The cave was dank and dark, the air was damp and you could taste the mustiness of the stale cave. The cave opening was narrow, Raven was able to pass through fairly east but I needed to move more slowly, the passage way was tall enough for me but the sides were a little more narrow than I would have liked, giving an uneasy sense of claustrophobia.
The walls themselves were jagged and gnarly with the odd section of the walls sticking out slightly causing me to knock my shoulders into them. Every time I did it sent a shock of pain into my ribs, I had a feeling that at least one of them was broken given that even breathing hurt.
Raven was a s silent as a mouse, you couldn’t hear a single footstep from her, in fact if I would have closed my eyes I wouldn’t have en know she was there. I kept following her through the winding passageway until thankfully it opened up into a bigger space. It felt like I could breathe freely and that feeling of dread brought about from the claustrophobia subsided almost imideately. Up until now I had never questioned that I had a phobia of narrow spaces but now, now I wasn’t too sure.
In the distance, I could hear the faint dripping of water, tap, tap, tap, it wasn’t too fast, but that meant there was water somewhere and water in tunnels in caves… well I had seen one too many documentaries to tell me how bad those situations could be. It hadn’t been long since I had watched one about a group of Chinese kids that had been trapped deep in a cave when there was suddenly a flood which blocked all the passageways out. It had taken a few extremely talented and brave scuba divers to rescue them all and luckily they all survived somehow. Here, there wasn’t any chance of anyone coming to rescue us if we ended up in a similar position.
I looked behind me at the narrow passage we had walked though, the light behind us had all but gone, meaning we only had the walls of the cave to guide us. I could just about make out Raven’s silhouette in front of me, she was tracing her arm against the cave wall, so I followed suit. It was cold and wet, the surface smoother than I would have thought as we continued to look for the Imps.
That didn’t take too much longer as it wasn’t long after heading into a more open space that I could see a the orange glow of a camp fire. The space we were in was far bigger now with stalagmites hanging low from the ceiling, these were turquoise in colour with a almost transparent shine to them, making the formations look like giant icicles hanging low dow down, some of them reached as low as the ground where it had solidified as if it had melted into shape. I couldn’t help but touch one of them, they were rough to touch which was not what I was expecting for some reason.
Raven heaven in and out of the new formed shadows, using the darkness as her cover as we drew closer to where I had assumed the imps that had robbed us were. At this stage I was just following her lead, still walking gingerly I did all I can to keep my breaths short and shallow, trying my hardest to be as quiet as I could.
I kept looking ahead until eventually I could see two little shapes that looked like they were laying on their sides. They were asleep, how apt, at least this way we would be able to steal our stuff back while they were sleeping just as they had us. Something felt off however, somehow this seemed to easy.
I spoke too soon, or at least I thought too soon as I took my next step forward I suddenly felt a horrendously cold feeling erupt in my right ankle and up my shin. I couldn’t help but call out in surprise, it hurt, a lot. As I looked down it was clear that I had triggered some form of trap, my entire foot was encased in ace, unto around half way up my leg, finishing just below the knee.
Raven turned around but she triggered one too, both of her legs being sealed in ice, it climbed up to her waist and sh struggled violently as she tried to break herself free.
I did the same but the more I struggled the more the ice started to creep up my leg, passing past my knee and moving towards my groin. I had no choice as Raven continued to struggle frantically, the ice creeping up her stomach as she remained rooted to the spot.
“Don’t struggle,” I said, Raven continued to writhe around. As I took a deep breath and kept struggling the ice stopped growing, it didn’t stop the intensity and shock of the cold but at least it stopped it from growing further. “The ice, it gets worse if you struggle.”
Raven stopped struggling and the ice stopped spreading up her body too, the only problem we had now was the two imps that were sat bolt upright staring straight at us.
“Stupid humans,” the one on the right said with a slightly feminine voice. “Thinking they can sneak up on us.”
“We should leave them in the trap and go,” The other larger imp said, there was a grogginess to his voice as he let out a large over the top yawn and started smacking his lips together.
“Why do you follow us?” The smaller of the imps said standing up and brushing themselves down.
“They seek to kill us, humans are dangerous, we should leave now before they try to slit our throats.” The larger imp gave me a hard stare but struggled to keep eye contact with Raven.
Raven jolted forward causing the bigger of the two imps to bowl over backwards, nearly rolling into their campfire. As she did the ice rose further up her body.
“See she wants to kill us.” it said before stumbling back to its feet.
“No no no,” I said, shivering, it was if I had been submerged in an ice bucket as my teeth chattered together, the coldness felt like it reached my bones, causing a dull, uncomfortable ache as I tried to explain tot he imps.
