Chapter Text
Mateo was holding the map closely to his eyes, making sure the five of them were heading in the right direction. He noticed that ever since he got inside the cave his vision has been a tad bit blurry at times.
The dream chasers have been following the map for about two hours now. They have all gotten tired of walking, especially Z Blob and Bunchu, who they were riding on. Cooper ran out of dream sand, so he couldn't dreamcraft his car to get them there faster. "Are we there yet?" Izzie asked, looking into the map.
"We are about... uhh.. a quarter of the way there, i think?" he calculated, pointing to where they got. Bunchu stopped with a halt, almost sending Izzie and Blade flying off of him.
"Only a quarter? We have been walking for hours!" Izzie said, exasperated. She put a hand to her forehead, dramatically, to show just how tired and bored she is.
"Well, the map doesn't say it's gonna be an easy way there." Cooper inspected the map from behind Mateo. "Yea, Kamari said that our journey will be full of obstacles, but our only obstacle has been that it's boring." Mateo remembered with a yawn.
A warm, familiar smell got to the dream chaser's noses. "Hey, what's that gooood smell?" Blade said, salivating to the point it kinda smudged the paint on their lips.
"It smells like.. something that's not boredom!" Izzie said, excitedly. "Let's follow it!" she added.
"Yeah! And it's on the right path to the treasure too! Mateo said, leading the way to where the smell is coming from.
The four kids followed the warm smell until they got to what seemed to be a bustling restaurant. It laid empty in the forest. The restaurant was extremely tall, like a tower and it was covered by trees. No path to it or anything that might guide people to it.
"Hey, this restaurant's huge!" Cooper exclaimed as he realized. "Like a sky scrapper..." Blade trailed off, still amazed by the smell of warm food. "Mateo, what if we take a stop here to rest?" they added. Mateo pondered that idea for a moment.
"Sure! We'll get a meal and then we'll get back on trap." he said to his team, getting off and turning Z Blob back into his small slimy form. Izzie ran ahead of them.
"Last one to get to inside the restaurant is a gobbling turkey!". "Hey, that's not fair! You have an advantage!" Cooper yelled as he ran after her.
Unsurprisingly, Mateo got inside last. "Welcome to my restaurant! My son Arthur will guide you to a table and get your order shortly." a teal slimy monster man with a nice mustache and a chef hat told them as a shorter and lankier monster with one eye quickly got next to him, who they guessed was his son.
As the chef said, Arthur guided them to a table and gave each of them menus. "I'll get back to your table shortly."
"Guys, look at how much stuff they have on their menu! This menu is five pages long with pages of every single meal!" Mateo laughed at the absurdity. "Mmmmm... I think i'll get an apple pie.." Cooper said flipping through the pages of the menu.
Izzie looked suspiciously. "How is this restaurant so.. full?". "What do you mean?" Blade raised an eyebrow.
"Think about it, guys! This restaurant is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. How do so many people know about this restaurant?" she whispered, gathering her friends closer to her so that no one around them could hear.
"I don't know, Iz. Maybe they just heard about it from other people who went here." Mateo suggested. She stroked her chin, looking around their table. Large groups of people were going through a door close to the kitchen. "Something fishy is going on in this restaurant my dudes.. And it's not this salmon schnitzel i'm seeing on the menu."
She pulled out her hourglass and dream crafted a detective hat, putting it on. "I'm afraid detective Izzie has a brand new case to investigate."
"Izzie, stop playing detective! There's nothing wrong with this family restaurant!" Mateo said as Izzie suspiciously looked around her.
"That's what they want you think, pips! Cooper, you will be my sidekick on my investigation." Izzie pointed at Cooper. "Do you think you can help me?"
"Uhh.. Sure!" he said, in his usual cowardly voice. "You two will stay here to make sure we're not caught." Izzie said, pointing to Mateo and Blade. "..Fine." he said and Blade hunched their shoulders.
Izzie and Cooper sat up and followed the groups of people.
The two entered through the door. A long, tight hallway leading to a seemingly hidden staircase appeared in front of them.
"Maybe Mateo was right, Iz. This is probably just to the freezer room, or something. Restaurants just have that." Izzie went close to the staircase, inspecting it's direction.
"Yes, but why would so many people go there?" she put her ear close to the staircase going down. "I can hear talking down there, Let's investigate what's going on.."
The two sneaked down the creaky wooden stairs. They quickly stopped in their track as they heard lots of footsteps getting closer.
