“Who threw level stones all over the floor?” asked Jocelyn.
Penelope pointed at Princess Whiskers.
Jocelyn shook a finger at the cat. “Is this the example you feel the headmistress of a quest academy should be setting? You’re being a very bad professor.”
The cat hissed at her, too.
Copperhelm studied the glowing stones. “What made you place them together like that?”
Anne shook her head. “It wasn’t me. Princess Whiskers did that, too.”
Copperhelm took hold of Anne’s gauntlet and gently moved it away. The stones stopped glowing. He moved it back. They glowed again. This time the light of the medallion pulsed even faster until it became a steady glow itself.
“What do you think it means?” asked Anne.
“Personally, I think it means you’re all doomed,” said Copperhelm. “But that could just be me. Try the sparrow now.”
Anne held up her gauntlet-hand. “Activate GPS.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, a rainbow-colored streak shot out of the gauntlet. It bounced around the office, off walls, off shelves, and even off the cat, sending her howling behind a shelf.
“Er, is that the sparrow?” asked Anne, trying to follow the blur around the room.
Jocelyn pressed her fingers against her temple. “They can be somewhat overenergetic, especially at the beginning of a quest.”
The sparrow finally stopped moving, alighted on the desk, and began chewing on a scroll. “Now, stop that,” Jocelyn said.
“I’m sorry. Was this yours?” said the sparrow. Since its mouth was full of scroll, this sounded more like “Em srbi. Wezzis urs?”
Copperhelm yanked the scroll out of the sparrow’s mouth. The bottom half had already been completely shredded.
Jocelyn sighed. “They also have a serious appetite for information, so you have to watch them constantly around books, scrolls, pamphlets, and pretty much anything with writing on it.”
The sparrow smacked its beak. “Needs more salt,” it chirped in a squeaky voice.
“You eat books?” asked Anne.
“It’s the best way to read them.” It hopped over to Anne. “You must by my Keeper. The name’s Jeffery.” He held out a tiny wing and Anne shook it. When she touched his feathers, she experienced a mild tingling sensation.
“Hi, Jeffery,” said Anne. “I’m glad you’re finally unstuck. We were hoping you could tell us about this medallion.”
“Sure,” said Jeffery. “It contains a Rightful Heir quest.”
Anne frowned. “A rightful what?”
“Obviously that’s a quest to become the heir to a kingdom,” Hiro interjected. “They’re not overly common these days, but they used to be popular a few centuries ago. If you finish the quest, you become the ruler of a tier, typically whatever tier you originated from. They can be very lucrative quests, too, although they do tend to be high level, from what I’ve read.”
“An excellent summary, Mr. Darkflame,” said Jocelyn.
Anne was momentarily stunned. “Wait. Are you saying that if I go on this quest, I’ll become the ruler of the tier I came from?”
“Sure,” said Jeffery. “I mean, where else would you be the heir of?”
“But what if I don’t know where I came from?”
“Not a problem. In fact, the quest is designed to help you figure that out.”
Home, Anne thought. She might actually find home. As much as she had dreamed of the possibility, she knew it might take years, and she also knew she might never discover where she came from. But less than a day after leaving Saint Lupin’s, she was being presented with an opportunity to actually find it. Anne didn’t know whether to smile or laugh or cry or do all of them at once. Penelope gave her a huge hug that lifted her clear off her feet.
“Yes, yes, it’s all very exciting,” said Jocelyn. “But let’s stick to the issue at hand. Jeffery, what level is it exactly?”
“Thirteen,” he chirped.
Jocelyn put her hands on her hips. “Now, Jeffery, we all know there’s no such thing as a Level Thirteen quest.”
Jeffery flapped his wings. “Hey, tell it to the medallion. I just work here.”
“Fine. We’ll come back to that part. Can you at least give us the quest riddle?”
Jeffery gave a tiny salute with his wing. “Yes, ma’am.”
