The cave was not a twisting tunnel or a cavernous chamber filled with secrets. There were no traps or monsters. It was a small cave, no deeper than sixty steps and barely tall enough to fit Moshul. At the end of the tunnel was a pool of murky water and a small pile of animal bones picked clean.
“It’s a dead end.” Kestrel kicked the dirt.
“Maybe we made a wrong turn,” Roveeka said hopefully.
“But there were no turns to be made,” Odette pointed out. “It was all one tunnel. No left turns. No right turns. Just straight. Straight to a dead end.”
“We might have missed something along the way,” Roveeka added. “Maybe there was a small offshoot that we didn’t see.”
“I was looking pretty carefully,” Wily said. “I was even using my fingertips to check the walls for seams. It’s the best way to find the entrances to the hidden maintenance tunnels found in every proper dungeon. I didn’t see or feel anything.”
“But this has to be it,” Roveeka said.
“Maybe there was another tunnel entrance that we didn’t see,” Pryvyd said. “A staircase beneath one of the graves or a trapdoor beneath a tombstone.”
“What kind of animal would be a pirate’s ilk?” Wily said.
“A parrot,” Kestrel said.
“That sounds right to me,” Pryvyd said. Even Odette was nodding slightly.
“Let’s check all the tombstones for a parrot’s name,” Pryvyd said. “Although I imagine a parrot wouldn’t have a very big grave.”
The group turned back for the entrance of the cave. As they walked, Wily imagined a pirate and his parrot fighting in a great sea battle, the two standing at the wheel as the ship sank.
“Wait,” Wily exclaimed. “Maybe those plots outside were not the pirate’s grave the riddle was talking about.”
“We were clearly supposed to go to the coconut cemetery,” Roveeka reminded Wily. “Where the dead drink milk.”
“I agree,” Wily said. “But that might have been a different part of the riddle. The grave of the pirate’s ilk might be something different.”
“Go ahead, Wily,” Kestrel said. “Explain.”
“When a pirate meets his untimely end,” Wily said, trying to focus only on the riddle of the forge, “where does it happen?”
“On an enemy pirate ship?” Roveeka said.
“Sometimes,” Wily agreed. “But where would that be?”
“At sea,” Odette suggested.
“That’s right,” Wily said. “It’s rare that a pirate is buried in the ground. They would go down with the ship. The grave of the pirate’s ilk is underwater.”
Wily hurried back to the murky water at the end of the tunnel.
“I’m not sure this is a dead end after all.”
Odette was nodding as she looked into the water.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” she said. She stepped into the pool, sucked in a big lungful of air, and dove.
An awfully long time seemed to pass before Odette came up again.
“You’ve got to see this,” Odette said with a big smile and a shake of her long blue hair. “And you were right. This is no dead end.”
Kestrel and Pryvyd both gave Wily a nod of fatherly approval. The two men realized this and turned away from each other.
Wily and the rest of his party waded into the water before diving below the surface. With his eyes open, Wily swam through the murky water toward the far wall of the cave. Just a foot below the surface was an underwater tunnel leading to a secret pool on the other side of the wall.
Wily came up for air above the secret pool. The ceiling was arched and the room was narrow. It was like a hallway that was nearly all submerged in water. Steel lanterns with glass panels hung from above, each tinted a different shade of green. The light that shone created shadows on the walls and water in a complex pattern of hexagons. Far at the other side of the hall was a set of stairs that exited the water onto a portion of stone ground.
“Let’s swim for those stairs,” Pryvyd said as he began to paddle in the lead.
The group made slow progress down the long corridor. Swimming was not nearly as swift as running or even walking. Righteous flew overhead, skimming an arm’s length above the surface.
“Those lanterns look to be made of eversteel,” Kestrel said, peering upward.
“We must be close to the forge now,” Odette said with extra delight in her eyes.
Odette is right, Wily thought. We’ve done what few thought possible. Wily felt a slight tingle run down his skin. It was an electric charge of excitement that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. It even made his lips quiver. Suddenly, Wily wasn’t excited anymore. He was frightened.
“We need to get out of the water!” Wily shouted. “Right now!”
“Why?” Odette yelled.
“That tingle you’re feeling is caused by electric eels,” Wily said. “This is a trap. I made one just like it. I called mine the Ankle Shocker. Although in this deep water, they are going to shock a lot more than ankles.”
