by Jerome ASF
“Hmm,” Bacca said. “So what you want . . . is to be like other skeletons? To do what they do?”
“If I Could Only Experience It Once,” the giant said, “Then I Would Be So Happy.”
Bacca had a sinking feeling—unrelated to Gargantua’s lowering him back to the floor—that this was going to be how he had to solve the riddle.
Bacca began to puzzle it out. How could such a thing be done?
Bacca’s first inclination was to think he should find a way to take the giant skeleton to a place where there were giant humans. Then he would be able to hunt them just like any other skeleton. There were, however, several problems with this. For one, Bacca didn’t know where to find giants. True, on this strange server plane, anything was possible. There might be some giants around somewhere, but there also might not. What if Gargantua was a skeleton left over from a society of giants that had gone extinct a thousand years ago? A sad thought, but it was possible.
On top of that, Bacca had no idea how he would go about getting Gargantua out of the giant vault where he lived now. Bacca thought about how exhausting it had been just walking all the steps leading down to this room. Then he imagined crafting all of those steps, and not for somebody his own size, but for a giant! It made Bacca tired just thinking about it. It would also take a very long time. There had to be a quicker way!
Bacca wondered if it would be possible to somehow shrink Gargantua down to the size of a regular skeleton. If he could do that, then the rest would be a snap. Take him out to the surface world and let him do some regular skeleton stuff for a change. That would be easy. But how to shrink something like Gargantua? Bacca did not have any magic of his own. Now that he came to think of it, he had never heard of a witch or wizard that had this power either. And going off and asking around for somebody with magical shrinking skills might be a wild goose chase.
Bacca looked hard for anything he might not have considered yet. There had to be a way to give Gargantua the experience of a normal skeleton. If he couldn’t shrink Gargantua down, then maybe . . . just maybe . . .
A possible solution had occurred to Bacca. It would require a whole lot of effort—and he was in no way sure that it would work—but if it did, then the riddle would be solved without needing to shrink Gargantua or find other living giants.
“Hey,” Bacca shouted up into the darkness, in the general direction of the giant’s skull. “I think I have a way to help you out. But for it to work right, I’m going to need you to close your eyes for a while.”
“But I Don’t Have Eyes,” Gargantua answered.
“In that case, can you turn around and face the wall?” Bacca asked.
“I Can,” the giant voice said.
“Thanks,” Bacca said. “This might take a while, but I’ll work as quickly as I can.”
“Don’t Worry About That,” Gargantua boomed. “I Have Waited Here In This Place For Hundreds Of Years. I Can Wait A Bit More.”
Bacca sprang to work. His plan was going to necessitate a good deal of crafting. Not all of the elements were going to be present in a scary place full of obsidian and skeleton bones. He realized that he would need to make a trip back up the long staircase again.
“I’m just going to step out,” Bacca told the giant. “But don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it. Relatively speaking.”
Before Gargantua could answer, Bacca was bounding out of the room and headed back up the long scary staircase.
He didn’t want to climb this thing more than once, so as he climbed, Bacca tried to make a mental inventory of all the stuff he would need. Most of the blocks would be shades of black and grey, which were in plentiful abundance down below. But he would also need red sandstone, and lots of it. Luckily for Bacca, he had noticed more than a little of it back at the entrance to the cave where the long stairway had started. The other elements he needed were things he could probably buy or trade for in the village at the center of the rabbit maze.
As Bacca thought more about his plan, the more he became convinced that it might just work. Filled with excitement, Bacca raced faster and faster back up the bony staircase.
There was disagreement among the creepers as to what this development might signify.
“He’s not running away, is he?” said one creeper, voicing a concern many of them held. “Giving up and heading home?”
“I don’t think so,” said another. “That wouldn’t make sense. He didn’t try to run when Gargantua picked him up. Why would he be scared now?”
“But he’s literally running up the staircase,” another pointed out.
The creepers looked on and nodded. This fact was clearly true.
“Maybe he’s running to something, and not from Gargantua,” offered another creeper.
There was a general agreement that either of these could be the case.
“I thought Gargantua was going to step on him,” one of the creepers said. “He’s so big. Nobody could survive that. One wrong move and squish! That’s the end of you.”
“Gargantua’s not a mean guy, though,” one creeper said.
“Yes,” agreed another. “In fact he seems quite lonely.”
“But he’s still a skeleton,” another pointed out. “Skeletons like to shoot people with arrows and sometimes smack them with other weapons. There’s no getting around that fact.”
“I think skeletons go for things their own size,” one of the creepers said. “I mean, normal-size skeletons don’t spend their time swatting flies or stepping on beetles. So I’m not surprised that Gargantua doesn’t want to squish Bacca like a bug.”
“I see your point,” said another creeper. “Not very sporting, if you did it that way.”
“Skeletons have a strong sense of fair play,” said another. “Quite admirable, if you ask me.”
(Generally, members of hordes were complimentary to other hordes as a matter of professional courtesy. The creepers all believed they were far superior to skeletons—and zombies and witches—but there was a general sense that they were all playing for the same team.)
