Part 3

“Lucky Bastard” Bob and Sid wound themselves along a large, earthen tunnel, one that the eyes of the living had not seen in years (well, to tell the truth, no physical eyeball structure had seen them in years, anyway).

Off to the side there was another tunnel leading into darkness. From that tunnel issued a loud groan. Bob jumped.

“Cripes! What was that?”

Suddenly, a rotting corpse, barely human, stumbled from the tunnel. Its jaw hung to one side, its eyes leaked a yellow, pus-like liquid, and its left foot hung at a crooked angle, cracking with every step.

Sid turned and looked at the wretched thing as it strode towards Bob.

“Back off Gary, he’s with me.”

Gary the Zombie stopped, made yet another moan, at which a few black teeth fell out of his jaw and an unpleasant-smelling goo poured from his throat.

“I know, I know, but you had your lunch break twenty minutes ago. He’s a friend of mine, got it?”

Gary turned his skull to one side, dislodging numerous parasites that had been enjoying themselves immensely in his brain cavity before falling rather harshly to the earthen floor. “Bargleaarglesmuf? Blecch!”

“No, I haven’t seen it. If you didn’t put it away in your hoard, then somebody probably came along and took it. You just can’t expect to leave gold and things lying around and expect them to be where you left them, now, can you?”

“Blagh! Mmmfhwahagleblacksnurf!”

Sid sighed (or as well as a skeleton can sigh) and turned to Bob. “Have a seat or something, this may take a minute.” Sid waited until Bob dusted off an exceptionally large and light-producing toadstool and sat down on it. “All right, Gary, where did you last see it?”

“Guggghblaghsnarflevggh.”

“I see, I see.” Sid tapped a finger against his own skull. The ringing it made was actually quite pleasant. “And, pray tell, have you BEEN to the Well of No Escape since then?”

Gary paused, thoughts worming through what remained of his brain much like…well, the worms burrowing through what remained of his brain. Then, a thought struck him, and he hung his blueish head in shame. “Retch.”

“I see, I see.” A slight pause. “Well, I think that settles it. Why don’t you go check in there, you know, have a look see, and then come find me if it’s not there? I’m heading for the Farnsworth Crypt with my friend. And no, you’re not allowed to have even a slight taste of him.”

“Graaahhh.”

“I know, I know, but just keep an eye out. I hear there’s a bunch of people down here tonight. More than enough for you, I’m sure.”

Gary’s left eye brightened before it fell out and rolled on the ground. “Gargle?”

“Yes, positive. Now, run along, that’s a good boy.”

As Gary stumbled back into the recesses of the tunnel from where he emerged, Sid shook his head and chuckled. “Ah, zombies. They can be tough sometimes.”

Bob nodded. “Sure seems that way.”

“Anyway, let’s get a move on. It shouldn’t be too much longer, but I want to stop at my space and grab a few things. Security’s especially tight tonight, and you have to have ALL the necessary paperwork or else the brass gives you a hard time.”

There are some parts of the Bonehoard which belong to a very old and forgotten people. They were a people fascinated with glory, honor, and most of all, huge archways. A people who enjoyed throwing poorly armed transients into large stadiums engage in battles with hordes of Burricks which, for a people obsessed with honor, often times seemed a little lopsided. A people for whom sex was not just a leisure activity, but a group sporting event.

It was through one passage of the small, dusty catacombs of these people that a torch now lit the way for two individuals. One was a short, brutish fellow wrapped in a garish and exceptionally out-of-place red cape. The other, brandishing the torch, was taller, only slightly less brutish, and dressed far more sensibly.

“Darkeyes” Cornwald wiped an excessive amount of sweat from his Neanderthalish brow. “So how much farther is it, anyway? We’ve been wandering for…” In an odd coincidence, like Henry, Cornwald also had a vision of a portable clock of some kind, and, coincidentally enough, this idea was lost in the same slurry of greed and lust, although the women were slightly hairier and…well, not women, to be polite.

Janiss von Croenhauer gave him a cross stare. “How much farther? You’re the one with the map!”

Cornwald waved the map clutched in his meaty left hand, bringing it dangerously close to the guttering torch. “Well, I can’t read the map! You keep waving that torch all over the place!”

“All right then, let me see it!” Janice snatched the map out his hand and unfurled it. Realizing she couldn’t hold it steady without both hands, she thurst the torch into Cornwald’s recently vacated grip and flattened the map out tightly. She peered at it closely.

“Where did you get this map from?”

Cornwald smiled. “Beauty, ain’t it? Got it from some fellow in an alley. Had these real shifty eyes, so I knew I could trust ‘im.”

