Round Table: The Dreadful Truth

This page is the third book in Plasmaster's terrible book series, Round Table. This book was never entirely finished, so this is only what was written of the third book.

Chapter One: Mission
Finally, it’s my turn. I’m Morgan. I’m thirteen years old. If you haven’t heard Brandon and Lance drone on and on about this story, then you should probably listen to them first. Even though mine will probably be the most interesting. I’m a descendant of Guinevere. I have brown hair and blue eyes. I’m good at archery, and I’ve been in a dog’s body before. It’s kind of a long story about the dog thing, but that isn’t important right now.

My friends, Brandon, Lance, Victoria, Prescenan the centaur, Jordan, Troy, Robbie, Patricia, Chandelor, and Luke, are all descendants of Knights of the Round Table. I know, I’m that popular. Anyways, an evil organization known as the More Dread Gang is out to either kill or recruit descendants of knights in order to take over the world. Nice guys, huh? Well, it turns out that they had something much bigger in mind. Oh well, you’ll know what I mean later.

My brother Kevin and I were sent to Canada to investigate some strange gang member activity that was occurring there. Kevin is a descendant of Galahad. He is ten years old. He is a bit short, with brown hair and green eyes. He isn’t my real brother. My family adopted him after his real dad- a gang member- died in a mansion while it was burning down. I never told him this, but my friends and I sort of started that fire. He wears glasses, though sometimes he substitutes contacts for them. He is in love with video games. I’ve been teaching him archery, and I thought that bringing him with me on my mission would help him practice. His knife was tucked into his boot. It was snowy, which we weren’t used to at the time since it was summer. Then again, this was Canada, not Pennsylvania.

We were riding with Victoria on her pet griffin Pepperoni. She named him that because he has a red spot on the back of his neck. The lion-hawk hybrid was soaring through snowy and white skies. The sky was grey, and the clouds were low. Pepperoni had a hawk’s head and his front legs were bird feet with talons. He has golden fur and a lion tail. He also has hawk wings, and his eyesight is sharp.

“We’re almost there. It’s okay, you’ll be out of the cold soon, I promise.” coaxed Victoria. She has blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She is a descendant of Merlin. She is very good at magic, especially since our friend Jordan started helping her with it. Right now, she was wearing a Linkin Park shirt under an insulated leather jacket. She was also wearing jeans, boots, gloves, a snow hat, and goggles to keep the snow out of her eyes. I was equipped for the cold as well, wearing a fluffy black parka, snow pants, a hat, gloves, and black boots. My armband was on underneath my parka and sweater. The armband had the ability to transform into a mini-crossbow and fire small arrows. I call the miniature arrows darts.

My quiver was slung across my back, and my bow was resting in my lap. Kevin was struggling to get his quiver on, and his bow was much smaller than mine. I pulled his quiver on for him when Victoria announced that the enemy base was right below us. I grabbed out a cord that had hooks on both ends. I clipped one hook onto my parka.

“Morgan, I still don’t feel comfortable doing this!” he shouted.

“It’s okay, we’re going to have parachutes!” I called out over the wind.

“Yeah, but what if mine doesn’t work!”

“It will! Just trust me!”

“No! I’m not doing this! You can do the mission on your own! Victoria, take me home!” he said. I sighed. He was being so stubborn.

“Hey look! An X-box!” I shouted, pointing in the other direction.

“Really? Where?” Kevin said, turning. I clipped the hook onto his coat. He turned back. I stood and crouched down, preparing to jump. He looked down at the hook.

“I hate- whoa!” he called. I had leapt off of Pepperoni, pulling him along with me. After dropping twenty feet, I yanked on the ring, opening my parachute. Forty feet down, the ground was covered in snow, and I could make out a large building. The base. Kevin flailed around in the air.

“Belly out and pull out your chute!” I called.

“I can’t!” he said. I sighed and grabbed his ring.

“What are you- ahh!” he shouted. His parachute blasted from his pack and caught the wind. I looked up, seeing that Victoria had left with Pepperoni, as griffins don’t like cold weather. The wind, however, began blowing in the other direction, away from the base. Soon, we crashed into a snow drift. I stood up and removed my parachute. I looked at Kevin, who was half buried in snow and tangled up in his parachute. I rolled my eyes and untangled him, pulling him out of the snow in the process. He readjusted his quiver and brushed some snow off of his pants.

“That was a piece of cake.” he said. I pushed him back into the snow. A few of my arrows snapped from the impact, but my quiver was still in tact, and full of even more arrows. I heard a snarling sound.

“Kevin, just because I pulled you off of a griffin and made you fall sixty feet through the air and then pushed you into a snow drift doesn’t mean you have to growl.” I said. I turned.

“I’m not growling.” he said. I looked around, and soon, I made out the white fur of a wolf.

It was an albino hunting wolf, used by gang members to hunt and kill enemies. No wonder I hadn’t seen them at first. Their white fur blended perfectly with the snow. The pack of wolves advanced, baring their fangs. Their tails had white spines on them that could put you to sleep if they hit you near your nerves. There were a dozen of wolves in the pack, but if the wolves were there that meant that their owners couldn’t have been very far behind.

I loaded an arrow into my bow, aiming it at the closest wolf. He pounced. But he was knocked back when one of my arrows sunk into its chest. Kevin was battling two behind me. I hadn’t seen those two either. Who knew how many there were. There were probably many that were still camouflaged. I fired more arrows, every one of them either killing or wounding a wolf.

Kevin had lost his knife and didn’t feel comfortable using his bow against such dangerous creatures, so he resorted to snowballs. The snowballs only irritated the wolves, but every once in a while one of the snowballs would be colder and icy, delivering harder hits. I killed the last of them with my bow.

“C’mon Kevin, we have to keep moving. There could be more wolves that have picked up our scent.” I said. We walked about twenty yards when the base came into view. It was completely black, so it didn’t camouflage very well, unless in darkness. It was as big as a large high school. Several gang members were guarding the entrances, and archers were lining the walls. At every corner, a trebuchet was stationed, four gang members operating each. A trench had been dug surrounding the fortress. On the side of the trench that was closest to the base, spikes were lined up to keep enemies from leaping over it.

Every once in a while though there would be a gap in the spike formation where a ladder was. The ladder was there so gang members could get into the trench safely. We crouched down and made our way to the trench. We were at the edge of the trench when the gang members spotted us.

“Hey! The enemy is here! Fire the trebuchets!” one shouted. Boulders soared through the air, but we were too close to the fort for the trebuchets to hit us. I killed a few members in the trench before jumping in. Kevin followed close behind. Gang members fled from the trenches. A few stopped at the top of the trench and fired orbs down on us. Each color orb has a different effect. The red one deals damage, the green one can put you to sleep, orange ones trap you, black ones cause explosions, blue ones follow their target, and purple ones make you hit yourself. Gold orbs, can only be fired off of Excalibur’s handle, and only if the legendary sword is hot.

Brandon is a descendant of King Arthur and has Excalibur. It grants him sword fighting expertise and to him it is totally lightweight, while it feels incredibly heavy for everyone else. I rolled out of the way of the red orbs and blasted arrows up at our attackers. They each fell down, dead. Kevin and I climbed up out of the trench and raced towards the door. Kevin shot the door guards as we ran. Dodging arrows, we made it to the gate. I pulled the door open and we slipped inside, a collection of arrows impaling the door behind us.

We were deep inside the base. The walls and floors were totally white, and the ceilings were gray with flickering, dim lights swinging overhead. I already had to save Kevin from several traps. The scorpion pit, the flamethrowers, the tank of piranhas, the spike cage, and the crate of venom-spitting cobras. This time, a large abyss opened up right in front of us. I fired an arrow at Kevin’s sleeve and it pinned him to the wall just as he was about to fall in.

“Don’t look down.” I instructed. Of course, then he looked down.

“Ahh!” he shrieked. He was so frightened that he dropped his glasses.

“Aw, man!” he complained.

“I told you to wear contacts during this mission! Now you learned the hard way why you should have left them at home.” I said. I pulled him up, replacing the arrow in my quiver.

“Luckily, I brought an extra pair. Your welcome.” I said, handing him some glasses. He slipped them on.

“Thanks. So, now how are we supposed to get across this pit? One of their leader’s offices is right over this pit.” he said. I took out a small pebble and threw it on the ground. It transformed into a ten-foot plank. I laid the plank across the hole.

“Ladies first,” I said, gesturing for him to go first.

“Ha-ha. Nice try, no way am I going across there alone.” he said. I sighed.

“Think of it as a video game. In order to get the high score, you need to get across the pit.” I said. He was across in three seconds.

“What’s taking you so long? I just got the high score! You should be over here celebrating with me!” he said. I rolled my eyes and walked across. We were standing outside a door. On the door, a sign read:

General Freeman

Through this door, was Dwayne Freeman. He was the school athlete, and then he was a bully, and then we found out he was a gang general, and then, he was our ally for a while, and now he is a general again. Why can’t he make up his mind? Kevin opened the door and we raced inside. The room was small, but it had a large desk with a computer and a lamp, and the lights were dim.

“Cool! I can play hours of Sonic the Hedgehog on this system!” Kevin shouted, running to the computer. He sat down in the swivel chair.

“Kevin, stop!” I yelled. By then, he had been magically tied to the chair and wheeled into the corner.

“Oh.” he said.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you have to be ready for traps at any moment?” I said.

“Uh, like, a hundred?” he guessed.

“Exactly.” I replied.

“I see that you’ve brought another pest with you.” a voice said. I turned and saw Dwayne, guarding the door. He is tall, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing a red hoodie, which is the official uniform for the gang. Underneath his sleeves, armbands were on his arms that held his knives. All he has to do is extend his arms and the knives pop out into his hands. He was also wearing jeans.

“It’s a shame that the others couldn’t make it to my fifteenth birthday party.” he said.

“You- you’re turning fifteen?” I said.

“Yeah. And you’ve come to my party. Thanks. Now, where’s my present? Ah, no matter. Let’s cut the cake, eh?” he said, unsheathing his knives. I loaded an arrow. He blinked. “No, seriously, there’s a cake right behind you.” he said. A chocolate cake with vanilla frosting appeared on the desk. He cut a piece off and put it on a plate.

“Here.” he said. I took the cake and shoved it in his face. He wiped it away, his face flushed with anger.

“You were supposed to eat it you know. Of course, it was poisoned, but still…” I smacked him. He swiped at me with his knife. I rolled out of the way and fired an arrow at him. He ducked under it. The arrow hit an alarm, which went off. Gang members began marching into the room.

“Escort them out. Make sure that they get a turn at the piñata!” he called.

Kevin and I were dangling from the ceiling, tied. Below us, a hungry dragon was stomping through his cage, waiting to eat us. Above us, on a balcony, stood Dwayne and several other members.

“Usually, I’d just kill you normally. But, it’s my birthday, so why not have some fun?” he said. He took out some throwing knives. He threw one, and it hit the rope above us. I realized that he was trying to cut the rope so that we would fall and become dragon food. Another knife nicked the rope. I needed a plan fast. Either we fall and kill the dragon, and escape that way. Or… we could swing side to side to get to the closest balcony.

“Kevin, start swinging!” I called.

“I’m right behind you!” he replied. We began to kick our feet out to the left to swing ourselves. A knife missed. We continued to swing. Another knife missed. I could almost get my leg around the balcony rail. Got it! I struggled to pull ourselves onto the balcony. But then, another knife hit, and cut the rope. I hung upside down, my legs hooking the edge. Kevin was dangling over the dragon cage. I had his ankle. I swung him up onto the balcony. He pulled me up and we dashed for the exit.

“Stop them!” Dwayne called. A few knives and orbs zoomed past us. We threw the door open and tumbled into the snow. I looked up into the snarling face of a wolf. I was paralyzed from fear and cold. Kevin pulled me up. The wolves gathered around us, gang members blocking the entrance to the base. A wolf pounced. I ducked and the wolf knocked over the group of gang members, clearing the passageway. We dashed back in, face to face with Dwayne.

“You’re surrounded. Give up.” he said. I barely even thought of what I did next.

“Happy birthday to you!” I shouted, kicking him in the soft spot. He doubled over. Kevin and I ran past him away from the pack of wolves. We ran through the room that we had been captured in, and out into a hallway. A blaring siren sounded, and gang members poured forth from hidden doors. When the doors closed, there was no visible seam. Kevin and I ducked under several orbs, running down the hall. We rolled under the flamethrowers, though some of the wolves weren’t as lucky. Kevin shot a few door guards and we slipped into a room. It was a boiler room.

“Perfect. This is the room. Guard the door.” I said. Kevin barricaded the door with toolboxes and pipes and chairs and desks and just about anything he could. I duct-taped Victoria’s magic golf ball to the furnace. It didn’t look like much, but the golf ball was magic. When exposed to heat for five minutes, it violently explodes. I turned. A door with an exit sign above it was at the other end of the room. We pressed the door open. Luckily, the door was not guarded. I pulled out the pillow from my bedroom. Kevin and I would use it to teleport to our home, Avalon Estates, Pennsylvania. A few fun facts about teleporting.

One, you need something from the place you are going in order to get there. Two, you need to know where you are going. Three, you need to say the spell right, or nothing happens. Four, when teleporting, do not eat anything. You’ll lose whatever you are eating, if you know what I mean.

Side effects include dizziness, drowsiness, nausea, vomiting, temporary blindness, and accidentally going to France. Apparently, there is a big magic magnet there, so when teleporting, there is a brief second when you are in France. Sometimes the spell stops in that second. I’ve been to France three times because of teleporting, and yet, I still don’t enjoy croissants.

I set the pillow down in the snow and took out a slip of paper that had the spell on it. Some spells, are in English, but some spells are in Greek. Most spells, however, are in neither of those. They’re in gibberish. This one was in gibberish. Figures. I read the spell that had been carefully printed on the paper, the pronunciation of it down below. I heard howling in the distance. I checked my watch. Two minutes until the golf ball detonated. We had time, as long as we weren’t caught. I recited the spell perfectly and a blue cylinder appeared around us. The cylinder began spinning and spinning, causing me to drop to the ground from dizziness.

Chapter Two: A Guy in a Van
The cylinder disappeared and we found ourselves in the parking lot of a shopping mart. I knew where we were. This shopping center was just a few miles away from Avalon Estates. We’d just have to walk home.

A tall teenager walked out of the store with a shopping cart. He took out some car keys and looked around cautiously, as if he were trying to hide something. He pressed the button on the keys and the cart transformed into a white van. He climbed inside, and, before closing the door, snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, I was with him in the van. Two bulky men in white tank tops sat in the front seats. The entire back area was empty, no seats or storage of any kind. The teenager was there with me in the back. He had black, slick hair, though it had blue streaks in it. He was pretty tall. He wore black skinny jeans and a leather jacket over a Pink Floyd T-shirt. Victoria would be all over that shirt. His eyes were a very dark brown, almost black. His face had a dark complexion.

He stared at me angrily. I backed up, a little afraid. Then he burst out laughing.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face! You were all like, ‘What is he going to do to me?’” he said, laughing. I sighed. His voice wasn’t very deep. It was sort of… I don’t know, there. It’s kind of hard to describe. He did a back flip, but instead of falling to the ground, he stopped in midair and continued to do mid-air backwards somersaults. I looked around. I couldn’t see Kevin.

“Where is Kevin? Where are we? Who are you, how are you flying and why am I in your van?” I asked. He stopped somersaulting and lay back in mid-air, as if he were lying on an invisible lounge chair.

“Whoa, slow down, Morgan. I just want to talk, that’s all. Anyways, you’re a descendant of Guinevere, right?” he asked.

I nodded. “How did you know?” I asked. He laughed again.

“How do I know? Please! Stop, stop! You’re a riot, you’re too funny! Don’t you know who I am?” he asked. I shook my head. He cleared his throat. “Oh, well then, allow me to introduce myself. I am James Challister, descendant of the Black Knight. The reason I’m able to fly is because I was given a magic spell, and it sort of went wrong. Though, I don’t see how flying is a very bad thing. I can fly whenever I want. I want to form an alliance with you. Oh, and your brother, is in the video game section of the store. He’ll be teleported out and back home at the same time I teleport you home.” he explained.

“Form an alliance? You transported me against my will into your van with your two bodyguards and you’re asking to be friends?” I said. It was almost laughable.

“They’re not my bodyguards. They just drive me where I want to go.” he replied.

“And you’re the descendant of the Black Knight? Isn’t he a bad guy in Arthurian legend?” I asked.

“Yeah, so he fought Arthur. That doesn’t make him a bad guy. And even if it turns out he was a bad guy, that doesn’t mean his descendants are bad guys. I mean, he was just upset because Arthur turned out to be the next in line, so he took up the identity of the Black Knight so he could challenge Arthur without him knowing who he really was. Of course, Arthur did find out who it was eventually… but so what?” he said.

“The answer is no. My friend Brandon is Arthur’s descendant and I don’t know if you’re plotting revenge.” I said.

“I don’t think you’ve had enough time to think about it. It’s just too sudden. Tell you what, why don’t you go home and think on this for a while, eh? I’ll see you some other time. Until then…” He snapped his fingers. A blinding light shone in the van. I shut my eyes tightly to avoid blindness as I was teleported away.

