Earlier that same day, about the time Crysolis was landing on the opposite side of the island and her passengers began their long trek through the jungle to Skull Rock Mountain, something stirred the waters in an underwater cavern beneath the Island. The blackness of the huge cavern was invaded by a glow rising from the pool of ocean water at its center and bubbles interrupted the stillness of that ancient place. Suddenly, a giant, metal beast broke the surface and bobbled to a halt, its high wattage floodlights illuminating every corner of the cavern.
After a few moments a hatch opened in the top of the submarine and a bald head popped up to survey the area. It was, of course, Frangen. The industrious dwarf hoisted himself out and over the edge into the water where he swam for the cave shore, rope in tow. Once on dry ground, he found a stone column to wrap the rope around and heaved, drawing the submersible in as close as he could to shore.
About that time, Princess Nataleigh peeked her head up from the hatch carrying a lightweight platform. With Frangen’s help, they secured it both to the submarine and to the shore for easy crossing. Once all was secure, Heindel joined them on the Submarine’s topside dragging behind him another strange contraption.
“Frangen, take zis vis you.” The inventor said as he handed it to his brother. “It is ze best protective device ve have onboard ze submersible.”
Frangen was instantly excited by the gift and took it gleefully. Nataleigh eyed it curiously.
“So what does this one do?”
Heindel glowed with the usual pride as he explained while Frangen proceeded to strap the gizmo to his back and then cock it like a shotgun. He even sniffed it with disgust once or twice in the process.
“Zis is ze portable, vun man stinkball launcher complete vit mass ammo backpack auto loader. Ze backpack is made of brontosaurus hide to contain ze foul stench.”
Nataleigh wrinkled her nose, not sure she agreed that the smell was contained as Frangen cocked the contraption one more time and she caught a wiff of what was in the backpack. For a moment she wondered if those stinkballs were made of something else that came from a brontosaurus, but she knew better than to ask.
Of course that didn’t stop the proud inventor from telling her. “Ze balls are my own special concoction. I take two parts skun…”
“No time for details!” Nataleigh interrupted nervously. She really did NOT want to know what Heindel’s concoction was made of. “I’m sorry, Heindel, but Frangen and I must get moving if we’re going to find the eye before Panganiban and the pirates do. Who knows what kind of magic powers he has to help him. They could have teleported down here, used x-ray vision to find it and disappeared by now, for all we know.”
Heindel harrumphed in response. He was as indignant to her comment about magic as he was at being interrupted. Being a dwarf of science, the inventor believed very little in magic.
“Don’t be silly,” he chided, “a bunch of superstitious monkey antics and tricks. Science is vhere ze true answers lie. Zat magical type fellow is no match for my knowledge of chemistry and olfactory repugnant fumes. Ve’ll see who is sent scittering away when he shows his grumpy face.”
“Thank you, Heindel,” the princess said, and she meant it. The three dwarves had gotten her farther than she’d dare to hope. Of course, the cost had also been greater than she ever imagined. This was real danger, alright. Just what she’d said she wanted, but now she wasn’t so sure after their encounter with the giant octopus.
“Take care of Madelyn and Boz. We’ll be back as fast as we can. I’m sure your stinkball launcher will work just fine.”
Heindel smiled and turned to his brother. “Frangen, remember to valk softly. You remember vhat happened in ze test run when Bozvin shook ze bag too vigorously. Don’t forget vhat zat does to Reek Roach eggs. And keep ze gun tip up. You don’t vant anything dripping out of ze barrel that von’t vash off!”
“Ya, ya, Heindel. I know, already. The princess is right. We must go!” And with that, the muscular dwarf jumped from the platform on to the cave floor and turned to help Nataleigh down. He still wore no shirt, but in addition to the backpack and launcher he carried, he had also produced a miners hat with a floodlight. Planting it squarely on his head, he began to turn his head back and forth to scan the rocky floor of the cave.
Nataleigh followed closely behind, wondering if there were other monstrous creatures that lived on or beneath this island besides a giant octopus. She looked around the cavern and noticed other smaller cave openings around the cavern wall. Some of them were big enough for a large dragon to walk through with plenty of wing room. Suddenly she felt very small in all of this open space.
Their search revealed seashells scattered everywhere, and some old coins of various types, but not much else. The coins were scattered in a general path that led toward the largest cave entrance and soon they could make out scratches and scrapes in the rock floor where something of immense size had been dragged in that direction as well.