“You wouldn’t be referring to Untrustworthy Norman, would you?”

The smile faded. “Well, now that you mention it…but he said the map is authentic! Right down to the last detail!”

“Didn’t you get at least a LITTLE suspicious when he handed you this, then?” Janiss held up the map, which was not a map at all, but a placemat from Corvallis’ House of Steaks from Unknown Sources. On the placemat was a cute, little, plague-ridden peasant pointing to a large and very simplistic maze. There was also a word jumble to the side, which had been solved by someone who had never quite grasped the concept of spelling, nor which end of the crayon one is supposed to use to write.

“Well, I thought it might be a real map of the Bonehoard, just cleverly disguised, you know. Like anyone has an actual TREASURE map that says, ‘treasure here,’ and stuff like that. Nah, you have to be clever with things.”

“Randall, the maze isn’t even close! There’s three paths on the whole thing and they all lead to a giant steak!”

“Hey, don’t call me that! I earned ‘Darkeyes,’ I have!”

“Oh, come off it, Randall. That’s not even a GOOD nickname.”

“At least I’ve GOT one!”

“Your eyes aren’t even dark! They’re blue! Admit it, it’s a terrible name!”

“Sounds like someone’s jealous!”

“Oh, shut up!”

For a few minutes, there was silence. Then, still without saying a word, Janiss snatched the torch back and kept going in the direction they were originally headed. Cornwald tagged along a few seconds later.

“You know something, Janiss?”

Janiss ground to a stop. “What, ‘Randall?’”

“I’m really glad we teamed up in this. I think it’s really been fun.”

Without saying another word, Janiss held the placemat up to the torch and set it aflame. When the fire got good and roaring, she shoved the mat, quite hard, down Cornwald’s pants.

The Hall of Repose actually seemed in excellent shape for something that was a part of the Bonehoard. The pristine frescoes depicted a battleground, with a grand army clad in golden armor doing battle with an army of skeletons clad in cold, black steel. The skeletons stood on top of hundreds of the living soldiers, screaming silent cries of triumph to the darkening sky.

Either the painter wished to symbolize the victory of death over all living things, or he was pointing out the folly of wearing soft, golden armor on a battlefield. Either way, the impression was quite stunning. But not as stunning as the actual heaps of corpses scattered over the floor and propped against the walls.

Zantar peered at each carefully, dribbling holy water on some of the more suspicious corpses as he and the other three passed. Some merely lay there. Others moaned pitifully and decayed into dust.

At one point, Pete scooped up one of the corpses that was still intact. Jamming his hand rather hard through the back of the crumbly skull, he grabbed the jawbone and began working it up and down.

Lifting the entire corpse from the floor in one fell swoop, he shook it in Henry’s face. “Hello there! I’m King Marshall of the Dale! I demand some skin! Mine seems to have disappeared somewhere!”

Henry, not at all pleased with this desecration, calmly punched Pete in the face. It was only after Pete had been lying motionless for about 20 seconds did he begin to worry. He knelt down to both motionless forms. “Look, Pete, I’m sorry, but that was just uncalled for. And that accent…well, if you haven’t already been cursed for what you’ve been doing down here, I think that just cinched it.”

Pete moaned, speaking in a muffled, very nasal voice. “Why? What’ve I done that’s so bad?”

“Well, what about your little bathroom break?”

“How was I supposed to know what it was? It was round!”

“Pete, when was the last time you saw a toilet full of ashes?”

“Last week? Don’t you remember when I set fire to your pet…”

“Oh, yes, that. I thought I told you never to speak of that again, or else I would wreak upon you such bodily harm that you’d wake up next week…in a state of death.”

“But you brought it u…”

As this Pulitzer-Prize winning conversation was going on, Jack had attached himself to Zantar in much the way a Remora clings to a shark, only without the mutual relationship.

Jack looked around at the epic paintings that led from one end of the massive hall to the other. “So, what’s this anyway?”

Zantar dissolved another zombie-in-wait and turned, surprised, to hear what appeared to be intelligent dialogue from someone for the first time this evening. “This? Well, it goes back a ways. It’s all highly symbolic in the first place, but it’s supposed to represent the great Frencilli family’s battle to control the Western countries and take them back from the stinking Julliards. You see, 500 years ago…”

“No, no, no. I mean, what’s the paint made out of?”

“Oh, the paint? Well, normally these things are painted with tempera, which is a paint based in egg whites, and…”

“Egg whites, you say?” Jack began drooling just at the thought.

