Time passed by as we all sat mostly in silence—except for Pip who tried to start conversations here and there unsuccessfully—under the large tree that shielded us from the storm. I considered more than once to look at the book and search for a way to get the key piece without falling victim to a bunch of sentient rocks again, but I feared opening the book and getting it wet. 

And looking at it had only made things worse. Maybe it was best to leave it alone for a while.

I didn’t want to fuck something up that badly again.

 Eventually the pitter patter of rain lessened, and the roaring of wind and thunder faded. The forest around us was left a mushy, wet mess of leaves and mud, but the storm had passed.

“Do we just… go back?” I asked as we all stared out at the forest where a key piece waited for us.

“The rock gnomes won’t come back…” Leo said sadly, “not when the ground is still wet…”

So going back to the well would be safe for now. Good to know.

Luckily Vincent remembered the way back, even with the chaos of finding our way here. I led Prince through the trees and right into the garden which now looked more like a heavily decorated graveyard.

Looking at the lost bits of armor made me sick.

This time, when we approached the well once more, there were no rocks laying around for Leo to poke, and I could see how much that upset him. 

Just what was his obsession with them?

One by one we all leaned over and peered into the deep dark well to see… deep darkness.

Only a small wooden bucket that was clearly meant to hoist up water was attached to a bar at the top, and with a rope hanging beside it to hoist it up and down.

The well itself was small and empty with no bottom in sight.

“So… what now?” I asked as I bent down to pick up a pebble to throw in, but thought better of it. What if these were alive, too? Instead I picked up a rock gnome victim’s elbow armor and threw it into the well. I did feel bad about the misuse of armor, but we needed to know. 

It fell and fell and fell. I think I heard a vague clunk at some point, but it might as well just have been my imagination. I wasn’t sure. Needless to say, the deep well was indeed deep.

Sir Zantar shrugged. “I suspect that one of us will have to go down and check out what is down there.”

He couldn’t be serious. He wanted us to go down there? It was hardly big enough to fit Leo’s arm, so how? 

“There is no way we could fit. Have you seen Leo?” I asked Sir Zantar.

“I did not say that, I said one of us,” Sir Zantar clarified. It was then I realized the entire group was looking at tiny, little Pip.

“Who, me?” Pip asked after looking over his shoulders to make sure a mysterious eighth member of our team hadn’t randomly appeared behind him. Once he realized it was him everyone was staring at, his face lit up. “Oh yes! I can do it! I want to do it! I’ll bring that key piece back, no problem! Leave it to me!”

Pip cheered and skipped to the well like he was ready to dive in, head first.

“Wait. You’re going to send him down there… alone?” I asked. 

Something about that made my stomach knot.

Every twist and turn in this place had been a nightmare. I wasn’t sure sending anyone—especially not Pip—off alone was a great idea. 

“Don’t worry, Sir Krystal, lady. I’m a highly trained knight of Danflow! Picked out by the king himself! This is what I was trained for. Let’s go!” Pip squeaked and jumped up on the ledge, getting one foot in the not-very-safe bucket, which immediately started falling down with him in it.

“Weeeeeeee!”

Leo and Sir Zantar wasted no time grabbing onto the other end of the rapidly falling rope.

“Aww, it was fun going fast,” Pip whined when he came to an abrupt stop.

He sure didn’t act much like a highly trained knight.

“Now, Sir Pip, I do not want any foolishness going on while you are down there. You will report back to the group on anything you see and return immediately upon locating the key piece,” said Vincent in his traditional straight-laced way.

“Of course!” Pip squeaked up from a bit below. “Though… it does look reaaaaaally dark down here.”

For the first time since returning, a smile shot across Leo’s face. “Oh! I can help with that! Blaze, take the rope for me.” Blaze begrudgingly took over the rope. Once his hands were free, Leo pranced over to one of the gardens with a thick patch of large reddish-pink flowers that had a tube-like shape. 

“Fuchsia Firefly Flowers!” Leo said and shook the thing like it was a glow stick… which it almost was. The moment the shaking stopped, the tube of the flower lit up like a flashlight with a bright pinkish glow.

“Wow! Thanks Leo!” Pip said as Leo threw it down to him.

“If there is anything killable down there—” Blaze began as Sir Zantar and he started to lower the rope.

“I’ll kill it!” Pip said with a thrust of an invisible dagger and a smile too innocent for his words.

