Clip's Plight

Dimond Spring

“Clip!” Koxes said rushing to the hole. “Clip! Are you okay?” He shouted.
“Ow, yeah. The ground down here is definitely not soft. I think it's all rock.” Clip said.
Koxes sees an obvious lever and pulls it. sairs shoot up the tunnel with Clip on the upper flight. “It appears there were stairs.” He said.
Clip stood up and glared at him. “Why the crumbledung did you bring me back here.”
Koxes shook his head and began to walk down the stairs.

They walked down to the bottom of the stairs. “Bloody guts Clip you fell 20 feet, are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Like a fall would harm me.” She said, “Well I did land on Bink so that helped.”
“I don't understand much about living medal shields.” Koxes said. “Konks a sword.”
“I know.” Clip said.
“A Nice sword.” Mico said.
Koxes looked at Mico in disgust. “Mico I really don’t want to hear about that.” Mico grinned and looked hungrily a Konk. Konk blushed.
They walked down the only path available, a dark tunnel. “ I mean how would you use him when you’re falling? I see how you can block a sword but can you really block the ground?” koxes said.
“Koxes, Bink’s a shield. He absorbs impact.” Clip said her tone indicating she really didn’t want to talk.
Koxes thought. ‘She will work out whatever is bugging her eventually. Maybe she'll tell me what Juko said to?’.
The tunnel continues to get smaller and smaller until they are crawling. Clip limp crawled behind Koxes. The weapons were in weapon form.
“Do you think this is a trap? We’re going to be scooting on our bellies soon.” Koxes said.
“Probably. It is a dungeon.” Clip said, “But it was the only way to go and we don’t have a choice.”
Koxes reluctantly scooted forward on his belly.  Just when he thought they were going to suffocate he popped out into a huge open chamber with stairs that went down so far they disappeared. The only light in the stairway came from an opening far above. 'I wonder if anyone was unfortunate enough to fall the through that.’ Koxes thought.
They walked down the stairs for hours. Koxes had to light a small oil lamp so they wouldn't fall off the sheer drop off next to the stairs as the light above faded. The bottom of the stairs ended in a round chamber only wide enough to accommodate the steps that spiraled up the walls. They went through an arched opening in the stone wall.

“Wow, you have to see this. It's amazing.”
The arched entryway slammed shut after Clip passed through it.
“Well now there's no place to go except...Whow this place is huge.” Clip said looking around her.
They couldn’t even see the bottom of the chamber. Lightly glowing patterns encrypted on the stone let them see the narrow beamlike paths that hung over the vast empty space. It all looked archaic and futuristic at the same time. Like a technology that was lost in ancient history.
You couldn’t see the top and the bottom went down forever. The depth was emphasized with soft beams of blue glowing light that descending down further and farther. Some of the beams were moving and twisting rotating up and down.
“It's like a maze and a obstacle course. We have to figure out how to get to the bottom.” Koxes said.
“How do you know we have to go down?” Clip said.
“There isn’t any light going up. So I’m assuming down. If you read any books on how to tackle a dungeon you might know that” Koxes said.
“I do know one thing about dungeons.” Clip said.
Koxes said, “What.”
“One wrong move and we all die.” Clip said.
“Yes thank you for the image. I appreciate it.” Koxes said.
“Your welcome.” Clip said and began to walk across the narrow bridge. Koxes followed her. At the end of the narrow bridge there were separated stone planks floating in and they were long jumping distance apart. Clip ran and jumped. She flew through the air and barley landed on the edge of the plank. The plank’s glowing marks changed from blue to orange. Instinctively Clip jumped to the next plank that also turned orange. The plank behind her plummeted to the abyss below. She jumped to the next plank and the next one as quickly as she could. Panicked and looking for the nearest one each time she landed. Finally she landed on a stone plank and it stayed blue. She looked back across the wide area she jumped over. The planks were floating back in place and koxes jumped across them easily.
“I thought you were done for.” koxes said. “You should let me test the next one that way you have a better idea how to handle it.”
“No. it's better if I don’t think about it first.” Clip said. Koxes thought. ‘She clearly isn’t going to take any of my advice.’
There’s a stone ladder that takes them down. At the bottom of the ladder there's stone disks going back and forth between them and a rotating in the distance. As the stone disks moved they passed under several stone objects that would sweep them off the disk if they didn’t jump or duck to get out of the way. Koxes grabs Clip’s hand and said, “Jump.” pulling her onto the disk with him. They jumped, doged, and weaved through the obstacles and making it safely to the other side. They walked across another narrow bridge and down another ladder.
“How far down do you think it goes?” Clip asked.
“I don’t know. We still can’t see the bottom and I can see several layers of the glowing stone below us.” Koxes said. “We might have to stay the night”
“I don’t know how I feel about sleeping in here.” Clip said. “Its quiet. Too quiet. You can't even hear the mechanics of the moving stone. It's kind of creepy.”
“Yeah I don’t want to sleep here ether.” Koxes said. Clip nodded and started for the path in front of them.

There was several layers of light beams above them. “I’m not saying this is super easy but it definitely isn’t as hard as I thought it would be.” Clip siad. “I thought we would be running for our lives the entire time.”
“Maybe the menacing part is never being able to get back out. And slowly starving to death.” Koxes siad.
“Don’t worry I’d eat you before you starved to death.” Clip said.
“Thanks.”Koxes said.
“Your welcome.”Clip said.
A orange glowing shape appeared in the wall. It looked like a door.  “Look” Clip said. “I wonder if the spring is in there.” she walked across the narrow bridge and it glowed orange.
Clip ran for it. With every step another piece would plummet to the abyss behind her. The door flew open and she just stepped through when the last piece of the bridge dropped.