Zantar sighed. Some people just couldn’t be reasoned with. “Yes, egg whites. Just don’t eat it. It’s a valuable work of art, hundreds of years old, and absolutely irrepla-…”

Zantar turned to see Jack licking the last remnants of a king off of his horse. The skeleton who was battling the king somehow looked disappointed from that day forward, though how this was possible was beyond comprehension.

“Good God! Do you realize what you’ve just done? That work can’t be replaced!”

Jack shook his head grimly. He was turning green. “I think it can, sir. I’ve just realized eating centuries-old egg whites isn’t a good idea.” He turned around and began making some horrible noises – and horrible stains – against the wall.

A few seconds later, Henry came running up carrying Pete on his shoulder. Pete seemed fine, especially now that his hand was corpseless, and despite the fact that his nose now resembled a shape normally given to the letter S.

Henry looked at Jack, who was losing his lunch, his in-between meal, his dinner, some of the table from earlier that evening, and even what appeared to be parts of a fully-grown horse. “Is he going to be all right?”

Zantar gave a last kick to yet another dissolving corpse. “He’ll be fine, I think. He’s just learning a valuable lesson about Art History. Now, are you going to stay here, or are you coming along? Doesn’t matter to me at all what you do, but I’d think you’d prefer to get out of here before any of these I’ve missed decide to wake up. Granted, that’s not what I’D prefer, but no one’s listening to me, now, are they?”

Henry leaned Pete against a pillar, ran over and gave Jack a quick pat on the back, which brought up something he preferred not to look at or even remember existed. “Fine, fine, we’ll be right there, but…how much further is it?”

Zantar cinched his belt up a little. “Oh, maybe fifteen minutes, half an hour if I’m judging right. The next few bits are tricky, though. This place is full of all sorts of traps, and we haven’t even reached the edge of Farnsworth’s stuff yet. Very tricky man, Farnsworth, though I don’t expect you to know that.”

Pete, who had Sockman gently massaging his nose, instinctively cringed at the very mention of Farnsworth. “Aaaaah! Cannons! Everywhere! Get them away, get them away!”

“Ah, so you HAVE been to his house, I take it.” Zantar began heading towards the exit of the hall when a thought suddenly struck him. “Just a minute…you wouldn’t happen to be…did you three try to rob him not too long ago?”

Henry turned, beaming. “That’s right, that was us!”

Henry’s beam dampened as Zantar laughed for what seemed like forever. Thankfully, by the time he stopped, Jack had finished as well, and the four continued on through the darkness.

Alex “Truncheon” Phillips stood on the stone wall, the wind whipping his dark green cape. Below, a zombie lurched among several tombstones, weaving unsteadily (and leaving a rather unpleasant trail) of drippings in the decaying grass. Near where it weaved was the object of Alex’s desire: The Farnsworth Crypt.

The stone structure stood at least five stories high, and decorated on nearly every crevice with a statue of Lord Farnsworth. Even the gargoyles lining the top were hideously garish representations of Farnsworth, powdered wig and all. Although, thought Alex to himself, the mouths seemed accurately sized on them. He chuckled.

Alex was not a thief of, to put it bluntly, the regular sort. While most thieves would at least try to sneak into places while raising as little suspicion as possible, Alex was not above strolling right in front of heavily armed guards and socking them several times with an object he lovingly referred to as his ‘Truncheon.’ The Truncheon, which was at least 3 feet long, was a chunk of oak carved into a relatively cylindrical shape that tapered to an easily grippable handle.

It was an object that certainly left an impression. Sometimes it left a dozen or two, depending on whether Alex was feeling generous that evening or not.

Taking a quick glance around, Alex was genuinely surprised no other thieves had attempted the front entrance. It seemed so obvious to him. Nobody EVER went through the front entrance. It didn’t make sense to. The front entrance was ALWAYS the most well guarded area of any job. You might as well jump into a bear pit wearing a string of sausages and sirloins and making noises like an all-you-can-eat bar than go through the front door.

And thus, Alex reasoned, that was the exact reason that the front entrance wouldn’t be guarded. It was just too obvious to be worth protecting. After all, all the secret entrances needed guarding too, and there were an awful lot of those. You couldn’t possibly have enough firepower to cover them all properly, now could you?

As soon as the zombie was out of sight, Alex hopped down. Despite his directness, Alex still knew how to move silently. He may have been direct, but he wasn’t stupid. Even with the Truncheon, zombies were not something he was up to dealing with tonight.

Suddenly, there was a moan, to the left of the tomb. Another zombie? But, he’d watched their patrols all night. None were due for at least another five minutes. He ducked behind a tombstone and waited.

