Stoic in the Jaws of Danger?: A Quick Escalation!
The move the the Ghastly Gorge was over.
Having traveled by train, Maud Pie stepped off of the steps towards the tiny station. Not many other ponies were there to greet her; more noise came from the wind blowing than their chatter. The station felt largely empty as Maud walked through it with her luggage. It wasn’t surprising that so few ponies lived in the Ghastly Gorge. It was surprising that anyone lived there at all. The town itself couldn’t even really be described as a town. There really weren’t enough surrounding buildings.
Not to mention how separate from the rest of the already spaced out buildings Maud’s new house was. Maud had pictured it sitting atop a hill, not at the bottom of a steep valley with several pebbles rolling down the slope as Maud approached the place with her luggage on her back.
Nevertheless, Maud found herself pleased with this location. A fair amount of rugged territory, rich in as many surrounding rocks the pony could hope for. Even deeper chasms of jagged granite peeked from around the corner of a cliff, just out of eyesight once Maud reached the front door. The air was even more quiet around this lone house than the desolate station. The wind must have had more space to pick up speed in the open canyons of the Gorge, and this house was tucked away pretty nicely after all.
Maud left the front door open after entering, and placed Boulder on the dark wooden table that stood in the center of the kitchen. A couple of rays of sunlight passed through the doorway, giving the inside of the house it’s first prolonged moment of being comfortably lit in a while.
However, Maud knew she wouldn’t mind. The move wasn’t for comfort or pleasure, the location was purely for function.
“So what do you think, Boulder? Should I wait until tomorrow to find samples of the most prominent rock in this region or do it today?”
Boulder sat on the edge of the table. Maud’s eyes were glued on the spot where Boulder sat for nearly a whole minute she was listening intently.
“Of course.” Maud nodded her head. “I’ll have a lot more time tomorrow after I get settled in and sneak a full night’s sleep in before I begin to explore.”
The front door was gently shut, still making a lot of noise as the mechanism clicks shut, and added an extra click as the door was locked. The age of this place showed, only more proof for Maud that it had endured a lot of years in the past. The creaks in the floorboards might have been a sign of the wood giving way under the weight of the larger rocks that Maud was previously planning on rolling across the rooms.
Maud scanned the space behind the house to substitute for the possibly unreliable rooms to move rocks around in. Maud knew from experience how the weight of enough rock could wear something down.
It was a good thing there was a sizable space in the back of the house. It was perfect.
Maud went straight to bed with an assured feeling in her mind, helping her sleep well with Boulder resting on her nightstand next to the bed. The firm mattress did little to help, but Maud managed to ignore it.
The sun set, and Maud Pie’s first night in the Ghastly Gorge began. She didn’t happen to give any second thought to why this place was named what it was, nor did she consider any possible reason why not many other ponies chose to live here.
Or why this house didn’t even cost that much despite its high level of privacy.
~
The middle of the night.
The house that Maud bought wasn’t even that small. There were a lot of rooms and hallways that went without anything being put into them. Remaining empty to shroud nothing more than the old wooden walls in darkness as the night came every night.
The rooms gave more of an echo to the sounds that almost resembled whispering than the rooms with Maud’s unpacked luggage. Barely any moonlight shone into the house, and nothing could be seen. The blowing of the wind and the creaking of the wind soon masked any other sounds that could be made.
It began to rain soon enough, and the pitter patter of the drops on the roof soon interrupted Maud’s sleep.
With a quiet sigh, Maud sat up in her bed. Her eyes, adjusted to the blackness of the room, still couldn’t make anything out in the dark space. The only thing that reminded Maud of where she was was the rain falling onto the roof of her new house in the Ghastly Gorge.
There was a pair of noise cancelling earmuffs in one of Maud’s duffle bags somewhere. Maud sat on the side of her bed, trying to get her thoughts together enough to remember where in relation to her bed she placed the duffle bag. Meanwhile, she felt around with one of her hind hooves until she felt something brush against her leg.
It was obviously the bag she was just thinking about, and the earmuffs were momentarily retrieved right before a sudden clacking sound on the opposite side of the bed startled Maud.
Judging by the loudness and the way the solid object hit the floor and rolled around for a half a second, Maud instantly recognized the sound of Boulder.
She felt a rush of energy fill her as she sprung into action to come to Boulder’s aid as immediately as she could. Maud easily found the exact spot where she heard the impact. Her hooves carefully found Boulder lying on the floor and scooped him up with extra caution.
“Boulder, are you okay?” Maud’s voice whispered into the blackness of the bedroom.
