Chapter Ninety-three – Hare-raising Exploits

Pandy had had a terrible moment when she thought boy and turtle might be dead, now she saw Isidor’s chest rise and fall in a slow rhythm. Was he…asleep? Drawing close, Pandy gently prodded Isidor, who didn’t move, other than the slow rise and fall of his chest. There was no sign of blood or any other injury on the fallen boy, but Pandy tried a quick Minor Heal anyway, only to have it do exactly nothing. Whatever was wrong with Isidor, it wasn’t anything physical.

Tempest’s shell rocked, and one scaled leg poked out, then another. The clawed feet waved almost comically, before a crackling arc of electricity reminded Pandy that this was no ordinary tortoise. Tempest’s beaked face thrust out into the open, snapping fiercely in Pandy’s direction, before halting, mouth wide as she took in the rabbit sitting beside her master. Red-brown eyes looked from Pandy to Isidor and back to Pandy before the legs began to wave again, rocking the tortoise back and forth, though she never quite managed to flip herself over.

Carefully, Pandy edged closer, wary of both the continuing sparks and that sharp beak. Darting forward, she put her nose beneath the tortoise, flipping the reptile back onto her feet, then dodged back out of chomping range. The turtle ignored her, though, not even offering a grateful blink. Instead, Tempest crawled over to Isidor and shocked the bejeezus out of him.

The boy sat up abruptly, drawing in a gasping breath as he stared around. Wild eyes searched for an attacker, but found only the tortoise and the rabbit staring back at him. “What…happened?” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair, roughly pulling it out of his eyes. 

Pandy glanced at the few minutes remaining on her spell timer, and shrugged. She honestly had no idea, and shifting back to human form just to say so with words wouldn’t really help anything. Isidor gave her a slightly annoyed glance, then sighed, absently scooping Tempest into his hands. A few sparks popped from the tortoise’s shell, making Isidor gasp, and he looked down at his elemental, frowning.

“What was that for?” Isidor muttered, shaking his fingers like he’d just touched a lightbulb before it cooled off. Tempest gave him the kind of look she usually reserved for Pandy and, well, anyone other than Isidor, then retreated into her shell, closing it up tight.

Isidor’s brows drew together, but he didn’t seem to have any more of a clue than Pandy did, so he finally slipped the tortoise into his pocket and stood slowly, using the wall to support himself. The pinched expression on his face said that something was hurting him, even though Minor Heal hadn’t found anything to fix. He rubbed his temples, squinting as if the directionless light was too bright.

“Which way do we go?” he asked finally, looking down at Pandy. She glanced around, but the hall looked exactly the same both ways. She’d come from the direction that was now behind her…hadn’t she? Though actually, now that Isidor was standing, she realized that she had gotten turned around while she was trying to help him and Tempest.

Pandy gave a bunny-shrug again, which was more of a small hop-in-place, because rabbits weren’t built for shrugging. Isidor patted his pocket absently before turning to his right. This was also the direction Pandy thought was correct, so she followed him willingly enough when he started walking. After five minutes or so, however, she was less willing, even though this obviously wasn’t the way she’d come from, since they hadn’t reached a dead end. They also hadn’t found any doors or even a window, and Pandy was beginning to get a bad feeling she knew where they were.

Onward and onward they went, each step echoing in absolute silence. Even Isidor was beginning to show his frustration, patting his pocket repeatedly and sometimes slowing almost to a stop before starting up again. He spent several minutes banging on the left wall, then the right, obviously hoping to hear some difference in the sound thus produced, but nothing came of it except that Pandy had to heal his hand after it started bleeding.

Pandy had no idea how long they’d walked before she simply stopped, planting her fluffy tail on the cold stone floor. Isidor didn’t even notice. At least, he didn’t notice until he reappeared behind her, and came to a confused halt, looking from her to the empty corridor behind him.

They were in a dungeon. Specifically, the first dungeon Edgar and Clara soloed. It was a sort of maze, but they had a book with a series of clues that guided them through. At least, it was supposed to guide them through, but some of the riddles were so difficult, and the solutions so unexpected, that most players resorted to using internet walkthroughs. The good news was, however, that Pandy knew all the answers, and there were no monsters to fight until the very end.

How this dungeon had come to be attached to Falconet was another question entirely, but Pandy suspected either Chancellor Blackwood or Professor Beeswick would know, if they ever managed to find them. For now, however, Pandy waited until Isidor reached her again, then thought, <Hop!>

Hop successful. Ninety-two uses remain before next level.

Pandy went straight up, twisting as she’d done so many times before. Isidor watched with bemusement that became astonishment when, rather than bouncing off the ceiling and dropping back down, Pandy’s paws stuck fast, leaving her hanging from the ceiling, at least from his perspective.

“What in Ismara’s name?” he muttered, staring up at her, utterly flabbergasted. Well, at least that answered the question of whether or not he worshipped Ismara. He at least followed her enough that she was the god he swore by when he had no other words.

