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  “Sounds like a good plan to me,” she said, a wicked grin crossing her face.

  “Yeah,” agreed Jayden, nodding with a subdued smile.

  “I agree with you guys,” said G proudly. “That’s definitely a job for experienced players like us.”

  The Mechanist gave a tired yet genuine smile at the enthusiasm of these young, spirited players. “All right then,” he said. “Let’s start planning. First of all, let’s determine who’s doing what. Who wants to get Stan and the others out of Nocturia?”

  “I do!” came two shouts as both Kat’s and G’s hands shot up into the air. The two turned to look each other in the eye, and instantly they both looked away awkwardly. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Bob spoke.

  “So . . . um . . . do you two really want to . . . ?”

  “No,” Kat said firmly, looking back up at G, this time with a hint of contempt.

  “Aw, come on, Kat,” said G, sounding mildly irritated. “You don’t think that just this once—”

  “G, I am not working with you,” Kat repeated. The Mechanist gave a sigh, while both Jayden and Bob threw their heads back in exasperation.

  “Kat, come on, we have to think about the well-being of Elementia. . . .”

  “I am thinking of the well-being of Elementia,” Kat replied coolly. “If I’m going to sneak into a secret base to try to break Stan, Charlie, and DZ out of jail, I need to be in top form. And I guarantee that if you’re with me, it’ll be that much harder for both of us.”

  “Oh, grow up, Kat,” cried G in irritation. “Can’t we please just be mature about this, bury the hatchet, and . . .”

  “I said, No, G!” Kat bellowed through gritted teeth. She glared across the table, staring daggers at G, who was recoiling in intimidation.

  “Enough, you two!” bellowed Jayden. He grabbed G by the shoulders and spun him around so the two were facing each other. G looked shocked.

  “G, you know as well as she does, and as well as the rest of us do, that it’s a bad idea for you two to team up. How about you team up with me, and the two of us go and free the hostages in Nocturia?”

  G opened his mouth, then closed it again. His expression was outraged as he looked at Kat, then Jayden, then Kat again, then the Mechanist, and then back at Kat one more time before finally turning to Jayden and sighing.

  “Fine,” he mumbled. “We can do that.”

  “Well, that’s settled then,” said Bob. Crisis averted, he thought to himself in relief.

  “In that case,” the Mechanist said, “Kat, are you willing to team up with a volunteer to go and free the officials trapped in the Mushroom Islands?”

  “Definitely,” Kat said almost robotically, deliberately staring directly at the Mechanist and avoiding any eye contact with G.

  “Okay,” Bob said, sighing, glad that was over. “We have to get going. The sooner that these hostages are out, the better. Jayden and G, you come with me. We’ll go down to the police station, and you’ll get your briefing. After that, you’re off. Kat, you just wait until we’ve found a volunteer to go with you, and then you’ll do the same thing.”

  “So,” the Mechanist said as the three council members nodded respectfully to Bob. “If that’s all, then I officially adjourn this council meeting. Everybody, go do what you need to do.”

  And with that, Kat, G, and Jayden stood up. Bob walked out of the council room toward the corridor, tailed closely by Jayden and G, while Kat took the passage that led to her room. On the way out, G and Kat nearly bumped into each other, but as G was about to open his mouth to say something, Kat turned her back to him and continued walking. G looked crestfallen as he followed Jayden out of the room.

  The Mechanist now sat alone in the room. The occasional boom, chatter, and whizz of warfare still droned on outside. The barrage was constant; although the wall was holding up well, the Noctem Armies never relented in their assault on the walls. The Noctem Alliance was definitely planning something. The Mechanist knew it. Although the constant assault on the outside walls was easily repelled, it certainly did keep the Elementia Army busy. And perhaps that distraction was all the Noctem Alliance needed to set their grand plan into motion.

