Qaeron made his way back to the door that everyone had descended into and soon heard Plagiarize banging on it.

“Mmm, the bear’s friends want to be let out, yez?” asked Qaeron.

“Yes, that would be greatly appreciated,” replied Plagiarize. “We can’t open it. You may have to eat some corn to do so.”

The bear, after realizing that he could not lift the door due to the fact that it was perfectly flush with the floor of the pyramid, ate a couple of cobs of corn from the ground. All the corn plants were wrecked from the squirrel’s beam of justice. The door soon found itself opening.

Mushpuff, Bird, Plagiarize, Snorter, Hoofa, Klumpkrump, and Chris all ascended the few remaining steps and exited the depths of the pyramid’s interior. The door slammed shut behind them.

“Qaeron, what happened to the squirrel, yo?” asked Bird.

“Mmmm, the zquirrel tried to ezcape, yez?” said Qaeron. “And, hmmm, he tried to kill a bear with the cube! Mmm, thiz made a bear zad, yez, and he killed him.”

“You killed him??”

“Yez.”

“Hey, what happened to the jungle?” asked Chris, referring to the jungle which used to be there but was now burnt to a crisp.

“Oh, yeah, I kinda accidentally lit it on fire,” explained Plagiarize. “And then we all had to run from it. It was a whole ordeal.”

“Huh.”

“So can we have that treasure now?” asked Klumpkrump.

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Chris. “And after that, I have a favor to ask.”

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Everyone except for Qaeron and Chris then descended back down into the pyramid once again. Qaeron was left up top just in case anything went wrong.

The treasure room of the pyramid contained almost nothing of note. It was mostly just gold coins, which are pretty nice but the gang had no way of taking them to the bears to make a deposit in the bank (they were still 79,900 Cat Credits in debt). There was merely one noteworthy item, and it was found by Klumpkrump. It was a dagger. A very nice dagger indeed. She tested her stabbing skills with it, and found it very satisfying to stab with. She then tested her throwing skills, and that was when something truly remarkable happened. The dagger, upon being thrown, went out only a certain distance before turning around midair and making its way back to Klumpkrump.

Upon seeing that the dagger was returning, Klumpkrump screamed and ducked. The dagger flew past over her head, but then it started coming back again! Klumpkrump had no time to react and reflexively held her paw out to shield herself. The dagger landed in her paw by the handle and she was holding it once more.

This dagger, it turned out, was the artifact of this planet that they had come looking for all along. It had the magical property of always coming back to whoever throws it and always landing safely in their hand without any amount of stabbage.

“Y’all, this room is musty,” said Hoofa as everyone continued looking through the coins for any more cool things. “Can we go soon?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Plagiarize, who, for the last 10 minutes, had been holding the Fire Gem above his head to shoot fire into the air to make light. It was getting very tiring.

And so, with dagger in tow, everyone made their way back up the steps to the now-closed-but-soon-not-closed door, opened by Qaeron and Chris eating some more corn.

“We found this cool dagger,” said Klumpkrump, showcasing its boomeranging properties. “But we’re leaving the rest of the treasure down there for now.”

“So now what?” asked Snorter. “The squirrel’s ship is still broken.”

“Oy, I can repair that,” said Chrispybara. “I only ask a small favor.”

“And what would that favor be, yo?” Bird asked inquisitively.

“I wanna be returned to my home planet.”

“Fair enough!”

Chris, after going back down into the pyramid and grabbing some tools left behind by the capybara pirates, fixed up the hole in the squirrel’s ship left behind by Mushpuff’s lasers. Hoofa went and retrieved the Energy Cube and ship keys from the remains of the squirrel. Finally, everyone boarded the ship and Bird piloted it off the planet. Oh my god, they finally got off of that freaking planet. Yay. I never intended for them to be on that planet for so long, but oh well.