Pandy stood there, staring ‘up’ at him, waiting for him to put it together. She could tell him what to do, but he was almost frighteningly intelligent, and she didn’t think it would take him long to figure it out. And, sure enough, after less than thirty seconds, astonishment turned to calculation, and he began to eye the walls, obviously trying to figure out the best way to reach her.

In Gacha Love, Clara used her Shield of Light to create a sort of platform she and Edgar climbed on. Once they touched the ceiling, they were stuck, having shifted perspectives. She supposed they could repeat the process and touch the former floor, which had become their new ceiling, and switch back, but of course that was pointless, so the option was never offered to them. It was also interesting to note that Clara never again used her shield as a platform, even though it could have been handy a few times.

Now, Isidor braced himself before leaping upwards, hand outstretched. Someday he might well be tall enough for that to work, but not yet, and he fell back to the floor with a frustrated grunt. A few more such leaps showed that he wasn’t going to make it, and instead he tried running at the wall, using it to push himself upward. This actually worked surprisingly well, but he was still short of the ceiling by more than a foot, even on his best effort, so Pandy knew what she had to do.

The next time Isidor jumped, Pandy thought, <Cast Shifting Faces. Use remaining time.> Then she caught his hand in his, pulling him up just enough that his palm laid flat on the ceiling, causing him to tumble forward into a roll as the world abruptly rotated for him. Before he even came to a stop, flat on his back, Pandy had released the spell, having used less than ten seconds of her remaining time.

Isidor laid there, staring ‘up’, which had so recently been ‘down’, before rubbing his eyes. He climbed to his feet and stared down at Pandy. “Do you know where we are now?” If he sounded a bit accusatory, she couldn’t blame him, and she didn’t have the time to explain that she’d only just figured it out. Instead, she nodded and hopped off down the hall. It didn’t even matter which direction, because the puzzle had been solved, and just out of sight, there should be…

A door. Tall, thick, and covered in carved images, it took up almost all of the space in the dead end, and had no discernable handle or hinges. Isidor stopped when he saw it, glancing backwards, as if wondering if the other direction would be better, but Pandy knew they would only return to this door, no matter which direction they went. Besides, she knew the answer to this puzzle, too.

Standing up on her back legs, she motioned for Isidor to pick her up. Hesitantly, he did so, and Pandy reached for the door, pointing a paw at the image of a majestic stag, rearing up on its hind legs. When Isidor brought her close to it, she reached up and used a claw to pull down one – Spine? Spike? – one of the protrusions on its antlers. Figuring out which one required solving a math problem, something Edgar was good at, and Pandy definitely wasn’t.

Once the horn-part was pointing at the left wall, Pandy motioned toward a large bird that was almost definitely a condor. This time she tugged on its wing until the longest feather pointed directly up. The tail of a leaping fish turned toward the floor, and a snail’s eye, extended on a long eye-stalk, looked to the right. Then Pandy made pushing motions, but rather than pushing himself, Isidor brought her to the center of the door, and, with a sigh, Pandy placed her paws on the chest of a masked man and shoved. The door swung open without a sound.

Isidor muttered something, then put Pandy back down as he stared into the hexagonal room beyond the door. Each side of the room contained an identical open archway, leading to an identical hall. This was probably the most irritating part of the maze, because if you lost track of your turns, you could easily get lost, with Clara either passing out, or the player using a gacha to return to the beginning or refill her Stamina.

Fortunately, Pandy had done this often enough that she no longer had to look up the answer, so she just counted four openings from the left and hopped across the room, passing beneath the arch and into another identical space. In the game, there was a series of increasingly difficult word problems to solve in order to find the number of the door the player needed to pass through, but Pandy just used four, four, six, one, two, two, four, and Isidor trailed along behind her until they reached the final room, which held eleven doors, instead of six open arches. Of course, the puzzle for this room was really more of a riddle, involving cats, kittens, horses, and wives, but Pandy just went to the first door to their left and stopped, staring up at Isidor.

“This one?” Isidor asked, but he didn’t hesitate to lift the large brass ring in the center of the door and pull. The door swung inward, creaking softly, revealing the beginnings of a final broad passageway. They stood in the last circle of light, before the passage faded into absolute blackness, and in the distance, they could hear the quiet sobs of a young girl.

Isidor instantly stepped forward, concern writ large on his face, but Pandy hopped beneath his feet, tripping him before he could enter the darkness. He definitely wouldn’t like what happened then, so Pandy thought, <Cast Spark,> and the now-familiar flame flickered into being ahead of her. As it did, something slithered away from the light, the soft susurration of scales on stone sending shivers down Pandy’s spine.

Isidor obviously felt the same, because he pulled Tempest from his pocket and held the tortoise up, not quite thrusting her into the shadows. The turtle’s shell cracked just enough to give the boy a baleful glare, then closed again. Apparently the tortoise had done enough for one night, and Pandy and Isidor were on their own.