"Surely he can't be dead, right? I mean, maybe all dwarves look alike! Or maybe he's just unconscious or something. That can totally just support the fact that Grady's dead or something. Don't worry, Foster, you dad's fine. Or at least I hope so. I don't want to see any more dead bodies. And maybe this dwarf just took a slight detour or something! It doesn't mean like anyone else is dead or anything... I'm helping, aren't I? Giving advice is my specialty." Keefe said.
"More like 'giving advice is what I suck at,'" Biana snickered, "or maybe 'my specialty is scaring the living heck out of people.' Maybe just 'I don't have a specialty' will work."
Fitz cracked a little smile and put a hand on Sophie's shoulder from behind her. "They'll be fine, Sophie. Keefe will just be a wonderful friend and decide just to stop talking. Right, Keefe?"
"Who- what- me? Oh, yeah, what he said. I'm just gonna stop talking now." Keefe said.
Sophie cleared her throat and hoped no one saw her watery eyes. "We should get going now."
"Oh, yes, but someone found a nice dead body and decided it to show it off to every. Single. One. Of. Us, and now we've lost time. Oh, joy. Wonder who that is." Tam deadpanned.
Linh elbowed him.
Tam dragged Linh away, talking and scolding each other in a way siblings should.
Then, one by one, the pairs left, whispering among each other.
Sophie sighed. "I really hope he's okay."
"He will be, Sophie. Just think of it as if he was just buying things! And we're meeting them at the store or something. He'll be fine." Dex assured her.
"I hope so. I really, really hope so."
The tracker beeped, and the only thing fueling Sophie was pure determination, finding Grady.
"Someone's down here," Sophie said quietly, almost like a whisper.
"You sure? Maybe it's a small animal or something...sorry, I really don't want to be the pessimist here. But I just don't want to give false hope." Dex said the last part more quietly, to himself.
"Last time I checked, small animals don't think about getting out of an underground tunnel. I can... just hear them. I'm pretty sure if it isn't Grady here, it might be a dwarf or something that can talk to us."
Dex nodded.
"Where's the digger that Tinker gave you?" Sophie asked Dex.
Dex handed her the machine, and the second it touched the ground, there was a hole in the ground.
"Seems like we don't need to work that hard," Dex hummed.
Sophie continued pressing the machine more and more into the ground until they heard voices.
They couldn't really make out what they were saying, but they could tell that there were people talking.
No, not talking.
Arguing.
"Dex, we need to ask the others for rope. I'm going down there," Sophie told Dex.
"What? No! You're not going down there! You're staying here." Dex said.
"If I'm not going down there, we'll never be able to find my dad. I'm sure he's down there." Sophie replied, already walking over to where Tam and Linh were.
Dex caught up to her. "Please don't tell me you're going alone..."
"I'm going alone," Sophie replied, walking faster.
Tam and Linh turned around.
"Did you guys find anything?" Sophie asked.
They shook their heads. "If we weren't for my brother and his terrible decision picking, we would've found something! Like, all he's done is probably scaring every living creature around us." Linh frowned.
"Don't listen to her," Tam said, looking at Linh accusingly, "what about you guys? Did you find anything?"
Sophie said "yes," the same time Dex said, "nothing important." They looked at each other, and Sophie frowned. "Yeah, we found something. There were voices from where we dug, and we need to borrow some rope."
"Lucky for you, my idiot guy for a brother probably scared every piece of metal away from us. Like, even metal is afraid of him. There's something seriously wrong with him." Linh handed her a large roll of rope to her.
Sophie smiled. "Thanks," she said, "wish me luck."
"Wait a minute... 'you' as in you're going alone?" Tam asked.
"Don't try convincing her otherwise," Dex warned, "I tried, and it didn't work. Not at all."
"Ugh, fine! One of you guys can come with me." Sophie sighed.
"Me," all three of them said. At the same time, which made it ten times more creepier.
Wait... but Sophie heard four voices.
It was Biana. "You guys actually forgot about me."
Sophie, deep down, knew she was forgetting someone. But she really couldn't remember who, especially with the fact that Grady was out there.
"I could go with you." Biana said, "And we could be invisible too," she said, turning invisible.
"I want Tam to go with me," Sophie said.
Biana nodded, as if she understood and walked off to annoy Keefe and her brother.
"Who-me? I'm just letting you know that-"
"-he will scare everybody down there." Linh finished for him, smiling.
"That wasn't what I was going to say, but whatever. Let's go." Tam said before the conversation got any weirder.
Dex followed them, and when they got to the hole, he said, "I'll hold the rope while you guys climb down there. Scream if you need help."
And as easy as it sounded, Sophie was still a bit nervous about going down there. But if going down there meant she had her dad back, she'd do it.
They slowly climbed down the rope before Sophie was so surprised that she lost her grip on the rope. She fell, but luckily wasn't injured.
The people hadn't seen her yet. Tam's eyes were wide open, as if asking Are you okay?
Sophie nodded and put a finger to her lips, as if to say shhhh.
Then she looked up, and was so surprised of who the voices belonged to.
They belonged to Grady, Vespera, and Lady Gisela.
___________
Ta-da! Who likes it that I've gone back to cliffhangers?
*sound of crickets chirping fill the air*
So... nobody? Oh, well. *continues partying and throwing confetti around alone*
Seeya in the next chapter!
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Have a marvelous day!
Somerandomhuman88