Chapter One: We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Andy, or “Hey, Idiot!” to his friends, didn't wake up in his bed. He knew it wasn't anywhere in his house either. He wasn't sure it was even Walla Walla. He was thoroughly refreshed from his sleep so he decided to figure out where he was.
This place wasn't like anywhere he had ever been before. He didn't know of any place that compared to it. He finally settled on the words “Lava Dungeon.” The whole place seemed to glow reddish-orange. He was on a small ridge that had a sharp fall to a boiling river of what looked like lava. However, the river of lava didn't seem to be moving. Indeed, it was even crusting over in some spots. The roof appeared to be 50 feet above his head. The entire place smelled rancid, but he couldn't think of anything it smelled like. It also smelled... good. The whole place seemed to be giving off such strange odors that he couldn't smell less than 3 things at any given time.
This was quite pleasant at first, but eventually it gave him a headache. Then something very strange happened. A bright pink light shone in the distance, and disappeared a second later. This pink light seemed very familiar, but from where? Eventually he decided to go exploring. He thought, “Nothing will happen if I just stay here.” He walked for a while, but didn't see anything of interest. “This place must be massive!” he thought. Then, when the echoes, came back he realized he had said that aloud. His voice seemed to echo forever off the cavernous walls. Then to his great surprise, a voice echoed back, saying “It is.” He decided at once that he must find the source of this voice.
“Where are you?” Andy asked.
“Who are you?” the voice responded.
“I'm Andy, the village idiot for Walla Walla.”
“Nice to meet you, Andy. I'm Bob, President of the National Association of Village Idiots.”
Andy was stunned. Here was someone Andy could relate to. A village idiot. An IMPORTANT village idiot. However this person, Bob, didn't sound much like a village idiot. Andy decided he must make sure they were brothers in idiocy.
“Are you a village idiot?”
“No, but I used to be. That is why I'm President of the National Association of Village Idiots. I know what you guys go through, but I'm more 'Socially Acceptable.'”
Andy had to think about this for a moment. “Socially Acceptable.” What did it mean?
Bob finally sensed this and said, “Socially acceptable means the people can accept me better.”
“Oh, I get it now.”
“OK, we need to talk face to face and discuss getting out of here. Are there lava pools on your side of the lava river?”
Andy couldn't see any so he said, “No, I don't see any.”
“Good, we're on the same side of the river. Now, is the river on your left of your right?”
“Lets see... L for left... its on my right!”
“Good! Just keep walking forward. Keep to the bank of the river. Let me know when you get to the bridge.”
Andy walked for a long time, but eventually reached the bridge.
“What now?” Andy asked.
“All right, just walk straight on until the fence. Let me know when you're there.”
It turned out that the bridge was exactly halfway between where he woke up and the fence. It took him another long time to get to the fence, but he eventually got there.
“Now what?”
“Follow the fence away from the river. You'll reach the cavern wall eventually. At that point just follow the wall until you find me. I'm sitting on a chair”
“OK”
“Remember, if you can't remember all that, just yell and ask me again.”
“I think I can remember. Can I take a break? I'm tired.”
“Of course you can,” Bob said with amusement.
Andy thought that if he could see Bob's face it would have a small smile.

Andy reached into his pants pocket, for he had forgotten to change into pajamas the previous night, and found a melted chocolate bar. He knew it was very impolite to eat so sloppily, but he was hungry so he ate it. He leaned against the fence and almost fell asleep, but he eventually decide to start walking again. It took him a very long time, but eventually he reached the wall. At this point something happened to Andy that didn't happen very often. He remembered something. In this particular situation he remembered that he had his watch on. He looked on his wrist and saw that it was 10:00 AM. Andy's internal clock was so finely tuned that he always woke up at 8:00 AM. That meant he had been lost for 2 hours. Then he had another unusual occurrence, a thought.
“Why are you here?”
“I've been trying to piece the situation together. That and I know a little bit about what is going on here.”
“So what IS going on?”
“We'll talk later, this needs to be a private conversation.”
