The Iridescence of Amber - Part 1

     "My dears, I'm afraid I do not have much time to debrief you today. Your mission is of utmost importance and must be completed quickly and efficiently. I must warn you, though, it is a tad...gruesome. I would forgive you if you get sick after what I am about to show you." The Cloudy Bruce met her agents in the middle of her office and gestured their gaze to an object on her desk. It was large, lumpy, and sat covered with a PPL brand cloth.

     "Are Petpets being snackrificed to Snowbeasts again?" asked Mick eyeing the cloth suspiciously.

     "Is it Florg? Let me at 'im, and I'll knock his teeth out." Deckar growls and cracks his knuckles.

     Weltrude shakes her head and approaches the object. Her flippered hand pinches a corner of the cloth, and she slowly drags the fabric from the object underneath. She cannot bear to look at it and instead fixates her eyes on her recoiling agents.

     Underneath the cloth was an amber statue...a suspiciously lifelike statue of a Triffin frozen in fear.

     "Is it...is it alive?" Kaylee gasps, and she reaches out to touch the unfortunate Petpet, but shies away and attempts to regain her composure.

     "Scanning its vitals suggests that it is, but we have no way of breaking the poor thing out without shattering the amber and risking its life. Our undercover Agents 44 and 36 found it while searching for a tagged and collared Icklesaur near the Tyrannian jungle. While agents 44 and 36 failed to locate the Icklesaur, they have discovered a cavern that appears to be the source of the amber. I have already sent the coordinates to your triangulation panel, Agent 27." Weltrude nods to Mick, who checks his panel and confirms the coordinates.

     "Do we know what's doing this?" Deckar asks.

     Weltrude shakes her head and moves to cover the Triffin once again. "I'm afraid not, Agent 5...only a monster would do something so terrible to another living creature. If this were a matter of nature, we would let it run its course...but this is far from natural. This is likely to be a dangerous mission, so I suggest you three arm yourselves with your plasma blasters. I do hope you do not have to use them, however. Stay vigilant and come home safe. I know you three will not disappoint me."

     The agents are dispatched to Tyrannia and follow the signal on Mick's triangulation panel until they reach the reported cave. Hardened amber lined the mouth of the cave, and a sticky, sweet aroma wafted through the air. A giant tree towered above and bathed the Agents in a welcome shade. The roots of the massive tree wound down into the soil and into the caverns below.

     "Guess we know where the amber's coming from." Deckar knocks a claw against a hardened chunk of amber that encrusted the cave's entrance.

     "Likely, but mere sap doesn't encase an organism as perfectly as it did to that Triffin. It was deliberate. Still, I wouldn't suggest touching any sap that's still wet." Mick wipes the sweat from his brow and began to dig around in his equipment.

     "If we find any Petpets in there, we have to get them out and take them with us back to Headquarters. Who knows how many are down there..." Kayla steps forward and inspects the dark cave. "And when we find whatever did this..."

     Mick retrieves a device that appears to be a satellite dish connected to his pack by a cable and fixes it to the top of his gear. Once activated, the dish began to slowly spin, and it began to beep intermittently. "This sonar should help us detect any life forms. I've already enabled your trackers to keep us from getting lost in the event we are separated, and to keep a breadcrumb trail so we can find our way out. This sonar will pick those up as well."

     "We've all got our plasma blasters." Deckar pats the alien-looking blaster holstered at his hip.

     "And we have our torches...and backup fire-powered torches!" Kaylee holds up both of her light sources, proud of the 'vintage' Tyrannian torches she'd snagged for her group in the village they'd passed through.

     "You know you didn't have to buy these. Our regular battery torches are good enough..." Mick began.

     "And you didn't have to bring two-thirds of your body weight in computers all the way out to Tyrannia." Kaylee stuck out her tongue at the Nimmo and hopped into the cave with Deckar following close behind her, eager for adventure.

     Mick sighs and runs in after them to keep up.

      The amber caverns were narrow and winding. The air was musty and thick with the wafting scent of tree sugars, mud, and burnt toast. All of the amber samples the group had come across had already hardened long ago and contained no Petpets. There were some tiny insects trapped within the shiny sap, however; no doubt lured in by the sticky sweetness and were now to be preserved for an eternity. They would look rather nice as a paperweight on a desk or as an interesting, yet odd piece of jewellery.

