Two Men At A Lake – A Story About Otters

A parody of Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team.

Two men go camping at a lake and undergo a transformative experience that leads them to become rescuers of various strange anthropomorphic animals they keep encountering on their journeys.

– Chapter 1: That was good work! –

Two men at a lake, roaming, sweating, camping. Two men at a lake, resting, sleeping, dreaming. Two men that now no longer were just men, having undergone a mysterious transformation. Matt and David.

Matt had already woken up with sunrise, taken two steps to the shore to dance with the fishies in the lake again, when the slowly rolling water surface told him of his changes, showing him that his face had overnight gained unusually much fuzz. Annoyance at how much work shaving all this would be quickly disappeared when he realized that a razor wouldn't suffice to return him to the man he was last night, though, and he stormed back to the sleeping bags he had spent the night in to shout at his still silently snoozing man:

"Bro!"

--"Hmm" David tried to appear unbothered, but his brow furrowing gave away how much he would have enjoyed getting more time to prepare before being dragged into more weird ideas.

But his companion had never been one to pick up on signs. So he had to make it clearer: "I would have enjoyed getting more time to prepare before being dragged into more weird ideas."

Like this hike to a lake no one knew.

"Like this hike to a lake no one knew." he added.

Matt came closer, now towering over his "best friend".

"This lake is amazing! Look at me!" he said, raising both his arms into the air to show off the miraculous effect he believed the lake and fresh air here had had on his body.

"Hmm?" Reluctantly, David opened his eyes and was about to get up when he noticed that his friend really had changed overnight. Or been taken hostage and replaced by someone … who had stolen his orange shorts and could imitate his voice perfectly. Someone with a lot of brown hair covering all of his body like fur, almost pitch-black feet with webbed toes and long nails that resembled claws more than anything, a mouth that extended like a cute little snout with silly little whiskers on both sides of a black dog nose, and barely visible rounded ears on a flat head that definitely stared back at him, still beaming, with eyes that were definitely Matt's bright brown ones. And there was also that long brown tail hanging out from over the waistband of his shorts, reaching towards the ground.

"Um." David paused for a moment. "Uh, that's- that's true. It's amazing to see such a huge specimen of a river otter, the size of a giant! T-Truly a marvel of nature." Matt snickered in return and then let him continue. "But where did they get such a terrible sense of fashion? Or really any sense of fashion at all."

Laughter.

Normally this would have put him at ease, but David still felt tense, even if he tried to suppress it. Even something as bizarre as this surely shouldn't be reason for concern, right? It would be annoying if he let this get between him and enjoying their vacation as much as Matt seemed to be able to even now. But the tension he felt clearly wasn't just nervousness, as he sensed it all over his body, and his behind even seemed to ache, as if he had slept very awkwardly the entire night, he couldn't even make himself stretch to calm down. On top of that, there was still one question burning in his mind:

"And… they speak English, too?"

-- "Bro, you do, too!" Matt said, pointing a hand, or maybe paw, in David's direction. He was still grinning.

"Hey, my fashion sense is just fine!" he blurted out in return.

-- "Sure, man. Just look at yourself. Nice new haircut, by the way!"

David looked down on himself, the tension in his stomach turning to dread as he encountered the same kind of brown fur all over his body below his white t-shirt and black shorts, too. And the pain turned out to have him having laid uncomfortably on his tail. Now he was certain he was really talking to the same Matt he had known for years.

"Oh, come on! What did you do to me this time? Do you realize how much I will have to spend on shampoo now?" he exclaimed.

-- "Hey, I have no clue what happened either!" Matt looked just a tiny bit hurt for a second before his giggle returned. "If I had… I would have come here much sooner! Come on, let's go for a swim. You need to cool down anyway!"

David knew there was no point in protesting, and in fact barely a moment later already heard a loud splash in the water. Matt never waited for anyone. Whereas many of their friends were scaredy cats (well, not literally, at least not last time he saw them) who were perpetually insecure about their decisions and could also have trouble standing up for themselves, Matt instead was the kind of otterly… utterly unswayable man that either ends up the one to cause trouble for everyone or the protagonist in an action movie. And, well, that's kind of what had attracted David to him in the first place. Matt was the one to get David out of the house and on this trip, too, but could the man not slow down one day at least? David could only admire the unstoppable energy. But that even waking up as a different species altogether was something Matt could take in stride just like that was almost too much.