The trail slithered back and forth in the sidewinding fashion of a snake – a very LARGE snake. Nataleigh found her imagination running away with her as she gazed into the blackness of that large tunnel.
Suddenly Frangen stopped and picked something up from the floor of the cavern.
“A sea serpent scale,” he confirmed. “A very large one too.” He handed it to Nataleigh.
The thing was as heavy as an iron cooking pan, but glittered a shiny seawater green. The princess was actually surprised at how pretty the scale was coming from such a horrible monster as this serpent must be.
“Do you think we should keep going this way, Frangen?” she asked apprehensively. “What if this thing is still around?”
”Didn’t you say that this thing you were looking for was a serpent’s eye?” Frangen asked as a matter of fact.
“Well, yes.” She stammered. “I mean… no. That is… um, that’s what it’s called, but…”
“Then where better to look than in the serpent’s lair? Don’t worry, your majesty. Heindel’s stinkballs can stun even a sea serpent… I think. Of course, they’ve never been tested on something so large. But I understand that sea serpents have very large nostrils so they can smell their victims coming from great distances and pounce on them without warning even in water.”
Nataleigh looked as if she would suddenly feint at the mention of being pounced on by a giant hungry sea serpent. Frangen continued rambling on, trying to make her feel better.
“But that should work in our favor. One good shot up the nose and it’ll never eat another thing again… at least not without getting sick. You’ll see, princess.”
Somehow, the thought of the sea serpent getting sick after it ate her, didn’t do much to make Nataleigh feel much safer. Never-the-less, they continued into the large cave, following the winding trail. After all, Nataleigh reasoned, there was no better trail to follow.
The tunnel they entered twisted and turned and went on for what seemed like hours, all of which were filled with fear, as the princess and the inventor delved deeper into the bowels of the island not knowing what lay around each dark corner. After some time, they began to find other passages branching off from the one they followed and they realized they were going to have to mark their trail so they could be sure to find their way back. The serpent’s trail seemed most noticeable down larger tunnels, but soon, even the smaller ones showed signs of its passage and they began to wonder how many tunnels and passages there were under this island and which one was home to the serpent.
“This is a maze down here,” the princess groaned at one point. “This could take us weeks at this rate and if we choose the wrong one, we could end up meeting some hungry creature ready to eat us!”
Things grew worse when they began to notice footprints along the tunnels that were made by dwarves. Frangen identified them as probably belonging to pirates or perhaps knights or both and now they feared that they were too late to claim the Eye. The bad guys had already been here.
But then Frangen noticed that the prints were going in both directions. Soon they found them crossing their tunnel going first up one tunnel and back and then up another tunnel and then back the way they had come yet again until it became quite clear that their opponents were lost.
“They’ve not been marking their trail,” Nataliegh observed. “They must be going in circles!”
“And I don’t think they recognize the tracks we are following,” Frangen agreed. “If we can just keep from bumping into them along the way, we may still find the Serpent’s Eye first.”
“As long as we find the Eye only… and not the rest of the serpent.” Nataleigh whispered. She was still quite nervous about the idea that their might be something down here that could eat them.
They continued following the most noticeable trail of the sea serpent until they had left the dwarven footprints behind. Princess Nataleigh’s hopes began to grow again. This must surely mean that we’re ahead of them now. She thought. If only we can sneak past them on the way back…
At last, the tunnel they were following ended in a large chamber that looked dwarven made rather than natural. The walls were smooth and straight and the ceiling high and there were some metal contraptions that Nataleigh could not identify. At the far end of the room, about 40 feet away, the natural tunnel they were following continued as if some large worm had tunneled into the side of this room and out the other side again.
The floor was the strangest feature of the room. Instead of a solid rock or dirt floor, there were metal plates with fist-size holes piercing them in a checkered pattern around the room and sinking in toward the center. And in small piles around the room and filling every crevice and nook were traces of white sand as if from the beaches above.
Frangen immediately ran into the room to examine things, wishing out loud that his brothers were with them. The first thing he examined was a round iron door in the far wall that was hinged at the top and connected to some large hydraulics used to open and close it from the top.
“But where is the lever which controls the machinery?” Frangen wondered. Finding no answers to this riddle, he turned his attention to the floor. “This is very strange, your highness.” He explained. “This flooring is hollow and from what I can see through the holes, there is a pit that shrinks into a funnel beneath us. I think this room is a drainage filter. I don’t think we want to be in here if this metal door opens.”
Princess Nataleigh was bewildered and a bit curious.
