by J.A. Sprouls
They ventured farther into the tunnel when they stopped suddenly at the sound of n whooshing.
"What the heck is that?" Tally said rather sick at his stomach at the thought of just what it could be.
"Well, we won't know until we take a look," Pigtail said and started off again, though he wasn't going as fast as he had been. As he got closer to the noise the tunnel seemed to be widening. The next thing they knew they were standing in a large subterranean cave.
"Is it hot in here or is just me?" Tally asked the others.
"Well, it certainly ain't you. I mean you're an attractive man but that's as far as I'll go. And I only say that because you're my best friend, "Wicket replied.
Tally gave his friend a quizzical look and then said, "I'm not talking about that kind of 'hot,' I'm talking about the temperature has gotten hotter, hasn't it?"
Wicket blushed and retorted, "I knew that, I was making a joke. We need a little levity here. In case you've not noticed we're in a life and death struggle. So I figure if I had a say in things I would want to go out laughing. And it looks like I'm gonna be the only one who ends up laughing."
"No one is gonna get hurt or anything else. So let's just take things one step at a time, okay?" Pigtail tried to put as much bravado into this as he said it, in the hopes that the others might start thinking more positively.
"Yeah, that's all well and good, but I still think the temperature has risen," Tally told them.
Orida decided she needed to add to the conversation as a voice of reason, "The temperature has increased. And if I do say so myself, it's starting to get rather uncomfortable."
Pigtail had to agree with her but did so silently. He wasn't gonna say anything negative simply because he felt he needed to set a good example.
"We won't know anything until we actually advance further and see what is up ahead, so I think we should get moving," Jethro suggested.
The others nodded in agreement and they started to inch forward slowly. Wicket and Tally were having an elbow shoving match as they got further inside the cave to see who would go ahead of the other. Lark and Pill just rolled their eyes at each other over the behavior of the two men. They sighed and walked around the two leaving them to their fight.
As they went further into the cave they noticed a glowing light all around. It was on the floor and the walls, even the ceiling was glowing. The glowing was made even more eerie by all the steam that was coming up from the floor of the cave.
"Why is it glowing and why are there all these big craters in the ground?" Tally asked knowing full well he probably didn't want to hear the answer.
"Beats me what the craters are but the glowing isn't really glowing. It looks like sunlight is shining through those holes in the ceiling," Jethro said as he pointed up.
But before anyone could say anything else there was a sudden whooshing and a plume of water came bursting out of one of the craters and went straight up to the ceiling and into one of the holes in the ceiling.
Comprehension came to Jethro just as suddenly as the plume of water had come. "I know where we are, we're in the geyser fields. Or to be exact, we are underneath the geyser fields."
"Just what the heck are the geyser fields?" Tally squeaked. He and Wicket had stopped fighting with each other the moment the crater belched the water out.
"It's a field where all this hot steamed water comes out of the earth. We never took the wagon train out into the field because it was too unstable."
Wicket shuddered and said, "Unstable doesn’t sound good. I think stable sounds a heck of a lot better at the moment."
Jethro retorted in disgust over Wicket's obvious cowardice, "Well, we don't have a choice in the matter. We can't make the unstable suddenly turn into something stable, now can we?"
Pill and Lark were sensing that the grownups were getting a bit testy after this long ordeal. So in order to keep the peace they decided to try and distract them.
"I bet if we each grabbed a gold plate and put it on top of a crater we could ride it up to the top and out of here," Pill said.
"Hey, how cool would that be? You want to go grab some plates to see?" Lark said with as much enthusiasm as possible.
"We are not gonna try and ride a geyser out of here. We are here for the power sources, remember? So let's just get out of this area as fast and as safely as possible." Pigtail shouted. He had to shout because another geyser from another area in the cave suddenly shot up with a roar.
As they ventured further into the geyser field the plumes of water kept bursting up every now and then around them.
"Hey, is anyone else sweating as much as me? Or am I sweating because it's so hot down here?" Tally honestly wanted an answer to his question.
"Aw, piddle, we've really died and we all ended up 'you know where.' Man I was so hoping I'd go the other way. It's my own fault for becoming a vicious pirate. I really should have listened to Ma. 'Become a lawyer, no matter how good or bad things go, someone will always need a lawyer,' she would tell me over and over again. But did I listen, nooo, and now I'm paying the price for it. So where do you suppose the devil is? I think we should introduce ourselves, it's the polite thing to do," Wicket said as he looked around for the devil to suddenly appear.