Another moan, but no telltale footfalls squelching closer. What was going on here? Alex stood puzzled, and, drawing his Truncheon just in case, edged slowly towards the tomb.

As he slid his back flat against the wall, the sound came again. But it was low, in the grass around the corner. It must be lying down, he thought, ready to catch me by surprise. Well, I’ll teach him a lesson. He turned the corner, Truncheon high.

In the grass lay a small box, painted brown and gray to blend in with the marshy ground. Alex stared at it a moment, then lowered the Truncheon and laughed. To think, being fooled by a noisebox, of all things! Oh, when he got back and bought himself some high-powered friends, they’d all have a good chuckle about this one. Farnsworth was a clever one.

He bent down and picked it up. He shook it and it fell silent. Might come in handy later, he thought, and pocketed it.

Now, to the crypt! Alex turned towards the door and inspected it for traps. There were none, oddly enough, although the door handles were secured shut with a large chain and padlock. He pulled a hammer out from one of the secret pockets in his cape and began hammering away at it.

After a few whacks, he noticed that his pocket was beginning to vibrate. Confused, he reached down and pulled out the noisebox. It vibrated and hummed slightly, then began to beep rapidly.

Alex suddenly got a thought. If Farnsworth wanted to fool you, he did it with cannons and heavy firepower. He wasn’t the particularly sneaky type. Why would he ever put a noisebox in the middle of the Bone…

His thought was interrupted by untimely death. For, as most know, a very direct way to die is to be at ground zero when the high-powered explosive in one’s palm goes off.

“Darkeyes” Cornwald took the torch and threw it into the dark hole. It fell and fell past earthen walls until it hit the bottom, 50 feet below.

“Not too deep.” Cornwald smiled until Janiss smacked him on the side of the head.

“Idiot! We don’t have another torch! What if the hole had been deeper than that? I can’t even see what I can tie a rope to as it is!”

“Well, you always reads in books about these adventurers who throw their torch into a hole, and it illuminates all these gold and jewels and things…”

“That’s books, Randall! This is real! You can’t just go chucking torches wherever you feel like it. What if there’d been water down there and the torch went out completely? Or what if there was gas down there? We’d be blown to smithereens!”

“You know, I always wondered just how big a smithereen was…”

“Oh, shut up, and go get that torch back.”

Cornwald tapped the knapsack Janiss kept under her cape. At least, in the darkness, he HOPED it was her knapsack. “What about your lantern, though? We’ve got plenty of fuel for that, don’t we?”

“The lantern’s for emergencies, and your stupidity doesn’t count as one, God knows it should. And it’s a waste of a perfectly good torch if I lit the lantern up now.” Janiss reached into her knapsack and took out a length of rope, resisting the urge to strangle the individual who had tapped something he had no right tapping (which in fact turned out NOT to be the knapsack). Feeling around, she found something hard and lumpy, and cinched the rope tightly around it, tying a knot any Boy Scout would be proud of, if there had been any organization like it at the time. “There, that should do it.” She dropped the end down into the pit. “Well, go ahead, climb down already.”

No response.

“Randall?”

“Aggghaggaaggablach!”

“Oh, sorry about that!” Janiss grinned as she removed the rope she had (accidentally, ironically enough) tied around Cornwald’s neck and found something else that was hard, lumpy, and definitely rock-like. Securing it, she gave Cornwald a kick, to which she heard a scurrying as he began clambering down the rope.

It was a few minutes before a dull orange glow appeared near the top of the pit, and the goofy expression of a torchlit Cornwald appeared over the rim. He handed the torch up to her before pulling himself back up into the tunnel.

“Welp, there’s your torch. That’s deserving of a little thank you, don’t you think?”

“Thank you? If it wasn’t for you there would’ve been no need for you to go get it in the first place! Now if you’re done having fun with the hole here, we’ve got to figure out which way takes us out of here!” She held up the torch and examined the octagonal chamber they were standing in, with as many exits as there were sides.

“Oh, I think you’ll be thanking me when you’ve seen what I’ve found.” Cornwald dug around in his disheveled tunic and after removing a handful of used tissues, a matchbook, a half-eaten pineapple and a dead rat, he pulled out a crystal skull, embedded with ruby eyes and golden teeth. It shone in the torchlight like a sun the size of a grapefruit.

Janiss gaped at it open-mouthed. “Is…is there more of that down there?”

“Well, I did see a few emeralds and such, but I figured I’d leave ‘em down there, as incentive and all, since it looks like there’s a tunnel down there that might go somewhere.”

Janiss glanced around at all the other exits. They all looked the same.

