REPEAT: The Aldonn Chronicles 1x06 "Neat Trick" Presented by 99geek.ca

1x06 “Neat Trick”

Released on http://www.patreon.com/99geek on July 2018

The royal dining hall was dark as Chris Christopherson, still dressed in the plate armor signifying his command of the city guard, stepped through the door in answer to summons by his king. It wasn’t as if he was being distracted by any important duties, he’d been just pacing impatiently in his quarters when a servant had been sent to fetch for him.

A sole candle was lit in the hall, the flame dancing at Christopherson’s end of the dining hall. Squinting past it, he tried to see the far end of the table but his aging eyes couldn’t even make out a chair. He could, however, make out Manejo’s robed form, sitting just to the side of where the king would sit.

“Greetings Ser Christopherson,” Manejo said, getting up from his chair to bow politely. “A pleasure you could join us this evening.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Christopherson said insincerely, matching the man’s etiquette.

“Indeed,” the mage said with a smile. “We’ve been thinking a lot about the Thieves Guild’s incursion on Capsin Keep.”

“As have I,” Christopherson told him. He wondered how much of that “we” included the king.

“Perfect,” Manejo said, the young mage smiling a greasy smile. He was either in his late twenties or early thirties, with short brown hair and cleanly pressed red robes that seemed expertly fitted to him. “Then you’ll look into it right away.”

“I only take orders from my king,” Christopherson told the mage disdainfully, dropping his formalities.

“These orders come directly from your king,” said his majesty’s voice from the shadows. King George stood up from his chair, pulled against the back wall in the darkest shadows, and stepped forward enough that Christopherson could just make out his facial features in the dancing firelight.

“We want you to start an investigation into the matter.” The king said, looking to Manejo almost as if asking if he was doing it right. The mage nodded. “Collect information on what the guild is up to and prepare an intelligence briefing for the end of the week.”

Christopherson looked from the weasel-y mage to his king and nodded his head in compliance and loyalty. “I already have an agent in the field working on it now.”

“I hope he’s one of the best,” Manejo said from beside the king.

“She’s got,” Christopherson said, correcting the mage, “…weighty credentials.

*     *     *

Penelope knocked on the door of Janice’s pub, and the tall chubby thief Sean opened it to greet them.

“I brought him,” Penelope said, gesturing underneath her cloak to her butler Roric. He too was wearing a cloak and hood over his pale balding head.

Sean seemed to eye the man critically, and Penelope wondered if the gay thief was about to comment on Roric’s age. It seemed the man had more crass than that, however, asking instead, “You know first aid?”

“I studied for many years as a doctor but never completed my training,” Roric said, raising his nose proudly.

“You’re more qualified than anyone else in here,” Sean said, widening the door to let them inside. “Frankie really isn’t doing so good.”

“I’m doing fine,” Frankie said, from a table where Janice had her strewn out and topless. As Frankie spoke, the bartender poured alcohol on one of her smaller cuts and she screamed, twisting on the table in agony. Gasping for breath, she watched as Roric placed his leather bag of supplies on the table beside her.

“This old man is gonna save my life?” Frankie asked Penelope, laughing, and then cringing from the pain.

Penelope rolled her eyes. “If you give him a chance,” the princess said sternly.

Frankie tried to cover herself with her hand. “Don’t make fun,” she said weakly to Roric. “I know they’re small.”

“Frankie,” Janice said, stroking the thief’s head affectionately. “You’re beautiful and you know it.”

“Not anymore,” Frankie muttered, looking down at the bright red scar under her breast. The gash in her shoulder where Janice had applied pressure with a bloody rag. The other bloody rag pressed against her stomach. “Look what that bitch did to me.”

Janice kissed her tenderly on the lips, squeezing Frankie’s hand. “You’ll always be beautiful to me,” Janice told Frankie as their lips parted. Penelope thought it was cute, but Roric ignored the display of affection and got to work lifting the cloth off Frankie’s flat stomach. He reached his fingers in to examine the wound.

“Agh,” Frankie groaned, staring into Janice’s eyes affectionately if only to avoid thinking about the pain. “If only I had known I just had to get cut up pretty bad to rekindle the fire between us.”

“The fire never left,” Janice said in a sweet song voice, her dark skin shining in the bronze light of the bar. “It was you who pulled away or don’t you remember?”

Frankie winced again as Roric poked and prodded at her wound, pulling gloves from his bag, and gauze. “Hey doc,” she said to him. “Couldn’t you take a look at the big guy here. The lady and I have some catching up to do.” She glanced across to the table beside her where her large blonde friend was strewn out lifeless.

“I’d rather finish tending to this,” Roric said, looking closely into her wound. “It’s gone untreated long enough. It’s thin but looks relatively deep. How long was the blade that stabbed you here?”

Frankie reached under the table to pull something from one of the wooden legs. It was one of her daggers, one she was likely playing with earlier. “It was identical to this,” the thief said, twirling the blade in her hand, careful to avoid the two broken fingers Janice must have bound together while Penelope was gone.

“That’s deep,” he said, whistling. “You’re lucky it missed your liver. It looks like it did some minor lacerations to your intestines but it’s not leaking and you should heal okay as long as there isn’t an infection.”

He grabbed the bottle of whiskey the bartender had been using to clean her smaller cuts. “This is going to hurt,” Roric told Frankie and then Janice. “A lot.”

Janice’s eyes teared up, and she squeezed Frankie’s hand, kissing the wounded thief again as Roric poured the liquid over and inside the wound.

Frankie tensed, and then went limp, Janice releasing her from their kiss.

“Frankie?” Janice said with worry. She shook Frankie whose eyes seemed to loll into the back of her head.

“She must have passed out from the pain,” Roric said, not seeming too concerned.

“Or from blood loss,” Janice said fiercely with a look at the older man.

Roric ignored Janice’s insinuation. “She’ll be alright. This was the best thing that could have happened. I’ll quickly sew up this wound, then bandage that one on her shoulder. It’s too wide to sew, but also shallow.” He pointed at the shoulder and then grabbed his sewing kit from his bag. “Both wounds will heal but leave scars. The rest of her cuts should be unnoticeable in a couple weeks.”

“Where’s Ed?” Penelope asked as her servant got to work with his needle.

Richter pointed to the stairs, from the bar where he was sharpening his daggers and giving Frankie the decency not to look.

“We put him into a room upstairs,” Janice said with a look to Penelope. “He wasn’t looking too good either. What in all the hells happened to you guys out there?”

“Lee happened,” Richter said gruffly as Penelope passed him on her way to the stairs.

“Second door on the left,” Sean told the princess as she made her way up. She followed his directions, passing the first closed door and opening the second. Inside was a small quaint room, with an open window to allow in a breeze.

On the small single bed Edward tossed and turned, his face covered in sweat. It was clear he was in too much pain to sleep, and when he noticed her he turned away dramatically.

“Edward,” Penelope said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her.  He let out a small moan, trembling even though he was covered in layers. “How are you feeling?” She felt like the question was redundant.

“It hurts,” he said slowly, between gasps for breath. “It hurts more than it did when I was under the influence.”

She reached for him but he pulled away from her.

“Don’t look at me,” he snarled. “I hate it.” She wasn’t sure what he meant. “But it’s all I want.” Did he mean the drug they’d injected him with.

“Edward,” she said again.

“This is how they died,” he said, and Penelope frowned. She was having a most impossible time following his train of thought. “My parents.”

“You’re an orphan,” she said. She’d had no idea.

“They were found in a drug den overdosed on something the guards couldn’t identify,” Edward said, shivering under Penelope’s hand. The whole bed shook as she sat upon it. “They were guards too. No one knew they were crooked. I didn’t even know.”

“How old were you?” Penelope asked.

“Seven,” Edward told her. “I still remember them. They seemed so loving, and righteous. If they could see me now they’d be disappointed.”

Penelope shushed him, cooing gently into his ear. “They wouldn’t be disappointed.” He still wouldn’t turn to look at her, but she lay down on the bed beside him and wrapped her arm around his waist. Pressing her chin against the back of his head she whispered to him, “They’d be proud of the man you’ve become.”

“I became a soldier to try to clear their name,” Edward told her. “Bring honor back to it… it was dumb. I’ve only managed to dishonour our name more.”

“What IS your name?” Penelope asked him.

“I--” Edward paused for a long moment. “It doesn’t matter. I’m an orphan. I don’t have a name.”

