Dungeon Encounter: Timothy

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Exploring new horizons when you were a small creature tended to come with lots of trial and error, but Timothy was determined to see this adventure through.  A minikin had to always be alert and on guard, going from room to room and floor to floor when it came to wandering unfamiliar territory, and the Slumberland provided a tantalizing maze for trinkets and tithes of the likes that Bartholomew would surely praise him for!  

The thought alone was enough to keep Timothy going, his focus honed in on the idea of the ‘trial’ and much less on the ‘error’ side of things - especially here in a place that time had stopped and that worrying error could prove fatal!

But all around him seemed quiet as he made his way through the foggy garden - the grass and clovers were soft beneath his feet, muffling his footsteps as he roved about with all his senses alert.  Tall stems of plants and wild grasses stretched over his head like bowing trees, and when the breeze blew past, he could hear the soft rustle of unseen boughs high above the mist that shrouded his path.  When the wind wasn’t blowing, the steady tick, tick, tick of his internal clock was loud in his twitching ears.

Ahead of him through the mists he caught sight of a bright flash of light!  If his clock could tick any faster it would have from the sudden thrill of excitement he felt in his chest.  Was that treasure he spied?

Pulling up his britches, he scuttled towards the winking, flashing glimmer ahead, his pace beginning to slow as he noticed a second out of the corner of his eye.  He paused beneath a fallen wisteria leaf, looking around in bewilderment.  There were more flashy sparkles, some further away and others closer at hand.  All around him in this foggy air, actually!

Timothy found himself hesitating, looking back and forth and all around.  There was so much treasure hiding in the fog!  Surely that’s what it had to be, right?  Nothing sparkled like the glimmer of gold or the dazzle of silver!  What sort of perfect tithe awaited him just beyond…?

He moved in one direction, and then another.  Scuttling from cover to cover, leaf to rock to hiding patch of clover.  Following the winking lights here and there, every time he caught a sparkle in the foggy light.  It almost felt like he was going in circles chasing them, he was beginning to feel dizzy as he ran from one spot to another, trying to find the source of the glimmering treasure.

But just as he was chasing after another dazzling gleam, something at his feet flashed brightly in his eyes!  Blinded for a second and blinking light motes away, he stared down at the shape beneath his paws, stunned and curious by what he might find there.  Moments later he’d let out a shrill squeak of fright, diving behind a nearby rock with his clock ticking loudly in his ears.

That had been a face!  Someone else??  In the slumberlands here???  Friend or foe?!

The shining flashes in the fog dimmed into the background as he peered out from behind the rock and approached the shape in the fog slowly and carefully.  The mists parted, revealing….

A flower.  One with a shining, winking, blinking center that somehow caught the light despite the shroud all around.  Timothy crinkled his nose.  All around him, these glittering sparkles had just been… flowers?  Reflective, shiny flowers?!

Even now he could see his own frustrated scowl in the flower’s mirror center.  Picking up a pebble from the ground at his feet, he threw it hard at the reflection, watching as the chime of breaking glass accompanied the shattering of his disappointed face into a dozen crooked fragments.

There was no spectacular tithe here, no wondrous treasure!  Just a bunch of mirror bright flowers and dizziness and disappointment.

With a satisfied hmph!, Timothy turned away from the glittering reflections in the fog and carefully began his explorations anew.

He should have known better than to think that all that glittered was gold.