She listened closely, and slowed her breathing after she heard how loud and fast it was after she heard Boulder hit the floor. She looked around as though her eyes were able to see anything. But still, she eventually managed to find the nightstand with one of her hooves and rested Boulder back onto the flat surface, much closer to the center this time.
“As long as you’re alright.” Maud sighed as she crept back into bed. “I don’t understand how you fell like that. Next time, wake me up if you start sliding too close to the edge.”
Maud took a deep breath and went back to sleep. Her eyes remained closed until the small window in the bedroom let a small ray of sunshine illuminate the room enough to wake Maud up after a few more hours.
Internally annoyed, Maud turned off her alarm clock before it dared to go off after she had already waken up. She instantly looked over to the nightstand and made sure that Boulder didn’t fall off again. After a minute, she got up and went downstairs to eat breakfast. The stairs loudly creaked as Maud headed to the bottom of the flight.
The very moment Maud peered into the kitchen, she stopped in her tracks. Her eyes were glued to the kitchen table that was standing a little bit closer to the corner of the room than the day before.
Maud wondered why she remembered it being perfectly in the center the day before. She tried to recall if she ever noticed whether or not it was perfectly in the center the last time she saw it. But the question didn't stay in Maud's mind for long, and she proceeded to pour herself a bowl of cereal.
After eating, Maud went back upstairs to gather any equipment she might have needed. Boulder was still in the same place as before; Maud made sure of that.
"Now that we're well rested and have more time, we're going to scout this place out and find what we can." Maud took a brief look out the window before leaving the room with Boulder in her hoof.
The wind blew the front door shut this time after Maud stepped outside. She trotted over towards the deep chasm that caught her eye the day before and began to look up and down the sides of the cliffs as she passed them.
"This composition is much more complex than the locations more inland." Maud examined the mixture of textures that spanned the length of the rugged walls of rock. "There's an interesting pattern of sedimentary rocks here."
Maud's words distantly echoed back to her ears from the other end of the canyon. The wind blew mostly above the top of the cliffs, and Maud's footfalls soon became more easily heard as she walked on. The ground level was further away from the tops of the cliffs. Without saying much else, Maud continued to analyze the linear pattern of sedimentary rocks along the path she walked. The dirt under the bottom of Maud's hooves crunched lightly as each hoof print was made.
It soon came to the point where most of the sun's light was blocked out... and the air in this part of the deep crevice in the earth was even more still and quiet than five minutes before. Maud's ears only picked up the sound of water dripping onto a hard surface. She knew it wouldn't be long before she found what helped create these sedimentary patterns over thousands of years.
The ground beneath Maud's hooves turned to more sand than dirt, which Maud took note of.
After traveling deep enough, she collected a few samples that had been lying on the ground. They weren't rare types -yet-, but the order in which they were collected and the time and direction of Maud's hiking would give her a bearing of what is going to likely be in which direction. So far, the sand seemed like it was-
The sharp snap of something sounding like a twig startled Maud's droning thoughts and prompted the pony to turn around. Maud saw nothing behind her.
"Did you hear that, Boulder?" Maud eventually said before continuing in the same direction she was already going in.
There was a long moment of silence before Maud turned her head around to peer behind herself, still listening to an answer from Boulder.
"I don't remember passing any vegetation recently, though my eyes were pretty much only on these sedimentary rocks."
Maud stopped in her tracks after her ears picked up a swift brush against the sand in her path. She looked back forward and found nothing. But she continued anyway.
"There's nothing to worry about, Boulder." Assured Maud, patting the side of her knapsack. "It wouldn't be surprising if places like these make strange noises all the time." She thought about the 'twig' again.
But her eyes darted straight back to the walls of rock surrounding her before she passed them and missed her chance to examine them thoroughly.
The path that Maud was walking along soon split into two different miniature canyons. The one going straight forward showed an upward slope while the other went off to the right side and showed a downward slope, and more twists and turns. Maud made a right turn and continued downward. There were still enough hours left in the day.
She picked up a couple more small rocks from the sand. The knapsack grew increasingly heavy, and Maud planned to turn back soon with what she had. She'll remember the path she took tomorrow.
A large cloud must have passed in front of the sun for a couple of minutes; what little daylight there was that made it to the bottom of the rocky chasm dimmed significantly. And during the same moment, Maud felt the air grow noticeably more chilly than before. She felt the slight breeze against her hair stop, but heard the wind overhead pick up with a quiet moan. She looked to the top of the cliffs with a blank expression, scanning the jagged edges where the wind whipped past. Maud did feel rather uneasy on the inside, but it wasn't enough to be the reason why she was about to leave.