He finally jumped in as well and was disturbed to find out that he had never found any water as enjoyable as the same lake that just last afternoon he had vowed to never set foot in again. Even though it was still early in the morning, it just no longer was as horribly cold, the water didn't get into his ears anymore, and swimming never felt this effortless before. He flowed gracefully with the waves, thoughts melted like ice in the summer sun, until he was tackled from behind by Matt.

It wasn't long before they had invented water wrestling, and when they started training as if preparing to become otterkind's first Olympic athletes, they noticed they had gotten far away from the shore they had come from, now being almost at the opposite side of the lake. And neither of them felt like they had the energy to go back all the way anymore, so they gathered their last energy and swam to the closer shore.

Barely out of the water they heard shouts in the distance, coming out of the forest, faint but impossible to ignore.

After a minute of walking amid the firs and spruces growing tall they encountered strange creature, though no stranger than they themselves were. A human-sized purple butterfly with two pairs of white wings with black lines was turning towards them, standing on two legs and gesticulating with two arms. Aside from their purple color, the limbs looked very human. The butterfly looked at them with two large red compound eyes on a strangely oversized head and shouted again:

"Somebody! Please help me! My poor baby caterpillar fell down a crevice and I'm not good at climbing!"

"Yo" Matt said to David, "looks like someone needs our help!"

-- "What are we, a rescue team?" David replied, though he knew the answer he would get already.

"Sure we are!"

Matt walked up to Mother or Father Butterfly and announced: "Ma'am! Or Sir. We, the Rescue Team Otter Know, how we can help you…"

--"Oh thank goodness! Yes, a rescue team like you ought to know how they can help me. The crevice is just a few minutes in the direction of the creek. Please look for a green caterpillar with red antenna." The butterfly pointed away from the lake with its arm.

They followed the creek and after a while David said: "You know, your English teacher would have probably wanted to fail you for that pun alone."

--"What pun?"

The silence of the next few minutes was pregnant, probably with triplets. Eventually, it was broken by a smaller caterpillar-human appearing from a bush a bit further away, and running towards Matt, who started running towards them. David could only watch in horror as they collided some seconds later and both falling to the ground, Matt cursing and the child crying. David dashed towards them and embraced the child, attempting to comfort it. It didn't seem injured at least.

Then, he asked Matt:

"Are you okay? Do I have to worry about encountering the demon that just possessed you next in this forest? Wouldn't surprise me the way this day is going…"

--"I did feel strangely compelled to just attack everything that moves in front of me…"

"Wait, really? Come to think of it, the butterfly baby here seemed to as well…"

--"I'm not a baby! I'm old enough to be alone in the forest!" the caterpillar protested. David looked at the boy, still sitting in his arms, wearing an overall that was cream-colored in the front, red at the back with many bumps. A tall red spike was on the head seemed dangerously sharp. The head itself of the boy was also red, with large yellow eyes with black pupils located on either side of it and a smaller yellow spike in between both.

"Does this boy not look a bit like a demon already…" Matt muttered, and David wished he hadn't heard it. "In any case he isn't who we are looking for." he continued, louder. "Let him go, he's probably big and strong enough to find his way back alone. And sorry for the headbutt, man!"

With the big and strong caterpillar boy now smiling again, things seemed patched up enough for David to move on, and so they bid him goodbye and continued their path down the creek.

Over the next half an hour or so David had to stop Matt from running into other young animal-humans in the most literal sense again and again, while evading their attacks. More red caterpillars, small brown humanoid doves, and perhaps the weirdest, child-sized yellow-black germinated seeds with stubby legs hopping around. There were also strange large eggs rolling around for seemingly no reason. This forest evidently was nothing short of being extraordinarily cursed.

Finally, they come across a crevice and find the green caterpillar-boy the giant butterfly had wanted to be reunited with. He was teary-eyed, huddled together against the ground and entirely lacking in spikes, unlike the ones they had encountered before, and was the only one that did not aggressively charge, simply looking at them from large yellow eyes, his red antennae hanging low.

They brought brought him back to his parent, cried all tears of joy and waved goodbye after getting a bag filled with various strange berries neither of them had ever seen before.

"That was good work" Matt said to David.

--"Thanks. It's always harder when you have to do it all alone." David replied, grinning for the first time that day.

