Barbara the Belonging

Into the Darklands

They finally made it.

The four looked around and were terrifyingly amazed by the dark world.

"Such is the stuff of nightmares." Blinky spoke.

"Yup. Pretty much how I remembered it." Crystal commented, then she noticed the others staring at her.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just needing to get used to your troll form." Lucas pointed out, and the red changeling looked down at her hands.

"Right. I forgot that in the Darklands, there is no use for my human disguise."

"We mustn't stay a minute longer, Lady Barbara's time is running out." Blinky spoke.

"Hey, Chompsky. Do you know where they're keeping Barbara?" The man asked the gnome, and he jumped down from his shoulders and scurried down the path.

The four followed the gnome to a dangerous and odd environment.

They came to a path where they needed to scale up vertically, and somehow, they could walk it normally.

Blinky speculated that the gravity shifts differently than the surface lands.

Soon, they arrived at a narrow rock that they had to walk across to get to the other side.

They carefully walked in order to make it easier.

Unfortunately, the Darklands isn't just called the Darklands for nothing as it was difficult to see without bumping into things or taking the wrong step and falling into the deep darkness below.

"Perhaps I'm meant to use the flare for a source of light." The blue troll spoke as he crossed the rock.

"Kanjigar said you use it to save your life. I don't think that's right now." Crystal commented.

"Man, why does it have to be so dark? I mean, I get it. It's called the "Darklands" but it doesn't have to be so literal." Lucas complains as he carefully crosses a small step, but nearly trips and falls to his death.

Thankfully, Aarrrghh caught him in time and set him back down safely.

"How am I to discern when my life depends on it? Such infernal instructions. They're both cryptic and oblique. What if my indecisiveness is cause for our undoing? Oh, ahh! Cragglesnacks!"

As Blinky was distracted by his ranting, he misstepped where the step was and tripped, causing him to accidentally drop his flare, and it fell down into the deep darkness.

"Really?" Aarrrghh muttered.

"I know. You would think four hands would be more helpful. Oh, but alas, my accursed butter digits!" The blue troll complained.

"Blinky, you needed that! You're going to die without it!" Lucas yelled with concern.

"I'm aware of that!" Blinky raised his voice in annoyance, shaking the man's shoulders.

Then the blue troll tried to calm down, but it seemed his worries and fears got the better of him.

"Okay, no one panic. Don't panic. Everyone, stop panicking!"

He started to hyperventilate with dread, knowing that, without his flare, he is as good as dead. 

It wasn't until three of his eyes saw the rope hanging from Aarrrghh's shoulders that he suspected Kanjigar knew something like this would happen and gave the large troll the rope.

"Your rope! Yes. we can retrieve it. Kanjigar thought of everything." The blue troll climbed on Aarrrghh's back while the large troll tossed one end of the rope to hook onto a rock so they can climb down safely.