Well, this just confused Andy even more. Then something else that was unusual for Andy happened. He remembered. He remembered to keep walking along the cave wall. So he walked, and he walked, and he walked. After about another hour went by he saw something in the distance. He was about to ask if it was Bob when he heard “Is that you Andy? Jump up and down if it is you.”
Andy decided to jump up and down and Bob replied ecstatically “It is you! I imagine you can see me right now! Just keep running!”
Fairly soon he got to meet Bob face to face. He was a very average man. He was about five feet, six inches. He was neither fat nor skinny. He was dressed in average, everyday clothing. He was right-handed and had brown eyes. He wasn't really anything special. But he gave off a sense of power.
“Nice to meet you Andy!” said Bob.
“Nice to meet you too, Bob! So, what's been going on?”
“We need to talk in whispers so the stupidians don't hear us,” whispered Bob.
“Who are the stupidians?”
“Let me start at the beginning. I know all the things I am about to tell you because the stupidians were stupid enough to tell me everything. We are on the planet Stupid. The...”
“What!? We're on another PLANET!?”
“Yes. The stupidians are stupid enough to believe that village idiots are the smartest people on earth. However, the stupidians aren't really dumb, they just don't have any common sense. They are smart enough to build spaceships and teleporter beams, but don't have the common sense to know that village idiots are not smart. They abducted us and flew us through hyperspace to the planet. Then they teleported us down to this chamber. But before they teleported us down here, they told me that they were going to get us to give them all our knowledge and then they would remove our brains to make sure we told them everything. They told me that there are 10 other village idiots on the planet. We need to rescue them. Will you help me?”
“Sure. I have a question though.”
“Sure, fire away.”
“Was that bright pink light I saw before I started talking to you a few hours ago one of their teleporter beams?”
“Yes, it probably was. Well, we should head out now. Let's head out to the bridge.”
It took a very long time to get to the bridge, but time moved a lot faster because Andy had someone to talk to on the way there. Finally they reached the bridge. At that point Bob gave a very grave warning.
“After this point we need to be on the lookout for stupidian guards. We have to rescue the village idiot trapped in the prison we are underneath. There is something I haven't told you yet. The stupidians invented a wonderful device that gives any creature magical powers. I tricked the stupidians into giving me one of these devices. We will need to use the device on ourselves to be able to get past the guards.”
“What kinds of magical powers will the device give me?”
“The ability to poison, make someone fall asleep, immobilize someone, just generally hurt them and more.”
“All right! Lets use the device!”
The device was small, round, and had a small pink button on it in the middle. Andy held the device in one hand and pressed the button with the other hand. It felt as though electricity was surging through his entire body. Then it felt like he had be thrown into a giant vat of ice-cold water. Then, just a second later it felt like he had been on the beach for hours in August. Finally, it felt like his body was in a wind tunnel, but there wasn't actually any wind. Then it stopped. Andy could FEEL the magic surging through his veins.
“So, did it work?” Bob asked.
“I don't know.”
“Well then, try it out!”
“How do I do that?”
“Will yourself to break that rock on the ground! Just concentrate on breaking that rock in half. Concentrate very hard.”
Andy concentrated for just a second and the rock cleanly split in two.
“Well, I guess it works!” Andy said.
“Yeah, I guess it works.”
“It's your turn now.”
“OK, here it goes.”
It took just a moment and then the device had worked its magic on Bob too.
“I'll try and break that rock in half.” Bob said.
It took him half a minute before he could get it to break.
“Hmmm. This is very interesting. Maybe it works better for you because there is less going on in your head, so you can concentrate better.”
“That could explain it. So, are we ready to get out of here?”
“Yes. Let's go.”
They walked across the bridge and soon a stupidian guard spotted them. The stupidians were like nothing he had ever seen before. They had two arms in front and two in the back. They were just 4 feet tall and had brownish-gray colored scaly skin. Their heads were round and had no hair. Instead, they had two eyes on eye stocks that could move around freely and independently. They appeared, at least to Andy, to be very ugly. And then something bad happened.
“He has a gun,” Andy said in a small voice.
“Quick, attack him!”
It took about 5 seconds due to nervousness, but Andy eventually imagined a giant mallet hitting the stupidian over the head. The stupidian slumped over immediately, as if he had been hit over the head with a giant wooden mallet.
