Reaching the far side of the cavern became a much easier task when all the lizards were in hiding. Lilijoy used reasonable caution, but decided quick movement was a better idea than unnecessary stealth. The odd rock formations she had seen from a distance proved to be the crumbling remains of an ancient stone structure, composed of different rock from the surroundings. granite>

Whatever the building had been, it was now nothing more than tumbled walls and the odd plinth here and there. Remains of fallen columns and arches lay everywhere she looked, jumbled among the collapsed walls. She saw no signs of life, though she kept a wary eye, especially above her. The roof of the cavern was high, even this close to the wall. It looked as if whoever had built the structure had also altered the natural shape of the cave.

She progressed through the jumbled stone blocks, headed toward a larger structure she could see protruding from the very side of the cavern. Along the way, she kept an eye out for anything she could use as a weapon. Her lost walking stone hadn’t helped much, but it had delayed her death by a few seconds, and she knew that she would need to fight off more creatures, and maybe people too. Currently, she was carrying a nice sharp piece of granite that might be enough to hold off something small, slow and not overly aggressive.

After climbing over mounds of rubble and the occasional large block, it was a relief when she reached an area with a bit more structural integrity. Here the walls were more than twice her height, and the ceiling had fallen more conveniently, often leaving a path down the center. She felt a bit like she was time traveling, remaining still while the buildings reassembled themselves around her. When she finally got up to the wall and the large structure attached to it, she was happy to see that it was built into the solid black rock, even carved out of the rock itself. Towering pillars and frames emerged from the side of the cavern as if the building was pressing through the stone, caught in the process of emerging on its way deeper into the cave. The carved structures had a mottled look from a facade of gray granite tiles that had mostly fallen and shattered on the floor below.

Also carved into the stone wall were half sculptures bas relief> of flames (on the bottom parts) and (on the top part), long crawling tendrils that she initially took for tree roots, reaching down to the flames. It was only when she made out the enormous fringed oval shape carved above the ‘roof line’ of the building, with a single eye and gaping mouth spitting out the tendrils that she realized she was looking at a representation of whatever it was that had killed and eaten the two giant lizards.

“What was wrong with you people?” she asked aloud.

Lilijoy loved nature, but the creature she had witnessed nestled up among the stalactites made her stomach queasy. I’m definitely not putting one of those in my forest, she vowed. She wondered if the whole point of the buildings here was to venerate the nasty hanging tentacle monsters, and if so, what possible reason there could be to do so.

She decided that getting out of the cavern was by far the best course of action. Too bad she had to explore the temple of the ‘nasty hanging tentacle monster’ (her new name for the beast) to find a way out. Every time she thought about the ceiling lurkers, a new wave of creepy feeling ran up her spine, and the people who had decorated this elaborate complex were surely just as creepy.

She carefully made her way up to the dark entrance in the carved building facade. Just in front of it was a raised, circular pavilion, with still more tentacles carved around the edges, reaching in to the center.

“...just really liked tentacles, I guess...” she breathed.

In the center of the dais, half covered with shards of granite fallen from the facade above, was a large black stone box. altar> It emerged from the dais, carved as a single piece from the black volcanic stone. One corner was cracked and shattered, possibly by the falling hunks of granite.

Unable to help herself, Lilijoy crept up to the box-altar thing. It would have been as tall as she was, but she stood on a pile of granite that had rained down over the years and could see the top.

“Naturally, more tentacles.”

These tentacles were carved into the rock like little channels that draped over the sides of the altar. More fallen granite obscured the center. She almost left it alone, feeling no need to see yet another bulbous body with one eye, which she was almost certain was what lurked under the fragments and powder. But out of some weird fatalistic impulse, she used her granite hand axe to sweep the pile off to the side, which revealed two things. First, the requisite nasty hanging tentacle monster body, eye included. The other was a piece of smooth dark glass protruding from the eye, almost like a handle.

Great, she thought. They made it portable.

Even a few weeks later, Lilijoy would look back on her following actions with a wince at her own naivete. She didn’t know about curses, never seen an old movie where pulling on a mysterious handle has dire consequences, never even seen ancient cartoons like Scooby Doo. How was she supposed to know that, when confronted by a mysterious handle, protruding from a mysterious altar, in what is almost certainly a mysterious temple, you never, ever, even think of pulling on it or otherwise manipulating it for any reason whatsoever. At least, not until you have carefully considered the ramifications, made sure your running shoes are tied, and checked that your life insurance is up to date.

