Rock Raider: Yeah, I have some plans similar for when the worlds start to come together. Though those are really great ideas! Zombie card guards… Who would've thought?
Page Nine"What the-" Alice glanced around the room, a confused expression on her face. "Now how on earth did I end up here?"
"It's because the chapter finished," Alex replied.
"Finished? What?" The young Roivas handed the Tome over to Alice, its pages turned to Ellia's chapter. Alice quickly skimmed the last few paragraphs. "Blimey, so it did." She frowned, looking over the entire thing.
"Something wrong?"
Alice stared at the page for a moment. "We weren't mentioned."
"It might have something to do with the fact that that wasn't our chapter," Alex replied with a grin.
"Perhaps," Alice replied. "So where's the next chapter page?"
"So impatient…" Alex said, grinning wider and shaking her head. "I don't know, look around the room. Maybe it's hidden somewhere." Glancing around, she saw a strange flickering glow illuminating the room, yet she couldn't determine its source. That certainly wasn't here before, she thought to herself.
"Candles," Alice remarked, staring at a small shrine similar to the shrines from the chapter. "I wonder what significance they hold. But I don't remember them being here before, do you?"
Alex shook her head, walking over to the altar. A picture behind it showed the setting sun. Of the three candles, the first two were lit, depicting the exact opposite of the picture. "If I'm right," she muttered to herself, picking up the centre candle and lighting the last one from its flame, "then all we need to do is…" After blowing out the first and second candles so that only the last one remained lit, a compartment underneath the shrine opened up. "Aha."
"There's some sort of… package, or… or… A message tube?" Alice handed the cylindrical object she had found in the revealed compartment to Alex. "What do you suppose we're supposed to do with that?"
"There's something inside," the Roivas noted. She opened it up and pulled out a page made out of the same yellowing parchment as the Tome was. "Another chapter, perhaps?"
"Well, what does it say?" Alice asked excitedly.
"I think you're enjoying this a bit too much," Alex remarked dryly. She picked up the Tome, which Alice had set on the floor earlier, and set the page inside it. The torn edges sewed itself back into place, and the familiar whirl of colours appeared on the page. The two girls each placed a hand on the vortex, letting the colours sweep them away in its depths.
They next found themselves on top of a wooden platform above the corrosive lake, a long rope a few feet away from them. The platform was small but sturdy, though when Alex looked around, she found nothing but dead ends.
"Where do you suppose we go from here?" she asked Alice.
"Do you see that lower set of platforms over there?" Alice pointed directly to the right, indicating the platforms leading to Yür Mine. Alex nodded. "Well, that seems like our best bet. We could probably reach there with this rope." Alex looked down at the murky liquid below them, then nodded again somewhat nervously. "You first."
"What?" Alex gasped. "There's no way… I mean, I can't-"
"Go!"
The next thing the Roivas knew, she was being pushed off the ledge by her dark-haired friend. Out of instinct, she flung out her arms and grabbed onto the rope, though not as quick as she would've hoped. A sudden yelp escaped her mouth as her left foot sunk into the hissing lake. She climbed up the rope as quickly as she could, glaring at Alice.
"Hanging ropes are as good as step-ladders," supplied the Cheshire Cat amusedly from a thick post beside the platform, "for those who know how to use them."
"Thanks," she told the cat bitterly.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Alice asked. "Get across already."
Muttering something about ungrateful people, Alex swung across and jumped onto the lower platforms, swinging the rope back to the higher area. Alice, on the other hand, made a clean jump straight from the rope onto the wooden planks.
"Don't you dare say anything," Alex told Alice, noticing the smirk on her friend's face. Alice shook her head in amusement.
"There's a man waiting for us by Yür Mine, so we'd best continue." With that, Alice turned and headed forward, closely followed by Alex.
A small, dwarfish man wearing torn clothes and smoking a pipe came into view a few moments later. He stared at the two girls, who he'd obviously been expecting.
"Why do you pursue me to this deserted place…?" he asked as soon as they reached him.
Alice smiled. "To benefit from your wisdom."
"Even blurred vision is valued by the blind. If I were clever, would I cower in this slag heap?" The Mayor shook his head. "I'm not wise, girl… I've just grown old."
"I wish to get very small, no bigger than a mouse." The Liddell teen stared at the man. "Word around these parts is that you're the man to ask."
"That's all you want? Oh yes, I could manage that… For a price." The man took a puff of his pipe, breathing in the heavy smoke.
"We have nothing of value," Alex stated.
"You both have nerve, and health. Mine are nearly gone. I've seen too much suffering… And I smoke too much, you see," the man said, indicating the wooden pipe in his hand.
Alice nodded. "What must we do?"
"Follow the shaft along the mines," he told them, indicating the path behind into Yür Mine. "A skool that lies beyond holds the means of making an elixir for your desire. I will be waiting for you in the performance room." With that last statement, he vanished in a twirling mist of sparkles.
"So, tell me again. Why do we want to shrink?" Alex asked as they made their way into the shaft.
"We need to find Rabbit," was the simple reply.
"But why?"
Alice stopped, turning to face Alex. "Aside from being an old friend of mine, he's probably the only person who knows what's going on that doesn't tell us in cryptic riddles like some other furry creature we know. He's the smartest person I've met," she added with wry respect. Alex wondered what a simple rabbit could've done to put that tone into her friend's voice, but she didn't question it.
"We should probably get going," the Roivas said simply. Alice nodded.