“You were born with a name,” Penelope insisted to him.

He finally turned around to lie on his back. “I don’t remember it. I’m just Edward now.”

Penelope lay her head on his clammy chest, straddling him and closing her eyes as he lay trembling beneath her.

*

Frankie opened her eyes with a start, the doctor Roric still finishing up with her shoulder.

“I’m awake,” she said loudly, and Janice grabbed her hand excitedly.

“Good,” Roric said with a smile, pressing the tape against her bandage. “I’m just about done here.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Janice told Frankie.

“Hey I’m okay babe,” Frankie said, raising her good arm to touch Janice’s black face. “I can survive anything. It’ll be me alone at the end of the world facing down the demons of all the hells.”

She smiled to Janice. “How long was I out?” Frankie asked, lifting her head to look at her torso. Both her gut and her arm hurt like hell. She could only just see the gnarly stitches for a moment before Roric slapped a bandage on that too.

“You’ll need to change these bandages every day,” Roric told her.

“I’ll try,” Frankie said unconvincingly.

“I’ll make sure it happens,” Janice told the princess’ servant. Looking down at Frankie she finally answered the thief’s question. “You were gone about twenty minutes,” she said affectionately.

Frankie bolted up, and both Roric and Janice tried to hold her down.

“Whoa!” Janice exclaimed with worry.

“Take it easy,” Roric insisted. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re gonna need time to rest and heal before you can be fully active again.”

Frankie slid off the table onto her feet, almost swooning as her vision blurred and she had to lean on the table. Janice came around the table to put an arm under her.

“I’m okay,” Frankie insisted. “I’ll be fine. Just help my friend. Please.”

Roric turned around on his stool to observe the man on the table beside them. Frankie took an unsteady step forward and leaned on Aldonn’s table, looking down at his pale blonde form.

“What’s wrong with him?” Roric asked, confused. He unbuttoned Aldonn’s tunic and searched him for any cuts or bruises.

“He had his throat slit,” Frankie said, tracing her finger along the barely noticeable scar on his neck. Even the scar seemed to be fading away, and would soon be gone.

“That’s impossible,” Roric said following Frankie’s finger.

“I saw the man bleed out,” Richter said, hopping off the bar, and coming around to join them. He glanced to Frankie, “Where did you find this big lug?”

“Hey!” Sean said in complaint.

Richter raised his hands in defence. “Not that I have a problem with big lugs.”

“Just don’t get any ideas,” Sean warned playfully while Roric checked under Aldonn’s eyelids. He brought a candle close to Aldonn, and moved it away, seeming to watch how the irises reacted to the light.

“I found him locked up in a cage,” Frankie told them. “He’s always healed fast.”

“Nobody heals this fast” Roric insisted. “I think your friend is in a form of coma. If what you’re saying is true, it’s likely brought on by bloodloss. It’s certainly possible his body might be able to heal, but his blood still replenishes at a natural rate. Especially if he was brought so low, that might not be an easy thing for even him to accomplish. He’s riding now on a line between life and death.”

“What can we do to help him?” Frankie asked, as Janice handed her one of the barmaid’s tunics, and helped her painfully slide it on over her head. The shirt was too big for her, baggy at the sleeves and chest as well as extending past her waist.

Janice interrupted before Roric could respond. “I’ll do it,” she said. They looked at her with eyebrows raised. “You were about to say she needs a blood transfusion,” Janice explained to Roric. “And then she, expecting that, was going to offer herself.” She touched Frankie’s face. “But Frankie dear, you’ve lost too much blood. I’ll do it.”

“It’s a risky procedure,” Roric said. “I can’t guarantee it won’t make things worse for him. But it might also be the only thing that can wake him up.”

“You sure about this?” Frankie asked her. The last thing she wanted to do was risk the life of her closest friend.

“There’s more,” Roric said to Janice. “As a Mystene, there’ll be added complications to the blood transfusion.”

“A Mystene?” Frankie repeated. She’d heard of them, everyone had heard stories of the habitable land on the other side of the scorched desert. But no one had ever seen it. Or returned from a voyage across. There were legends of the people from there, the mystical city of Mysteria. For the name of a city, this one was apparently pretty on the nose.

“You’ve met one of my kind before?” Janice asked Roric with surprise.

“So it’s true?” Frankie said, her mind still aflutter.

“Oh really now,” Janice said with impatience. “You never wondered why I was the only black woman you’ve ever met in Capsin?”

“I--“ Frankie started to say. “Maybe that was what I liked about you.” It was said the people of Mysteria possessed inhuman abilities. Suddenly all the pieces were falling into place. “Well at least you’re not one of those hippie tree loving druids.”

Ignoring Frankie, Roric continued. “It’s possible during the blood transfusions your minds might connect.”

“Our minds have connected before,” Janice told him with a nod. “I can handle it.”

“You won’t be able to disconnect the link like you’re used to,” Roric told her.

“I can handle it,” Janice repeated. She grabbed the table Frankie had been lying on, and with Richter and Sean’s help she dragged it to be up against Aldonn’s.

“Very well then,” Roric said with a nod. “I’ll need time to prepare and sanitize my tools.”

“Okay,” Frankie said, getting out of the way and nodding her head as her mind started to wander. “And while you’re doing that, I’ll go to the mage tower.” She looked around for her jacket and found it on a chair. She slipped her bad arm through the sleeve carefully, still in quite a considerable amount of pain.

“What?” Janice said.

“What?” Richter said in tandem.

“You shouldn’t even be on your feet right now,” Roric argued indignantly. “You absolutely shouldn’t be going anywhere.”

Frankie slid on the other sleeve, careful not to wince too much from the pain and worry everyone. “I’ll be fine. I’m not just going to wait around here while my on again off again girlfriend risks her life for my best friend.”

Frankie looked at her friend’s pale form on the table. “I have to do something. Lee did this,” she said, looking around the room. “Lee has hurt all of us. And we need to start thinking pay back.”

“You can’t take Lee,” Richter warned her.

“Maybe not right now,” Frankie said, rubbing her bad shoulder with mock bravado. “But maybe the mages can if we give them some warning that he’s coming.”

“I thought you hate mages,” Janice said from the table.

“I do,” Frankie assured her. “I just hate Lee more.”

“So you’re going to storm over to the mage tower and do what?” Richter asked her. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“It’s nearly dawn,” Sean said from the window, giving Richter a look he didn’t return.

“I’ll warn them,” Frankie said determined. “I’ll warn the shit out of them. On Sean’s shoulders singing at the top of my lungs if I have to.” A tune came to her mind and she started singing, ‘In your eyes, thieves are coming, your eyes, hear me humming.’” She did a short, painful, dance with her arms and hips.

“We’re not going with you,” Richter said assuredly.

Sean crossed his arms. “Yeah we are,” he said. “She can’t go alone.”

“I’m coming too,” Penelope said from the stairs, the princess descending steadily.

Roric looked up at her from where he seemed to be putting his tools against the flame of a candle. “I know for a fact you hate the mages,” he said.

“I don’t hate the mages,” Penelope told her butler Roric. “I just don’t trust them. And what better opportunity than this to take a closer look at what they’re up to.”

“Yeah,” Frankie said, “’cept we don’t exactly need a princess.”

“That’s why she’ll be wearing the same cloak she used to sneak into the thieves guild,” Sean said, spotting the cloak lying against a table and tossing it to her.

“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Frankie admitted.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Richter asked, joining them by the door. “Once my boyfriend decides on something, you just have to go along with it.”

Janice lay back on the table as Roric finished up. “This is your last chance to back out,” he warned her.

“Wait,” Penelope said. “What are THEY doing?”

Janice’s eyes bugged out as Roric lifted a needle. “It’s that big?” she exclaimed, second thought definitely in her voice.

“It’s probably better you don’t ask,” Richter told the Princess, beckoning for her to lead the way out the door. Frankie would have followed but she went back to grab Janice’s hand.

“You don’t have to do this,” Frankie told her.

“You could stay here with me,” Janice told her back. Frankie didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to. Janice could see it all over her face. “Just promise me you won’t be dead when I wake up.” Richter stuck the needle into her arm, and she let out a painful gasp.

Frankie shook her head. “I shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep,” she told the barmaid. “In fact I’m feeling a little funny right now.” Frankie grabbed at her shoulder and stuck out her tongue. “Agh! They got me. I’m sorry, Janice, I tried.”