"How about some fish for lunch? It would go well with the berries."

– Chapter 2: It's been a long time –

Two furry men back at the lake, fishing, struggling, eating. Cleaning, biting, tearing into raw fish. Two furry men that now no longer were just furry men, having founded Team Otter Know. Matt insisted it was not a pun, and David was wondering what the joke was then..

"Did you know raw fish could taste so good" Matt asked, chunks of kokanee trout falling from the side of his mouth..

--"Never had sashimi, then?" David asked, being careful not to waste what they had gone through so much trouble for. All their supplies and any equipment was still on the other side of the lake, so they had needed an alternative way of organizing breakfast..

"I'm not a weeb!" Matt laughed..

--"No, just a furry, I know" David said, looking away to hide his grin..

"And so are you! Be proud! I always knew you had it in you" Matt said, teeth sunk into the flesh of the fish again. Nothing he had ever eaten had tasted as fresh as the flesh of this fish. It was pure bliss..

David, however, was coughing up bits and pieces at the words "in you"..

"Hey, what do you think we set up our campsite as our rescue team's headquarters?".

– "And wait for clients to drop by and ask for our services like we are consulting detectives?".

Two hours later, after they had eaten up, rested and finally returned to their new rescue team headquarters, two clients did in fact drop by. Or rather, floated ominously in the air, bodies composed of impossibly round, shiny, metallic spheres rotating with bright blue-red horseshoe magnets on the sides. A single huge eye was staring at the two ottermen from the topmost sphere of both beings.

An electric buzzing sound punctuated everything their distorted-sounding gnarly voices said:

„BZZ-BZZ- WE HEARD ABOUT YOU FROM THE BUTTERFLY. BZZ-BZZ“ one of them said.

--„PLEASE. WE NEED YOUR HELP. OUR MAGNETIC FRIENDS ARE IN TROUBLE. A STRANGE ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE FLOWED THROUGH A CAVE HERE…“ the other one continued.

„…AND IT STUCK THE TWO OF THEM TOGETHER…“ the first one picked up again, swirling in the air, seemingly for emphasis.

--“…THAT ISN'T ENOUGH TO PLAY SETTLERS OF CATAN. IT'S NOT POSSIBLE THE WAY IT IS NOW.“ said the second tri-sphere, floating closer to Matt, bending the magnets forwards and laying them on his shoulders. „PLEASE. WE NEED HELP.“

„You need help with playing a board game?“ David asked.

-- „POSITIVE. THERE IS NO TIME TO BE LOST.“

Matt put his paws on the little metallic body, only to be feel an electric current pass through and fall over backwards. As he scrambled back up, he said:

„I'm shocked. Already another emergency near this beautiful lake! But have no fear, shiny friends, we can do the job!“

“I have one more question, though.“ said David.

--„PLEASE CONTINUE“ the floating spheres implored, turning towards him.

„How are you floating?“

-- „BZZ! OUR MOTHER SAID IT IS DUE TO THE NATURAL MAGNETIC FIELD OF EARTH. SHE WORKS AT THE OLD POWER STATION ABANDONED BY HUMANS AND SEEMS TO KNOW A LOT ABOUT MAGNETS.“

David seemed to need a bit to process this new information, as his mouth opened, but with no words coming out. He decided to not further inquire into the family life of these lakeside creatures, for his own sake. Matt was already setting off to walk to the shore, but David stopped him and turns to the new clients again:

„Actually, another one: where is this cave your friends are stuck waiting for more players to join them?“

--“BEHIND THE TINY WOODS OF THE BUTTERFLIES. ASK SOMEONE TO GUIDE YOU TO THUNDERWAVE CAVE.“

David wordlessly grabbed a bag with a flashlight, the berries they had been gifted as well as other provisions. Matt tended to never remember that he needed to take food with him for later. He would often even forget that he needed to eat at all until he was almost about to pass out.

After another swim across the lake and a trek near the forest, avoiding all the strangely aggressive critters and bugpeople living in it, they arrived at the entrance to a subterranean cave where their new magnetic friends were already waiting, apparently having taken a shorter route.

„OH YOU ARE HERE NOW -- BZZ BZZ“ one of them exclaimed, excitedly moving up and down.

„You got here so fast?“ David said.