Near-future Lilijoy was aware of such things. Current Lilijoy, on the other hand, was mostly curious about how a smooth piece of dark glass had managed to survive sharp chunks of granite falling on it somewhat regularly for centuries if not longer. She stretched over the top of the altar and gave the handle a good tug, assuming it was fixed in place. Upon finding it hardly-at-all attached, she promptly fell over backwards onto the tentacle-surrounded dais, holding in her hand a wicked looking knife. Not wicked in a good way either. It was wicked more in the foot-long wavy volcanic glass blade with groove for blood, red eye set into blade near the handle on both sides, reeks of ancient blood sacrifice way.

Holding her new find up for inspection, Lilijoy was less interested in past atrocities perpetrated in the name of the Nasty Hanging Tentacle Monster, than in how on earth a glass blade of any kind could possibly be of any use. It almost looked like a shard from the Piles, though certainly better put together, and with more eyes than was typical of those. She gave it a few experimental swings, making a little ‘whoosh’ sound with her mouth to help reality out. She tapped it carefully on a granite chunk, and then with a bit more force. Seeing that the blade was still unharmed, she gave the corner of the block a really good whack with the side of the blade. Better to find out how tough it is now, she rationalized. This strike caused the blade to ring like a bell, a waving, crying sound that lingered in the air just a bit longer than it probably should have.

From various locations high up in the dark recesses of the cavern, Lilijoy heard answering bell-like calls, pure, high and innocent as a sacrificed baby. She decided that now would be an excellent time to investigate the inner regions of the temple complex.

Running for all she was worth, Lilijoy plunged into the slightly darker darkness of the temple’s main corridor. As far as she could tell, no nasty hanging tentacle beasts were in hot pursuit, but seeing as she had just rung the dinner bell, as it were, she felt no need to stay as the meal. Impressions of more wall carvings passing by flashed through her mind.

Tentacles. More tentacles. Fire. Fire burning someone. Ouch. Oh they look okay...nope, tentacles. Man. Woman. Woman and tentacles... at this point she stopped looking at the walls entirely, hoping to preserve what remained of her innocence after the archived twenty-first century web experience. The only thing keeping her from a full-on sprint was the fear of outrunning her echolocation. That changed when she heard extremely high-pitched pinging sounds coming up the hall behind her.

Hey, she thought, those sounds are absolutely perfect for echolocation.

This thought was shortly followed by a realization.

Oh crap. Those sounds are echolocation.

Something big was coming up the hallway after her. As it gained she could hear slapping and squishing noises, like someone back there was hitting a table with a slab of wet raw meat. Repeatedly. Urgently even. It was only seconds before the first tentacle flew past her head, slapped the wall and stuck, and began to pull.

“Boost me, Jiannu!” she screamed, forgetting to worry about whether that would even work in a virtual world. She was hit by an immense wave of adrenaline, and her legs and arms began to pump faster and faster, as any sense of fatigue left her body. She began to pull away from the wet wall spanking sounds and flew through a large wooden door, thankfully rotted in place, that exploded in a shower of dry pulp and cellulose dust.

She had just enough time to identify a spiral staircase through nearly slamming into the wrong side of it. She gathered herself and climbed as fast as her legs would carry her. Up and up she spiraled, her short legs barely making the steps. The sounds of slapping receded, and then a brief cherubic wail echoed up the stairs, conveying the loneliness and desolation of a thousand dead Amazonian swamps.

“Why are you running?” It seemed to convey. “I love, love, love you and only you forever. Please come back and play...”

Lilijoy hoped that was just her imagination talking.

***

According to her count, Lilijoy had now covered a roughly infinite number of steps, for approximately ever. When she finally reached the heavy metal door at the top, she nearly ran into it.

It was barred. From the other side. Her boost was long gone, so she contented herself with slumping on the top step and feebly pounding on it with her free hand, while softly cursing. After that she cried, and then pounded some more. She was just about to see if her new evil dagger could cut steel, when there was a commotion of some kind on the other side of the door. Did she hear hushed voices arguing?

“I’m trapped in the stairs!” she yelled.

“I’m really nice!” she half-yelled.

“At least I don’t have tentacles,” she said.

There was a thunderous clanging sound as the bar on the other side dropped on to the floor. The door opened an inch and then stopped. She could now clearly hear voices beyond.

“Why did you do that?” one of them said, while simultaneously another said, “Oh god, we’re going to die.”

She might have also heard a faint, “Mommy” in the background. She cautiously pushed at the door, forcing the heavy metal bar along the floor where it had fallen. She squeezed around it as soon as she could and came face to face with the most terrified ten-year-old boy she had ever seen. His knees shook, and his face was white as a sheet.

