The kingswolf shook her head. “I thought he might be a rogue character. That’s happened before. Protagonist Preparatory sometimes sends over a crew and the characters don’t all get along. It messes up the whole tutorial quest. But I’m guessing he didn’t come with you?”
Indira and the others shook their heads.
“We’ve never seen him before,” Phoenix said.
The kingswolf looked even more worried now.
“Well, there’s a protocol. We can report this—”
Her sentence was cut off by distant shouting. Indira’s stomach twisted, thinking Joey had returned, but this voice was deeper. Allen Squalls looked ready to bolt until Phoenix put an arm around him, whispering something into his ear. As Indira listened, she realized the person was chanting a word that actually fit their scenario.
“Drago! Drago! Drago!”
Their crew rounded the ship cautiously. A figure was approaching from the opposite side of the road. He yelled the word like a wrestler calling out an opponent before entering the ring. Indira couldn’t help laughing. This was so clearly the assigned antagonist for their story. Even her tutor device hummed back to life, fixed on him, and pinged a message into her vision:
High-Level Antagonist
Indira found herself agreeing with that description. He was a colossal statue of a human being. His arms had muscles that she hadn’t known arms could have. He wore dark leather armor. Even his haircut, short on the sides, looked like a typical bad-guy haircut. Last but not least, there was a black-ink handprint on the right side of his face.
She rolled her eyes. “I assume you’re the Stained?”
He ignored her, fixing his eyes on Phoenix instead.
“I am Cavern. Loyal servant of the Howling Kings. I went into the darkspring for seven years and came out the other side. I am a weapon in the hands of the true conqueror, and I have come in search of—”
“You’re also late,” Indira interrupted. “We already met the real bad guy.”
The kingswolf nodded in agreement. “She’s right. We should talk.”
The massive boy looked surprised, then annoyed. Indira guessed he had rehearsed his speech several times. “Uh…I have come in search…of the Drago. Fire is forbidden. Dragons are—”
“Yeah, we know,” Indira cut in again. “We’ve got bigger problems, Caveman.”
And that finally forced him to break character.
“It’s Cavern. My name is Cavern. And you know what? I worked really hard on this speech. Could you just let me finish it? We’re all here to log some practice hours, you know. It’s just like a kid from Protagonist Preparatory to think the story is all about them.”
Indira rolled her eyes, then gestured. “Go ahead. Finish up.”
The boy took a deep breath and continued. “Dragons are cruel! Long live the king.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Is that it?”
He sighed. “That was all of it. You—well, you cut me off right at the end.”
“Great,” Indira replied. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
Cavern’s eyes narrowed. It took Indira a second to realize that the line she’d spoken sounded a lot like the kind of thing someone might say before a fight scene. Cavern clearly thought she was jumping back into character. He took a step forward and vanished.
Before Indira could even react, she caught sight of Cavern standing in Allen’s shadow. How had he moved so quickly? The antagonist set an ink-stained hand to Allen’s cheek.
“Welcome to my world,” Cavern whispered. “Join me, friend.”
There was a distant scream. Indira watched in horror as Squalls turned, the dark handprint spreading rapidly over one cheek. A second later, the boy’s eyes went lifeless.
Phoenix was conjuring his fire, ready to attack, but Cavern moved with blinding speed. His hand grazed Phoenix’s cheek. Her friend went statue still. A spin move brought him around to Gadget next. Indira stared as dark marks spread across each of their cheeks.
He’d left Indira for last, which gave her just enough time to react. She darted to the left of his first lunge. The kingswolf was shouting for Cavern to stop, but Indira saw that the antagonist was locked into the scene. He wasn’t going to be reasoned with.
She darted away from a second lunge and brought the butt of her hammer slamming into his back. The shove sent Cavern stumbling off the road.
“Hey!” she shouted at him. “Can you wait just one second? We need to—”
Cavern grinned at her. She watched him set that ink-stained handprint to his own cheek. The dark marks overlapped perfectly. His voice was less than a whisper.
“Serve your master.”
All three of Indira’s friends turned. Indira’s eyes widened as they marched toward her like zombies, hands outstretched. She was so shocked that she dodged a moment too late. Phoenix clutched her tunic. Gadget had her by the elbow. Squalls wrapped around her legs.
The three of them—obeying their new master—worked to pin Indira to the ground. Cavern strode patiently forward and knelt at her side. His smile was a twisted thing.
“Embrace the dark, friend.”
His hand grazed her cheek.
Everything went black.
“Indira?”
There were voices in the dark. Indira squinted but couldn’t make out anything. She stumbled blindly forward and almost got poked in the eye for her efforts.
“Ouch!” she said. “Sorry. Who’s there?”
“We’re all here.” Phoenix’s voice. “What is this place?”
Indira wasn’t sure. Her eyes were getting slowly accustomed to the surrounding darkness. It was quite cold wherever they were. The only noise aside from their voices was the howling of an angry wind. She did see a pinpoint of light in the distance, almost like a faded star. It took a moment for her vision to adjust. She was starting to get a feel for the shadows and shapes as she made an effort to pair their outlines with the voices she was hearing.