Janice’s eyes fluttered closed as her blood travelled through the thick rubber tubing into Aldonn’s body. Just before she passed out her last words were “You’re a real asshole Frankie.”

*

The light was blinding, forcing through her very eyelids. Janice tried to open her eyes, the blinding white light radiating from everywhere at once. It burned at her, and sound boomed in her ears until her ears bled. What was this nightmare world she was in? Why couldn’t she see anything? Why was it like she was surrounded in white?

Janice crouched into the fetal position and covered her ears as her senses were assaulted without end. She screamed. She cried. Where was she? How did she get there? Aldonn’s mind. This wasn’t real. None of this was real. It was his mindscape, and she was trapped within it now, the maze of fire she’d touched when she’d first probed him. If none of this was real, then it meant she could have some semblance of control. Her mind was her strength. It decided how much she could handle. She was in control.

The rules of this world could be bent, shaped with her own mind. She just had to exert some will. The world wasn’t too bright. It was just so bright her eyes needed time to adjust. She just had to believe that so completely, opening her eyes just a little bit at a time.

It appeared to be working. She could make out gold in all that white. Now for her ears to adjust. The booming almost seemed like some kind of talking, or a syllable. “DDDDEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHH” It said, ringing through her ears and rattling her bones as it repeated again and again. “DDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHH” “DDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHH”

What did it mean? Her eyes were still adjusting, and it seemed like she was in some kind of gargantuan stone palace, built for creatures far larger than her. There were golden columns that extended further above her head than the mage tower of Capsin. The sound seemed to be coming from two huge indecipherably bright beings in the center of the large palace hall. She couldn’t quite make out their forms, as they were radiating brighter even than the room, but she could tell one was speaking to another.

They seemed to be trapped in a moment, and it didn’t seem to be the most dignified of moments to be trapped in.

None of this was helping Janice.

There was a large doorway, like a portal that towered as high as the columns around her and glowed a similar radiant white. She could tell Aldonn’s consciousness wasn’t here, and if she could render a guess, she imagined he must have gone off to explore. Stepping through the doorway, she squinted at the light, letting her eyes open just a crack at a time until they could adjust. It was like a large floating paradise of white and gold, a large land mass of brilliant white cloud and golden brick roads leading from dazzling palaces along and up a hill to what appeared to be the most dazzling and mighty palace of all at the very top of the hill. The golden road traced down from there for miles, and beyond the palaces were open sky and clouds.

It was all more beautiful and fantastic for her to process, and she could feel her mind going mad from the strain of it. She tried to focus, and spotted someone far up the road of interest. It was someone like her, the only other non-glowing thing in this entire dreamscape.

Aldonn.

But how was she going to get to him? He was so far ahead. Her mind was splitting, like fire the images were tracing themselves on the surface of her brain. She could take it. She desperately tried to focus her mind, raise her defences. She couldn’t worry about anything but taking one step at a time. She narrowed her vision, blocked out all other stimuli and took her first steps.

*

Janice convulsed on the table as Roric watched, and blood began to trickle from her nose, eyes, and ears. “Oh dear,” he muttered to himself, alone in the bar. It had been half a century ago when he’d last met a Mystene. An old woman, she’d been wounded in the hospital where he was training. None of the other doctors wanted to treat her, but he’d stepped forward. She was too far gone for him to save her, but he made her passing easier and in return she told him many things about her life.

Mystene’s never left home until they were very old, as it took much of their life just to gain full control over their abilities. In their home nation they were surrounded by people with abilities like theirs. People who had mental defenses of their own. And every year their powers got stronger, and they required more intricate methods of keeping their mind closed to outside stimuli else risk going mad from it.

For a novice to choose to mature outside their homeland, in a large city like Capsin no less, she must have been running from something. If Roric understood what that lady had told him, it would only be a matter of time before Janice would be faced with a choice of either going mad, or returning home.

He was curious as to her story, but as she convulsed and bled on his table, he wondered if he’d ever even get the chance to ask her about it. Taking a rag, he tried to clean Janice up as best he could.

“Just hold on,” he said, as the blood transfusion continued. “It won’t be much longer now.”

*     *     *

They reached the base of the Mage Tower by the time the sun broke over the horizon to cover the city in a beautiful orange glow. The Mage district was always the most beautiful district in the city. No one dared litter there, and the homeless dared not congregate. There were different laws a person had to follow when they entered the Mage district. So most people avoided it, except for a sightseeing excursion; a careful afternoon in the park.

The entire district was a big circle, mostly grassland, with a simple cobblestone path that led the circumference of the district, where shops of magically attuned shopkeepers served trinkets and helpful magical remedies, and alchemical supplies and powerful gems.

Frankie ignored all the shops, following the path down the center of the park to the large tower that stretched so far into the sky above their heads that it could be seen from any point in Capsin.

“Now what’s your plan?” Richter asked as they got close.

Frankie reached the base of the tower. “I was gonna start by knocking on the door,” she said, pressing her palm against the base of the tower. “I would have expected it to be here.” She traced her hand around the tower, slowly circling its wide base.

“Uh huh,” Richter said unsurprised, crossing his arms and not following Frankie as she circled the tower. Coming to the other side, she was surprised to find there still was no door, ending back where she started. Richter seemed about to stifle a laugh.

“No one gets into the Mage tower that isn’t a mage,” Richter said confidently as Frankie stepped back. There didn’t seem to be a single window or point of entry in the first ten floors of the impossibly high tower.

“Well that’s inconvenient,” Frankie muttered, more to herself.

“There’s gotta be something we can do,” Sean said, trying to keep the group uplifted.

Penelope scratched her cloaked head, her long hair likely itching under the hood. “We could try to get their attention,” she suggested. She looked to Frankie. Of course if any of them would be good at gaining the mages attention it would be her.

“Alright,” Frankie said, stepping forward again and taking a deep breath, She cupped her hands and raised her face to the heavens. “Yo self-absorbed introvertal anti-social people hating snobby nosed elitest bath-robed twats. I’m here to save your fakkin lives. Send your leader down here to talk to me this instant or, so help me, I’m coming up there.”

“They’re definitely gonna wanna talk to us now,” Penelope muttered under her breath.

“Frankie certainly has a way with people,” Sean admitted, his mouth still agape.

“She has a way,” Richter corrected in a mutter. Stepping forward he confronted Frankie. “Probably wasn’t smart ending with an empty threat. You kinda played all your cards there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frankie told him, her mind already made up. She smacked him on the shoulder. “My threats are never empty.”

With twists of her wrists, she produced two daggers from the sleeves of her jacket. “I’m going up there.”

Richter frowned. “I’m pretty sure even your daggers can’t penetrate that brick.”

Frankie approached the tower, touching the grey brick with her hand. She then jammed the dagger between two bricks. “It doesn’t need to cut the brick. Just the mortar.”

Richter stepped up beside her, impressed. “Damn,” he said getting a closer look at the dagger.

She backed up and threw dagger after dagger at the wall, tracing a path for her up as far as she could see and reach with any reliable strength. Each dagger landed perfectly between bricks, stabbing into the hardened mortar of the building.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Frankie said, stepping back to take a running start. “But this is something I have to do.”

“Even at one hundred percent,” Richter warned. “This is a helluva climb even for you.”

Frankie grabbed a knife handle and began to climb her daggers like they were a ladder. Each handle, she pulled herself up to the next one, pressing her foot on a handle below. She continued all the way to the top of her path, and still she couldn’t see a window.

Wait, there was one ahead. She could make it. She produced two more daggers from her sleeve, stabbing one into the mortar above her and pulling herself up.

“Come on Frankie,” she said determined, pulling herself up again and again.

“I’m impressed by your determination,” A young male voice said directly into her ear, so close she could feel his breath.

“Ah!” Frankie said, letting go and dropping.

Dropping all of a foot, to land lightly on the ground at the feet of her friends. It appeared like she hadn’t gone any distance at all despite her every effort. There was someone new with them however, a young robed man, younger in the face than Frankie. Maybe nineteen.

“That looked like quite the exercise,” the robed man said, looking down at Frankie casually, and then looking up to where she’d thought she’d climbed to. “Very impressive.” The robed man shrugged and offered Frankie his hand. “That’s not the way in however.”

