The wishing works and Dvalinn and the kids appear in another dark room. But in this one you can see the crescent moon through a window and furniture. It is a large room and the interior is of fine make. a heavy carpet on the floor, shelves with books at the wall and the smell of beeswax in the air. A table with twelve chairs stands in the center. A sideboard under the window. From the neighboring room you hear steps and light shines under the closed door.
"That's the house of the wizard!" Dvalinn calls out. "I'll give him a piece of my mind. I want my money back!"
The steps next door stop, turn direction and approach. The door opens. When the light from the other room falls on the dwarf and the kids, the man inquires in a commanding tone "What are you doing in my house! Answer!"
"That's not the wizard." Dvalinn comments.
Glad to see what appears to be the normal sky through the window Jewel steps up and gives a 'proper' curtsy when an apparent authority figure appears. "Hello sir. My name is Jewel Branston, and to answer your question.... well, we appear to have missed our target. Do you by chance know how to get to Oakstead village? We need to get home."
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"Well, maybe we just need to wish it that way," Tarjun turns to Clara. "You said 'home'! Not Oakstead!"
"Good evening, er... Sir. We're just passing through really. We'll be gone in a minute!... May we enquire," Tarjun looks down at his feet, currently resting on a very nice carpet, to gather his thoughts. He notices that his shoes left dirty prints on the rather nice carpet, and stupidly tries to lift one foot off the carpet before he realizes he can't lift both at the same time. He puts his foot back down again reluctantly. "May we enquire where your house is located, um, city-wise? Even the region could help, actually."
"That is the home of none of us." Clara objects. "That's how this spell works."
"Stop that gibberisch. Explain why you are here, how you got in, and who sent you. If not, I'll have you thrown into the dungeon until you talk."
Jewel steps up to the strange man. "Gibberisch? Odd that we understand your language but you apparently cannot understand us? Or you don't understand our answers? OK." She cocks her head to one side, then moves to count on her fingers as she answers the specific questions.
"OK. One, Explain why we are here. I thought that was clear but, We are here by accident. We were teleported into a magical maze trap. We tried to teleport out of it and get back home, but apparently we missed and ended up here."
"Two, How we got in? Well, that was part of the first explanation. Now if this place is shielded from magical teleportation maybe you need to summon your mage? He might have been the mage that imprisoned our dwarf friend there and accidentally trapped us in with him. But the fact is that it was a magical accident."
"Three, Who sent us? Again part of the first answer, but nobody sent us. We're here by accident. If your mage that is helping you wasn't part of our accidentally being teleported here perhaps he or she can come and sort out the difficult details so we can get back to our homes in Oakstead? Our parents are probably getting worried over where we are and how long we've been gone!?!"
She glances back at Clara, "Unless we're still in the maze trap?"
"I don't believe you." the man states. "You are spies! Throw them into the dungeon!"
From the other room, behind the man, come two 'servants'. They are almost seven foot tall and three foot wide. Each grabs two of the intruders and leads them - or drags them screaming and kicking - through the other room, a hallway, down the stairs and into a prison cell in the basement. There are three cells on one side of the basement and different workbenches on the other. If they are for crafting or torturing is hard to tell.
The cell door is closed and the man locks the door with a key. "There you can consider if you'll tell the truth, or keep wasting my time with those fairy tales."
"If you told the truth, I suppose I find the cell empty tomorrow. As you will have teleported away. If not, you'd better cooperate. Good night."
The man orders one servant to guard the room and leaves with the other.
Jewel walks along accepting the lead. Obviously the official is an idiot and doesn't even want to listen. Of he is the mage that Dvalinn paid in disguise and doesn't want to pay a refund for his defective magic?
"If we weren't already cooperating I'd ask for food and drink. But since you aren't listening I'll just say 'Good night', to your guards."
Once they leave she turns toward Dvalinn. "Does any of this look familiar? Could this be the land that you came from? Or somewhere completely strange?"