Roveeka tried climbing the outside wall of the corridor but it was too slippery. She just slid back down into the water.
“I can’t,” Roveeka said.
“It’s too far back to get out the way we came in,” Pryvyd said, looking fearful.
Wily looked up at the hanging lanterns. He could see they made a path all the way across the long hall.
“Up there,” Wily shouted. “That’s the way across.”
Wily felt something brush past his leg below the surface. There was little time left before the eels attacked. They were preparing to charge.
“We need a toss!” Wily said, turning to Moshul.
The moss golem was already on it. He grabbed Roveeka in his hand as Odette ran up his back and did a double flip onto an emerald hanging lantern. She hung upside down as Roveeka was thrown into the air, and she caught the hobgoblet in her arms.
Wily was next. Moshul hastily tossed him up and Righteous flew up and gave him an extra nudge to reach a pale green lantern. As Wily tightened his grip, Pryvyd and Kestrel were scooped out of the water and tossed into the air. Kestrel caught onto one of the dangling lanterns and then reached out to snag Pryvyd, who’d missed his lantern.
“Moshul,” Roveeka called down. “You need to get out too!”
Moshul signed up to her. I’ll be okay. Although some of my bugs might not be. Or the hugtopus.
As he signed the last words, the water sparked with electricity. Pulses ran up and down Moshul’s body, but the moss golem seemed to be unaffected by the energy.
“The poor hugtopus!” Roveeka called out.
Wily had now pulled himself up so that his feet were braced around the lantern and his hands were firmly gripping the chains holding it to the ceiling.
“We need to get to the other side of the room by swinging from lantern to lantern,” he said. “It might be easy for Odette, but it will be tough for the rest of us.”
Pryvyd was peering down from his lantern at the water. The electric eels were swimming in rapid circles around Moshul, smacking him with their tails, clearly not pleased with their inability to stun him.
“Wily,” Pryvyd stammered, “I should never have let you come on this adventure. I want you to know that I’m sorry I haven’t been able to keep you safe. I care about you.” Pryvyd looked over at Kestrel, who was next to him on the same lantern. “Like a father.”
“Very touching,” Kestrel said. “But he already has a father that cares about him. Even if he hasn’t always been there for him before.”
Wily looked over at the two men, who were now eyeing him.
“Can we talk more about this later?” Wily asked. “When we are not dangling above a deadly trap.”
“It seemed like the right time,” Pryvyd said. “Just in case.”
“Nobody is getting hurt today,” Roveeka said. “If I can do this, so can all of you.”
To everyone’s (but Roveeka’s) surprise, she made a flying leap to the neighboring lantern. Her stumpy fingers latched on tight to the next chain as it swung under her weight. Using the momentum, she leaped to the next lantern and the next.
“Whoa,” Odette muttered. “I didn’t know she could do that. I must be rubbing off on her.”
Roveeka got to the far side of the water-filled hallway. She was now above the stone platform.
“I guess we all can be the people we want to be if we put our minds to it,” Kestrel said as he took off next.
As the others followed Roveeka’s path, Moshul swam the remainder of the way with the eels shocking him to no effect. The moss golem stepped out of the water, and Wily could see, to his great relief, that the hugtopus seemed to be completely unaffected by the eels. Moshul stood under the last lantern and opened his arms to catch Roveeka. Moshul gave the hobgoblet a hug as tight as the one the little octopod was giving him to let her know how glad he was that she had made it across safely.
Despite the crossing seeming treacherous, Wily discovered it was not nearly as difficult as it had appeared to be. He fell into Moshul’s big hands and was put gently on the ground next to Roveeka.
“How were you so confident?” Wily asked his hobgoblet sister.
Roveeka lowered her voice to a whisper. “Sometimes pretending to be brave is the same thing as being brave.”
Wily gave her a big smile and then turned to the exit of the hall. The opening ahead glowed with orange and gold. Wily took the lead and found that it opened up to a giant cavern—
and Wily and his friends were at the top of it. He was now standing on a balcony that looked out upon a magnificent sight. He moved to the edge and looked over the side. Hundreds of feet below, Wily could see a silver step pyramid. Smoke poured out from the vent at its peak. The trail of smoke was sucked away through a long metal tube built into the side of the cavern wall.
“The Eversteel Forge,” Wily said. “We’ve found it.”