That didn’t take too much longer as it wasn’t long after heading into a more open space that I could see a the orange glow of a camp fire. The space we were in was far bigger now with stalagmites hanging low from the ceiling, these were turquoise in colour with a almost transparent shine to them, making the formations look like giant icicles hanging low dow down, some of them reached as low as the ground where it had solidified as if it had melted into shape. I couldn’t help but touch one of them, they were rough to touch which was not what I was expecting for some reason.
Raven heaven in and out of the new formed shadows, using the darkness as her cover as we drew closer to where I had assumed the imps that had robbed us were. At this stage I was just following her lead, still walking gingerly I did all I can to keep my breaths short and shallow, trying my hardest to be as quiet as I could.
I kept looking ahead until eventually I could see two little shapes that looked like they were laying on their sides. They were asleep, how apt, at least this way we would be able to steal our stuff back while they were sleeping just as they had us. Something felt off however, somehow this seemed to easy.
I spoke too soon, or at least I thought too soon as I took my next step forward I suddenly felt a horrendously cold feeling erupt in my right ankle and up my shin. I couldn’t help but call out in surprise, it hurt, a lot. As I looked down it was clear that I had triggered some form of trap, my entire foot was encased in ace, unto around half way up my leg, finishing just below the knee.
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Raven turned around but she triggered one too, both of her legs being sealed in ice, it climbed up to her waist and sh struggled violently as she tried to break herself free.
I did the same but the more I struggled the more the ice started to creep up my leg, passing past my knee and moving towards my groin. I had no choice as Raven continued to struggle frantically, the ice creeping up her stomach as she remained rooted to the spot.
“Don’t struggle,” I said, Raven continued to writhe around. As I took a deep breath and kept struggling the ice stopped growing, it didn’t stop the intensity and shock of the cold but at least it stopped it from growing further. “The ice, it gets worse if you struggle.”
Raven stopped struggling and the ice stopped spreading up her body too, the only problem we had now was the two imps that were sat bolt upright staring straight at us.
“Stupid humans,” the one on the right said with a slightly feminine voice. “Thinking they can sneak up on us.”
“We should leave them in the trap and go,” The other larger imp said, there was a grogginess to his voice as he let out a large over the top yawn and started smacking his lips together.
“Why do you follow us?” The smaller of the imps said standing up and brushing themselves down.
“They seek to kill us, humans are dangerous, we should leave now before they try to slit our throats.” The larger imp gave me a hard stare but struggled to keep eye contact with Raven.
Raven jolted forward causing the bigger of the two imps to bowl over backwards, nearly rolling into their campfire. As she did the ice rose further up her body.
“See she wants to kill us.” it said before stumbling back to its feet.
“No no no,” I said, shivering, it was if I had been submerged in an ice bucket as my teeth chattered together, the coldness felt like it reached my bones, causing a dull, uncomfortable ache as I tried to explain to the imps.
*****
“W, we, had no intention of hurting you,” My teeth chattered as I spoke, “We j, just wanted to get our stuff back. The stuff that you stole from us.”
“Your stuff?” The imps voice broke off, “We found it fair and square. It is our stuff.”
“You didn’t find it fair and square, you took it from us as we slept which is a little shady if you ask me.”
“No one was asking you,” The smaller imp said.
The larger imp spun round and gave them a stern look, “Don’t antagonise them, you will just make them more angry.”
“Come on,” I said, with how I was feeling I wasn’t even interested in my weapon that they had taken, I just wanted to get a healing potion inside of me. “Can you do me a favour? Could you at least pass me one of the healing potions?”
“You try to trick us, you want to draw us close so you can snap our necks with your bare hands.”
They both seemed insistent that I was determined to kill them in some kind of violent way and I had no idea why.
“I don’t have any intention to hurt you,” I said once again, “Neither of us do.”
“Why should we trust you?” The larger imp said, “You snuck into our cave.”
“Listen, you took our stuff, we don’t want any trouble we just want our stuff back. I dont know if there is something we could do for you in return?” I was out of ideas though, if I was them I wouldn’t return the stuff, and we had nothing we could offer at all in exchange.
The imp stared at me with a sense of focus, like his eyes had fixed on part of me.
“What is that?” It asked pointing at me.
“What’s what?”
“That on your arm?”
I looked down at my wrist realising it was looking straight at my arm.
“No, you can’t have it.” I said defensively. I wrapped my other hand around it as if I was trying to shield it from their view.
