Apriltober 2020 17 Dig Dug
a/n: Tobias and crew are hunting for treasure, arrrrrr. Cont. from 14-16.
All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.
It was a good thing that Veven and Graham hustled over to meet Tobias. There was no telling what would have happened if they'd played the cowards, but they were obedient to his whistle. Tobias was already pacing away from the main gate, scuffing the dirt with his feet, trying to see if any of the tiles in the roadway looked promising.
Veven stood at the gate, tiny arms crossed. "You're doing it wrong, but what do I know?"
"What DO you know?" shouted Tobias over his shoulder.
"How big are your paces compared to to to a Nopon's bounce, hmmm?"
Tobias swore softly and stomped back to the gate. "Move," he ordered Veven. "84 paces."
"I am not a Nopon," shrilled the Ma-non.
"You're the closest we got, unless we have Graham crawl alon... GRAHAM GET OUT OF THE DIRT!"
"But I think I saw another kiwegg!"
"I swear you two are like a pair of toddlers. You, 84 paces," he said, pointing at Veven. "And you. Get your tucchus over here because we're gonna need parts of you in ..." (he watched Veven) "... 78 more steps."
"Shhh. I do need to to to to keep track a little," Veven snapped. If he expected Tobias to follow meekly, he would have been disappointed, but at least the two humans followed quietly. "Eighty, eighty-one..."
"Far enough," Tobias announced. The roadway had changed a few steps back. The tiles had switched from the regular grey and wired Ganglion design to something that was clearly more Nopon in manufacture. As Tobias swept them with the toe of a combat boot, faint impressions of leaves and other natural items were revealed in the brick-hard adobe paving. The traces spurred Tobias on to greater effort and within a few minutes he had a picnic sized area cleared.
"That's kind of pretty," Graham offered. "What now?"
"Veven, the goggles." Tobias ignored the reluctant Ma-non who sighed as he removed his precious accessory. Instead, he kept his eye on the twitching human.
"You know, I bet you remember what it was without seeing it again," offered Graham.
"Suck it up, buttercup," growled Tobias, his hand hard on Graham's shoulder, pushing him downward so Veven could reach his head. The alien wrapped the thick plastic straps around Graham's clammy skull and adjusted the metal disks over his eyes. When the accessory pinged cheerfully and Graham gasped uncheerfully, Tobias pushed harder until Graham was bent over, facing the ground. A shadow flickered on the flagstone, wavered, and resolved itself into a map.
There was the river and lake that they'd flown to. There was an incomplete sketch of the canyons that led to the fortress. The schematics of the gate area had been detailed, including the pacing.
"Please, it really sets off my migraines," whimpered Graham.
"Shut it." Tobias squatted to examine the map. "We got the location, but I'm not feeling like digging the whole thing up. I bet there's gotta be a little more going." He pointed to the decorated edge. Leaves and bugs chased each other around the sides of the map, with signature pawmarks and other Noponese symbols. "Can you read their lingo?"
"Yes, and no," Veven said. He was crouched even lower, not because of his diminutive status, but because he was struggling to see a thing closer than the end of his snout. "Noponese symbols, yes, but this isn't actual writing. I think you have to to to find the tiles that match and follow them, if you follow?"
A mad game of match the map to the sidewalk followed. Tobias shoved a increasingly distressed Graham back and forth across the patterns. He wasn't heartless; the new shift of guards was due in a short time, and while Tobias was fine with shooting them just as he did the first detail, alarms would be raised. They were so close. He pushed Graham a little harder, and the man fell to his knees.
"Please, for the love of Mike!" he begged.
"Come on, you got it in you. You can stick it out, man," Tobias said with harsh encouragement.
"Enough!" shouted Veven, his voice squeaking at a pitch that set grex howling for miles. He walked over to Graham and yanked the goggles off his head. The map vanished. Graham crumpled in a sweaty heap, breathing hard and rocking back and forth.
"Don't tell me you feel sorry for him," Tobias said. He was sweating a little himself. Graham's misery had been contagious.
"I feel sorry for me," replied Veven, squishing the goggles back into their rightful place. He patted and twisted them for a moment, then dashed over to a corner of the tiles. "Watching you was so so so disappointing, okay? What I could see, anyway."
"I need that map to find the X that marks the spot," Tobias said.
"I'll give you X. Y and Z, if you ask nicely, maybe?" Veven started to dance across the tiles, skipping over the impression of a flower, tapping twice on a leaf, twirling and jumping over what was possibly the ghost of a shell of Graham's adored kiwegg. "You can be content with doing things haphazardly, but I figured out the pattern." Veven made one last back-flip and landed with his tiptoes on a tile with the symbol of what looked like a cross between a bunch of grapes and a walnut. "Here is where you need to dig."
"Genius. Absolutely genius." Tobias checked that Graham was still breathing, then pulled out an entrenching tool. "But if I dig and find nothing, I'm burying both of you."
a/n: Let's hope they find the dingus.
Next up: One more for this group, because I need to cool off. After that, Celica and Hope, because somebody gave me a suggestion, yayyyyy!