Squalls groaned. “I told you we were going to die! Should have guessed it would be a muscular guy in too-tight clothing. It’s always a muscular guy in too-tight clothing.”
Gadget let out a sudden laugh. “Cavern! I get it now. His name is Cavern.”
It was Indira’s turn to groan. “And we’re in a cave. How very clever of him.”
“My powers don’t work in here,” Phoenix said. “I can’t conjure any fire.”
Gadget answered, “I’m accessing some of the tutorial files. It took time to get through the firewall on my device, but this says that the Stained use magic that makes the dragons powerless. Which means he’s trapped us in here. This place belongs to him. It’s his private world. We’re cut off from our powers.”
“And our real bodies,” Indira noted. “You didn’t see what happened after he touched each of you. It was like you were his puppet or something. He made all of you attack me.”
“Creepy,” Gadget replied distractedly. “Anyone else’s tutor device working again?”
Indira squinted. The highlighted step in the Hero’s Journey was now TESTS, ALLIES, AND ENEMIES. The message about the kingswolves had finally faded. For the first time since they’d left town, Indira saw a bright arrow in the center of her vision. It pointed straight toward the distant pinprick of light.
“I think we need to go that way,” Indira said. “Come on. Stay close.”
It took some maneuvering to make sure everyone was together. Indira felt strange. A little lighter, as if she were more spirit than body in this place. She wasn’t sure what kind of magic Cavern had used on them, but she knew they needed to get out of here as soon as possible.
Indira did her best to follow the tutor device’s arrow, which had them tripping over jutting stones and nearly walking straight over the edges of unseen cli
ffs. Cavern’s name made more and more sense. A gentle mist floated down from above. The darkness behind them was so terrifyingly complete that Indira shivered at the thought of being trapped here forever.
Almost half an hour later, the pinprick of light solidified. The source grew until they stood in front of four distinct circles, glowing out from the wall of the cave. It was like looking through portholes on a ship. Instead of looking out at an ocean, however, they were seeing…
“Look at the angles,” Gadget noted. “We’re basically looking at our own visions of the world. He’s walking us down the road. It’s like Indira said. We’re puppets.”
In each circle, Cavern marched ahead. The four angles provided slightly different views of him. Indira heard a distant and muffled version of the kingswolf’s voice too. Indira was trying to think of a plan when Phoenix spoke on her right. “Whoa. Look at us.”
She glanced his way. There was enough light being cast from the circles back into the cave that she finally saw what Cavern had done. Phoenix stood there, but he was a ghostly version of himself. He was colorless, a pale outline of the boy she knew so well. Gadget stood a little beyond him and looked just as insubstantial. Indira held her own hand up for inspection. The light from the circles passed through her fingers like fog.
“I told you! We’re dead!” Allen complained.
“Not dead,” Phoenix corrected. “He captured our spirits. Or maybe our consciousness? Don’t you see? Our physical bodies are still out there, following him around. This…” He patted his ghostly chest. “This is more like…who we are on the inside? There are a lot of spells that focus on the separation of the physical body and the mind. I’ve just never seen someone who can do a spell this powerful in such a complete way. Pretty cool magic.”
Squalls was shaking his head. “Yes. Stealing our souls. Very cool.”
Indira looked down at her own body. Everything was insubstantial except for her hammer, which glinted silver in the light. Frowning, she turned back to the shimmering porthole. The surface glittered, and for a moment it reminded her of the length of a mirror.
And that gave her an idea.
“Hey. Gather around. I’ve got a plan.”
It took a minute to get everyone situated. Their ghostly arms were linked, their pale legs braced. Indira had tried this same trick with Phoenix during the fire. It hadn’t worked then, but this time would be different. It had to work.
“If I do this the right way, we’ll appear back on the road. Try not to make any noise. No gasping. No shouting. Just keep walking straight ahead like a zombie. We can’t lose our element of surprise.”
She waited for the others to nod before turning back to the circles. She took aim. This time she made sure to throw her hammer at just the right height. She anticipated the heavy tug each of them would have on her as she teleported. The silver hammer spun, colliding with the surface of the nearest porthole view. She was worried it wouldn’t work right until the moment the surface trembled, like water disturbed by a stone. Exactly the way the mirror in the Glimpse had worked. Everything blurred.
Indira blinked back to life. She was standing on the road. It was strange to feel the weight of her actual shoulders again. No longer a spirit, but a real person. It took all her concentration to snatch the spinning hammer out of thin air. There was a tug on her limbs as the magic dragged the rest of her crew through. Gentle whispers—no louder than a breeze—confirmed the return of her friends to their bodies. All of them exchanged glances.
Cavern marched ahead, unaware.
It was Indira who set a finger to her lips to silence the wide-eyed kingswolf. It was Indira who quietly gained a few steps on Cavern until she was right behind him. And it was Indira who brought her hammer across his temple, spinning him into unconsciousness.
An hour later, Indira’s tutor device was starting to get annoying. It kept telling her—and all the others—to run off into the mountains. Worse, it was taking points away from them every time they disobeyed. This was supposed to be the part of the story where they escaped the bad guy’s first attack, counted their lucky stars, and joined the waiting revolution.
