The ladder was strong enough to support all of us, even with Noah and his fast, jerky movements. The ladder was long. Or tall, however you want to say it. It descended deep below sea level. I could tell this because my ears popped, and there was a strong musky odor surrounding the dirt. And the dirt was getting darker. The ladder looked almost new, however old the chamber was. The chamber must have been made a long time ago by the eruption of the volcano, but the ladder looked like it must have been made and put here just a few days ago. I was glad to have friends accompanying me on this rather strange adventure.
The earth stinks. Stinks as in the smell. Why does dirt have to smell like dead stuff? I even asked Sara, and she said that she saw fossils around us. I felt a little better, and a little worse hearing this. I felt good that I was climbing down a ladder with rare dinos resting in peace all around me. But then I knew that I was smelling something dead. Dead dino.
The glow was getting closer, and it seemed like time was slowing down. Like there was only us, the earth, the ladder, and the glow. And the odor. Then we could all see clearly that the glow is from a machine. And, of course, there was Angus. Just as scary as in my dream. And, just like all other villains from cartoons and comics, he was gloating about what he is going to do. He was saying about how the machine was mining all the valuable minerals and ore from this entire island by sending drones through the earth to collect them. And then he said that he would lower the entire island into the sea and drown everything. How clever! But this is the bad kind of clever. The kind that could end the world. And then we all knew how great the danger was.
We took the stealthy approach: sneaking in past Angus when he went to the other side of the cave/room and turning off the machine. Then destroying the machine and defeating Angus. It might work. But it might not. We would have to see. Sara used her telekinesis on herself to lower herself gently to the giant power switch on the side of the machine. She could not be heard over the rumbling of the machine, but when she turned it off the noise stopped and Angus looked around, startled. He saw Sara, but then she messed up his mind temporarily so that everything looked normal to him and he didn't notice anything out-of-his-kind-of-ordinary. He even started mumbling to himself and then did a faceplant on the floor. And, would you know? He started squirming on the floor, shouting "Hallelujah!". It was hilarious, but you might have to have seen something like that before.
Right as we finished destroying the machine, Angus sat up and started talking in a weird, deep voice. "You are not worthy to be in my presence. I will obliterate you!" Obliterate, huh? Nice vocabulary. And he ran at us, wielding long scythes that appeared out of nowhere.