“You mean that if that round metal door opens it might pour water in on us?”
“Or sand.” The inventor offered. “It is all over the place. Maybe this is some kind of giant sandbox.”
“Or maybe it’s some kind of booby trap!”
Nataleigh suddenly became alarmed. “Let’s get outta here, Frangen, before we set it off or something!”
Grabbing the dwarf by the arm, she jerked him up and pulled him toward the other cave exit. Frangen was still talking about the machinery, only half paying attention to the princess as he was pulled along.
“I seem to remember a story about my great great grandpa Vindelshneezer designing a hydraulic sand box filtering system to sift out all of the toys that children lose while they are building sand castles. It had metal floor plates with holes like these that would let the sand fall through but not the toys and he connected a pump system that would suck the sand out through a pipe and blow it back into the sandbox from the top so that the sand was never lost.
“Of course, children kept getting sand blown in their faces when the pump was activated… but they never lost any more toys. Grandpa Vindelshneezer was a genius and the first inventor in our family.”
“That’s great, Frangen, but we don’t have time to examine every invention we come across in these tunnels.” Nataleigh reprimanded, grunting with the effort of practically dragging the nostalgic inventor. “We’ve got to find the Eye before the pirates do, now come on! Whatever comes out of that door is probably not going to be very helpful to us anyway.”
At her words, Frangen snapped out of his reverie and resumed tracking up the tunnel. The princess breathed a sigh of relief as they left the chamber behind, wondering what kind of danger they may have avoided. The idea of tons of sand pouring out of the wall on their heads did not thrill her. And then she wondered where all of that sand might come from.
As if in answer to her ponderings, they suddenly heard the machinery in the room behind them come alive. The hydraulics of the machine could be heard hissing in protest and then the screeching of the hinges as the massive door must surely be lifting.
Frangen started to turn back, but the princess stopped him. Now they could hear what sounded like something pouring in large quantities from the metal door. They could not see back up the tunnel, but they could hear it echoing upon the metal plated floor as it poured in.
“See?” Nataleigh shouted over the noise. “I told you it was a trap! And we barely escaped it! Let’s get out of here before sand starts pouring down the tunnels too!”
“But, your highness, the floor is structured in such a way as to keep the sand from…”
Frangen was suddenly interrupted in his explanation. Over the sound of the pouring sand, they heard the definite sound of something moving up the passage ahead and before either could react to shut off their light or hide, they saw a shape materializing out of the darkness. It had two scaley, green heads and sharp, clawed flippers!
After a few moments a hatch opened in the top of the submarine and a bald head popped up to survey the area. It was, of course, Frangen. The industrious dwarf hoisted himself out and over the edge into the water where he swam for the cave shore, rope in tow. Once on dry ground, he found a stone column to wrap the rope around and heaved, drawing the submersible in as close as he could to shore.
About that time, Princess Nataleigh peeked her head up from the hatch carrying a lightweight platform. With Frangen’s help, they secured it both to the submarine and to the shore for easy crossing. Once all was secure, Heindel joined them on the Submarine’s topside dragging behind him another strange contraption.
“Frangen, take zis vis you.” The inventor said as he handed it to his brother. “It is ze best protective device ve have onboard ze submersible.”
Frangen was instantly excited by the gift and took it gleefully. Nataleigh eyed it curiously.
“So what does this one do?”
Heindel glowed with the usual pride as he explained while Frangen proceeded to strap the gizmo to his back and then cock it like a shotgun. He even sniffed it with disgust once or twice in the process.
“Zis is ze portable, vun man stinkball launcher complete vit mass ammo backpack auto loader. Ze backpack is made of brontosaurus hide to contain ze foul stench.”
Nataleigh wrinkled her nose, not sure she agreed that the smell was contained as Frangen cocked the contraption one more time and she caught a wiff of what was in the backpack. For a moment she wondered if those stinkballs were made of something else that came from a brontosaurus, but she knew better than to ask.
Of course that didn’t stop the proud inventor from telling her. “Ze balls are my own special concoction. I take two parts skun…”
“No time for details!” Nataleigh interrupted nervously. She really did NOT want to know what Heindel’s concoction was made of. “I’m sorry, Heindel, but Frangen and I must get moving if we’re going to find the eye before Panganiban and the pirates do. Who knows what kind of magic powers he has to help him. They could have teleported down here, used x-ray vision to find it and disappeared by now, for all we know.”
Heindel harrumphed in response. He was as indignant to her comment about magic as he was at being interrupted. Being a dwarf of science, the inventor believed very little in magic.