“You,” Frankie said angrily, slapping his hand away and forcing herself to her feet. Both Sean and Penelope helped steady her from behind. “You’re dumb fakking tower is bullshit. You know that? And,” she continued, putting her hands on her hips awkwardly, “VERY unwelcoming.”

The robed mage chuckled. He had brown eyes and brown hair, pale skin. He was tall, wiry, and a little awkward, a boyish almost childish roundness to his cheeks. “It’s definitely not MY tower,” he told her. “I just live here.”

“And who are you?” Richter asked, always the untrusting one.

“My name is Calvin,” the young mage said, offering Richter his hand. When the thief wouldn’t take it, Sean stepped forward to shake his hand. “Fantastic.” He said.

“I’m Sean, this is Richter.”

“Pleasure,” the robed teen said. “Ma’am?”

“Penelope,” the princess said under her cloak, forgetting that she was supposed to be undercover.

“Beautiful,” Calvin said with a gracious smile. His hand fell on Frankie, who reluctantly shook it as well.

“Name’s Frankie, and I need to talk to the man in charge here.”

Calvin smiled at Frankie as she released his hand. “Well that’s not going to be likely,” he told her sincerely. “They chose me to speak with you because I was the lowliest mage they could find at the time. Who wasn’t a child, of course.”

“Of course,” Frankie said with a fake smile.

“That must make you feel pretty good about yourself,” Richter said sarcastically.

Calvin’s smile barely wavered. “We try not to have an ego about such things,” he said unconvincingly. “The most important skill a mage must practice is patience.”

“Yeah?” Richter asked. “Well while you mages are busy waiting in your tower, the rest of us are suffering and dying down here.”

“And plotting,” Frankie said, giving Richter a look. “Including someone plotting against you.”

The robed teen looked from Frankie to Richter and then back again. Mild unconcerned confusion crossed his face as he asked, “Is that a threat? I’ll have you know that, though I may look young, I possess more than the required power to dispose of the likes of you.”

“I’m sure you do, snowflake,” Richter said gruffly.

“Ignore him,” Penelope said.

“Yeah,” Frankie agreed, giving Richter another warning glance. “Power down there, Sorcerer Supreme. We’re here to warn you. To help you. We’re the good guys.”

“Oh,” Calvin said with a tilt of his head. “I suppose you’ll want to come inside then.”

Frankie looked at Richter and Penelope successfully. “It would be nice,” Frankie said, turning her attention back to their guide.

“Well then follow me,” Calvin said, and he led them around the tower.

“We’ve actually already been this way,” Frankie said, all of them following right behind the mage. “You sure you aren’t locked out too?” she asked.

“Not at all,” the mage said with a smile. “We’re coming up on the door now.”

They were back where they started again, only this time there was a door exactly where Frankie had originally expected it to be.

“Neat trick,” Frankie huffed. “Why even bother taking us around if the door was right back where we started.”

Calvin smiled. “What makes you think we’re in the same place we were before?” he asked cryptically.

“He’s right,” Penelope said, looking out at the park around them. “Wasn’t that tree over there before?”

“What makes you think it’s the same tree?” Calvin asked, slipping a key into the door of the tower, and opening it wide for them. “Come come now. Inside.” He stepped through, and Frankie stepped after him. They were in a modest empty room with round stone walls and a small fire burning in a corner with a couple chairs. At the far wall was a richety wooden staircase that winded up to another non-descript wooden door.

“Now I should warn you,” Calvin said, turning around. “There’s a charm on the door, you won’t be able to bring your weapons through.” As Richter stepped through after Frankie there was a thunk behind him , and he patted himself with surprise.

“Hey!” Richter exclaimed, turning to find his daggers at the entrance of the door. “That’s not fair.”

“They won’t be able to come through,” Calvin warned him. “But fear not. They’ll be waiting for you when you leave.” Penelope followed after Richter, and there was a thunk when she passed through the door frame, and two sticks landed in a pile on top of Richter’s daggers.

“Am I the only one who came unarmed?” Sean asked, stepping through the door with no ill effect.

Richter shook his head. “Frankie too,” he said, giving her a knowing look.

Frankie twisted her wrist, and a dagger dropped from her sleeve, the very point to dance delicately on the end of her middle finger. She was careful so that Calvin didn’t see, and quickly pushed the dagger back up her sleeve to disappear. She didn’t know if the door hadn’t deemed her jacket a weapon because it couldn’t sense the daggers inside, or maybe it was just tuned to ignore magical artifacts.

“So,” Frankie said, quick to try and distract Calvin. She rubbed her hands together. “We finally made it to the ground floor.”

“Or not the ground floor,” Penelope suggested, looking out a window. Frankie joined her, surprised to find they were towering well above the city of Capsin looking down upon the rooftops of the houses lining the adjacent districts.

“Well that’s a neat trick,” Frankie said, not for the first time. There was a thud behind them as Richter and Sean joined them at the window. They all turned to see that the door they had entered in had completely disappeared.

“Will that be coming back,” Frankie asked Calvin, feeling stupid.

“You shouldn’t need it,” Calvin assured her, though she didn’t feel any more assured at all. “And trust me. You wouldn’t want to see what’s on our first floor.”

“This is our guest room,” Calvin said, rubbing his hands together as Frankie had done only just moments earlier.

“Where’s the bed?” Sean asked.

“Oh,” Calvin said, stopping. “No. It’s not that kind of guest room.” He laughed. “I can see how you’d get that mixed up though. Yes. No it’s not one of your guest rooms. It’s more of a waiting room, for our guests.”

“Normally I’d have you wait here for a mage to take responsibility of you,” he said. “But in this case that mage is me.”

“You wouldn’t want a non-mage running around here unsupervised,” Richter commented as they followed Calvin to the stairs.

“Quite,” Calvin confirmed. “Someone could very well get hurt.” Frankie was pretty sure he didn’t mean one of the mages. “Though it would take quite a lot of tenacity for someone without magic to get far in this tower. Shall we continue the tour?”

“We’re not really here for the--” Frankie started to say.

“We shall,” Penelope interrupted, waving her hand. “Lead the way.”

“I’d be charmed to, my dear,” Calvin said flirtatiously. He took her arm, and the two of them strutted together up the stairs to the door, the others following close behind.

“You’re very polite for a thief,” Calvin complimented Penelope as he opened the door for her.

“I think you’ll find,” Penelope said, “most thieves will surprise you if you’re not careful.” She stepped through the door into a large white hallway.

“I suppose I’ll have to keep my eye on any I come across,” Calvin told her, as the other piled through the door. “As long as you’re here I don’t think that should be too hard for me.”

There were windows along the walls of the hallway, each window peering into what seemed to be sterile laboratory environments where mages in clean robes were mixing what seemed like potions.

“You’re quite the ladies’ man, Master Calvin,” Penelope said, with a flirty smile of her own.

“I’ve actually never b-been with a woman,” Calvin said, his confidence wavering only ever so slightly, smile still on his face. “As an apprentice, far from a master, my studies keep me quite busy.”

“That’s awful,” Penelope said, tracing her finger down his chin.

Calvin cleared his throat and backed away from the disguised princess to address the group of them. “Ahem. Yes,” he said awkwardly. “You mentioned that all we do is wait in our tower while you people on the ground suffer and die.” He waved his arms, finally ready to address the large white hallway he’d lead them into.

“What many people of Memroxia don’t know of is all the misanthropic endeavors we have at work throughout the Mage Tower. The Mage Council has projects that span all over the world, searching out diseases that mages in labs just like these then work tirelessly to develop cures for.”

He led them down the long white hallway, passing lab after lab of mages hard at work with test tubes and beakers and cauldrons, making it to a door like the one they’d come in through.

“Right through here,” he told them, and they stepped through to find themselves in rolling wheat fields. Everyone looked around in wonder.

“Are we still in the tower?” Frankie asked, everyone else too lost for words. Frankie looked up at the bright sun in the sky, beaming warm sunlight down on them.

“It’s artificial,” Calvin told her, laughing.

“Neat trick,” Frankie muttered.

“We have numerous floors dedicated to extremely high yield crops we use to feed victims of disasters in crisis areas all around the world. This is just one floor of many devoted to wheat. We also have corn, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, apples, anything you can name, we grow in this very tower.”

“Weed?” Frankie asked. Everyone looked at her. “I’m asking for a friend.”

Sean raised his hand. “I’m the friend,” he said. “Do you grow pot here?”

