...lost

by Maruchan

"Now, Cookie Monster kept on walking. Eventually, he came to a fork in the road."

--Havin' Fun With Ernie and Bert, "Magic Cookie"

Since all the rangers were exhausted from their encounter with the spongin army, they decided to rest for the remainder of the day. Maru volunteered for the first watch, and her companions went to rest.

Maru was almost asleep herself by the time it came to wake the next person for their watch. Everything was all surreal and hazy, like sitting in math before lunch.

She fell asleep almost immediately and had a really really funky dream, in which nothing really happened, because the author had no idea about what to do and had decided to cop out by writing a really cheesy excuse.

Maru woke up. It was about two o'clock. Yawning, she went out to see who was on watch. She noticed Red leaning against a rock, sleeping with his datapad on his lap. He looked flushed; poor guy was probably hot from sleeping in the sun too long. God knew what kind of effect that would have on him. Maru considered emptying the contents of her water canteen on his head -- partly to cool him off, mostly for fun -- but decided against it. That would be bad karma, even if it was Red Paladin.

Past Red, Brynhild was reading a book. Maru though it best not to disturb her, and wandered off to look for her other companions.

Calculus was on watch. Rather, he was sitting on a rock near the campsite, fiddling with some sporks. "Hey, what are you doing?" Maru asked him.

Calculus didn't look up. "I'm constructing a sporkfoonapult prototype for my JPR-04W penguin deathspork mecha." After awhile he added, "because Bryn decided we should have that kind of funky stuff."

"Oh. R&D?"

"No, just..." He paused -- as if he was trying to remember something, Maru thought -- but shrugged. "...Nothing." Calculus looked up. "Oh yeah, and we'll be leaving as soon as Red gets up. Maru nodded and wandered off back to her tent to wait, leaving Calculus with his sporks.

The rangers resumed walking about an hour later and continued down a small path which they were pretty sure would lead them to Rhye, although they really had no way of knowing if it would. Maru was walking along in a sort of half-consciousness, thinking about chili-flavored ramen, when suddenly, in a rather dramatic way...

...they came to a fork in the road.

*Jarring Chord*

The rangers wondered what they could possibly do. If they went one way, well, then, they couldn't go the other. And that would suck.

Calculus finally spoke. "Okay, it looks as if the 'road' splits up. We'll split up. Red. Bryn. You take the right fork. Maru, Thes and I will take the left one. I don't want to have to explore one only to find that we should have taken the other one. Remember, our objective is saving the High Councillor."

The rangers agreed that would be quite spiffydandy. They bid each other good-bye, and continued on their journeys.

The day passed uneventfully as the three rangers walked along a road that would lead them to Rhye, or perhaps a nice little sub-plot. Eventually, night fell and the rangers set up camp. It was decided that Calculus would take the first watch, and his two companions went off to rest.

"Maru. Get up."

"Mrrmm."

Someone was poking her arm. "Maru. We have to go. Now. Calculus was taken last night." It was Theseus.

Maru sat up and felt around for her glasses. "Huh?"

Theseus sighed. "I think Calculus was kidnapped by spongies last night. When I woke up, he was gone. And I found this." He held up a Hell Wyrm doll. He paused. "I don't know why they left us alone. Luck maybe, or just blind incompetence on their part. Either way I suggest we get moving."

Maru was by now completely awake. "What do you mean? We can't just leave him."

"Look. I don't know Calc well. But it seems to me he wouldn't let himself get captured unless he had some sort of contingency plan."

"You're saying he wanted to be captured?"

"It's a possibility. But even if they caught him off guard, which is unlikely, there's nothing we could do about it."

"We can't just leave him."

Theseus sighed, "I agree. But we can't look for him right now either. The high councillor has to be our first priority. After we rescue her and regroup with the others, then we can save Calc." He paused for a moment, "Right now though, we have keep moving." He went out, presumably to his tent, and Maru got out of bed.

They walked for the rest of the day in a depressive sort of silence. The area was mostly flat and non-descript, and Rhye was nowhere in sight.

Maru watched as the sun sank into the horizon, and then noticed that there was no longer a road of any sort, and that Theseus was walking behind her rather slowly, looking around somewhat confusedly. Maru followed his gaze to a few small hills in the west.

Theseus turned his head to look at Maru, and motioned at the hills. "Ok. You set up camp. I'm going to go over there to see if I can see anything." His voice was somewhat tired and raspy.

Maru raised her eyebrows at him somewhat irritably. "Why don't you set up camp and I'll go? Better yet, why don't we both go?"

Theseus smiled. "Sorry. You're right. I shouldn't be sticking you with all the work. Let's both go then."

They started walking up the hill. Maru looked at him sidelong. "Are we looking for anything in particular?"

"I just want to see if I can see some sort of landmark... like Rhye ideally. If not that then the mountains. I just want to make sure we're traveling in the right direction." With a burst of energy, Theseus hopped up the hill ahead of Maru and looked out expectantly.

"Shit."

Maru climbed up beside him. "What happened?" she asked softly. Theseus shook his head. She looked down to a vast expanse of nothingness. An area of flatlands stretched on indeterminably ahead of them.

"The road must've been curving," Theseus muttered, and sank to the ground.

"Does this mean--" Maru knelt down beside him and stared out at the dusky sky.

"Yes. It does. We're lost."