Prompt: Your path is completely blocked by what seems at first to be a smooth boulder. Upon further inspection, it is the shell of an enormous snail. What do you do?

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Luckily Cordula recognized where they were as they got closer to where the pixie gazebo had been. Finally breaking the silence the weld courser indicated they were getting near. With this knowledge they found a way around that particular section of the path and followed a new one that led parallel, but far enough away that they would not get attacked by the pixies.

“Alright, so we’ll go that way,” Jalil said.

“That would be amazing. I don’t think I can take pixies screaming in my ear right now. They are very high pitched,” Cordula replied

Jalil chuckled.

“Let’s just hope there are no gazebos this way too,” he remarked.

They turned from their current path and began to follow the smaller one that was clearly less traveled. The two continued to walk side by side but their pelts occasionally brushed as they swayed with each step. After a while they were certain they were clear of the pixies. The path had not yet met back with the original. Just as they were beginning to wonder about leaving the path they realized they were surrounded by vine covered rocks that they would not be able to climb over or around. And then they reached the dead end.

“Wait, I was sure this was a path,” Jalil exclaimed.

“Actually, that rock looks a bit different, like it was carved or shaped?”

Jalil took a closer look at the stone upon hearing Cordula’s observation. A large spiral swirled in the center of the large stone. It was wedged between the two stone walls on either side of them and angled so one end was a little further up the past from the back. Cordula approached and took a step into the triangle created there, noticing the other end was shaped differently.

“This looks like a shell,” she commented.

It then dawned on Jalil.

“Dang, what a place to get stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“It’s a giant snail. Must have wedged itself somehow.”

“Oh, do you think we can unwedge it?”

“We can try… maybe try and find something we can use as a lever.”

The two began to look around. With the path so thin there was not a lot to find or they would have stepped on them sooner. Turning back the way they had come Cordula tried to find any of the places where the path had widened slightly, hoping to find something. Jalil searched closer to the snail and tried to find out if anything lived inside the shell or if it had been abandoned or passed.

As Cordula inspected one little cove in the stone walls of the path, she found what appeared to be a long piece of metal. Rounded and sticking out of the wall. Kicking at it a bit knocked it out of the crevice it had been wedged in thankfully. Off Cordula went to bring it back to Jalil.

“I foun somfing!” they mumbled as they approached the black courser.

“Oh! That is perfect! And I have learned there is indeed a snail still in there. It’s just very stuck.”

Taking a stone from the ground and placing it against the wall, they wedged the metal pole between the shell and the wall and pinned the rock against the wall with the pole. The plan was to pull the end closer to them away from the wall and straighten out the snail. The two coursers could then pass one-by-one along the one wall while the snail could also continue down the path, hopefully without getting stuck this time.

“Alright, on the count of three. One, two… three!”

As Jalil counted to three the two pushed against the pole. There was a creaking and scraping sound as the shell began to move. It released from the wall and eventually there was enough space between the shell and the wall that the pole was no longer needed. Cordula, who was the larger of the two, was able to push the snail so it aligned with the other wall.

“There! We can get through, and hopefully the snail will be alright.”

Jalil nodded. One-by-one, Cordula going first, they passed the snail by and continued on their way. They did pause to look behind them, seeing the snail tentatively come out of its shell to inspect what had happened. It looked a little confused but happy to be out of its predicament. The coursers felt good about their good deed, and they would soon feel even better once they reached the exit. Cordula was just happy they didn’t have to go back and ultimately face the pixies once more. Pixie trouble had successfully been avoided.