 “I was just smoking some this morning,” Calvin admitted, and both Frankie and Sean offered him high fives.

“Nice.”

“Uh,” Calvin said, grinning despite himself. He accepted both high fives with enthusiasm. “Thank you. Yes, Marijuana is very relaxing when my studies become too much. Many mages here use it to help them focus again, so that they might be able to study more revitalized than ever.”

“Free pot?” Sean said, shaking his head. “Is it too late for me to sign up?”

Frankie shrugged. “Doesn’t sound all that much like my jam,” she said, averse to all the studying.

“If we could keep moving along,“ Calvin said, leading them through the fields. “There should be a door right this way.

*     *     *

Janice continued her brisk pace through the golden white cityscape of blinding light. Though Aldonn had been quite the distance away, and moving away from her with every step, his steps were slow and fumbling. He seemed to stumble repeatedly and it didn’t take much for her to catch up.

“Aldonn!” she called to him, and the large blond man turned, only what she saw was far from her expectation. His eyes were burnt out husks, and blood was trickling from his ears.

“I need to see more,” he said, though it didn’t seem like he could see anything at all. “Where am I?” he asked her, fumbling along the white washed wall of a building. “Where’s the exit?”

“Aldonn,” Janice said. “Listen to me. None of this is real. You’re trapped inside a memory, but your memories are fragmented. Closed off.”

“If I can just focus,” Aldonn said, and as he focused his eyesight seemed to return, but everything around him grew brighter and brighter and Janice screamed, her head exploding in pain. The stronger Aldonn got, the more it hurt her connection to him.

*

“Oh dear,” Roric exclaimed as Janice’s body began convulsing again.

“Where is everyone?” a scrawny short black haired man asked, taking the stairs slowly as he came down from one of the rooms on the second floor. He was covered in sweat, and barely seemed to be able to stand. “I needed water but no one heard me yelling.”

“They’ve all left,” Roric said. “I need your help.” Janice was convulsing uncontrollably, her nose bleeding quite profusely.

“What’s wrong with her?” the man asked, coming around the table and helping Roric hold her down.

“She’s helping your friend get a blood transfusion,” Roric told him. “But she’s given enough now. I’m going to disconnect the link between them. She should wake up almost instantaneously, I just need you to keep her steady. Mister?”

“Edward,” the man said, leaning down on Janice’s shoulders. Roric grabbed the large needle protruding from her arm, and carefully removed it, covering the wound with gauze and tape.

He looked at her face with hope but she didn’t wake up. Instead she just continued to convulse.

“I think she’s getting worse,” Edward said to the elderly man. “Did you have any other ideas?”

*

“Ah!” Janice screamed. “Stop it. You’re hurting me.”

“I need to see more,” Aldonn said again.

“I don’t think you can,” Janice said, and almost to refute her, the booming returned. “DDDDDEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHH”" “DDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHH” “DDDDDDDDEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT”

Janice cradled her head, her brain feeling like it was melting out her ears.

“I feel like someone was trying to tell me something,” Aldonn said. “I know it has to be important.”

“It’s not,” Janice insisted. “None of this is real. It was another life. The more you push to break the barrier between your old life and the new, the more you’ll tear me apart in the process.”

“Then leave,” Aldonn insisted. “Leave me to figure it out on my own.”

“I can’t,” Janice insisted. “I can’t let go of your mind. You have to let me go.”

“How?” Aldonn asked, the voice still booming throughout the dreamscape.

Janice grabbed Aldonn’s shoulders. “Wake up.”

*     *     *

“It’s an interesting weapon you have here,” Calvin commented to Penelope as the others followed behind them. They were still making their way through the large wheat fields, just finally making it to a barn.

In Calvin’s hands he made one of Penelope’s sticks appear out of thin air. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this before.”

“It’s called a kusarigama,” she told him, remembering what the thieves had called it in their armoury.

“I imagine it’s more than just a simple stick,” he said, closely examining one of its many latches.  “Care to show me how it works?” He handed her the weapon.

“Well of course,” Penelope said, taking the weapon as Calvin opened the large barn door. Instead of the inside of a barn, they were greeted to a large many story library, quite a lot larger than the barn that it appeared to them to be residing inside.

Penelope twisted her weapon, and the end of her weapon shot out a sharp sickle. Releasing the latch the sickle dropped from her hand to hang from a chain.

“Ingenious,” Calvin said as they stepped with him into the library. With another twist, Penelope was able to bring it all back to her hand, and the blade retracted. “I always marvel at the ingenuity of non-magic engineering.”

“Apprentice Calvin,” a woman’s voice rang out across the library. Penelope quickly hid the weapon inside the waist of her pants and Calvin, who saw the whole thing, mouthed her a thanks.

A thin woman with grey hair and a sharp pointed chin in grey robes with a blue band around the waist and sleeves approached them quite hurriedly. “Apprentice Calvin, what is the meaning of this? Who are these people?”

“And I bring you to the end of our tour,” Calvin told the group. “The Great Library.” He turned to the woman who was now right on top of them. “Master Relis. These vagabonds claim to come with a warning for us.”

“I hardly have time for commoner paranoia,” the grey haired woman croaked dismissively. “I’m on the verge of a breakthrough and it’s a big day tomorrow.”

“It’s about the Thieves Guild,” Penelope told the elderly woman.

Master Relis laughed. “You all look like you could be from the Thieves Guild, the whole lot of you.”

“We are,” Frankie told her. “Our guildleader betrayed me and tried to have us all killed. We come direct from their headquarters to tell you they mean to wage war on you and this whole damn place.”

Both Calvin and Master Relis laughed at that.

“Will they attack us here?” Relis asked, between uncontrollable bouts of laughter.

“I’m sorry,” Calvin said, laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. “I know you’re being serious. It’s just, well I mean you saw how successful your attempts at getting in were.”

Frankie crossed her arms, looking around the large library she was in where hundreds of mages seemed to be coming and going about their studies. “Seems to me I was pretty successful.”

“What is the meaning of this?” another, this time more male voice, rang out across the library.

“You old dudes really don’t like guys like us in your library,” Frankie commented under her breath.

“I told you to get rid of them,” a very short man with a long goatee said, his goatee so long that it almost seemed to curl in on itself. He was short enough to barely make it to Penelope’s waist. “Not invite them inside for tea.”

“I’m sorry Master Elmeiser,” Calvin said quickly.

“Sorry doesn’t begin to cover it,” the short angry man said, his face turning red. “You’re useless at everything. It is no small wonder no mage wants you as their apprentice.”

“Master Elmeiser,” Master Relis said briskly. “I would ask that you compose yourself immediately. These gentlemen and ladies have come with a warning for us. Apparently their guildleader intends scrupulous activities against the council.”

“The council hardly concerns itself with the activities of the Thieves Guild,” Master Elmeiser said, straightening his robes. His voice was shrill, and when his volume peaked, it made Penelope want to wince.

“I too am a member of that council,” Master Relis said indignantly. “Surely I still get some say. And with tomorrow’s shipment I think their conveniently timed warning should be worthy of at least a little attention.”

“A shipment tomorrow you say,” Frankie repeated. “If it’s vulnerable outside this tower, and it’s important to you, you can guarantee Lee is going to be after it.”

Elmeiser didn’t seem to like the way everyone was ganging up on him. “Fine,” he said. “Your warning has been taken under serious consideration. You will now be escorted from the premises.” He nodded to two large looking mages in red and black robes standing against the walls of the library holding thick metal wands in their hands.

“If you don’t let us help you,” Frankie complained, talking quickly, “Lee is going to make fools of all of you. We can help you. You’d be stupid not to accept our help.”

“Get them out of here,” Elmeiser told the two mage guards on duty. “Use any means necessary.”

“Enforcers Elmeiser?” Relis said angrily. “Aren’t you being a little excessive.”

One of the enforcers reached for Frankie and she pushed him away, twisting her wrist so a dagger dropped in her hand. “Don’t touch me,” she yelled. “Get back.”

“She’s armed,” The enforcer warned.

“See Master Relis,” Elmeiser said, “They’re all untrustworthy. Every one of them.” He turned to address Frankie. “We don’t need the help of thieves. We can more than handle both you and your pitiful guild.”

“Frankie,” Richter said, and Penelope noticed him fondle something in the palm of his hand just behind his back. Frankie noticed it as well.

