The lizard was carrying some sort of bow in its hands and was wearing a very thick winter coat. It gestured for the gang to come out of their ship. They did so, despite the cold.

“Bears first! Now you!!” shouted the lizard from a distance. “Who? You? And why here?”

“We’re here cuz we heard that there were powerful magic thingies here or something,” said Plagiarize.

“Powerful magic artifacts, yo!” exclaimed Bird.

“Are you stupid?” asked the lizard.

“Yes!” said Plagiarize. “I mean no! I mean, uh, maybe?”

“We are not stupid!” said Snorter.

“Yeah! We’re not stupid!” said Plagiarize.

“If not stupid,” said the lizard, “you would know facts. Artifacts stolen.”

“WHART!!?” shouted Plagiarize with disbelief.

“Ain’t no freaking way, yo,” said Bird.

“Freaking way, yo,” responded the lizard. “Stole, stolen, stealing, stong.”

“Who stole them???” asked Mushpuff.

“Pirates from space,” replied lizard. “Dangerous. We wanted to avenge, but not enough lizards. Too weak.”

“We can totally help you guys!!” said Klumpkrump. “We’ll steal the artifacts back from those pirates!!”

“Omg!” said the lizard. “Follow!”

The gang all followed the lizard towards the large door-hole from whence he came. Qaeron carried Plagiarize under one arm and Snorter in the other, because both of them had frozen into solid blocks of ice.

It turns out that in the hole was a big spiral staircase that spiraled along the edge of the circular hole. The hole was like 50 meters deep and there was no railing on the staircase. Additionally, the steps were about 3 centimeters tall each, meaning there were, like, 1,667 of them. This information is completely useless and you don’t need to know it but now you do. Anyways, after a lot of staircasing, the gang and the lizard made it to the bottom of the staircase. Qaeron collapsed on the ground.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“Mmmm, bear is tired, yez?” said Qaeron from the ground. “Bear needs rezt.”

While Qaeron laid on the ground, Mushpuff, Bird, Klumpkrump, Hoofa, and Gumpton were looking around the lizard base (Plagiarize and Snorter were still thawing). They were in a massive underground base which had a roof about 30 meters up. The room was approximately 200 meters on either side, also known as Ginormous. Large stone pillars held up the roof. There was also a restaurant in there. Don’t ask why. Aside from the restaurant, the only other things in the room were tents. A lot of tents. Scattered here and there and everywhere.

“What the frickity frack is this place?” asked Plagiarize after thawing out. “Also how did we get here?”

“Old lizard shelter,” said the lizard. “Used to be prosperous society. Many cities on surface. Then pirates invaded. All died except few lizards. Stole all our stuff. Now hide in hole. Eat food from restaurant.”

“What a sad tale,” said Klumpkrump. “Do you know where the pirates went though??”

“Their planet is Kearth,” said the lizard.

“Alright, I guess that’s all we need to know,” said Mushpuff. “Let’s go to Kearth, guys!”

After dragging Snorter out of the restaurant because she snuck into it and ate half the remaining food supply, the gang thanked the lizard and turned towards the stairs.

“Oy, wait a minute,” said the lizard. “When bears were here… said they were looking for two people. Cat and penguin. Said they would give us reward if we captured them. You are cats,” said the lizard as he pointed at Mushpuff and Klumpkrump. “And you are penguin,” he said, pointing at Bird.

“You’re incorrect!” said Plagiarize.

“Oh, okay,” said the lizard. “Sorry. Have good adventure.”

“Because they’re actually probably after all of us now,” continued Plagiarize.

“Oy?” exclaimed the lizard.

“Yeah, because they saw us all together on that last planet we were on, and we all escaped together, so they probably know we’re a team, and we did end up killing some more bears over there, so I’d say it’s not unlikely that most of us are wanted now.”

“Don’tlistentohimhe’sveryinsanealsowe’releavingnowsobye,” said Klumpkrump, running for the stairs. Mushpuff, Bird, Plagiarize, Snorter, HoofaGumpton (the title for when Hoofa is riding Gumpton), and Qaeron followed behind.

As the gang ran up the twisting spiral staircase that led out of the hole, they were greeted with the terrible sight of the door at the top starting to swing close. They had less than a minute to make it up all 1,667 stairs before the door closed and they were locked inside. And that wouldn’t be much of a problem if not for the fact that the lizard they met just took out his bow and fired an arrow at the gang. It narrowly missed Qaeron by about the length of one hedgehog wearing pants and smoking a cigarette (the cigarette and pants add to the length of the hedgehog and were therefore necessary in the measurement).