Glancing around at Trajun and Clara she quietly asks, "Did anyone get a chance to check the area for magic? Could we still be in the maze trap? Or something else but related? I think random teleports may be dangerous, but going from one trap into another doesn't sound right."
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There's nothing than Tarjun hates more than being picked up and carried around, and he takes it a lot less graciously than Jewel, screaming and kicking his way to his cell with a few choice words that'd probably have his parents pull his ears under any other circumstances.
"I'M NOT A SACK OF POTATOES!" he eventually cries out, as he's gracelessly thrown on the cold floor of his cell. He's still grumbling to himself as he gets on his knees, painfully getting into a sitting position.
"Ya know, I almost sent him to sleep, but then I thought to myself 'oh nooo Tarjun, don't do it, he's a grown-up, he'll help us poor kids out!' Should have known grown-ups never listen- not Pa, not Ma, not even this darn Baron! Crap![" His voice rises higher and higher as he's getting more exasperated.
"No- I didn't check for the area, Jewie," he forces himself to lower his voice. "I was too busy getting handled around LIKE A FOOL!"
"The place, the house seems right. Even most of the furniture are still in place. Just the guy living here is different." Dvalinn explains.
"On the other hand, the wizard was a human, and its been a while."
"Maybe sixty jears?"
"No, we are no longer in the maze. This is a real prison cell."
Checking that the guard thing isn't looking she whispers "Jewel, do you have a hair clip? And maybe a distraction? Can we take on the guard?"
Jewel considers Clara's question. "You know I wear the little clips behind my ears. Otherwise my hair makes them itch. But let's take a good look around first. There might be someone watching other than that guard."
Jewel walks over by the door and loudly calls out the arcane words to cast detect magic. "Don't worry. I'm not casting anything dangerous, yet. We're just going to examine this disgusting little cell here. If we do decide to break out we'll try to subdue you first. If you refuse maybe we'll just turn you into a little animal. How do you feel about being a ferret?"
"I see magic on the guard but don't recognize the details. I'll need to rest to recover the spell I used back in the maze."
She thinks a moment then asks Dvalinn, "Humans do live 60 years, but an adult would probably have died of old age. Maybe that guy is the son of the mage? Do you remember the name the mage was going by? Might not be his real name but possibly a name that would be known?"
"Magnus the overly expensive."
"At least that's how I remember him. I forgot the ral title he gave himself."
The basement is solid stonework and there is also no magic to be found, besides some items on one of the workbenches.
Tarjun immediately remembers, that the count had the key. And it seems to be the only key so far. At least there is none visible in the basement - be it on the guard or not.
Jewel sits down looking for a way to relax. "Magnus.... Hmm, but no title or full name as I doubt he called himself 'the overly expensive'. Well, whoever this guy is we've no way to know whether or not he's descended from the clown. Tomorrow we can ask."
"Is anybody hurt? Tarjun, you got touched by that cube. Are you OK? I think we should all try to relax, rest and recover any magic. Maybe Idjit will be more reasonable in the morning? If not, try to stay together. The wish to teleport was with all of us holding hands."
Thinking about the teleport Jewel suddenly sits straight up. "That's it! This is Dvalinn's 'home'! Or at least where he wanted to go, to get his money back from the mage!!! But the mage is probably dead from old age, or killed by a rival or something. So we just need to go to our home." Then she relaxes again and quietly says, "Tomorrow."
"No. It is where the spell was cast, that created Dvalinn's treassure fault." Clara objects. "We broke the spell and were returned to where it started."
"We still don't know why and how me wishing at the well brought us there. But it doesn't really matter. We can simply walk home, if we find a way out of that lunatic's house."
"Hehe. Frank not afrais of magic." the guard replies.
Frank, as in Dr. Frankenstein's monster. Visibly sewed together from different human parts. Medium sized, wearing rags.
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"Obviously not," Tarjun glares at Frank. He has to let go of his initial plan of driving him away thanks to his magic, and he's not sure what to replace it with.
