Good little thickets, they even get us across the water without getting us wet. How lovely. I kind of wish they could have brought their master along for the ride, though. He seems to know where he's going...but that's where the rest of us will have to step up to the plate. Starting, of course, with me. And Joe. We'll be supporting Nikki most of the way, because she's so green.

I consult the map, checking to see where exactly we are. Across the lake from where we started, which puts us maybe another tenth of the way closer to what I'm really hoping is the exit from the Underworld. The whole Underworld, and not just this region of it, whatever it may be called. There are no words on the map - none in any alphabet I can recognize, at least. I see a few markings that look like they could be some kind of language, written in spiky little words that look like EKG traces, but nothing I can understand at all.

"Bye, thickets," Nikki says, waving to them as they retreat back over the water. "May we meet again."

Joe and I tilt our heads at each other, then he steps up to me and pores over the map by my side. "Can you make heads or tails of this?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Oh, hell no. Pun intended."

"Pun acknowledged," I say, tracing my finger over the spaghetti path. "It, uh, looks like we're supposed to go this way..." I look to my right and spot a faintly moonlit path of sand bisecting a grassy knoll. I have to laugh at myself for those thoughts - seriously, "grassy knoll?" What, am I expecting JFK's second shooter to be waiting for us? Anything's possible in this freaking Underworld, I guess.

"And then what?" asks Joe.

I shake my head. "Besides this lake, there really aren't any landmarks on this map." I look up and over the knoll, but I can't see anything that could be on its other side. I have to wonder how expansive the rest of the Underworld truly is. I remember seeing the movie THX 1138 once - just once, and never again, and I recommend never watching it, ever. Classic it may be, but it's so not worth it, because the movie (at least, to my 18-year-old self) is so boring. But one thing that really stuck out to me from my one and only viewing was the prison scene, because the prison has no walls. And I mean no walls - it's just a seemingly infinite white void, like so much else in that movie. This part of the Underworld, I'm thinking, works similarly, except the void is mostly black. Other than, of course, the moon.

With Joe and Nikki in tow, I climb to the top of the knoll and see nothing but a thin strip of grass, with a sandy path bisecting it. On either side of the grass strip lies a massive expanse of sand sparkling faintly under the moonlight. As soon as I take a step off the top of the knoll, though, a massive edifice rises about a hundred yards away. It looks like a spooky Gothic pile of a castle, but without a moat or even a tall fence to guard it. I lead the way to that castle and, in spite of myself, knock on the door.

Right away, it opens, and of course, of course there's a cloaked figure waiting within. "Welcome to Castle Oblivion," he says in a deep voice. "We can help you find a shortcut to the mortal realm...if you come through this castle."

Joe cocks his head at the guy. "What's the catch?"

"Only that you must surrender your memories."

"Nope!" Nikki tugs on my arm. "I've played this video game before, sweetheart. It does not end well."

"Have a nice day!" the spooky man calls after us as we head off.

Leaving this castle behind, I turn around to see it fade into invisibility. But then two more appear right in front of us, with only a narrow gap between them - they're encroaching onto the path.

"Uh, no." I exchange glances with the rest of my little party. "We're not gonna knock on any more strangers' doors tonight, got it?"

"What if it's an inn or something?" asks Nikki.

"Yeah, but these" - I gesture at the towering structures in front of us - "aren't inns." We move past the two castles, and it sounds scarily like they're coming closer together as we pass between them. Like, are they about to crush us?

Moving on...and then, once these two castles disappear from view, a ring of no less than eight forms, completely surrounding us.

"Oh..." I say.

"...shit," Joe finishes.