But things had changed.
The first order of business had been tying up Cavern while he was knocked out. Gadget had offered a corded wire that looked flimsy, but the girl promised it would work as well as the thickest ropes. When Cavern finally woke up, he found himself thoroughly bound. Gadget had forced a pair of her work gloves over both his hands and even went as far as taping his fingers together so that he couldn’t take them off. Cavern narrowed both eyes directly at Indira.
“You won’t get away with this,” he began. “The Howling King will send more of the Stained. We will not stop until we find every dragon—”
Indira held up a hand. “Look. You gave your speech. Can you let us give ours?”
He leaned back, firelight bright across his face. “Fine.”
“The scenario has been interrupted,” Indira began. “We arrived at that crossroads and were supposed to be attacked by kingswolves. I assume you were trailing us. We were supposed to fight and defeat the kingswolves in those towers. You would have found them, rallied to the mountains, and hunted us down. Right?”
His eyes tightened. “As if I’d tell you the king’s plans!”
Indira groaned. “The king’s plans don’t matter right now. Didn’t you see that gigantic ship back at the crossroads? Didn’t you notice the puppies running around?”
She pointed back to their campfire. The remaining kingswolf had shifted into her full wolf form and curled up with all the little golden pups, doing her best to keep them warm in the cold night. “Do those look like kingswolves?” she asked. “Did that pirate ship look like it belonged in the forest?”
Cavern hesitated before shaking his head. “I suppose both are strange.”
“Great. Now we’re getting somewhere. Gadget?”
Their tech genius stepped forward. She had a tutor device balanced delicately on one finger. “The Plot sisters gave us a few extra devices. I’ve uploaded our footage,” she said. “I know you won’t believe us without seeing this for yourself. I’m going to slide it into your left eye, unless you already have a device like this one implanted there?”
He shook his head. “Devices? No, we have demon advisors.”
Indira and Gadget exchanged a glance.
“Demon advisors,” Gadget repeated. “Right. Well, you can borrow this one for now. Watch the playback I have cued up for you. It’ll give you a good idea of what we’re facing.”
Cavern looked annoyed but eventually nodded. “Fine.”
As gently as possible, Gadget slid the lens into their antagonist’s left eye. He braced himself, jaw clenched, like this was clearly an attempt to poison him. Indira watched him blink and guessed the second vision of the device was layering itself over what he saw in their world.
“If you stare long enough at the video, it will…”
But she trailed off as Cavern’s eyes went wide. Indira guessed that his vision of the forest had vanished, replaced by the footage of their encounter with Joey. She’d just watched the same video, analyzing every angle of the recording. She knew from experience that they would need to know everything they could to beat someone that powerful. When Cavern finished watching, Gadget helped him remove the device.
“See what we’re up against?” Indira asked.
“Who was that strangely clothed wizard?”
Indira couldn’t help laughing. “We’re not sure. We just did our first analysis while you were knocked out. All of us watched that same video. Phoenix, why don’t you catch him up?”
Phoenix stepped forward. “We know he’s not a part of our scenario. The clothes were the first giveaway. The boat was a second. Not to mention our tutor devices don’t even recognize him. He’s crashing the tutorial. Finally, we know h
e’s powerful. What he did wasn’t exactly magic. Magic leaves traces. It tells a story. When we went back to the boat he summoned, I tried to follow the trail, but it’s not an illusion. It’s not an enchanted item that he transfigured. It’s an actual boat. He pulled a boat out of thin air. We studied this in our history classes. There hasn’t been a wizard that powerful in a really long time.”
Cavern was nodding. “Perhaps he is ancient? An elder wizard, reborn?”
Indira had slowly been convincing herself of a different answer. There had been one too many worrisome clues: the too-sharp colors, the stunning power, the overall oddness. Indira didn’t like where the clues pointed, but that didn’t make her conclusion any less likely.
She cleared her throat and offered her own guess. “I think he’s an Author.”
Even if she wasn’t completely convinced that Cavern was on their side, Indira knew their best choice was to trust him. It would have been easy to tie Cavern up and leave him behind. But the more she thought about Joey, the more she realized they were going to need all the help they could get. Having someone with Cavern’s abilities? If it came to a fight, that cave trick might just come in handy. As Gadget removed the antagonist’s bindings, Indira grinned. She didn’t think this was a step in the typical Hero’s Journey.
Cavern flexed his newly freed hands.
Phoenix leaned close to her and whispered, “Are you sure about this?”
Indira shrugged. “Never hurts to have more firepower.”
Cavern actually cracked his neck before grinning at them.
“Tell me. How did you escape the cave? I have always thought that was impossible.”
Indira waved her hammer. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Magical weapons,” he scoffed. “Protagonists always have unfair power-ups.”
“Seriously?” Indira asked. “You have a magical cave that traps people’s consciousnesses and cuts them off from their bodies and their abilities. Are you really pretending that’s not superpowerful?”
“I only have that ability because I traveled through the darkspring for seven—”
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