“Good work!” Bob said, “But here comes another one!”
And indeed, another one was coming. Andy concentrated hard again and the stupidian tripped and fell. Then his gun floated over to Andy and Bob.
“Whoa! I didn't know the magical powers included levitation!” Bob said.
“I didn't know either, I just figured I should try.”
“Well, come up with more of those lucky guesses and we'll rescue those village idiots in no time.”
They kept running onward and hitting stupidian guards with their own guns. These weren't ordinary guns though. They shot a (what else?) pink beam out that stunned whatever it hit. If you shot an inanimate object it would disintegrate. If you shot an animate object 5 times very quickly the person would die. If you shot the dead person three more times very, very quickly the person would disintegrate. The gun was shorter than a common rifle but was bigger around. The gun seemed to run off a perpetual power source that would never run out of energy.
“This is fun!” Andy commented.
“Yeah? Well it's about to get a lot funner! Watch out!” Bob said cynically.
About twenty stupidians were running toward them from all sides. They all were opening fire on Andy and Bob. They looked like an unbreakable wall.
Bob said, “On three start mowing them down. One Two Three!”
They both immediately opened fire. It took just thirty seconds before all the stupidians were knocked out. But not all was right. Bob was lying on the ground. Andy was stunned. Andy looked on his gun. He saw a little switch. He decided to flip it to see what it did. He took a shot at a stupidian. It immediately jumped right back up, and none of the others did. Andy quickly flipped the switch back and shot the stupidian again. Then he flipped the switch to the “Live” position, as he called it, and shot Bob with it. Immediately Bob jumped up and yelled “What did you do that for?”
“I didn't knock you out! The switch on the gun chooses whether the person shot with it gets knocked out or revived. The, um, left means knock out and the right means revive.”
“Oh, well then, thank you very much!”

*****

They moved quickly now, stunning the stupidians as they went. Then they finally made it to the center of the dungeon, where the teleporter was located. But they wouldn't get out of there without a fight. Suddenly, from out of nowhere a very large stupidian guard appeared.
“They have invisibility powers!!?!!” Andy and Bob said simultaneously.
“Yes we do!” said the stupidian guard, “Now prepare to be annihilated!!!”
They they began fighting. It was an epic battle that went something like this:
Andy and Bob immediately jumped behind the control panel for the teleportation as the guard shot. But this stupidian wasn't as stupid as the others. He immediately started running around the control panel to get at Andy and Bob, so they had to start running too. It was essentially a game of hide and seek, only with just one hiding place. They kept trying to take shots at each other, but with no success. Eventually, something dawned on Andy.
“I'm going to try and make a force field around us!” Andy yelled out.
“Might as well try!” Bob yelled back.
Then Andy concentrated as hard as he could as the guard took a shot aimed directly at Andy. But it didn't hit him. It stopped about five feet away from Andy, but it seemed to be deflected.
“OK Bob, try and stop him!” Andy yelled, “I can't hold him for long!”
“OK, I'll try,” Bob said meekly.
It was the longest thirty-three seconds of Andy's life. Andy got weaker and weaker as Bob concentrated trying to knock out the stupidian guard. Time seemed to move in slow motion as Andy held back the gun blasts. Andy was about to give way, when the stupidian guard just slumped over and collapsed.
Andy had to just pant for a minute out of sheer tiredness. He was throughly tired out from sustaining the force field. Unfortunately, there is no rest for the weary.
A minute or two later Bob said, “Reckon we should get started on figuring out how to teleport out of here?”
“Yeah. Let's take a look.”
They walked over and saw that it was really very simple. There was just one button. They pressed it and a little display showed a weird X like symbol, then Y like symbol, then a V like symbol, then 0, then nothing. At that time, the beam activated, but they didn't move. It appeared the beam activated for a large circle a few feet away.
“Let's try that again,” Bob said.
They pressed the button again and walked onto the circle. Just five seconds after they pressed the button, they were taken into a pink whirlwind. Everything seemed jumbled and it was confusing. Then everything stopped.