Chapter 13
Jun and Askandir descended into the cave and as they did they couldn't help but notice the stench. Like something foul burning. "Eck," exclaimed Askandir. Jun pulled his coat over his nose. They were confronted with several winding tunnels that all went down. They picked one and went down it until they hit a dead end, then went back and did the same thing with the next one until they spotted something shiny. "Look." And they gazed upon something marvelous. A veritable sea of rubies and emeralds and jewels that seemed to stretch on for miles. There were easily more than 500 gold-pieces-worth down here. The cave seemed to stretch on and branch down many different directions. Jun and Askandir didn't even look at each other before stuffing their entire bags full with as much as they could grab. It was no sooner that they did, than they heard a loud rumbling from inside the cave. "Oh- what- what now!", Askandir whipped his head around. And they began to hear what sounded like- it couldn't have been a voice- but it was like a voice, except it was like some kind of carving. Like someone was carving a knife loudly against the walls of the cave. And then that carving turned into something that sounded between dark chanting and laughter. And they stuffed their bags until they were brimming as fast as they could but that demonic chanting that sounded like a voice being carved through stone got louder and louder. "Come on," shouted Askandir. "We'd better get out of here!"
And as they took their first step back towards the mouth of the cave they heard the laughter, and looked back, and saw a giant projection of a face- a man's face, pale and old and ghostly white, his mouth trimming with black bile, coming right for them, the laughter increasing with intensity. "Eh-heh-heh-hah-hah-heh-eh-heh-heh-heh". Jun felt colder and colder the closer it got. "Climb!", shouted Jun, and the began to climb out of the cave and away from that face, as the laughter that sounded like brittle stone got louder and louder. But as they did so, the cave began to- this was the part that Jun and Askandir would have difficulty trying to explain later- it was as if the cave opened up completely. Not opening up to light and not opening up and swallowing them whole, but it was as if the entire dimensions of the cave warped and became inverted, so that instead of a space created by the existence of a cave, they were looking at a negative space, and the longer they looked the more negative it became, until there was just one single gray dot, sucking everything in at the mouth of the cave and creating negative space. Jun and Askandir jumped. Out of the cave.
Jun and Askandir collapsed on the ground. Jun rolled to his side and noticed that the cave was gone. Along with all but a precious few rubies and gemstones.
"What," Askandir panted, "Was that."
"I don't know", said Jun. "But I think we ought to go back and tell Archimedes."