“Nobody’s ever been able to figure out how to help poor Gargantua,” one of the creepers said.
“If anybody can figure it out, it will be Bacca,” ventured another creeper. “He’s done very well so far. Better than most of us expected.”
“I hope he figures it out,” said another creeper, “for his sake.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked another creeper.
“Well, skeletons don’t normally step on bugs,” said the previous creeper. “But what if a bug really got your hopes up about something . . . and then its plan didn’t work?”
“Ah,” agreed another creeper. “I certainly might step on that bug.”
There was a moment of quiet reflection as the creepers collectively imagined this scenario playing out between Bacca and Gargantua.
“But there’s no reason to believe that’s how it will turn out,” one of the creepers finally said. “Bacca hasn’t let us down yet. Maybe he’s going to do something that will completely surprise us. And Gargantua.”
The rest of the creepers hoped that he was right.
Chapter Ten
After a considerable amount of cardio, Bacca finally arrived back at the top of the long, bony staircase. The run should have been exhausting, but he was far too excited to be tired. His plan for Gargantua filled him with new reserves of energy and excitement.
Bacca left the staircase behind and exited through the mouth of the cave. Then he stopped. Falling to one knee, Bacca reached down and ran his fingers through the red sand in front of him. It must have been the leavings of some long-lost mesa biome that had once existed here.
“Perfect,” Bacca said to himself, examining the grains of sand. “This will do nicely.”
Bacca began gathering all of the red sand and crafting it. For every four blocks of red sand he gathered, he was able to make one block of red sandstone. Then, when he had four blocks of red sandstone, he could craft th
ose into one block of smooth red sandstone.
There was lots and lots of sand at the mouth of the cave. Which was good, Bacca realized. He was going to need all of it.
While Bacca crafted, a small group of curious villagers approached from out of the maze.
“Hello,” one of them said.
“Hi there,” Bacca said back, continuing to work away.
“We heard that somebody had opened up a new part of the maze,” the villager said. “It looks like we heard right!”
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Bacca said, trying to ignore them and focus on his work.
Then a familiar voice asked: “What are you crafting?”
It was the yellow haired boy.
“Something important,” Bacca said. “And big. Very big.”
“Neat,” the boy said. “Can we do anything to help?”
“No,” Bacca said, crafting away. “I don’t need any—”
Then an idea occurred to him.
“Wait,” Bacca said. “You can help, actually.”
“Oh good,” the yellow haired boy said. “How?”
“I’ll need you and a couple of your friends to come with me,” Bacca said. “We’re going to go down the longest staircase you’ve ever seen, to a dark place fully of scary bones. And there, we’re going to see a skeleton that’s as tall as a castle.”
The yellow haired boy’s eyebrows arched in fear, and he began to open his mouth to object.
“But it’ll be a lot of fun!” Bacca quickly added. “I promise.”
“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay. As long as it’s fun.”
“I almost have enough smooth red sandstone,” Bacca said. “But there are two other things I’m going to need for this plan to work. Two other things I’m going to need a lot of. Maybe you can help me find them.”
“Sure,” said the yellow haired boy. “What are they?”
“The first is torches,” Bacca said.
“That’s no problem,” the boy replied. “We’ve got plenty of those in our village. If there’s one thing you need to have plenty of lying around in a subterranean village, it’s torches!”
“Good,” Bacca said. “The other thing is gold. I will need quite a bit of it.”
When Bacca said this, the faces of some of the villagers turned to frowns.
“What?” Bacca asked, feeling confused. “Do you have something against gold?”
They shook their heads no.
“We know where to get lots of gold,” the boy said brightly.
The other villagers continued to frown. One of them put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to quiet him down. It was clear they didn’t like this topic.
“What?” Bacca said again, still not understanding the concern.
“There is a gold mine hidden in the maze,” said one of the villagers. “But it is not a place you would want to go. We stay away from it.”
Bacca said: “Wait . . . I feel like I walked through your entire maze when I was making my map, and I never saw a gold mine.”
“All the same, it’s there,” a villager said.
“I can show you!” the yellow haired boy added brightly.
Several of the villagers shushed him.
“What?” the boy said. “It’s true. I can!”
“Why don’t you want me to see your gold mine?” Bacca asked. “I promise not to take more gold than I need for my riddle. And trust me, it’s very important that I solve this riddle.”
“You misunderstand,” the villager said. “We’re not worried about you stealing our gold. We’re concerned for you—for your safety—just as we would be concerned for the safety of anyone who went inside the mine.”
“Oh yeah?” Bacca said. “This may surprise you, but I’ve faced all kinds of monsters before, in all kinds of mines.”
“I’m sure you have,” said the villager nervously. “But this cave is different. It’s . . . haunted.”
The rest of the villagers nodded in grim agreement.
“What?” Bacca said. “Haunted? Really?”
“I’m not afraid of the ghost,” the yellow haired boy asserted loudly. “Other people are, but I’m not.”
Bacca smiled.
