The Puzzling Voyage to Geraptiku: Part Two

     The words were said in an almost soothing manner. Well, about as soothing as Captain Sam’s voice could get at least.

     Scrap opened his eyes slowly and stared up at the underside of a palm tree and the large shadow of Captain Samantha Snitzfritz. The captain had a ferocious emotion on her face, but it was no longer her usual grin. Instead, it was more of a grimace.

     “Took a while to find you over here,” she said shortly. “The ship must have spewed you further than the professor and me,” she added, nodding towards the ocean on Scrap’s left. He turned his head slowly and saw the pirate ship on its side in the water about a mile from shore. “It’s an absolute wreck,” she said in a sad voice. But in a few moments, she shook her head as if freeing it from her thoughts and held out her hand to help Scrap up from the sandy beach.

     He grabbed her hand with his own and stood on his wobbly feet, gaining stability quickly. “Where’s the professor?” he asked, his voice raspier than he remembered it.

     “Oh, the old boy is running around the beach already, picking up shells and other knickknacks. It’s like his birthday came early or something.” Scrap pictured the Lenny hopping around excitedly and couldn’t help but smile a bit. But he tried to wipe his face of any joy before the captain saw. She had just lost her ship, and he didn’t want her to take her anger out on him. “C’mon, we need to go get him. We still have a mission to accomplish,” she said, leading the way towards what appeared to be a wild jungle not far from the beach.

     Walking side by side, Scrap couldn’t help but ask a few questions. However, he shied away from the more prominent ones like “What do we do now?” or “How do we get back?” Instead, he settled on “Why are you bringing the professor to this island anyways?”

     Captain Sam looked over at Scrap as they continued to walk. It was immediately obvious that this was a sore subject for the captain, but she answered him anyways. “A few years ago, I was sailing the area beneath Faerieland with my crew. We were looting and pillaging... business as usual. Unfortunately, we looted a ship headed to Shenkuu. Aboard was an old soothsaying Wocky who cursed us as we sailed off with our new booty.”

     She looked down towards the ground as they walked. “Sure, we laughed and gloated with our newfound treasure. But not another day, and our ship was attacked by a strange sea creature. It sank and so did my crew. I awoke on a cloud in Faerieland, saved by the Faerie Queen herself. She told me that she had saved my life, and I told her I owed her my life. From that day forth, I stopped being a pirate and started performing quests for the Faerie Queen to repay her kindness. About three weeks ago, Professor von Grubbentrapp beseeched the Queen for aid in his quest for the lost artifact of Geraptiku. She agreed and sent me along to help guide the Lenny to his treasure. Of course, I accepted... but not without trepidation.”

     The captain stopped in her tracks and grabbed Scrap by the shoulders. She stared deep in his eyes. “I’m not meaning to scare you, swabby. But I have to tell you before we find ourselves at that tomb. Ever since the day my ship and crew were cursed, I have believed in things I cannot see. I do believe ghosts exist. In fact, I know they do. What we may find at the tomb may not be a treasure but another curse. I don’t want to haunt the halls of the tomb forever myself, but I stand by my word to the Faerie Queen. You don’t have to come along if you don’t want to. But if you do... well, if you do, I’ll thank you as much as I can.”

     Scrap looked into her pale blue eyes and saw an earnest expression of truth and kindness. She may be an ex-pirate, but she had the decency of anyone Scrap had ever met. And he may not be comforted by her words regarding the tomb, but he was comforted by her truthfulness and the chance for friendship.

     “I will go with you. You are my captain,” he replied.

     Captain Sam looked for a moment if she might cry, but she quickly replaced the look with a trademark ferocious grin. “Of course you will, swabby. You are my crew, after all,” she said as they started to walk towards the jungle again. “Now, let’s find that crazy loon of a professor.”

     Their search didn’t take long. They were a few yards from the edge of the jungle when Scrap could see the almost bouncing outline of Professor Lenny von Grubbentrapp. He would occasionally bend over and pick up something from the sands of the beach and then jump in the air excitedly as if he had won the Neopian Lottery.

     “Ah, Captain Snitzfritz and Master Scrap!” he yelled as they neared him. “Would you look at the pieces of this old bone sceptre. No doubt part of the ancient tribe’s ruling class. There must be loads of these gems on the interior of the island. We must find the city at once!”

     “First things first,” yelled the Captain, over the Lenny’s loud ravings. “And first, I’m Captain Sam! And second, we need to scavenge what food we can from around here while we’re out in the open. No telling what dangers lurk behind you in that jungle.”

     The color drained from the professor’s face, but he nodded his head vigorously. They spent the better part of the next hour hauling coconuts out of palm trees and picking up bits of edible seaweed which had washed to the shore of the island. Once they were packed and ready to head to the interior, Captain Sam gave the two of them one last pep talk.

     “Now, listen. I want the Professor immediately behind me. Scrap, you follow up in the rear. Keep a lookout behind you occasionally to make sure we’re safe, if you get my drift. Professor, keep your rambling to a minimum. I need my concentration, and whatever’s in the forest doesn’t need to focus its attention on us. Got it?”

     The professor, still ashen-faced from before, nodded vigorously again and kept his beak closed. The Captain smiled at his silence. “Good. Let’s go then.”

