The Land of Stories: Gleeful Days Are Here Again

The Trouble with Troblins

17. The Trouble with Troblins

In which there's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on...

Chris slowly regained consciousness. The first thing he became aware of was a sense of movement through space — both forward momentum and rough jostling. He opened his eyes to flickering torchlight.

"Oh, thank heavens you're awake!" Unique cried.

Chris sat up, feeling disoriented. "What happened?"

"We crash-landed in the Troll and Goblin Territory, and these gentlemen came along and said they were rescuing us," Unique said sarcastically, gesturing toward the front of the cart they were in, where Chris could see the backs of two heads that he though he recognized as the troll version of Azimio and the goblin version of Jacob Ben Israel. "Rescuing, my ass! Kidnapping is more like it!"

"Oh my god - the sharknado!" Chris gasped, as memories came flooding back. "Is everyone okay?"

He spun around frantically, breathing a sigh of relief as he saw Darren and the others beginning to stir behind him. Miraculously, no one seemed to be badly hurt.

Darren sat up and pulled Chris into his arms. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. A little shaken up, but fine."

They ran their hands over each other's bodies, partly checking for injuries, partly just for the reassuring touch. Behind them, Kurt and Blaine were doing the same, as were Froggy and Red. Roary bounced from couple to couple, licking everyone indiscriminately.

The cart they were in descended through a stone tunnel until it reached the dungeon in which Chris and Darren had been imprisoned on their previous visit. However, the place seemed to have been remodeled in their absence. Instead of a row of bare, individual cells, there was now one large space, with stone furniture lining the walls.

"Here's where you get out," Azimio growled.

"But don't get too comfy," Jacob warned. "We'll be back for you soon."

Chris and Darren scrambled out of the cart. Kurt and Blaine hoisted Unique over the side and passed her down into their waiting arms. Once they set her safely on the floor, Darren reached back up to take Roary from Rachel. As the other four dropped down to join them, Chris was glad to see that Froggy still had the bag with all of the items they'd collected for the Wand of Wonderment slung over his shoulder.

As soon as everyone was out of the cart, Azimio and Jacob drove away, slamming the stone gate shut behind them. The loud clang must have woken up the only other prisoner in the dungeon, because a figure slowly rose from the stone bed in the darkest corner of the room.

"Zach?!" Chris cried, catching sight of the last person on earth (or wherever this was) that he expected to see.

"Chris? Darren? Oh, thank god! Please say you're here to rescue me."

"Um...sure..." Darren said unconvincingly. "But how did you even get here?"

"I don't really know. That Mother Goose character waved her flask, and some kind of wormhole opened up and sucked you guys through. She waved it again, and Burt stepped into the next wormhole. And then she waved the flask one more time, and before I knew what was happening, she'd pinched my ass and made me jump right into the third wormhole. I landed in some sort of creepy woods, and before I'd taken a dozen steps, I walked right into a trap. The Troblins found me, and brought me here."

"Troblins?"

"Yeah, apparently that's what the trolls and goblins are calling themselves these days. They brought me to Queen Trollbecky, and once she found out I was a choreographer, she insisted that I stay here forever as her 'guest' and teach those monsters how to dance. God - they're even worse than you were during the pilot of Glee. And that's saying something!"