Young Writers Society

Leon stared at the faces of the other occupants of the cave. He knew that it was possible that he was somewhere else because of the key that had brought him here, but Amy was from Earth too! She had just walked into the forest. There was no magic involved in her arrival!

"Earth is a planet," Leon replied, his voice shaking. He could feel the goosebumps forming underneath his jacket, and he felt chills run up and down his spine. "It's a place where a lot of humans live. Amy and I are from it. That's where we both should have been!"

Maahes looked over at him with dark brown eyes, then over at the other three that had spoken so far. Though his eyes had been wide with shock when he had posed the question that had caused so much chaos, now he seemed to be more intrigued than worried.

"Maybe we're in a dimensional overlay," he mused.

"A what?" Leon repeated.

"A dimensional overlay." At Leon's blank look, Maahes crossed his arms. "Maybe we're all from different realities. I've heard of technology and magic that can do that type of thing. Think of it like this. You have three sheets of paper spread across a table. None of their tips are touching. But then you move them so there's a bit of overlap between them. You normally wouldn't do that because it hides the information underneath the overlapping sides makes things more confusing. But you can, if you want to. Maybe this valley is one of the places that allows for that."

"Well then shoe-dang, I'm in a bigger pickle than I thought," Amy marveled, her eyes going as big as saucers. "I never intended on entering some other reality or whatever."

Amy shook her head in disbelief, not willing to take this new, strange man's idea for truth.

"Hang on - define 'planet'."

Darian searched through his bag before retrieving a small parchment inked with a map of a world--flat with water spilling over the edges into eons of cloudbanks. In the center was a mighty mountain with a grand temple cresting it like a crown.

"This is my home 'planet' as you say, assuming you mean world. We, the citizens, call it Weyard. Where I am now should be..." He pointed a finger to a long seaside valley near the southeastern continent's edge. "Here." He shook his head. "Perhaps if everyone has a vivid knowledge of their 'planet' we could pinpoint how to get out of the overlap...or how to get someone to their destination. One by one."

A groan left Maahes' mouth. He didn't know where he was, so how could he find his way back? He had some guesses about where he might be, but he had never visited any of the worlds. Finding a way to return to the Other Place was out of the question as well. Though it might - oddly enough - be easier, he still needed to get his revenge.

He'd just have to improvise as they tried finding where everyone else had come from. "I know what Earth's like," he suddenly said. If he couldn't help himself, the least he could do was help others. "It's a big planet. Third one in its solar system, with seven continents in total - though there's two that are technically connected. The only part of it that's uninhabited by regular humans is Antarctica, which is at the "bottom" of the world and is known for the scientific research done there."

Amy stared blankly at Maahes, before looking down at her fingers and counting. One... two... seven continents? She didn't even know how many continents there were on earth. "Thank you for that bit of education but uh, I don't get what that has to do... with like... anything about getting back home."

"Darian mentioned having a vivid description of planets to get everyone back home," Maahes sheepishly said. If he could blush, he was sure that he would be. It had seemed like a helpful thing to say, but apparently he had been wrong in his assumption. "I don't know exactly where Leon and you are from, so I couldn't help out more than that."

Leon watched him with inquisitive green eyes. "What about your planet?"

"I don't know where I was before ending up here," he said. When he realized how sad that comment sounded, he hurriedly added, "But I'll think of something! I just need some more time to think about it, and I didn't want to be useless in the meantime."

Darian decorated the design of his planet in light, being sure the water rolling off the side did justice to the majesty of the Great Falls. Of course, no one ever traveled to the Great Falls, else they'd never return from the fall into the Nether. Darian curiously wondered if that were to be his fate in the Valley of Unending Night.

In a sudden, there came a growl from a pit below their precipice. "Maahes," Darian called, "what lies in this cavern?!"

Before a response called, the earth shook, and rocks caved in the cavern door; boulders forced the adventurers down--some falling into the pit with what Darian's light showed to be a Minotaur--and others hanging to the precipice for dear life.