“I don’t know, I’d still like to know what’s up here…”

Suddenly the torch flame expanded, and brightened from orange to yellow with a bluish center. The torch itself began to smoke a bit more.

Cornwald sniffed the air and groaned. “Oh, Lord, was that you again?”

Janiss looked around nervously. “Er…no. At least, I don’t think so.”

From some ways away, a clattering sound could be heard, like a dog’s nails on tile. It was interrupted by a large, rolling belch. A few seconds later, the flame practically turned white. So did Janiss.

“Burricks!”

Cornwald looked around. “From where? How many?”

Janiss hushed Cornwald and listened. “I…I can’t tell. With the acoustics, it could be coming from anywhere.”

Cornwald immediately made for the rope and began climbing down as fast as he could. “Quick! Down here. It’s our only chance!”

Janiss didn’t waste another second. She grabbed the rope and began lowering herself quickly. Finding it hard to grip, she sighed and flung the torch back down the pit.

About halfway down, Cornwald stopped. “I think someone’s moving down there…”

“Ssshhhh!” As they both quieted, the sounds of the Burrick above were clearly audible. It seemed very active up there, belching happily and snorting like a pig with a life-threatening sinus infection. Janiss was no zoologist; she couldn’t tell whether this was normal Burrick behavior or if it just won the lottery and was celebrating.

It just so happened that Freddie the Burrick had in fact won the Burrick equivalent of an office pool for Most Miscreants Gassed in a Single Week, meaning he could get all the dead carcasses he could eat for a year. This, in all honesty, was due cause for celebration.

Unfortunately, Freddie’s jubilant dance of flatulence and general rude behavior was interrupted when an arrow imbedded itself in his brain. This did not result in immediate death, as Freddie’s brain, even for a Burrick, was exceptionally small and not very good about telling every part of the body the bad news. All in all, his tail was awfully surprised that he had in fact been dead for about a minute and had been the last to be notified. He collapsed onto the tiled floor, relieving himself one last time for good measure.

Janiss recoiled at the massive waves of stench that nearly bathed her as she hung 25 feet below the lip of the tunnel, gagging slightly. As the Burrick’s ‘last stand’ tried desperately to cling to her nostrils, it struck her that no noise was coming from above.

“Randall, something’s happened…”

“You’re telling me. What did that thing eat last, dead broccoli?”

“I’m not hearing any…”

But then she did hear something. It was the last thing anyone dangling 20 feet above the ground wants to hear.

Someone was sawing through the rope.

“Quick, Randall! Get down! No questions, just mo…”

Just then the rope gave, and the two plunged into the torchlit room below.

“ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Listen, it’s perfectly simple: my friend and I have to get through, and here’s the papers that let me do so.”

Sid’s bones creaked as he lifted his arm, holding out some official looking papers. The guard, or what passed for a guard in the form of a skull fused into the gigantic, wrought-iron gate, peered over the document. “Oop, sorry Sid, this form’s not countersigned by the head office. Can’t let you through.” The skull swiveled slightly (and somehow impossibly, given how it was stuck in the gate) and glared at Bob. Past the gate, a flame shot up from some unknown source.

Bob wiped his brow, sweat practically dripping off of him. “Are you sure it’s necessary to go this way, Sid? We’ve been walking for hours now, and I don’t think Farnsworth’s tomb was that far…”

Sid whipped around. “Oh, sure, try to do a favor for a friend and I start getting the accusatory remarks. It’s a shortcut, I’m telling you.” He turned back to the guard. “Listen, the form doesn’t need to be signed by the head office unless I have form 41-B, which is delivery of souls to the proper receptacle. And see, my friend is obviously still alive. He’s not here to register for active duty.”

The skull, again by some extraordinary means, shook his head. “I don’t know, I haven’t heard anything like that come up from the head office. Sounds like someone just didn’t do his job properly.”

“Oh shut up, Barry. I know for a fact that you’re running the gate because you didn’t get a gift for ‘Manager Appreciation Day.’ Heard Joe was a bit upset about that.”

Barry tried to frown, but in his current state just wasn’t up to the task. “Oh, really? That’s really odd, because I was fairly sure I DID buy him a gift, but then it disappeared out of my desk. I knew he would’ve liked that coffee too, real expensive…but oh, that’s right, YOU gave him that exact same type of coffee, didn’t you?”

Somehow Sid began to sweat a bit. He also tugged on a collar which would’ve been very effective had Sid been wearing any clothes. “Oh, er, yeah, wow, what a coincidence, yeah?”

