Kelly stopped herself before she gave it all away.
“Until?” I asked, leaning against the cage.
“Until nothing,” she said quickly. “You heard nothing. I know nothing!”
“You know,” said Cat, “as Captain of the Happy-Go-Lucky, I demand to be able to speak to your captain. It is terrible that I am being mistreated here and....”
Kelly stamped her foot. “Fine,” she snapped, brushing her blue hair out of her eyes only for it to bounce back to where it was. “Captain Shaw is...well...he’s missing.”
“Missing?” I asked. I flopped to the ground. We were never getting out.
“Well, we know where he is,” she said. “We just don’t know how to get to him.”
“He’s in the Temple,” Abraham suddenly interrupted.
Kelly’s eyes widened. “How did you know that?” She looked up at the Temple rising among the trees behind us. We all turned to follow her gaze. The sun slowly set behind the hills, and the darkness spread across the island. The temple looked even more ominous in the light of the torches set up by the crew. “He’s in there,” she said quietly. “And so is your friend Scotty. We’ve been ordered not to go in after them. So we’ll all wait here until they come back.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll go.”
Cat frowned. “You can’t. We’ve been ordered.”
“No, you’ve been ordered. I am completely free to do what I want,” I smirked.
“And so will I,” said Cat.
The sound of moaning zombies began to fill our ears as they poured out of the forest around us. Kelly stamped her foot in frustration and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “You’ve got three hours. If you aren’t out by then, we are going to march back to your ship and take it by force.”
“Great,” I said.
“And the old guy stays here to make sure you don’t try and trick us,” Kelly said.
“Wonderful,” said Abraham, stroking his beard. “I much prefer the fresh air.”
Cat and I both sighed.
Tuesday Night – Outside the Temple front doors – Mood: Freaked out
We are preparing to go into the temple now. I was a little bit nervous, until some of sailors gave Cat and I a cool sword each. I tested mine out in the air a few times. Nothing can hurt you when you have a sword, right? I am beginning to see why Scotty likes them so much!
Swish! Swish! I hurt my arm playing with the sword.
Note to self: Always stretch and warm up before you start swinging swords around.
Why are swords so heavy?
Tuesday Night – Going into the Temple now – Mood: I think I’m shaking
Well, that’s great. As soon as we said goodbye to Abraham, he had to get his ‘freaky old man’ on and reveal everything. I was just planning on waving goodbye to him, but he gave me a surprise hug and then whispered into my ear.
“Alex, be careful. I can feel Scotty’s presence in there, but I can also feel a darkness beyond compare. Watch your step, for there may be traps waiting for you and if you forget everything else remember this: Do not enter the portal!”
He then pulled away and looked me in the eye. “Remember my advice, Alex.”
What kind of terrifying advice is that?
How about a ‘good luck Alex, you’ll be fine I’m sure, oh and you are looking really pretty today!’
But nooooo, he had to dial the creepiness up to over 9000!
Tuesday Night – Inside the Temple – Mood: Not at all scared. Nope. I am fine. Totally fine...
We are inside the temple. I haven’t been turned into a frog, or exploded, or dropped down a hole or anything yet, so that’s OK, but it’s still pretty crazy in here.
None of the Angry Mermaid crew wanted to get too close to the temple. They all thought it was cursed, and that whoever went in there would never come out. They were still perfectly happy to send us inside though. Isn’t that nice? Still, they were focused on fighting back the monsters that were coming to the camp, so it was just me and Cat standing alone on the first level of the temple, in the darkness. I heard Cat fumbling with something. She muttered a quiet curse and then a torch flared to life on a nearby wall.
“There we go,” she grinned. “Let’s go and get cursed then, eh?” Cat nudged me with her elbow and winked.
She was far too cheery. I didn’t like it.