--„THROUGH THE AIR“ the other said triumphantly, swirling in air, before continuing: „OUR FRIENDS SHOULD BE SIX FEET DEEP -- I MEAN SIX FLOORS BELOW US.“

„Wait, this cave has several floors?“ David asked.

-- „POSITIVE. SIX IN TOTAL. PLEASE HELP“

Maybe that was normal cave behavior?

„Otter Know, the caves! Let's go!“ Matt announced to no one in particular.

-- „Are you announcing a boxing match?“ David said, before stopping for a moment. „Or are you just saying we should know the caves? You know what, don't tell me.“

Past experiences had shown him how he might as well be talking to a wall when Matt had his sight set to something. Or the cave the large otter was stepping towards now, and so joined him, to at least keep an eye on him again. When they got to the entrance, they were shocked, Matt for the second time that day already. They found themselves pushed violently to the ground by an invisible force, dust shaken up around them.

„BZZZZ! ANOTHER ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE! BE CAREFUL!“

David got up much more slowly than Matt. He did always enjoy a lie-in, and wasn't about to waste another opportunity. Unfortunately, David had no appreciation for a horizontal view of things, and so he was pushed up again. He was tingling all over the body and felt his fur stand up everywhere. With how short it was it at least wasn't very visible, or else he would have not wanted to look into a mirror at that point. Well, he still didn't want to now. But that was for other reasons.

The second attempt was more careful, and successful. Both managed to enter this time, yet the joy was short-lived as David, upon looking back, already couldn't see the light from outside anymore. Where did the entrance disappear to? He immediately went rummaging through the backpack resting on Matt's shoulders, haphazardly pushing things away inside until he managed to get the flashlight out.

With them on, he could see they had both found themselves in a large open room that was more akin to a foyer than any cave David knew about. Although one with a very low ceiling. Normal cave behavior?

Then he realized they weren't alone anymore. He heard steps coming closer, accompanied by a lot of squeaking and snarling, coming from a corridor on the other side.

Cavedwellers? Troglodytes? With a legion of mice and wolves as their personal army? What kind of place had Matt dragged him too this time? He looked over to him, and saw Matt just grinning as he walked forward towards the sound, like he was excited to wrestle with a large and many small furballs.

David wanted to stop him, but something took hold of him. The rational side wondered if it was the same thing that had made Matt and the demon, uh, that is, caterpillar child headbutt each other in the woods before, but was overwhelmed when the emotional side realized he was reaching the exit of the room and the sounds were just around the corner. He readied his fists, just in case, only to get distracted by a reminder of him having claws. While a weapons upgrade, it just made him feel like he badly needed a manicure.

When he looked up again he still felt like he didn't have bigger problems. In front of him were two mouse-children, with triangular ears on top of their head that was covered in purple fur except for a snout in beige. Angry red eyes glared at them and a pair of huge incisor teeth at their upper jaw was currently gnawing on a carrot. Their sweaters and sweatpants were similarly colored, beige on the front and purple at the back. A purple tail curled behind them both, and a bit further away shadowy figures were standing in the dark. David couldn't make them out properly, but they were slightly taller but had a snout and triangular ears all the same.

Now he was back to feeling bad for them, for living in this dark, moist cave. How did they end up here? Where did their food come from? As far as he knew, carrots needed sunlight. They looked so upset, maybe he could comfort them like he did with caterpillar boy. He quickly stepped in front of his mate, lowered himself to a squat looked the children into the eyes and extended a paw as a form of greeting.

However, instead of being shaken, like he had hoped, one of the mouseboys jumped at it and bit it, before being wrestled away by Matt. But now the other mice -- or maybe rats -- were lounging at the two and not before long the shadowy figures were also looking like they were intent on joining in on the brawl.

With small furballs descending all over them dogs on squeaky toys, pushing them to the cold stone ground, the two larger furry creatures struggled to free themselves. David could not believe the magnetospheres had neglected to mention the small detail of the violence present in this cave when asking for help. And who picks such a location to play board games anyway? Or were they all here just spectacularly sore losers?

It was just a moment later when another shockwave passed through the cave that might as well be some kind of mysterious dungeon that had them all trapped down here. It paralyzed the critter children, who let go of the home intruders, allowing them to get away. David found it hard to worry about them now. Aside from being dazed and a few scratches, they seemed to be alright anyway. Maybe Matt was right and they actually were demon children, even if he would never want to admit that, to avoid having to hear him gloat about it.