“And that wrapping paper looked familiar too…”

“Hey, there’s only one place you can find wrapping paper around here, Barry! I’m sure I have the same stuff lying around somewhere.”

“And, pray tell, where did you buy the tag reading, ‘To Joe, from Sid’ with Sid written in red pen over the name ‘Barry’?”

The moment really called for an awkward silence, but the fires shooting out of the ground some distance ahead were really rather loud.

Sid sighed. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”

Barry’s eyes glowed green with approval. “Joe’s taking a week off soon.”

“All right.”

“He needs someone to watch his dog.”

“Yes.”

“You DO remember which dog this is, right?”

“It wouldn’t happen to be Vomitus the Great, would it?”

“Nah, Vomitus is going with him. He’s gotten a lot better.”

“Has he?”

“Yes.”

“So…the other one.”

“Yeah.”

Again, what should’ve been an awkward silence.

“You were really upset about that coffee, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. VERY expensive. Grown from scratch.”

Bob wrung out the bottom of his grubby shirt. “Hey, what’s going on? What’s all this about a dog?”

Sid shook his head. “You don’t want to know. All right, Barry, I’ll do it. But after this, you’re going to owe me a lot more than I ever owed you.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

“Can we go now?”

“What? Oh, yeah, be my guest.” With that, the gate began to creak open, with an ominous, rusty groan.

“And stop that! This isn’t an amusement park, Barry!”

“Aw, just havin’ a little fun.” The gate stopped creaking and opened smoothly the rest of the way.

Sid turned to Bob. “All right, we’re all set. Let’s get going.” He trotted a ways up the tunnel, stopping at what appeared to be the edge of a cliff. It overlooked the source of the occasional flame shooting up.

Bob had not moved. Although through his life he had been granted amazing strokes of luck, he had managed to remain intact mainly through not being absolutely stupid. Something told him, as hot as it was to stay here, moving any further forward would have been suicide. Well, technically it wouldn’t be suicide, but it was akin to wandering through a pit of weasels with a dead mouse stuck in each nostril.

Sid waved to him. “Come on, it’s perfectly safe! Nothing can touch you while I’m around.”

This did not instill the greatest confidence in Bob, as he suddenly remembered Sid saying something similar about two years ago. He’d been alive then and, technically, he’d been right. None of the arrows the guards had fired at them had touched Bob. Unfortunately, they had all touched Sid. In fact, twenty of them had touched his liver quite intimately.

But then, Sid couldn’t really die now, could he? With a few mutters under his breath, he jogged over to where Sid was standing. From here, he got an excellent vantage point of what exactly was creating that enormous jet of flame.

He also saw the crew running it.

And then, dishearteningly, he saw how it was powered.

At the bottom of a pit faintly illuminated by a nearly burnt out torch, a female voice groaned. The voice then grumbled a few very poignant curses at the inability of certain peoples to not climb down ropes fast enough. After some shuffling, a rattle, and a toe stubbing, a lantern finally flared to life.

Janiss rubbed the back of her head. Nothing felt broken, bleeding, or missing there, so she continued the self-check to the rest of her body. Save for a nasty bruise along her side, nothing else seemed to be wrong.

“Well, Randall, you’re just damned lucky I’m fine. Why didn’t you keep going down the rope, you idiot? We could’ve been killed…”

Janiss held the lantern in front of her and examined the pit, searching for Cornwald. The pit didn’t seem all that large. It barely seemed large enough to fit more than a few people. She spun around and checked the other side. There, in front of her was Cornwald, looking back at her.

At least, the cold, dead eyes of Cornwald.

While Janiss had managed to land on her knapsack on the way down and avoid serious injury, Cornwald had not been so lucky. Unlike a knapsack, which is lumpy and generally soft when landed upon (except, of course, when you leave your keys in them), the stalagmite which had gone through his back and out his chest was, according to most scholars in the field, not something that provides an enjoyable and/or life-sustaining landing point.

Janiss wasn’t sure exactly how to feel about this. Sure, Cornwald was a lout, an idiot who deserved to have a burning map shoved into his underpants, but he was a lovable lout, an idiot who was at least someone to talk to in this forsaken heap. Plus, Janiss was beginning to feel…something. A stirring, perhaps, of some deeper emotion, one of…

Tucked under Cornwald’s left arm was the crystal skull he’d brought up earlier. Ah, well, Janiss could buy a new lovable lout. She snatched the skull gluttonously.

