Into the Den of Madness

"We'd better keep our eyes open." Josh said. "We made it past those statues... but who knows what other dangers may yet await us?"

"Right." Mike said. "Leave it all to me, crazy fox-dude! But this is kinda weird. Last time I was here, I just went in, and there was Rassilon, right in front of me!"

"Rassilon's lair has numerous secret entrances, some on different dimensions." Mikey explained. "It's no wonder that Mike-Mommy had found an easier way in earlier."

"He calls you Mommy?" Josh whispered.

"Yeah. Go figure." Mike grinned. "I don't mind, as long as he doesn't start trying to suckle at my teat, y'know?"

"But... what happened to his real mother?" Josh wondered.

"Uh..." Mike blanched. "I'll save that story for another day."

Suddenly the corridor in front of them was filled with vibrant humming light-shapes, which coalesced and morphed into dozens of giant dark butterflies with pale-white female Asiatic human faces. Their eyes closed, the butterfly creatures opened their mouths, and a horrible screeching sound pulsed through the corridor, deafening our heroes.

"Aaaaargh!!" Mike screamed. Mikey was yelping, and Josh was pressed up against the wall, covering his ears with his paws. Swearing, Mike pulled off his backpack with Mikey inside and set it down. Deftly drawing his Rune Dagger, he lunged forward, jabbing it savagely into the face of one of the butterflies. It burst into a hundred shards of light and dissapeared.

The effect on the rest of the butterflies was remarkable. They began to zoom up and down the corridor, screeching, batting at Mike and Josh with their wings. One brushed against Mike's face and he screamed in pain - it was as if their wings were coated with burning acid. Mike swung again, killing another butterfly, then struck at another, missing - it batted at his face before flying by and Mike was nearly blinded by the pain. Josh had grabbed one of the butterflies and pinned it to the ground, raking its face with his claws. It sneered and spat at him, the acid saliva splattering all over his neck. Josh gasped in agony and swiped again with a claw, shattering the butterfly into shards of light. Another one was coming toward Mike - he quickly dodged and slashed wide, cutting its wing off. The crippled butterfly shrieked as it spun and smashed into a wall, where it broke into shards like the others. Still more butterflies were coming...

They had walked down corridor after corridor, and Demifox Fred and Astra and the Doctor had finally reached a room where a massive bridge stretched across a dizzying abyss. They couldn't see the bottom, and a rock thrown down there would dissapear below without making a sound. Most disturbingly the bridge was absent for about thirty meters length in the center, making a crossing impossible.

"What is this?" Demifox Fred demanded, facing down one of the frogmen, who had surrendered without a fight and agreed to lead them to Minestus in exchange for their lives.

"A bridge?" the frogman shrugged.

"I can see it's a bridge." Demifox Fred said. "But it's obviously not all of a bridge, is it? It's obviously missing something, isn't it?!"

"A... a railing?" the frogman guessed nervously. "Bridges had fine railings on my homeworld, monsieur. Ze cheri trees would bloom in ze summertime, and all ze village peoples would hold such beautiful picanics in ze countryside..."

"Ah, forget it!" Demifox Fred groaned, turning away.

"Why did you ever leave your home to work in such a terrible place?" Demifox Astra asked.

"Ah, but for ze money, madame! Money to put my wee tadpoles through college. We had no idea Monsieur Minestus was, how do you say... evil? He said he was running a charity for ze unfortunate orphans of ze warring between ze offices."

"All lies." Demifox Astra said grimly. "You should've known a scoundrel like Minestus couldn't be trusted."

The Doctor, meanwhile, was examining an odd stone pillar at their end of the bridge. It was carved with several stone symbols. He ran his fingers over them, and suddenly the stone pillar opened up, a computer monitor coming out, on which the same symbols were displayed.

"Aha!" the Doctor said. "If I'm not mistaken, this is a key to getting over this bridge. Now let me think..."

Suddenly they heard voices on the other side of the bridge. Looking up they saw Human Fred and Astra run into view, to stop in their tracks where the bridge cut off into nothingness.

"Hey! It's Human Fred and Astra! They're alive!" Demifox Astra exclaimed. "Heeey!! Over here, over here!!!"

"Hullo!" Human Fred yelled. "It's good to see you three again!"

"Where's Susan and Josh?!" Human Astra yelled.

"We're still looking for them!" Demifox Fred yelled. "The Doctor's looking for a way to fix the bridge even now!"

"Please hurry, Doctor!" Human Astra yelled. "We're being chased by something really really unsavory!"

The Doctor was working as fast as he could, his fingers flashing over the symbols on the rock and the computer monitor. "Ah, I see, I see! A typical Hydrolufeterian reversible tumbling equation with six root clusters... but I've never seen one in the second-case before. This'll take just another minute..."

Even now, they could hear something's horrendous grating roar approaching fast from the other side of the bridge "NO... WHERE... TO... RUN!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

1. "Aha! I've got it!" the Doctor exclaimed, and a mechanism in the bridge activated, causing the missing length of the bridge to extend from both sides to meet in the center.
2. "Not... quite... there yet..." the Doctor was saying, gritting his teeth. On the other side ot the bridge, Attackur burst from the corridor and attacked Human Fred and Astra again.
3. Meanwhile, in Rassilon's Catacombs...

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