They managed to get to another exit on the other side of the huge barren and oddly rectangular room, but luck was not on their side. Triangular ears greeted them once more, alongside bare teeth, a loud snarl and two fists dangerously close to David's face. The grayish fur and clothes of the creature made them almost impossible to make out in the dark cave, although David felt reminded of hyenas. On this continent, this far up in the north, in a bizarre cave?

Before he could decide what to do next, Matt had already made his next move, and picked up a bunch of stones that he was throwing in the direction of … NO! But it was too late, the third stone hit the snout of the creature. David braced himself for a vicious counterattack, only to be almost surprised to hear them start crying like a small girl and run away immediately.

„Huh. That was easy…“ Matt exclaimed while David felt his heart being wrenched. He wasn't sure they were doing the whole „rescue team“ thing correctly at this point. At the very least, they had a lot of potential to improve. This one was just a child, too, like the other ones! He decided to try to run after them, to apologize.

Matt followed him, and a quick look back showed David the otterman had an unnervingly large grin on his face.

„The faster we get through this cave to our board game night, the better!“ David heard him say, words like ice cold water down his back.

They had chased the hyena child through several large rooms connected by corridors so narrow that the two couldn't even walk next to each other, survived several more electromagnetic shockwaves and yet managed to almost catch up, when Matt noticed something odd in the corner of a perfectly square room they had just entered. A hole in the ground with rock formations that seemed to look like stairs going downstairs, as if they were leading to the next level the spheres had talked about. Matt stormed towards them, and within a moment of reaching them, he had disappeared.

***

David sighed, and considered running after him now, but he didn't feel like parenting him right now. He approached the human hyena, huddling quietly in the opposite corner with a large bump on the gray furry head, and took out bandage material from the first-aid kit in the backpack he was carrying. The child first winced and held its scraped knees closer to itself, head held low, breathing rapidly, as David asked them if they were alright, giving no other answer. After a few tense if silent seconds, they slowly looked up to him and slowly nodded when David offered to treat their wounds. He patches the small anthropomorphic hyena up, who seems to be calming down a bit, breathing slower and relaxing their grip on themselves. They were sobbing a bit now, but that at least meant they were longer too terrified to make a noise.

The relative silence is abruptly broken when both hear some huge noise akin to an explosion followed by a scream coming from down below. David felt a bolt being rammed through his heart. Maybe he should not have left Matt go alone there himself. Especially on a day like this, when it seemed like his partner was acting so erratically and even aggressively, which he was fairly sure that wasn't like, an otter thing. Although he was feeling it, too. And the inhabitants of the cave, just like of the forest, were also strangely quick to lash out. What was going on with this part of the world?

As he packed his things together and move towards the weird rock-stairs himself, he saw that he wasn't alone. The hyena girl was following him with pleading eyes.

„Can I come exploring with you?“

Not one to complain about additional company, David didn't stop her and both of them descended deeper into the cave to see what had happened to Matt on his quest to find those unlucky fans of Settlers of Catan.

The sight on the second floor was bleak. The flashlight showed how the brownish-red tones of the cave had been turned pitch-black on the ground, the walls and ceiling as far as he could see. Worse, Matt was nowhere to be seen. He was about to take the last step on the stairs when another one of those by now all too familiar shockwaves ran through the cave and made him trip and fall, but strangely enough on something soft.

On something soft covered in black dust that groaned audibly and was slowly moving, or rather twitching.

„Matt?“

-- „…“

David got up and tried to get him to wake up, rubbing his partner's head. But he didn't respond.

„Matt? Matt? Geez, what happened?“

David pointed the flashlight around the room they were in. In the distance, something metallic gleamed. Sphere, but not floating ones. Ones that were rolling around on the ground and colored red on one half and white on the other, crackling loudly as if filled with high-voltage electricity.

„balls… exploded“ Matt finally said.

He weakly raised an arm to point at the spheres.

„those … those balls“

-- „Matt, can you stand up?“ David asked.

„Just a moment…“

Maybe it was a good thing he had stayed behind for a bit, David thought. It usually took a lot to knock Matt out like that.

He helped his partner get up, put his arm around his head, and tried to carefully move away from the spheres. Unfortunately, it seemed they were basically guarding the exit, more stone stairs leading presumably deeper still into the cave.

