Into the Tunnels ***ON HOLD***

Into the Tunnels ~Chapter 2~

"What is it, Julie?" asked Elaine. Julie pointed at the picture next to the prophecy in horror. Elaine let out a frightened, "Oh, no..."

Jake and Raj crawled over to look at the map. They spotted the picture of Julie immediately and read the prophecy.

"'Perilous'?" Raj's jaw dropped.

"'Evil's bane'?" Jake echoed with joy.

"Awesome!" Raj high-fived Jake. Elaine slapped Jake across the face.

"What is the matter with you guys?!" she scolded. Then, she turned to Julie. "We have to go with you. If we don't, who knows what'll happen?"

Raj replied, "I do. She has a bigger chance of failing and stopping time. That wouldn't be good."

"I don't know guys. I mean, I know I have to go, but if I brought you guys along, I could be putting you in mortal danger. I couldn't force you guys to go," Julie sighed as her gaze swept around to each of her three friends.

"You wouldn't be forcing us, Julie," Elaine assured her.

"We want to go." Raj smiled at Julie.

"Besides, you're the Chosen One," Jake added. "What could go wrong?"

Julie looked at all of them again. "Thanks, guys. You're the best friends a"--she looked at Jake--"Chosen One could have." She grinned as Jake blushed a little.

"But we have to prepare for this trip to a.... I'll get the maps. Elaine can get medical supplies, food, and water. And, Elaine, find out about this 'Rabu.' Raj, you can get something for us to ride there on, like... a big cart or something. If you get something better, that's great. My cotos will pull it. Just make sure it can hold a whole bunch of stuff, okay? Jake, you get extra stuff, like clothes and torches for inside the tunnels, or whatever."

Raj frowned. "What are co--"

Julie cut him off. "You'll see."

Everybody smiled and did a group high-twenty.

"So it's settled," Jake declared. "We're going to the Rabu Desert!"

"Okay," Elaine announced as she sat inside of a large covered wagon with Julie, Jake, and Raj, "we have pretty much everything we need: eight enchanted torches that never burn out, a wagon, sixteen pairs of pants, shirts, and shoes, five large jugs full of water, lots of moomoo jerky, and four hollow reeds full of sleep darts for any wild creatures we may encounter. Oh, wait. Julie?"

Julie turned to face Elaine as she sipped cool water in the hot afternoon sun. "Hm?"

"Where are your maps?" Elaine tapped her chin quickly. "We have pretty much everything we need and more, and this wagon is full. Where are your maps of the desert, the tunnels, and our continent?"

"Oh," Julie responded, "they're on top of the jerky, next to the sleep dart reeds." It's good that Elaine found out Rabu's a desert.... We would've burned up, Julie thought.

Elaine got up and looked on top of the jerky. Thankfully, the maps were there; so was a lot of money in case they stopped in some towns.

"So we have the maps, extra cloaks, cups, ink, feathers...."

Julie turned back to look at Elaine as she became absorbed in the items they had, checking and rechecking inventory. Jake and Raj had fallen asleep on the floor, snoring. Julie sighed and got out of the wagon. She went around to the front, where two medium-sized doglike creatures about four feet long and two and a half feet tall were crouched next to a small stream running near the wagon, lapping water up into their thirsty mouths.