Rising Shards

Chumbler felt triumphant landing from the portal. She started pumping her arms instantly, relishing in the mental image of the capsule machine she was sure to see shortly.

“The glitz, the glamor!” Chumbler said, slowly opening her eyes. “Here we are in…huh?”

The sound of an old air conditioning system greeted them. As well as a sea of beige and grey.

“A desolate office,” Z.O.K. said. “Cool. Great work, Chumbler.”

“Shut up, it could totally still be here!” Chumbler said. “We just have to look around.”

Z.O.K. sighed, but dutifully got to work looking through the office. It was mostly rows and rows of empty, dusty cubicles. Chumbler took the left side of the floor, while Z.O.K. took the right.

“See anything yet?” Chumbler yelled.

“Just lots of office supplies,” Z.O.K. said. “I’d totally take some, not gonna lie.”

“Well, why don’t you?” Chumbler asked.

“Cuz it’ll like poof away or whatever when we’re out of the void.”

“But isn’t that only for stuff in imagination nodes?”

“I don’t know,” Z.O.K. said. “They just always say don’t bring stuff back because it’s pointless!”

“Well, I’d take some stuff just to see,” Chumbler said. “I know how much you love office supplies.”

"That's true," Z.O.K. said as she poked around a bit more. “They have blank planners here! The years are all wrong, but it’d be fun to have a wrong year planner, you know?”

“Sometimes I wish I understood your mind, Z.O.K.,” Chumbler said.

The two continued to search for a while, but outside of the treasure of the pile of planners, they hadn’t located anything truly special.

“Do you think your sexy form could help here?” Z.O.K. called over.

“How could my sexy form possibly help us here?” Chumbler said.

“I dunno, it’d be…just something fun, you know?”

“Wait!” Chumbler yelled as she stopped at a suspiciously red colored cubicle. The red was faded, but all the other ones were faded beige or gray.

“You’re gonna use the sexy form!?” Z.O.K. asked, practically out of breath after sprinting over.

“No, I found something, I think,” Chumbler said. There was a big pile of folder holders in the cubicle, and Chumbler started to chuck them aside. “Using my superior might and intellect, the daring Big Money Chumbler, the Money Cani digs through the refuse in search of…THIS!”

Under all the office rubble was a lever in the wall. A big note above it said, “DO NOT PULL.”

“I dunno if that’s what we’re…” Z.O.K. said.

“I do dunno if this is what we’re looking for,” Chumbler said. “I bet whoever hid the gold capsule machine hath hidden it behind a simple scheme."

“A scheme of telling us not to pull the lever?”

“Precisely! Convince any treasure hunting Cani like you and me not to pull this lever, and we turn back empty handed. Besides, a mysterious lever is basically gambling. Levers are very important to gambling, you know.”

“Uh huh,” Z.O.K. said.

“Slot machines, lever-based door handles…slot machines…” Chumbler said.

“Right, I get it.” Z.O.K. said. “It’s basically just slot machines.”

“Sure, but what a gamble they are! Can’t you just picture the spinny little wheel things with cherries, the fang one, and other little symbols. What do you think we’ll get?"

“I don’t know, either it’s gonna be something really bad because it says not to pull or it’ll be something, like a door or something?” Z.O.K. theorized.

“That sounds like a gamble Chumbler, the Big Money Cani, if you’d forgotten—"

“I didn’t.”

“—Is willing to take!”

Before Z.O.K. could object any more, Chumbler pulled the lever.

The ground instantly began to shake, and within seconds office supplies began to swirl around above them, smashing against the ceiling tiles and the lights above them.

“So something crappy,” Z.O.K. said. “Not a door.”

“You don’t know that!” Chumbler said. “This could all make a door!”

The swirling office supplies took form, and both Chumbler and Z.O.K. could see where this was headed as a beast began to reveal itself above them.

“Alright, before this thing finishes, I bet you,” Chumbler said.

Z.O.K. rolled her eyes. But she couldn’t deny Chumbler a small gamble in times such as this. “How much?”

“Five bucks.”

“Sure, five bucks says we have to fight it.” Z.O.K. said.

“And I bet we can talk it down!” Chumbler said. “I win more that way.”

“You win five bucks, because that’s what we agreed on.”

“Not if we pool it,” Chumbler said. “Then I’d win ten bucks.”

“But it’d be the five bucks you already…whatever, it’s wrapping up.” Z.O.K. said as the void monster finished putting itself together with a layer of printer paper skin. It roared as it landed, shaking the cubicles.

Chumbler looked over to Z.O.K. and winced.

“Is it too late to change my bet?” Chumbler asked.