The knapsack was already getting heavy enough as it was. Maud picked up one last rock from the sandy bottom of the canyon and turned around.
The view of the landscape above the top of the cliffs was extremely limited. Maud couldn't see what the ground up there looked like, but she couldn't miss the tall, leafless tree that was swaying in the intense breeze far above her. The wind must be getting heavy up there.
That tree almost seemed to tilt at its own will as Maud went in the direction she came from. She still looked at the sides of the cliffs, but the movement of the tree caught her eye every few seconds. It came off as... odd. It moved like it was full of leaves as Maud saw it in the corner of her eye. But when she looked at it directly, there were clearly no leaves on the tree. But the twigs and branches moves just as much as the leaves would.
It was too strange for Maud not to notice. And the image stayed in Maud's mind after her view of the tree was blocked by the cliffs. She could only imagine what was going on with all of the other trees up there, if there were any. There weren't many trees near the house, nor the train station.
"I really hope it isn't going to be windy like this all the time." Maud commented as she continued back down the path between the cliffs.
She briefly heard something under her speaking. It was the sound of wood creaking, like that of the trunk of a tree. Moving around as branches collided with eachother under the force of something more than the wind. But the howling of the wind itself made it too hard to tell what was going on.
Maud didn't feel that concerned. Despite keeping it in the back of her mind that she probably should have felt that concerned. But her thoughts eventually went back to the rocks. Rocks, rocks and more rocks.
The air was still by the time Maud made it back into open space. Actually perfectly still, but only for several seconds.
Maud went back around the corner towards her house before hearing an approaching rustling noise. She looked to her side and saw the grass being blown by a sharp gust of wind. It was clearly coming closer and closer until...
The gust hit Maud before she could precess what was going on. It wasn't enough to knock her off of her hooves, but she took a step back. The gust was so sudden and completely unexpected.
"This place is very strange." Maud finally admitted. "But perhaps I'll find even more interesting properties of the rocks here due to the unusual weather conditions."
She waited for Boulder to answer and then went inside. As soon as the front door closed behind Maud, she stayed in place and stared into the kitchen.
The kitchen table was back in the center of the room. And it was upside down, each table leg with a piece of silverware carefully balanced on the top. Maud stared at the table for a solid thirty seconds without a word. The wind outside the only sound to be a background noise to this moment, and Boulder silently rested on the inside of Maud's knapsack that had yet to be placed down.
"This place is very, very strange." Maud calmly responded to the event, walking over into the other room with her hooves causing the floorboard to creak with each step.
It didn't take Maud much time to turn the table back upright and place the silverware back on the top. She found that nothing else in the house had even been moved, let alone turned upside down. She held Boulder in her front hoof and spoke to him.
"I'm sure it was nothing too urgent. It's not like magic is something that's uncommon in Equestria." She stared at her companion and sighed. "I think you're overreacting. There's nothing to be scared of." Maud continuously shushed Boulder as she carried her knapsack up the stairs.
Boulder rested atop the nightstand once more as Maud paced back and forth in her room. She looked down to the floor, thought a few things to herself and continued to pace.
The rocks that Maud collected were lined up on the floorboards in a single file line. Presumably in the chronological order in which they were collected. Maud remembered where she went, retracing her steps in her mind. Completely ignoring the door to her room that was swaying back and forth on its own until there was an audible slam that prompted Maud to turn back around.
She opened the door and looked down the hall to an open window. Even though she felt no wind come from the outside, she assumed that it was more likely the wind than some magically driven force. It's already been proven once that strange random gusts like to just come barreling through. Maud continued pacing back and forth with the line of rocks on the floor.
She made plans regarding which route to take the next day, which was to come pretty soon with the sun getting close to setting. Maud ate her dinner downstairs and took a gaze out the window as she sat at the table.
The evening lighting made the landscape of the Ghastly Gorge appear much more beautiful than mid day, even though there wasn't much flat landscape to look at to begin with. But the nearly vertical cliffs shone elegantly in the orange-purple toned sunlight that covered it for a brief moment before the sky grew even darker.
Maud noticed something else in the sky. It looked like something out of the usual until she confirmed to herself that it was just a large group of clouds after walking directly up to the window to look out of it. It looked like a thunderstorm.