     Captain Sam led the way through the jungles, slashing vines with her pirate sword and moving along towards the interior of the island. She had brought a compass along with her, and she would check it often to ensure they were still headed in the same direction. The professor had indeed remained quiet, but he was paying little attention to the path in front of them. Instead, he would stare off at the exotic plants and insects the group was passing. Quite a few times, Scrap had to give a gentle nudge to the professor to remind him that he should keep moving and stop gawking.

     They soon happened upon a clearing where the Captain suddenly stopped and held out her hands for silence. The professor and Scrap did as they were told and stared ahead into the clearing to see if there was something the captain could see that they couldn’t.

     Straining his eyes, Scrap made out the silhouette of a totem pole of sorts. The professor must have seen it too because he nearly leapt up from the ground in excitement. The captain turned and stared at him sharply, and he quickly calmed himself, but his eyes still gleamed with anticipation.

     The captain began to fiddle with one of her carry-along bags and pulled out Rax, her GX-4 Oscillabot Petpet. She whispered something in the ear of the little guy and set him down. He whirred to life and charged towards the totem, becoming lost in the brush of the jungle around it. About two minutes later, a small whistling noise could be heard and the captain smiled.

     “The coast is clear,” she said. “Let’s go get Rax.”

     The trio followed the same path that Rax had taken before disappearing. Up close, the totem pole was almost scary. An ugly stone face gloated at the group as they passed it. After passing it, they found Rax, who was making slight chirping noises and looking over a cliff towards an amazing sight.

     “Gentlemen,” said the Captain. “I present to you... the Lost City of Geraptiku.”

     Scrap was amazed at the sight of the town. Huts were strewn across the darkened landscape, but all of them even from afar looked less than welcoming. There were occasional stone towers among the huts which must have been old shops. But most impressive of all was a very large stone pyramid against the jungle. A pyramid which was without a doubt the deserted tomb Professor Lenny was searching for.

     However, the professor didn’t appear to be as excited as he had been on the trek to the city. Instead of joyously clapping and dancing, the Lenny stood staring at the ominous temple as if it was scarier in person than in some book he had been reading. In fact, Scrap had never seen a Neopet more scared-looking than Professor Lenny was right now.

     The captain leveled her eyes at the professor. “Lenny, we don’t have to go in now, you know. We can wait until morning,” she said. Now that she mentioned it, Scrap noticed it was getting darker than he thought it should. But he almost believed the darkness was emanating from the city below the cliff. “Or we could just turn back and say there was nothing here.”

     The professor looked at her and seemed to be considering the options she presented, but he shook his head and narrowed his eyes in determination. “We must continue forth,” he said. “I want to make sure we did not lose your ship in vain.”

     The captain recoiled a bit at his words, the thought of her lost ship paining her no doubt, but she nodded and motioned for the group to move forward. They scaled down the cliff and entered the dark city, taking a macabre tour of the deserted city.

     Scrap was shivering. And not from cold. Each hut looked as if it might crumble, but it was completely deserted. Not even bugs lived in these shelters. Some of the huts even still had plates on rudimentary tables with food that had rotted away long ago. Whatever happened here was scaring Scrap even now. But the group pressed onwards toward the deserted tomb entrance.

     “How are we doing on time, professor,” asked the captain. Scrap had seen her tell the time from looking at the sky earlier, but perhaps it was a bit more difficult to do when it was getting so dark. Or when she was busy concentrating on getting them to the tomb safely. The professor, on the other, simply looked at his watch.

     “The time is precisely 7:27,” he answered. He was obviously becoming a bit more enthusiastic again as they actually neared the tomb. His academic sense was trumping his own personal fears.

     “Excellent,” replied the captain. “We can spend the night inside. That should guard us from whatever may be lurking out here.” Scrap shivered again at her words.

     As the group approached the door to the tomb, Scrap saw that gaining entry to the tomb might prove more difficult than he originally anticipated. The stone door of the tomb looked shut solid with no means of opening it. And as they finally arrived at it, Scrap was less than amused to see that the others thought the same thing.

     “But there must be a way in,” said the captain. “Maybe we can bust the door down?”

     “I don’t think so,” said Professor Lenny. “I do not believe we have the tools or the manpower to do such a thing. I’m fairly certain this circle on the door has something to do with opening it.”

     Sure enough, Scrap saw a large circle with strange glyphs surrounding its center. Archaic designs were not his specialty, but they reminded Scrap of the hieroglyphics he had once seen when traveling through the Lost Desert. The large circle held a number of smaller once inside of it and lining the inner circumference of the outer circle were twelve strange glyphs. Looking up, Scrap saw even more glyphs over the doorway, but these seemed more like a message.

     “Professor, can you read that language up there,” he asked, pointing up at the glyphs he had spied.

     The professor gazed up at the doorway and furrowed his forehead in thought. “I can make out some rudimentary words, but the language is far from decipherable. It’s a tad too archaic for reasonable translation. But if I had to guess... it says something about a collision. And something about entry or entrance.” The professor placed his right wingtip under his beak where his chin would be as if he was thinking very deeply.

     Suddenly, his face lit up. “I figured it out!” he said.

     The captain tried to shush him as she looked around warily into the creeping darkness around them. “Then hurry and open it. I don’t want to be out here any more than we have to be.”

     “Ah, well. I can’t. Not yet at least. Let’s wait a bit more.”

     “How much longer?” asked Scrap, his nerves beginning to falter. Perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea coming on this forsaken journey with them.

     “My dear, Scrap. You haven’t figured it out yet?” asked the Professor, his eyes peering over the glasses on the tip of his beak. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out if you truly consider it.”

To be continued...