A Bad Night In Bridgetown

The Princess Digs Up A Witch

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The door was stout wood. Someone had built it to endure rather than to be ornate; a slab of wood on long metal hinges, a large lock housing and a metal ring handle. The air of foreboding that surrounded it was probably accidental. Probably.

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," Lester said.

"What? After the strange room, dark tunnel and the mirrored dragon? Let alone the frosty topping: a series of rooms furnished by the 'Popular Dungeon Factory Warehouse'?" James asked, not even making an effort to conceal his incredulity. "What were you expecting to find at the top of an ominous wide spiral stair case hewn into the dark granite cave walls? An open plan pine kitchen flowing through to a chic modern living area in a trendy condominium dwelling?"

"I have no idea what half the words you just said mean," Lester replied. "I can still tell that they were, in the main, hurtful and grouchy."

"Are we going to open it?" the princess asked.

"I don't know if we should," Lester said. He was beginning to tire of the constant parade of ominous portals that his life had become. Life had taken a bleak downturn since falling off that broom through the skylight. His fatigue was, in one sense, impressive seeing as this was only the second actual door he had encountered. The cellar complex they'd left behind was filled with gates sporting heavy locks and spiky tops and bottoms.

"Well, what else should we do?" the princess demanded, she was a young lady, it appeared, perpetually on the edge of completely losing her temper. "We can't stay down here."

"She has a point," James pointed out.

"Maybe there's another way out," Lester said, although even he wasn't convinced by that argument.

"I don't care," the princess said. "I'm going to open the door."

She strode over to the massive wooden slab and pulled at the handle. The mechanism unlocked with a quiet click and the door swung silently outwards.

"I'm sensing a theme," James said. "No tigers again."

"What a shame," the princess said. "Tigers would have been fun."

Lester and James swapped a glance. The princess definitely had a strange definition of fun.

By the time they had looked back the princess had already wandered off into the corridor beyond.

"Uh, Arabella!" Lester called out.

"Anabyl," the princess called back. "No 'ah' at the end. Just Anabyl."

"Yes, but, be careful," Lester said. "There could be, um, monsters."

"Oh, yes," Princess Anabyl said, slowing her pace. "I definitely wouldn't want to miss that, thanks for telling me."

"No," Lester said, "I didn't mean..."

But it was too late. Anabyl had already turned a corner and was heading further up into the building beyond.

"Well, are we just going to stand here?" James asked. "Or are we going to let the little girl clear the way for us?"

"Oh, no, I mean, uh, of course not," Lester said and picked up the pace to a light jog. He could feel James's claws digging into his shirt sleeve as he ran to catch up with their small but fearless companion.

Around the corner at the end of the short corridor was a long walkway that opened up into a covered passage up the side of a mountain. Great stone arches divided up the spectacular vista displayed upon the left hand side. On the right the rock face of the mountain was mostly untouched. In a few places the surface appeared to have had large spikes and jagged edges removed to make the wall smoother.