  The Mechanist knew that, whoever Lord Tenebris was, he was incredibly cunning. Because of this, the Mechanist was well aware that nothing the Noctem Alliance did was arbitrary. Everything was planned, everything was deliberate, and everything had a point. Element City’s defenses may have been holding up splendidly, but the Mechanist knew that it was only a matter of time before the Alliance managed to find some way around them. And until that time inevitably came, the population of Element City was desperate and furious, no longer able to obtain any resources from the outside. They were simply left to try to survive while trapped within the walls.

  And now he bore the entire weight of the situation on his own shoulders, and his shoulders alone.

  The Mechanist was already feeling overwhelmed, leading the council in these dark times. He had had to put up with G and Kat’s bickering, as well as the constant news that all their efforts had barely put a scratch in the Noctem Alliance’s offensive. He was well aware of how important it was that the hostages be rescued, but the Mechanist was at the point of having a nervous breakdown when he realized that the fate of this country, which was already teetering on the brim of destruction, was now in his own hands.

  He felt so stressed, so anxious, and so panicked. The world was crumbling around him, and he alone was responsible for holding it together. He was doing all he could, yet it was hardly helping in the least. As the gravity of the situation spiraled around the Mechanist, he wished with all his might that somehow, somewhere, there was some way that he might be able to escape from it, just for a little while. . . .

  Kat sat in the waiting room of the police station. In front of her, a window stretched from floor to ceiling, revealing a landscape view of the lower-level district of Element City. In the far distance, the gray stone-brick wall of the city stood proud and tall. About twice a minute, there would be a flash of white light at some point along the wall, accompanied a second later by a muffled boom.

  Kat gritted her teeth and tried to keep herself together. It tore her apart inside that her people were being forced to suffer within the city, with food and supplies being rationed during the siege. It killed her even more that, because of the persistence of the Noctem Alliance, the Elementia Army was being forced to work day and night to combat the attackers, with more and more innocent civilians being drafted from their homes every day to keep up with the demanding costs of fighting this war. Life in Element City was miserable, and there was nothing she could do about it!

  Kat forced herself to take a deep breath, and then let it go. No, there is something you can do about it, Kat thought to herself, trying to keep a calm mind. Just focus on getting Stan and the others back here. That’s all you can do right now.

  As she thought this, Kat began to grow more and more irritated. The minutes ticked by, and still nobody had arrived to tell her that the volunteer was ready to join her. Kat began to get angry.

  If they weren’t ready, then why did they call me down here? she thought bitterly, just as the wooden door swung open. Kat looked up expectantly, and was surprised to see Ben looking extremely uncomfortable.

  “Finally!” Kat cried, jumping to her feet. “Do you have my partner ready yet?”

  “Kat,” said Ben, and she was alarmed by how nervous his voice sounded. “Before you find out who your partner is, I need you to realize something. We tried as hard as we could to find somebody else . . . but there was nobody else qualified who wasn’t already occupied with something else in the war.”

  Kat was befuddled. “What are you talking about?”

  Ben took a deep breath and let it out in a hefty sigh.

  “Come on in,” he announced miserably.

  Ben stepped out of the doorframe, and another player walked up behind him. Kat’s jaw hung open, and her eyes bog
gled in disbelief. She would recognize that pale skin, those giant red lips, that snow-white leather armor, and that smug expression anywhere.

  “Oh, no,” Kat breathed in horror.

  “Oh . . . yes, I’m afraid,” simpered Cassandrix in her patronizing, upper-class accent. “It’s good to see you again, Kat, darling.”

  CHAPTER 3 THE MUSHROOM PURGE

  Stan opened his eyes. He took a deep breath of air and let it out slowly. He tried to move his arm but was only able to move it a few inches before wincing in pain. Reluctant to move again, Stan allowed himself a few more minutes of peace lying in bed.

  Stan heard faint voices coming from down the wooden stairwell, and he turned his head to glance around the room. The torchlight gave the wooden attic a faint glow, and he noticed that the closet door was slightly ajar. Stan shrugged it off, figuring that it was nothing, and he closed his eyes once again.

