The cannibal King Edward was still stuck stranded in the center of the planet. He only had a stump to defend himself, and two lackeys still remaining to keep him company. Time was running out to get out of this haunted place full of things that could be real or fake.

“What just happened, the Queen was here and then she disappeared” said the knight standing to his right.

“I suggest we forget all about it as this temple is playing mental tricks on us and I would guess some kind of spell defense mechanism. We still have a gamble of getting out of here if you two keep your composer” ordered the King.

“Yes sir” said the two last remaining knights.

“Let's find the next steps to take,” said the King.

He walked into a factory maze of large identical cardboard packages.

“Gulp, we better all stick together like roach honey if we want to survive Moose” said the smallest knight.

Vito sped off to catch the ruler leaving the remaining knight all alone. Mooseman found himself left out in the dust, staring down a dark chasm. The husky knight turned and began to jog while losing sight of both men in front of him. He was lagging behind in an area that punished you for existing. It wasn’t mistakes being the cause of most knights' demise in the planet's center.

“Hey that looks like an exit,” said the King, changing the direction of his stride.

He spotted something large at the edge of his vision briefly between the stacked rows of boxes.

“Maybe we should cut open some of these crates your majesty and see if anything useful resides inside” Vito loudly huffed out.

“Shh” said Edward, placing a finger over his lips.

The King continued walking. He did this long enough to leave a dozen rows behind him. A large square opening before a massive conveyor belt ran with more boxes along the far wall. He had come out of the middle of the factory maze of mysterious packages. He looked to see what was on either side of the beltway. He found two identical looking doors waiting on both ends.

“Crash!” a loud noise behind him.

The king turned to see his two knights toppled together in a pile. They had become separated in the box maze before running into each other around a corner.

“You two there,” he called.

“Yes sir” they both said standing.

“Take that door down there,” said King Edward, pointing. “I will take the other one, explore what you imagine to be an hour and meet back right here” he finished.

“We won’t let you down,” said Mooseman.

The party split up to find the exit.

The floor creaked as Edward walked alone further into the abandoned factory. The door grew closer, and closer. He entered.

The conveyor ran through the same wall with its entry marked with thick rubber drapes. The same looking boxes are still sitting along it every so often. This was a camped cave room full of equipment covered in dust, and spider webs. The floor is a thin metal grate that let you see the far drop below to the dungeon. It looked like some kind of grimy old furnace burner sitting far below his feet. The catwalk forked in two paths to avoid a rock formation in the center. The structure was lined with pipes, and vats of liquid that looked expired. He followed the opposite path staying with the belt.

The king had chosen a way, and walked forward. He saw a row of bats sleeping overhead on massive hanging rolls of clear plastic shipping wrapper. The boxes on the belt were wrapped in the stuff going forward. A rusted railing marked a drop to sudden death while stairs headed underneath the conveyor. He found himself re-acquainted with the other path rejoining into one again. So much for choices thought Edward. He pushed open the next metal door.

A single red light emitted from a control panel left dangling in a closet sized room. The thread holding it is a thick wire hanging from the ceiling. Edward got closer. The remote was filled with circular buttons waiting to be pushed. He stopped and looked behind his shoulder. A map stuck in a bucket almost looked like an attacker for a second. He noticed the rows of lockers, an industrial sink, and a bathtub was a little past it.

“If only they still made manuals, a new law one must be chained to every device when I make my return” sighed the King picking up the control panel.

None of the buttons were labeled, but only one out of all of them glowed red.

“Perhaps that button is the alarm,” Edward noted to himself.

He hit a different non glowing red button. He waited. Nothing happened. He tried a new one.

The wall groaned, pulling back a new entrance where the lockers had just been. .

“My lucky day,” said the king.

He walked into the dark opening.

The air was crisp, and wind blew from somewhere. The king stepped out of the cave, and from beyond a grave. The picture was black and white. A small rock wall blocked the immediate way forward where behind it small buildings sat every so often among the tombstones. The light above appeared to be moonlight borrowing through a large hole dug. The light seeped in enough to provide a clear picture with the aid of the burning torches hung around.

Edward scanned the massive graveyard for signs of life. He found nothing in that department, but he did see what looked like a patrolling skeleton. At the far end of the far side looked to be a rock running over a cliff edge. A bridge or something maybe he would find. The King sunk behind a crypt as he heard something drawing near. Just as he had hidden the sound of horses, sleigh bells, and cracking whips..

“I almost got our fresh finds to the dump like I told you Nancy. Yee haw” cried the dead driver speeding past.

A dead wizard clocked aboard a carriage driven by two skeletons of horses. The vehicle's body was packed to the brim with jostling coffins threatening to break out, and one did. The simple wooden coffin flipped over a bump. It smacked into a grave exploding into a shower of splinters, hair, teeth, and armor.

“Rats, I've done and flunked another one” cried Ned, stopping the sleigh.

“What is it? What have you screwed now?’ asked a raspy voice aboard.

“Just stay put Nancy. We dropped a coffin. You aren’t capable of cleaning due to your lack of eyes” said Ned.

The cloaked zombie with the frozen beard climbed onto the stones. He let the hook out from where it had been hiding in his wizard cloak. It now reflected a pale horse's skull in the moonlight.

Edward swore under his breath from where he was hiding. This was his best opportunity to retrieve what was stolen from him by that creature. He just needed to lurk in the shadows a little while longer, and plot the best angle to attack.

The coffin corpse had been bumped off the wagon but still had all the limbs to him. Ned eyed the guy over briefly before aiming. The hook shot out of the dead man's arm on sparking wires with a pop. His successful experiment pierced through the stomach of the target near a crypt. Ned fumbled with his other arm looking for something hidden in his robes.

