Don’t push that Button!

Esmeralda had caught up, just to find Flint rubbing a giant iridescent crystal against his face, with drool leaking along with a disgusting “ihihihi” laugh. Penny was too busy swimming in the smaller gems to be bothered by Flint’s creepiness. 

“This is heaven…” Penny purred, sinking into the rocks without a care in the world. 

“Hey!” Esmeralda stormed in, stomping with each step. “Slaves are supposed to follow their master’s orders! Cease this foolishness and worship me!” 

“I will worship you for the rest of my life, your shininess.”

Unsure of how to deal with that response she shimmied to Penny. “Slave two, speak some sense into slave one before I turn him into a golden statue!”

Instead, her eyes lit up. “GOLD?!” Instantly the Empress knew it was a mistake. “Your excellence, you would be so kind?!”

Defeated, she dropped onto the floor, sighing heavily. Her hand massaged the oncoming migraine from her head. “It is I who should be giving the migraines, damn it!” Not willing to be bested, she shot back to her feet and grabbed Penny from her treasure chest, much to the burglar’s surprise. “Now you listen here, slave two. I have been most generous in allowing you to access this storage space. However, you WILL serve me!” She quickly looked Flint’s way just to see him trying to fit another pearl into his already stuffed pockets, and waddling around because of them. 

She cupped her hand to Penny’s ear. “Your comrade seems to be possessed.”

“Oh”, she laughed awkwardly. “He’s just a gem nerd. He’ll move on when he either finds something more valuable or when he’s tuckered out.” 

As if on cue, Flint had found said “more valuable” something… and verbalised it with a high-pitched squeal. He dropped the gems in his hands, his pants likewise dropped with the weight of what was in his pockets but he didn’t care. What lay before him, at the far end of the room, was a piece of pure midnight. Cut rough with a shiny black interior, it was everything Flint had ever dreamed of. 

“That’s… a Moon Shard!” He gasped while shaking. “It’s, it’s so beautiful.” Slowly he stepped forth, with his underwear visible to the world. Seemingly out of nowhere his pickaxe returned to his grip. “Must… break…”

He approached with his weapon raised, blind to anything but its eerie beauty. Unfortunately for him, Esmeralda stood in the way.

He was outraged. “Who stands between my love and I?!”

All while Penny glanced down at her “weird stuff Flint says” bingo board. “Huh. Coverall, whaddya know?”

“Explain yourself, Witch!”

Esmeralda’s brow furrowed. “Witch?! I am your master, slave one! You are speaking to the Emerald Empress! The Luscious Larimar!”

“Ah… here goes the titles again.” Penny sighed as she took a seat at a nearby table, choosing to relax her head on her hand for a few moments while the idiots bickered. 

“This gemstone is the only one I refuse to let you touch, any others are yours to break, just not this one.” She picked it up and hugged it close, wiping away the dust. 

Of course, it wasn’t good enough for Flint. “Take me” it called to him. “Make me yours”. 

Without warning he pounced like some sort of wolf-man, snarling and biting. He was weak, and yet the force of his love gave him strength beyond human capabilities. 

“Now, stop this at once! Slave one? Slave one! I will give you a timeout! I will…” In his fervour, he clipped her hand. The jolt knocked the gem from her grip and it spiralled in the air. She could do nought but watch it drop… and agonisingly smash on the ground beneath her feet. 

Even the wind hushed, the thunder whispered. Flint’s rabidness died as he saw his new love shatter into dust. Esmeralda slowly knelt, picking up a piece of it just for it to fall apart in her hand. A single glass-like tear fell from her eye and shattered on the ground. “…That was a present from my grandma…”

“Oh.” Penny gasped. “That’s no bueno…”

Flint’s eyes slowly shifted from the dust pile below to the Empress, sweat dripping from his head, his skin shivering. “Ahaha. My bad, your excellence.” 

She had the look of a demon. A vein close to popping on her forehead, teeth grinding together and hands suffused with dark magic. The room itself began to shake with prized gems crashing to the floor. 

Penny ran up, seeing the danger, and pulled Flint away as fast as she could. The duo raced down the hall toward the exit while Esmeralda seethed. By the time they reached the double doors, it was too late. 

A mound of crystal sealed the gap between the doors tightly, and Flint held Penny back just in time. With nowhere else to go they fled further into the mansion, Esmeralda chasing slowly with gritted teeth and breath like steam. 

“A LITERAL treasure trove, and you just had to pick the meemaw gift!” Penny hissed. 

“Do you have any idea how much those things are worth?!”

“Not more than our lives, dum dum!”

He pulled the tiny fragment of Samoite from his pocket, with great difficulty thanks to the rest of the tucked-away treasure. “A Moon Shard like that, even a single piece this big? It’s enough to buy a kingdom!”

The shock made Penny miss her next step and slam her face into the floor. “And you broke it?!” She screamed, returning to her feet and rubbing her forehead. “Flint, if we somehow get out of this I’m gonna kill you!” 

They could hear Esmeralda stomping toward them around the corner ahead. Penny quickly tried the door by their side and fortunately, it was open. “In here!” She whispered. 

The door clicked shut and now all they had was the darkness. Their hearts beat almost as loud as the footsteps, and when they stopped at the door, so did the beat. 

It seemed like an eternity, but soon another step shot through the floor, then another. They breathed a sigh of relief and dropped to the ground. “She’s gone,” Penny noted. “We’ll have to hold out here for a bit and try to sneak out when she’s looking elsewhere”. 