Chapter Three: The Group
When I opened my eyes, we were back at home in Avalon Estates. We were in Kevin’s room. A video game had been paused, showing a knight in mid-swing with his sword. He had a racecar bed up against the wall, and a nightstand next to it. The wallpaper had planets and spaceships on it. A bowl of popcorn sat on the nightstand, next to several gum wrappers. A pack of gum was lying on the floor. A game controller sat on the bed. Kevin ran to it, excited to be home. Kevin’s bedroom was every ten-year-old boy’s dream room.

“Kevin, we don’t have time for that. We need to find Victoria. She’ll know whether or not the golf ball exploded.” I said.

“Aw man! But I just went through a traumatic experience! I was pulled off of a griffin, nearly eaten by wolves, attacked by gang members, nearly dropped into a hungry dragon’s mouth, and made a narrow escape.” he complained.

“C’mon.” I said, pulling him out of the room.

“Need… videogames…” he said. I dragged him out of the house. We went to the end of our street, Dim Lantern Drive, to Brandon’s house. It was the afternoon, so the sun was up high in the sky. And the sunlight had shown straight through his doorway. The door had been smashed down. He was in trouble.

The last time something like this happened Brandon’s parents were captured. We had to tell his parents that they were descendants of King Arthur in order to protect them. Luckily, no one was captured this time.

Kevin and I raced into the house. A railing had been smashed down and vases and picture frames and all sorts of knick knacks were strewn across the floor. A girl, fourteen at least, with black hair, stood in the hallway. She had very pale skin. She wore a dark green shirt and jeans, with combat boots. Her hair was long, draped over her shoulders. The strangest part was the tentacles. She had four tentacles, two on each side, extending from her neck. Her hair hid the holes that the tentacles had slithered out of, but it was obviously not normal. One of her tentacles was wrapped around Brandon’s waist, and another had one of Jordan’s ankles. Brandon has brown hair and brown eyes. Excalibur was in his right hand. Jordan has black hair and green eyes.

She had a sword in one hand and a wand was clipped to her belt. She swiped with the sword, though it was hard to do since she was upside down. All of the sudden, Patricia appeared at the top of the stairs, a goblin in front of her. Patricia is a descendant of Tristan, and she is fifteen years old. Patricia’s hair is red, though with some brown in it too, which made it look like cinnamon. She has green eyes and her face has freckles all over. She had two hatchets, her weapons of choice, slung over her shoulders. A collection of throwing knives was clipped to her belt.

She tackled the goblin and they rolled down the stairs. The goblin landed on top, and was about to bite her with its poisonous fangs when a large, metal hammer smacked it off of her. She looked up into the silver, glinting eyes of Robbie. She and Robbie were best friends. Robbie is a descendant of Gawain. His hair is black. His dad was captured during a battle with the More Dread Gang when he was nine, and has been searching for him ever since. The problem is, his dad is already dead. He just won’t accept it. Patricia got up and the duo fought off more goblins that ran in from the kitchen, their mouths covered in food from the pantry.

The girl with the tentacles tossed Jordan and Brandon aside and opened the basement door. She flung herself down the stairs. I shot a goblin in the forehead. The goblin fell to the ground, dead. Brandon recovered and began fighting some goblins. Just then, a wild boy with black hair and blue eyes full of insanity crashed through a door, riding an ogre. He stabbed the ogre in the head and slid down its back, hollering. It was Luke, descendant of Dagonet. Apparently Dagonet was Arthur’s jester, so all of his descendants tended to be wild, care-free, humorous, and witty. Luke was all of those things. He took out a can of silly string and sprayed it in the ogre’s face. The ogre melted.

That was Luke’s favorite toy, the acidic silly string. He took out a water gun and squirted a group of goblins with it. Although, it wasn’t water that came from the gun, it was tomato juice. All monsters, except maybe dragons, hate tomatoes.

Kevin rushed in and shot a few more goblins. Soon, the hallway had dead goblins and a melted ogre in it. The tentacle girl came back upstairs, clutching a fourteen year old boy in one tentacle. It was Kendall. Kendall is a dim-witted blonde boy. He has a twin brother, Alan. He is a gang member, and Dwayne, last spring when he was our ally, gave us Kendall so we could interrogate him. Apparently, he hit his head hard enough that he forgot a lot of stuff.

The limp, unconscious boy mumbled something. I shot one of the girl’s tentacles.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am Larissa Nyx, professional assassin. I came here on a mission to rescue Kendall.” she said.

“Then how come you have tentacles?” I asked.

“I’m half mermaid. Now, step aside. My mission is almost complete.” she said. I loaded my bow.

She pulled the arrow out of her tentacle. I fired another arrow at her, which she quickly ducked under. Three tentacles retracted into her neck, except for the one holding Kendall. She unsheathed a sword and lashed forward. I sidestepped the blade and hit her on the head with my bow. She leaped back, pulling Kendall along with her. Her tentacle then swept across the ground, tripping me.

When I sat up, she was gone. Victoria performed a spell and the splinters of the door pieced themselves back together and hinged themselves back onto the frame. She used the same spell to put everything in the hallway back to normal. “Victoria, please tell me that this was just another drill.” I said. She shook her head.

“On my way back, Pepperoni was attacked by a small dragon. We got rid of it, but when we got back I found this on Pepperoni.” she said. She pulled out a small chip with a red blinking light.

“Tracking device,” I confirmed.

She nodded. “The dragon must’ve planted it. Then, Larissa and her team probably used it to track us to here. But we’ll have to talk about the attack later. Right now, we should attend to the wounded.” she said. I followed her into the kitchen. Chandelor, the descendant of Gaheris, was sprawled out on the kitchen table, a bloody sheet spread over him. Chandelor’s skin is the color of cocoa, and he has blue eyes. He is sixteen years old. His sword was leaned up against the table. Next to him, also wounded, was Troy, descendant of Perceval.

His face was contorted with pain. He is seventeen years old, with blonde hair and intimidating green eyes. Brandon’s mom stood next to the table, pressing a hot washcloth to Troy’s forehead. Troy is Brandon’s adopted brother, but so are Robbie and Luke. And Patricia is his adopted sister. I know, a full house, right?

Brandon’s dad was at the other end of the room, cleaning Troy’s spear. Brandon’s dad is a biology professor, so he is fascinated by all of the mythical creatures that are around. Jordan was performing a healing spell on Chandelor. Lance walked into the room.

“Hey guys.” he said. Lance is fourteen years old, with black hair and green eyes. He’s my boyfr- I mean, friend. He sat down in a chair.

“I should probably tell you guys now. It’s been three months since I saw a sign. You know the signs that helped us on our quest to save the centaur camp?” he said. “Well, I found another three months ago. It said in three months that I need to tell you guys that another quest is ready. It said to find out the More Dread Gang’s biggest secret, we would have to follow the instructions. Though, I haven’t yet seen any instructions in the past three months, except for instructions on how to fix a garage door. Thanks, by the way, Luke, for making me fix that.” he said. Luke shrugged.

“How was I supposed to know that the graffiti was flammable?” Luke complained.

“It said so on the can. Anyways, I think we need to meet about what we are going to do about this quest.” he said. He looked around. “Well, as soon as everyone is healed.” Chandelor got up. Jordan was an excellent healer. He had stopped bleeding and the wound had begun to close up. Troy was fine, although he did keep the washcloth so he could stay warm.

“Alright. Let’s begin then.” said Lance.

I usually hated meetings, but this time it was much more fun. Lance was leading it.

“Okay, so we have no idea where these instructions are,” he began. “But they could show up at any moment, so we should stay alert.” he said.

“Lance, before we talk about that I think we should talk about today’s attack. That seems to be the most important thing right now.” said Victoria.

“Okay. What is it that you want to talk about?” he asked.

“Well, Larissa came here on a mission to free Kendall. That makes me think that she is a gang member. And if she’s a gang member, maybe she knows something about this big secret.” she resolved. Lance nodded.

“But there have been no girl gang members. They’re all boys. But then again, if she was rescuing Kendall she may have something to do with it. She said she was an assassin, so maybe the gang hired her.” said Chandelor.

“She’s an assassin, right? Why would they hire an assassin to do a rescue mission? Maybe she is on our side, she just didn’t realize it. Maybe she came so she could kill Kendall.” offered Patricia.

“It’s possible, but I don’t think she is on our side. She’s half mermaid, remember?” said Lance.

“There are good mermaids out there, but there are also bad ones. I’m betting that she is a bad one.” said Jordan.

“I agree. I found this tracking device on Pepperoni when I got back from dropping off Morgan and Kevin. A dragon planted it on him. Later, I saw that same dragon fighting alongside Larissa. It couldn’t just be a coincidence.” said Victoria. Everyone nodded. “Oh, and by the way, your mission was a success Morgan. The golf ball exploded.” she confirmed.

“Yeah, that’s great, but we still don’t know where these instructions are. Maybe there will be a drop-off? Or maybe it will come via mail.” joked Luke.

“I say that we search the house. Maybe Larissa and her team left or dropped something.” suggested Robbie. Everyone nodded and followed him to the front hall. We searched the entire attack scene, but found nothing.

“Maybe there is a clue in the sign.” said Brandon. “What did it say Lance?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think I remember. It said, ‘Great work- Lance. But you are not done. The More Dread Gang will be back. In three months, tell your friends that another quest is offered. To find out the More Dread Gang’s biggest secret, you must follow the instructions. They will arrive once you are ready.’” he recited.

“It mentioned your name.” said Kevin. “So, maybe the instructions will be delivered directly to you. Maybe it’s already at your house, you just don’t know it.”

“That’s a good guess. I’ll be sure to search later when I go home. But there is no way that we are all going to sweep through the house as a large, crazy mob.” he replied.

“But it said once you are ready. So, shouldn’t it already be here?” said Chandelor.

“That would make sense, but I think that this is supposed to be in some sort of code or maybe a hidden message of some sort.”

“Well, I think instead of saying ‘maybe’, we should start saying ‘is’. We need to find out exactly where it is, not guessing.” I said.

“Well, we can think on it over lunch, and some training! It is Friday, so you all know what that means!” exclaimed Luke.

“Battle Simulation!” everyone cheered. Every Friday, we would have a battle simulation where Victoria used her magic to create some sort of environment, and then we would practice our battle skills by dueling each other. And the good news is Jordan uses a healing spell before hand that protects everyone from getting hurt too badly.

We all mobbed the refrigerator, pulling out food and quickly heating it in the microwave. There were never leftovers with so many people, but Mrs. Bennett always made food early so we would have plenty later. After I ate a cheeseburger, I followed Brandon, Luke, Victoria, and Robbie into the garage, where we kept most of our weapons. I grabbed some more arrows off of the wall, and reloaded my quiver.

Luke got some more acid string, his wand, his sword, a bowling bag full of all sorts of things, and a scooter. The scooter had a horn on it that made a sound like a blue whale on steroids. It was really loud. Even though the horn is small, it can temporarily deafen anyone who gets too close. Victoria grabbed her wand, and Robbie pulled a dagger off of the wall. We all walked outside through the garage door and waited for the others.

Chandelor and Patricia came out, armed with their weapons. Soon after, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett came out with everyone else, and handed out the healing potions that Jordan had made. We all drank the potion. It tasted like bubble gum and bananas, with a hint of curdled milk. Luckily, the milk part was hard to taste. Everyone raised there weapons.

“Okay everyone, remember that this is only a training session, so try not to hurt each other too much.” said Victoria. We all marched down the street into the Honeysuckle Woods, where we had first found Excalibur.

“Okay, since there is a quest coming up soon, I propose that we focus this training session on teams. Team One, will be Jordan, Morgan, and Luke. Team Two will be composed of Kevin, Patricia, and Chandelor. Team Three will be Robbie, Brandon, and Troy. Team Four, is Victoria, me, and…” Lance said. He looked around. “There aren’t enough people to have teams,” said Troy.

“Oh, yes there is.” a voice said. We all turned to see Prescenan, a tall centaur with brown hair standing in the clearing. He was armed with a spear, and wore a white cape with gold trim, because as chief of the centaur camp, he was required to wear them whenever he was going in to battle or holding a conference.

“Prescenan!” we all cheered. He smiled and galloped forward.

“I will be on your team, Lance.” he said.

“Alright then, let’s begin the battle simulation!” shouted Victoria. She performed a spell and soon, there was a blinding flash. When the light was gone, Jordan, Luke, and I, were standing in a different part of the woods. It was raining and thundering. No one else, such as non-descendants, could see this storm going on. Only we could. We ran through the woods. The battle had already begun, and we knew that each team had been transported to a different corner of the area. After running for a while, we made it to the center of the field. No one else was there, which seemed a bit strange. I looked around for a sign of anyone else being here. Nothing. Then, I heard galloping in the distance. It was obviously Prescenan. He was probably carrying his team towards us right then.

I turned towards the galloping, when a knife whizzed by my head. Patricia and her team were standing at the edge of the clearing. I ducked an arrow fired by Kevin, and dashed towards them. Chandelor raised his sword, and brought it down on my shoulder. It hurt, but only the tip of the blade went through, as if the rest had been prevented from coming through. That was how the magic potions worked. He pulled it out and swung again. I rolled underneath it and kicked him in the stomach.

Patricia was battling Jordan, and Luke was pulling random items out of his bowling bag and throwing them at Kevin. A rubber duck bounced off of Kevin’s head and then popped loudly, making Kevin’s ears ring. Patricia and Jordan were rolling around in a mud puddle. I avoided another swing from Chandelor’s sword, and kicked him in the chest again to bring him to the ground.

Then Prescenan burst through the bushes, Lance on his back. Victoria arrived in the clearing soon after, using magic to have gotten there.

“We need to get away from all of this excitement,” I said, parrying Prescenan’s spear with my bow. Luke nodded and took out his scooter. I quickly put earplugs in my ears and Luke squeezed the horn on it, making an extremely loud noise. Patricia and Jordan lay in the mud, dazed from the noise. Victoria, Lance, Prescenan and Chandelor were clutching their ears. Luke and I quickly ran from the battle, in an effort to try and rest before attacking again. Jordan had been taken prisoner by Team Two, which is Kevin’s team, but we would have to worry about that later.

Then I heard Brandon and Troy calling to each other in the distance, followed by sword clanging and some clever remarks from Prescenan’s team. They had already gotten to a different battle location. It made sense though, because Prescenan is incredibly fast. Luke handed me some food that he had packed. It seemed a bit strange, eating food in the middle of a battle simulation as if we were on a quest. But it was good for practice. Suddenly, I caught sight of Kevin’s team a few yards away. Luke and I were concealed in the trees and bushes, so they hadn’t seen us yet.

Jordan was with them, hands tied behind her back. I raised my bow. If I could just get a clear shot in… there were too many trees in the way to get a good aim. Then I saw my opportunity. The arrow flew from the bow and impaled into Kevin’s arm. Sorry, bro. I thought. Chandelor pulled the arrow out and pointed in our direction.

“When they get close, use your horn. Then we can rescue Jordan and escape.” I whispered to Luke. He nodded. They were then two yards away… one yard… two feet…

Then, Patricia moved the bushes aside, revealing our hiding place.

“Oh, hi. How are you doing?” said Luke. Patricia raised a hatchet.

Luke blew his horn. Once they had all collapsed onto the ground, we pulled Jordan up. I ran off. Luke swiped a few knives from Patricia’s belt.

“See ya suckers!” he called over the horn’s noise. He followed me close behind. I looked back to see Chandelor running after us, only to trip over Kevin. When I turned back around, Lance stood in our path, sword gleaming. Brandon and Troy appeared behind him. Then I remembered that the three of them were some of the best fighters. Troy lowered his spear. Then, someone lifted me from behind and whisked me away from them. I had dropped Jordan, but I was thankful to get away from a fight with those three. Luke put me on the back of his motor scooter.

“I told you this thing could come in handy.” he said. As soon as he said that the scooter flew into the air after bumping over a tree root. We landed on the ground, with the scooter hanging from a tree branch.

“Yeah. That definitely helped.” I said sarcastically. I went over to the tree and struggled to pull it out of the tree branch. I finally got it out, but on the other end was something I hoped I wouldn’t see again for a while.

“Oh, uh, hey Gwen.” said James.

“Don’t call me Gwen. I’m Morgan. And didn’t I already tell you I wasn’t interested in an alliance?” I complained.

“Yeah, but I am positive that you will be interested once you see this.” he said, handing me a slip of paper. On the front of the paper it said:

Instructions

“Where did you get these?” I asked him.

“From my girlfriend. She said that you would want them for some reason. All I want is an alliance.” he said.

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal. If you give me these and stay away from me for the rest of my life, then I will buy you chocolates for your girlfriend and let you shake Arthur’s descendant’s hand. Deal?” I said.

“No. I’d much rather be in an alliance with you. Listen, I don’t have a crush on you or anything, because I have a girlfriend, but I think that you and your friends are going to need a lot of help.” he said.

“Uh, Morgan, who’s this guy?” Luke asked.

“He’s-”

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am James Challister. I am a descendant of the Black Knight. I can fly because I did a spell incorrectly and somehow this is supposed to be a side effect.” he said.

I vaguely remembered him introducing himself to me in the same way. I rolled my eyes. It was like he rehearsed everything, which was really annoying.

“You can fly?” asked Luke.

“That’s what I just said. I did tell him I could fly, right Gwen?” he asked.

“Don’t call me Gwen. Just because I am a descendant of Guinevere doesn’t mean you have to call me Gwen.” I said.

“Whatever. Anyways, I would like to meet your other friends.” he said.

“We’re listening.” a voice said. I turned to see the other teams standing there.

“Ah, hello. Allow me to-”

“We already heard that part.” complained Chandelor.