He hopped back up onto the gauntlet, cleared his throat, opened his beak, and started singing in a clear, high voice:
Climb the tower with no door.
Ask the knight who never lived.
Take the key you cannot hold.
Claim the throne without a crown.
Anne waited for him to continue, but that was all he said.
“That’s it?” she asked.
“Yep,” said Jeffery. “I mean, unless the medallion is holding back on me. Sometimes they do that.” He gave the medallion a kick.
“But it didn’t rhyme,” said Hiro.
“Indeed,” said Jocelyn. “And there’s a poetry category on your evaluation form, so I’m afraid that’s going to affect your mark.”
“Wow, tough crowd,” said Jeffery.
Penelope scratched her head. “But it doesn’t make any sense. How can you climb a tower that doesn’t have a door? Or talk to someone who never lived? And what good is a key you can’t pick up? And how can you claim a throne if you can’t also claim the crown?”
“It’s a puzzle,” said Hiro. “We need to figure out the meaning of each line and follow the clues.”
“We’ll focus some of your classes specifically toward deciphering riddles and codebreaking,” said Jocelyn.
“We still have to attend classes?” said Anne.
“Not to worry. We can adjust your course load throughout the year as needed, and you might even be able to earn some extra credit. We’ll put together a schedule. Jeffery, how much time is there to complete the quest?”
“Four days,” chirped Jeffery.
There was a collective gasp throughout the room.
“I’m sorry, but did you say four days?” asked Anne.
“Whoops,” said Jeffery. “Nope. Sorry. That’s wrong. I miscalculated.”
Jocelyn nodded. “I should think so.”
“What I should have said was, you had four days at the moment you activated the medallion at precisely midnight last night. Now you have three days and fourteen and a half hours.”
THE ADVENTURER’S GUIDE TO PROPHECY SAYS THE FOLLOWING:
Before the implementation of medallions, the traditional manner of communicating prophecies was through dancing two-headed goats. Before that there were prophets. And before that there simply were no prophecies. Life was a lot less complicated then.
The best-known prophet in the entire history of the Hierarchy was Hoppert the Impeccably Accurate. Everyone hated him. Not because his prophecies came true (which they always did), but because they came late. Hoppert received his visions only moments before something catastrophic was about to happen, and therefore they never arrived in time to do anything more than help pick up the pieces. He even foretold his own death, which involved slamming into the bottom of a ravine. Unfortunately for Hoppert, the prophecy didn’t come to him until two seconds after the local villagers pitched him over the edge.
Not-So-Basic Training
So far, escaping from Saint Lupin’s hadn’t turned out exactly the way Anne had anticipated. Since yesterday morning, she’d been threatened, imprisoned, shot at with fireballs, chased by iron knights, and attacked by zombie sharks and a dragon. She’d fallen off a tier, been burned by a magickal gauntlet (which, incidentally, was now stuck on her hand with a silver prophecy medallion stuck to it), and narrowly escaped an arm-chopping headmistress. Now she had a chance to find her true home—but only if she could complete an impossible quest against impossible odds in an impossible amount of time.
“How much time do you usually get for a prophecy quest?” asked Anne.
“A year,”
said Hiro. “Sometimes more. Whoever heard of a four-day quest?”
“Maybe someone was trying to keep their long weekend free,” said Jeffery.
Jocelyn began pacing. “Quests are supposed to be grand and epic and allow you time to grow and develop as a person. Visit an exotic locale. Explore ancient ruins. Discover your mysterious origins. Four days is utterly ridiculous. Captain, do you have anything to say about this?”
“Sure,” said Copperhelm. He pointed at Anne, Penelope, and Hiro. “You’re all going to die horrible, agonizing deaths.”
“Captain! That is no way to encourage the students.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to encourage them.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Jocelyn. “You won’t die. Or at least probably not.”
“Probably not?” said Anne.
“What is the penalty if we don’t finish the quest?” asked Hiro.
