ship every once in a while when I was working at America's but he likes me."
"He'd what?"
"That means 'merica had nothin' to do with St've," Sweden concluded.
"Yeah, I guess we can't blame him for this whole mess," Finland agreed, "He had no idea. But if that's the case..."
"...we're in bigger trouble." Iceland finished his statement. "This is no harmless prank to get us into trouble. This house really is haunted... in a sense."
"Yeah, by a insane alien creature named Steve out to kill us all," Denmark added.
He earned yet another Norwegian smack on the back of his head.
"Well, this totally sucks." Poland pulled a face. "Now we're, like, stuck in here with no way out. This is all his fault!"
"But Poland, you dragged the three of us halfway over here," Estonia recalled.
"Denmark dragged the whole lot of us over too," Iceland huffed, "Except for Sealand. He demanded- get this, he demanded- to be taken along with the rest of us."
"Oi! I had no idea there was a bloody insane monster in here that wanted to kill us!" Sealand defended himself.
"Never mind that," Lithuania cut in. "There's only one way we're ever going to escape; we have to work together."
"Ja, that's our best course of action at this point in time," Norway agreed, "We have been splitting up quite a few times in the past day. Let's try not to separate from each other for too long in the foreseeable future."
"Hey!" Latvia, who hadn't spoken in the past fifteen minutes, finally broke his silence.
Estonia turned to him. "Yes? Do you want to add anything?"
Latvia shifted uneasily in his chair. "Well, you see... There's something I want to tell you."
"Sure, go ahead." Lithuania made a 'go on' gesture.
"Then... can you all go down to the basement with me?" Latvia requested, "I... I can't talk if I'm up here."
"Why?" Poland tilted his head in curiosity, "This place is, like, totally safe for talking in! Why would you want to talk in that dark, dirty basement?"
Latvia shot up from his chair. "You don't understand! It's really important. There's something I wanted to pick up down there, too. So please... I just want to talk."
Estonia adjusted his glasses. "I see. I guess there's something I want to do down there too."
"Huh? What?"
"The corridor with the burnt rope ladder," Estonia replied. "I think I saw something on the ground when I fell down but I couldn't pick it up then. I was considering going back to look for it."
"Alright then." Lithuania stood up and headed towards the exit. "We'll just look around for a bit, then we'll come back here."
"Yeah!" Latvia burst out, then caught himself. "...Thank you."
The group followed Estonia and Latvia back down to the basement.
"I want to take a look over there." Estonia pointed down the corridor leading to the burnt rope ladder. "It should be somewhere on the floor."
"I think some of us should keep watch," Iceland offered, "We all know Steve has been here, so we might as well keep a lookout while the others do their search."
It was quickly agreed that he, Norway, Sealand and Poland would standby to keep watch over the basement while the rest of the nations followed Estonia down the corridor.
Estonia was carefully scanning the stone floor using the flashlight function on his phone. He appeared to be scrutinising ever single crack in the floor, as if they all had something to hide.
"What's the matter, Estonia?" Lithuania asked out of curiosity.
Estonia halted his search, straightening up to face Lithuania. "Well, it's just that I want to find that thing that tripped me up back then as well."
Lithuania nodded in understanding. "Taip. Someone else could trip over it and fall over."
"My point exactly. However..." Estonia frowned, switching his phone's flashlight off and slipping it into his shirt pocket. "I can't find a single vine or stone anywhere on the floor..."
"You're right, this floor is spotless!" Finland, who often had a good eye for things lying around on the floor, agreed. "That's strange. Basement floors aren't supposed to be this clean."
"It's dark 'n here," Sweden pointed out, "Try lookin' a little m're carefully."
Estonia made an annoyed noise. "I'm sure it was right here," he objected, gesturing at the ground in front of him, "but there's nothing on the ground. No vine, no stone, nothing."
Latvia, who was behind him, fidgeted nervously.
That's right... Even if we searched the whole place, we'd never find anything. But when Estonia fell, there would always be something wrapping around his foot... It's as if...
"It's like someone tripped you up or something," Denmark suggested.
Estonia glanced away. "Actually, now that I think about it, I was just assuming it was a vine but..." He shuddered. "It was like... someone under the floor was grabbing my ankle..."
Finland blanched. "Can we stop talking about this now?"
Sweden folded his arms. "Ya sayin' a hand came out 'f the ground 'nd grabbed your foot..."
"...and tried to drag into the ground," Denmark finished. "Man, that's so freaky!"
"Ahh! Stop! It could have been my imagination!" Estonia burst out. "There's nothing wrong with this basement. Let's leave it at that!"
"Indeed!" Lithuania hurriedly agreed. "Let's move on to whatever Latvia wanted to tell us about, shall we?"
Latvia perked up. "Hmm? Oh! The cell I found Poland and the others in. That's where we're going."
"Understood." Lithuania headed back down the stone corridor. "Let's forget about this and move on."
"Right..." Estonia sighed.
Everyone left the tunnel behind one by one. Estonia was about to leave too, when he noticed Latvia glancing around the place.
"You seem like you're looking for something," he noted.
Latvia froze. "Eh?! It's, um... nothing."
Estonia noticed something by his foot. "What's this?" he wondered, finding a piece of metal on the floor. It was about the size of his palm, moulded into a wavy shape. "That's strange, this wasn't here before..."
Latvia caught his breath at the sight of the metal piece.
"Ah, so this is what I saw earlier," Estonia figured, turning it over in his hands. "It could be useful. I'll take it along."
"Yeah..." Latvia reluctantly agreed.
Iceland: You know, we should have cut it off a little later than this.
Finland: Yes, but I thought the next part could use a little waiting time.
Iceland: Fine.
Finland: Don't forget to review!