Chapter Sixteen: Jungle Landing
"Alright, before we go any further, let me just… try to figure this out a little better…" Business muttered, flipping back through his notes.
"Maybe this one won't be as puzzle-based as the others?" Emmet suggested. Business looked back up at him.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, 'lend a helping hand' makes me think that it's hinting at teamwork," the construction worker said with a shrug.
"There is a lot of space to cover here," Benny mused. "Did anyone think to bring radios?"
"What are ye thinkin', lad?"
"Well, if Emmet's right and this is gonna be a 'team effort' sort of thing, the solution must be something pretty wide-spread, judging by the size of this place. We might just have to split up, and we'll need a way to keep in contact with each other." The friends turned to look at each other, each of them shaking their heads. "I guess we didn't then," Benny sighed.
"Hey Sirius, you brought that case with you, right?" Lucy asked suddenly.
"I did," he answered.
"Good. I'll be right back." She jogged back through the tunnel. Business dropped himself to the ground, propping his notepad against one knee and using his free hand to look through the photos on his phone.
"There's got to be something more to this than just that one line. There were a lot more hints for the desert temple," he muttered. "What am I overlooking?"
He hadn't made any progress by the time Lucy returned, seven small radios in hand. "Are we ready to get started?" she asked, handing them out.
"As we'll ever be, I guess," Business sighed, getting back to his feet and brushing dirt from his pants.
"How are we going to find our way around?"
"I can help with that," Unikitty said. "The magic is stronger here than in the temple- I can feel it flowing through here, like a river. It can be our guide."
"Perhaps ye better lead the way then, Princess," Metalbeard suggested, stepping aside to let her pass. Her expression was set in concentration and determination, and as they followed, Business took pictures of every notable view he could find. She paused at the first branch in the path, looking between the two as she decided which way to try first. After a minute she went to the left, crossing the fallen log that formed a bridge across the ravine, carefully testing that it hadn't rotted too much to hold her weight.
"Seems pretty solid," she informed them after she'd made it halfway across and bounced a few times.
"I dunno lass, not sure I want to be takin' me chances with that," Metalbeard hesitated.
"That's okay, I can help!" Benny chirped, and perched himself on his best friend's shoulder.
"Thank ye, Benny," the captain said, and carefully stepped onto the log. When it didn't crackle under his weight, or give any other sign that a giant cyborg was standing on it, he continued across with a little more confidence. "Um, why don't ye just… stay there til we be gettin' this place figured out?"
Benny snickered. "Sure thing."
"Oh! Look over there!" Unikitty bounced excitedly before bolting off. The others hurried to keep up with her. She came to a stop by a pedestal that had a stylized handprint on it.
"Oh, for…" Bad Cop started to chuckle, even as Unikitty snorted in attempt to hold back her own giggles. "'Lend a helping hand'… I'd say that's pretty obvious what they meant, now."
"Are you kidding me?" Business growled in disbelief amongst the others' amusement. "It was a pun the whole time?!"
"You got something against puns?" Lucy teased.
"Hey, I can appreciate a joke as well as anyone, but this is supposed to be the most advanced civilization ever, what are they doing leaving puns as clues?"
Emmet shrugged, still grinning. "They were human too."
Business rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Alright, back to the task at hand. I think this is evidence enough that Emmet was right- there must be more of these scattered all throughout here. Thoughts?"
"Maybe we have to touch all of them at once?" Benny suggested, finally bringing his cackling under control. "Or even in a certain order?"
"Maybe there's some more clues on the door," Lucy continued. "We should probably find that first."
"I think I'll be staying here then," Bad Cop said. "Whichever the case, it would make sense to leave one of us at each one we find."
"You have a point," Unikitty nodded. "Alright! That's what we'll do then! On to the next!" She bounded back across the log bridge, the others running to keep up. Bad Cop chuckled to himself as he watched them go, taking the opportunity to relax. It was a little disappointing that staying meant missing out on seeing the rest of the ravine, but of all of them, he and Metalbeard were the only ones really suited to long periods of solitude. Besides, it would give Keelan more of an opportunity to explore, since his first time switching in had been cut short so abruptly.
"You sure Bad Cop's gonna be okay, staying there all by himself?" Emmet asked, glancing back over his shoulder in the direction they had left.
"He'll be fine," Business assured. "This isn't exactly the countryside he's used to, but I daresay he'll make himself plenty comfortable. And since Lucy made those radios, he can at least still talk to us."
"I don't think there's anything dangerous here anyway," Benny continued. "We haven't come across anything trying to kill us yet, except maybe those sky pirates." Emmet snickered at that.
