Seekers of the Stone Maker
Colder

They traveled further down. Mr. Muffins kept his eyes forward and tried his best to see anything that may cause delay, but the terrain was the worst. They had crossed a stone bridge, where the sides went so deep that they couldn’t see the bottom. They watched as the tunnel became encased in ice and slid down a steep portion, trying their best not to get cut against the jagged fragments. Now, they walked carefully, as the ice had become too difficult to walk quickly.

Mr. Muffins had been counting since they started. Keeping the time was challenging, but he knew they had been traveling for roughly two hours. It would help them if they needed to decide between running or hiding, especially if something terrible appeared. That didn’t bother him as much as the other thing on his mind.

Roughly every fifteen minutes, he could feel the cold hit him like a gust of wind had pushed through from further in. The longer they traveled, the colder it was, and the harder the wind blew for those few seconds. He wasn’t sure what the cause of it was, but he knew something must be causing it.

They entered a large room through the tunnel, almost completely covered in ice. He walked towards the center with the torch, and the room reflected the light. On the opposite side of them, he could see a door. In the center of the room, black liquid shot out from a fountain and landed in a basin.

“This is the farthest I’ve ever gone. The door is locked, and I don’t have any means of getting through,” Medusa stated.

“Why is this liquid black?” Lyla asked.

“I don’t know, but I won’t touch it.”

“I don’t see Trista here either. She must have gone further in somehow,” Myla mentioned.

“Well, let’s get to checking this door,” Muffins stated.

Myla followed him over and inspected the door. They couldn’t replace any mechanisms that would easily open it, and there weren’t any traps from what they could see. The door was metallic and had four locks spread out in a square formation roughly two feet away from each other. He looked to the rest of the party, who stood near the fountain, inspecting it.

Mr. Muffins and Myla pulled their lockpicking kits out and started working on the door locks. As they worked on the first two locks, Mr. Muffins could feel the tension on the tumbler. He reached for the kit and couldn’t feel one of the tools. Looking down, he could see that one of the pieces, the one he needed, was missing.

“What the…?”

“Oh shit, here.”

Myla pulled the piece from her pocket and handed it over.

“When did you get this?”

“Forever ago. Even the side characters of this crazy story can make an impact,” She smiled.

“Side character?”

“Yeah. I’m only really here because of Lyla. If it weren’t for her situation with the monastery, we’d never have ended up at the carnival, which never would have taken us across this side of the world and into some cave.”

“But Myla, you’re not a side character. You’re just as important to the group as everyone else.”

“Thanks Muffins…”

“Side character… We’re not even in a story yet.”

“Well, Ana did tell that story about us and the one dragon. That feels so long ago,” She said as her first lock opened.

“It does. Anyways,” Muffins stopped as the first lock clicked open. “We all have our uses.”

The second lock opened, and Myla stared at it. He could tell she didn’t want to look him in the face as she spoke.

“I guess so.”