The temple was made of stone, but it smelled old. The cobblestone walls had cracks filled with green, damp moss, giving them a slimy and gross texture. I poked it once and regretted it instantly, rubbing my hand on my pants, and then looked around some more. In this room, there was a central staircase going downwards, and two smaller staircases either side going up.
I looked at Cat. “Up or down?” I asked.
Cat frowned. “I’ve heard stories about these jungle temples,” she said.
“Nice, happy stories where everyone has a great time and comes away laughing, maybe with a magical unicorn who grants wishes?” I asked hopefully. She looked at me and shook her head. Of course it wouldn’t be a happy story. And why did stories never have wish-granting unicorns, in them, huh?
So uncool.
“I say we go up first and then we go down, agree?” Cat asked, holding her sword out in front of her.
I held my sword out too, although I think it is broken because it kept shaking in my hand! I nodded, swallowing my fear, and stepped onto the first step leading upwards. I closed my eyes and waited. Nothing happened.
“What are you doing?” Cat asked, already half way up the stairs.
“I don’t know, I suppose I’m waiting for the whole place to explode or something,” I mumbled. “Abraham mentioned there would be traps.”
“Why would everything explode? I think the stairs are OK,” Cat said, continuing upwards.
I guess I over-reacted a little bit. I blame Abraham with his scary warnings. We are now upstairs, and actually, everything is fine. I’m not even kidding. There is nothing up here, except for some windows that we can look out of and see the trees in the jungle. Cat, I think, was a little disappointed: she’s looking out the window right now and mumbling to herself. If downstairs is like this, I don’t think this temple is going to be a problem at all!
Temple Tuesday! – Under the Temple – Mood: I don’t like Temples anymore
Downstairs was a little more eventful than upstairs! To begin with, it was a lot darker. We could hear a strange tapping sound as we descended. It sounded like this: Tap tap tap.
Cat turned to me and whispered: “Is that you?” Tap tap tap.
“No,” I whispered back. “Why are we whispering?” Tap tap tap.
“I don’t know.” Tap tap tap. “It just seems like the right thing to do.”
As Cat lit up the area, we found out that we were in a small corridor. Off to our right, the corridor turned a corner. To our left, it stopped. On the wall to our left, three levers hung suspiciously, each asking to be pulled. I reached up to touch the closest one and Cat slapped my hand away.
“Ow!” I said.
“Don’t touch!” she snapped. “You have no idea what could happen.”
I couldn’t argue with that (although she didn’t have to slap me). I felt heat flush up to my face as I rubbed my hand better. I just wanted to know what would happen, and as a result, I could have doomed us all. I am so smart sometimes.
I was a little more careful after that, which was good because as we turned the corner in the temple, it was my turn to stop her by grabbing her shoulders.
“Wait!” I shouted. We both froze in place, Cat’s foot hovering just above the offending thing that I could just about make out on the floor beneath us.
“What is it?” she hissed.
“Look down,” I said. We peered down at the floor. Just beneath her foot, almost invisible, was what looked like a small, black line. Cat frowned and gently brought her foot back, bending down slightly to look at the line closely. She let out a slow breath and then patted me
on the shoulder.
“Well done, Alex,” she said. “Well done.” She meant it. It turns out she almost stepped on a tripwire! It was an old kind of trap, but if she had stepped on it, an arrow would have flown out of the wall opposite and hurt her! As we both gently stepped over it and made our way to the end of the corridor, Cat brushed away some vines on the wall to reveal a small circular hole. She nodded. “This is where the arrows would have fired from. It would have really hurt,” Cat grinned, patting me on the back again.
We found one more trip wire in the final room and beyond that, a chest!
Cat’s eyes lit up when she saw it. She knelt down next to it and stroked the side. “Do you know what this is, Alex?” she whispered. “Treasure!” It was like she had found something she had been searching for her entire life. She began to open the chest, and I squeaked. What if there was another trap? What if it caused water to pour from the walls or fire to pop out the floor or...