“Sorry Penelope,” Frankie said.

“Why?” Penelope asked, pulling out her stick and swinging it at the second enforcer as he got too close. He blocked her kusarigama with his wand.

“You know what they say,” Frankie announced loudly to everyone in the library. “This is how the world ends. Not with a bang--”

Suddenly, before Frankie could finish her quote, Richter threw the black pouch in his hand at the ground. An explosion of gunpowder and black smoke ignited, enveloping around Penelope and the enforcers, making it impossible for them to see. It only lasted maybe five seconds, but when the smoke dissipated Frankie, Richter, and Sean were nowhere to be found.

“How did they do that?” Calvin asked, impressed.

“How DID they do that?” Penelope repeated, also quite impressed. She smiled awkwardly at Elmeiser and his Enforcers.

Elmeiser huffed. “You’re all completely useless. I shall take care of the intruders. Permanently.”

*      *

Frankie bolted up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Richter and Sean were right on her tail, the three of them having found a dark winding staircase leading from the library.

“Twenty four,” Frankie announced, reading the number above the door as they continued their ascent. “Twenty five.”

“Do we have a plan?” Richter asked, following close behind her.

“I’ve been sort of winging it so far,” Frankie said, as they reached another level. “Twenty six. I figure if we can get to the top maybe we can find the person in charge here and he’ll take us more seriously than that wheezy gnome down there.”

“And if we don’t make it to the top?” Richter asked.

“Twenty Seven,” Frankie said, continuing to take the stairs as fast as she could. “Then we try to find an office, or someone who can tell us more about this shipment. Twenty eight. It can’t be much farther now.”

“I hate to be the clichéd out of shape one,” Sean muttered between heavy breaths, “But I could really stop for a moment.”

“If we stop they’ll catch up to us,” Richter told his boyfriend.

“Twenty eight,” Frankie said as they reached the next floor. “We just have to keep going.” Frankie frowned. “You don’t feel bad about leaving Penelope behind, do you?”

“They probably dropped her off outside the front door and are now hot on our tail,” Richter reasoned.

“All the reason to keep going,” Frankie said. “Twenty eight. I really think we’re nearing the top guys. Come on pick up the pace.”

“If being a mage means never having to take stairs,” Sean moaned, “then just tell me where to sign up.”

They reached the next level. “Twenty eight,” Frankie said, and then she stopped. “Wait, what was the last one again?”

Suddenly the door exploded outward, and Elmeiser stepped through, his eyes crackling with magical energy. “You’ve had quite the run through our tower,” he said, his voice shrill and cracking. “But unfortunately this is where the tour ends.” The mage was flanked, then, by six suits of plate armour that seemed to be moving of their own volition. Though Frankie could guess who was turning their gears.

The nearest suit of armour to Frankie swung a heavy halberd down at her. She dodged the large weapon nimbly, using her dagger to easily slice through its arm at the joint. It was as if there was nothing inside the armour, and the force holding the pieces together let go as she swung her blade through the elbow. The weapon dropped as the armour reared back. Frankie lunged forward and stabbed her dagger between the glowing eyes of the metal helmet, and the entire suit of armour dropped lifeless to the ground.

Sean stepped forward and picked up the automaton’s weapon, swinging the halberd to decapitate another advancing suit of armour, that armour dropping equally lifelike.  Frankie backed up, pressing her back against Richter’s, and she passed him a dagger from her sleeve, dropping one more in each hand.

More suits of armour marched out from the twenty eighth floor doorway, one carrying Penelope tightly in its grasp, hugging her close to its body. She was struggling against it, but her struggles seemed to be in vain.

“Let go of me,” She insisted to Elmeiser who ignored her.

“Surrender yourselves now or I’ll have to hurt the girl,” the mage said coldly, and the armour seemed to squeeze Penelope on the mage’s command. She groaned in pain, struggling to get her arm free from its mighty grasp.

“Leave her alone,” came a voice from the stairs below them, and Calvin came vaulting up to their floor. With a whisper and a wave of his hand the armour holding Penelope fell lifelike to the floor. Calvin stepped in front of her, offering his hand to help her to her feet.

“You dare raise your spell hand against me?” Elmeiser spat with fury.

“Only against your constructs, Master,” Calvin insisted. But the distinction seemed lost on the master mage. “I won’t have you continue hostilities against these people.”

Elmeiser flourished his hands together, shaping a circle of flame within his fingers. “Defend yourself apprentice,” the mage snarled, “if you dare.” The mage thrust his palms towards Calvin and three small fireballs released from his hands.

Calvin quickly waved both hands in a flourish above his head and a dome of protective energy surrounded him and Penelope. The first of the three fireballs impacted against his globe, and the globe seemed to shatter at the impact site, rebuilding just in time for each subsequent hit. On the third impact, the entire dome seemed to shatter and Calvin dropped to his knees.

Penelope tried to help him up, but his legs seemed like jelly. It was as if he was weakened by the will needed to maintain the spell. The suits of armour advanced on them, not just Frankie Sean and Richter, but Penelope and Calvin as well. Frankie threw a dagger taking out one construct in the head as Richter lunged forward to take on another. He dodged around its axe and buried his blade in the side of its head.

Sean blocked an attack from a construct with his halberd, the suit of armour striking down at him with its sword. Frankie dodged in, sliding one of her daggers under its helmet through where its neck would be. She was only just able to bring her daggers up in time to block a heavy swing from the sword of another construct as the previous one collapsed into a pile.

Her small blades locked with this new construct’s large one, and she tried to hold it back while two more flanked in behind it. Getting one arm free she managed to throw two daggers past the construct she was struggling with, taking out its two buddies, then catching a third dagger in her hand and stabbing it into the armour’s thin rectangular eye hole.

They had to fight their way through the door, maybe if they could get past Elmeiser while he was distracted with Calvin, Frankie could still have a chance to finish her mission.

On the other side of Elmeiser, Calvin was still too weak to stand and two constructs were approaching them fast. Pulling her weapon from her pants, Penelope twisted the handle and the hooked blade extended. Releasing a latch, the sickle dropped from the handle to hang from a chain, and Penelope swung the kusarigama over her head to gain momentum. Throwing it out from her, it swung around and embedded into the side of the head of one of the two constructs.

As the construct fell lifeless, Penelope pulled back on her weapon, spinning it around again, to bluntly smash aside the second constructs attack. The construct’s arm holding an axe dropped to the floor with a clunk, and Penelope’s weapon came swinging across, bluntly taking the construct out by its torso.

Even without legs and an arm, the black armour still managed to crawl towards Penelope. Her chained weapon still moving with a lot of momentum, she brought it down atop the thing’s helmet and the construct finally stopped moving.

“Nows our chance,” Frankie said to her buddies, spinning her entire body around a construct and stabbing it effortlessly in the side of its head before throwing both her hands out simultaneously, daggers soaring across the air and taking out two suits of armour guarding the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Elmeiser said harshly, turning towards Frankie. He turned back to Calvin. “I’ll deal with you later,” he said with a wave of his hand and the young apprentice suddenly fell through the floor with a surprised yelp that was cut short.

Elmeiser turned his full attention on Frankie. “Your distractions have persisted long enough,” he said and he threw an orb of glowing light at her. She threw one of her daggers to meet it in mid-air, and as the two collided, there was an explosion of concussive force that blew Frankie Sean and Richter backwards through the door they were trying to escape through, and sent Penelope tumbling over the railing.

*

Penelope plummeted past floor after floor. She was falling faster and faster. Twenty four. Twenty Three. Twenty two. Twenty One. Twenty. Penelope tumbled and desperately reached out for any hand hold.

Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen.

Penelope’s one hand still held her kusarigama and with a last desperate attempt Penelope threw out the chain to catch hold and snag the nearest railing. The chain locking into place, Penelope held on tight and her arm was almost yanked out of its socket as she was thrust suddenly inward to land heavily and painfully onto floor thirteen.

She landed on her back hard enough to lose all the wind in her lungs, and she gasped desperately to breath as everything hurt, and her arm screamed in agony. It was dislocated at the very least.

Drinking in precious oxygen, she groaned painfully between desperate breaths for air. A door opened and the old Master Relis was standing above her.

“Tssk,” the wrinkled woman with a grey haired ponytail said. “It seems Elmeiser has taken things too far this time. I really do think it’s best you leave now, Princess. For your own safety. And yes, we know it’s you.” Penelope’s heart still pounding in her chest, she was in no position to disagree. She accepted the woman’s offered hand graciously.

