A/N: Here's Chapter 5/11! :D Enjoy!~

Zach walked into a room of the same color as the last one, but it was more… normal and less cat like branching off into three sections. Zach made a decision and headed towards the path to the far left for it seemed to be the smallest section and would probably be the quickest one to explore. There was a writing desk, a white painting, and a black painting with a blue smiley face with its tongue sticking out.

The peculiar thing about the blue smiley was that the tongue was actually wriggling back and forth. It became even weirder still when Zach walked past it and had a blue glob of... of something spat at him. Zach sidestepped the glob as it hissed into the ground.

Ooookay? Zach arched an eyebrow as he made another one of his famous observations. Blue faces etched on black equal evil and a little bit rude... Zach filed that thought away and walked up to the all-white painting next to it to get a closer look.

Why would someone leave a blank painting up and frame it no less? Unless… Zach brought his face up to the painting. He got so close that he had to push his glasses over the top of his head to examine the painting properly, being near-sighted and all.

After a thorough inspection, Zach noticed a small, red 9 printed in the center of the painting. It was barely even visible, so Zach knew it had to be of some importance. Otherwise, why would they go through the trouble of hiding it?

Zach reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pen. He didn't have any paper, so he scribbled 'red 9' on the back of his left hand, just in case he forgot. He tucked his pen away and inspected room once more before he felt confident that he hadn't left any clues behind. Zach turned around to walk down the middle hallway this time. Before he did though, he noticed a small plaque on the ground. Picking it up, it read,

"Just when you've forgotten."

Forgotten what? Zach mulled over everything he'd been through since entering into this bizarre dungeon. He brainstormed a few possibilities, but when he actually took a look down the hallway, a rush of ominous air confirmed his suspicions and the several possibilities he'd thought of dwindled down to only one. Steeling his nerves, Zach took a tentative step down the middle of the hallway. The relatively fresh memory of the green insect room floated to the shore of his mind.

Zach started walking, keen on keeping directly in the middle, and about 2/3rds of the way through, one arm shot out from his right and wriggled hungrily. Zach easily ignored it and walked into another intersection.

That wasn't too bad, he smiled. Glad I knew it was coming. Zach glanced to his left and spotted a golden door, but when he turned to check his right, he paused, slightly disturbed. Several unsettling and eerie dolls hung limply from the ceiling; though their stares were empty, he couldn't help but feel uneasy all the same. With a sigh, he figured that as much as he wanted to go towards the golden door, he could solve the doll puzzle quicker and thus get out of there quicker. Wandering through the vines of dolls, Zach saw that there was another golden door on this side as well. The only difference was that this door was surrounded by green foliage. Daring to test his luck, Zach crossed his fingers and tried the door.

His face fell and me muttered and annoyed "Figures" when the knob didn't budge. Having already set his mind on finding a key, he was surprised to notice that there was actually no key hole for one. In this case, apparently, the 'key hole' to the door appeared to be a combination lock with three number dials, currently set at 0 0 0. Above the lock was an equation.

"X x X + X = ?"

The larger X's were all color coordinated. The first X was green, then the next one red, and the last purple.

Well, I suppose the number 9 goes in the middle. Zach took out his pen and wrote the equation underneath his previous note. He made sure to line up the middle 'X' under the '9' so that there wouldn't be any confusion. He also added 'G' and 'P' underneath their respective 'X's' to represent the color. Putting up his pen, he thought, okay, now I have one third of the equation figured out, but where is the rest of it? Zach walked back towards the creepy dolls hoping to find a hidden number engraved on their skin or something.

Zach examined their faces fruitlessly. The skin of those dolls seemed spotless and he couldn't get closer to them since they were all hanging high up. I wish I could examine their clothes… Zach gazed up at the dolls and tried to think of a way to solve this 'puzzle'.

How can I examine them if they're so high up? Zach looked around and saw that there was one that wasn't too high up and he walked over to it. He began to inspect its clothes when all of a sudden, there was loud thud behind Zach.

Startled, he spun around to face whatever had sprung out only to find that a doll that had been dangling out of reach just a moment ago had fallen to the ground. Zach walked over to the newly accessible doll. Sure enough, there was a tag sticking out of the clothes it was wearing and he smugly notices that the number 18 was printed clearly in green. Zach wrote '18' over the first 'X'.

Okay, so now I have red and green, all that's left is purple. Zach walked back over to the other golden door he had neglected earlier. Beside the door were yellow painted words titling the room "The Liar's Room". Zach noted right off the bat not to trust whatever was in this room. He opened the door to find that there were six paintings of dark figures in different colored clothing. Right in the middle of the figures was a door.

Zach could tell by the yellow lines of paint that each painting had something to say, and he also knew that he couldn't trust them. But the sign outside didn't say anything about the room behind this one, so Zach made a beeline towards the glimmer of hope betwixt a room full of lies.

When Zach walked through the door, the first thing he noticed were the series of defined square tiles pressed onto the ground. The tiles filled up the whole room except for the middle where Zach could see a statue of armor standing erect. Zach slowly walked closer and was in the middle of inspecting the armor when suddenly, pressured air hissed through the statue's helmet.

