Tuesday Tails on Thursday ~ Summer BlockBuster 2018 - The Clockwurk Labyrinth Chapter 13

Welcome to

Tuesday Tales

on Thursday

this is going to be one crazy-insane rescue oppurration!!!

The Clockwurk Labyrinth 

If mew missed the thrilling start of our latest adventure, here are the catch up links...

Chapters 1 ~ 3

Chapters 4 ~ 5

Chapters 6 ~ 7

Chapters 8 ~ 9

   Chapters 10 ~ 11

Chapter 12

And now here's the next chapter...

~ Chapter 13 ~ 

The Snorrgs 

Parsley, Humphrey, Smooch, Pandora and Amber were right behind me before I could get up.  Winston had backed up and the six of them unleashed hell into the blackness as I edged backwards rather carefully under the gunfire, stood up and took my place in the line and opened fire again. 

Smooch had his night-vision goggles on too and was shouting. “Dudes, there’s something coming up fast on my 9!”

I glanced and saw another of the things.

“Humphrey yelled. “And another on my 3!” 

“OH FLUFF!” I spat and rummaged in my pocket fur the miniaturizing ray gun. “Hit the deck!” I yelled as I fired once dead ahead, once to my left and once to the right, the laser-beams blasting out and making a squelching, sizzling crack as they hit their targets. We had a solid wall at our 6 so I knew there was nothing there unless something was headed down the wall.

Gun-smoke and cordite filled the passageway from our gun-fire and my ears were ringing, I knew I shouldn’t have taken my ear defenders off.  Torch beams swiftly shone, cutting through the oppressive darkness and revealed our now rather shrunken attackers.

“Ewwwwwww!” Pandora said as she saw one of the now much reduced in size, slimy slug-like creatures trying to escape under the nearest pile of rubble.

“Jeez dude, thank cod mew thought to shrink them!” Humphrey said. “I don’t think my katana would have been big enough to deal with those.”

Amber pulled a pair of sugar-lump tongs from her pocket [don’t ask me why she had sugar-lump tongs, because right now I have no idea] and picked one of the icky, slimy things up and Parsley shone his torch straight at it. It made a pitiful screech, obviously it didn’t like the light.

Winston said soberly. “Jumping jeepers Basil, mew have no idea how close that was and it would have eaten us, and the other 2 as well!” 

“What the fluffing fluff is it?” Parsley asked.

“It’s a Snorrg,” Winston said. “They’re like the garbage collectors in here, they slither around during the darkest part of the night and devour all organic matter in their path...”

“Eeeeew that’s nasty!” Amber said and dropped the thing into a small glass jar and then did the same with the other two, sealing the lid. “Well I think we’ll just keep them in here fur the time being.”

“Mew do know that there’ll only be one of them left in there?” Winston said. “They will eat each other, it’s really disgusting!”

Amber gave him a half shrug and replied. “Survival of the fittest!” 

Parsley snorted with laughter as he peered at the angry blue Snorrgs in the jar, then stopped abruptly as he said rather soberly. “Has anypurrdy effur shrunk any living creature before?”

We all glanced at one another with rather bewildered expressions. “Nope, I don’t think so,” Humphrey said thinking about it fur a moment. “No, the miniaturizing ray guns have not been used or tested on organic matter before.”

“So do we know the long term effects of blasting organic matter with the ray guns?” Parsley asked.

Humphrey shook his head. “Nope!” he answered.

“So they may not stay that small fur long?” Parsley continued.

“It’s a possibility that they may pop back to full size at some point, but as I’ve neffur actually experimented on organic matter before, we’ll have to use these little fellas as our guinea-pigs,” Humphrey said with a wry smile as he tapped a claw on the jar watching as the Snorrgs were squaring up to one another and adding. “Ok Snorrgs, break it up otherwise I’ll get Amber to tip mew on the floor and leave mew fur someone to squish!”

The slimy, little Snorrgs slithered away from each other immediately and sat at equal distances apart.  “Looks like they’re not stupid!” Smooch grinned and then said. “Can I keep them, I’ll make a nice home fur them back in the bunker?”

 

“Mew want to keep them as pets?” I laughed.

“Sure, look at them,” Smooch grinned. “They’re epic and I could train them...”

Six voices said. “Train them fur what?”

Smooch’s eyes glittered wickedly in the low light and I knew that look, oh how I knew THAT look.  He beamed at me and said. “Yep, we could breed Battle Snorrgs!” He laughed and laughed and laughed as he thought about being a Snorrg Commander, he was seeing it furry vividly in his minds-eye; riding atop one of the huge blue beasts heading into the fray with his legion of loyal Snorrgs following behind – I took an imaginary pin and popped his fantastical fantasy bubble.  “Dude, how do mew know they wouldn’t turn on mew the minute they were full size?”

He shrugged and said. “With time, patience and love anything is possible!”

Well I couldn’t argue with that, so I said. “Dude if mew want them, mew have them but if they do become a purroblem or pose a threat mew know what we’ll have to do.”

Smooch nodded and took the jar from Amber and carefully opened the lid.  He took a snack bar from his pocket, opened it and broke several crumbs off before dropping them carefully into the jar. The Snorrgs rushed towards the crumbs and devoured them like ravenous beasts.  When all the crumbs had gone, they reared up and made the cutest squeaking sounds mew’ve effur heard.  “Awww look,” Amber cooed. “They want some more!”

Smooch dropped some more crumbs in and the Snorrgs ate like they been starved fur a furry long time.  “Now listen here little blue dudes, mew can have plenty more of that but mew need to behave and play nice with one another, in other wurds no fighting and definitely no eating each other!” he instructed. “Do mew understand?”