“Lifelong imprisonment as traitors to the state,” chirped Jeffery. “But that includes a great health plan.”
“What!?” said Anne and Penelope at the same time.
Hiro turned pale and sank onto a nearby chair. “I signed my life away.”
Jocelyn pulled out her notebook and began making a list. “You’ll require the standard adventuring outfits. Weapons. Possibly a magick item or two if we can spare them. And while we’re doing that, we can provide you with some basic training.”
“Training?” said Copperhelm. “They’re supposed to receive three years of strategic combat and tactical warfare before going anywhere near a prophecy quest.”
“Can you condense that into a one-hour session?”
Copperhelm glared at her. “You know what, I’ll do even better than that. I’ll do it in under ten seconds.” He unsheathed one of his short swords. “This is the handle. That’s where you hold it. Up here is the pointy end. Don’t stab yourself with it. Class dismissed.”
Jocelyn frowned. “You know, with that kind of attitude, you’re in serious danger of getting yourself kicked off the Welcoming Committee.”
“Gee, that’ll be a heartbreaker,” he said, crossing his arms. Jocelyn glared daggers at him until he relented. “Look,” he said, “the truth is, we don’t have time for lessons. About all I can teach them is how not to impale themselves or each other.”
Jocelyn sighed. “Fine, but we are still required to equip them.”
“Yeah, best of luck with that, too. You-know-who has locked himself in the warehouse again.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that, now won’t we,” said Jocelyn with a look of determination. “Follow me, everyone.”
Jeffery disappeared back into the gauntlet (after Anne gave a “Deactivate GPS” command), and Jocelyn led the entire group (minus Princess Whiskers, who seemed happy to return to her nap) back up to the warehouse near the rope bridge. It was a two-story stone structure with large sliding doors in front and a regular-sized door on the side with a covered slit at eye level.
Jocelyn knocked on the side door.
The slit opened. “Password,” said a creaky voice.
“It’s me, Sassy. Open the—”
The slit closed, cutting her off.
Jocelyn knocked again.
The slit opened. “Password.”
“We have three new students who need immediate—”
The slit clicked shut.
Jocelyn took a calming breath and knocked a third time.
The slit opened. “Password.”
“Sassafras, you know perfectly well there’s no password required for gaining entry into the warehouse,” said Jocelyn in a rush.
“That’s exactly the type of trick someone who doesn’t know the password would try.”
The slit snapped shut yet again.
Copperhelm stepped forward. “Let me try.” He pounded his fist on the door. The slit opened, but before the voice behind the door could say anything, Copperhelm spoke. “You’re going to open this door right now, you ninny, or I’m going to chop it down with my axe and make you eat your own hat.”
“That’s fine,” said the voice. “I honestly don’t remember the password anyway.”
The door unlocked with a click and then opened. A brittle-looking old man stood just inside the warehouse. He was slightly hunchbacked, and his light brown skin had what appeared to be a subtle wood-grain pattern. He wore a faded brown cloak over an equally faded yellow robe, both of which did little to disguise his wiry frame. A small pointed cap sat atop a tangle of white hair, and a pair of bent spectacles perched uneasily at the end of his long, thin nose. There was also a peculiar glint in his eye that Anne felt might be indicative of some impending madness—minus the impending part.
“This is Professor Sassafras,” said Jocelyn. “Wizard extraordinaire, master of the magickal arts, diviner of the dark forces of the universe. He’s also one-sixteenth dryad on his mother’s side and just celebrated his one thousand and first birthday. He currently teaches all of our courses on magick.”
Sassafras extended an unsteady arm. Anne reached out, but instead of the wizened hand she had been expecting, a rubbery, beak-like snout poked out of the old man’s sleeve. She jumped back.
“What is that?” said Anne.
Sassafras swung his head from side to side. “What is what?”
“That thing. On your arm.”