“Oh, well, then why don’t you introduce yourselves to me?” he asked. I sighed.

“That will take a while. Why don’t we get to know each other some other time, okay James?” I said.

“Alright, here are your instructions. Be sure to think about the alliance though.” he called, vanishing into thin air. I walked over to Lance.

“Lance, he had the instructions for the quest.” I said, handing him the paper. He took it and inspected it carefully.

“You don’t think he’s a gang member, do you?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. He is a descendant of the Black Knight, so I think it is possible he is working at an angle for revenge on Arthur’s descendant.” I said.

“Great. I barely know the guy, and he’s already looking to kill me.” Brandon said.

“Well, I guess this concludes battle simulation. Right now, we need to talk about this quest.” said Victoria.

“Can we eat first?” asked Kevin.

We were back at the house. We had all put our weapons back in the garage, and we were currently eating waffles and orange juice.

“Okay, so now that we have the instructions, let’s take a look at them.” said Victoria.

Lance unfolded the paper and spread it across the table. A map was in one corner, while the other three were taken up by writing. A line was drawn across the map, with small dots at certain areas. The line began in our neighborhood and stretched across the country towards the west, and stopped in South Dakota.

“Well, we can already tell that we’re going to South Dakota.” I said.

“Thank you, Captain Oblivious.” said Kevin. I started laughing.

“What?” he asked.

“Just leave before you’re too embarrassed.” I said. Kevin left the room.

“First things first, who’s going on the quest?” asked Robbie.

“Yeah, that is definitely important. I think Lance should go because he is the one who saw the sign.” said Prescenan. Brandon’s dad looked up from the waffle maker and walked over to Prescenan.

“Hey, how would you like to graze over in the neighbor’s yard? Wouldn’t that be fun?” he said. Prescenan looked at him.

“I’m a centaur, not a horse. I have feelings. Also, I’m not stupid. Lastly, centaurs don’t eat grass. They’ll eat just about anything but grass. Look, if you’re worried about me tracking hoof tracks in here, you could’ve just said so. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and wipe my hooves.” he said, storming out of the room. Brandon’s dad looked at us.

“What?” he asked.

“Just, just go and sit with Kevin.” I said.

He nodded, understanding that he had just completely embarrassed himself. After he left the room, we continued talking about the quest.

“Okay, so, Lance, Morgan, Brandon, Victoria, Luke, and Jordan are all going on the quest.” said Robbie, who was announcing the final decision.

“That is right. The instructions say that only six people can go, and there is also something about watching out for the mermaid assassin. So it sounds like we’re going to be chased by Larissa throughout the quest.” I said.

“Also, there are five items we need to collect along the way in order to unlock the secret of the More Dread Gang.” said Brandon. “It seems like we get those items at these five locations,” he said, pointing at the map, “and then go here to use them.”

Lance folded the instructions and put them in his pocket. “Okay, so it said on the instructions that we need to depart from here when we see a message forged of fire on the day Cameria was born. I have no idea who this Cameria girl is, but apparently her birthday is vital to this mission. It also said in the corner: See five spaces right.” he said. Everyone shrugged, not knowing what it could mean.

“Well, I think we’d better find out who this Cameria is, and why she is so important.” said Patricia.

A day had gone by. We had asked the school if there were any Camerias attending the school, but no such luck. Victoria said she didn’t remember ever meeting a Cameria, which was a big deal since Victoria knew everyone at the school. It was July third. I didn’t know when the quest was supposed to begin, but I did know that the next day was July fourth, so it was time to party.

I always liked July fourth. It was a reason to party, because it was the day our country was born. Born… I thought to myself. See five spaces right…

If I were to move the letter C five spaces right in the name Cameria, it spelled… America! A message forged of fire would be sent to us on July fourth! I ran straight to Lance’s house and told him.

“It seems a bit far-fetched, but it is the only lead we have. I’ll tell the rest of the group and we’ll begin packing. But we’ll need to watch for a fiery message all day long tomorrow, so get some good sleep tonight.” he said. After a nice sleep, I met up at Brandon’s house with the others. Nothing happened all day long. When night fell, I became a bit irritated. An Independence Day party was going on right down the street and I had an invitation…

“Guys, can I go to the party now? If you find anything you can just call me. And, I’ll still keep an eye out.” I said.

“Well, Morgan could be right. I mean, what do we expect? Some mailman to arrive at the door holding a flaming package for us? Why don’t we search the neighborhood, it wouldn’t hurt to try.” said Luke. We all agreed to go down to the party. Tables with barbecue were spread across lawns, and some men on a hill a few hundred yards away were setting up fireworks. Soon, music was playing, and people were dancing. After doing the Cha-Cha Slide five times, I sat down next to Lance.

“What are you waiting for? You haven’t had any fun all night long. In fact, all day long.” I said.

“Sorry. I just… I can’t stop thinking about this.” he said. A firework whistled through the warm air and exploded high in the sky, sprinkling blue sparks all over, creating a booming clap. Lance and I watched the fireworks. The colors were beautiful. I held his hand. We both looked at each other. His green eyes reflected the fireworks, creating a rainbow illusion. I leaned in, and then…

“There it is!” he called, pointing at a firework.

Really, dude!? Really, couldn’t he tell he was supposed to kiss me!? I thought. I looked up at the firework.

->

Now.

South

The arrow was pointing south. Lance picked up his bag, and we raced over to Jordan and Luke. Luke had leaned in to kiss Jordan, but now he was on the ground, Jordan standing over him.

“Don’t you ever try to do that again.” she shouted at him.

“Okay, okay. Can you stop driving my spine through my chest now?” he asked. She took her foot off of him.

“We’re going south. Right now. Where are Brandon and Victoria?” Lance asked. Brandon and Victoria walked up to us.

“Were you guys trying to kiss each other too?” I asked.

“No.” said Brandon, staring at me strangely.

“Well looks like none of us did.” I complained.

Lance rolled his eyes. “Guys, we are going south. I don’t know why when we are supposed to go west. But the instructions haven’t lied so far, so we’d better go.” said Lance. We all shouldered our bags and left the neighborhood, beginning our quest.

Chapter Four: Mermaids
We had traveled south for five hours. My feet were starting to ache. Morgan rule #1: I don’t do travel on foot. Rule #2: Guys are really oblivious as to when you’re trying to ask them out. Rule #3: Avoid centaur wizards; you’ll end up as a canine.

Lance, after me complaining for an hour, finally put his shield into car mode. His shield can do all sorts of magic, like turning into a car, a boat, armor, just about anything really. Jordan took the wheel since she had her license, and we drove the next ten miles before trouble showed up. It was dark, about one o’ clock in the morning, but we could see the dark-haired girl blocking our path with the headlights. Tentacles wrapped around the hull of the car, and threw us off of the road. The six of us tumbled down the hill as the shield returned to regular form.

Larissa landed not far from us. Luke took out his silly string, but Larissa got his throat in the iron grip of a tentacle, and began strangling him. I fired arrows at her.

“You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” she said. She snapped her fingers. From the lake nearby, emerged several other girls, all with different colored hair and skin. Tentacles came out of their necks.

“Meet my cousins. They have some make-up that’s to die for.” she said. I saw what she meant. The girls had hideous faces.

“They had fallen for a trick by a descendant of Dagonet. He burned their faces away with some sort of irreversible magic. I will be greatly rewarded for killing a descendant of Dagonet.” she said. Brandon shrieked wildly and cut away the tentacle, releasing Luke. Jordan dragged him off. He was coughing and gasping for air.

Larissa retracted her tentacles and punched Brandon in the face. He raised his sword, and she responded by unsheathing hers. They went into a sword fight, each trying to get the upper hand. Jordan and Victoria used a repellant spell, and several of the mermaids vanished, some of them dropping dead. One sniffed the air.

“Dagonet.” it hissed, staggering towards Luke. Lance sliced its head off. Larissa’s cousins were all dead. I looked over at Brandon’s sword fight. Larissa had several gashes and cuts all over, and her stomach was bleeding.

“You’ll… I’ll defeat you later.” she said, transporting away. I turned towards the lake. Luckily, no more face melted half-mermaids came out. But something was in the middle of the lake, sitting on a rock. Lance put his shield into boat mode after I told him what I saw, and we all sailed out towards the rock. Sitting on the rock, was a mermaid. A good one. It had brown hair and green eyes, and a tail covered with scales replaced her legs.

“Well, it seems you have made it here in one piece. I am Coral Nyx.” she said.

“Nyx. You’re Larissa’s mom?” I asked. She nodded.

“But you’re so pretty and she’s so… ugh.” said Luke. Jordan was about to push him overboard when Lance stopped her.

“What do you mean? My daughter is quite beautiful, except maybe for the tentacles. I take credit for that. But still, she is my daughter. Which is why I must heal her.” she said.

“What? Don’t you realize that she is fighting for the wrong side?” Brandon said.

“Yes, but she is still my daughter. She will seek me out because mermaids have an ability to heal people.” she said.

“Why can’t she heal herself then?” I asked.

“Because, she is only a half-mermaid. She doesn’t have all mermaid abilities. You see, my husband was human, so…”

“Yeah, how does that work exactly?” Luke asked.

“We have no time for any more questions! You have come far enough south. Now, I will teleport you to some secret paths that you can take to the first item. Hopefully you’ll be able to reach it undetected. But first, I have something for Dagonet’s descendant…” she said.

“Aw, man, do all mermaids want to kill me?” he said, coming forward in the boat. Coral shook her head. She clapped and another mermaid emerged from the water. This mermaid was blonde with green eyes.

“Do all mermaids have green eyes?” I asked.

“Well, yes most do. Now, Luke, lean forward…” she commanded.

“Look, if you’re going to drown me, then-” he didn’t get to finish because then, the blonde mermaid kissed him. He fell back into the boat.

“What just happened?” he asked. “I feel all tingly inside.” he said.

“Mermaid kisses. It means that now, you can breathe underwater.” Coral said.

“You hear that guys? No more snorkels for me! Wahoo!” he said. Coral sighed.

“I did it so that Larissa can’t drown you… or any mermaid for that matter. Larissa is so mischievous sometimes. I like that in her, but I know that you will need Luke’s new ability later. But for right now, you must be on your way.” she said. She performed a spell, and soon, we were in Ohio.

Chapter Five: Jordan Gets Angry
Columbus, Ohio. We had gone here once to get help from Jordan’s friend Gordon. I know, Jordan, Gordon, they rhyme, we get it. We were in front of Gordon’s apartment building. Jordan knocked on the door. A man answered the door, but it wasn’t Gordon.

“Excuse me, but do you know where the man who used to live here is now?” asked Jordan.

“I’m sorry, but he was found dead here the night of his eviction. The doctors say it was suicide.” the man answered. I knew the man was wrong. The night of Gordon’s eviction, he had healed Victoria and then helped us escape the More Dread Gang. What really happened was the More Dread Gang killed him. Anger contorted on Jordan’s face.

“We’re here for something he had for us.” I said.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t come in. I am very busy right now and-” the man froze in a block of ice. Jordan put her wand away and stepped inside. She froze two kids and an old woman and ripped a book off of a shelf. She read a spell from the book and dropped it on the floor as a tunnel opened up in the floorboards. It was the same passage we had used to escape the gang the first time we were here. We all slid down.

Once we were at the bottom, I asked Jordon if she should have unfroze those people. She shot me an angry look. I backed off then.

“Which path did we go down last time?” asked Victoria.

“It doesn’t matter as long as we find an exit.” said Jordan. We went down the right path. Not right as in ‘correct’, right as in the direction. Soon we were face to face with a dragon. Before the dragon could react, Jordan disintegrated it with her wand.

“Let’s go.” she said. I had never seen her this angry before. We continued down the path. Soon, I heard shouts coming from behind us. I held up the torch we had lit and saw Dwayne’s grinning face in the light.

“Well, it’s strange that we happened to be down here together again. Of course, this time, I’ll be trying to kill you.” he said. I looked behind him and saw several gang members flanking him. Two of them happened to be very stupid.

“Well look who’s back in the gang.” I said.

“I can’t believe how gullible you are! I faked my amnesia to keep you from finding out any info from me! And Alan thinks that I’m the one that is bad at keeping secrets.” said Kendall.

“You are. Remember, the thing with the vase? And the hamster? And the-” Alan said.

“Okay we get it! I slipped up a lot, but at least I didn’t tell them any secrets this time!” he said.

Jordan’s wand flicked on and bombarded the group with blue orbs. We quickly ran away from the gang, but they were still hot on our trail. Lance took something out of his pack. A seed? What good would that do?

He threw the seed into a puddle on the ground and a large, thorny stalk blasted from the ground, blocking the gang’s path.

“I was hoping to use that sometime soon.” he said. We continued running.

“We need to find an exit, and fast!” shouted Luke. A buzzing sound came from ahead and we all quickly jumped over the buzz saw the sound was emanating from. I looked around for an exit as I ran.

“Guys, let’s stop and look for an exit. It will take a while for them to cut through that stalk.” said Lance. We all stopped and caught our breath. I looked up at the ceiling for a ladder or hatch, but couldn’t find anything. After searching more thoroughly, we found no exits.

“Hey guys, I found something.” Luke said. We all gathered around the lever that he stood by. “Maybe it opens a secret exit.” he said.

He pulled the lever down and a steel cage fell down around us.

“Great job, Sherlock.” Victoria said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just flip it back up.” he said. He reached for the lever, only to find that it had vanished.

“It must have retracted into the wall.” Brandon said.

“Well now we’re stuck in a cage with no way out.” I said.

“Yeah, right.” said Jordan. She performed a spell and the sides of the cage blasted open. We ran out quickly.

“How far do you think we got away from Dwayne?” asked Lance.

“I’d say not too far.” said Dwayne. He unsheathed his knives. Several gang members joined him.

“What are we waiting for? Charge!” shouted Alan, racing towards us. Jordan used a spell to flip him onto his back.

“That’s why.” said Kendall. Brandon smacked him on the head with the butt of his sword.

“Normally, I would’ve killed you for harming my fellow members, but this one was annoying, so I’ll let it slide.” said Dwayne.

“Hey!” complained Kendall. Alan got up only to be elbowed in the face by Victoria. Then, the gang members launched themselves forward at us. We all backed up. The next thing we knew, Dwayne had magically resealed the cage doors on us.

After that, Jordan and Dwayne went into sort of a magic arm wrestling match. They were both using magic to bend the cage doors in different directions. After five minutes, both had beads of sweat on their faces and were beginning to lose strength.

“I trained you pretty well, didn’t I Jordan? It’s too bad that we’re fighting each other. We’d make a great team. If only you joined the gang when Joshua offered it.” said Dwayne.

“Hey, I told you not to mention our dad!” shouted Kendall. Apparently the twins’ dad’s name was Joshua. He used to be a gang leader, until the twins brought him out into the forest and trapped him there with nothing but his red car. They did it for revenge, because their mom had been murdered by their dad. Then later, I killed him in the woods. When they were younger, their dad captured Jordan and demanded that she join the gang. She escaped him and never joined the gang. After she escaped, she met Dwayne, who was only ten back then, and he trained her to be a great wizard and sword wielder. Jordan didn’t know who she was a descendant of, but she was still determined to destroy the More Dread Gang.

“No, I shouldn’t have, because then, I’d be as low as scum like you!” she shouted. The cage door bent outwards in response to Jordan’s burst of anger.

“Scum? I’d say that that wizard was lower than scum. What was his name again? Gordon, that was it.” he responded.

Jordan became sadder than angry now, and the cage door bent inwards again. She struggled to recover herself, but she couldn’t. She passed out from using too much magic. Several gang members laughed.

“Alright, Dwayne, my turn.” said Victoria, raising her hands. Dwayne smiled. The cage door began to bend in and out. Dwayne didn’t have the advantage here, as he was already tired from competing with Jordan. Then I thought to myself, why was I just watching? I could be shooting Dwayne with arrows to weaken him, better yet kill him. I loaded an arrow, and aimed at Dwayne. Then, Victoria passed out.

“Rookie.” said Dwayne. He snapped his fingers and we were all transported out. “Disarm and restrain them.” said Dwayne. I fired an arrow at a gang member and he dropped dead. I reached back to grab another arrow, only to find that Alan had removed my quiver, along with my arrows. I turned to punch him, when my arms were pulled behind my back and tied. The others had their hands tied too, and were being hauled away by the gang. The twins pushed me along, following the rest of the group.

I was in a car trunk. The gang had taken us out of the tunnels and threw us in the back of a car. After one hour, the trunk opened, letting light stream into the trunk. We were lifted out and taken inside a Wendy’s restaurant.

“Here they are.” said Dwayne. A large man with red hair and a red beard stormed out of the kitchen.

“Good.” said Dan. We had fought Dan a few times last spring. He was an ogre, but he was far more intelligent and if he gets wet, he grows in size. Sort of like one of those fake pet frogs that grow when you let them sit in the sink for a few days. He always ran fast food restaurants, but he won’t let the workers leave, or sleep, and he usually doesn’t give his employees much food, or even cash! This guy is the worst boss anyone could ever have.

“I hope that this clears things up, Dan.” said Dwayne.

“Yeah sure, here are the directions to the item you need. It is in Lake Michigan, at the bottom.” said Dan. Lake Michigan? That just happened to be where we were heading to. And coincidentally, we were looking for an item too. The gang members fled the building. Dan lifted Jordan off of the floor.

