If you read this chapter, you may or may not be able to tell I like Monty Python. Also, thank you for the reviews. Reviews make ZeroSoul go "YAY!" – ZeroSoul
All's fair in love and sorcery; chapter two: "signs"
The inside of the pyramid turned out to be very interesting. On the east side (where Sadira was) there was a long dark tunnel containing spikes sticking up the ground and from the ceiling (which would probably be best described by modern day terms as "stalactites" and "stalagmites" but this was before modern day, hence the use of magic). On the western side (where Mozenrath was) there was a single sign up above a dark entranceway:
BEWARE OF INSULTING DRAGON
"…Beware of Insulting Dragon?" Mozenrath said, reading the above sign.
There was a deep growling roar. The dark entranceway suddenly crumbled and Mozenrath jumped back and away from the debris, shielding himself with his cloak. A huge green scaled dragon pushed itself through the entranceway and snarled – breathing fire and brimstone at Mozenrath.
The dragon spoke in a voice that sounded like thunder booming: "I see the village idiot was stupid enough to leave town,"
"Ah…you must be the Insulting Dragon," Mozenrath said.
"And you're an irresponsible self-loving loser," the Insulting Dragon answered.
"Since all you seem to be able to do is insult, and going to be mature and ignore you," Mozenrath answered.
"You sir, are a crazy armchair philosophizing emaciated self absorbed no good fool," the Insulting Dragon said, stepping in front of Mozenrath, "You're going to have to get through me first, you crud infested crazy vermin ridden selfish mor–"
At this point, Mozenrath let loose a fireball in the Insulting Dragon's face, blinding it and therefore shutting it up.
Sadira looked at all the sharp pointed spikes sticking from the ground a ceiling. 'This is going to be easy,' Sadira thought. She quickly casted a flying spell and flew between the two layers of spikes (even though she did rip her dress a little). At the end of the tunnel was a sign. Sadira stared up at the sign, which read:
BEWARE OF MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS
"Multiple dimensions…?" Sadira said, thinking out loud. She walked towards a door and pushed it open to find a room filled with stairs.
However, these were not ordinary stairs. Some stairs were leading up, down, left, right, sideways, on the ceiling, off the ceiling, on the wall, off the wall, and so on. There seemed to be an infinite amount of stairs in the room.
"Well, this is obviously," Sadira said, "some sort of mind game in which I have to find the correct door. So–"
Sadira was normally one to finish her sentence, but unfortunately, she took a misstep forward and tumbled down the stairs. Like a human Slinky, Sadira went down the stairs, then up the stairs, then left, right, sideways, on the ceiling, off the ceiling, on the wall, off the wall, and continuously until she finally came to a stop at a closed door. Sadira got off the floor, staggering around – dizzy from falling in all sorts of directions but there was probably significant brain damage as well.
"Oh…a door…" Sadira said, stumbling around as she opened the door.
The door led to a long passageway on a small incline leading upwards. Sadira was still feeling a little light headed, but she managed to get her head back in gear as soon as she started walking a little. At the end of the hallway there were a doorway, with a sign above it.
BEWARE OF DISNEY MOVIE CROSSOVERS
Sadira blinked after she read the sign, "What moron makes multichambered pyramid with caution signs? And what's this 'a disney movie' it's talking about?"
So far, Mozenrath had found many signs and stumbled into many rooms – 'beware of gray blobs' (the gray was carnivorous and had many teeth), 'beware of dog' (the dog was large and had three heads), 'beware of cat' (the cat was a very large lion), and after some very bad mishaps with these rooms and their signs, Mozenrath's nerves were pretty frayed. So, he arrived in a triangular stone room. In the room, sitting on top of a dusty cobweb throne was a sphinx.
"You shall pass only if you shall answer this riddle," said the sphinx in a booming voice.
"What now?" Mozenrath growled to the sphinx, "I don't see why I should just kill you now. I've been through enough trouble with that dog and that lion and those blobs that almost ate me,"
"How many letters are in the alphabet?" the sphinx said.
Mozenrath blinked.
"That's it?" Mozenrath asked.
"What do you mean that's it?" the sphinx said.
"I mean…that's it? That's the riddle?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"It's simple. A child could figure it out,"
"Do not mock my riddle! ANSWER IT OR PERISH!"
Mozenrath sighed, "Well, you said 'alphabet' and any dolt can tell you mean the word not the actual letter thing so the answer would be 11,"
The sphinx paused. It stared at Mozenrath, looking a little confused.
Mozenrath tapped his foot, "WELL?"
"Well what?" the sphinx asked.
"Did I get the riddle right?"
"…uh…no?" The sphinx smiled convincingly.
Mozenrath growled, "You don't know, do you?"
The sphinx flinched, "…no…" Mozenrath groaned. "I'm sorry! This is my first day!"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR FIRST DAY?" Mozenrath yelled.
"The other sphinx got fired," the sphinx answered, "This is my first time and I lost the employee handbook," The sphinx began to cry. "Please don't tell my employer! He'll kill me! I have a family to feed and my wife will leave me if I lose another job and we could really use the money! I have three kids and two of them are going to get married!"