“Please, eat my friends instead,” he said courageously.

***

Sometime later, Lilijoy was sitting in front of a fire built in the courtyard of Fort Groveship, or as the boys liked to call it, ‘Fort Oh shit’ or alternately ‘Fort Go shit’. Lilijoy didn’t really get the joke, but they seemed to think it hilarious. She had also learned that the trip to Fort Groveship was a rite of passage for local children when they turned ten.

Accompanied by the Sargent at Arms for the town guard, who evidently had something of a passion for the annual trip, the ten-year-old boys and girls would ride by wagon for two days, camping out under the stars, rain or shine. Next, they would hike for a full day in leather armor while carrying weapons and supplies until they reached the keep, an old borderlands outpost abandoned when the borders moved to a better neighborhood. The climax of the expedition was the night the children stayed in the old fort by themselves, setting up camp in the courtyard. There, they were responsible for taking care of themselves without any adult help or supervision. The next day, the Sargent would collect them, and they would start the long hike back to the wagons.

Needless to say, older children who had already completed the excursion delighted in telling tall tales of wolves, goblins, the terrifying ghosts of haunted keep, and above all, the ‘Door That Must Never Be Opened’.

Naturally, the tradition was to open the door.

Every year, the children would work to dislodge the heavy iron bar, and then take turns daring each other to go down the stairs. Whoever went the farthest was acclaimed ‘A huge idiot’ by the rest, but secretly envied. In truth, no one ever got farther than the first turn of the stairs, due to the other tradition, arrived at independently, of going just beyond the first turn of the stairs and then waiting there, while later pretending they had gone much farther. This satisfied Lilijoy’s curiosity about the surprisingly low number of children devoured by nasty hanging tentacle beasts.

Lilijoy’s arrival had provided a new twist to the whole situation. When the children had heard pounding on the door, that fit well with the frightful tales cooked up by previous generations. They had been told of ghosts who haunted the deserted stair, so it seemed natural to hear banging and wailing. It wasn’t until she pushed the door open and emerged that the kids had experienced true terror. There were currently several pairs of breeches drying by the fire to testify to that.

Once all the confusion about who was eating who had been settled, the children had excitedly welcomed the brave explorer, plying her for tales of her exploits. It was all very strange to Lilijoy, who had never interacted with a group like this before. She decided to pretend she was someone like Anda, or Marcus, who might actually know what they were doing.

There were nineteen of them on the trip (they were very certain about the number, being under strict orders to count off every hour). The Sargent was off in the woods somewhere, pretending not to be keeping a close eye on the children. They seemed entirely unconcerned with Lilijoy's small stature, probably assuming she was half gnome or something. Her dagger had entranced them; none of them had ever seen a glass weapon.

“Bet its magic.” said a large dull boy who’s name Lilijoy kept forgetting. Abard? Afner? She was pretty sure it started with ‘A’ and had two syllables. She was also pretty sure that ten-year-olds weren’t supposed to be almost six feet tall.

“How would you know?” asked Lilijoy.

“’Cause its shiny. And it don’ break”

She had been hoping for a slightly more in-depth analysis.

“Does anyone know anything about weapons?” she called out. Unsurprisingly, nineteen hands or more raised as they all began to talk at once. After settling that commotion, Lilijoy decided that getting her information from children a couple years younger than her was not a great strategy.

“When does your Sargent come back?” she asked a little girl who wasn’t much taller than her.

“Tomorrow morning” she said, “a few hands past first light. My Ma’s a blacksmith.”

That seemed like a bit of a non-sequitur to Lilijoy. “That’s nice,” she said.

The girl went on, “So, you know, I know about weapons and stuff. A little. She let me make my knife.” The girl pulled out a piece of metal that was, arguably, a knife with a wooden handle.

“What do you think of my dagger?” Lilijoy asked.

“It’s scary.”

Great, thought Lilijoy, another Ander, (or was it Alden?). Then the girl kept speaking.

“It’s scary cause it wants our blood.”

That was a little unsettling. “What’s your name? And how do you know that?”

“My name’s Peliatha, but everyone calls me Hatha. That’s a bad knife. It’s not for workin’, not for fightin’. That’s a knife just for slicing up throats. It’s going to bring bad luck.”

Lilijoy was preparing to refute that when a large woman in leather armor staggered into the courtyard, several short arrows sticking out of her thighs and back. She made it to the fire and collapsed.

Next to it, thankfully.