„Ughhh“ Matt seemed to have a bad headache, with how he was holding his head, paws pressed against it. He looked around and saw the hyena girl, silently watching from the stairs.

„Why is that demon standing there, menacingly?“ he asked.

„Wouldn't you want to know, demon otter?“ she replied.

No one said a word after that anymore.

***

Having no other choice, they walked towards the stairs, but the rolling spheres, three in total, soon noticed them, their electric crackling getting more threatening. Bright sparks appeared all over them that quickly became blinding arcs of electricity, as if they were coming face-to-face with encapsuled lightning trying to break free.

David briefly wondered if he was facing an execution committee of a particularly hostile subterranean civilization, and if the whole board game quest had been a ploy, but he couldn't afford the time and had to act fast. He clearly could not touch these ... beings with his arms, had no weapons, and the cave shockwaves would not affect them either, maybe even make them stronger.

They were rolling in their direction, one after another in a straight line, until they stumbled and lost direction. A moment later it dawned on David that it had been the new, youngest member on the team that had kicked small stones in their way.

Stones, hmm. There were some larger ones laying around here, too. But spheres couldn't be knocked over, and the metal made them seem very sturdy, hard to injure. Though, now that they lined up in a straight line again, from the stairs towards the other side of the room with a corridor stretching behind them, an idea appeared in his mind.

Matt had managed to stand on his own feet again by now, and had used the moment of confusion to wobble past the electric guardians, now being in the process of rather gracefully falling down the stairs, followed by the young bipedal hyena.

David went after them at first, but then turned his back towards the stairs to try to block the shiny orbs from descending on his teammates,. He hurled a huge stone towards them, pretending they were giant cue balls. With the help of the flashlight, he managed to hit the first of the spheres right at the exact angle to knock them all out of the room. He also triggered another explosion, and the blast sent him down to the third floor, landing once more on top of Matt, flashlight next to him.

Fortunately, any discharged electricity seemed to have not reached the lower floor, so it was mostly just his pride that got wounded from his plan not working as intended. To add to their luck, the spheres seemed uninterested in pursuing them down the stairs, and the room they had landed in had been empty, so both otters could lie in for a bit and let the world spin around them.

When they were just about to get up, another electromagnetic wave knocked them down again. Or whatever it was. David didn't even really want to get up anymore. Couldn't the two magnetic friends figure out a way to play the game with just two players? He couldn't remember ever going through so much trouble just to join a board game night, and he had cut through wire fences and broken into houses before to do so in college. Of course, it had been Matt's idea, but still.

Even being repeatedly kicked in the sides by a hyena did at first little to dissuade him, much to her frustration.

„Come on, are all adults as weak-willed as you? Or is it just everyone living outside of this cave who is such a pathetic loser?“ she snarled.

„David“ Matt said, „are you really going to let a small demon girl walk over you like that? Who is she anyway, your adopted daughter?“

David felt another bout of coughing come up in his throat at that. Or maybe the air down here was just getting too thick.

„I, a proud demon father, of course will not stand for such insults!“ he finally said, doing his best impression of a mock indignation.

„Right, and you also won't stand for anything else, considering your current horizontal state, eh?“ Matt continued.

David laughed.

„Come onnnn… let's go. You're both so embarrassing.“ the hyena girl said, pressing her grey ears flat against her skull.

David had to admit he did feel awkward around her. He couldn't exactly act like a normal big brother to her considering how much he felt at the mercy of a harsh, hostile environment that she not only knew well but was apparently her home, too. Not to mention they had met just what, an hour or two ago? And under less than ideal circumstances. But despite all her boisterous attitude she was still just a child, and just trying to hide how scared she was. And how easy it was to hurt her, which he really didn't want to think about.

Maybe he could start by asking her name.

„Rose“ she said.

He gave her his name, and in return she smiled. He could barely see it in the dim light of the cave, a cave barely illuminated by the flashlight, but it was there. And it made brightly shining fangs stand out much more, something he tried hard to find cute.

-- „Alright, Rose, could you maybe give us a tour of your home? We might be less scaredy cats then.“

Her eyes seemed to narrow at the mention of cats, although it was hard to tell.

„Fine, follow me. I will keep you out of any more trouble.“

And in fact Rescue Team Otter Know did not get into any more fights, as Rose knew how to pass by other inhabitants of the cave unscathed. More or less, at least.

