“You fools!” Shani yelled. She glared at Vex and Kellen.

“Hey now, little sister,” the mummy said, having no context to why Shani was upset. “What’s this all about?”

Kellen gave Shani a pleading look. They definitely didn’t need the mummy to know who was to blame for the mana stone being empty.

“No need to fret just yet,” the mummy said. “There’s a trickle left in the stone. I can just give it a little nudge with the mana here in the shrine and… oh goodness.” The mummy trailed off and his eyes widened so far, Kellen thought the ruby gems might fall out.

“If the mana stone is showing you a Mana Beast and a white kid that looks out of his depth, we passed them on the way down here,” Vex said. “They look a lot like us but I can assure you we are two very different groups.”

“Yep, every last drop of memory, knowledge and wisdom is gone,” the mummy said. “Hmm.” He stroked his chin again, and this time Kellen saw flakes of dried skin break loose and drift to the floor. Kellen suppressed a shudder.

“Perhaps we should just move the stone and maybe the path out will come back to you when you see the tunnels again?” Shani’s suggestion lacked any confidence that her plan would actually work and dripped with impatience.

The mummy snapped his fingers so hard Kellen thought he might dislocate one of them. “That will work, that will work!” Joints clicking and popping, he walked back to the stone panel. Now that he was slightly less concerned about the mummy than when they’d first entered, Kellen examined the painted carvings. The panel was about two stories high and half that wide. It featured a number of scenes of people and mythical-looking creatures that had to be Mana Beasts, engaged in all sorts of activities, from fighting, to hunting, farming and building cities. Even though the carvings were almost a quarter the size of real people, Kellen found it hard to take everything in.

The artwork at the top drew his eyes. His breath caught when he saw groups of people walking into and out of glowing caverns. Could those have been the first people who ever found their way to Oras? Heart pounding, he crossed the room and stood a few feet away from the panel while the mummy felt along the stone at chest height, searching for what Kellen didn’t know.

Below the groups of people coming and going from the glowing caves, Kellen saw individuals stepping out of oval-shaped portals of light. Unlike the others, which were all depicted as hunter-gatherers or primitive farmers, the singular characters wore the armor of conquistadors, the furs of trappers or the clothes of European settlers.

Kellen wished he had his phone to take a picture and that he hadn’t left it in the cup holder of the tractor. Here was proof of other people like him being transported to Oras, and maybe a clue about how to get home again.

“There we go!” A dull thunk sounded as the mummy pressed a spot on the panel. With a rasping, grinding sound, a one foot by one foot section of the panel slid away, revealing a dark hole within. The mummy stuck his head in, looking similar to an old man working on his riding lawn mower, his head obscured by the hood.

“Right where I left it — ow!”

There was a brief panic from the body of the mummy as he scrambled, Kellen guessed, to stick his head back on. Then the head reappeared, along with a hand clutching a… mop head? Kellen peered closer and saw that, indeed, the mummy held a large collection of knotted strings. The mummy began to sort through the bundle of string, flipping strands this way and that with one hand while the other held it in place. At first, Kellen thought the sorting was random, then he realized that the mummy was searching and disregarding certain lengths or colors of string. The strings themselves were in a rainbow of colors with all different lengths, number of knots, beads and more. When the mummy found the one he was looking for at last, he held the rest of the twisted mess up like a ball of Christmas lights left too long in the attic. With a satisfied smirk on his face, he flicked the bundle once.

Kellen stumbled backward as the tangled strings unfolded like cracks spreading out from ice. Individual strands of string weaved their way around and between his feet, climbing up the walls and onto the ceiling. When the strings stopped growing, they clung to almost every surface inside the hall except for Kellen, Shani, Vex, and the mummy. The result looked like a gigantic spiderweb had a baby with a first grader’s art project.

“I did not expect this,” Vex said, head twisting every direction to take in the continuous webs of rope. “Good thing we didn’t break that string ball, huh?”