“Don’t be silly,” he chided, “a bunch of superstitious monkey antics and tricks. Science is vhere ze true answers lie. Zat magical type fellow is no match for my knowledge of chemistry and olfactory repugnant fumes. Ve’ll see who is sent scittering away when he shows his grumpy face.”
“Thank you, Heindel,” the princess said, and she meant it. The three dwarves had gotten her farther than she’d dare to hope. Of course, the cost had also been greater than she ever imagined. This was real danger, alright. Just what she’d said she wanted, but now she wasn’t so sure after their encounter with the giant octopus.
“Take care of Madelyn and Boz. We’ll be back as fast as we can. I’m sure your stinkball launcher will work just fine.”
Heindel smiled and turned to his brother. “Frangen, remember to valk softly. You remember vhat happened in ze test run when Bozvin shook ze bag too vigorously. Don’t forget vhat zat does to Reek Roach eggs. And keep ze gun tip up. You don’t vant anything dripping out of ze barrel that von’t vash off!”
“Ya, ya, Heindel. I know, already. The princess is right. We must go!” And with that, the muscular dwarf jumped from the platform on to the cave floor and turned to help Nataleigh down. He still wore no shirt, but in addition to the backpack and launcher he carried, he had also produced a miners hat with a floodlight. Planting it squarely on his head, he began to turn his head back and forth to scan the rocky floor of the cave.
Nataleigh followed closely behind, wondering if there were other monstrous creatures that lived on or beneath this island besides a giant octopus. She looked around the cavern and noticed other smaller cave openings around the cavern wall. Some of them were big enough for a large dragon to walk through with plenty of wing room. Suddenly she felt very small in all of this open space.
Their search revealed seashells scattered everywhere, and some old coins of various types, but not much else. The coins were scattered in a general path that led toward the largest cave entrance and soon they could make out scratches and scrapes in the rock floor where something of immense size had been dragged in that direction as well.
The trail slithered back and forth in the sidewinding fashion of a snake – a very LARGE snake. Nataleigh found her imagination running away with her as she gazed into the blackness of that large tunnel.
Suddenly Frangen stopped and picked something up from the floor of the cavern.
“A sea serpent scale,” he confirmed. “A very large one too.” He handed it to Nataleigh.
The thing was as heavy as an iron cooking pan, but glittered a shiny seawater green. The princess was actually surprised at how pretty the scale was coming from such a horrible monster as this serpent must be.
“Do you think we should keep going this way, Frangen?” she asked apprehensively. “What if this thing is still around?”
”Didn’t you say that this thing you were looking for was a serpent’s eye?” Frangen asked as a matter of fact.
“Well, yes.” She stammered. “I mean… no. That is… um, that’s what it’s called, but…”
“Then where better to look than in the serpent’s lair? Don’t worry, your majesty. Heindel’s stinkballs can stun even a sea serpent… I think. Of course, they’ve never been tested on something so large. But I understand that sea serpents have very large nostrils so they can smell their victims coming from great distances and pounce on them without warning even in water.”
Nataleigh looked as if she would suddenly feint at the mention of being pounced on by a giant hungry sea serpent. Frangen continued rambling on, trying to make her feel better.
“But that should work in our favor. One good shot up the nose and it’ll never eat another thing again… at least not without getting sick. You’ll see, princess.”
Somehow, the thought of the sea serpent getting sick after it ate her, didn’t do much to make Nataleigh feel much safer. Never-the-less, they continued into the large cave, following the winding trail. After all, Nataleigh reasoned, there was no better trail to follow.
The tunnel they entered twisted and turned and went on for what seemed like hours, all of which were filled with fear, as the princess and the inventor delved deeper into the bowels of the island not knowing what lay around each dark corner. After some time, they began to find other passages branching off from the one they followed and they realized they were going to have to mark their trail so they could be sure to find their way back. The serpent’s trail seemed most noticeable down larger tunnels, but soon, even the smaller ones showed signs of its passage and they began to wonder how many tunnels and passages there were under this island and which one was home to the serpent.
“This is a maze down here,” the princess groaned at one point. “This could take us weeks at this rate and if we choose the wrong one, we could end up meeting some hungry creature ready to eat us!”
Things grew worse when they began to notice footprints along the tunnels that were made by dwarves. Frangen identified them as probably belonging to pirates or perhaps knights or both and now they feared that they were too late to claim the Eye. The bad guys had already been here.