“Oh, that,” he said. “It’s a duck-billed platypus.” And indeed, a platypus gurgled happily from his sleeve.
“But… it’s alive,” said Anne.
Sassafras looked perplexed. “You would prefer it dead?”
“No. I just mean, it’s attached to you. Where an arm should be.”
“I still have half an arm.” He rolled back his sleeve to show that the platypus ended several inches before his elbow. “Some spells are trickier than others.” The platypus playfully nipped at his ear. “In any case, it’s nothing a little platypusectomy won’t eventually cure.”
Penelope scrunched up her nose and whispered to Anne. “I think that’s the most disturbing word I’ve ever heard.”
“The really disturbing part is, I hear this isn’t the first occasion he’s had to use it,” Hiro whispered to both of them.
Jocelyn waved everyone forward. “Sassy, the long and short of it is, these students have an active prophecy medallion and require whatever equipment we can spare. I’m also going to need you to provide them with an accelerated course of study in magick.”
“How many weeks should I schedule?” asked Sassafras.
“You have fifteen minutes.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, I should probably cancel the field trip.”
Sassafras ushered them over to three stools in the corner. While Anne and the others took their seats, the wizard hobbled back and forth unsteadily in front of them, looking as though he might tip over at any moment.
“So then,” croaked Sassafras. “Welcome to Magick 101—and also apparently 201, 301, and 401. Since almost anyone can learn to use magick, it’s beneficial for everyone to study at least the basics. Given our limited time, however, I will restrict my comments to the three most essential things you need to know about magick. The first, and this is very important, is that magick always has a cost. The cost is unique to each user and can be almost anything. One person might lose a single hair every time they cast a spell. Another might get the hiccups. In my case, with every spell I cast, I also conjure an animal.” Sassafras stopped and held up his platypus-arm.
Anne swallowed.
“Now I’m doubly glad I drew the fighter token,” said Penelope.
Hiro said nothing, but he looked more despondent than ever.
Sassafras resumed pacing. “The second thing to know about magick is that you require a license. A wizard token usually suffices.”
“What happens if you cast a spell without a license?” asked Anne.
“They feed you to a dragon.”
Everyone’s eyes went wide.
Sassafras chuckled. “Just kidding.
You pay a small fine. But the dragons might still eat you anyway,” he added with a shiver.
“Finally,” he said, “in order to cast a spell, you require a spell book.” He shuffled over to a nearby shelf and began rummaging. “Somewhere here I have the unabridged edition of Magick Spells for Nearly All Occasions. It’s an older text, but still serviceable. Ah, here we are.” He handed a slim volume to Jocelyn.
“Sassy, this is a Wizards’ Council Special Order Spell Catalog,” said Jocelyn.
He adjusted his spectacles and studied the cover. “Oh yes. Quite right. I remember now. My last copy of Magick Spells got eaten by a flying goat. Well, the catalog has a few sample spells in the back. Those should be enough to get you through. If nothing else, you might find the Minor Exploding Spell useful.”
Jocelyn passed the catalog over to Hiro. “Mr. Darkflame drew the wizard token, so obviously it should go to him. He received top marks in all his pre-magick theory classes at his former school, and I expect he has the makings of a great wizard.”
Hiro looked as though he was about to say something, but he pocketed the catalog without speaking. Anne wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. Hiro seemed to alternate between showing off his knowledge at every opportunity or else total silence, especially when the topic of wizards or magick came up.
“And that about covers it,” said Sassafras. “Now to a more important topic: Has anyone seen my slippers?”
With that, Sassafras and the platypus both promptly fell asleep where they were standing, and the group proceeded across the warehouse. As they walked past rows of shelves, Anne noticed a stack of metal crates along the wall that were rocking slightly, with random flashes of light seeping through the cracks.
“What’s in these?” she asked.
“Backup fireballs,” said Jocelyn. “Nana left them here, for when we don’t have a dragon handy.”
“Is that safe?”
The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes Page 7