Too amazed to say anything, Kellen watched as the mummy took up certain strands and reeled them in like someone feeding in a slack line. Once he latched on to a specific line, it emitted a faint, pulsating glow. “No, no, that’s an entirely different cave system,” the mummy muttered. Lost in his work, it was like no one else was in the room. He continued to mumble as he sorted through various strands until, at last, he found whatever it was he’d been looking for.

“There it is, there it is!”

Reeling the cord in hand over hand, the mummy paused at certain knots, examined the distance between knots and counted beads. Kellen wondered what information the mummy could possibly gain from the elaborate collection of rope. It seemed to be whatever the mummy was looking for because, after ten minutes, he flicked his wrist and the entire network of string sucked back toward him, shortening and re-tangling itself as it went. This time, the mop-like bundle shrank to the size of a woven bracelet that wound itself around the mummy’s leathery wrist. Somehow, out of all the wonders Kellen had seen in Oras, this was one of the most impressive.

“Do you think he’d let me play with that?” Vex asked in a whisper, hovering close to Kellen’s head. “I wouldn’t eat it, I swear. I just want to… I dunno, hit it around a little with my paws.”

“I’m still not sure what it does, but you’re never allowed to touch it,” Kellen said, still in awe.

“I’ve found the records for this labyrinth,” the mummy announced. “I can’t believe you missed it. We only need to travel a short distance, take a right turn and we will be out. We have to be careful, though. There are traps at that particular exit.”

Kellen looked at Shani and Vex. Both of them stared back at him with blank expressions. He could tell from their looks alone that he’d have to be the one to break the bad news. “About that…” Kellen explained how they’d entered the tunnels, all the while hoping the mummy might tell them it would be no problem for him to move the stone slab that cut them off from Obishi. The mummy listened until Kellen finished explaining the situation, nodding along at times.

“We will need another way out of the tunnels,” the undead man announced.

“Why can’t you move that stone blocking the tunnel if you can move this one?” Shani asked, suspicious.

The mummy held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. “A fair question. As you may have noticed, I do not have a Mana Beast. Outside this chamber, I’ll be able to use even less mana that this young man.” He jerked a thumb at Kellen, who wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. “So, if that passage is sealed, we will need to take the long way around.”

Shani narrowed her eyes. It was plain to see she didn’t trust the mummy. “How much longer is the long way?”

“In my day, the other main entrance was the city of Xiapl,” the mummy said. “But many things have come to pass since the Second Noctun, I am sure. If you are not from these mountains, it is hard to know what we may find.”

Judging by the way Shani’s eyes widened, the Second Noctun had been quite a long time ago indeed. While the mummy busied himself with collecting his things into a woven wool sack, Kellen asked Shani how long it had been.

“The Second Noctun was countless of seasons ago,” she said. She peered past Kellen at the mummy, who was humming as he went about his task. “Depending on when he lived during the Second Noctun, he could be almost a thousand years old. I do not trust him.”

“Me neither,” Vex said in a loud whisper. “I make it a point not to trust anyone that uses a rock for a brain.”

“From what I can tell, he might be our only way out, not just here but the tunnels in general, if they are as extensive as he says,” Kellen said. “If he wanted to hurt us, he could have done it while we were trapped with him.”

“Unless he needs something outside,” Shani said. “What if he is telling us he will be weaker out of this chamber, but it is really the only thing preventing him from killing us now?”

Kellen shrugged. “Then either way, we’re dead. If we go along with his plan, at least we have a chance of finding Allison and Ubira.”

“Quick, act casual,” Vex said, loud enough the mummy couldn’t have missed it. “He’s coming.”

If the mummy had heard their discussion about trusting him, he gave no sign. He hefted the woolen bag to show them it was mostly full, what might have been a satisfied smile on his face. “O-kay, new friends. We should go. But before we do, introductions are in order. A stranger is only strange until you give him a name, after all. Mine is Kiypu.”