A few moments later, they reached a mine cart on a track, filled with rocks and soot. The track seemed unstable. Alex determined that it probably couldn't hold too much without breaking. The shaft itself looked as if no one had used it for years, making it very unsafe.
"We're not going on that, are we?" Alex asked nervously.
"You bet," Alice said with a smile, pulling Alex onto the cart and sitting down herself a few moments later. It didn't seem to want to move, so the Liddell resorted to pushing hard against a large boulder with her foot in the opposite direction. The cart slowly started making its way along the track, but sped up in speed almost at once. The result of using it after years of its retirement caused large boulders to fall from the ceiling, destroying parts of the track completely and narrowly missing the girls.
"Alice!" Alex yelled, her voice barely audible above the noise of the cart. She was staring at something at the end of the track, fear clearly written upon her face. "Alice! We need to get off this cart!"
"Why?" Alice yelled back.
"Because there's a dead end! If we stay on, we're going to go over the edge!"
Alice looked over to where Alex was gazing, gave a small yelp, and jumped off the cart, landing in a roll. Alex jumped off a few moments later, just barely making it off in time to miss the edge. They both stood up and brushed their selves off, looking around. There seemed to be a huge stone square surrounded a very large building, though only the top half of it was visible from where they stood. Alex glanced up into the night sky, squinting slightly.
"Uh, Alice?" she asked. "What is that?" A small dark figure in the sky looking somewhat like a very large dead raven was flying towards them. The same insignia the card guards wore was plainly visible on its stomach. Alice scanned the sky, and then gave a small groan.
"Boojum," she muttered, pulling out her gladius, which she had tied onto her apron. Alex followed suit, arming herself with the knife she, too, had tied onto her clothing. "Okay, when I give the signal, thrust your sword into its stomach." The Boojum, having discovered the two girls, flew almost directly in front of them and yelled, sending a gust of wind in their direction. "Now!" Alice yelled. Both blades impacted themselves into the Boojum's torso. It screamed and then burst into flames, leaving both a red healing vial and their swords at the ground. Alice placed the vial in her apron and handed Alex back her knife.
"All right, we need to get into that large building, so check around and see if you can spot any open windows that we could enter by," Alice directed, then turned to the left to examine the skool.
Alex walked off in the opposite direction, searching the sides of the skool for any entry points. After turning the corner, she spotted an open window, but something else caught her eye. What seemed like a large deck of cards was floating in yellow-green flames a few feet away from her. They held an insignia similar to the one worn by the card guards, but instead of a heart, there was a large "A." Curious, she walked over and picked it up.
"52 pickup is a staple of juvenile humour, but when the deck slices and dices, it's no laughing matter," uttered the taunting voice of the Cheshire Cat. Alex turned around, but all she saw was the cat's fading grin. Inserting the deck into her right pocket, she focused her attention back to the open window.
"Alice!" she called. "I've found a way in!" Her dark-haired friend ran over to her as quickly as she could, breathless within seconds. Her face brightened as she saw the window, and immediately jumped from the ledge, crawling into the school.
"Hey, wait for me," Alex said, following Alice.
"Sorry," Alice said sheepishly. "Anyways, we need to find the performance room."
After walking through the only door in the room, they found themselves standing in an even larger room full of doors and many exits. "Which door?" Alex asked, taking a quick count and coming up with eight red doors in total.
"Well, since that one on top seems to be hyperactive, I'm ruling it out. And those three there are boarded up, which leaves one on each level, so I suggest – ow!" A red card made contact with her shoulder, opening a small gash.
Impatient, Alex took out her own deck and thrust a handful of cards in the card guard's direction, who faltered immediately. "You suggest…?" she asked as if nothing had happened.
Alice stared at the cards in her friend's hand, but thought better than to ask at the moment. "Let's try the bottom one first."
"All right," Alex agreed.
The room proved to indeed be the performance room, as the Mayor was waiting by the stage. Several deformed children seemed to be putting on some kind of show, consisting solely of a mixture of deranged laughs and cries. "Well?" Alice asked the man.
"There's a book in the library which contains the recipe. Consult the Book of Bizarre Things. I'll go ahead and open the passageway." The elderly man vanished again in his swirl of sparkles immediately afterwards.
"He's very quick about it," Alex remarked as they exited the room. "So whereabouts on the second floor was the library?"
"Second door on the left," Alice replied, staring at a far corner of the room where the card guard used to be. "Listen, I think there's something over there. You go check out the library, I'll be right there behind you."
"Sure," Alex said, confused at that odd statement. She climbed up the stairs in the centre of the room and turned right towards a series of doors, entering the second door.
Alice turned left, stepping over the corpse of the card guard, and jumped over a large fireplace to a small ledge in the corner. What looked like a croquet mallet was floating in a pale green flame. Alice took it with interest.
"Here's a riddle: when is a croquet mallet like a Billy club?" Alice turned around to face the grinning form of the Cheshire Cat. "I'll tell you," he said, his face darkening maliciously. "Whenever you want it to be." The cat vanished immediately after he said this. Alice didn't bother to ponder the cat's message while she re-traced her steps and entered the library, as she found most of what the cat said to be drivel. She found Alex gazing in shock around the room, a dead corpse next to her feet.
"Alex?" she asked. The Roivas jumped then turned to face Alice, not realizing that she had come.
"You've never been anywhere else in the Roivas mansion, so you probably wouldn't know," Alex told her.
"Alex, you're not making any sense."
"I've been here before," Alex said, shaking her head in amazement. "In fact, I've read most of the books in here, with my grandfather. This isn't any ordinary library, this is my grandfather's library!"