Surprisingly the Snorrgs, now in a neat line-up seemed to nod.  “That wasn’t so hard was it?” Smooch asked and the Snorrgs moved side to side swaying in the affirmation of no. “Excellent, now mew be good, I’ll put a couple of holes in the lid and then mew’re going in my inside pocket fur a bit and don’t wurry if mew hear any loud noises, ok?”

The Snorrgs nodded, split apart and went to opposite sides of the jar.  Smooch turned to Parsley and said. “Dude, can mew put a couple of small homes in the lid purrlease?”

Parsley held out a paw and his lethal 6” claws shot out and glinted menacingly in the low light.  Using one claw only he deftly punctured 4 holes in the lid and Smooch closed it tightly before placing it in his pocket fur safe keeping.

I was looking at the map as it had changed since the last shift in the maze and the quickest way seemed to be dead ahead where the furst Snorrg appeared. “I think we should go this way,” I said pointing to the new faster route.

The rest of the team peered at the new route and nodded. “Let’s get going then!” I said leading the way. “Move out!”

Pandora suddenly blurted in her odd, little foreign accent. “Could ve use the ray gun on the Old One?”

We all stopped and looked at her.  Now that was something to ponder.  “That’s not a bad idea Pandora,” I said brightly. “Winston, do mew think we could shrink the Old One?”

Winston replied. “I don'’t know Basil, it might wurk.”

“Ok then,“ I replied. “Let’s add the ray gun to the possibilities section of eradicating the Old One.”

*    *    *

Fudge awoke, his head felt like it was full of fluff and fuzz.  He slowly opened his eyes thinking that he’d passed out from paint-fume inhalation earlier in the bunker. He stared straight up, blinking numerous times trying to get his vision clear, his mind clear and rid himself of the awful feeling of dread, which he couldn’t quite put his paw on. 

In the next second he tried to spring up and found he couldn’t move. He looked down and saw he was strapped, rather tightly to a huge stone-slab. Panic rose up inside him; faster than a lit match under the mercury in a thermometer. He gulped, eyes wide as saucers and was about to scream like gurl, when a little voice in his head said effurso calmly, dude don’t panic, relax a moment and think about your purrdicament... what would Basil do?  

“What would Basil do?” he muttered to himself like a mantra, offur and offur as he slowly took stock of his situation in a more controlled way.  The more he said it, the calmer he became and began to assess his heinous dilemma in a more logical manner.

Glancing effury which way, he took in the scene; he was in the middle of a huge circular stone area, the fetid walls some 25ft tall.  It was open to the sky which was inky black with no stars at all.  Torches were positioned around the walls effury few feet, held in place with rusted metal brackets as the flickering, yellow flames cast spooky, dancing shadows all around the expansive, roofless rotunda. A monstrous pile of bones lay piled up not far from his position in the centre and he could see small creatures skulking around the edges keeping to the darkest shadows trying their hardest not to be seen.

“Not good,” he murmured to himself and as his eyes grew accustomed to the weird light.  He stared straight up and noticed that there were several things suspended about 10ft above the ground, he stared harder and realised that they were cages and as he focused more, he saw that effury cage but one had someone or something in it. “Oh fur fluffs sake!” he whimpered quietly as his tail doubled its already ginormous size and twitched side to side in severe apprehension.

“Hey! Hey mew down there!” a voice whispered from above him.

Fudge peered through the gloom and saw a rather skinny and dirty paw waving from the nearest cage.  His eyes narrowed and he whispered. “Who are mew and what do mew want?”

“Shhhhhhhh,” the voice answered softly. “Let’s not wake the guards.”

Fudge glanced around again and that’s when he noticed large lumpy shapes slumped against the walls, he indicated with his paw. “Those guards?” he whispered.

“Yep those troll guards, now shhhhhh,” the voice said softly. “We don’t have long before the Old One comes back and starts the mind-invasion.”

Fudge started to struggle again but it was useless, the straps had him pinned good and tight and he tried to feel around with his paws fur anything that would release him.

“Stop moving!” the voice hissed. “It’ll make the straps tighter!!“ 

Fudge ceased his struggle immediately. “How the fluff do I get out of here?”

“Mew can’t,” the voice answered sadly. “Not until mew’re released into one of these cages.”

“Oh mew’ve got to be fluffing kidding me?” he replied quietly.

“No, I kid mew not, and do I look like I’m kidding?” the voice hissed.

“So what’s this mind-invasion thing that this old dude’s got in store fur me?”

The paw suddenly vanished inside the cage and the voice said no more as a fanfare of trumpets sounded.

Fudge looked around and saw five small, purple rabbit-like creatures with huge floppy ears and glittering whiskers emerging into the circle through a dilapidated archway carrying rather ancient looking trumpets. They were closely followed by a tall robed figure who's aura was actually visible; twinkling black motes swirled around the entity in a disconcerting but rather mesmeric way and they eeked out from his body like lapping, black smoky tendrils tasting the air.

The figure strode forward sending the announcers and their trumpets flying in all directions. Small cries echoed around the space as the purple creatures hit the ground with soft thwumping sounds and then scurried off into the veiled darkness around the edge of the walls.  He stopped at the edge of the stone slab and peered down at Fudge from under his cowl-hood.  Fudge gagged as a horrendously putrid stink suddenly filled his nostrils and the robed figure tossed his head back and laughed with such maniacal menace, it was pant-wettingly terrifying. The cowl hood suddenly flew back and revealed the thing inside the shroud.

Fudge's eyes bulged in abject horror, he screamed like a gurl and in the next instance, it all went black.  

**AND CUT**

OH MY COD! 

See Mew Next Tuesday Fur The Next Thrilling Chapter 

in

The Clockwurk Labyrinth

This is 

 Commander Basil and The B Team

Offur and Out Until Next time

click here to go to chapter 14

Graphics created with paid licence www.canva.com