The chest opened. Nothing happened, except that Cat groaned.
“It’s empty!” she said.
That’s right. The treasure chest was completely empty! I guess Scotty and Captain Shaw came in here before and took everything, which makes sense. We still haven’t found them, though, and we are running out of time. We’ve explored this place from top to bottom now, but where could they be? And what is that tapping noise?!
Still Tuesday I think – The Levers – Mood: Confused
Cat thinks that the answer is to do with the levers that she told me not to touch. We are sitting by them now, and trying to figure them out. I am terrible at puzzles. I mean, which one should we pull? Cat hasn’t got a clue either.
A magical unicorn would be so handy right about now.
There are three of them, how are we supposed to...
Actually, you know what? I’ve just had an idea.
Tuesday Night – Back at the Camp! – Mood: Scared
We managed to solve the lever puzzle! You know that tapping? Tap, tap tap? Well, I came up with an idea. What if the tapping wasn’t water dripping somewhere, or just the strange noises of an old temple? What if it was someone trying to communicate?
Yeah, it sounds a bit crazy, I know, but hear me out. There were three taps and three levers. What if someone was telling us to pull the third lever first? I told my idea to Cat, and this is how she responded:
“Ha ha ha ha! That’s crazy! How do you even think of things like that?”
I love how supportive she is.
She said that we just needed to ‘figure things out’, but it was clear that we had no idea, so I did something a bit crazy: I pulled the lever.
Cat let out a shriek as we heard movement somewhere within the wall. Then it stopped, and we waited.
Nothing happened. The tapping began again, but now it went Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
It was a lot slower. I was right! “It must mean ‘one’, the first lever this time!” I grinned. I was really pleased with myself. I mean, figuring out ancient puzzles wasn’t one of my strengths until today. I went to reach for the first lever, and Cat smacked my hand away.
“Nuh uh,” she said. “If we’re going to die horribly, I am going to be the one responsible.” I didn’t know how to feel about that, but before I could reply, she reached up to the lever and pulled it down. There was a clunk.
We both paused and waited. “Well,” said Cat after a moment. “That was very....”
I didn’t hear the rest of what she had to say, because there was a thick, scraping sound of stone against stone. Dust fell from the ceiling, causing us to cough and back away from the wall behind us. I expected to hit a wall, but found myself falling backwards, down a staircase through a hole that had opened up.
I hit the first step with a thump, but before I could fall any further, a hand caught me and stopped me from moving. I lay on the ground and looked down into the room below that had just opened up. A few torches lit up the large, square room, and a strange humming noise came from inside it. I frowned and tried to focus, and realized that the noise came from a big, black rectangle standing upright in the center of the room, a purple, pulsating light coming from within. I tried to look at it further, but a voice came from above me.
“I can’t believe that worked!”
I looked up to see a man, dressed in torn, messy clothes, with a big black beard. He grinned madly at me and then helped me to my feet.
“Captain Shaw?” Cat asked, peering through the hole that I had fallen through. “Is that you?”
“It is!” Captain Shaw said. “But we don’t have time for introductions. We need to get out right now before-”
There was some kind of scream inside the room. It wasn’t a human scream. It sounded high-pitched, almost like some kind of animal. It sounded angry. My blood turned to ice as I looked down into the room and something black with a pair of purple eyes stared back at me.
“Run!” shouted Shaw.
He dragged me out by the arm and pushed up the lever. The hole began to seal up again, but not before there was a ‘POP’ sound and the purple eyes appeared again... right by the hole. They stared at me as the stone scraped closed and I found myself frozen to the spot.
“What was that?” Cat asked, horrified.
Shaw shook his head. “Not here. Let’s go outside.”
We are back in the camp now. I can’t stop thinking about the monster with the purple eyes. What was it? Shaw is too busy talking to his crew to tell us anything, but Abraham sat down next to me and looked at me with serious eyes.
“You saw it,” he said. “We aren’t safe here.”