She was about to try the tunnel when her foot brushed something in the sandy pit floor. Kneeling down, her lantern’s light illuminated a vast trove of emeralds, rubies, opals, and…yes, even diamonds. She flung her knapsack onto the ground and snapped it open, scooping the jewels in by the handful. Although her knapsack filled to bursting, there were still a good number of them lying all over the place. Slinging the now very heavy sack onto her back again, she filled her pockets, her secret pockets, and finally held the remnants gathered in her arms, the skull barely visible under all the loot.

Smiling, she turned, not even caring if she ever made into Farnsworth’s tomb now.

The zombie, which had shuffled in while she gloated, made her stop dead in her tracks.

Janiss’ brain froze. Part of her told her to drop all the loot and pull a weapon to defend herself, but a louder, greedier part told her she’d be nuts if she left all this stuff behind. The other part retorted that if she got rid of the zombie first, she’d be able to carry all the loot she ever wanted. The greedy part told the rational part it was a complete idiot, and the two parts locked in a death struggle for supremacy.

It took a third part to remind the other two that both of them were wrong, that it didn’t really matter who won since about 3 more zombies were now visible in the only exit from the pit.

Janiss stared at the zombie. The zombie’s pus-filled, wretched sockets stared right back. And it smiled.

But then again, Gary had good reason to smile. So this was where he’d left his treasure after all.

“Wow. It’s beautiful, in a way, isn’t it?”

“Well, Jack, I guess it all depends. I have to admit, I’ve never seen so many statues of somebody at the same time.”

This was it, at long last. This cavernous area of the Bonehoard went from the normally rough, rocky walls to the polished, fine-cut marble exterior of Lord Farnsworth’s tomb’s back entrance. It was quite a back entrance, as these things tend to go, with an architecture mostly devoted to grand columns, intricately embossed murals, and about 150 statues of Lord Farnsworth in a variety of heroic poses. Considering the lineage of the Farnsworth family tree (or, in all honesty, family stick), they didn’t look that particularly heroic.

Pete, Henry, Jack, and Zantar stood near a statue depicted as leaning over a long table that had a large amount of something unidentifiable yet very lumpy on it. Either Farnsworth was commemorating his discovery of some new substance or remembering a time he was violently ill at the lunchtable…possibly both. Across the chamber from them lay a veritable minefield of even more statues that would put the Terracotta Army of Xi’an to shame. After this, it was a merely trip up a three-story flight of stairs and they’d finally be inside.

Pete stared wide-eyed at the sheer number of the lifeless forms around them. “Cannons! Cannons! Aaagghh!”

“Oh, shut up, Pete. There isn’t a cannon in sight.”

As if to respond, one of the statues of Lord Farnsworth split along the waist. The top half whirred, whipped backwards, and a cannon that looked far too large to even fit inside the statue popped out. The ridiculous-looking contraption made some menacing clicks and buzzes before it pointed straight at the four, now thoroughly exhausted adventurers.

Zantar, his expression one of deep thought, gave a glance to the other three. “Now, boys, I’m going to count to three. At that time, I’m going to duck. If you choose to follow me, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too. One…two…three.”

The cannonball was glowing hot as it soared over their prone forms, singeing the fringe of Jack’s trousers before exploding into the wall thirty feet behind them. Waiting a few more seconds to make sure the cannon wouldn’t fire again, they stood and dusted themselves off.

Jack frowned. “You know something, Henry? I never thought I’d agree with Pete, but I’m beginning to not care for cannons much myself. Maybe we should just run for it and hope they don’t hit us.”

Zantar walked up to and admired the spent cannon, its barrel still steaming. “Yes, very nice workmanship…but run? Oh, cannons are all well and good to try and dodge, but that is not what I’m most concerned about.” With that, he picked up a fist-sized rock and tossed it into the middle of another cluster of statues.

The statues immediately came to life, pulling enormous swords out of marble scabbards, and proceeded to make the fist-sized rock a pile of atom-sized rocks. Upon the completion of this task, which took less than five seconds, they resettled onto their bases as if nothing ever happened. Except for one, which gave the startled onlookers a glance. A mechanical voice from it asked, “What?” before resuming its position as before.

Henry gulped. “All right, gents, I think I’ve had enough treasure-seeking for today. I mean, wow, I have some milkmen to pilfer tomorrow morning, and they always get up so earl…”

Zantar shook his head and chuckled. “Boys, boys, boys. Such little faith. I have a motto: always have something for every situation.” He grabbed at a long, wide tube attached to his belt that Henry could’ve sworn hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.

“Hey, that wasn’t there a few minutes a…”

Henry stopped when he saw Zantar hoist the tube onto his shoulder. On one end was a massive hole through which poked something that seemed very similar to a firework, but with a much larger head on it. It was this end that Zantar was now swiveling towards an excessively large cluster of the motionless statues. The opposite end had a slightly smaller hole, but it didn’t seem to serve any real function.