*     *     *

“Just take my hand!” Janice yelled at Aldonn over the booming voice. “Take my hand and turn your back on this or you’ll be lost in here forever.”

“I can’t!” Aldonn insisted. Shaking his head. They were halfway up the hill towards the large splendent palace at the top, but they could still hear the voice from the other room, and it was clearer than ever as Aldonn continued to push against his mental blocks. And the more he strengthened against the mental blocks, the weaker she got.

Janice dropped to her knees.

“DDDDDEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSTTTTTTRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOYYY” the voice was saying now, cutting off right at the ‘y’ to repeat again and again.

“I feel like it’s important,” Aldonn said, and Janice worried what the full message might be, if the first word was destroy. “I feel like it’s something important I need to know.”

“You wanna know what I think’s important?” Janice asked him, her vision swooning as she grew dizzy with a bout of vertigo. “There’s a girl out there in the real world. The most amazing beautiful, spunky, full of life woman I’ve ever met. The brightest light in my dark and shitty life, brighter than every light in this fakked up dreamscape, and it’s a light that needs to be protected.” Janice sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Because she is so good at getting herself in trouble.”

She didn’t even know if she was crying from her emotions, or just the pain.  “She needs you, Aldonn,” Janice begged him. “More than she needs me, she needs someone like you to look after her and make sure she makes it because I don’t think she can without you. You’re everything to that girl out there, and that should be all the purpose in the world that you need.”

“What if I was meant to be some kind of destroyer,” Aldonn asked her. “Don’t I need to know?”

Janice shook her head, wiping her tears away with her hand. “You’re the kindest most noble mind I’ve ever touched,” Janice insisted. “If your purpose was to destroy, then there is no better reason to turn your back now and walk away. For all you know, that thing back there is about to destroy YOU. Maybe that’s why you lost your memory. With memories this fragmented, everything is uncertain. But what is certain is that Frankie needs her best friend.”

“She used to tell me stories,” Janice kept talking, even as the world around her trembled and threatened to cave in. Even as her head felt like it would explode. “Stories of her youth. When older men would approach her, try to possess her. Dominate her. Tell her they’d protect her.”

Janice sniffed. “She would tell them she didn’t need their protection. That her imaginary friend was all the protection she’d need. A guardian angel, looking after her. And now her imaginary friend is back, and he’s real, and he needs to wake up or she’ll be alone again. Without a compass, without a conscience.”

“Wake up Aldonn,” Janice pleaded. “Wake up for Frankie. She’s worth a hundred glowing fantastical palaces in the sky.”

“DDDDDEEEEEEEHHHHHHSSSSSTTTTTRRRRROOOOOOYYYYYEEEEEEDDDDDDD”

The moment had expanded again, and Janice could feel her eyesight giving way to the brightness. But Aldonn wasn’t paying attention to the voice anymore.

“What do I have to do?” he asked her. She could feel his hand clasp hers.

“Close your eyes with me,” she told him. “And imagine yourself falling.”

*

Janice awoke with a start, bolting straight up and gasping for breath. Her head still pounded like a mother fakker, and she clung tightly to Edward at her side.

“Are you alright,” Edward asked, his voice unsteady.

“Oh thank heavens,” Roric said, coming to her side from where he had been examining Aldonn. “I was worried I might lose another Mystene patient on my watch.”

“I’m not dead yet,” Janice muttered offhand. “Frankie. Where’s Frankie?”

“She still hasn’t returned with the princess,” Roric told her, with a grim smile. “I’m sure she’s alright.”

“Knowing Frankie?” Janice said, disbelieving. “She’s probably in way over her head.”

*     *     *

Frankie got to her feet first, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and gut, and just about everywhere else. Dual wielding daggers in reverse grip, she took a fighting stance in the sand as Elmeiser slowly stalked into the room.

It appeared floor twenty eight was a small circular space with a tall ceiling and stone walls. A large tree stood in the center of the circular space and it was surrounded with a floor of yellow-white sand. Around the walls were pedestals where once suits of armour stood, before Elmeiser had taken control of most of them. Frankie supposed with all the magic she’d seen on display, this could very well have not been floor twenty eight at all.

“Come on,” Frankie said to Elmeiser, as he was slow to attack. She wondered if he was toying with her, or simply recovering from the strain his magicks had already placed on him. “I can take you. I’m just getting started.”

“Frankie,” Richter said, slowly getting to his feet in the sand. “Maybe don’t patronize the all-powerful wizard.”

“Oh seriously,” Frankie said with false bravado. “This shorty? Whatcha got short stuff? More suits of armour for me to cut down?”

Elmeiser grinned. “Let’s see how you fare cutting at this with your daggers, master thief.” He began weaving his hands through the air.

“Aww he called me master,” Frankie joked coyly, honestly a little touched the mage thought so highly of her abilities. As she spoke, the sand beneath her seemed to tremble. Or was that quake, or was that neither. It was rolling, sliding away from her, pulling her towards something.

Frankie dropped, as did Richter and Sean as the sand around them seemed to roll uphill, forming into a mound, growing into a hill, and then even taller. Growing higher even then the tree, and forming a face and large sandy appendages for arms.

The large sand golem let out a mighty roar, swinging a thick sandy arm down on the three thieves. They scattered, Richter and Sean diving to one side as Frankie dived to the other and the arm crashed into the sand around the tree echoing across the room with a mighty THOOM. The impact was enough to make the whole room quake, and Frankie almost fell again as the creature reformed itself into an upright position.

“Neat trick,” Frankie muttered, perhaps her biggest understatement of the day. The creature roared again.

“Uh Frankie,” Richter complained as the creature turned its attention on him. It swung an appendage at his head, and the thief ducked under it. Sean slashed at the appendage with his axe, taking it right off, but the stump simply reformed an arm again like nothing happened.

“We got this,” Frankie insisted loudly, and the creature turned back towards her, thrusting it’s appendage at her chest. She threw dagger after dagger at it, as fast as her arms could move, and that was pretty fast. The daggers chipped off bits of sand with each hit. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. She didn’t let up even as the creature continued to gain ground on her. It was forming faster than she could chip off. And she wasn’t paying attention at the second appendage that swept around from the side and smacked her like a carriage at full speed.

She was launched painfully across the room to smack heavily against the stone wall and roll into the sand. For a moment the pain overwhelmed her, and she wasn’t sure how long she blacked out but, when she came to again, the creature was smacking Sean out a window.

“No!” She screamed as Richter jumped over the sand golem’s swinging arms.

“Dammit Frankie,” Richter blamed her as he landed in the sand near her and helped her to her feet.

“ME?” she yelled back angrily. “It’s not MY sand golem.”

“You got us into this mess!” Richter yelled back, and the sand golem seemed to stretch into the sky, forming sturdy legs of sand like tree trunks beneath it.

“You still have any of those smoke bombs?” Frankie asked Richter. He pulled two from his belt. “Aim for its head.” Frankie charged in as Richter threw his bombs, the gunpowder exploding against the side of the golem’s face as it reared up to attack Frankie.

Black smoke enveloped the creature, and it didn’t even notice as Frankie slid underneath it, slashing at both its legs with her knives. The attack didn’t seem to do any good.

From behind the creature, Frankie threw her knives, and they embedded into the creatures back, but the creature just reformed itself to be facing the other way, and it roared directly into Frankie’s face.

“Eat this,” Frankie said, stabbing her dagger into its mouth. Her hand got caught in the sandy roof of its jaw, and it didn’t seem keen to let go. She yanked at her hand with all her might but it held on tighter. She punched with her other fist and it grabbed that arm as well, lifting her off her feet as she struggled against it.

“Let go of me,” she screamed at it.

“Frankie!” Richter yelled, and one of the creature’s appendages swung out, striking Richter and throwing him out the same window Sean had just been so carelessly tossed from.

“Nooooo!” Frankie yelled as the golem lurched forward and fell on top of her into the sand, crushing her beneath its weight and drowning her in a sea of its sandy body.

Frankie flailed against the sand desperately trying to swim through it as it squeezed and crushed against her. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs desperately drawing for air. She strained with her muscles, desperately trying to worm herself through but the sand was too strong. The sand was alive, holding her down, crushing her. Tightening. It was a nightmare. Her already bruised ribs cracked at the strain. She could feel her gut wound oozing blood renewed.