  As he lay in bed, nearly incapacitated by wounds and fatigue, Stan reflected on just how extraordinarily lucky he was to still be alive. His body ached all over from his leap into the ocean from the Noctem Alliance’s prison at the peak of Mount Fungarus on the Greater Mushroom Island. Filled with anguish over the death of DZ and reckless panic at the Noctem forces quickly closing in on him, Stan hadn’t been thinking clearly. Rather, he had simply grabbed DZ’s sword and taken a leap of faith—a leap, it turned out, that had hurt quite a lot.

  After landing in the ocean and plummeting fast and hard to the ocean floor, Stan had swum as fast as his screaming limbs could carry him away from the island, the sirens wailing from the prison and troops shouting as they mobilized to pursue him. At one point Stan glanced back at the island and saw Mount Fungarus, silhouetted tall and proud against the setting sun, with half its top blown off, and troops scurrying around the various outer levels like ants around an anthill. Desperate to find cover from the incoming troops, Stan dived underwater to the seabed (which was thankfully quite shallow around the islands) and, by a stroke of incredible luck, he had found a bubble of air sitting on the ocean floor, a two-blocks-square cube. Far too relieved to question what the glitch was doing there, Stan had instead dived straight into it, lying on the ground and taking a huge breath of fresh air.

  Inside that air bubble, Stan lay still for hours, exhausted from his desperate and narrow escape. Throughout that day, he broke down on and off over the death of DZ and the thought that Charlie and Commander Crunch were being tortured mercilessly as he lay there, unable to do a thing about it.

  When he wasn’t crying or sleeping, Stan spent the rest of that day looking outside the air bubble. Squids would jet by Stan in schools, their rectangular black bodies propelled forward by a set of eight tentacles, with a rather frightening spiked mouth at the center. The surface of the ocean was illuminated with sunlight, and he could see the bottoms of dozens of wooden boats drifting to and fro across the water, undoubtedly searching for him.

  Eventually, the day slowly darkened into night, and the watery world around Stan had become black. His stomach was growling, demanding that food be supplied soon, lest his health start to fade like the setting sun. After scouting out the surface to ensure no boats were directly above him, Stan had jumped out of the top of the air bubble and, kicking as hard as he could, propelled his way back to the surface.

  As Stan looked around, he saw no ships anywhere near him, but he did notice the bright lights and strident sound that the Lesser Mushroom Island was emitting. Slowly but surely, Stan paddled his way toward the island, which held the promise of food and a temporary shelter. He had to duck underwater hastily, sometimes for minutes at a time, when a Noctem patrol boat had passed by, but in the end, Stan was able to make it onto the island undetected.

  Footsteps echoing up the stairwell startled Stan out of his train of thought. He glanced over at the opening in the floor, and slowly the head, torso, and then legs of a player emerged. She wore black leather pants, silver metallic gloves, and a zipped-up navy-blue hoodie, out of which emerged a streak of magenta hair that fell over her deep brown eyes.

  “How you doin’?” she asked in a quiet, rather harsh voice. Stan shook her tone off; he had realized that her tone was not to be taken personally.

  “A bit better,” Stan replied, propping himself up on his elbows, despite the aches flaring up again.

  “Well, that’s good,” the player replied, pulling a piece of bread from her inventory and tossing it in Stan’s direction, followed immediately by a Potion of Healing. Stan caught the two items, and stared at the bottle of red liquid in disbelief.

  “Olea!” he breathed in disbelief. “Where did you . . .”

  “It don’t matter where I got it,” Olea replied brusquely as she started to head back down the stairs. “A Noctem soldier just came and told me that we gotta meet in the central plaza in five minutes. I don’t know what they’re planning, but I gotta hunch it’ll destroy whatever safety you have here, President Stan.”

  “I understand,” Stan replied, nodding grimly. “I’ll get out of here as soon as possible.”