Eventually, their eyes adjusted to this new saferoom. It was little more than a desk and a few bookshelves, complete with tomes with dust for parchment. They rested for a moment, keeping on edge but for now they only heard silence. 

Bored, Flint stood up and wandered around looking at the nothingness of the room. “Big castle for one woman.”

“Big castle, big woman.”

Flint responded with a nod of approval. But as he turned, something caught his eye and he pondered on it. “What?” Penny asked, noticing his perturbed expression. 

“Looks like a button of some kind.” It was carved into the wood flooring, just big enough for a boot. “Odd place for one of those, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not at all, I usually have mine like a dance floor.” She joked.

Flint’s head snapped to her with a disappointing glare. “You don’t have a house…”

“Haaaa… why do I have to be stuck in here with you?” She sighed. 

Right beside it, was something like a sign. The letters were faded and covered in dust so it was difficult to make out. Flint used the head of his pickaxe to trace the letters, removing the debris and carving deeper into the wood. 

“Press to reflect.” It said

“Reflect?” He queried. “Reflect what?”

Penny pondered over the button, connecting the dots in her head. “Maybe we should press it.” Her foot hovered over it but Flint pulled her back a step. 

“And risk it catching her attention? Why? All we have to do is run?” 

But she felt wrong to NOT press it. It was clearly there for a reason, too small to have been something Esmeralda used, too old to be something a random visitor put in place. She had to know, and against his wishes, she stepped down on it just as he looked away. 

Thunk!

A latch above them gave way and the wooden panel dropped above them. Both of them braced for impact but it never came; instead, the panel spun around revealing some sort of mirror. It stayed for a few seconds before folding behind the panel and then fit back into the ceiling. 

They waited for a moment, expecting some sort of danger but it was over. 

“Didn’t I say to leave it?!” Flint growled as he regained his composure. 

“I seem to recall saying the same thing before you broke the Samoite.”

His eyes darted away. “That’s different.”

She just looked disappointed now, finding no real value in arguing. “Still, what was all that?”

“A hunk of junk if you ask me. Probably something one of her old slaves put in.”

Penny thought hard about it, but it didn't make any sense. “Why though? It’s not like the Empress could have used it, not in here anyway. You think it was the heroes? The ones that sealed her away?”

Flint was far more in favour of forgetting it and keeping his focus on the footsteps around them, her obsession with the button aggravated him. He turned to her and pulled her away from it. “Who cares? Look, Penny… we don’t have time to marvel in some ancient mirror. Listen, haven't heard a footstep in ages. We make a break for it, and get far away, right?”

“We can’t just leave it like this, Flint. You heard what she said, she’s gonna turn everything, everyone, into crystals. Don’t you think we ought to do something?” 

He scoffed. “Do I look like a hero to you? Far as I see it, warriors came here and sealed her once, there’ll be warriors that’ll come to seal her away again.” His attention turned to his bag, shifting around the gems so he could fit his pick inside. “We go home, grab our stuff and we head for the hills. Go live in some distant town like royalty.”

Penny knelt to his eye level. “And if no one can beat her?”

“Then we didn’t have a chance either way. How do you think we’re gonna stop her, Penny?”

She struggled to answer him

…

“Yeah, Penny…” A flash of lightning went straight through them, and the feeling of cold blood ran down their chest. She was there, in the doorway watching them. “How are you gonna beat me?”

Before they could even react, the floor began to change. Where wood and cobblestone lay, now sheets of crystal took their place. It raised up and encased them both up to their ankles, anchoring them to the ground no matter how much they struggled. 

“To think, slave one, slave two… that you who broke me free would dare stand against me.”

“Not against you, your excellence!” Flint pleaded

“Shut it! You, you broke the single most important possession I own. And now you want to seal me away again?! I will not go back to that, never again!” 

She raised her hand, magic swirling around it like a thick fog. “I’ll make you beautiful. And when this world is forever sealed away, I’ll break you like the Moon Shard.”

This distance… Penny remembered it. She was stood just in front of the button! She tried desperately to pull her foot loose, just enough that she could stand on it again but she couldn’t get free. She looked to Flint, hoping he could help… but he was already pale white and praying for mercy. 

“This is farewell, my slaves!”

Penny knew there was no time. Esmeralda’s magic formed into a shiny green flow and reached out from her fingertips toward them rapidly. “It’s over” she panicked…

With one last push, she arched back and her hand just barely pressed the button down. 

The latch clicked, and the mirror fell. As it did the magic was consumed by it… and reflected back to the stunned Empress. Gems formed all around her, spreading to her chest and legs. “No!” She screamed. “I won’t go back! I can’t…” 

It took just ten seconds for the crystals to fully petrify her in place. The crystals she cast before broke away like glass, and the two found their freedom. 

*-*-*

The sun rose on a new morning, and the duo dragged out sacks of gemstones, filled to the brim. 

Penny covered her eyes from the light. “Not bad for a few hours of work, eh?”

“Speak for yourself! I did most of the digging.”

“And who exactly saved us from being rhinestones?” 

He wiped his brow of it, struggling to retort and Penny took it as a win. “So…” Flint spoke awkwardly. “Does this mean I get to see your treasures?”

They reached the edge of the dark forest, Flint with a fresh bump on the noggin and a saddened expression. “Well, I’m this way,” Penny said, pointing west. 

“Don’t forget to pay Mako, Penny. Let’s not survive one lunatic to die to another.”

“I will, thanks, mother.”

She laughed, but the silence had made their farewell awkward, neither wanted to leave the other…

“Same time next week?” Flint asked hopefully. 

“You son of a gun…” Penny responded. “I’m in.”