“I’m Vex!” Vex said, performing a loop in front of the mummy. “And I can assure you, we’re much stronger than we look.”

“Kellen Lars,” Kellen said. He felt like he should extend a hand to shake. Since Kiypu didn’t offer one, Kellen assumed that wasn’t a custom with him, either, and Kellen really had no desire to touch the man’s dried leather hands, anyway.

“Shani, of the Gray Dawn band of the Storm Horse.”

Kiypu nodded. “Ah, yes. I had trouble placing your husband here, but you I knew at once were Storm Horse.”

Kellen froze for an instant, before he and Vex both started babbling to correct the mummy. Given what he knew of Shani’s actual husband — nothing except that he’d recently died and she’d sworn to avenge him or die trying — Kellen didn’t want there to be any confusion.

“We’re…” Friends seemed like a stretch. “I’m a guest of Gray Dawn,” Kellen finally settled on.

“Her grandmother keeps Kellen for a pet project,” Vex added.

Kiypu took all this in stride, nodding along seriously. “I am afraid there is one more condition if you want my help.” Kellen's heart rate spiked. Here it was. The mummy wanted to devour one of their souls or tear out their heart or — “I need to know how you came to be in this place and what brought you here.”

That seemed a pretty reasonable request to Kellen. He ignored Shani’s look of warning and told Kiypu about their journey with broad strokes. As far as mummies went, Kellen thought this one could be trusted with the general details now that there was no apparent danger of being devoured by him. He left out certain parts, like the fact that he was a spirit traveler, and the death of Shani’s husband, the latter because it didn’t feel like his business to share.

“This Ubira does not sound like a nice man,” Kiypu concluded. “I am afraid I don’t have the strength to help you in battle — a little worn out, you might say. I will show you the way out and wish you all the blessings of the Wild Mother on your journey. Now, stand back, new friends. I am a little out of practice.”

To Kellen’s surprise, the mummy began an unfamiliar, if brief, mana dance. Kellen felt no stirring of mana of any kind in the air, and Kiypu almost fell over several times. He hobbled about like an old man who’d escaped a nursing home and was returning from his favorite bar without his walker. After a few moments of tottering, he planted his feet and heaved his hands upward, like he was trying to hold up the sky.

Given the geriatric display, Kellen resolved that he’d die inside the chamber. Then the rock started to shudder. Squeezing his ruby eyes shut, Kiypu bent his legs more and heaved as if he were under the rock, physically raising it. The massive slab of stone rose a foot in the air. Staggering backward, the mummy pulled it through the opening. With a massive heave, he threw himself and the stone forward with all of his weight.

The stone fell into the outside tunnel, leaving plenty of room for them to climb over the top. Kiypu stumbled past Kellen, whose revulsion at touching the jerkied corpse overcame his guilt at not catching the mummy’s fall. On all fours, Kiypu looked up to examine his work and let out a victorious shout.

“Still have it!”

Together, they climbed through the opening, the mummy in the lead. Rather than slowing them down, Shani and Kellen struggled to keep up with Kiypu, who brimmed with energy at the opportunity to explore the outside world once more. Not needing air, he talked nonstop as he walked, not bothering to wait for Kellen to huff out a reply. Now that they were going uphill instead of down the shaft, Kellen realized just how far they’d descended on the way. Channeling his mana into his muscles provided a small spark to keep up with Shani and Kiypu. He hoped he wouldn’t need another boost anytime soon. Kellen’s beast heart had little left to offer and the mana-rich chamber had not helped him or Vex recover at all, though he could not say why.

“It feels like yesterday and an age all at the same time,” the mummy said, not missing a stride or looking back to see if they were keeping up.

They came to the fork in the path again and either the mummy remembered what they’d told him about the blocked passage or he really did know his way through the tunnels after consulting the mass of string and cords. He turned left on the uphill path without hesitation.

“Keep up,” he said over his shoulder. “There are more twists and turns up ahead than a sackful of snakes.”