     The sap appeared to be produced naturally by the tree's roots without interference and was harmless. Harmless, unless one were to bonk their head against an amber stalactite repeatedly throughout the spelunking adventure like Deckar did. "I wish I'd brought a helmet..." he groans and rubs a forming bruise.

     "And I wish this sonar would pick something up...it feels like we're going in circles. You've hit your head against that same stalactite for the fifth time now. Look! You've even cracked it." Mick grumbles.

     "Maybe we just have bad signal down here. We are underground in Tyrannia, after all." Kaylee wanders ahead and stretches her arms above her head, only for something warm and wet to touch her fingers. Bringing it close to her face, she makes out that she had touched fresh sap. Thinking nothing of it, she wipes it off on the bare wall when Mick's sonar began to beep.

     "A-ha! Maybe now we're getting somewhere! Something is definitely coming this way...but I can't tell which direction it's coming from or what it is. The signal is too fuzzy, and I'm getting a lot of static." Mick sets down the gear and began fiddling with the control pad.

     "Alright! Finally! I'll run up ahead and see if I can head it off!" Deckar rushes off into the darkness and is shortly followed by a loud bonk and a frustrated yowl.

     "And I'll head back to see if I can see anything coming up from the rear. If you find anything out, let us know, Agent 27!" Kaylee waves a quick farewell and dashes in the opposite direction from where Deckar ran off.

     "We're not supposed to split up, but don't mind me, guys! I'll just be here...fixing our equipment, so don't let me stop you..." Mick grumbles. He didn't want to admit it, but now that he's alone, the amber cave just got a lot creepier. Anything could lunge out at him through the darkness.

     Anything.

     He almost believes he's having a paranoia-induced hallucination when he feels a presence behind him and the smell of burnt toast began to burn his nostrils. Just to be safe, he reaches for his blaster...

     "Not so fast, trespasser..." a gravelly voice hissed behind him. "One more twitch out of you, and I'll freeze you on the spot. Now, get rid of all those gadgets you've got and put your hands up. Don't try anything funny. Make it snappy, 'cause if your friends get here, I'll freeze them instead!"

     This isn't the first time an angry Neopian threatened his life during a mission, and it would likely not be the last, so Mick slowly unhooked every piece of tech from himself and slowly brought his hands up. Attempting to fight back or escalate the situation any further would only make his situation much worse. "Who are you?" he finally asked in a quiet, even tone once the last mechanism, save for his glasses, were discarded from his person.

     "I'll ask the questions, Nimmo. Lose the glasses," the voice growled behind him, and Mick felt something akin to a stick jab into his back.

     "I need them to see. They're not gear, I promise. What's with the branch?" he lied. He brought his hand to his glasses and pressed a button near the lens, pretending to adjust them. He turns his head slightly to look at the threat to see that it's a menacing Fire Buzz. Small embers burned on the top of his head and illuminated the area. The Buzz glowered at him, but kept his suspicion.

     "This 'branch' is a wand that will turn you into an amber statue if you don't do what I say. Now, keep your hands up!" the Buzz hissed and grabbed the back of Mick's sweater and made him turn around to face the wall. Slowly, the amber wall began to part, and a slab of the hardened sap moved to reveal a path that wasn't there previously. The Buzz stayed behind him and jammed the tip of the wand into Mick's back again, and made him walk forward down the darkened corridor. Once inside, the slab of amber slid and clicked back into place when the Buzz flicked the wand.

     "A secret door, eh? That's quite clever. No wonder we couldn't find our way through." Mick said calmly despite his heart beating in his throat.

     "Yep. I've got a good thing going on here. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I had you nosy Agents poking around here. I had to be prepared. Too bad your fancy computers couldn't see it, right? Hahaha!" the Buzz clicked his mandibles gleefully.

     "Where are you taking me?" Mick demanded while maintaining his composure despite his mounting stress.

     "I want to show you my garden. You wanted to know where all my pretty little Petpets came from, right? I will show you what true art looks like!"

     To be continued…