  Olea nodded, and walked down the stairs again. As he poured the red potion down his throat and watched her go, he thought about how fortunate he had been to encounter her. When Stan had pulled himself out of the water and onto the shore of the Lesser Mushroom Island less than twenty-four hours ago, he had been shocked to find that it was overrun with Noctem troops. He had ducked from alley to alley, moving with great agility despite his wounds, careful to avoid detection.

  It was only when he had passed by the back door of a shop called GoddessOlea’s Boat Rentals that he had been pulled into a building from behind by an unseen pair of hands. When he came to his senses, Stan found himself being interrogated by a player who he later found out was called GoddessOlea, or just Olea for short. When she discovered who he was, she wasted no time in bringing him up to her attic and beginning to heal him. The process of healing had been slow, as resources had been incredibly scarce on the Lesser Mushroom Island since it had been invaded by the Noctem armies. The troops had pillaged all stores that sold potions, golden apples, and other healing supplies, meaning that Stan’s recovery, which should have taken just a few minutes, had been ongoing for a full day now.

  Somehow, though, Olea had managed to get her hands on a Potion of Healing. Now that the red miracle liquid was in Stan’s body, he felt all his aches disappear. Stan was sure that this particular potion had been brewed with glowstone; it was particularly strong. Stan leaped out of the bed and onto the wood-plank floor.

  He knew that now that he was healed, he had to get off the island as soon as possible. The innocent people of the Lesser Mushroom Island were already suffering enough just because the Noctem Alliance was present there. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Alliance realized that he must be on the island, and when they did, Stan could only imagine what would happen. And if the Noctems found out that Olea had been harboring him . . .

  As soon as Stan had finished cramming the last of the bread into his mouth, he jogged over to the chest in the corner of the room and flung it open. It was totally empty, save one item: a diamond sword, clearly old and well worn, with a violent enchantment glimmering dangerously on the blade. Stan reached into the container and clutched the handle of the sword. He had asked Olea if there was a place that he might be able to acquire an axe, but she had told him that, as long as the Noctem troops remained on the island, it would be impossible. So as of now, DZ’s diamond sword, endowed with a Knockback enchantment, was his only means of defense against the world.

  Stan made his way over to the stairs but halted at the top. He realized that it might be wise to glance out the window and check the conditions on the street before going downstairs. Stan walked over to the wood-plank wall and ducked down beneath the open window before peeking his head up to look outside. He cursed under his breath but was quite glad that he had looked outside first, since the entire street was lined with Noctem troops. Stan sighed, accepting that he would have to wa
it until this big announcement was over to make his escape.

  Then Stan did a double take out the window and realized that he could see the entire congregation of citizens in the central plaza of the city. Stan realized it was risky to stay near the open window, but his curiosity got the better of him and he watched the meeting commence.

  The players of the city were gathered in a gravel plaza around a giant brown mushroom, which had been decorated with red mushroom blocks and turned into a water fountain. The crowd seemed confused, and unsure of why they were there. Then, suddenly, there was a collective gasp as two dark forms emerged onto the top of the brown mushroom.

  The player farther toward the back looked identical to Stan, though slightly darker in overall tone and covered head to toe in dark spores. Stan clenched his fist in hatred as he realized that he was looking at the chief of the Greater Mushroom Tribe, who had betrayed him and his friends to the Noctem Alliance in their raid of the Specialty Base. Slightly in front of him stood another form that Stan did not recognize. He was wearing the black leather armor of the Noctem Alliance over a camo-colored army uniform and an assault vest.

  “Greetings, people of the Lesser Mushroom Island.” The camo figure spoke in a voice that Stan was shocked to find that he recognized. “My name is Spyro, general of the Noctem Alliance.”

  Stan’s fist clenched even tighter as he heard that name. The last time he had seen Spyro, the Noctem soldier had turned Oob and his family into Zombies and recruited them into the Noctem Alliance. Stan shook with rage as he realized that this was probably why Spyro had been promoted to general. Although he knew that he couldn’t be reckless, Stan still found himself longing for the day when he could sink a blade into both players standing up on the fountain.