Mozenrath sighed, 'What did I do to deserve dealing with incompetent idiots all day?...besides trying to take over the Seven Deserts, kill Aladdin, steal his genie, enslave my master, bring Agrabah to it's knees, and abuse Xerxes on a daily basis,'
"Listen, I won't kill you, or tell your employer, as long as you let me pass and get the Pendant of Viper Calling," Mozenrath said.
"You'll need the key to get it," the sphinx said. He reached into his crotch and pulled out a key with a smile.
Mozenrath looked at the key. Then looked at the sphinx, "…can you get one that wasn't touching your crotch?"
Sadira found herself in a stone room painted in the resemblance of some foreign nursery with toys and painted on windows. There was even four beds and a box of toys. Sitting on the bed was a boy dressed all in green with red hair and a red cap. Nearby him was a fairy.
"Look, Tink! There's someone here to help us escape!" the boy said.
"Who the hell are you?" Sadira said.
"I'm Peter Pan and this is Tinkerbell!" the boy said, jumping up, "We've been trapped in here for at least some weeks now!"
"You don't say?" Sadira said, raising an eyebrow. She stared at Tinkerbell and grabbed her, "What is this? Some breed of sprite?"
"Don't do that! You'll hurt her!" Peter Pan protested.
"Hey! I'm gentle with her! See?" Sadira said as she showed Peter Pan Tinkerbell.
At saying "See?" Sadira accidentally squeezed Tinkerbell too hard and crushed her insides with a loud "POP". Tinkerbell suddenly turned limp and her usual magic glow fizzled out.
"TINK!" Peter Pan yelled.
"…oops," Sadira said. She then handed the, now dead, Tinkerbell to a mortified Peter Pan. Sadira then found blue ooze on her hand, "Gross…sprite blood," She wiped her hand on the wall until she deemed it clean.
"Tink, speak to me!" Peter Pan said, shaking the fairy. Tinkerbell's head fell off the shaking and rolled on the ground. Peter Pan glared at Sadira, "MURDERER!"
Sadira smiled innocently, "It was an accident! How was I supposed to know that a sprite could be crushed so easily?"
Peter Pan gasped suddenly, "Oh no! Without Tink's magic and I won't be able to be a boy forever!"
Sadira looked at him, "Well, how old could you possibly be?"
Peter Pan was about to ask that when he suddenly clutched his heart and he began to rapidly age. He grew taller and then began to shrink as wrinkles appeared in his face and eventually he crumbled into a pile of dust on the floor.
Sadira paused and could only stare at the pile of dust.
"…I think I remember why I didn't take that 'eternal youth' potion…" Sadira murmured.
Mozenrath found that the key unlocked a door. A door that just happened to be marked 'STAIRS'. Now, Mozenrath (who had had his fill of signs) attacked this certain sign with a magically summoned fireball and maimed it. Then when he was done maiming the sign, he opened the door.
'It's stairs. How bad could it possibly be that all of those other wretched rooms?' Mozenrath thought.
Mozenrath found his sudden (and usually lacking) optimistic attitude to crumble away (much like Peter Pan had) when he saw all the stairs. The stairs were spiraling upwards towards the ceiling and they seemed endless. Mozenrath let out a groan. This was worse than the blobs – probably worse than the stupid dragon, the cat (which was a really lion), and the dog (which was really a ferocious beast).
He. Hated. Climbing. STAIRS.
Now, it wasn't small lengths of stairs that bothered him so much, but it was the longer mile-long, stairs that curved and you went up them and round-and-round-and-round until you were tired, dizzy, sweat – and you STILL had at least a thousand stairs to climb! And then if you forgot something at the bottom or something went out of your pockets you had to go down the stairs and go round-and-round-and-round until you were at the bottom and then you and to go back and round-and-round…and so on.
It was one of the reasons why he (a) didn't have an intense amount of stairs in his citadel and (b) always teleported from room to room. Of course, he couldn't teleport to the top of the stairs because he had never been in the pyramid before and he could land himself in a wall or the actual stairs (which would probably kill him, or worse, ruin his new cape!).
So, drawing a deep breath, Mozenrath went up the stairs…
…and it only took about ten minuets before he had to stop and take a breather.
"Note to -gasp - self…exercise –pant– is my –wheeze– friend," Mozenrath panted.
Sadira had found that the room had several hidden doors in the windows painted on the brick wall. By simply pressing the window, she found it opened a doorway to another world. The first door led to a large savannah which including talking/singing lions. The second door was under the sea and opening it let in a rush of seawater and a merman who flopped around for a little while and then suffocated from lack of water.
"Is it me, or does everything around me seem to just die?" Sadira said to herself as she yanked a starfish out of her hair.
She found that the third and final door/painted window was (thankfully) an exit out of the chaotic room. Crawling through the door and leaving the dust of Peter Pan, the body of Tinker Bell, and the dead mermen behind Sadira entered a tiny stone room with a staircase spiraling up through the ceiling.
"When I meet the bastard that designed this stupid place I'm going to cast a spell so that he'll be inside out!" Sadira huffed as she climbed up the stairs.
And so Sadira climbed. She climbed, and climbed, and climbed all night long (well, the actual time was fifty minuets but it seemed longer to her).
I think Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is schizophrenic and Hobbes represents another side of his personality. At least, that's what I think. I still love that little cartoon. That and Dilbert.- ZeroSoul