“No no not there” he mumbled, throwing out a pool ball.

“What’s taking you so long?” Nancy whined from the hearse.

“Shut up.. Ahh ha I found it” cried Ned.

The wizard held an object to the moon in triumph. It was a winch key found on wind up toys, and devices. Ned slammed the key into his arm. He began winding, blood began spurting, and the corpse was delivered.

“Gotcha” said the wizard.

Edward leapt onto Ned in a surprise attack with his stump extended.

“Smack!, smack, CRACK!”

The King beat the creature with his stump too hard, launching it into the air. The cloaked zombie smashed through a gravestone and kept on traveling.

“What in tarnation” yelled Ned, smashing another stone to dust behind him.

The wizard looked in the other direction. He was heading towards a splat with the wall. He aimed the hook at Edward and fired his shot. The hooked body smashed into the King, tumbling him and it kept flying. The corpse's head bit into a spiked grave marker anchoring Ned away from being impacted by the wall. Meanwhile Edward dusted himself off. He saw the wizard start to wind himself slowly this way, and back together from opposite ends of the graveyard.

The King followed the wires to hyper-focus on the hook. He sprinted as fast as he could past the hearse, and dead horses, dodging a bite. He barreled towards the hook impaling a corpse and hooked to a grave marker towering overhead.

“What slithers by my hot rod chariot drawn by flame breathing dead reptiles” called Nancy still sitting in the rickety hearse drawn by normal dead horses.

“Dead zombies be my eyes, and my teeth rise from the grave to help Ned again, and again forever till time ends” cried the skeleton witch.

A termite emerged from the hearse, as a maggot emerged from Nancy’s eye socket. Together they ate well, as hungry hands inside the loaded coffins shook the shackles.

“Oh boy I forgot to unlock you well.. I gotta take this step by step and start with getting the key to the coffins” cackled Nancy.

Edward ran past weathered grave after grave that all were beginning to look the same. A golden naked statue momentarily distracted him with a display of massive junk. A plain fountain marked the path. A hole in the wall to a garden filled with dead flowers withered away to twigs.The grave marker was in the center. It was a spiral building just big enough to house winding stairs. Edward could see them waiting to be conquered through the open door as he continued sprinting along brown grass. He entered the structure and climbed as quickly as he could to the top.

The chained door was beaten open by a single blow from the stump. On the roof the wind blew, rattling tarps, drainpipes, and gargoyles. The bloody body hooked through the waist to the highest point overhead rattled the most. Edward looked over the side. Ned was really struggling to wind himself up the tower. Above the King was going to have to come up with a way to wind himself to the top before the wizard.

“Hmm” said Edward stump on his chin deep in thought.

“UrRG” spluttered Ned, winding with his hand, and climbing the tower with his feet.

The blood supply of the arm long dried on his shirt every twist of the winch still brought the wizard towards his hook, and body. He put foot over foot clumsily shambling along like only a zombie. Regardless of his current condition he would prove Nancy that he was a supremely competent individual. The only problem was she couldn’t see anything including how awesome he was.

“Smack, Wack!” said the King, launching himself onto the wizard, and beating him with the royal stump.

He cracked Ned in the head over, and over, and over again. The stump was bleeding again, but Ned's skull had been caved in. Edward saw the sweet brains exposed and came down swinging harder, and harder again. They were no longer slowly winding towards the destination hook.

“UUUUUH” groaned the zombie, dropping a device he tried to activate.

“You were dead before, but now you're really brain dead. A fitting punishment for a thief it is only too bad you were not alive to suffer more” said King Edward.

He was winding the key impaled into the limp zombie arm with a little skull remaining. They had almost reached the hook at the end of the wires. The device Ned had dropped below was a timed explosive.

Wind whistled fiercely on top of the grave marker. The spike was a barb over a platform to stand on. Edward held Ned’s arm as the wind blew him side to side, and over the roof. He slowly reeled them towards the hooked corpse. They were almost there..

“Gotcha,” said Edward.

The impaled knight fell to a limp thud on the platform below. The extended wires from the hook launching mechanism had begun to heap around threatening to tangle everything. The King removed his hook from being unstuck carefully with only his feet anchoring him. Ned added a ton of additional weight that threatened to topple them. Edward raised his stump and impaled it where the hook had previously hooked.

“Yeeooow” he yelled.

With his body secured at the stump Edward raised Ned by the arm. He already held the dead wizard's extended hook hand clenched between his teeth. The King used his mouth to begin sawing Ned's arm off. It was far up the arm that had attached a modified version of the King’s stolen hook. The king was getting everything back and more.

“He he he he” the dead wizard was faintly laughing.

“Who’s laughing now? I guess still you” said Edward.

He finished his cut, and released the body below. Ned hit the edge of the platform with the other corpse before rolling off to further fall. Edward was held high in the air by his stabbed stump as he slowly wound the two part hook launching device back together.

"Finally the hook is mine again" cried the King from the top of the spike.

Far below the small wave of zombie knights summoned by Nancy had entered the base of the structure to climb the stairs. This was where the timed explosive dropped by Ned had fallen onto a zombie arrow quiver. It was stabbed by arrow and soon exploded. The explosion rocked the graveyard destroying anything caught close. The tower creaked, moaned, and began to topple on account of taking most of the damage. It all fell down slowly wobbling from side to side, then just as it had started it smashed all together in a steaming pile of ruble. There was nothing that looked alive remaining here.