The Lands of Ralosia & Ranuulo (Books 1-3)

Cursed Amulet Chapter 3&4

~Chapter 3- The Maze~

As the children jogged, the stone forming the gulch's walls seemed to scrape and grind against each other, forming terrified faces which would disappear as quickly as they appeared. Through gnashing stone, voices seemed to come from the walls.

"Leave."

"Get out."

"Go back."

The walls whispered. Jirro and the others did their best to ignore them, but this only served to terrify Nout even more. The voices intensified as they traveled.

Temp must've noticed Nout's deteriorating mental state as he said, "It's just trying to scare us. There's nothing to be afraid of."

As if to defy Temp, a single stone torpedoed out of the gulch's wall and struck Temp in the side of the head. He winced and yelped, and Corri actually chuckled a little bit.

"What're you laughing at?" Temp addressed Corri.

Corri simply smirked and said, "Nothin'."

Aero stopped in place and stared at the gulch's walls. He said with a smile, "Why don't you try that again!?"

"Aero! Don't do that!" Nout pleaded.

Another stone shot out of the gulch's walls, but Aero caught it in his hand and crushed it. He smiled, "Nothing to worry about."

The entire gulch rumbled again, and a flurry of stones torpedoed out of the walls at the kids. They jogged ever faster, doing their best to avoid the projectiles. Aero and Jirro were able to dodge each one, but the others weren't so lucky.

Though the stones certainly hurt when they struck, they didn't do any serious damage to the powerful youths. Soon, the flurry of rocks ended, and the kids slowed their steps.

Nout shouted at Aero, "Why did you have to do that!?"

"I just wanted to see what it was capable of," Aero replied, "If that's the best it can do, we'll be fine."

At Aero's remark, the gulch rumbled again. Suddenly, rock walls shot out of the ground. One appeared between Jirro and Nout, separating the two.

The ground beneath him seemed to shift, and Jirro moved involuntarily along the ground, further away from the others. More stone walls shot up around Jirro until he couldn't see any of the others. He looked up and saw a thick fog filling the air above him.

The gulch became quiet, and Jirro was surrounded by rock walls that created perfectly straight passageways. The walls were about 3 meters in height, high enough that Jirro couldn't see over them.

"Nout? Aero? Corri?" Jirro called out. There was no response. He walked down the straight passageway, "Ruben? Temp?"

Again, no response. Jirro walked through the passage before coming to a four-way intersection. Still no sign of anyone. Rather than walk further, Jirro jumped, grabbed onto the top of one of the walls with ease, and pulled himself on top of it. From there, he saw a stone maze had formed around him, with a thick mist making it impossible to see very far ahead of him. There was no sign of Corri's bird Rojo either.

Jirro traipsed atop of the walls, hoping one of the others might see him. He shouted, "Anyone!?"

At first, there was no response. Then he heard a low growl from nearby. Jirro jumped from atop the walls until he found the source. Temp's hyena Kelvin.

"Hey, big guy. How're you doing?" Jirro hopped down near the canine, and it began to bark fiercely. The beast stood at shoulder height. Jirro put his hands up in mock surrender, "I'm a friend! I'm a friend!"