“Alex!” he shouted. A twenty-year old woman darted through the kitchen door and into the main area. Her blonde hair was tucked into her Wendy’s cap. She brushed some crumbs off of her apron. She was the only employee that ever enjoyed working for Dan. But it seemed like she was brushing the crumbs off to hide the fact that she had been eating the merchandise. Even though she is Dan’s favorite employee, he still doesn’t treat her too well.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Take this one to the storage room and lock her in there. I think I’ll have some dinner with her- later.” he said.

“Yes, sir.” she said, saluting. She dragged Jordan through the door.

“The rest of you…” he said, throwing some aprons on the floor. “Get to work! We open in one hour, so you’d better start cleaning now!” he shouted, stomping into the back room. I stood up.

“Man, is he stupid. We can walk right out!” I said, running for the door. Before I touched the doorknob a robotic voice said, “Beginning security protocols. Escape and resistance is futile.”

“Uh, whatever.” I said.

“Morgan, stop!” shouted Lance. I touched the doorknob, and it shocked me. It didn’t completely fry me, and it wasn’t a small shock of static, but it was somewhere in between.

“Ouch!” I yelled, pulling my hand away.

“Wait, if we can’t leave, then…” said Brandon.

“Then we have to work at Wendy’s.” said Luke.

Chapter Six: Help
I was wiping down some tables. My eyes darted over to Lance, who was taking some customer’s orders at the cash register. Victoria, Luke, and Brandon were cooking in the kitchen. I walked into the supply closet and put the bucket and sponge away. I went into the kitchen, where Alex was shouting orders at Brandon.

“You call this meat cooked? It’s still pink on the outside!” she shouted. Dan came out of the back room, carrying some plates.

“Alex, put some jumbo hamburger buns on here and then preheat the oven! I’m starving and cannot wait much longer for dinner!” he yelled.

“Yes, sir.” she said, opening a cabinet. She pulled out a hamburger bun the size of a minivan’s tire.

“That thing is huge!” said Luke.

“I know. A big bun, for such a big dinner. Now back to work!” Dan shouted. Luke turned back to his stove and flipped a burger. After Alex hauled the giant hamburger bun through the door, I turned to Brandon.

“We have to stop him! He is going to eat Jordan.” I said.

“Really? She wouldn’t taste very good if you ask me.” he replied. I smacked him on the head with a spatula. Then, Lance opened the door.

“Hey guys, you might want to see this.” he said.

“But I’m cooking! And Alex said not to leave the oven while it is on.” said Luke. I turned the oven off.

“Can we go now?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” he said. We left the kitchen. Standing in front of the cash register, were two centaurs.

“I’m telling you man, Wendy’s is so much better than McDonald’s. It is completely horse meat free.” said the one on the right. He had auburn hair and a face that made you smile no matter who you were.

“Are you sure? I can’t eat horse meat. It’s like eating half of myself.” the one on the left replied. He had green eyes and brown hair, and a bow and quiver were slung across his back.

It was Jonah and Ian, centaurs from Prescenan’s camp. They were friends of ours. Ian was the most musical of the centaurs. Right now, he had an acoustic guitar slung across his back, and a harmonica was in his shirt pocket. He also had a sousaphone that he had turned into a stone using magic. If he threw the stone on the ground, it would turn back into a sousaphone. The sousaphone was magic, so when he blew it, magic orbs flew from it.

“Hey guys.” I said. Ian kept staring at the menu, trying to make sure there was no horse meat in the burgers.

“Guys!” Victoria shouted. They both stopped looking at the menu to look at us.

“Oh, no thanks, we’re still looking.” said Ian. Jonah rolled his eyes and clubbed Ian on the head with the harmonica.

“What?” he complained. Jonah gestured to us.

“Oh.” said Ian.

“Since when do you guys have a job here?” asked Jonah.

“Ever since Dwayne dumped us here to slave all day long for Dan the evil ogre fast food restaurant owner.” I said. The duo burst out laughing.

“You’re funny! No, really, what happened?” asked Jonah.

“That’s really what happened!” I shouted. Dan came out from the back.

“What are you all doing? You should be cooking more burgers for these-” he looked at the centaurs. “Happy hungry customers!” he said, cheerfully.

Help us! I mouthed to the duo. Ian nodded.

“What would you like today, sir?” Dan asked Jonah. The way Dan said it you would have thought that he grew up in a mansion in UK and had learned every single benefit there was for being polite.

“Oh, actually, we are-” they looked at each other.

“Health inspectors!” they said.

“Really? But… you are centaurs.” Dan replied. Jonah leaned on the counter and gave Dan his best ‘Oh no you didn’t’ look.

“Do you have a problem with that…punk?” asked Jonah.

“Oh, uh, no sir! Of course not!” replied Dan.

“Good. We are here from the, uh, Mythical Creatures Health and Nutrition Council.” Ian said, making the organization up.

“Oh, yes of course! What would you like, sir?” asked Dan, worriedly. He was definitely becoming nervous.

“Well, first we should take a look at your kitchen.” said Jonah.

“Uh… the kitchen, of course. Right this way…” said Dan, leading them inside.

“Your floors appear to be clean…” said Ian.

“Oh yes, we definitely try our hardest to keep this place squeaky clean!” said Dan. Ian nodded.

“But what is this?” asked Jonah, opening a door.

“Someone could choke on a burger bun this size!” he said, pulling the giant bun from the closet.

“Oh, yes, well that is for me.” Dan said.

“You make special buns to feed yourself, when you could spend all of that valuable time making smaller buns for your customers?” said Ian, appalled at the idea.

“Well, I never really thought of it that way…”

“Of course you didn’t! And you did not even provide good working conditions for your employees either! Look at this! There is a girl employee knocked out in the closet!” Jonah said, dragging Jordan out.

“But I-”

“And look! The food has- what is this? Shaving cream?” said Ian, looking at the cream that Luke had just spread on the burger.

“But-”

“And this! An employee is sleeping on the counter! Do you think that is very sanitary?” asked Ian, who was gesturing to Victoria who had fallen asleep.

“No.” said Dan.

“This is preposterous!” shouted Jonah.

“Will a delicious burger smooth this entire thing over?” asked Dan.

“Hmmm… well, I suppose so.” said Ian.

“Oh, thank you so much!” Dan said.

“We will wait in a booth outside.” said Jonah, trotting towards the door.

“Yes, sir, of course, sir.” said Dan hysterically. He lifted Brandon by his shirt collar. “You’d better not mess this up!” he shouted. After Dan stormed out of the room, we all went back to work.

Jordan was dragged back into the closet by Alex.

“Okay guys, when Alex gets back out, we knock her out with this pot and replace her with Jordan. If we disguise Jordan as Alex, Dan will never know.” I said.

Lance nodded, lifting the pot. Alex closed the door behind her and he smacked her in the face. After dragging her in and getting Jordan out, he put a Wendy’s apron on her and put Alex’s cap on her, and tucked her hair in the cap so Dan wouldn’t notice the black hair. Brandon finished the burgers for Jonah and Ian and wrapped them. I put them on a tray along with two tall cups of Pepsi and a large box of fries. I set them on the table after Ian finished strumming on his guitar to keep Dan’s attention.

“Wow, you are very good! Do you play an instrument too?” Dan asked Jonah.

“No.” he replied.

“Well, okay then. Enjoy your meals!” Dan said, entering the kitchen. I continued wiping tables, but I always dropped more crumbs and dirt on one table so I could keep wiping it and listen to the centaurs’ conversation.

“Yuck! What is this? Horse meat?” Jonah finally said. Dan rushed out to their table.

“Is there a problem, sir?” Dan asked.

“Yes, I believe there is. This burger has horse meat in it! Do you think I enjoy eating half of my own species?” asked Jonah.

“I am terribly sorry, sir! Would you like a new one?” Dan asked.

“No. I wouldn’t want to put Brandon through the trouble of making another burger with no horse meat.” said Jonah.

“I am so- wait a minute, how do you know my employee’s name?” Dan asked.

“Oh, uh well…”

Ian stopped sipping his drink to talk. “Because we had their help to fight the More Dread Gang last fall to protect our centaur camp.” he said, not realizing he just blew his cover. Dan’s face was red with anger.

“I can’t believe this! How could I have been so gullible!? Alex, come out here right now!” Dan yelled. Jordan walked out of the kitchen in her disguise.

“Yes, sir?” she asked.

“I want you to-” then he saw some of her hair sticking out. He growled with anger. He smacked Jordan aside and overturned a table. Then, Brandon and Lance raced out with their swords and began to fight Dan. Luke came out, lugging his bowling bag along with him. He tossed me my bow and quiver. I fired arrows at Dan, who screamed in rage. Then, there was an explosion.

Chapter Seven: Larissa Orders Take-Out
“It’s definitely strange to find you all in a Wendy’s with an angry ogre and two centaurs, but no matter. I can still finish my job.” Larissa said, emerging from the smoke of the explosion.

“Who is she?” asked Dan.

“She’s an old friend of ours.” I said. A group of deformed half-mermaids gathered behind her.

“And who is the ogre?” she asked.

“Dwayne left us here to work for this psycho ogre and in return the ogre gave him information on where one of the items is.” I explained.

“Dwayne is already going to the first item?! No! Girls, start heading towards Lake Michigan, I’ll catch up with you later.” she said. The half-mermaids darted away.

“Wait. I thought you were working with the More Dread Gang.” I said.

“No. I just did that mission because I was getting paid for it. And now, I’m on a new mission to keep those items out of the hands of you and the More Dread Gang.” she said, her tentacles coming out of her neck.

Lance and Brandon ran towards her, but she grabbed Lance with one tentacle and fought Brandon sword to sword. Dan turned back to Jordan, but was kicked in the face by two powerful hooves by Jonah. Lance flew across the room and slammed into Dan, who toppled over. Larissa smacked Brandon aside and lashed out at Ian. I shot an arrow at her, and while she pulled it out Ian smashed his guitar over her back.

“I’ve got several just like it at home.” he said. I looked over at Dan, who was being smacked by Luke’s heavy bag. Larissa recovered from her wounds and tripped Ian. Victoria was now battling Alex, who had escaped from the closet.

“Guys, the security system were destroyed in the explosion. Let’s get out of here!” said Brandon, running out of the restaurant. Jonah, with Lance and Victoria on his back, galloped out of the restaurant after him. Ian and Jordan had knocked out Larissa and were now running from the scene. Luke and I left last, as we had to get past Dan.

We ran for what seemed like miles. We turned and saw that no one followed us.

“Okay guys, it looks like there are three teams going after these items. And we need to get all five of them to unlock the More Dread Gang’s biggest secret. We are team one. Team two is Dwayne, the twins, and a bunch of other gang members. Team three is Larissa and her zombie half-mermaids. Both teams already have a head start, so we’ll have to get there fast.” Brandon said.

“We could use my shield, but the magic would run out before we get too far.” said Lance.

“And we can’t teleport there because we have no items from Lake Michigan.” said Victoria.

“Guys, why don’t we just travel the old-fashioned way by flying there.” said Luke.

“You’re right! We could fly there on Pepperoni!” said Victoria.

“Yeah, as great as lunch sounds right now, I think we should stay on topic.” he said.

“No, my pet griffin Pepperoni.” she said.

“Oh, right. Well that isn’t what I meant. We could just get plane tickets.” he said.

“I don’t know. Last time we flew somewhere we ended up fighting goblin flight attendants and then we fell thousands of feet out of the air.” I said.

“Okay, so maybe flight isn’t such a good idea. But foot is too slow and we can’t use magic. So, what do we do now?” asked Luke.

“First of all, let’s use what we’ve got. We can use Lance’s shield, and when that fails, we go to Plan B.” said Jordan.

“Great! So, what’s Plan B?” asked Luke.

“We’ll figure it out when we get there.” said Jordan. Lance said the words on the shield, but instead of a car, the shield became a grey, large armored tank.

“Or we could take this.” said Lance.

We all climbed in. “I don’t know how to drive this thing.” said Jordan. Instead of a steering wheel, there was a series of touch-screen controls that were built into the dashboard. In front of the dashboard was a large screen that was showing live feed from a camera that was on the top of the tank. A small target icon was in the corner, along with several other buttons.

I stared at the confusing control panel. “I know! Why don’t we call Kevin? Maybe he knows something about all of this fancy stuff!” I suggested.

“Okay.” said Brandon, dialing Kevin’s number.

“He won’t be able to see it if we call him on the phone.” I said.

“Oh here, use my laptop to video chat with him.” said Luke, pulling it out of his bowling bag.

“What else do you keep in that bag?” I asked, opening the laptop. Kevin finally answered the call.

“What is it Morgan? I was in the middle of fighting the giant scorpion in my game.” he complained.

“Nice to see you too. We’re totally fine, I mean it’s not like we’ve been forced to work for psycho restaurant owners.” I said.

“What?” he replied.

“We need your help. Can you tell us how this thing works?” I asked, setting the laptop in front of the dashboard.

“That? That’s simple. You just drag your finger across the screen to the right to go right, and left to go left. To go forward, hold down that button with the other hand. To stop, drag your finger towards yourself to slow down.” he said.

“How fast is it?” Brandon asked.

“I’d say that even though it is large and heavy, since the technology is rather advanced, it could go at a maximum of ninety miles an hour.” he replied.

“And what do those icons do?” I asked.

“Well, the target icon will probably activate the weapons systems, the cloak icon probably makes you invisible, and the water icon… I’m not sure what it does.” he said. I pushed it, and a glass of water rose up on a small platform.

“Cool. So we have an armored tank that has guns and cup holders. Now what?” asked Victoria.

“Now,” said Jordan, placing her hands on the screen, “we drive.”

“Keep shooting!” shouted Lance.

“I am!” I called back. Lance and I were on the top of the tank. We heard noise on top so we went to investigate. We found several goblins on top. We killed the goblins that were there, but a fleet of trucks full of them were chasing after us. A few cop cars joined the chase as well, the drivers being goblins. Lance had climbed into a seat that was in front of a large machine gun, and I stuck to my arrows. We were blasting the trucks, but so far we had only made a few dents.

The goblins were returning fire by launching actual fire. The projectiles were stones with small ropes tied around them, and then the ropes were lit on fire after being soaked in kerosene. Another fireball flew over head and exploded just to the right of our truck. Luke opened the hatch to the roof.

“What’s with all of the noise up- oh. Goblins.” he said. He pulled himself through the hole, along with his bowling bag. He lifted several bowling balls out.

“Seriously? That bag isn’t big enough to- never mind.” I said. He rolled a blue ball off of the tank and down the street. The ball collided with the front of a truck and the truck froze in a block of ice.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“The balls are magic, each one is a different color, so it does a different thing.” he responded. He rolled a red ball and it caused a massive explosion, destroying two trucks and at least one police car. One of the trucks vanished. I turned to see Victoria standing behind us, her spell book open. I continued firing arrows.

I shot at least a dozen goblins before the trucks started to back off. All of the police cruisers had been destroyed by Luke’s bowling balls and Lance’s cannon.

“Why are they leaving?” I asked.

“Because of that.” said Victoria. A large red dragon soared through the sky.

“We need to get back inside.” said Luke.

“Uh, guys, that might not be an option.” said Lance. Just then, the cannon Lance had been in vanished. “The magic is already beginning to wear off. Even if we do go inside for cover it won’t last long.” I examined our options. Go inside, and be protected for a short time. Stay here and fight, or get cooked by dragon breath trying.

“We need to stay and fight.” I said. The others nodded, getting out their weapons. Then, a blinding light flashed, and when it was gone, there stood James Challister.

“Dude, go away!” everyone yelled.

“No way! I’m here to help you.” he said, unsheathing his sword. It had a silver handle with a blade of copper and gold fused together. “I can fly up there and attack the dragon while you guys distract it.” he said.

We all eyed each other nervously, unsure of the idea.

“C’mon, guys, you need the support. So far you’ve been attacked by Larissa twice, captured by the More Dread Gang, forced to work for Dan, and got attacked by goblins. Not only that, but your enemies both have leads on you right now.” he said. We all sighed.

“Fine, but just this once. After this, you’re done helping us with our quest.” said Lance. James shrugged.

“Fair enough.” he said. He hovered off of the tank’s rooftop and rocketed up towards the dragon. The dragon was only twenty feet above us right now, and smoke rose from its nostrils. It caught sight of James and spewed flames. James quickly maneuvered around the flames and flew behind the dragon. The dragon started to turn towards him when one of Luke’s bowling balls hit it on the nose. It looked down at us, angry. Flames seared the metal of the tank. Brandon peeked through the hatch.

“Guys, parts of the tank are starting to disappear.” he said. We looked up and saw the dragon collapse to the ground, James hovering over it. He gave us a thumbs-up and disappeared. Then, the tank disappeared as well, returning back to shield form. We were all standing in the middle of the road with a shield lying on the ground.

“Great, now how are we supposed to get to Lake Michigan?” I complained.

There was a flash. It wasn’t James, but it was James’ magic.

“Where the heck are we?” Luke asked.

I looked out at the large lake spread before us.

“We’re in Michigan. But how-” Jordan said.

“The great descendant of the Black Knight strikes again.” I said. Jordan nodded. A roaring sound from an airplane rose up as a red plane landed in a runway down the street. A small building near the runway was painted red with dragon designs on it. The More Dread Gang owned a runway. Great. Then, Dwayne stepped out of the plane, Alan stumbling out after him, and Kendall following close behind with another gang member, probably spoiling secrets that he was supposed to keep.

