On Falling In And Out Of Storyside...

Part 8

            "Holy shit!" Jerry gasped, looking around for them. Temille grabbed his arm and, suddenly, she, too, was surprised.

            "My power...it doesn't work on you!" she gasped. "You really are a sorcerer!"

            "What power? What are you talking about?" Jerry demanded incredulously, still looking around for Magbert and Mia.

            "The jewel..." Temille fumbled, pointing to the floor. Jerry looked down and saw a medium sized ruby lying on the floor. He picked it up, keeping the other hand on Temille's arm, and held it up. He could vaguely make out two tiny figures inside and he nearly choked.

            "They're inside this thing?" He grabbed Temille by the arms firmly. "Is that them? How do I get them outta here? How do I get that chick out of the bubble? How do I get outta here?" She gaped at him in mortal panic and he shook her. "Talk to me, you bowhead!!!"

            Frightened out of her mind, Temille fainted.

            "Great!" Jerry groaned. "Now what'd I do?" He looked around and saw that the girl inside the bubble was coming around. Thank God!, he thought. Letting Temille drop to the floor, he ran over to the bubble. "Hey, wake up! I need your help!"

            It took her a few moments to sit up and answer, but finally she quietly replied, "I'm awake, you human idiot, stop yelling." She looked around the room painfully and added, "You call this a rescue? Where'd Dee find you, anyway?"

            "Uh, listen, about this whole rescue thing...I don't know how to get you out and I don't know how to get Magbert and Mia out of this jewel thing," Jerry explained sheepishly.

            "Uh-huh," Naomi said, shaking her head at him. "I see where this is going. A human with powers he knows nothing about and he's blundering about all over the place gettin' everybody around him into trouble while he figures it out. Typical. I take it you made all this mess."

            Jerry blanched. He'd gotten better treatment from ex-girlfriends and he hadn't even had to rescue them. "Look, babe, I didn't have to come in here and help you out, so if you want me to blow, fine, I'm gone!" He threw up his hands and stalked toward the door.

            "Don't get melodramatic," Naomi warned him. "You need help, too, or you wouldn't be in the far recesses of a fairy dungeon. Now, get back here."

            She did have a point, Jerry thought. No point in making any new enemies right now. "Alright, what do I do, then?"

            "First of all, what happened?" Naomi asked. Jerry briefly explained the immediate situation, beginning from his own ingracious stint in the dungeon. "Lemme get this straight," Naomi asked him when he'd finished. "You walk through a magically sealed door, are unaffected by a sleep spell or Temille's jewel entrapment and you still have no idea what your power is?"

            "I don't have any powers," Jerry said, shrugging.

            "Yeah, and neither does anyone else around you. Haven't you noticed the conspicuous lack of magic around you?" Naomi asked.

            "Well, Magbert just cast a sleep spell..." Jerry began.

            "And it never even phased you," Naomi finished. "And Temille's thing...no one except a sorcerer can beat a fairy with jewel entrapment until after they've gotten trapped in the jewel, maybe. Even then it's a long shot. But none of this phases you, either. You make things, and yourself, immune to magic somehow!" Jerry looked confused and Naomi shook her head. "God, does your mother know you're this stupid? Look, concentrate on that jewel you're holding."

            Jerry frowned at the insult, but did as he was told. A quick flash of light and suddenly Magbert was back, holding the still sleeping Mia in his arms.

            "So you are magic immune!" Magbert smiled. "I was right!"

            "You knew? Why didn't you tell me?

            "Well, I wasn't sure and even if I had been, I'm not sure you'd have believed me or even be able to accept..."

            "Hey, listen, I hate to break up true confessions, here, but I got places to go, things to do, that sorta jazz?" Naomi interrupted her. "Can ya undo this, here, fly boy?"

            Jerry gave Naomi a look, then turned to Magbert.

            "This could be why my wife hates this woman so," Magbert commented.

            "Good, then we can leave her here?" Jerry nodded.

            "No, I'd never hear the end of it. We came to rescue her, so we must do just that." Jerry sighed, then turned to the smug Naomi and caused her bubble to disappear so quickly that she hit the ground with an unceremonious thud.

            "Y'know, you could show a little gratitude here," Naomi said, trying to stand on her own. Her knees gave out and Jerry helped her up.

            "So could you, but who's counting?" he said. He bodily lifted her off her feet and cradled her in his arms. "You're gonna slow us down your way."

            "Ooo, I didn't know you cared!" Naomi said coyly.

            "I don't, but that kid does, so shut up and let's get out of here."

            They hurried out of the room, Magbert carrying Mia and Jerry carrying Naomi. "Which way?" Jerry asked her.

            "That way," Naomi replied, pointing to the left.

            "But we came in from that way!" Magbert protested, pointing right. "Your way will lead us further into the dungeon.

            "Trust me," Naomi said, rolling her eyes in exasperation, "you don't get to be called Naomi the Deft for nothing, alright? Go left." With a sigh, Magbert did as he was told with Jerry close on his heels. When they came to the end of the corridor, Naomi looked around.