This brought laughter to both Pigtail and Jethro. They were laughing so hard that their eyes had started to water.
It wasn't until Pigtail had finally gained control of his laughter that he managed to tell Wicket, "Number one, if you want to do the polite thing then that proves you ended up going in the wrong direction, if you are dead. Number two, if you had become a lawyer then you certainly would be meeting the devil when your time comes. Number three; it's the water that is causing the cave to be so hot. It's not because we all died and went 'you know where.' The water is producing steam and that's heating the cave, that's all."
The others laughed about it, as did Wicket, though his laughter was more out of relief that he hadn't died, yet, anyway. It was while they were trying to determine how to navigate the crater field that they heard a rustling from behind them. They all turned suddenly to see what had made the noise. Tally lost balance because his turn had gone a little too far and his feet hadn't managed to catch up with the rest of his body.
"It's the horny toads!" Exclaimed Pill. "Now what the heck are they doing here?"
"Look," Lark said as she pointed to the chains being dragged by the horny toads, "They must have pulled themselves free."
The largest horny toad came up to Lark and rubbed up against her. She started to pet him and he sat down and closed his eyes as he enjoyed the attention.
"I think they wanted to join us, but why?" Pill asked. "Aren’t they supposed to be protecting the power source?"
"I think that we were probably the only ones who were nice to them. So they wanted to be with us because of that," Jethro surmised. "Let that be a lesson to you, girls - acts of kindness are always rewarded."
"Um, no offense and pardon me for interrupting your life lesson for the girls, but how the heck is their being here a reward?" Tally asked totally confused.
"Well," Jethro paused in order to think up something good. He finally said, "Because now they can protect us from whatever else we have to encounter as we get closer to the power source. In fact, I bet they end up being really helpful."
Wicket, who had one of the other horny toads rub up against him wasn't too sure of Jethro's logic but as long as they didn't try to eat them then he was okay with their following them.
"Let's just get outta here. I think I'm about to melt," Pigtail said gruffly as a horny toad rubbed up against him and poked him with one of his spikes. Pigtail was thankful the spikes weren't sharp.
"You know, this could be the coming thing," Wicket said knowingly to Tally.
"How do you figure a horny toad is a coming thing, aside from the fact that they came to us?" Tally inquired.
"Not the horny toads, Tally, the steam. I bet if we could fill a room with steam, people would pay to sit inside that
room," Wicket explained.
"Now why would any sane person pay to do that?" Jethro asked.
"I think you just answered your own question," Pigtail retorted. "No sane person would." He said as he took his captain's hat off and wiped his brow.
"Just listen for a second," Wicket wanted to explain, "If someone thought that the steam would melt a person down to size then they would think it was a good idea as a way to lose weight. This way they wouldn't have to work out at all, just sit and melt away."
"Why would someone want to lose weight that way? I personally like a little extra padding, myself. It helps you to bounce when you fall," Pigtail said.
Pill and Lark started to giggle at the mental picture of the Captain bouncing up and down. They quickly stifled the giggling when he turned to give them a stern look.
"It don't have to make sense, all it has to do is make money, loads of money. You're forgetting that people will buy into anything that offers a big return with little or no effort on their account. Besides, if they lose weight, then they can have the joy of gaining it back by eating more. Then they would have to come back to the steam room to lose it again. Repeat customers are a must for any successful business." Wicket hoped he had impressed them with his savvy business acumen.
"Okay, whatever! This isn't getting us any closer to the power source. Let's get back to that and focus on everything else later," Orida felt someone needed to get them back on track.
With that said, they all started through the crater field with the horny toads following closely behind them.
Lark whispered to Pill, "I bet I could ride one if I set my mind to it," she indicated towards the horny toads with her thumb as they walked along.
"I'm sure you could. You seem to be able to do anything you set your mind to, though it might be a bit uncomfortable." Pill said trying to make up for causing her friend to be lowered in to the hole. That's when a thought suddenly occurred to her, "How did the horny toads get down the hole to get to us?"
Arbordale answered that question, "Horny toads are natural climbers. Climbing down the face of the wall wouldn't have been difficult for them at all."
"Good, then next time there's a hole that needs to be gone down, they can do it and not me." Obviously, Lark still hadn't forgotten her ordeal. Piddle, thought Pill.
"Let's have a little less talk and little more walk," Pigtail said in an exasperated tone. He just wasn't sure if the group could keep their mind on the endeavor at hand. It could be because they were all tired. He would like to find a nice spot to rest but they needed to get this over with. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned.
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