“Dwayne is here. We need to make sure that we get that item first. According to Dan, it’s at the bottom of the lake. Luckily, someone recently kissed a mermaid.” said Brandon, eying Luke.

“I don’t know guys, I still don’t completely understand how that works.” he said.

“Just breathe normally when you go underwater and you’ll be fine.” I said. He sighed.

“I’ll give it a try.” he said.

We made our way to the lake and rented a boat. Once we were in the middle of the lake, we stopped.

“Okay, just dive in and look for the item.” Lance said.

“But how will I know when I found it? I don’t know what it looks like.” he said.

“Hey guys, remember when Excalibur glowed when it was near the shield last fall?” Victoria said.

“Yeah. Maybe this item will work the same way.” said Brandon. “So we just let him take my sword.” said Brandon.

“We can’t do that. To Luke, the sword will be too heavy.” I said. Excalibur was as light as a feather to Arthur’s descendant, but extremely heavy to anyone else.

“Then I guess I’ll go too.” said Brandon.

“But you can’t breathe underwater like Luke can. How will you get down there?” asked Lance. Brandon slipped on a scuba suit.

“I’ll dive down with him in this.” he said.

“Okay, but remember you only have an hour of oxygen in that thing. If you don’t find the item before then-”

“It’s fine. We’ll find it in no time with the help of Excalibur.” said Brandon. Luke and Brandon sat on the edge of the boat. “Are you ready?” asked Brandon.

“Let’s do it.” said Luke.

Thirty minutes had gone by.

“That’s it. I can’t wait any longer.” I said, putting on scuba gear. “I’m going to go and check on them.” I said.

“Just make sure that you stop swimming and rest every couple of feet down that you go. If you don’t you could get a case of the bends.” said Victoria. I slipped on my mask and gave her a thumbs-up, and then leaned backwards, and fell in. The water was very murky. Below, about thirty feet, I saw a bright light.

Excalibur! I thought. I swam downwards, making sure to stop every so often to avoid the bends.

Then, there was a splash nearby. I saw a girl with black hair in a bathing suit swim down. Soon though, her legs fused together and grew scales. The girl had a mermaid tail. It was Larissa. She didn’t stop every once in a while though, but she probably didn’t have to being half mermaid. I continued to swim down. Soon I saw Luke and Brandon. Brandon’s sword was glowing completely white, and Luke held something in his left hand. It was a golden key. Apparently it was the item. I looked over at Larissa, and noticed she was right next to them. They didn’t see her because the water was too murky.

I pointed at her, and when Brandon turned, she flapped her tail furiously and she barreled into him. Luke saw her and became shocked, dropping the key. Two more splashes could be heard overhead. I looked up to see Alan and Kendall swimming down towards us. Brandon was fighting Larissa, though because she was half mermaid she had the upper hand. Larissa swam behind him and grabbed his scuba tank.

She pulled on it and soon the glass shattered and Brandon’s tank began filling with water. Luke had already begun swimming downwards again to get the key. Once Larissa finished smashing Brandon’s tank, she swam after Luke.

I felt something grab me from behind. I yanked away and elbowed Kendall in the face. He was knocked back a good distance, but then Alan grabbed me. I head butted him and swam away. I looked below and saw Luke and Larissa wrestling over the key.

“Why won’t you drown already?” shrieked Larissa. Her voice sounded a little bit echoic under the water.

“Because a mermaid kissed me.” Luke responded smiling as if he were a ladies-man. Brandon was sinking downwards and actually sank right between them, cutting off Larissa’s grip on him. Unfortunately, the key was in her hand. She darted upwards. Luke was swimming upwards with Brandon.

“You need to swim to the surface and tell Victoria to use a spell to get us out of here! If you don’t Brandon will drown!” he called. I nodded. I began swimming up, being sure to keep my distance from the twins. I surfaced and ripped my mask off. The boat was ten feet to the right, but Jordan, Victoria, and Lance were fighting several gang members onboard.

“Victoria! Spell! Brandon! Drowning!” I called as loud as I could. I wasn’t sure if she understood until a large bubble rose next to me, with Luke and Brandon encased inside. The bubble popped, but Luke still kept them afloat. We both swam to our boat. An arm reached over and hoisted me out.

Lance, Victoria, and Jordan were all tied against the mast. I sighed. A gang member tied my hands behind my back and stood guard over me. Dwayne walked over to Luke, who had just been pulled onboard. He put his hand out.

“Give me the key.” he said. Luke was being held by another gang member with a dagger pointed at his throat.

“I don’t have it. Larissa does.” he choked out. Every single gang member swiveled his head to the left to see Larissa climb onto a boat thirty feet away, her tail turning into legs, and her hand raising the key in triumph.

Dwayne’s face contorted with anger. “Drive towards that boat!” he called. The boat slowly began to turn in that direction and sped up. All of the half mermaids were celebrating until they saw the boat. Larissa used her tentacles to quickly grab the helm and attempted to steer away. But she was too late. The front of Dwayne’s boat smashed into hers. Gang members threw grappling hooks onto the masts of her ship, and began swinging over. Some gang members fell into the water after having the ropes cut by half mermaids, while others successfully landed on the deck. Within minutes all of the half mermaids had been captured except for Larissa. She was too strong for the gang members.

Finally, Dwayne swung on board, landed on the deck, and walked up the stairs towards Larissa. He took out a wand and performed a repellant spell. Larissa backed away, shielding her eyes from the light. Unfortunately, she backed up straight into a shark cage. Dwayne quickly latched the door shut. But because she could open it from the inside, he used a spell that put a magic barrier around the door to prevent escape. She pounded furiously on the door.

After getting the cage onto Dwayne’s ship, they sailed back to shore.

We had all been loaded onto a truck. Luke, Victoria, Brandon (who was still unconscious, but breathing again), Jordan, Lance, Larissa, and me. We all had our hands tied behind our backs, and Larissa had something extra Dwayne had given her.

A metal clamp was fixed around her neck to keep her from getting her tentacles out. A gang member closed the door, and the truck began moving.

“Alright guys, let’s begin an escape plan.” I said.

“Right, like I’d work with you.” said Larissa.

“C’mon, let’s form a temporary alliance. If we help you escape, then you can help us get the next item.” I said.

“Keeping those items out of your hands is very important. They can be very powerful in the hands of a knight, or at least a knight’s descendant.” she said.

“Okay, so if we help you escape and steal the item back from Dwayne, then you have to let us use the items to figure out the More Dread Gang’s secret and then you can have all of the items back.” said Lance.

“No. You wouldn’t understand.” she said. I sighed and then lie down and fell asleep.

I woke up to bright lights later that night. The trailer door was open. A gang member stood there. “Alright, get out.” he said. We all walked out of the truck, and were then escorted into a large sports stadium. Don’t ask me which one it is, I know basically nothing about sports. A roaring crowd was there, but it was not composed of regular sports fans. Gang members and goblins stood, cheering. Centaurs pounded their hooves on the pavement, making a thundering noise. I was then taken, along with the others except for Larissa, to a locker room. There, we saw several of wizards, some of which we recognized.

“Melvin.” said Jordan staring angrily at the young wizard. He sighed. He has dark skin and black hair, and he is very tall. He used to be Jordan’s boyfriend. He looked away and ignored her. Then we passed by a girl with red hair. I recognized her. She had served us dinner at Lance’s restaurant, (his family owns a restaurant because they’re filthy rich) and then she had also helped us fight goblins when we were there.

Her name was Jamie. Then, Jordan got very excited. She chased after this one wizard that she had seen in the crowd.

“Excuse me…” she said, grabbing his shoulder.

“What?” he asked in his New York accent.

“Oh, nothing. Sorry, I thought you were someone else.” she said, turning away. I understood. The guy looked a lot like Gordon. I turned to Melvin, who was smiling slyly as he sat on a bench.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? The More Dread Gang is capturing as many wizards as they can. Tonight, they will release us all into the stadium, and then they will release all of the monsters, to destroy us, so no one will stand in the way of their plans.” he said.

“Can’t we escape though?” I asked. He shook his head, but still kept that smile. “Nope. They will put up magic barriers around the arena, so no one will escape.” he said. Then, Dwayne showed up in the locker room, along with two soaking wet gang members.

“You forgot about us back at the lake!” yelled Alan.

“Really? Well, it’s a good thing you found your way back, and it’s also good that no one did it to deliberately get rid of you.” said Dwayne sarcastically.

“It sure is.” said Kendall, oblivious to the sarcasm. Dwayne rolled his eyes.

“Anyways, it’s show time, wizards!” he shouted. He snapped his fingers and shackles appeared around every single wizard’s wrists. We were all escorted out onto the field. I could make out a red wall of translucent magic surrounding the stadium, preventing our escape. We were taken to the middle of the field. There were about two hundred wizards, and then me, Lance, and Brandon. Two hundred wizards, against- who knows what? Soon, a flock of helicopters flew over the arena, with large steel cages hanging by cables on them. The cables were cut and all of the cages crashed to the ground. There were at least a dozen cages, but something told me that more were on the way.

Each cage held a different monster. One held a dragon, another had a griffin, and another had trapped a giant scorpion. One of the cages held Larissa. Apparently the gang considered her a monster. A loud buzzer went off and every cage opened, twelve monsters racing towards us, dead set on killing us all.

Chapter Eight: Total Chaos
I didn’t know what to do, except defend me and my friends. I fired arrows at the griffin that was bounding towards us. It seemed like I was the only one fighting, until Melvin shouted, “Wizards! Draw your wands!” Then, two hundred wizards simultaneously drew their wands, even Jordan, Luke, and Victoria.

“Repellant spell! Now!” he ordered. A piercing cry rang throughout the night sky as bright blue lights glowed on the tips of hundreds of wands. Every single monster backed up, afraid of the spell. Some of them even ran back into their cages.

Larissa looked around in anger. Then, she ripped off the iron clamp around her neck and her tentacles squirmed out of their holes. She began to furiously attack wizards. Then, wizards began fighting back, using random spells to fight off the monsters. A group of about twenty wizards were using various spells to kill an ogre. Melvin led a large group to attack Larissa and a dragon. Brandon, Luke, and I ran towards a giant monster, with green, wrinkly skin, two tiny eyes, a big nose, and short legs, which was about thirty feet tall.

“Hey Luke, what is that thing?” I asked.

“It’s a troll.” he said. The troll raised a club and swung at Brandon. Brandon leaped over it and landed on the creature’s arm. It flailed its arm around to get him off, but he hung on tightly, like a leech. One of Luke’s bowling balls slammed into its chest and the troll disintegrated. Just then, several more cages dropped down, containing more monsters. I looked around for Larissa, until I saw her standing by the entrance. Several half-mermaids were moaning and pounding on the force fields. Then the section of the wall turned blue and Larissa ran through. I caught sight of Victoria running towards the door.

“C’mon everyone! The exit is right here! It won’t stay open for long!” she called. I ran towards the exit with Brandon and Luke. I met up with Jordan and Lance at the exit. Several wizards were running towards the exit, trying to escape the monsters. Several unlucky wizards were scooped up and swallowed whole by a giant bear looking monster. We helped many wizards escape, about half of them, when the exit began to shrink.

“Get through. Now.” said Jordan. Lance and I jumped through, with Brandon and Victoria following after. Luke started to step through when he turned back.

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked. She shook her head. I sighed. She had tried to do this last spring as well. We were in the tunnels that Gordon had shown us and the tunnel was flooding, and instead of climbing into the air pocket, she waited for the water to drown her. Luckily Dwayne saved her. I think that she wasn’t trying to commit suicide, but she wanted to die as a hero. But I knew that she was still needed back at home. I grabbed her arm and pulled her through just before the hole closed. Several wizards pounded on the barriers.

Jamie was outside with us, but Melvin was still on the inside. He looked straight through the wall at Jordan.

“What?” she asked.

“You have to get all of these wizards to safety. There is a castle they all can live in. We happened to have gotten captured there. Drive the gang out of the castle and then let the wizards go back in. The castle is at Mount Rushmore.” he said through the wall. She nodded. We all turned and Jordan ordered all of the wizards to follow her. The last thing we saw of Melvin was a giant scorpion claw, closing over his waist, about to rip him apart.

We had gotten all of the wizards to safety, but we had all agreed that we couldn’t travel with all of them. We’d be a walking monster magnet if we did that. So instead, we had them all teleport to Outer Banks, where Lance’s parents owned a hotel they could stay in until their castle was safe again. We took a look at our instructions to see where we needed to go next.

“It looks like our next stop is in Iowa.” said Lance, pointing at the next location on the map.

“Dwayne is probably still at the arena, enjoying the sight of wizards being ripped apart by monsters, but Larissa has escaped. She is probably on her way there already.” said Brandon.

“Then we need to get going. Lance, how is your shield doing?” asked Jordan.

“The tank transformation apparently uses a lot of magic. The shield is still not working.” he said. She sighed.

“How are we traveling then?” she asked.

“We could buy plane tickets and fly to Iowa.” said Luke.

“Yeah, but the More Dread Gang owns a runway and air control center. They could monitor us easily. We need to be stealthier than that.” I said.

“Okay, then what is the stealthiest way to get to Iowa?” he asked. I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I said.

“Then our best way of travel is on foot right now. But instead of just walking to Iowa blindly, I say that we try to follow Larissa.” he said.

“Sure Luke, let’s follow the very thing that nearly killed us three- no sorry, four times!” I shouted.

“Guys, let’s not argue about it. We need to get started if we are to make it in time.” said Victoria. We started walking. I hated traveling by foot. We walked until we made it to the southern area of Michigan, when we finally decided to stop and rest and make camp in a forest. Everyone had fallen asleep, except for me and Victoria.

“So, I really need to talk about Lance with you.” I said. She raised an eyebrow.

“Okay.” she said, signaling for me to go on.

“Well, the night of the party, we were so close to kissing and then, he starts flapping his mouth about the quest. It’s just so- ahh!” I said.

“Yeah, well boys do that sometimes. They get nervous so they change the subject. But, on occasion, you get one that really understands you and actually… well, kisses you.” she said.

“Yeah. I just wish Lance would get his head out of the clouds and pay attention to me more often.” I said.

“He definitely paid a lot of attention when you were a dog.” she said, smiling. I laughed.

“Wait. What did you mean by a guy that understands and makes a move on you?” I asked.

“Oh, uh, well…”

“Tell me what’s going on!” I demanded.

“Alright, fine! You know when you asked me and Brandon if we had kissed when the fireworks were going off, and we said no? Well… that may have been a… little lie…” she said.

“Oh my gosh, you kissed Brandon? You guys are like, going out? That’s crazy! I mean, I feel happy for you, but I mean, I just always thought I’d get a boyfriend before you did…”

She laughed. “Alright, let’s get some sleep. We were up all night last night fighting monsters and rescuing wizards.” she said. I lay down in my sleeping bag, and soon, I was asleep. Until I heard Brandon and Lance talking. I kept my eyes shut so they wouldn’t know I was listening, but I stayed alert to hear them.

“And then, she is about to kiss me. I mean, I like her, but sometimes she is a little… I don’t know, annoying. She jokes around in times of…well, just inappropriate times.” said Lance. I was half hoping he was talking about someone else, but I knew it was me.

“Dude, if she likes you, and you like her, you need to let her know that you do return those feelings, or she isn’t going to care anymore.” said Brandon. It sounded like Brandon was Lance’s psychiatrist.

“Yeah but I mean, you and Victoria had none of those problems- did you?” asked Lance.

“No. Not really, I mean, once we met, it was like love at first sight. We didn’t show it for a while until… you know last spring.” he said. I understood. Last spring, Brandon had been captured by an evil centaur gang member, Jeremiah. As it turns out though, Jeremiah was using the gang as a cover for his real plans to hypnotize all of the centaurs in the world and enslave all of mankind, killing Brandon in the process. Nice guy, huh? Luckily he was killed last spring when he stupidly admitted that he was using the gang as a cover, and then all of the gang members turned on him and killed him.

“Just show Morgan that you care and everything will be alright.” he said.

“Okay. Well, it’s already two o’ clock. We’ve gotten about six hours of sleep. Should we wake up the others?” asked Lance.

“Nah, let’s let them sleep a bit longer. Until then, I think I have an idea for how you can show Morgan you care.” said Brandon.

I would’ve listened for what it was, but I was already beginning to fall back into sleep.

I woke up at about four o’ clock. What I saw in front of me was amazing. A tray laden with waffles, bacon, and eggs was set in front of me. I looked at Lance. He smiled, but quickly looked away. I couldn’t believe he had made it for me. I smiled. I looked over to a small path leading out of the woods. Luke and Brandon were walking along the path, scouting for danger ahead.

“Hey.” said Jordan. Everything else was packed up. “You’d better eat now. We’ve got to get back on the road. I don’t think that Larissa or Dwayne is going to be taking too many rests, so we have to keep moving.” she said.

After eating the delicious breakfast Lance had made for me, I packed up and in no time we were on the road again. We were right on the Southern border of Michigan when we heard the furious pounding of hooves. We all turned to see a stampede of centaur gang members chasing after someone. They were chasing after a little girl with blonde hair, and an older Asian boy with black hair. We all drew our weapons and raced towards the oncoming stampede. Jordan thrust her sword into the first group, killing a few centaurs. Once the little girl and the Asian boy realized that they had assistance, they drew weapons of their own. The little girl had a sword that was nearly her height, but she swung it hard.