            "Alright, now what?" Jerry asked. "We're stuck."

            "I know it's one of these..." she said, thoughtfully.

            "I hear them coming!" Magbert warned her.

            Jerry turned and checked all the dungeon doors, then finally found an open one. "Quick!" he said. "In here!" They ran in and shut the door behind them. Naomi let go of Jerry and disappeared into the darkness while he and Magbert listened at the door.

            "Can you hear them?" Magbert asked.

            "They're checking all the cells," said Jerry, trying to hear. "Somebody's telling them to bolt the upstairs door so we can't get out."

            "Then we're trapped," Magbert concluded.

            "Well, wait," Jerry said, grasping at straws, "are these guards magic? Because if they are, I can..."

            "All fairies are magic, my friend, but they won't be using that to kill us," Magbert told him, arousing Mia from her spellsleep.

            Jerry felt his heart simmering in a rising panic. Harsh reality had not been on his side all day, but now it was definitely turning against him. He had been able to accept these fairy folk and their kingdom, even the reality of their dungeon. But if he could believe all that, then he'd have to believe that he was about to die in that same fairy dungeon...didn't he?

            "Found it," said Naomi, as if her motive had been to find whatever it was all along. There was the grating of stone on stone and gradually, Jerry was able to see Naomi's crouched figure silhouetted in a square of eerie greenish light.

            "A secret passage!" Magbert exclaimed softly.

            "A gnome with brains!" Naomi retorted sarcastically. "You coming or what?" Jerry could feel Magbert's irritation as he made his way across the cell to the hole in the wall with Mia in tow.

            "What if this leads us into some collapsed old escape route?" Magbert suggested, peering in uncertainly.

            "Who are you, anyway, and what do you know from smack, huh?" Naomi asked incredulously. "You act like..."

            "Like you are the sprite I just spent 3 hours in a cell for on a hunch of my daughter's just so I could let you know that your little charge is safe, so you'd better act like I'm worth more than the breeze you shoot," Magbert growled, glaring at her.

            "You have Joshua?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "Where...?"

            "Safe with my wife back in Alkin," Magbert said. "Now get us out of here."

            "Okay, okay, don't get your breeches in a bunch," Naomi said, backing off just as Jerry announced that the guards were ransacking the cell next to him. "Come on, hero!" Naomi whispered to him, pushing Mia into the tunnel after Magbert. "Here is not the place to die!"

            "As if there were better places!" Jerry snorted, running toward the passage and crawling in.

            "Of course there are!" she said cheerfully. "In bed with a musclebound elven mage is one." Then, as an afterthought, she closed off the passage again and added, "Behind a semi-cute human idiot isn't a bad spot either."

            It wasn't that statement that made Jerry jump up with a yelp and bang his head on the low ceiling; it was her hand goosing his rear.

            Magbert, crawling ahead with a still groggy Mia behind him, laughed. "I think you were better off when she hated you."

             "I think I was better off in my own world," moaned Jerry, sitting back and rubbing his head.

            "So were your Girbauds," Naomi chuckled. "Keep going before I weeze yer juice again."

            Jerry looked at her in shock. How did a fairy know about the type of jeans he was wearing and how in the world did she pick up the phrase "weezing the juice"? "How did you..." he began.

            "Just crawl, babe, and I'll explain later," Naomi replied, pushing him forward.

            The small passage, lit by the florescent cave molds along its walls, worked its way down for a while through muddy puddles of cold water, then dried out as it began to turn upward, finally opening up again behind a set of bushes.

            "Where are we?" Magbert asked.

            "We're at the edge of Pyrope," Naomi said, taking the lead. "No one knows about this path except me." She proudly strode ahead through the thick underbrush.

            "Well, we've got to admit, she's good," Magbert sighed, following her.

            "At something, anyway," Jerry added.

            "Naomi's good at everything," Mia said proudly. "She can even find the way..." Here Mia punctuated her sentence with a gasp as she emerged out of the brush. Jerry and Magbert joined her and looked in front of them in shock.

            "To the castle guardhouse, Mia," Jerry finished sarcastically. "Go ahead, say it."

            Mia would have spoken, but standing in front of them were six large guards who had just had their attentions attracted by the four muddied figures that had come out of the brush onto the main road.

            "Halt!" one of them asked. "Who goes there?"

            "Can you swim?" Naomi asked Jerry under her breath.

            "Yeah, why?" he returned.

            "Not important," she said, plastering a fake smile on her face to fool the guards. "It's just a backup plan if this doesn't work." She turned to the guards with the same winning smile and said, "Hey, hiya doin'? Listen, me and my friends here were just going for a leisurely stroll when..."

            "Hey, it's Naomi!" one guard exclaimed.

            "Get her!" another shouted.

            "Backup plan?" Jerry asked as they turned to run.

            "Backup plan," she agreed, sprinting back into the underbrush.

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