Chapter 23

Alex began her crawl through the tunnel using "eenie, meeny, minie, moe" any time she came to a break in the path. The journey through the tunnels were uneventful. Alex managed to only face plant into dead ends twice (which, she thought was pretty good, all things considered). Finally, Alex could see a warm light. It took Alex only a moment's hesitation before she heard a familiar voice mumbling to itself.

"Adamend?" Alex sped up her crawling speed and moved toward the flickering light. In no time at all, Alex emerged from the tunnel and looked down to see Adamend sitting beside a small fire about three feet below the entrance of the tunnel.

"Adamend!" Alex called out in joy. She couldn't help but feel relief and a huge smile spread across her face. Adamend looked up and smiled warmly back at Alex.

"Ah, the little lady has arrived." The wizard stood up, shoving whatever food he had held in his mouth. We walked over to Alex and assisted in pulling her out of the tunnel.

"Adamend, I'm so glad I found you. I was so worried you were hurt."

"Hurt? Why would you think that? " Adamend wandered back over to his little fire and sat comfortably on the ground. Alex was a little thrown by how relaxed the wizard was. "Um, well, we've been kidnapped by pixies. I didn't know if maybe they were doing things to you."

"What are earth would pixies do to me that would have you worrying?" Adamend was now munching away on some biscuit that he pulled out of somewhere.

"Well, experiments?"

"Humph," was all Adamend replied with. Alex watched the wizard munch on his food for a couple minutes. Then she took a moment to look around the small room. Much like Alex's hole, this room was small with nothing inside. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all dirt. The room had two exits. The first being the tunnel which Alex had entered the room through. The second was something that looked like another tunnel, only the entrance was located on the floor.

"Hey, Adamend, did you wake up in this room?" Alex asked while eyeing the second tunnel entrance.

"Why yes I did."

"And did you try to leave this room at all?" Alex looked over to the wizard.

"I thought about it, but then thought it best I just wait here."

"What? Why?"

"Well, it'd be a lot easier finding me if I stayed in one spot. No point in all of us wandering these tunnels and getting lost. " Adamend had now produced some kind of jerky and was chewing it with pleasure. Alex felt annoyed. She had just spent time worrying about this wizard, while she crawled through tunnels of dirt. And here this guy was relaxing as if they were taking a break during a leisurely stroll.

"Oh look, Stupid Face mouse found cheese. Twig impressed."

Alex spun around. At the entrance of the tunnel Alex recently crawled through fluttered a familiar ball of light. "I'm impressed a dung beetle even knows such a big word." Alex retorted. Twig made a little sound that resembled a raspberry then flew over to where Adamend sat eating.

"Cheese is lazy, but Agoth is angry at Stupid Face."

"What? Why? What did I ever do to any Goths? I like Goths? Goths are cool... probably. I mean I'm not really into the whole death thing. Or the make-up. But I can dig the all black look."

Twig flew right up to Alex's face and poked her in the forehead with one of her clawed hands. "You is stupid."

Twig then flew back up to the tunnel. Just before it flew through the entrance Twig called back out to Alex. "Stupid better run. Agoth very mad at stupid." With that the pixie flew down the tunnel, leaving a very confused and slightly worried Alex.