"There's an odd one out…"

Zach's heart leaped out of his rib cage. The statue didn't release air, it spoke. Refocusing on what the statue told him, Zach realized that it must have been referring back to the paintings in the last room. According to the statue, there was an odd one out; from all the liars, there would be be one with the truth.

Zach walked back out of the room, entirely expecting to spend a little while reading their inscriptions and deciphering the room when all of a sudden, Zach realized something for the first time. The glass where the faces of the paintings, from the left to right, one, three, four, five, and six was broken as if some person had punched them all in the face. Red drops of something, Zach could only hope it wasn't blood, were scattered and mixed with the broken shards on the paintings and on the floor. Frowning, he could only hope someone hadn't been dumb enough to do that.

The second painting from the left seemed untouched and perfectly fine. However, when Zach neared it, he could feel sadness emitting from it. It was weird. Nevertheless, after Zach had double checked what every painting had to say, Zach decided to go with the untouched painting of a black figure in brown clothing.

"Stand in front of the statue,
go east 4 steps, then north 2 steps.
That's the answer!"

Zach walked into the room with the suit of armor again and walked 4 steps east and 2 steps north. He pulled up the tile at his feet, and sure enough, there was a purple 4 printed on the other side of the tile. Zach didn't even have time to register the math equation on his hand, for at that moment, there was a loud screeching booming noise resounded in the other room followed in quick succession by slashing and choking noises and finally the sound of glass shattering.

That did not sound good. Zach rushed outside and adjusted his glasses to find absolute carnage. The carnage seemed to be spread across all the paintings but Zach couldn't help but notice that it was directed at the painting that had helped him. He couldn't help but feel a little angry. Not angry enough to punch glass, but he was pretty pissed off. Those other paintings that were brandishing weapons in the air had no right to take away the brown one's life. Zach was now pretty glad that the broken glass had distorted their faces to look uglier and more sinister. He wondered if the glass did anything at all or if their faces were naturally twisted and wicked. Whatever the verdict, it was darkly suiting.

Zach left the room as quickly as he could and walked over to the foliage-covered door. Zach looked down at his hand and did the equation in his head.

18 times 9 is 162, plus 4 is 166. Zach quickly put in the cod and the door clicked. Zach took that as a signal of the door unlocking and he eagerly pushed the door open, dying to get this dungeon over with.

However, as the door opened, his hopes fell for it was another dead end. It was just a normal room with trees; there was even an apple in one of them. Zach, suddenly excited at the thought of having a little snack, walked over to the apple and picked it out, but only then did he notice something.

The apple was made of wood.

His first feeling was disappointment, for after all his hard work, he couldn't enjoy this small treat, but then he realized that he probably wouldn't have trusted it anyways and the disappointment was replaced with an overwhelming sense to slap himself, Be logical!

The fact that the apple was wooden reminded him about a certain fish key and he pocketed the apple. Finding nothing else of use in this room, Zach left the room and walked back down the doll hallway to get to the joint hallway.

He remembered that there was still one last area he hasn't explored, but when he was halfway through the joint hallway, a hand shot out from his right, which in this case, is the opposite wall from earlier. Zach recoiled a bit, but he held his place, gritted his teeth and nervously moved on.

Okay, that was a little daunting, he he got through the joint hallway, Zach took a left turn and walked towards the branch of the room he hadn't explored yet. Zach passed a precautionary sign written in yellow paint that read,

"BEWARE OF LIPS". Zach looked at the sign a little confused, but when he continued walking and got to the end of the hall, he understood. There was a pair of protruding lips on the wall at the end. Zach smiled, having already expected something equally baffling. But what he didn't expect was that the lips could speak.

"Hungry… Give food…" The lips spoke out in a booming voice. Zach dropped his smile and froze for a bit, not really sure of how to deal with hungry lips. "That food… Give to me…" The apple? Zack thought. It was pretty hard to know for certain when the lips didn't have any finger to point with. Still, Zach withdrew the wooden apple from his coat and held it out for the lips. The pair of lips then stretched and bit off the apple and crunched it to smithereens.

Then it spoke up again. "This tasty… I let you pass now… Go through my mouth…" Zach didn't even have time to comprehend what it was saying before it unhinged at the mouth and created an opening large enough for Zach to fit though. I'm not sure I want to go through that… Zach stared skeptically into the gaping mouth in the wall. However, the fact that he could actually see the other room at the end was what swayed him in the end. Zach stepped on the tongue and felt his feet sink into its squishiness before continuing on though the darkness of the cave of the mouth.

A/N: And with that, I leave to college D: Now this might or might not mean that I won't update often, I won't actually know. I also don't want to falsely promise things, so I'll just say this, expect updates, but don't expect them to be regularly. Thank you guys so much for sticking with this story and I hope you'll enjoy the countless other storied I'll have to offer!

As usual, please leave a review! It would mean so much to me!

Thanks a bunch, lessthan3.

KC-Z out~