The boy seemed to have no weapon until he drew a mace from his bag. He bashed centaurs on the head, showing absolutely no mercy. Soon all of the centaurs had been killed.

“Hey, thanks for helping us.” the boy said. He was about fifteen. His voice wasn’t too deep.

“Thank you!” said the little girl. She looked as if she had never even been in battle. She was leaning on the sword.

“What are your names?” the boy asked.

“I am Brandon, that’s Lance, that’s Morgan, Victoria, Jordan, and Luke.” said Brandon.

“How do you know about the gang?” the boy asked.

“I am a descendant of Merlin, he is a descendant of Arthur, he is Lancelot’s and she is Guinevere’s.” said Victoria.

“Ahem.” said Luke.

“And he is a descendant of Dagonet.” she said.

“No way. Your grandpa was the one that did that trick on those mermaids! Oh man, great work! I hate mermaids.” the boy said.

“Yeah, I know they’re always trying to drown you and eat you and-”

“Uh guys, don’t you think we should get to know our acquaintances?” asked Victoria.

“Well we already know that he hates mermaids.” said Luke. I rolled my eyes.

“I think she means that we should know their names.” I said.

“Well okay, if you want to go through the trouble.” joked Luke.

“I am Sean, descendant of Sir Maleagant.” he said. “And this,” he said, lifting the little girl up, “is Ella. She is a descendant of Sir Palemedes.”

“Wasn’t Sir Maleagant the one that abducted Guinevere in that one story?” Victoria asked.

“Yes, and his descendants have paid for that. Many of them are either criminals or good people who are judged because of his stunt. I assure you though, I’m no criminal.” Sean replied.

“More descendants? Guys, we sure do have a lot of descendants of knights. I’m starting to think that this isn’t happening by accident.” said Lance.

“How many knights were in the Round Table?” I asked.

“Fifty.” answered Jordan.

“Then that means that there are fifty people out there that are descendants of knights?” I asked.

“No, sometimes the bloodlines were spread, so there could be many more descendants. Plus, there is the descendant of the Black Knight, and we all know how annoying he is.”

“Do you think that, just by fate or whatever, that the Round Table is reforming?” Luke asked.

“It’s very possible. It just so happened that during the Revolutionary War, the organization began to reform, but then the More Dread Gang killed the only known descendant of Arthur at the time.” she said.

“Did he have Excalibur?” asked Brandon.

“Hard to say.” she responded.

“Anyways, I’ve actually been searching for Arthur’s descendant. But I heard reports of you being in Pennsylvania. How come you are all the way out here in Michigan?” Sean asked.

“We are trying to find five items that will unlock the More Dread Gang’s greatest secret. The only problem is the More Dread Gang is trying to get them so that we can’t, and a league of half-mermaids is trying to get them to prevent both of us from getting them.” I said.

“Well, I have an idea. Why don’t you split up? Ella, Luke, Jordan, and I will go after one item, and you guys can go after the other. We’ll cover more ground that way.” he said.

“Oh, so all of the sudden you’re part of the quest?” asked Jordan.

“Well, yes, I’d like to help.” he said.

“It sounds like a great plan. And, if we need any help, we can just call each other.” said Victoria.

“Okay, then it’s settled. Where do we need to go?” Sean asked.

“It looks like you guys need to go after an item that is in Nebraska.” Lance said, looking at the instructions.

“Okay then, let’s go.” he said.

“How are we getting there?” Luke asked.

“We’re flying.” Sean replied.

“We can’t. The More Dread Gang has an air control tower.” said Jordan.

“Yes, I know, but they can’t track my plane.” he said.

“What do you mean your plane?” asked Brandon. Sean took a model airplane out of his bag and performed a spell. Soon, it became a large biplane sitting in the middle of the road.

“Oh. Well, you should really put that away because people are starting to stare.” said Brandon. The airplane shrunk back into the model.

“All we need to do is take off.” he said.

“Okay, so you guys have transportation.” I said.

“I didn’t know you knew that word.” joked Luke.

“Well, you guys had better be on your way.” said Lance. After departing from them, we crossed the Michigan border into Ohio.

“You know, it’s a little bit harder trying to find our way when we have no twins to guide us.” joked Brandon.

“Well we can’t complain about that now. We need to get to Iowa. What is the fastest way to get there?” asked Lance.

“Well, we could hitchhike.” I suggested.

“Sure Morgan, we’d all love to climb into a smelly car with some creepy guy we don’t know.” said Brandon.

“Hey, don’t start jumping to conclusions. It could be a creepy girl.” I said.

“Wait. I just remembered that my dad went to Iowa on a business trip, and he brought me home a souvenir.” said Victoria. “We can use it to teleport there.” she said. She laid a snow globe on the ground and performed the spell.

We appeared in an Iowa gift shop, and in the process, we nearly scared the heck out of this poor store employee. Okay, so we made her pass out on the floor, but she was still okay.

Anyways, we left the store and found a small dirt path in the front, and on the other side of that, a never-ending field of corn. Brandon pulled out his sword and walked to the edge of the field. The sword glowed faintly. “It seems like the item is somewhere in this field.” he said.

“Oh great, it could take us forever to search this place, even if we use the sword.” I said.

“Well, at least we have a major head start on the other teams. Even though we don’t have the first item, we can steal it from Dwayne later.” said Victoria. We all walked into the forest of corn. The sword steadily shone brighter as we walked deeper into the field. We searched for nine hours until night fell.

“I don’t understand. It is only seven in Michigan. Why is it so dark here?” I asked.

“Different time zones, remember?” Lance said.

“Oh, yeah.” I said. We had cleared an area before setting up camp.

“I’ll give Jordan a call to see how they’re doing.” said Brandon.

“Good idea.” said Lance. Brandon put it on speaker phone so we could all listen.

“Hey guys, not the best time, here!” Jordan shouted. A loud roar came from the phone.

“What are you fighting? Where are you?” I asked.

“We’re fighting a group of trolls out in Southern Nebraska! Luke, stop! Don’t- oh great.” she said.

“What is going on?” Lance asked.

“Well, Luke just stabbed a troll in the- yeah, you don’t want to know. But now it’s even angrier.” she said.

“Are you guys going to be okay?” Victoria asked.

“We should be fine. Sean is in his airplane, circling the trolls and using spells on them.” she said.

“What about Ella?” asked Lance.

“She is fighting the troll leader.” she said.

“What?!” we all shouted.

“It’s fine. She can really swing a sword. Oh, sorry, got to go guys. The trolls have Luke and they are about to tear his limbs off. Bye!”

“Well that sounds promising.” I said. Just as I said this, the roaring sound of a helicopter sounded overhead. I looked straight up, and saw a sleek helicopter, coated with a dry layer of scarlet paint.

“They caught up to us already.” Lance said, standing. The helicopter flew above us, causing tall corn stalks to dance about in the wind that it produced. A large hook, almost like an anchor, dropped down from the helicopter and embedded itself in the dry dirt, right in the center of our camp. We all leapt up, drawing our weapons.

Then, Dwayne slid down the rope that the anchor was connected to and stepped forward. Alan slid down next, not stepping away from the rope.

“Hey, I made it!” he exclaimed.

“Geronimo!” a voice said from above. Alan looked up as his brother crashed down on top of him. The two rolled around in the dirt, trying to stand up. Dwayne sighed. He drew his knives and stepped towards Brandon.

“So, where is your jester and chauffer?” he asked. He was referring to Luke and Jordan.

“They’re not with us right now.” said Brandon.

“Clearly. But I asked where they were.” he said, pointing a knife at Brandon’s throat.

“Um, Dwayne, maybe they split up so that they could go after more than one item.” said Kendall. Dwayne sighed again. He turned to look at them.

“You are so stupid. And, don’t call me Dwayne. It is General Freeman!” he shouted. Kendall recoiled and hid behind Alan, but then Alan hid behind Kendall, and they kept switching hiding places.

“Actually, they’re right.” I said.

“Really?” said Alan, tripping over his own feet.

“Shut up you two!” Dwayne shouted. The twins made a gesture that made it look like they had zipped their lips shut. Dwayne nodded.

He pulled out a small walkie-talkie and said, “Set a course for Nebraska. I’ll catch up to you later, once I get the next item.” he said. The chopper raised the anchor from the ground and flew west. Dwayne turned quickly and threw one knife at Brandon. It sunk deep into Brandon’s shoulder, causing Brandon to sink to the ground. Dwayne pulled the twins to the side and performed a spell. The ground around us quickly began to swallow us.

“Quicksand spell. We don’t have much time before we sink straight down and suffocate.” said Victoria. Dwayne put away his wand.

“Alright, that should suffice.” he said, turning and running away. Then, a golden key floated out of his back pocket.

“Wait Dwayne, they’ve got your-” Alan started.

“No, Dwayne told us not to talk.” interrupted Kendall.

“Oh yeah.” said Alan. They zipped their lips shut again and took off after Dwayne. The key floated to Victoria’s hand.

“We’ve got the first item.” she said.

“Yeah, but can we work on getting the second one now?” asked Lance. We had sunk down to our knees in the quicksand. I began tying the end of a rope onto one of my arrows. Once I was done, I loaded it on to my bow, but when I looked around, I saw that there were no hard surfaces for me to latch the arrow onto. By then we had sunk down to our waist, and we had made no progress in escaping from the sticky, collapsing soil. Victoria was flipping through her spell book, searching for a spell to get us out. The book had a spine with several tears in it, and many of the pages were yellow, with some that had tears, folds, or even burn marks on the crisp, fragile paper.

A design was on the front. The first time Victoria had found it, the design had been covered over with cobwebs and dust, but over time it became cleaner and we soon recognized the design as an oak staff. The tip of the staff had been carved into a lion’s head, and then the staff picture was surrounded by what looked like Excalibur and a crescent moon. The book was originally Merlin’s, and the whole book had been hand-written by him, and the design on the front seemed to be drawn and looked quite old. Victoria thinks that Merlin had drawn the design.

She finally came to a page and performed a spell, but all it did was make a bookshelf appear next to the pit.

“Huh, that’s funny, it was supposed to make us levitate out of the pit.” she said, staring at the spell.

“It’s okay, now I can fire my arrow into it and pull us out.” I said. We were down to our chests in the quicksand. I fished the arrow out and reloaded it, tied a rope around the butt of the arrow, and then fired it into one of the shelves. I pulled on the rope, managing to lift myself up to my waist.

“Guys, grab on!” I shouted. They all struggled to ‘swim’ over to me. Lance grabbed onto my waist first, since he was closest. A few stalks of corn had bent inward towards the center of the pit, and Brandon and Victoria used them to pull themselves over. I pulled extremely hard on the rope, trying to drag the weight of myself and all of my friends over to the edge. Then, the bookshelf toppled over and began to sink into the pit. I pulled myself on top of it, followed by Lance and Brandon, while Victoria hung onto the edge.

Lance leapt to the edge of the pit. I threw my bow to him, the rope still attached. Brandon pulled Victoria on while Lance pulled the shelf closer to the edge. We all stepped onto the safe ground just before the shelf sank under. We immediately began running in the direction Dwayne had gone. Soon we found three sets of footprints, though we could barely make them out in the dim moonlight.

Soon we heard a battle going on up ahead, and we quietly walked over to the battle. Dwayne stabbed a wolf and ran off as soon as we entered the clearing. The twins darted after him. Excalibur was glowing brilliantly now, signaling that the item was close. We continued to chase after Dwayne until we finally found him standing in another clearing, holding a silver key. He looked over in our direction.

“Dimwits, keep them occupied.” he said. The twins ran at us.

Kendall stopped for a second. “Wait, why did we respond when he called us dimwits?” he asked.

Alan shrugged. “Just go with it.” he said, drawing out a knife. I fired an arrow at him, which he stepped away from. Kendall ran forward and sprung off of the ground, landing on Lance. I kicked Kendall off and punched Alan in the face. Dwayne was backing up towards the edge of the clearing in hopes of escaping.

As he backed up, Victoria performed a spell that made several stalks of corn entangle his limbs.

“Nice trick.” he said, struggling against the thick stems. Brandon walked over and pulled the key from Dwayne’s numb hand. The corn stalks continued to wrap around him, when soon only his face was visible.

“Alan, Kendall, get me out of here!” he cried.

But the twins were lying on the ground, unconscious.

The plants soon closed over his face. His muffled voice continued to shout at the twins.

We began walking away. Brandon had the silver key in his hand.

“I bet that if these two items are keys, so are the others. They must be different colors.” he guessed. I nodded.

“We should call Jordan and ask her if she has made any progress.” said Victoria. I fished through my pocket for my phone, only to find that I had lost it in the quicksand. Lance had lost his as well, but Brandon had his phone out and was dialing Jordan’s phone number. He put it on speaker just like last time.

“Hey guys. Did you get the second item?” asked Jordan.

“Yeah we just did. It was a silver key. We also managed to swipe the first key back from Dwayne. I have a hunch that all of the items are keys.” said Brandon.

“Okay, we’ll be sure to keep an eye out for a key. We have not found it yet, but Sean thinks we’re getting close. We all survived the troll attack, and Luke made it out with most of his limbs in tact. Yeah, he sort of got his left arm broken, but other than that, he’s fine. Ella and Sean are unhurt, and I’m okay too.” she reported.

“Did you have any run-ins with gang members?” asked Lance.

“No, not yet.” she replied.

“Well, be ready, because Dwayne sent a helicopter full of gang members after you. They shouldn’t be there yet, but could show up soon.” I said.

“Okay, thanks for the heads up. I’ll call you as soon as I find the next item.” she said, hanging up.

“Okay guys, now let’s go after the next one.” said Lance. He looked at the instructions.

“It seems that the next item is somewhere in Minnesota.” said Victoria, peeking over Lance’s shoulder.

“Your dad didn’t happen to get any souvenirs from there, did he?” I asked.

“No. It looks like we have to find another way to get there.” she said. Once we got to the edge of the field, we decided to rest there since our last one had been interrupted by Dwayne and the dimwits.

Luckily, we were still concealed by a few corn stalks, so there were no cars that saw the four of us kids sitting on the side of the road. Brandon had first watch. I fell asleep immediately, but four hours later, it was my watch, and it was not fun.

Chapter Nine: Scarecrows
I have always had a fear of scarecrows. Let me tell you how it happened.

It was Halloween, and I was only seven. That year, I had dressed up as a butterfly (looking back now, it was pretty lame). The three of us, Brandon, Lance, and I, were all good friends at the time. Victoria had moved to Avalon Estates four years later, when we were all eleven and started middle school.

Lance was a pirate that year and Brandon was a knight, (funny how things go, huh?). Anyways, we had gone to every house except one, which was the scariest one. It wasn’t so scary that no kid ever went there, but it was scary enough to frighten every seven year old kid in the neighborhood.

Lance and Brandon were determined to go up to that house and face their fears and they were trying to influence me to go with them. I finally agreed and we all walked up to the front steps. We knocked on the door, but there was no answer. The lights were out, and the house was decorated, but it seemed like there was no one home.

However, there was no bowl of candy on the front porch either, so we turned to leave. Then, the scarecrow that we had passed by on our way up to the front porch leapt forward. It was supposed to be a Halloween prank, until the scarecrow tripped as it ran at us and collapsed right on top of me.

To be honest, it was pretty scary. And even though I know it was supposed to be a prank, it scared me a lot, and still does.

So now that you have the whole back-story on it, I’ll tell you why this is important to the original story.

Victoria had had the last watch and she had just fallen asleep. I loaded an arrow into my bow, just to be safe. Then, I heard a long moaning coming from the east, deeper into the countryside.

I looked in that direction and saw a humanoid figure at the edge of the clearing. Its face was sewn from a rag substance, and it wore a torn vest with a green raincoat over it. Its pants were baggy, with loose straw sticking out of the bottom. In fact, the figure had straw sticking out everywhere, and even had hay stuffed in its clothes, supported by a wire cage that was concealed by the clothes. Its feet were wooden sticks that were not very stable for the scrawny figure, but surprisingly held its weight.

It had two eyes that were drawn on with what seemed like marker, and the mouth was thread that was sewn in such a manner to make the figure seem like it was grinning evilly. It was a scarecrow! I struggled to keep my fear from showing.

The scarecrow stood absolutely still at first, but soon it let out a moan and took a slow step forward. I screamed and fired an arrow into its chest, but it simply yanked it out of its straw insides and continued to tread forward.

My scream had awakened Lance, who had not taken a watch yet, so he was fresh and ready for a battle.

“What is going on?” he asked sleepily.

“Uh, scarecrows, coming to life!” I shouted. I looked around and saw more scarecrows strolling out of the forest of corn, ambling towards us with their wooden, straw packed arms stretched out.

Lance drew his sword. The scarecrows continued to zombie-walk towards us. Lance raced forward and hacked off the closest one’s head. I fired arrows into a few of them, with the same result.

The one that Lance had hit bent down and replaced its head on its mount between the scarecrow’s shoulders.

“How do we kill these things?” Lance asked.

“I don’t know I left my ‘When Scarecrows Attack Survival Manual’ at home!” I shouted.

“No need to be sarcastic.” he said, thrusting his sword into another scarecrow. “Well, scarecrows are made of rags and hay, right?” I asked.

“Hay is for horses.” he joked.

“Which means that they are flammable, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, hay is flammable, and it could kill them, but we have no fire!” he yelled. The scarecrows were getting a lot closer now.

“Well, we had better get some really fast!” I shouted.