I watched as Pip disappeared further into the shadows of the well, and something continued to twist harder and tighter in my stomach.

The moment he was out of sight, panic set in.

There was not a single fucking chance that nothing horrible was going to happen to him down there.

Not in this weird as shit world.

I pulled out Dawn or Knightfall and began shuffling through the pages, not caring about how stupid I must’ve looked with my ‘mind diary’ or whatever; Pip’s life was on the line.

What the fuck was at the bottom of that well?

I had to know.

Fuck the mistakes that came from reading the book last time.

This was about Pip.

I had to warn him before something horrible happened!

After the storm ended, we found the well and the key piece easily. 

Wait. That was it? That was all it said about the well?

No. There had to be more.

I kept reading.

When I held it up to Knight Commander Zantar with pride on my face, Knight Commander Zantar gave me an equally proud smile back. My heart swelled.

“You did a great job finding this key piece so easily,” Knight Commander Zantar said, “we must be incredibly lucky to avoid the dangers of this forest, that I have heard so much about.”

“Yes. I couldn’t have done it without you and our incredible team,” I said, looking at small Sir Pip who was the life of this group. Sir Blaze who could cut our enemies down with the perfect weapon for the job, Sir Vincent who, despite his map getting ruined, still managed to find the safest routes on this perilous quest and Leo, who was gloomy as ever, never talked much, but knew a lot about nature which had helped us out in a pinch many a time.

But most importantly…

“You have a nice look on your face, Sir Tiara,” Knight Commander Zantar said, his eyes lingered on me for a while before he seemed to realize and quickly changed in the direction of Sir Vincent instead.

Yes, Knight Commander Zantar. The most reliable man I could ever wish for.

“I am merely grateful for this wonderful squad the king assembled. He truly knew what he was doing,” I said. Knight Commander Zantar, still looking away from me, took my hand up to his lips and —

I shut the book. There was nothing in it to help Pip. And though I was confused about some of the details—I didn’t have the time to ponder that now—and I was thoroughly disinterested in what was clearly coming next.

When I lowered the book, Sir Zantar was staring at me with a strange, unreadable look on his face as he continued to lower the rope for Pip.

“Ah, Sir Krystal. I see you are once again using your mind diary. Has it cleared your mind like it would for the old mages? I’ve heard they used it to help make hard decisions for the future.”

“Nope. No clear mind. Nothing helpful at all.” I said, putting the ‘mind diary’ back in my shoulder armor.

As Vincent had requested, we could hear Pip live-commenting as he went down, voice getting further and further away.

“Oh, the plant makes everything look funny and purple!”

“There’s a lot of splotches on the walls!”

“I wonder what they are?”

“I wish you’d lower me faster. It was so fun before!”

The rope Blaze and Sir Zantar lowered reached the end and gave a little slack, signaling that Pip had hit the bottom.

“Ooooh, there’s bones down here!” Pip’s words were barely a whisper despite the clear strain he was putting into yelling.

“I don’t think all of them are human!”

Did I hear that right? He said it like he still wore that childish smile.

“Oh, and there’s torches! A lot of them!”

Torches? At the bottom of the well? That couldn’t be right.

Fuck this! I wasn’t letting Pip join a pile of bones and torches at the bottom of a well.

I turned to Sir Zantar. “Pull him up! Now!” I went to do it myself but Sir Zantar stopped me.

“He is a highly trained, elite knight of the mighty kingdom of Danflow, chosen by the king himself. He will be just fine,” Sir Zantar said calmly, clearly trying to pacify me.

Did I care? No.

“Pull him up!” I insisted.

“Wow, there’s a breeze down here!” The weak voice of Pip came from too far away for my liking, “it’s kind of smelly.”

Smelly breeze? What?

“Oh… I don’t think that was a breeze.”

Fuck. 

Pip… Please be safe.

Before we heard another and more clarifying pip from Pip, a huge and blood curdling screech breached my eardrums. I instinctively took up my hands to cover my ears, trying to create a barrier between the sound and my eardrums.

“Get him up!” I yelled to Sir Zantar, but when I looked at him, my fear only grew.

Him and Blaze were pulling at the rope as fast as they could.

But… it was too fast, even for them.

I rushed to look over the edge of the well, and the only thing I saw was the rope.

Or rather… The end of the rope. 

No bucket, no Pip. 

Only a broken rope that would haunt me in my nightmares, sizzling with a stringy, silvery substance stuck to the end.