The Great Escape (pt. 1)

Every once in a while a man must escape.

He must escape into the recesses of his mind while he slumbers and embark upon an adventure which only he can foresee.

Only, he doesn't know what he will foresee. The subconscious knows. And so does The Shadow.

Listen to my dream.

Darkness covered the realm like a blanket of night. Daylight was hidden in shadows as clouds formed above the small town and soon dusk had fallen. The gathering clouds huddled together as though their combined strength could overwhelm the unsuspecting population below. The wind blew and a steady rain began to fall.

It was a dark night. And it was indeed stormy.

A small group of adventurers was gathering into one of the buildings. The building itself was obscure and did not stand out from the rest. One might pass by it a dozen times without taking notice of it. But I took notice of it this night. Something was brewing and growing with intensity in sync with the rain upon the roof.

"This book says it all!" exclaimed the electrical engineeringish looking fellow standing excitedly above the others. The rest of the group was seated looking rather puzzled. A dark-haired fellow rolled his eyes.
"That's just like you Logan, always thinking about books."
"No Jon! This is for real! The book speaks of a great treasure of knowledge, hidden by the Ancients long ago. I went through a lot of trouble just to track down the missing pages from the book. Seems some old monk decided to use them for scratch paper. Lucky for me he didn't throw anything away!"
"Hmm, well that certainly sounds interesting," said the oldest at the table, a man named Bruce. "I would like to hear more about this."
"Well apparently there are clues hidden away that tell where this treasure is hidden. All we have to do is look for them!"

There was stunned silence.

"No wait, I know it sounds strange and ridiculous but I think that the clues are actually hidden right here! That's why I've asked you all to come on this trip with me. I knew you couldn't refuse once we'd traveled all this way."

The silence grew, if that is possible. Logan continued his monotonous monologue.

"Look, the people here are supposedly descended from the Ancient tribe. From all the rumours I could find while looking on Google, they are pretty reclusive and act rather strangely. All of this sounds suspicious to me. I think I may be onto something."

If there had been a cricket, it would have chirped.

"The book doesn't say much, it just tells of a certain "path" that must be followed to lead to enlightenment. I say we start by talking to some of the villagers here. I admit it's kind of a creepy ghost town with just a few residents, but some of them are old enough to at least remember a few stories. So.... any questions?"

"Yeah!" said the blonde guy with glasses. "What have they got to eat in this town?"

**********

While they are trying to figure out the answer to that question, let me introduce you to the characters of this dream. They are
Logan, which is kind of a given.
Jon, who plays a very reckless part
Bruce, brought along to bring some semblence of sanity to the madness which is this adventure (my brain must have decided it needed some)
Jonathan, who plays mostly the part of a gap-filler and really isn't important
Evelyn, the one who finds the killer and the killer's bullets.... being shot at her.
Laura, who really just appears randomly

So now that the group has apparently mysteriously eaten and is satisfied, we resume the tale after a few disappointing door-knocks later.

"Ungh!" exclaimed Evelyn, "Those who aren't home just aren't willing to talk it seems!"
"Yes, it did appear that they are rather reclusive and reluctant to share any information...." mused Logan. "I did get the impression that some of them knew about it but didn't want to speak on the subject."

A shadow flitted in one of the alleyways and the bent man attached to the shadow appeared.
"Psst, c'mere!" he rasped.
A bit dubious, Logan motioned for everyone to stay back while he joined the man in the shadows.
"I kin tell you a bit" said the gaunt figure, "but you got to promise me you won't tell that I toldja."
"I promise." was the terse reply.
"Good. Now there's a door that leads to an iron house near da edge of town. It's hidden away in da bushes, you could passit a t'ousand times an' never spot it. It's locked."

Logan waited for what seemed like a fair amount of time before asking ".....and..... you have the key?"
"Do what?" queried the geezer.
Logan involuntarily winced. "I asked if you had the key." He repeated in a louder tone.
"Huh? No! 'Course not! Else I had opened it myself a long time ago!" He cackled and scooted off.

Bruce thought he had seen some bushes on their way in so the group walked in that direction silence. The rain had stopped but the darkness seemed to be growing thicker, sort of like gravy left to simmer, if that's even an acceptable analogy.

Sure enough, the door was no where to be seen. Evelyn's keen ears detected it after a bit of poking around in the bushes with a long stick. "Here it is!"

It was locked.

But on the front were six engraved symbols: a cube shape with some intricate indented carvings, a triangle with a scene of children playing engraved. A hollow half-sphere that looked something like a planet with moons circling it in orbit.

"Well, if it's anything like the movies I've seen, it's obvious that something fits inside each of these engraved symbols." deducted Logan, as he sat down to ponder this new development.

"Oh! You mean like this?" said Laura, head cocked to one side as she reached into her pocket.
"I found it stuck in the ground near the building we first met in. I thought it looked like a stone at first but it was too heavy."
"Let me see!" Logan sprang to his feet and crossed the distance in two large steps.

It was perfectly round but had raised orbits that showed tiny moons circling the miniature globe. Though it must have been of an ancient design, the startling thing was that it showed no wear whatsoever. It might have been a freshly made sculpture from a tourist shop, only there were no tourist shops in this town for the simple reason that they had no tourists.

"Aha! This must be one of the six keys! It has probably been buried for ages but the erosion has finally exposed it. The last bit of rain we had must have been the final touch. Great job Laura! Now let's see.... there doesn't appear to be any writing, it weighs about 5 pounds, feels almost as heavy as lead and I wonder what it's made of....hey!"

He said "hey!" just then because (with another eye-roll) Jon had just snactched the sphere out of his hand. "Just see if it fits! Oh my!" He shoved the ball into the slot and the door began to creak open with an ominous sound.

"Well, that was easy." said Bruce.

"Yes.... I really expected us to have to find all six symbols..." said Logan, perplexed and admittedly rather disappointed. The group started to march inside and lit some torches that were just inside the entrance.

Logan and Evelyn were the last two.
"Hey! I said you should have been in an Indiana Jones film and here you are" elbowed Evelyn with a grin.
He grinned back and walked through the doorway wondering what was inside.

And thus falls the curtain on act one of this adventure. Act two should follow shortly.