“Wake up Victoria, maybe she has a spell.” he said, lobbing off a few more scarecrow heads. I ran over to the sleeping Victoria and shook her shoulder. She began to wake up when a green orb flew out from the corn stalks and hit her. She immediately drifted back to sleep. She had been hit with a sleep orb.

Brandon was hit by one too. I darted back over to Lance.

“Uh, Victoria and Brandon are… out of order.” I said.

“What?!” he shouted.

“They’ve been hit with a sleep orb! They can’t wake up until it wears off.” I said.

“Then we’ll have to make our own fire.” he said.

“Yeah, about that, I have not earned my fire making merit badge.” I said. He sighed.

“Fine, keep these things away, and I’ll make the fire.” he said. I was about to protest, but he was already beginning to make the fire.

I turned to see a trio of scarecrows right in front of me. I smacked them with my bow and then fired a few of my darts into them. One blasted forward and tried to strangle me, but I kicked it in the chest before it came too close.

I managed to undo the wire cages inside a few of them, causing them to fall apart beyond repair, although their arms still slithered along the ground, trying to seize something. I snapped a few of the wooden arms as they inched along the ground.

One of the scarecrows, clearly the leader, had a flaming pumpkin for a head, and yet the rest of its body had not caught fire. The pumpkin had an evil face design. It staggered towards me. The scarecrows were each about six feet tall, but this one was at least twice that size.

“Uh, Lance, are you almost done?!” I screamed.

“Yeah, just finished. Now let’s grill some scarecrow!” he shouted. I sidestepped several scarecrows that were reaching for me, and they simply fell into the fire. The leader fell in last, but it didn’t seem to burn.

“Lance, this one doesn’t want to burn.” I said.

“Nah, it just needs some help.” he said, spilling kerosene onto the scarecrow. It burned much faster now, before finally dying after releasing a fiery belch from its grinning face. Lance snuffed out the fire as soon as every scarecrow had been burned thoroughly.

I was about to give him a high five to celebrate, when I realized that he had other ways of celebrating in mind.

He kissed me.

Chapter Ten: Larissa’s Ransom
The sleep orb’s effects on Victoria and Brandon had worn off by morning, so as soon as we all woke up we started on the road again. I told the two about the scarecrow incident last night, Lance throwing in a few details as well.

I did not, however, mention the kiss, and Lance didn’t either.

“Scarecrows?” said Brandon. “Scarecrows don’t just come to life. Either the farmers are getting upgrades in their security, or Dwayne used a spell to bring them to life.”

“That would make sense, because I found this when I woke up.” said Victoria, pulling a slip of paper from her pocket.

“It says: Nice trick, huh? ~Dwayne. It was definitely him.” she said.

“Which means that he has already escaped from the corn stalks and is probably already ahead of us.” I said.

“Then we had better get a move on.” said Lance. We caught a bus at a station a few miles west.

On the bus, we decided to call Jordan to see if she had gotten the next item yet. A girl’s voice came from the phone, but it wasn’t Jordan’s.

“Sorry, Jordan’s… busy… so I picked up the phone for her. Listen, if you want to free up some of Jordan’s time, you’ll bring me the other four items. One item for each of your friends.” said Larissa.

“Listen you sick, barnacle encrusted, sea witch, you had better let them go or-” Lance began.

“Or what? You don’t know where I am. If you don’t give me one item per day, I’ll kill one of your friends, per day. I think I’ll start with your jester.” she said. “One item a day. And, if you try to pull anything, I’ll kill all of them, no matter what. Have fun.” she said, and the line went dead.

“What do we do now?” Brandon asked.

“Well, I guess first we should go to Nebraska and hand over the items that we currently have.” said Lance.

“What!? We’re just going to surrender, just like that?” Brandon burst.

“What choice do we have? If we try anything ‘funny’ she’ll kill all of them, and Larissa won’t hesitate.” said Victoria.

Brandon sighed. “Fine, but where in Nebraska could she be?” he asked.

“The capital city, Lincoln.” I said.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“The instructions don’t give an exact location,”

“Ha!”

“But, they do have, above the map, a signature.”

“Yeah, because a signature explains a lot.”

“The signature just happens to be a copy of George Washington’s, a forgery.” I said.

“That makes a lot of sense, go to Lincoln because it’s Washington’s signature!”

“Could you please stop interrupting me?!”

He sighed and sat back in his seat. Lance signaled me to continue.

“Right next to the signature it says plus fifteen. What number president was Lincoln? The sixteenth. If Washington was the first, plus fifteen other presidencies, equals Lincoln’s presidency. I know it sounds far-fetched, but as of now, we have no lead. Besides, how did Sean know where to go?”

“Well, he could be working with Larissa. Or Dwayne.” said Brandon.

“Shut up. If we are going to do this we need to work as a team. And, who exactly is our team leader?” I asked. Lance and Victoria both pointed at Brandon. I sighed. “What? He is Arthur’s descendant, and Arthur was the leader of the Round Table, so why not?” Lance asked.

“I agree, he is our leader. I just think that since he is the leader, maybe he can find a better way to solve our disagreement.” I said.

“You know what, fine, we’ll solve this a different way. All in favor of Morgan’s plan say, um, yes.” he said.

“Yes? Dude, we’re descendants of knights. I think we should say something else.” I said.

“Okay, then all in favor of Morgan’s idea say aye and raise your right hand.” he said, a bit annoyed.

Lance, Victoria, and I raised our right hand and chorused ‘aye’. Brandon nodded. “Alright, then we are going to Lincoln.” he said.

It took six hours to get to Lincoln from Iowa, and we took three buses, two trains, and a rented car. It was late at night, and we weren’t sure when Larissa set our deadline, so we were in a hurry, for we may have already missed it. We had gotten a call from Larissa as soon as we got there telling us to meet her in some restaurant called Marco’s Diner. We walked in, but saw no one except for an employee wiping down a table.

“Ha, I hope we don’t run into Dan.” said Lance.

“Careful what you say, you might jinx it like you did last spring.” I said. He rolled his eyes and sat down in a booth. We all sat down next to him, making sure to sit near the exit in case we needed to make a speedy escape.

Then, Larissa walked in, but this time she was wearing a small police uniform, with a pistol and taeser clipped to her belt. Two half-mermaids were skulking along behind her, their hideous faces hidden by hoods. Each of them pushed along two of their hostages, Jordan, Luke, Sean, and Ella.

They each had handcuffs restraining their arms behind her back, except for Ella, who needed no restraints as she was too easy to overcome. Larissa allowed Jordan and Luke in first, then she went in, and then Sean and Ella sat on the open end of the booth. They would’ve escaped easily if it hadn’t been for the two half mermaids standing at the end of each seat, blocking them.

The employee looked at us suspiciously.

Larissa said, “Oh, I just caught these couple of kids downtown shoplifting a restaurant. I just stopped by here for some coffee.” It was like she answered his thoughts.

“Why is the little girl here then?” he asked.

“It’s ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.’ Yes, I know, I look a little young to have a daughter, but believe me.” she lied. The employee shrugged and went into the kitchen.

“Alright, give me the first two items.” she said. Brandon fished the silver and gold keys out of his pocket and tossed them onto the table.

“There, now give us our friends back.” he said.

“Actually, I’ll guarantee that two of them will not be hurt, but will still be held until I have received all of the items.” she said.

“No! That is not what we agreed!” shouted Lance, standing up.

“Shut up. You wouldn’t want any of your friends getting killed early, would you?” she asked. Then I realized that she had her pistol pointed at Luke’s head. “I guarantee that the little girl and… Sean… will not be harmed in any way. Luke and Jordan will continue to be at risk of death until you bring me the other items. We’re done here.” she said, standing up. She swiped the two keys off of the table and dropped them into her pocket.

The two half-mermaids grabbed Sean and Ella and yanked them out of their seats, and then one of them began to usher them out. Larissa got out and then the other guard escorted Luke and Jordan away, leaving us in the restaurant, all alone.

Chapter Eleven: Setting the Trap
“Well now what are we supposed to do?” asked Victoria. We had been wandering around the restaurant for the past five minutes.

“We should follow the instructions and find the next item- fast. Starting at midnight, we only have twenty-four hours to find it before one of our friends is killed.” said Brandon. Lance laid the instructions out on the table, and the four of us stared at the map. A fourth tack lead mostly northeast, into Minnesota.

“That’s right, I remember now. Okay, then it looks like we’re going to Minnesota.” I said.

“Yeah, but how are we going to get there? We have to cross, like, two states to get there. The chance of us getting there and then back here to give the item to Larissa in a day is not likely.” said Victoria.

“Well, we could just teleport it to Larissa. That saves us the trip back, but we still have to make it there in a day, which is hard.” said Lance.

“Unless Dwayne already got it.” I said.

“Hopefully not. But right now, let’s find a way to get there.” said Brandon. We left the restaurant and caught a bus north.

“Are there any, I don’t know, super-speed spells?” I asked Victoria.

“There are, but the spell also tends to bend and warp time, so we might get there and it would already be a day later, past our deadline.” she replied. I sighed.

Why does magic have to be so complicated and weird? I thought.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you guys about the dream I had last night, you know, before the scarecrows attacked.” said Lance.

“Well, what was it about?” I asked.

“I saw Dwayne on the site of a construction. The building was not finished yet, but it looked like it was a castle.” he said.

“Okay, then what?” I urged.

“Then Dwayne got into a helicopter and flew off to North Dakota, and when he left, I saw the next item in his pocket.” he said.

“Oh, great, Dwayne already has it!” I said.

“Well, it was just a dream. It couldn’t have happened in real life.” said Brandon.

“No, this has actually happened before. Lance would see some thing happening right then, or something that would happen, and know exactly what to do.” said Victoria.

“Yeah, like with the ogres rampaging in D.C.” I added.

“Or when he saw what was going on in Jeremiah’s castle, when he wasn’t even there.”

“Or like when I saw Prescenan holding council with his fellow centaurs.” said Lance.

“Yeah. You know what, let me try something.” said Victoria.

She performed a spell and the whole bus went dark, except for Lance who was glowing blue. The light reentered the bus quickly and he stopped glowing.

“Just as I thought.” she said.

“What?” I asked, “Is something wrong with him?”

“No, but that spell has just confirmed that Lance is a seer.” she replied.

“So, Lance is, like, a flying reptile?” I asked.

“No, he is a seer. It means that he can have visions of things that are happening somewhere else, or see what will happen soon.” she said.

“Aw man, I’m a psychic?” he asked.

“Pretty much.” she said. “But it only works when you are sleeping.” she said. He sighed.

“Okay. Well anyways, I never finished telling you about Dwayne. He was talking to someone. At first I thought it was the twins, but he was talking to this person with more professionalism, and wasn’t very annoyed by anything.” he said.

“Who was it?” asked Brandon.

“I don’t know. It was like a wriggling, black worm-like blob of energy, but it definitely was talking. It said, ‘You are failing me Dwayne.’ Then Dwayne said, ‘I’m sorry, but the Round Table is reforming, making it much too difficult.’ ‘I don’t want to hear any excuses! Go and get those other items back. Right now, that half-mermaid assassin, Larissa, has three of the items, and the Round Table is actually giving them to her in exchange for hostages. All you have to do is wait until she has the other two, and then get them all at the same time.’ it said.” Lance said.

“It sounds like Dwayne is- scared of this thing.” said Victoria.

“Then Dwayne said, ‘Larissa isn’t all bad. She got Kendall back for us!’ The blob said, ‘And what good does that do? Kendall and his idiot identical twin are of no use to us! In fact, next time you see them, relieve them of their duties in the More Dread Gang.’ ‘You know we can’t do that! Their father was a gang leader, meaning they are immune to being kicked out. It says so in the code, which you created!” said Dwayne. Then, a human arm stretched from the blob and smacked Dwayne. The blob said, ‘Do not speak to me that way! I agree that you are correct, but remember, your father was never a gang member. You are not immune. Now, go and get those items!’ The arm went back into the blob, and the blob seemed to weaken.”

“‘Angering me has weakened my powers. Leave me be.’ it said. The helicopter landed and Dwayne got out, and then the dream ended.” said Lance.

“That was a pretty lame story.” I confessed.

“Hey, it’s how it happened! Since I had this dream before the scarecrows attacked, and Dwayne in the dream was not in Iowa, I’m guessing it was a vision of something that was to come.” he said.

“Okay, well as long as Dwayne is waiting for the items, I say we trick him. We take one of our house keys and convince him that it is one of the items. Then, we lead him away and spring a trap on him.” said Brandon.

“Good idea. But first, we should find Dwayne.” said Victoria.

“Uh, guys, I think I just found him.” said Lance, peeking out the window. Dwayne was on the roof of a building.

“I’ll call him and tell him to meet us in, Marco’s Diner? We don’t know any other place around here. We’ll tell him that we have an item and a gang member that we have hostage, and in return, he has to tell us where the next item is.” she suggested. I nodded.

“The only problem is where are we going to get a gang member to hold hostage?” asked Brandon.

“We’ll get some help from a friend of ours.”

“Who?” the rest of us asked.

“Why am I doing this again?” asked Robbie as he slipped on a red hoodie. He had teleported here as soon as we asked him for help.

“We need you to pretend to be our hostage so that Dwayne will give us info on where the next item is. Then, when he realizes that it was all a trick, he’ll chase us. We’ll lead him right into our trap.” I said.

“Okay.” he said. We tied his hands behind his back and we all sat in a booth. Dwayne was already there.

“So you’ll give me an item for info on where another item is?” he questioned.

“Yeah, but you have to promise that it is legitimate information.” said Victoria. Dwayne sighed.

“Okay. I promise. Now, the item and the hostage.” he said.

“The info first.” said Brandon. Dwayne laughed, but told us that it was in North Dakota.

Robbie stood up and sat with Dwayne, when Dwayne pulled the hood down.

“What kind of-”

“Run!” shouted Lance. Robbie stood up and kicked Dwayne in the stomach, untied himself and then darted out the door after us. Dwayne was soon hot on our trail. Robbie stepped into an alley and waited for Dwayne to pass by. This was part of the plan. Once Dwayne ran past he stepped out and ran after Dwayne, eventually catching up with him and tackling him. Dwayne didn’t know it, but Robbie slipped Dwayne’s wand out of his pocket. Dwayne got up and continued running, Robbie not chasing after him.

We led Dwayne straight into a small park. We ran between the swings, and as soon as Dwayne ran between them, Victoria used a spell and the swings quickly wrapped around his waist. He pulled himself free and continued the chase. That was not part of the plan. We kept running, straight into a police station. The guard was asleep at his seat, a half-eaten donut sitting on his lap. We darted through the door. We soon found the holding cell. Victoria performed a spell on the door just as Dwayne blasted through the other door, running at us. We all stepped aside and he ran straight through the cell door. He literally ran through it, like a ghost, because of the spell on it.

“Nice try.” he said. He reached for his wand and his smile faded. The rest of us gave each other high fives and left Dwayne in the cell.

“He’ll be there until morning, but at least he is stuck there for a while.” said Lance. Robbie arrived, holding Dwayne’s wand and a key forged out of limestone and copper.

“The fourth item!” the rest of us chanted.

Chapter Twelve: Wizard Camp
We had teleported the fourth item to Larissa, and she called us notifying that Jordan was off the hook. It made sense that she wanted to save Luke for last, because she really wants to kill him.

Anyways, we had been teleported to Minnesota by her to give us a ‘head start’. However, there was, as always, a setback.

We were in the southern part of Minnesota, and it was freezing cold. We had stumbled upon a large stadium. We thought it was just for hockey, but we were dead wrong. We made it to the entrance. A sensor above the door opened it for us, and we stepped inside. There, we saw several different houses, about the size of vans, surrounding the center, and in the center were several of magic training exercises. We were greeted by a man in his late twenties, who wore a black and white tuxedo. He had his shiny black hair slicked back with gel, and his eyes were kind and gentle.

“Hello. I suppose that you are new wizards that are here to train?” he asked.

“Um, actually-”

“Splendid! Follow me.” he said, walking away. We followed him to the center area.

“So, what are your names?” he asked.

“I’m Victoria, descendant of Merlin, and this-”

“Descendant of Merlin? This is fantastic! Let me show you to your special room. Um… oh! Kyle! Show these three around, would you?” the man asked.

“Uh, sure.” said a wizard, strolling over from a training station. The man walked away, escorting Victoria along with him.

“Sorry about Professor Mandrill, he can be… well, he likes to get things over with. Anyways, I’m Kyle. I guess that I’ll be showing you around instead of working on my Cement Trap spell.” he said. He should’ve sounded annoyed, but he kept an optimistic attitude.

He had brown hair and bright green eyes. He looked about sixteen, so he was younger than the other wizards at the camp. “So, what are your names?” he asked.

“I’m Morgan, descendant of Guinevere.” I said. I expected him to get all excited like Professor Mandrill did, but he just moved on to the next person.

“I’m Brandon, descendant of King Arthur.”

“And I’m Lance, descendant of Lancelot.” he said. Kyle closed his eyes.

“Okay, which one of you is a seer?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer.

“I am.” said Lance.

“Good, good. I bet you’ll enjoy our vision room. It amplifies the abilities of a seer. It’s sort of like a nap room, but some of our seers end up going insane about what they see. But don’t worry; the last time it happened was… what day is it?”

“Um, Thursday?” I answered.

“Okay, then it last happened, um… yesterdaaayyy.” He stretched out the last word because he realized it was getting awkward.

“Oh well. What kind of magic do you two specialize in?” he asked.