As Pete walked up to and peered into this smaller hole, Henry cleared his throat. Zantar grunted, but didn’t change position. “Um, pardon me, but what exactly IS that thing?”

Zantar glanced over briefly at Henry, then continued to get the tube into position. “This, my brainless companions, is the next century of warfare. Get a long, good look at it. Not a drop of the supernatural near it, just plain, old-fashioned workmanship.”

Jack admired it from a distance, munching thoughtfully on some moss he’d found a chunk of the wall that had been hit by the cannonball. “Looks kinda like that thing I found hidden away in mum’s closet that one day.” Upon receiving several strange glances, Jack looked positively confused. “What? She hid away a stash of chocolates I’d stolen earlier that day, and I just wanted to…”

“Jack, this is not the time. But, Mr. Zantar, how does this thing work?”

Zantar pulled a small tab at the front of the tube and flipped up something that looked like a cross inside of a circle. “You know how a cannon works, don’t you, Henry my boy?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t see how…”

Zantar peered through the cross, adjusting the tube slightly as he did so. “Well, imagine the cannonball this thing fires flies exactly where I point it.”

“Er, all right.”

“Then imagine the cannonball getting very, very angry.”

Pete, still looking into the back of the tube, smiled. “Angry, eh? Sounds like fun!”

“Oh, it is, Pete. By the way, you may want to get your face away from that hole.”

“Why?”

Zantar’s finger reached for a big red button on the top of the tube. “You probably want to keep it.”

And then Zantar pressed the button.

Near the back entrance of Farnsworth’s tomb the ceiling actually connects to the rock lining the cavern it is imbedded into. Unbeknownst to the builders (except for one named Greg, who was running to explain his discovery when he accidentally slipped into a pit filled with spikes and a few angry badgers), the rock is less than a few inches thick in a spot between it and a tunnel which runs just above this section of the tomb itself.

With the careful application of a few tools, the rock was cracked through in seven minutes. But, being the expert, Garrett did not allow the pieces to fall through to the tiled floor below. Catching each piece, he dropped them into a pocket of his cape before dropping silently into the corridor below.

Garrett was somewhat surprised to find that the hallway was not completely dark. Instead, light poured forth from electric lamps hung at regular intervals from the ceiling. Garrett smirked. To think Farnsworth had enough money to not only light this place, but keep it lit with the best stuff available. He really had to find out where Farnsworth was keeping it all.

Garrett suddenly heard a creaking, grinding noise from behind him, at the end of the hall. He spun, notching an arrow into his bow at the same time. Although what he saw made him relax slightly, he still held the arrow readied.

A fat, stone cherub that resembled Lord Farnsworth in the same way a pile of dog’s vomit resembles the Mona Lisa was turning slightly in the alcove in which it rested. The mouth also slowly ground open. But instead of arrows or some sort of poison gas, words began to come from it. It said:

So, is this thing on? It is? So I just talk into this part and it will all get recorded down? Really? Fascinating stuff you’re working on here…oh, it’s recording now? Well, why didn’t you tell me? Just cut this all out or something, all right? Now, ahem…greetings, trespasser. Since you have the cunning and the skill to have made it this far, I will delay the poison gas that is supposed to be coming out of this thing right now to congratulate you on a job well done. I mean, sure, I really wish you weren’t skulking around in my tomb trying to get your filthy, peasant-like, Gorgonzola-smelling hands all over everything, but hey, what’s the fun in life without a little challenge? So, I salute you for your efforts, and I’ll make absolutely sure your corpse is buried with an actual, honest-to-goodness headstone. I do hope you have some pocket change on you, though, and none of it mine. I’ll be damned if I pay for any inscriptions. And now, sorry, but time to get on with it. Be seeing you. There, I’m done. Now how do I shut this off? By this time, a purplish gas would normally be wafting through the mouth of the disgusting cherub and filling the room. This gas, when inhaled, would perform on one’s internal organs an effect normally obtained through drinking a gallon of used motor oil and tossing a lit match down after it. Then, to get rid of most of the mess left behind through this technique, the corridor would seal itself off, fill with water, and agitate for quarter of an hour. This had the added bonus of making absolutely certain that if anyone survived the gas, they would have a less than wonderful time drowning while on spin cycle.

But, normal does not exactly apply in this case. While Farnsworth’s recording had droned on, Garrett had taken the opportunity to cram an entire tin’s worth of candle wax against the gas valve. He then left the hallway, the doorways sealing shut as he passed through.