The towering wall cloud didn't appear as anything short of menacing, but Maud only gave it a couple of seconds of her attention before returning to her meal. She watched it slowly approach the location of her house, floating above in the same tint the sides of the cliffs were once the darkness outside began to blend all of the colors together as the sun finished sinking past the horizon for the night.
Before going to sleep, Maud took the liberty of using a couple of pieces of tape to secure Boulder to the top of the nightstand, while placing the other rocks in a circle around him before giving the the same treatment. She sighed before the wind outside moaned again. This moan was a little bit mower pitched than that from the wind in the afternoon.
Maud felt a little uneasy as a result of this, but she brushed it off as nothing to care about and went to sleep with the thoughts of where she's going to explore tomorrow resurfacing in her mind.
And then the night grew pitch black within the hour.
~
Just like the night before, Maud woke up from her sleep due to a noise. She sat up just like before and stared into the darkness before her eyes could adjust just enough to see the outline of the window just in her field of view. The only difference from last night so far was the absence of the pitter patter of rain on the roof. Which meant...
What was the noise that just woke Maud up?
Right away, Maud checked her nightstand to make sure that her little target of rock friends, with Boulder at the bullseye, was still safely secured to the smooth tabletop of the piece of furniture. They were all there, just as Maud had left them.
"Sorry." Maud whispered to Boulder and his buddies in the darkness. "I was just making sure none of you fell off."
Maud stayed in a sitting position, trying to gather more of her thoughts. Her mouth was a little dry, and she soon got the craving for a glass of water to drink before she went back to sleep. Maud crept out of bed with a nearly silent groan and headed down the stairs.
Once again. the creaking of the old wood pierced Maud's ears, even more so now that the house was quieter and without raindrops making a pelting ruckus on the roof. Maud placed an empty glass on the kitchen table after turning the kitchen light on and making sure the table was still right side up. She fetched a jug of water and began pouring it into the glass.
The very second she placed the jug down, a low, sustained sighing noise sounded from the top of the stairs.
Maud steered her gaze in the direction of the noise. Only the kitchen light was on, and the stairs were mostly dark, not to mention that the top of the stairs was not at all visible in contrast to the lit up kitchen. Maud blankly stared into the blackness without a hint of concern on her face. At this point, she's already gotten used to the strangeness of this place.
She turned back to the table and proceeded to drink the water. The glass was half emptied when the kitchen light switched off on its own. Maud finished the glass of water before considering reacting.
Maud found the wall and fished around in the darkness along the flat surface until her hoof found the light switch. She switched the kitchen light back on and then headed back up the stairs now that she could see where she was going and wouldn't trip so easily. She even turned on the light in the second floor hallway while she was at it. The switch was at the bottom of the stairs, after all.
However, Maud was only halfway up the stairs when both of the lights went out at the same time. The bulbs didn’t blow, nor did the power go out. Maud heard both of the light switches get flipped simultaneously. She head this happen right before a whisper sounded from the bottom of the stairs.
Casually continuing up the stairs anyway, Maud couldn’t make out what the whisper said. She even heard the whisper say the same thing again, this time a couple of steps closer to her from the bottom of the stairs. But Maud ignored it.
She almost tripped on the stairs a couple of times on account of not being able to see where she was going, but she slowly made it back to her room re-hydrated and ready to sleep the rest of the night away. She had a lot of exploring to do the next day.
Maud consciously checked the nightstand to make sure Boulder and the others were still safely taped to the surface. She then crept back into bed after verifying that they were all still in the same place as before. Maud lied on her side facing away from the nightstand, becoming increasingly tired by the minute.
The wind outside began to pick up once more, howling and blowing with just enough force to make the old house creak a little bit. Maud sighed and closed her eyes, ignoring the fact that some of the howling from the wind sounded like it was coming from downstairs, and thus inside the house.
After a few more minutes, Maud just happened to open her eyes after somewhat sensing a presence in the room. Her eyes had adjusted just enough to make out only the simplest details of the contents of the room. But that was all Maud needed to see what was in the corner.
And there, just a few of feet away from the side of the bed, was a tall, hovering black figure that almost reached the ceiling. Maud stared at it with the same stoic expression she always had, resting her head gently on her pillow as the dark figure in the corner of the room remained petrified like a statue.
The same whispering sound was suddenly picked up by Maud's ears. It very obviously came from the direction of the dark figure, and it was close enough to be heard this time.
"Leave this place. These are sacred grounds."
Maud paused for a full five seconds, but soon responded in a monotone voice. "No thanks." She rolled over to her other side and shut her eyes once more.