Then he wandered off. What does he mean?
Tuesday Night – Chaos around the Camp – Mood: Angry
Things are going crazy here at the camp. The monsters are endless. I thought there were a lot when I was in the jungle, but there seem to be even more here! Cat has joined the fight, taking up her sword and slashing anything that gets too close. The limited defences that were built around the camp are not as great as they were at the start of the night. I don’t know how much longer we can stay here.
I tried to get Captain Shaw to tell me where Scotty went. At first he looked at me sadly, and then he mumbled: “Scotty is gone.”
“What do you mean gone?” I snapped. “What have you done to him?!” I grabbed Shaw by the front of his shirt and apparently the rest of his crew didn’t like that. I soon found a bunch of swords pointing at me.
Shaw raised his hands and the swords lowered. “I saw him walk into the purple mist underneath the temple. We thought it was a portal to somewhere, but he never came back.”
“Purple mist?” Abraham asked, his eyes wide. “You let the light bringer enter the portal? But that means that he is in the....”
But Abraham didn’t go any further than that because we heard a scream from behind us. Just like the scream from that thing inside the temple, but this time, it was outside.
Abraham turned to look towards the temple. “An Enderman!” he shouted. “Everyone! Look out!”
He pointed at the top of the temple where a black figure with purple eyes was standing. There was something strange about it. This man was tall, taller than anyone I knew, and thin as a stick. He was all out of proportion with his large head and the purple eyes that looked down at us, filled with hate.
Shaw stepped back. “Oh no! It escaped! But how?”
The Enderman disappeared! We looked around, but it was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is it?” said Shaw, nervously.
“It will be back,” Abraham said. “It is defending the portal. We need to keep a lookout for....”
The Enderman was back, but this time he was on the outside of the camp. A few of the crew who were standing guard backed up nervously only for him to POP away again. A creeper stood in his place.
We threw ourselves to the ground. I heard shouts, but the world was a blur and my ears were ringing. I pushed myself to my feet and tried to figure out what
was going on. I looked up.
I was staring right into a pair of purple eyes. There was a loud scream. I brought my hands up in front of my face, not sure what to do or how to protect myself from this monster, when another figure pounced into view, knocking the Enderman away!
I blinked a few times. It was Cat’s Ocelot! It swiped a sharp claw at the Enderman and hissed.
The Enderman disappeared again.
“Alex! Are you alright?” Cat was by my side, helping me to stand. “That creeper explosion was close.”
“I don’t...” I struggled to form words. Creepers are the worst. Cat guided me back to the entrance of the temple, where the hurt crew members were being treated. Abraham was standing there as well, leaning heavily on his staff.
“Alex,” he said to me. “The monsters, they are drawn to the Nether portal, that thing you saw in the temple. If we don’t destroy it, we shall be overrun.”
I blinked at him, slowly understanding the meaning behind his words. “But...” I said. “Scotty! The light bringer, the whatever you said! He is in there.”
Abraham shook his head. “He is lost to us for now. But we can bring him back, just not here. Now we need to save as many people as we can.”
He then made me sit down, and someone started wrapping a bandage around my head. Apparently I was hurt. But all I can think about is Scotty. And how are we going to destroy a portal?
Wednesday Morning – After the Chaos – Mood: Determined
I figured it out. I know how to destroy the portal and save everyone. Everyone...except Scotty. It was pretty simple really, and as soon as I thought of it, I stood up and ran to find Captain Shaw and Cat who were fighting off zombies at the breach in the defences.
Swish went Cat’s sword, and a zombie went flying backwards.
Swoosh went Shaw’s sword, and a skeleton collapsed into pieces.
Together they fought like a well-oiled machine, dancing around each other, jumping and stabbing when needed. It was pretty awesome.
“Cat!” I shouted over the chaos. “I know what to do!”
Cat kicked away a zombie and looked at me. “Yeah?”