Oh great… What have we got ourselves into now? I thought as I stared at the thing floating in the air.

"WHAT THE hell is that?" Horace piped. I think we are all thinking the same thing here, and none of us really want to find out. I grabbed the first thing I could see, a mug from the table, and I pelted it at the floating madness.

Fwoomp.

What a strange noise it made as it absorbed the mug. "Well, what the hell should we do?" There was not a moment for the trio to think. A vacuum began pulling them towards it. The lack of air slowly caused MC and Horace to pass out. MC was the first to let go and fly off into the swirl, followed by Horace.

"Well, I suppose I better head in too, lest they get eaten by some eldritch horror beyond our comprehension or something." Said Dillee aloud. He sighed and let go. His roots and leaves flailed around as he fwoomped into the swirl.

Dillee positioned MC & Horace upright to make sure they don't choke on their tongues. He looked around, noting the quality of the interior around him. A fine display of maple wood, a stone fireplace, portraits adorning the walls and the skull of some sort of moose. I would say this is a countryside hunter's manor, say 200 – 250 years old, based on the outfits from the portrait observations.

He inspected the largest portrait. A woman, wearing an elegant blue floral patterned dress. Her face was pale like snow, but that may have been the terrible lighting. It was a typical style for a noblewoman of that era. Dillee tried to see more; flickering lights made it hard to see clearly.

"Bloody electricals. You must keep up with the times, people; this is unacceptable! Fix your damn cabling." He moaned aloud. Horace woke up first, and he saw that MC was still out of it. Pulling wakeywakey salts out of his inventory, he hovered the shaken bottle under his nose.

GASP "Jeez." MC coughed repeatedly. Sputtering hard. "That stuff is terrible for the lungs!" "It does THE JOB, though." Horace replied.

"I pray that this won't take long; we have a request to carry out after all." Dillee said to us. I'm thinking the same, buddy. "Anything worth a mention Dillee?"

"I have a strong suspicion that we are no longer on Maliterr and are, in fact, on Earth." Dillee said, stroking the bottom of his yellow face, thinking intensely.

MC and Horace looked at each other with side eyes again. "NO WAY." Horace piped up. An appropriate response, considering Earth was several days worth of travel at high speed. MC ran towards the door and tried to open it. It pelted him back without any noise when he placed his hand on it. A thud and a dust cloud rose up from the impact. Horace and Dillee saw the swirling static appear over the door. Just like the one that drew them inwards.

"Great, we're stuck." I said, looking up at the ceiling before eventually picking myself up. "HEY! Who's down there?" came the voice of a middle-aged woman, raspy like she'd smoked 20 cigarettes or so a day since she was 12. MC whispered to his companions, "Stay quiet; it's probably a trick."

"I heard that. You got drawn in too, didn't you?" A woman in a green, white and red skintight costume walked out from one of the rooms upstairs. She had distinctive metallic and mechanical green gloves that looked far too heavy to be practical. And four others followed up behind her.

A small clown with a ridiculously oversized head and grinning smile floated in the air. As if permanently forced to look like that. His jacket and hat were purple with an odd patch of blue moss attached to them, whilst his trousers and shoes were neon yellow.

A person that looked at first like an Impie because of the silvery colours, but they had some sort of stilt device attached to their legs when the trio looked closer. They bounced on the spot continuously as if they had ants in their pants.

A slender man, with goggles shielding his eyes, and a thick black coat. Two firearms attached to his sides. He seemed shy and tried to hide behind his companions at the front.

And what could only be described as a living cereal grain bar with the tiniest legs that none of the trio could quite figure out how it was possible to support such a weight. Also, why was a cereal grain bar so pink and orange? What a terrible colour combination. It just smiled blankly in an unnatural way; those eyes looked dead inside.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Uh, hi… I'm MC; this is Horace, and that one down there is Dillee." I pointed at my companions when we did the rounds of introductions. "We were in a cabin, and the next thing," The woman interrupted, "And the next thing, a swirling static sucked you all in, didn't it?" We nodded in response.

"I'm Dion, Dion Stoic; these are my companions, Grinzy Tumble the Floater, Bobuck Bounce, Slimmy Krypty and Oolong Oblong." We nodded at them, and they nodded back. "Only Oolong will talk, so don't expect the other three to."

"Ello new friends, how's it going?" I should say I've seen it all, but we've got a talking Vegeflower in our group; a talking cereal grain bar isn't anything weird at this point, I thought.

"Pleasure to meet you all. Have you been here long?" Dillee said aloud. Oolong, still smiling, replied, "Oh, not really; it's been one hour, maybe?" Oolong turned to Dion when he spoke for confirmation, "About right, yeah. Now that there's more of us, maybe we can figure out how to escape this bloody place."