"M'fine. I just don't wanna stay here." Not yet ready to give up and go to sleep, he tries to spot an item on the workbench that could be used to break the lock.
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"The guard is a flesh golem. Usually these are mindless constructs. But that one plays with sonething to pass the time. This is unusual. Maybe we can make use of that?"
With too many thoughts running through her head Jewel stands back up and stretches. She runs her fingers through her hair (and removes the little clips Clara had asked about) and walks around the perimeter of the cage/cell. She stops by Clara, facing away from the guard and drops the clips in her hands.
She starts toward Dvalinn, then turns directly toward the huge guard. "So Frank? Is it OK for me to call you Frank? I hadn't thought that you would be allowed to talk with us. Are you allowed? I wouldn't want to get you in trouble. Your master seems like the type that might decide to order you into this cell with us for breaking his rules...."
"Anyway, if you are allowed to talk with us, could you answer a couple of questions? I've never met anyone like you and I'm just naturally curious. You're bigger than any regular man that I've known. Why, you're even bigger than Paddington. He's a bear that we're friends with. My magic let's me talk with him, just like I'm talking to you now without magic." She gives him a critical look. "Bruihu is taller than you though. He's one of the tree people. But I think you're wider than he is. Not sure who'd be stronger though. As a tree Bruihu is really strong!"
"Anyway, do you happen to know your master's name? He isn't Magnus is he? If he's not Magnus, do you know of a mage around here named Magnus?"
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"Frank talking slow. Frank understanding slow. You talk too fast."
After trying it slower and one question at a time you get out of Frank that the master is named master. That he knows no mage and that Frank is for sure the strongest of all.
Frank gets up and checks the workbench. "No. Not many." He picks up a small item. "A needle is there. And yarn. Do you have a hole in your socks?"
Realizing that Frank is about as smart as Paddington Jewel wonders how they could use that.
"Frank? It looks like there is a lot of interesting stuff on that table. I don't want anything but I would like to look at all of it? Can you open my door to let me see the stuff? You know I can't get away of anything. After all, you are the strongest and I'm just a little girl that wants to see the neat stuff on the table...."
"Frank has not key." Frank shrugs.
"Frank must ask master first."
Frank puts down the needle and turns to leave the room.
"Yes, you right."
"You sure he wants me to be nice and helpful to you? I think master wants me to be mean to you." Frank tells with a sad face.
"I don't think master wants you to be mean Frank. He just wants you to guard us as good as you can. Master is just concerned that we aren't what we said we are. But look at us Frank. We're children. We're not spies or anything dangerous, but he needs to know that for sure."
Jewel thinks about the Master. Three, no, four people just appear claiming to have just teleported in to the room? That really didn't sound like 'just kids'! "Clara? Tarjun. It makes sense why he didn't believe us. How powerful of a mage does it take to teleport four people? That's not something kids, normal kids anyway, can do. Heck, I don't understand how it worked! I mean.... We get tricked by our parents into digging a well. Then we're bored and trying to figure out something fun to do and Clara makes a wish. If we get back home we better not tell anybody. The well will be filled with stones from everybody in the area trying to get a wish!"
"And somehow we did it again in Dvalinn's cave? Clara? When did you become a powerful arch-mage!?!"
"I'm no mage at all." Clara protests.
"You not know master. Master getting mad at all things." Frank decides not to bring the needle.
"What games do you play?" Frank inquires with quite the excitement.
While Tarjun talks to Frank and captures his attention, Clara puts the hairpin to use on the lock.
The telltale click announces the result of Clara's attempt.
Jewel glances around the cell seeing nothing that they could 'hide' behind. Perhaps Frank wouldn't notice? "Hide and seek sounds like fun. Can you do that Frank? How high can you count? You have to keep your eyes closed though. No peeking to see where we hide!"
"Frank can count to seven." Frank puts his hands in front of his eyes and starts counting.
"One, ... two, ... three, ... four, ... five, ... six, ... seven" and he counts really slow.