Detective Izzie and Cooper quickly ran up the stairs to where they were. But from the staircase emerged the same large group of people that entered earlier. And they were all talking about apple pie.
Each and every one of them, talking about this restaurant's apple pie.
Detective Izzie stroke her chin, pondering. "Let's go down there again.."
They slowly went down the creaky stairs again, trying to make absolutely no noise..
"So.. Bleed, was it?" Mateo asked, the painted person looking a tad bit offended. But just a very tad bit.
"It's Blade, like the weapon, y'know?" they pulled out a tiny stiletto knife. "It's actually a nickname. Me and my friends called ourselves 'The sharp four' cause we named ourselves after weapons."
Mateo looked a bit skeptical. "The sharp four?". "Yeah! We used to do sick stuff back in the dream world! My friend Knife likes to draw, and stuff. They used to draw every single journey we had." Blade's expression darkened.
"But then, we got lost here. I've been trying to search for them, but no luck so far. So-"
"What's with the face paint?" Mateo interrupted. "What?" Blade looked confused, as if Mateo just asked them something outrageous. Mateo repeated his question.
"Oh, uhh, i just like it.". Suddenly a loud noise from upstairs. Like some sort of explosion, followed by yelling.
"Sounds like trouble! Let's go!". They got up and ran up the main stairs to the third floor. A red, gigantic, slime monster was attacking the customers. Blade put on their brass knuckles and punched the monster, but their hand just went through its slimy body. As they kept punching the monster got tired and just grabbed them and threw them across the room. Mateo tried slicing through its body, but his body just reformed back to how it was before. He tried to run but the monster grabbed him aswell.
"How are we supposed to defeat it if we can't hit it?" Blade asked, voice wheezing from pain. Mateo looked at Z Blob, who seemed to have an idea.
The room was extremely dark; and the air was murky - to say the least. It made for a pretty creepy atmosphere. Izzie dream crafted a bunny themed flashlight with the last of the sand in her hourglass. The room was some sort of kitchen.
On the counter there wasn't anything but a sack full of big, red apples. "See, Izzie? It's just an extra kitchen, or.." Cooper was questioning if he could really just explain it. "..What is this place?" he walked around until he bumped into something and groaned in pain. The detective quickly pointed the flashlight to where he was.
A lonely chair in the far right corner of the small room. On the ground next to the chair was very thick book with a bookmark in it. Izzie picked it up and read through the cover. Soon she realized: It was a spell book. She got to the bookmarked page and read through. She hummed. "It's a spell to bring something to life!" Cooper realized as he read the instructions.
"I feel like the chef and his son are hiding something from us, Coop meister..".
"Let's go back to Mateo and Blade to get a conclusion to this case." Izzie interrupted, the two running up the stairs.
Mateo dream crafted Z Blob into his robot form. The blob ran up to the beast and the two got into a brawl.
The slime monster launched a strong hit on Z Blob, but our hero blocked him off. Z Blob started throwing chairs and anything he could find at the monster. Izzie and Cooper barged into the agitated room.
"What's going on?" Cooper asked, dodging stuff being thrown. "A monster is attacking the people in the restaurant!" Blade explained "Guys, watch out!" they screamed out as a table flew in their direction. The four kids used said table to take cover. Izzie looked around until she saw a familiar face.
It was the chef, hiding in a corner of the room. "Do you know anything about this?" she asked him through the commotion. "I wanted to make a special apple jelly that could do tricks to make my customers laugh. But i think i said the spell wrong, because it got out of control and tried attacking me. I thought i hit it hard enough for it to die, but it didn't!" he explained.
"Do you know anything that could defeat him?" Mateo asked. "Yes! Do you see that dark red dot in the middle of it? The spell book said that that's his heart. Maybe if your green guy hits it in that spot, the spell will stop!"
Mateo got up and started yelling: "Z Blob! Hit it in the middle of it's body!". Z Blob did as told, grabbing a chair to strike him there. The red jello monster started shaking and grumbling.
"Everyone, take cover!" Mateo screamed out until the monster explodes into a huge mass. Red jello covered the entire room from the ceiling to the floor. Everyone slowly got out from under the tables and from anything they have been hiding in. Blade curiously took a bit of jello into their mouth. "Yum! The monster is at least good for something!"
The chef thanked the dream chasers and the four kids go on their way to the treasure.