She probably shouldn't have said that. The light went off. Total darkness encapsulated the eight unwilling participants of this madness. Slimmy Krypty, with his night vision goggles, spoke to Dion with sign language that looked like he was trying to cast mad ninjutsu stuff.

"Victory through unity!" Dion shouted. A bright green, emerald light filled the room. Odd choice of light colour, but at least we could see again in some capacity. "We should just group up and try to figure it out." I said.

The pair walked with them, and Dillee headed up the stairs finally. The creaks as he stomped each step up the staircase were really grating to their ears. Dillee didn't seem to care, though. The boards of wood creaked and moaned. Feeling like they were going to collapse inwards. As if trying to tell him to hurry up, the staircase shot upwards, and he tumbled towards the group.

Helped up by the new companions. He began shaking each of their hands and legs; in the case of Oolong, they wandered down a hallway that seemed to block the light from Dion's mechanical gloves. "Seems whenever we try to go this way, something interferes with my energy." An unlit candle dangled from its holder. MC grabbed it and threw it towards the dim light hallway. The swirling static appeared, and the candle flew back at his head, knocking him down. Before casually returning to its spot.

"Ok, I'm not throwing anything else the rest of this arc," I complained loudly whilst Horace helped me back up. The bruise on my forehead is going to be quite a big one when it sets in.

Dion, trying to bring some sense of normal back to everyone, spoke up. "There are only two ways we can go. If we go the way we came from to greet you, it leads to a sort of safe room with food and beds. So, the only option so far is to go that way. Pointing down the corridor behind us three. It seemed to go on endlessly, and a flash of lightning revealed a figure at the end of it. A headless knight. Disappearing when another flash of lightning occurred.

"Fook sake mun. I'm not ready for this." I looked at Horace because I was going to be useless here without his help. "Mate, can you whip up elemental coatings? So, I don't just stand around like a twat until this is over." "I'VE GOT NOTHING, BUD." He piped at me. fucking ace, I thought. Staggering about in response.

"What's an elemental coating?" Asked Oolong. "You coat your weapons with it. Let's you attack otherworldly stuff like ghosts, that sort of thing. In our world only Arts, Abilities, enchanted or elemental-coated weapons can hurt them." I replied. "Arts? What's that? Is it like this? Conjuring a ball of water above his head then hurled it down the corridor, blasting into the wall as it did so with a loud SPLABANG. "We call this magic." Oolong smiled away still. "Let's get going. We have to get back to the job at hand. No more wasting time." Dion led the way down the corridor.

As they all entered the hallway. The static appeared behind the last to enter, Slimmy Krypty. He jumped out of fear and caused all but Oolong and Dion to stumble. They just laughed at the six of us stacked up on top of each other and carried on walking away. This bloody place—I'm going to slap the owner if I ever see them.

"I do hope you enjoy my humble abode, for it will gobble you up and spit out your souls. You. The one in the red, white and green. I'll cover in garnish and revel as you scream."

The voice didn't seem to come from any direction, but it was certainly unnerving. "Why don't you show yourself cowered? I'll punch the darkness right out of you," Dion, happily punching her gloves together, replied.

"How feisty the fresh meat is. Careful now, you're not the only participants today."

"Help me please!" A child's voice could be heard. Oh, hell no, I'm not falling for that one again. The new companions rushed on ahead. They darted around the corner, and we had to try and keep up because we're stronger together and all that.

A small child was sat sobbing at the end of the hallway. The group tried to rush towards them, but they were pushed back by an unseen force. "What in the heck? Why can't we press forward?" The sobbing stopped. "Fucking idiots, why would you jump straight in to help a random child like this without thinking first?" The force pushed them back. "Solve the puzzle. Better hurry though; two have already gone today."

Dillee stepped forward to observe the area. He had his thinking roots on, ready to solve this. He looked up and down, to the sides and behind him. Tapping his foot on the floor and the walls. "All good Dil?" He seemed lost in his own little bubble.

"Hupp!" He shouted before grabbing hold of what appeared to be invisible bars protruding from the ceiling. He pulled himself closer and then rotated around. Dillee was upside down to us…yet seemed to be perfectly fine.

"Come on up, fine chaps and chapettes. You're the wrong way up. Get pulling and turning." Dillee was happy at his own little victory.

"Hmph. Seems at least one of you has half the brain necessary." The rude voice faded away in the darkened corridor. Walking forward, and the force wasn't there to stop us reaching the kid this time.

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