“I wants it,” The smaller imp said, but it wasn’t talking to me, it was talking to the other imp. “It’s shiny, I have to have it.” She stamped her foot on the ground like a spoilt brat.
“What do you want for it?” The other imp asked, it seemed hesitant to move closer to me, almost apprehensive to ask.
“You can’t have it,” I repeated, there was no way in hell I was going to part ways with it.
The imp screwed up its face, one of its elongated ears twitched slightly as it folded its arms and stewed on its thoughts.
“I wants it,” The smaller imp said, stamping its foot on the ground once again.
“You're not helping,” The other imp said, snapping his head back in disapproval.
Raven glared at me which I assumed was implying that I should give them the watch but that wasn’t about to happen, they would have to pry it from my cold dead hands and despite how annoying these little imps were, they dint seem violent.
“I’ve got it!” The large imp said with a beaming smile, he snapped his fingers in the air like he had just had the best Eureka moment of his life.
“No offence, but I don’t care what you have, you are not having my watch.”
“A watch,” The imp said as if speaking an ancient and mysterious alien language. “What does it do?”
“Erm, it tells me the time?”
“What do you mean.”
I stumbled on my own words as I tried to think of the best way to answer the question.
I struggled for a moment on how best to explain the concept of time. “Where I am from, there is twenty four hours in a day. This watch tells me which part of the day I am in, from that I can tell if it is morning, noon or night.” I think I did a good job of explaining but both of the imps just stared at me blankly, wide eyed, their large black pupils lost in my watches apparent wonder.
“Why not just look up at the sky? The sun and moons tells us wether it is night time or day time that we are in.”
I kind of felt stupid, there way of explaining things was way more simpler and it made way more sense.
“Wait you have more than one moon?”
“Did you not notice?”
“I was a little busy being robbed to notice,” I said with a hint of sarcasm. Although they had robbed us and has up trapped in an ice spell, I kind of like them both. They did seem harmless and I was honest with myself kind of endearing.
Raven widened her eyes and shrugged her shoulders like she was waiting for me to do something but I had no clue what. The ice was now upto her chest and her arms were completely pinned to her sides, she had stopped struggling but her lips were turning blue and that worried me.
“Ok, ok, can you let us both out? This spell that you have cast on us, its making us real cold and I dont want my friend here to end up getting sick.”
“You humans are so terrible with the cold, the smaller of the imps stepped forwards as if they were about to remove the magic from us but the larger one put there arm across their chest, their elongated fingers almost amphibian like with large nodes at the end of them.
“He plays tricks, he tries to woo us so he can kill us for taking what is ours.”
“I like him though, not the little one, she is terrifying.”
“Come we talk in silence, away from the humans ears for a moment.”
The two of them toddled off towards the fire that I was so jealous that I wasn’t sat next to. The ice magic had creeped right up to the top of my groin, which was a little too close for comfort. My teeth chattered and my breath shook as I tried to ignore the cold. I was failing miserably.
“Are you ok?” I asked Raven, she was worryingly still.
She raised her head to give me another disapproving look, one which was starting to feel all too familiar.
The two imps huddled together by the fire, their shadows dancing behind them on the cave wall, they were equally as animated as the other as they spoke in an overly hushed tone, I could hear the odd word that they were saying but nothing that was conclusive to what they were plotting.
After a few moments they walked back towards us, stopping just a few feet away, just far enough that I couldn’t reach them. The larger imp put its hands behind its back before saying.
“Vera trusts you, it is a flaw of hers that has nearly sene us killed many a time.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself at the imps name, I don’t know what I was expecting but that was not it.
“I am however, willing to give you a chance to prove yourself. But it will come at a cost.”
“Your left arm!” Vera shouted spontaneously as if she had Tourettes, like she had no control of the words coming out of her mouth.
"What! No way!” I yelled out defensively.
The larger imp turned atnd scowled at Vera who started laughing playfully.
“Sorry, do humans not know how to joke.” She rubbed her foot on the ground in front of her bashfully.
“You know what, that’s actually kind of funny.” I said and Vera offered me a polite smile.
“I like him,” She said, reaffirming the trusting nature that the other imp had described to us.
“What’s your name?” I asked to the other imp.
“I see what you are doing, creating conversation to get us to drop down our barriers.” He sighed an over the top sigh before saying, “If you must know it is Dave.”
“Vera and Dave the imp,” I said aloud, that was not the names that I would have put to them both in a million years but fair play to both of them. “Well Dave, other than cutting my arm off,” I said with a smile. “What do you want me to do for you to release us and give us our stuff back.”
Dave simply smiled a slightly manic smile, “I want you to solve a riddle.”