And with that, Maud momentarily fell asleep, soon dreaming about finding the rarest rocks she could get her hooves on in the Ghastly Gorge.
~
The next morning came slowly; there were many clouds in the sky that hindered the light from the sunrise. There were but a few birds chirping in the distance.
Still in the same position she fell asleep in, Maud wearily opened her eyes. She sighed (yet again) before abruptly hitching her breath and widening those eyes as they fell upon the empty surface of the nightstand. The tape was gone too.
Maud bolted out of bed with a gasp and immediately searched around her room for Boulder and friends. "Boulder?! Boulder!"
Like a tornado, she turned everything in the entire house upside down, including the kitchen table, desperately searching for Boulder and all of the rocks she collected the previous day. They were nowhere to be found.
Maud started to breathe heavily, showing an expression of deep concern on her face as the search turned up inconclusive with each room she checked. She even checked the empty rooms she never used. Upon barging into the final room that she hadn't checked, Maud's eyes fell upon a series of words that had been scratched into the wall. She approached the message, feeling her heart racing in her ears. That same heart sank and went ablaze at the same time as she read the message:
[THEY ARE IN THE UNDERWORLD NOW]
With a stamp of her hoof upon the creaky wooden floor, Maud gritted her teeth and darted out the front door in the direction of the chasm she scouted the day before. Her hooves beat quickly against the dirt and sand as she urgently galloped, kicking up a trail of dusk in her wake.
Not much more time went on and Maud went down small canyon after smaller canyon, in search of the lowest and deepest point of this maze of rock. She soon came across a few small streams, that led to a part of the canyons that had nothing but water at the bottom.
The water splashed loudly under Maud's angry hooves.
Maud seared, and searched, and searched. Until at long last, she finally located the deepest part of this network of crevices in the merciless earth. She knew it would be here, based on what she remembered gathering from the samples she collected. She stared down at the ground beneath the water, the water level already halfway up her legs. Without a second thought, Maud Pie raised her forelegs and reigned them down past the water, piercing it like a pair of knives.
The hooves penetrated the ground and began to pummel through the sand and dirt. Tiny pebbles, clumps of dirt and sand and splashes of water went flying and splattering all over the sides of the cliffs. Maud dove under the water in a matter of seconds, and drilled a hole into the ground to tunnel straight down. She created a drain for the water soon enough.
As soon as she felt the material get harder against her hooves, Maud shut her eyes and pounded at the earth below her even harder. Tunneling down, down, down. Down into the Earth's crust. Bits and pieces of igneous rock weren't easy to chip away, and Maud had to really kick things into high gear. But it did pay off; Maud's progress picked up speed.
Maud couldn't see the hole she made in the ground after a while. She did look back up every few moments to see how far down she had gone. The opening leading to the cloudy sky above got smaller and smaller with each time Maud looked up.
She knew that it wasn't going to take much more time before she reached the underworld. This likely would take several hours if Maud accidentally chose the wrong spot to start tunneling. But everything seemed to be going smoothly up until the present point in time. It really didn't help that Maud soon found herself in darkness again, after she got so far away from the surface of the earth that no light reach far down enough to meet her. But that wasn't going to stop this pony any time soon.
Maud let out a war cry just before she felt something give way against her hooves. The pony soon found herself falling through a ceiling, down into a hot chamber that glowed orange. Landing on her hooves, Maud kept her balance and scouted her surroundings immediately. There were flames everywhere, but not a soul to be found.
All of the water seeped down through the cave floor. It began to heat up as it slipped through the tons of cracks.
"BOULDER!" Maud called out. "Boulder, where are you?"
She had already started to run around in search for Boulder and his friends. Listening at every twist and turn she found for some sign of Boulder, but to no avail. Maud started to gallop down one long tunnel and eyed every rock she saw. None of them looked familiar; all of them were pitch black and looked as though they were charred to the core.
Maud took another turn into a tall chamber that didn't have another exit, but she managed to find one of the rocks she collected the day before. It was lying on the ground surrounded by a small ring of flames. The flames were easily put out by Maud's still damp cloak being thrown over them.
The cloak was the only thing Maud had to carry the rocks around as she would retrieve them one by one if she had to.
Less than a minute later, Maud galloped down a completely separate tunnel in the part of the underworld she tunneled down into. Her hoof-falls echoed from one end of the tunnel to the other before she turned a corner. Every minute or so, Maud would turn around as she thought she heard something following her. She imagined every possible thing it could be, but kept her mind set on finding the rest of her rocks so she can leave here.