***

The further descent into the depths of the caves passing eventlessly, even if it felt increasingly claustrophobic, with rooms getting smaller and corridors increasingly narrow, longer, and weirdly winding. Rose mentioned something along the lines of how they always seemed to change whenever she was down there, which David found slightly unnerving.

She had no trouble moving through them, though, while Matt and David soon had to crouch to not hit their fuzzy heads. It was also getting warmer and warmer, and uncomfortably humid.

Then there still were the regular electromagnetic shockwaves, they had started to give both of them a headaches by now, as David could tell looking at his man clutching his head in his paws. Unfortunately he had nothing to help with that in his backpack. Rose was unaffected, even bobbing her head to an imaginary tune the entire time.

Occasionally, David would happen to shine his flashlight on some pale weed and wonder how they could grow down here, or step into a puddle of water or some trickle of water only to realize how much he was already missing the water.

Finally, they had reached the sixth level of the dungeon, the deepest one, where they were supposed to encounter the prisoners, the magnetic spheres so unluckily stuck to each other, and also so sorely in need of another playmate.

To David's and Matt's surprise, this level was just a single, tall room surrounded by another runlet. They looked around and saw wildly whirling pairs of magnetic spheres to the back of it, levitating over a rock that seemed to serve as a table with a game of Settlers of Catan set up on it.

„BZZZT! BZZZT! HELP… BZZZT…“

-- „No need to fear, the rescue team is here“ Matt announced, paws rammed into his sides, oblivious to what was to come.

„RESCUE! BZZT!“ the spheres exclaimed, moving closer to Matt, faster and faster, acting more like predators locking in on their prey rather than dudes in distress.

Their whirring was getting as loud and ferocious as a storm now, and a lot of dust was being kicked up, though the playing pieces of the board game miraculously stayed put.

Matt was still standing there as if mesmerized by the view, but David did not want to see him hacked up by the sharp edges of the magnets of the spheres. He jumped on top of him with a grunt what would have made a boar envious, barely getting him out of harm's way.

Rose also had to quickly dodge the rogue board game fans, letting them bore themselves into the wall of the cave, where the impact grounded them and finally made them separate.

„And that's another rescue completed Otter know to stay winning!“ David could not believe Matt would say this with no hint of irony.

Both of them now attempted to pull the metallic spheres away from where they were, to stop them hugging the wall. But it proved to be surprisingly difficult. There was just no way to grip them on their smooth round bodies.

„Man, we are never going to be able to fulfill the second part of our mission this way…“ Matt said, pouting.

„Come on, let's go!“ he tried to encourage them, to no avail.

He wasn't sure what to do, and David had to admit he was equally clueless. Also about how to get out of the cave again, but he didn't want to think about that now.

„Did you not want to play some Catan?“ Matt continued to plead. After a few moments, whizzing and whirring could be heard. The spheres peeled themselves off the cave wall and turned to Matt and David, getting a bit too close for comfort again.

„BZZT! ARE YOU OUR THIRD…“ one of them started.

„…AND FOURTH PLAYER?“ the other one finished

„Yes!“ Matt announced, with way too much pride, in David's opinion.

„WONDROUS! LET US BEGIN!“ They levitated leisurely over to the game board, still standing.

„IT IS EQUIPPED WITH ELECTROMAGNETIC CONTACTS. ALLOWS MOVING OF PIECES ONLY WHEN SIGNAL IS TRANSMITTED, RELEASING ELECTROMAGNETS. BZZT“ the first one began, eye fixated on the table as pieces were moved around, seemingly just by staring..

„BZZ-BBZT! MOST USEFUL FOR A HANDS-FREE APPROACH TO GAMING!“ the other one cheerily continued..

„But do we not have to worry about the same electromagnetic waves shocking us here?“ David asked..

Rose stepped towards the table and sat down next to it. „Don't worry, you two. Those don't reach down here. This room is isolated, you can get thrown into it by the waves … if you are not careful, but the waves can't enter it themselves.“.

-- „And how do we get out again?“ David continued..

„Uhhh… I don't think I have been out before…“ she replied with some hesitation..

„It's been a long time since I played this game! Let's worry about everything else later, okay?“ Matt said, already eyeing some good starter positions for his village..

David shrugged and did the same. At least he had remembered to pack some food this time. And a pillow.