Darian stood alongside his comrades in the pit, searching the ground with haste before grabbing an ivy-woven staff. He began to pray: for safety, for life, survival, and stamina; for as the Minotaur rose, it stood thrice as high as Darian and roared once more.

Amy scrambled around, her eyes going wide as she stared up at the GIANT, FANTASY-LOOKIN GUY. She wanted to scream, but her voice got caught in her throat and she found herself simply fumbling around for the gun she'd stuck in her belt. She pulled it out, turned off the safety, and suddenly it was as if time slowed down. Her breathing slowed, and her eyes focused, and her hands were steady. She aimed. She fired, and shot right into the Minotaur's big fat chest.

As soon as the bullet lodged in the creature, it let out a loud roar that echoed throughout the cave, and it began to charge at Amy. Amy went from having nerves of steel to having the legs of a marathon sprinter, and she sprinted past it before it could drive her out the opening of the cave and off the edge. All the while, she was screaming. "AAaAAaaaAAAAaAAAAAAAa!" Then, a change in vocabulary. "I HATE THIS FORESTTTTT!"

It was near the edge. It was near the edge! Just knock it off, Marius told himself.

Tensing, he drew his magic inwards and focused it into a ball of power. Before the Minotaur had time to recover from its charge he thrust his hands in its direction, his magic shooting from his hands to hit the creature directly in the centre of its back. It teetered on the edge, then toppled off.

A few seconds passed without the thud of the creature hitting the ground. Maybe it was just too far down to hear anything?

He walked towards the edge of the cliff and peered over, just in time to be greeted with a face-full of extremely angry Minotaur pulling itself back onto the cliff. He backpedaled, wishing desperately that his mana would hurry up and recharge.

The creature, now on top of the cliff, narrowed in on him, snorting angrily. He tried to backpedal faster, only for his foot to catch on a rock, sending him sprawling onto his back.

In retrospect, the sight of the minatour shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did. They had already established that realities were colliding in this valley, and he had certainly seen much stranger things while he was traveling the galaxy. But his limbs had gone stiff as a sudden, desperate hope had emerged. Maybe this minatour was actually one of his kind, and it wouldn't be as hard to return to his home as he thought it would.

But a quick check of the planes proved otherwise - it was exactly what it appeared to be. His nonexistent heart sank when he realized that it was only a minatour.

In the minute that he had been trying to comprehend its existence, the minotaur had approached the helpless Marius. It would only take a few seconds for him to withdraw his weapon, but he was certain that it would be too late by then. If he wanted to save him, he would have to stop pretending that he was human.

His arm suddenly became a tentacle that reached out and grabbed the minotaur by the leg. He jerked his new appendage back, knocking the monster to the ground in the process. He withdrew it. As green flames engulfed the minotaur, his tentacle became a human arm once more.

The effects of the Detonation didn't last long and made the monster absolutely furious, but he knew that he had managed to save Marius' life.

Tasha runs in as the minotaur gets back to its feet, armed with her long, slim daggers as her eye turns a deep amber from it's normal ice blue. She uses her superior agility to combat the strength and size of the monster, dodging its blows as she uses quick, precise strikes from her long-bladed silver knives.

Minotaur: 8/40 Health

Darian's eyes lit ablaze in holy flame as the ivy along his pilfered staff took on the energy of nature about it, emitting a royal white light about him. With a quick leap to the Minotaur, the end of the staff shoved against his torso, righteous magics ripping a torrent through muscle and fat, organ and blood--until it raged out the other side, illuminating the cavern in an effervescent green glow of nature.



Ivy grew around the walls, creating ladders through the cavern, lanterns to light their way, and revealing a chest buried where the Minotaur had been slumbering. The Minotaur's body vanished into void ripples, and Darian, pacing back from this, could vaguely hear a waterfall on the other side of the void rift.

Amy gawked at the scene that unfolded before them, and Darian's finishing move. She had no words. No - she'd take that back. She did have words.

"HOLY CANOLI IT'S LIKE I WALKED INTO A VIDEO GAME, DEAR GOD."

"A what?" Tasha stands, brushing herself off and breathing hard.