"I guess you're right. I guess I'm just uneasy, being some place like this. This is the first I've ever spent any real length of time out in nature, you know? Up until Lucy busted me out of the Melting Chamber, I'd never even been outside of Bricksburg!"
"Come to think of it, this isn't really all that different from the forests I used to play in back home," Lucy said, taking Emmet's hand. "Not quite as peaceful as the bamboo forest, there's an energy I'm not really used to, but that might just be from the all the magic Unikitty says is here."
"I think that's the first time I've ever heard you talk about your home," Emmet said, swinging their arms. She gave him an apologetic smile.
"I don't really like to think about it. I haven't been back since I was twelve." Emmet looked like he wanted to ask, but stopped himself before the question made it into words. Lucy gave his hand a grateful squeeze. "I'll tell you someday. Just… not yet. I'm not ready yet."
They continued on in silence for some time, simply listening to the sounds of birds singing and insects buzzing- no mosquitos though, much to their relief. Emmet slowly started to relax. "This isn't so bad," he decided after a while.
"Aye, tis pleasant here."
"How you doin', B?" Benny radioed. "Holding up okay?"
"We're doing just fine, Ben," he responded after a minute. "Is something the matter?"
"Nah, just checking in, it's been a bit. We haven't found another of those pedestals yet, or the door."
"…It hasn't even been half an hour yet. You said yourself there's a lot of ground to cover. Have some patience."
"Goodness, Benny, can't even go half an hour without hearing his voice?" Unikitty quipped. That got some interesting reactions out of the group. Metalbeard burst into laughter as Benny turned bright red, hunching his shoulders. Business rolled his eyes, Lucy wheezed, and Emmet simply looked lost.
"What's so funny?"
"Emmet, you are my new best friend now," Benny huffed and floated over to the construction worker. "The rest of you? You're all jerks. You better not breathe a word to him." That just prompted more laughter, and Emmet pouted.
"Seriously, I don't get it…"
"Never you mind," Benny soothed. "It's not important."
It wasn't long after that they found a second pedestal, leaving Metalbeard behind. Unikitty pranced ahead, smirk still firmly in place as Benny tagged along at the end, arms folded across his chest. He stayed with the third just to get away from them.
The remaining four made their way deeper into the ravine, the light growing dimmer as they descended. There were fewer pre-existing bridges in the lower levels, making it more difficult to get back and forth across the swamp they could now see at the very bottom. Finally, they hit a dead end. "How are we supposed to get across?" Business asked, frowning.
"I have an idea," Lucy said, and headed back up the path. Emmet and Business watched her go with curiosity. A minute later they heard a sharp CRACK! and a dead tree trunk came flying back down the path. Emmet yelped and tackled Business out of the way. He stared back up at Emmet, wide-eyed.
"That was a close call." Emmet just nodded, too surprised to speak, and let him back up. Lucy came back, humming to herself, and hefted the trunk from where it landed in a bed of ferns. "Watch where you're throwing things!"
"Quit whining," she shot back, laying the log across the gap. "I made us a bridge, didn't I?"
"After you nearly hit me with it!"
"Alright children, settle down," Unikitty said. "Don't make me turn this adventure around!"
"As if," Lucy scoffed, following her across the log. On the other side, a set of stairs was carved into the stone. Unikitty raced ahead, bolting up the stairs and further down the path.
"There's another one right up here!" she yelled back. The three humans glanced at each other.
"So who's staying behind this time?" Business asked.
"I will," Lucy offered. "I just hope there's enough of us to man all of these pedestals we keep finding."
"We really should work on finding that door," Business sighed. "Maybe it'll show how many of them there are around here."
"Be careful," Emmet told her, giving her a hug. She smiled and pecked his cheek.
"I'll be fine." She climbed up the stairs, taking Unikitty's place at the pedestal. "So Business just brought up a pretty good point."
"What's that?"
"You three should probably work on finding the door the clue told us about, he thinks maybe it'll show how many of them there are. I mean, how do we even know there's enough of us to solve it?"
"That is a good point…" Unikitty hummed. "Well, okay. I never know what the magic is leading to, but we'll stop leaving people behind until we know how many there are! If we find more pedestals before we find the Thing, we'll just come back to them later!"
"Guuuys I'm bored," Benny complained over the radio. "How many more are there to find?"
"We're working on finding that out now," Lucy responded. "We just found a fourth and I'm staying put, the other three are going to try to find the door, Business thinks it might have some sort of indication of how many there are. Which is a good idea cause we're starting to run out of people now."
"I thought that's what we were doing in the first place?" Bad Cop asked.
