| The gash in the pipe
hisses a jet of steam. The minotaur dodges, but his flinching gives
you time to escape. You grab the virgin -- and from the look she's
giving you, I'd advise you to stop grabbing her -- and you run outside.
Eusibius chases after, but stops short at the cave mouth and gapes at the scene of fiery devastation to the south -- and east, and west, and pretty much everywhere, in fact. The whole plateau is ablaze -- and now clouds of volcanic dust are approaching, along with a tide of rising lava. "What the devil!" Eusibius demands. "Is this on the level?" "That crazy gnome -- upstairs there's no one home!" you say. "Leave the rhyming to me, please," Eusibius says. "But if things are as they seem, we need to form our own little team. This joint's going to blow, I really fear -- so perhaps it's time to get out of here!" "I've got a rhyme," the young lady says. "'Rap is cra --.'" The two of you ignore her. Eusibius leads the way up the side of a hill, to a waiting hot air balloon. The gnome is inside the basket, throwing off ballast. "Too late -- hee hee!" he chortles. "Too late!" Liberated of the last of its ballast, the balloon rises off the ground -- and stops after three feet. The gnome looks over the side. The securing lines are still tied to their ground pegs. "It's good this thing doesn't have keys," he says. "I'd forget them too!" The rest of you hop in. A snick-snick of your sword, and the lines are cut. The balloon rises -- but only by another foot. "We're too heavy to go higher," you observe. Eusibius leans over the side and shakes his head. "Oh man, I'm going to be sick. We need to lighten the load -- that's the trick!" |