Maud started to get out of breath, but she was far from surrendering. Especially not after she spotted another familiar rock in the corner of a large opening in the caves. She put out the ring of fire around it with her cloak and took both of the recovered rocks with her down a new tunnel.
Loud howling soon filled the underworld as Maud ran around, almost resembling the wind from before. She didn't feel fear for herself, but only felt fear for Boulder and the other rocks that were taken away from the nightstand.
But despite all of this, Maud eventually found more and more of the rocks she had collected. It took several minutes between each find, but Maud's cloak very soon became heavy with saved stones. And it soon came to the point where there was only one rock left to find... and the most important one.
Boulder.
And there weren't that many tunnels left in the area that Maud hadn't checked. She knew she just had to be getting close.
Every corner, every twist and turn, every rugged cave wall and tiny shadow that fell just the right way in the fiery light... all of it could have been Boulder. Any of it could have been. Every single detail counted, and Maud wasn't planning on staying in the burning caves of the underworld for long. There was no telling how long it would have been before the hole at the top would close up, and that was if Maud would be able to make it back up there.
"Boulder! BOULDER!" Shouted Maud with the most urgent tone. She frantically continued the search, now moving slower under the weight of the rocks on her back.
There was no telling whether or not the tunnel that Boulder was in was the last one that Maud hadn't checked. But Maud didn't care in the slightest, gasping as she spotted her long time companion. She raced towards Boulder in the same instant.
"Boulder!"
Before Maud could get close, a stalagmite jutted out of the rocky floor and rose in between Maud and Boulder. And this was something Maud had no patience left within herself for.
Maud leaped into the air and used her hind leg to crack the stalagmite in half as it tried to block her path. The severed half of the stalagmite just missed Boulder, and Maud swooped in without having a ring of fire to worry about surrounding Boulder, as there didn't seem to be one. She swept Boulder off of the ground and high tailed it out of the tunnel before the underworld began to rumble.
Escape was the only option. Maud was running for her life at this point as the tunnels started to collapse all around her. If there was any element of surprise that Maud had when she first tunneled down here, it was definitely lost by this point.
"Wait... what's that?" Maud turned to Boulder and then eyes the floor of the tunnels. "Are you sure some of these floors are made of sandstone?"
It took Maud a couple more minutes to figure out where she was. She started back in the direction from which she came, hoping to see the opening in the ceiling. On her way over, she could feel through the way her hooves hit the cave floor that some patcher were indeed sandstone. The underworld seems to be just as strange as the surface world.
Finally, Maud found the cavern from which she fell through the ceiling. There was still water falling through the hole and getting drained through the cracks in the floor. Meanwhile, the rumbling intensified, nearly causing Maud to lose her balance with the weight of the rocks on her back.
"Okay!" Maud grabbed Boulder and raised him up in the air while staring at the sandstone floor. "I trust you!"
Maud chucked Boulder at the cave floor at just the right angle to connect a few of the cracks. There soon formed a slim gap around Maud as she caught Boulder after he bounced off the floor. A half a second was all it took for a series of plumes of steam to shoot out from the gap in the floor surrounding Maud.
The patch of sandstone was lifted up from the pressure of the newly formed geyser created from the water like an elevator platform. Maud and all of her rocks are lifted up into the space where she crashed through to begin with and up through the tunnel she made through the steam powered force. It was most likely indeed more sand than stone.
Less than a minute later, the geyser shot Maud straight up into the air out of the ground and past the cliffs.
She landed in the branches of the tree from the day before, but Maud was no longer on edge due to being in the presence of Boulder and the other rocks she finally got back. The branches broke their fall, and Maud only landed on the ground with a moderate thud. She was okay, and made sure Boulder and the others were okay.
Her voice was back to its zen, complacent tone. "Wow... that escalated quickly." Maud remarked before picking the rocks up and walking away back in the direction of her house.
~
Shortly after entering the house, Maud went ahead and re-packed her belongings into suitcases. "Alright, fine." She told the presence in the house, back to wearing the usual calm expression on her face. "You win. I'll leave. Just leave Boulder out of this."
That was the last statement Maud made inside of that house. She left without even looking back, planning to set up a tent somewhere else in the cliffs; a place of her own that would be sure to not be haunted. She didn't even think she'd care if she would risk getting eaten by one of those cliff eels... as long as Boulder was safe.
And that was the end of that situation once and for all.
The End.
Author's Note
Eh, can't think of anything else to say. So how's this for having been written in less than a day? It's not too too bad, is it?