"Unikitty can't distinguish what the magic is leading to, there's no indications of what's at the end until we actually reach it. They're going to stick together until they find the door, though. Hopefully it's not much further away." Lucy sat on the ground, settling in to wait, and continued just chatting with the rest of their group scattered through the ravine.
It was nearly an hour and a half later that they finally reached the very end of the path. "What do you know, it actually is a door," Business muttered to himself. A large one at that, with the same hand symbol as the pedestals in its center, a ring around it with Atlantean number-glyphs, six in all.
"Huh," Unikitty said, tilting her head to the side. "That… can't be coincidence."
"What I was just thinking," Business agreed. He pressed his palm to the symbol and it started to glow. The ring began to rotate, each glyph lighting up in turn as it completed its rotation. "Benny, I think you were right about having to press them in order."
"But how do we know what order to press them in?" Metalbeard asked.
"Hang on a minute…" Business turned to Unikitty and Emmet. "Unikitty, can you take Emmet back to the second to last pedestal? Then go to the last one yourself? I have an idea how to tell which ones are which, but it will require someone being at each one."
"Got it!" she chirped. "Come on, Emmet! We're almost done!"
"Thank goodness for that…" After a few minutes, he broke the silence with an "I'm in position." It was another twenty before Unikitty finally announced she was in place.
"Alright, everyone. When I call your name, touch your pedestal, and I'll tell you which light you are on the door. Bad Cop?" A moment, then one of the lights glowed. "Alright, you're three. Metalbeard." A pause. "You're one. Benny? …You're six. Lucy- you're two. Emmet, you're four, so Unikitty, you're five. Everyone ready?" There was a chorus of affirmations, and he pressed his hand to the symbol once more, calling out each other number as its corresponding light lit up. Unlike the test run, the lights continued to glow at the others' touches, and finally as it passed the sixth light, there was a clunk and the door slid away. "Got it!" he cheered. "Alright everybody, get down here!" It took a while for them all to gather once again, as Metalbeard and Bad Cop especially had quite a ways to go.
One by one they filed through the door. "I wonder if this is another section of the temple," Business mused.
"I can feel the magic so much more strongly here, guys!" Unikitty gasped. "Gosh, it's almost giving me a headache, there's so much of it!" They entered another chamber, and just like the entrance, torches lit up to allow for some visibility. Unikitty closed her eyes in concentration and her horn began to glow, brighter than they'd ever see it before- likely in response to the magic of the place. Blue light swirled around them. Shapes began to form in the light, many of them Atlantean glyphs, but in the center of the room a massive shape took form.
"What is that?" Emmet asked. "Is that supposed to be a… a cave?"
"An island," Benny informed him.
"A floating island," Metalbeard specified with a groan of dismay. He pointed out little animated bits falling off of it. "Those be waterfalls, I bet ye."
"That does pose a problem," Lucy agreed. "Sure, Bad Cop has his flying car, and Benny has his spaceship, but even both of them together aren't going to be big enough to carry all of us up there."
"What if we combined them?" Bad Cop suggested. "I know Metalbeard has enough spare parts lying around to add to that, so we could likely Build something about the size of my battleship."
"Oh! That could work!" Benny bounced.
"Aye, actually, it could," Metalbeard agreed, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "So all we have now is an image of a floating island. No directions on how to get to it?"
"That's actually what these glyphs are," Business pointed out. "They're numbers- coordinates. Latitude, longitude… Altitude." He pulled out his notebook and scribbled them down for Metalbeard to see. The captain retrieved a map from his chest, spreading it out on the floor, and looked at the notepad. He hummed to himself as he searched for the location they pointed out.
"Oh ye've gotta be bloody kidding me," he groaned, snatching his hat off his head and throwing it on the ground. "It's got to be a prank!"
They leaned over the map to see what he was griping about, only to see the location he'd circled was in the dead center of the three trials they had already completed. "Three trials forming a triangle, with the fourth in the middle… if I be right, we've been sailing right around Atlantis all this time!"
"That's…!" Bad Cop looked ready to start snarling, then eased the angry tension out of his posture. "Devious, really. Clever."
"But important," Unikitty said. "The other two had magic generators- so does this one. Turning them on might be important to actually reaching Atlantis. Each creates a lot of power on its own, but if this last temple has one too, well, maybe it'll take all four to raise Atlantis above the water again. The keys, too. So we haven't been doing this for nothing."
"Well, let's get that generator going and get the key," Bad Cop said. "No telling how close those sky pirates are to catching up to us now. I wouldn't be surprised if they were back at the entrance waiting for us already."