First Test

Annoying fun house music lit up the air as the team entered the first room of the ruins. Presently, they found themselves in a battle with monsters. It appeared to be a duo of zombified clowns. Virginia shot the first one, but it didn't die right away. Jet came to her aid, finishing the monster off. Gallows and Clive killed the second. Suddenly, another attacked them from behind, almost about to bite Virginia or to dig its claws into her back. Jet ran up to her instantly, and body checked her. But he was unsuccessful at fully dodging the oncoming attack, and the monster bit his arm. Down he went, right to the floor of the ruins.

"JET!!!!" screamed Virginia, "You demons will pay for that!" With that, the angry female Drifter used her Gatling on the monster, killing it. Then, she turned to Jet. The wound was pretty deep, and blood had spilled onto the floor. Clive, ever the resourceful scientist, was busily tying up the arm with a strip of cloth he'd seen fit to bring along. Gallows, in the meantime had been dispatching of another clown zombie with his own Gatling. Turning around, the Baskar saw the unfortunate condition their ally was in right now.

"Is he poisoned Clive?" asked Gallows. Indeed he was, his face beginning to turn purple. Taking his own part in the recovery process, Gallows pulled out an antidote, and gave it to Jet. But although he was no longer poisoned, Jet had lost a lot of blood. They needed to heal him, from the looks of it they would need a Potion or Mega Berry. Else they'd lose him so soon after entering this ruin of humiliation and death.

Virginia ran up to him, and stated, "I'll give him an item. This is too big a wound to use magic on, and I'm the one who attached the Dried Flower to my Medium. So I would be the best choice to use it on him, since Green Thumb doubles recovery items' power." With that, she pulled out a Mega Berry, taking no chances as to losing him. Through its power, the wound began to close, and the flow of blood stopped.

Jet woke up, and saw his allies had just saved his life. A few months ago he would have told them he didn't need their sympathy, or he could have recovered on his own. But this wasn't a couple of months ago, this was right now. Not that he was totally polite either, he still didn't like showing his emotions to anybody, even his friends. "We'd better move onwards, the sooner I'm out of this place, the better for all of us." The youth got up off the floor, and began to walk towards the only door in the room, cursing the ruins.

"That punk," muttered Gallows, "Not even a 'thank you'. We did save his life, if nobody intervened he'd be dead at the moment. I'm gonna pound him when we finally get out of here." He looked to Virginia and Clive, both whom didn't seem to share Gallows's sentiments. They simply sighed after he spoke.

"Well, it is a great deal more polite than he would have been when we first met. After all, he didn't yell at Virginia for not watching her back, nor did he try to push us away for helping him out. All in all, I'd say that Jet has made monumental improvements in the past few months," Clive told the Baskar youth.

Virginia added, "Besides, if you start a fight Jet will only remind you that you're the one who got us into this mess in the first place. And he'll do it in a much ruder tone than we heard from him just now. So let's just count our blessings that he's ok, I didn't heal him for a thank you. I healed him because he's my friend. If he died, I'd be sad." With that, she began running after Jet. Clive and Gallows followed shortly.

. . .

Before long, they came to the first puzzle. It appeared to be of a large clown with a sledge hammer. Under the hammer, was a squished clown, flat as a pancake. Gallows began to laugh at it. "This is the first puzzle?! It's just a stupid statue. Too big to move, no switches on it. What are we supposed to do now?"

You must make me laugh, a voice rang through their mind, Take the hammer and make me laugh. You two! Perform a comedy routine for me now. He pointed right to Gallows and Jet. Instantly, the unfortunate Baskar began to cringe, if Jet was his partner for this comedy routine, then he was a dead man.

"So, I've got to do something with the hammer. It's too big for humans to use you idiot! How can I pick it up, let alone use it to squash Gallows?" Jet screamed. Suddenly, a smaller hammer fell from the sky and onto Jet's foot. Gallows's expression of terror turned to one of amusement, maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Jet was hopping around on one foot, forgetting his dignity over the immense pain he now felt.

Gallows called, "Hey! Jet, hop over here. Maybe if I break both your feet, you'll learn to thank us when we do something nice for you. Consider this your punishment!" Virginia turned her eyes, this was about to get really ugly. She knew Jet wouldn't take comments like that one lying down, he'd get angry.

Jet stopped hopping around and grabbed the hammer. Then, he lifted it high over his head, and kabonged Gallows over his own. The former priest began running as the very angry treasure hunter chased him throughout the room. Virginia looked once, and turned away again. 'I knew it, it was gonna get ugly."

Suddenly, after Gallows had crashed into the statue, the door began to open. Jet threw down the hammer, muttering about how Gallows deserved it for the comment and for getting them into the mess in the first place. Virginia used Heal to fix Gallows up, and then forced Jet to sit down for one moment, she'd given him that look again, the begging look that Jet could never refuse. If he did, then she'd never leave him alone.

"Take of your shoe," she ordered him, "I have to look at your foot to make sure it is going to be ok now." He did just that, and she looked at the bruise he'd gotten from the hammer. Again, she used Heal on his wounds, and then helped Jet to his feet. Gallows was about to snicker, but wasn't in the mood to get hit over the head with another hammer. Jet wasn't one you were supposed to anger, he'd get you back easily.

"Now that this is all settled, we should continue onwards. Perhaps the next puzzle will involve, shall we say, less violent humor. For I've just began to figure out why this is called the Clown Ruins, everything from the monsters to the tricks involves humor or clowns. That's why the door opened, Virginia falling over Jet was considered humor by the lock," Clive deduced. He began lifting his glasses of the bridge of his nose and letting them fall, just like he did any time he was thinking. Then, Clive looked at the other three Drifters.

Virginia said, "I say we get going right away. The sooner we finish, the sooner we get back to Leila. I don't know about you, but for a place involving clowns, this sure is terrifying." Clive and Gallows agreed, they were used to the fun loving people you see at carnivals and circuses. Jet had no opinion, he'd never gone to one of those events before. So after getting situated, the four continued onwards through the ruins.

- - - -

Teefa's Last Words…

Don't ask about all the clowns. I was just traumatized by Ronald McDonald when I was a kid. I mean, he popped out from under the beds of the children in the commercials, I was afraid of him doing that to me. Those commercials came out when I was at the age where you believe in a monster under the bed. At least it doesn't affect my life. My sister doesn't like to go in the basement at night, since she's afraid of a Leprechaun coming out of an old trunk; even though her boyfriend room down there. And when she was a kid, after seeing Hook for the first time, she thought Captain Hook was going to come in through our bedroom window and kidnap her, so she made me close the windows on a hot summer day.