Hours Earlier
- - -
“What’d’ya think, Boss?”
The Warden stood in front of the monument he had been led to, paws at his hips and looking at it with denial. A group of a dozen or so weasels stood behind him, staring at the structure in disbelief. They’d heard that rat’s ramblings.
“That isn’t anything! Probably just some old-”
“Look’t that, though!” A nameless weasel pointed at the circular opening, “I ‘eard we’re supposed ta put somethin’ in it!”
“’At rat was sayin’ put your arm in it.” Another weasel chimed in.
“We’ve tried that, didn’t work.” Evic interrupted, with Scus and Gaffe nodding.
“Well, let’s get movin’! Can’t be wasting time thinking about it, with my Pit losin’ money as we speak! Get in line, all of you!”
“We saw ‘is plaque, though, Boss. Look ‘it the last line!” Gaffe pointed to it:
And the body is that of obscure and pure
“Aw, that’s rubbish! C’mon men, behind me! Hurry up!” The Warden ordered, placing himself in the front. Try as he might, The Warden was too short to reach the opening, leading many to snicker and look at one another. “Help me up!” He turned to Evic and Scus who both stood at either side. Lifting him up, he placed his arm in, and nothing happened. “Push me in further.” He then ordered.
“Boss, we don’t wan’na hurt ya.”
“I don’t care!”
“...Ai’ght.”
Placing their paws behind his back, his body was forced further into the hole against the outer stones, flailing his arm inside, but still to no avail. He couldn’t even touch the smooth rock where the space ended, deep inside. After a minute, he stopped, secretly defeated and out of breath as he was lowered down.
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"Alright boys, do what I did!”
One after another, the weasels obeyed, all performing the same motion, but with no luck. No sound was made, no movement, no visual anomaly... nothing. Many of them touched the rounded end, feeling it, pushing it, attempting to find something, only to feel the dead end and the loose dirt. With time, all of the weasels finished their order.
“Boss, I’m tellin’ ya! Maybe the words down there mean somethin’!” Gaffe piped up again, and with slight difficulty, he spoke them, “And the body... is that of... ob- ob...scure and pure...”
“Well get the porcupines down here ‘cause I think that’s bullshit!” The Warden was very clearly furious, “Maybe that’s what it means! I’m sendin’ a few of you to get some!”
Every weasel looked at everyone else. Surely, he wouldn’t have them walk all the way to the porcupine kingdom to have them travel all the way back?
“Did I stutter?! Three of you! You, you, you!” He selected three random weasels from the group, “Go over there, tell them what we found, and tell them to get their butts down here!”
The three groaned and moaned, with the rest laughing at them, with numerous interjections of insulting ‘Good luck!’s, ‘Have fun!’s, and ‘Don’t be sad!’.
“The rest of ya!” The Warden continued, “Go back to the Pit and start doin’ your jobs again. I’ll handle this.”
In a few hours time, the 6 guests arrived at the monument, The Warden intensely staring at them full of impatience. He told the porcupines of all they had done, from discovering the stony building, to putting their appendages inside, and as expected, the representatives were all equally as amazed as they were excited.
Once again, the plaque was mentioned, “They keep talkin’ about this stupid plaque!” The Warden rolled his eyes at there being any meaning behind it, oblivious.
“Let me see,” One of them read the riddle etched into it, “Let me try my arm...” Removing his less-than-ideal bulky armor, a paw was stuck in, and once again nothing occurred. The group was back at square one. The seven were stumped, and thinking for a moment, they finally had begun to grasp for straws.
“What if we stick our foot in?”
“What about the rest of the riddle?”
“Maybe there’s nothing in there?”
“I know you gave us that weird lookin’ slave?”
“Nothin’ like anything I’ve seen. Ugly thing.” One of the porcupines admitted.
“Oi! That’s it!”
“Huh?” Two of the others questioned in unison.
“The beast! The new one!”
“The- Oh! Yeah!”
The Warden had a look of confusion across his face.
“Obscure and pure! What’s more obscure than that thing!”
“Good thinkin’!” The same porcupine turned to The Warden, “We got’ta bring it here!”
“I’ll try anything at this point.” The Warden said, “You weasels go back to your jobs.” He said dismissively, nodding his head to the side in a quick motion. “We’ll figure it out, one way or another...”
Turning back to the porcupines, he looked at them sternly, “Go get ‘em.”