“Well, maybe you can show me where the mine is . . . if your friends here are too scared,” Bacca said. “Though I can’t believe that out of all these people, the only brave one would be a little boy.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” a villager replied.
“You’ll be scared too,” another villager said. “You’ll be scared once you see it!”
“Somehow, I seriously doubt that,” said Bacca, recalling some of his hairiest adventures and thinking that the likelihood that whoever or whatever guarded this mine might top them was infinitesimally small.
When Bacca had finished constructing his blocks of smooth red sandstone, he followed the villagers back to their village in the center of the maze. Here, he was given all the torches that he could carry.
“Thank you,” Bacca said. “These will work perfectly.”
“We’ve discussed it, and we agree to take you to the gold mine,” one of the villagers said. “But don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
“Okay,” Bacca said with a grin. “I won’t.”
The villagers took Bacca on a winding course through the maze, with the yellow haired boy leading the way.
“Gee,” Bacca observed, “maybe I didn’t come this way when I was making my map. It certainly looks different than anything I remember.”
The villagers stopped in front of a small opening to the side of the passage. It wasn’t very large. Bacca reckoned that if you were going quickly—and, say, only interested in finding a witch or a green rabbit—you might not even notice it at all.
“This is the gold mine,” one of the villagers told him. “But please, be careful. The ghost inside is definitely scary.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Bacca said, and crawled through the opening.
By the light of his torch, he saw that he was in a large, long room. The ground was rough and uneven. There were long veins of gold ore running everywhere, but no ghost that he could see.
So Bacca took out his iron pickaxe and got to work.
He would need a lot of gold to solve the riddle of Gargantua, but this place looked like it had hardly been mined at all. The ore was just there waiting to be taken. It was almost too good to be true.
Bacca mined one vein until it was entirely dry, then started in on another, and then another after that. He got into a rhythm and actually started enjoying the hard work. He certainly didn’t see what all the fuss was about. There didn’t seem to be any ghosts. There weren’t even spiders or bats. As subterranean mines went, it was downright friendly.
Then, suddenly, he heard it.
“Boooooo.”
One long, ghostly note echoed across the mine.
Bacca thought it was the villagers playing a joke on him.
“Real funny guys,” he called back, not that easily rattled. “But seriously, this is a great mine. Thank you for taking me here. I’m going to have more than enough gold to—”
Bacca stopped mid-sentence.
A glowing blue-white shape was drifting toward him from out of the deepest reaches of the mine. It slowly drew closer with every second that passed. It gradually took the shape of a villager with a skeletal face.
“Boooo!” it cried, loudly and insistently.
Bacca had faced almost every manner of monster, but never a ghost. Would it be friendly? Would it be angry? Would he take damage if it touched him? As the incandescent spirit floated nearer, Bacca was too curious to think of preparing for battle, or to even be scared. He did not even set down his pickaxe. As he watched in amazement, the ghost drifted up until it stood toe-to-toe with him.
“Boooo!” it said again.
“Hello,” Bacca said, hoping that a cheerful demeanor might set the two of them off on the right foot. “Lovely mine you have here. Hope you don’t mind me taking
just a little gold from it. Or a lot, I guess. Because, um, actually I’m taking a lot.”
The ghost looked at Bacca. An expression of puzzlement crossed its translucent face. Then it moaned again.
“Boooo.”
“Yes,” Bacca said. “I heard you the first time.”
The ghost waved its hand at Bacca, almost as though it was casting a spell. Bacca was at first unsure what was happening, but suddenly noticed himself feeling a whole lot lighter. He opened his inventory and realized that all of his newly-mined gold ore was gone. He looked down at the floor of the mine, and saw that the ore had been magically returned to the earth.
“My gold!” Bacca cried. “What’s the big idea?”
“Boooo,” said the ghost in a self-satisfied tone.
“Dang it,” Bacca said. “It’s never easy, is it? Do you say anything other than ‘boo’? That would be helpful.”
The ghost shook its head and smiled from cheekbone to cheekbone.
“Of course not. Hmm . . . well look, I need this gold,” Bacca said. “I’ve got to solve a riddle to help the dragons recover their orb. And I need this gold to do that.”
“Boooo?” said the ghost, in a tone that managed to get across the attitude of ‘So what’s that got to do with me?’
“Look, it’s not like you need this gold, right?” Bacca said. “You’re not using it for anything at the moment.”
The ghost bobbed up and down silently for a moment.
“So what if . . .” Bacca said, trying to think of a solution.
Then an idea struck him.
“What if I bring it back when I’m done?” Bacca asked.
The ghost said, “Booo?” It had clearly never heard such an absurd proposition.
“Hear me out,” Bacca said. “I only need this gold ore for a little while. I have to craft it into something. Then I have to take it down to the skeletal place where Gargantua lives and kind of . . . use it as a prop.”
“Booo?”
“The details aren’t important,” Bacca continued. “The important thing is that once I’m done, I’m done. I won’t need the gold anymore. Gargantua won’t need it either. I could just bring it all back to you. Or the villagers could. How does that sound?”
