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Ahab nosed his way through book after book, looking for a clue of some kind. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but doing was better than nothing. He was actually panicking. Helplessness is not a nice feeling, especially when you always want to be in control. His heart was racing and his fingers trembled as he turned the pages.

He tried to block out the noises everybody else was making so he could concentrate on…. Whatever he was doing. The others, however, sounded like they were having a fiasco. There was so much hacking and grunting and squealing (from mister spider monkey), that he could take it no longer and flung the book he was skimming through (How to Block the Sounds of Human Pain — A Guide for Primitive Doctors) across the room in irritation.

He was about to demand that everybody be quiet — though he knew it wouldn’t work — when he noticed what they were doing. The Gnat had weakened the ceiling, Ax-Kid was hacking through it, and Monkey boy was doing whatever he was doing. Ahab crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. But inwardly, he was pretty impressed. They were working together, which was the way to go. He just hoped the castle wasn’t compacting itself on all the floors, and that the ceiling wasn’t too thick and led to another room instead of an attic or the outside or some other deadly trap.

But he hadn’t found any information, and knew there was a one in a five-thousand chance he would actually find the book that contained a clue if there even was one. So he decided to help because he needed it. Not for the others’ sake, but for himself. If they got out, fine. If they didn’t? No biggie. He didn’t really like to see others die, he didn’t exactly like killing — he didn’t do it for the fun of it — but if it was his life versus someone else’s, well, the choice was quickly resolved.

He quickly sorted through several ideas, and then marched over to the Ax-kid, Gnat, and monkey.

“Need a lift?”

The girl looked at him warily with two hands on her ax, and the Gnat hummed something inteligible. Monkey said some crude remarks that everybody ignored. Ahab rolled his eyes and smiled. “You could stand on my shoulders to chop at the ceiling.”

They blinked their eyes at him, and Ahab reached up an arm and touched the ceiling with his fingers. “You can stand on my shoulders and hack. Easy. I won’t dump you, or anything. I want to get out of this myself. But we’d better start moving. Choose to trust me if you want, or not. If mister presto can bring you up there himself, fine. I’m just here to offer my assistance, nothing more, nothing less. You can take it as a compliment I even see your plan as worth carrying out.”