But then Frangen noticed that the prints were going in both directions. Soon they found them crossing their tunnel going first up one tunnel and back and then up another tunnel and then back the way they had come yet again until it became quite clear that their opponents were lost.
“They’ve not been marking their trail,” Nataliegh observed. “They must be going in circles!”
“And I don’t think they recognize the tracks we are following,” Frangen agreed. “If we can just keep from bumping into them along the way, we may still find the Serpent’s Eye first.”
“As long as we find the Eye only… and not the rest of the serpent.” Nataleigh whispered. She was still quite nervous about the idea that their might be something down here that could eat them.
They continued following the most noticeable trail of the sea serpent until they had left the dwarven footprints behind. Princess Nataleigh’s hopes began to grow again. This must surely mean that we’re ahead of them now. She thought. If only we can sneak past them on the way back…
At last, the tunnel they were following ended in a large chamber that looked dwarven made rather than natural. The walls were smooth and straight and the ceiling high and there were some metal contraptions that Nataleigh could not identify. At the far end of the room, about 40 feet away, the natural tunnel they were following continued as if some large worm had tunneled into the side of this room and out the other side again.
The floor was the strangest feature of the room. Instead of a solid rock or dirt floor, there were metal plates with fist-size holes piercing them in a checkered pattern around the room and sinking in toward the center. And in small piles around the room and filling every crevice and nook were traces of white sand as if from the beaches above.
Frangen immediately ran into the room to examine things, wishing out loud that his brothers were with them. The first thing he examined was a round iron door in the far wall that was hinged at the top and connected to some large hydraulics used to open and close it from the top.
“But where is the lever which controls the machinery?” Frangen wondered. Finding no answers to this riddle, he turned his attention to the floor. “This is very strange, your highness.” He explained. “This flooring is hollow and from what I can see through the holes, there is a pit that shrinks into a funnel beneath us. I think this room is a drainage filter. I don’t think we want to be in here if this metal door opens.”
Princess Nataleigh was bewildered and a bit curious.
“You mean that if that round metal door opens it might pour water in on us?”
“Or sand.” The inventor offered. “It is all over the place. Maybe this is some kind of giant sandbox.”
“Or maybe it’s some kind of booby trap!”
Nataleigh suddenly became alarmed. “Let’s get outta here, Frangen, before we set it off or something!”
Grabbing the dwarf by the arm, she jerked him up and pulled him toward the other cave exit. Frangen was still talking about the machinery, only half paying attention to the princess as he was pulled along.
“I seem to remember a story about my great great grandpa Vindelshneezer designing a hydraulic sand box filtering system to sift out all of the toys that children lose while they are building sand castles. It had metal floor plates with holes like these that would let the sand fall through but not the toys and he connected a pump system that would suck the sand out through a pipe and blow it back into the sandbox from the top so that the sand was never lost.
“Of course, children kept getting sand blown in their faces when the pump was activated… but they never lost any more toys. Grandpa Vindelshneezer was a genius and the first inventor in our family.”
“That’s great, Frangen, but we don’t have time to examine every invention we come across in these tunnels.” Nataleigh reprimanded, grunting with the effort of practically dragging the nostalgic inventor. “We’ve got to find the Eye before the pirates do, now come on! Whatever comes out of that door is probably not going to be very helpful to us anyway.”
At her words, Frangen snapped out of his reverie and resumed tracking up the tunnel. The princess breathed a sigh of relief as they left the chamber behind, wondering what kind of danger they may have avoided. The idea of tons of sand pouring out of the wall on their heads did not thrill her. And then she wondered where all of that sand might come from.
As if in answer to her ponderings, they suddenly heard the machinery in the room behind them come alive. The hydraulics of the machine could be heard hissing in protest and then the screeching of the hinges as the massive door must surely be lifting.
Frangen started to turn back, but the princess stopped him. Now they could hear what sounded like something pouring in large quantities from the metal door. They could not see back up the tunnel, but they could hear it echoing upon the metal plated floor as it poured in.
“See?” Nataleigh shouted over the noise. “I told you it was a trap! And we barely escaped it! Let’s get out of here before sand starts pouring down the tunnels too!”
“But, your highness, the floor is structured in such a way as to keep the sand from…”
Frangen was suddenly interrupted in his explanation. Over the sound of the pouring sand, they heard the definite sound of something moving up the passage ahead and before either could react to shut off their light or hide, they saw a shape materializing out of the darkness. It had two scaley, green heads and sharp, clawed flippers!
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