Without oxygen her vision was swooning, turning black. Her lungs burned, her mind fading. Suddenly she felt something with her finger. Freedom.

Air.

She clenched tightly with her fist against the surface and pulled with all her remaining might, her muscles straining and breaking with the effort as there was no oxygen to replenish them.

As her mind was just drifting unconscious, Frankie was able to pull her face clear from the sand, and breathe deeply and hungrily at the air. Stopping all effort, she took a moment to take a hundred deep breaths before continuing her excruciating struggle for freedom.

Suddenly, as she continued to pull herself free, it was as if another force grabbed hold of her and she was yanked rather roughly from the sand to float into the air.

“Ahh, ahhhhh, ahhh,” Frankie moaned in agony as Elmeiser held her up by her limbs with his magic. He murdered her friends, and now he was going to kill her. She should have just let him die. “I’m gonna kill you,” She muttered despite the pain. She didn’t know how yet, but she would find a way.

“First you say you came here to save us,” Elmeiser said with amusement. “Now you want to kill us. Which is it?”

He clenched his hand and Frankie felt as if her arms and legs would be pulled out of their sockets.

“You are banished from this tower,” Elmeiser said darkly, his voice booming. “If I see you here again, I’ll kill you.” He opened his hand and Frankie flew from the room, and out the window.

“NOOOOOO!!!!” Frankie screamed, closing her eyes as she fell – about a foot to land with a thud against the ground. “Oof.” Her eyes were still closed. “oooooooo.”

She opened her eyes to see Richter, Sean, and Penelope standing over her. It had been as if she’d barely fallen from a ground floor window.

“Do you guys--” she started to say. “I didn’t just fall ten stories and dream all that did I?”

“Did we just get our asses kicked by a bunch of mages and a sand golem?” Richter asked. “Yeah, that happened.”

Frankie didn’t immediately get up, letting the pain overwhelm her as she lay in a weak bloodied mess at their feet. “I hate mages,” she said out loud.

“They don’t seem too fond of you either,” Penelope said, offering Frankie a hand.

“Just give me another second.”

*     *     *

By the time they got back to Janice’s pub, Aldonn was already on his feet.

“Aldonn!” Frankie yelled, letting go of Richter and Sean’s support to run into Aldonn’s arms. She hugged him tightly, then let go of him and began slapping him as hard as she could muster on his arm.

“Don’t you dare do that to me again,” Frankie complained angrily. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Trust me,” Aldonn told her, hugging her tightly to his bare chest. “That’s not an experience I’ll ever want to repeat.”

“Okay,” Frankie said, pushing away from him. “Now go put on a shirt or something.”

Edward nodded at Frankie. “You okay?” He asked, like he cared.

“I’ve got a new catch phrase,” Frankie told him.

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Edward said with a roll of his eyes. He was still sweaty, and his hands grasped the table a little tighter than would be normal, but it seemed he was at least trying to function, and she’d certainly give him points for that.

Frankie spotted Janice at the bar, watching them with a warm smile on her face.

“What are you doing?” Frankie asked, sidling up alongside the bar.

“Cleaning up,” Janice said, giving Frankie a coy glance from under her black bangs. “I’m really happy for you. Despite all your mistakes you’ve been granted a second chance. Don’t waste it this time.”

“What about you?” Frankie asked.

“What about me?” Janice asked.

“You and me,” Frankie said, getting frustrated that she had to say it out loud.

“You wanna know why we broke up, Frankie?” Janice asked. “It’s because you were never the kind of girl to settle down. Your heart might be mine, but your eyes are always looking forward to the next adventure.”

“I always come back,” Frankie said.

“And I’ll always be here when you do,” Janice told her. “But that’s all we’ll ever be for each other. I’m just a port in your storm.”

“I can change,” Frankie said. “I can be different. I can stick around.”

“Oh?” Janice said, “Where were you today? When I woke up scared and alone and in pain?” She frowned at the young thief. “Don’t answer that. I already know. You were exactly where you belong.” Janice put her rag down and leaned against the counter. “It would be selfish of me to keep you from the world. You have so much good you still have left to do. Don’t worry about me, Frankie. I’m a survivor, like you. I’ll be okay.”

Frankie didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“Save it,” Janice interrupted her, “For the next girl’s heart you break.” Janice turned her back, and Frankie couldn’t help but feel like she screwed up a really good thing. Not for the first, or likely last, time.

*     *     *

“There you are!”  Elmeiser spat angrily as he stormed into the Grand Council Chambers. “You really screwed up this time, Apprentice. I will have you banished from the tower for this.” It had been too close. Had they actually managed to get all the way to the thirtieth floor. Had they gotten into his office and seen the amulet… It had been far closer than Elmeiser liked to play his cards.

It seemed Calvin was just finishing a debrief to Grand Master Salem when Master Elmeiser stormed in, and the council member paled at the sight of his leader.

“Grand mage,” Elmeiser said in surprise, trying to hide his disappointment. “Don’t listen to a word he says. He attacked me.”

“Master Elmeiser is right,” Calvin told Grand Master Salem. “I did attack him, and I do deserve to be banished.”

The Grand Mage was slow to respond, and when he did, it was to Elmeiser, not Calvin.

“Master Relis has been telling us all about your conduct today,” Salem said to him. “Master Elmeiser, your behaviour hardly seems fitting that of a Council Mage, don’t you think?”

“He attacked me,” Elmeiser insisted stubbornly.

“It seems to me,” Salem said, “That Apprentice Calvin was simply defending the interests of the council. If anything, his actions showed initiative.”

“What?” Elmeiser spat angrily. “No apprentice should ever raise a hand against a master.”

Salem raised his finger. “No master should ever feel threatened by an apprentice. I certainly wouldn’t react so angrily were one weaker than me to try to engage me. We must be better Elmeiser.”

Salem turned his head to Calvin. “Apprentice. How long has it been since you last had a master?”

Calvin squirmed in place. “Master Tawney, sir.”

There was a gasp from one of the other seats in the dark council, and Elmeiser could just make out Master Relis’ form in her usual seat.

“Didn’t Master Tawney blow herself up in her own lab a year and a half ago?” Salem asked.

“No one has wanted me as their apprentice since,” Calvin admitted with a sigh. “They all think I’m like bad luck or something. I wasn’t even there. She’d given me the night off.”

“Master Elmeiser,” Salem said the mage’s name. “How long has it been since you’ve last had an apprentice.”

Elmeiser frowned. “Master Salem, it’s ridiculous to think--”

Salem interrupted him. “It was Master Manejo,” the Grand Mage said, “Wasn’t it.” How could Elmeiser tell the Grand Mage that Manejo was still his apprentice. That Elmeiser had only pushed Manejo’s spot on the council to better position him against Salem.

“Yes Grand Master,” Elmeiser said defeated.

“It seems to me,” Salem continued, “that the two of you have a lot you could learn from one another.”

“With all due respect,” Calvin said to the Grand Mage. “I don’t particularly like Master Elmeiser, and I’m certain he hates me.”

Salem smiled. “Sounds like my relationship with my first master,” Salem said warmly. Few besides Elmeiser knew the true story of what happened between Salem and his first Master. That Salem had killed him. It was a fact Elmeiser dared not utter then, but one he was quite mindful of at all times.

“You will take Calvin as your apprentice,” Salem said.

“If that is your will,” Elmeiser muttered, bowing to the grand mage.

“It’s final,” Salem said.

So be it then, Elmeiser thought as he looked across at Calvin. Let the games begin. Elmeiser would just have to make sure he killed the apprentice before the apprentice had the chance to kill his master.

Next Time on The Aldonn Chronicles at www.patreon.com/99geek in December 2018
Chapter 7: The mages have an important shipment of supplies coming in through Capsin Harbour, and Lee wants it for himself. He’s determined to deal the first blow in what he hopes will be a damaging campaign against his rival faction, the mage council. Frankie is determined to stop him, and she plans to do it the only way she knows how. By stealing the supplies first.

Next Month: Isabol Tseung Voice News at www.patreon.com/99geek August 2018
Chapter 1: Isabol Tseung is an up and coming reporter who wants to make a name for herself doing more than just local news, and AP reporting. She wants to go into the field, interview the most relevant people, she wants to dig at the story, and find something real to report on. Something that affects millions of lives. She wants to make a difference.