“Actually, I don’t know any magic.” I said.

“Well don’t worry, you’ll learn a lot here.” he replied. “Now, follow me.”

The wizard camp was amazing! It had a training room, an arena, a sauna, and a whole training session dedicated to summoning food, for free!

I definitely wanted to stay there, but I knew that we had to be on our way. We met some of the other professors, like Professor Kinkajou, Professor Puma, and Professor Dartus. I must say though, they had some pretty weird names.

Next Kyle showed us the outside of Professor Mandrill’s cabin, but he said we were not allowed to go in.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I don’t know. He said something about trying to keep his cabin clean. Honestly though, no one has ever been in there, except for your friend, the descendant of Merlin.” he answered.

I glanced at my watch, and saw that it was nine o’ clock in the morning.

“Hey Kyle, we should really get going, so we’re going to need our friend back.” I said, reaching for the cabin’s doorknob.

“What are you doing?!” he asked. I opened the door and we all stepped inside.

“We really shouldn’t be in here.” he said. A large fire blazed in a fire place, and five chairs sat in front of it. I went up to the chairs and saw that there were things sitting in the chairs. In the middle chair, was Victoria, but her wrists were clamped to the armrests and she had a gag in her mouth. On each side of her, there was an animal wearing a lab coat sitting in a chair, except for one that had a ripped tuxedo.

The one with the tuxedo looked like a monkey with sharp fangs and a colorful face. It was a mandrill.

The other animals were a large kinkajou, a puma that stood on hind legs and had opposable thumbs, and a giant blue poison dart frog with black stripes on its back. The frog also stood on hind legs like it was a human.

“We are so glad you could join us.” said the mandrill. It was Professor Mandrill’s voice! Professor Kinkajou was the giant kinkajou, Professor Puma was the puma, and Professor Dartus was the frog! This was actually pretty weird.

“Excuse our appearances, but long ago, we cast a spell together to try to change a wizard’s ancestry so they would be a descendant of Merlin. Alas, it turned us into these. We are able to transform ourselves to human forms for short amounts of time, but never long enough.” he said.

“We waited for a descendant of Merlin to come so we could finally finish working with the More Dread Gang.” Professor Dartus croaked. “In return for fueling this camp with enough magic for the gang to draw power from, we would be transformed back into humans permanently by their leader.” he said.

“All we have to do is fuel it with enough magic. For years, we trained wizards until they were powerful enough. Then we would burn them and their magic would fuel the camp.” said Professor Puma, slyly.

“You’ve been doing this for years?” asked Kyle.

“Yes. We will be done fueling it as soon as we burn this descendant of Merlin.” said Professor Kinkajou in a small voice.

“You… you all burned my brother, and my sister?!” shouted Kyle.

“Yes. You thought for a long time that they had just finished their training and had gone off into the real world, and that you would be reunited with them as soon as you finished. Ha! How gullible you all were!” she said.

“Now stand back, as we must burn this descendant of Merlin, to death.” said Professor Mandrill, as if there were nothing wrong with it.

The four animals stood and walked behind Victoria’s chair and began pushing. I drew my bow and Brandon and Lance unsheathed their swords. Kyle pulled out his wand. The four animals turned. Professor Mandrill sighed.

“It seems we must take care of something else first, my animal friends.” he said. They all stepped towards us.

“Whatever you do, don’t let Dartus touch you, or you will die instantly from poison on his skin.” said Kyle. “Kinkajous can jump incredibly high, mandrills are extremely fierce, and pumas are very fast.”

I fired an arrow at Kinkajou, but she leaped right over it and landed on top of me. Kyle began fighting Dartus, Brandon fought Mandrill, and Lance fought Puma. I kicked Kinkajou off of me and stood straight up. I fired a few arrows into Mandrill’s chest. He let out a loud monkey scream and furiously smacked Brandon. Brandon flew into one of the chairs, landing upside down. Lance and Puma continued to circle each other, waiting for an opening in the others defenses.

Then, Victoria let out an angry yell. She snapped her wrists free and stood up, the gag already out of her mouth. She performed a spell and threw a giant gold orb at Dartus. He cowered in fear as the orb sank on top of him. But the orb simply went through the floor and disappeared. Dartus realized he was unhurt and let out a raspy laugh. Then, it seemed that the orb was coming back up, but much bigger. The orb grew and soon began swirling. It plunged back down and a blinding flash accompanied by a deafening BOOM rang out.

Four cries came from the beast professors as they were hurled out of the now demolished cabin and into a campfire in the middle of the camp.

“Well, that is ironic. They wanted to burn her, but she burned them.” I said. Victoria’s eyes had turned completely blue, including the whites. After the professors completely burned away, her eyes returned to normal.

“What… what happened?” she asked groggily.

“You performed a spell that destroyed the whole cabin and the evil professors, and then your eyes turned completely blue and… well, that’s pretty much it.” I said.

“I know what happened.” said Kyle.

“What?!” the rest of us asked.

“She is a descendant of Merlin, right? Well, all descendants of Merlin, when proven worthy, are filled with the knowledge of every spell there is. Apparently, she proved herself worthy by escaping with great determination to help her friends.” he said.

“That’s it? That is all you have to do? Sounds kind of lame.” I said.

“Make fun all you want. But now, she is our camp leader.” he said.

“Whoa, sorry guys, but she is kind of on an important quest with us. She doesn’t have the time to-” Lance said.

“No, Lance. I think I can do this. But I’ll need your help, Kyle. You know the place well, so I’d like to make you the manager of the camp while I am away, which will be a lot. I’ll check in from time to time though, okay?” said Victoria. She was looking normal again already.

Kyle nodded. “Thanks. Don’t worry; I’ll keep this place running. So, is there anything we can do to help you?” he asked.

“If you could teleport us to North Dakota that would be helpful.” she said.

He searched his pockets. “Does anyone have items from North Dakota?” he asked. A man in his twenties rushed forward and gave Kyle an item, which he then used to teleport us to North Dakota.

Chapter Thirteen: Mosquito
We had just arrived in North Dakota. We all slipped on coats to protect ourselves from the chilling cold air and the freezing wind.

“What’s with the freak snow storm? It’s the middle of summer!” Victoria complained.

“It must be another one of Dwayne’s magic tricks to slow us down.” Lance said.

“Which way are we going?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Brandon shouted over the wind. “We are no where near the item, because Excalibur looks the same as always.”

Lance pulled a compass from his coat pocket and he confirmed which way was west. “Why are we going west?” I asked.

“The whole journey we have been going west. I was thinking that if we keep going that direction, we’d find the item.” he said. The wind was picking up, swirling, snowy tornadoes sweeping across the earth. We hurried inside a coffee shop alongside the road to escape the cold.

We all bought some coffee and sat in a fluffy red sofa and watched weather broadcasts on a flat screen TV. The weatherman announced that the snowy weather would only get worse throughout the day, and advised us all to stay indoors.

“We can’t stay in here all day! Larissa isn’t just going to say, ‘Oh, look at that, there is a snow storm, I think I’ll move their deadline to tomorrow’.” said Lance.

Just then, the bell at the door rung and the person we least wanted to see walked in.

“Dude, go away!” we all yelled.

“What?” asked James.

“We told you we didn’t want your help.” Victoria answered.

“I’m sorry, but my girlfriend wants me to make sure you get those items to Mount Rushmore safely.”

“Well, we can’t. We’re trading the keys for our friends and in case you haven’t noticed, we’re stuck in a blizzard.” I replied.

“The answer is so simple though. It’s like, the answer to most problems… magic.”

“You can’t use magic for everything! It is only for emergencies.” said Victoria.

“You mean like life-death situations? Tell me, how many lives are at stake right now? Oh yeah, thousands. Not just your friends. If the More Dread Gang takes over, more lives are put in danger. So you’re telling me that you’re going to let several hundreds of lives be miserable because you don’t want to use magic?” he said.

No one responded. We knew he was right.

“Now we’re doing things my way.” he said. He opened the door and a cold breeze and snow blew through the door. “Well, come on!” he shouted. We shot up from our seats and raced out the door after him.

The wind was incredibly strong now. We trudged through the thick layer of snow that had gathered on the ground. A snow plow came through, but the snow was so heavy that it got stuck, and the driver had to get out.

James stopped and we all copied him. He took out his wand and performed a spell. It immediately stopped snowing. The wind died down and the temperature rose considerably. The sky was still a large blanket of gray clouds.

“Now, let’s get out of here before anything notices.” James said quickly.

“What do you mean by anything?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing, just a giant mosquito.” he mumbled.

“A what!?” we all shouted.

“Yeah. A giant mosquito. It lives around here and it likes it cold. I don’t know why, most mosquitoes like it warm.” James said.

“And what exactly does this mosquito do if it gets warm?” Brandon asked.

“Oh, it, um…sucks the blood out of everything around it.”

“Are you kidding!? Make it cold again!” Victoria demanded.

“Why? Otherwise you can’t get through North Dakota.” he said.

“Why does everything have to be so complicated on these long missions?” Lance asked of no one in particular.

A loud humming came from behind us.

“Oh yes, that would be the giant mosquito. By the way, don’t let it bite you, not even once, or it will suck you dry of your blood. Fun, right?” James warned. I loaded my bow and spun around to see a giant beast with long hairs, a long needle-like snout, buggy eyes, and a plump belly. It had six spiny legs hanging down from its body. It hovered just off of the ground with its leathery wings.

It shrieked loudly and dove towards us. I fired an arrow into its eye. It stabbed its long nose towards me. I rolled out of the way while Brandon hacked the end of the mosquito’s nose, spilling blood all over the snow.

James took flight over the mosquito and sliced it across the back. The mosquito dropped to the ground, as its wings had been cut.

It shrieked ferociously and tried to skewer Victoria with one of its legs. She dashed away and used a spell to freeze the mosquito.

James looked at her.

“Hey, the mosquito wanted to be cold, so now it’s cold.” she reasoned. He nodded.

“All right, now we’ve got to get moving. The item is in Bismarck.” James said.

Bismarck was a rather warm city in the summer. It is the capital of North Dakota. We arrived there at about four o’ clock.

“Where in Bismarck is it?” I asked.

“It should be at some kind of hotel.” James said. “This is as far as I go. Good luck.” he said. He vanished into thin air after a bright flash of light.

“Finally we got him off of our back.” Victoria said. We walked through the city streets. Soon we reached the hotel.

“Where in here could it be?” Brandon asked.

“Who knows? But as long as we are here, let’s get a room.” I said.

We walked to the front desk and talked to the manager.

“All right, your room is all checked in. I just need to give you your room key.” he said. He took a big ring out of a drawer that had keys stuck on it. He looped through them until he found our room number key. He unlatched it and slid across the desk to us.

I couldn’t believe it. This key was the final item. It was a bronze key.

“Thanks.” we said. We swiped the key off of the desk and went up the stairs to our room. Instead of going in, we teleported it to Larissa. We got a phone call seconds after.

“Luke is off the hook. Thank you so much for the keys. Now I can destroy them.” she said. “Your friends will arrive shortly.”

Sure enough, they appeared in the hallway with us.

“All right, so now that we are all back together, can we go after the items?” Luke asked.

“What is the point? Larissa is in Nebraska and we’re in North Dakota. There isn’t any hope.” Lance said.

“Well, we should still get the wizards back to the castle in South Dakota. It’s what Melvin wanted.” Jordan said.

We gave the wizards a call and told them to teleport to Bismarck from Outer Banks so that we can go to their castle. We walked outside and saw a huge mob of wizards. “There they are!” Jamie exclaimed.

They all cheered.

We walked down the stairs and approached Jamie.

“You have the keys, right?” she asked.

We simply shook our heads.

“What? But the keys are the only way to find out what the More Dread Gang is doing!” she cried.

“It’s too late. Larissa is probably destroying them right now.” Lance mumbled dismally.

“Destroy them? You can’t destroy the keys. They have a magic field protecting them from ever being damaged. The only way to destroy them is by going to the castle and putting them into the locks.” she said.

“That sounds like a Lord of the Rings moment right there.” Luke joked.

“What? But that means-” Brandon began.

“It means that Larissa is going to the castle. And we have to beat her there.” Jordan declared.

Chapter Fourteen: Castle Siege
The castle was a few miles south of Mount Rushmore. It had great black stone walls with battlements located along each of them. The only entrance was a large wooden gate with a portcullis in front of it.

The eight of us, along with the army of wizards, traveled there via a convoy of trucks and buses.

We all gathered in the field in front of the castle.

“This is it, our home.” a wizard stated.

“It looks like we beat the other teams here. C’mon, let’s get inside.” Brandon said, strolling towards the gate.

Suddenly, up in one of the battlements, a bright flash followed by a loud explosion sounded, and a fireball was flying towards Brandon. He leapt out of the way, the ground he had just been standing on seared and blackened.

“What was that?” he cried.

Lance spoke the words on his shield and it rolled up into a cylinder with lenses at both ends. He looked through the spyglass at the battlement.

“Half-mermaid.” he confirmed. “Larissa beat us here.”

“This means we’ve failed. She probably already put the keys in the locks and destroyed them. And destroyed whatever the secret was.” Victoria said.

“Locks? There aren’t any locked doors in our castle, let alone one with five locks. Maybe the door you’re trying to find is hidden.” a wizard supplied.

“That means there might still be hope. Maybe Larissa hasn’t found the door yet.” Sean replied.

“But how will we get inside? The whole place is overrun with those half-mermaids.” Luke reminded.

“We have an army of wizards. I think we can get inside quite easily.” Brandon said. “All right, let’s prepare for battle. Everyone get out your weapons and any magical items that might help.” Brandon ordered.

All of the wizards began rummaging through their bags and pockets, pulling out wands and spell books and several knick-knacks that had some magical quality.

Brandon, Lance, and Jordan drew their swords. I nocked an arrow onto my bow and Victoria took out her spell book. Ella lifted her sword off the ground (she didn’t have a scabbard, the sword was too heavy for her to carry at her waist) and Sean pulled out his model airplane. He climbed up onto the wing of the now giant biplane and into the cockpit. He pulled on a pair of flight goggles and turned on the engine.

Once we were ready, we ran to the castle.

The wizards bombarded the castle with fireballs and lightning bolts and magic orbs of all colors. One wizard had a magic stick that transformed into a battering ram, and several wizards were already slamming it against the gate.

Sean was up in the air dropping canisters full of magic powder that blinded the half-mermaids in the battlements.

The half-mermaids returned fire using wands and staffs. I fired arrows into the battlements, every once in a while felling a target.

Luke pulled a mini-catapult out of his bowling bag and started loading bowling balls into it. The bowling balls exploded as they hit mermaids and castle walls. Eventually the mermaids in the battlements retreated inside the castle and we all went to work on the door.

Within seconds the portcullis and wooden gate were smashed away.

Suddenly, half-mermaids armed with swords began pouring forth from the door, armed with swords and wands.

Brandon, Lance, Jordan, and Ella raced in with a dozen wizards flanking them and began fighting the half-mermaids. The half-mermaids eventually retreated inside. All of us flooded into the main entrance hall, which was dimly lit by candlesticks placed in a chandelier overhead. The Merlin crest was on banners that adorned the castle walls.

“All right, Sean said he’d stay outside in his airplane to keep the mermaids from getting back into the battlements. The rest of you, fan out and search the whole castle. Capture any half-mermaids you can, kill if you must. The seven of us are going to search for the door.” Brandon ordered. The wizards divided into groups and headed down different corridors.

“Jordan, do you think you can use a spell to track Larissa? We have no idea where to begin looking for this door, but we can only assume that she is hot on the trail of finding it. We follow her path; we find the door I bet.” I said. “All right, let me try…” she replied.

“Don’t bother; I’ve already got the trail.” Victoria piped, putting her spell book away.

We followed her down a central corridor that led to a great room. The room had carnage everywhere.

“Yep, Larissa was definitely here.” Luke said.

Broken tables and chairs were strewn across the room. Along all but one wall, four suits of golden armor stood at intervals. The four that were missing were reduced to piles of armor and metal in the middle of the floor.

“What the heck happened here?” Lance asked, sifting through a pile of armor.

“I don’t know, maybe she had a run in with the More Dread Gang?” Jordan suggested.

“The More Dread Gang uses magic orbs and knives to fight. Their orbs would have started a fire, and I don’t see any signs of burning. Besides, if they had beaten us here, they would have already defeated the half-mermaids.” Victoria reasoned.

Suddenly, my ears picked up the sound of metal scraping on metal. I whirled around and fired a dart from my crossbow armband at the moving figure behind me. The dart bounced off the suit of armor harmlessly.

My sudden movement made the others look in the direction I fired, and we all saw the golden suit of armor strolling towards us, its axe raised.

“I’m guessing she ran into those!” Luke shouted. As he said this, the other suits of armor sprang to life, brandishing golden swords and maces, some of them cocking shotguns made of golden metal.

I fired an arrow at the closest one, but the arrow rebounded off with a resounding dong!

“My arrows can’t hurt them.” I said.

“I’ll bet my sword can.” Brandon replied, swinging his sword into a suit’s breastplate. The suit staggered back, crashing into one of its companions and reducing both of them to piles of gold metal.

Victoria used a spell that turned the shotguns into hawks that then began pecking at the suits of armor that had once held them.

Most of the suits of armor had been smashed to pieces when out of the corner of my eye I saw Dwayne, Alan, and Kendall standing in the doorway.

“Victoria, we’ve got dreadful company!” I called.

She looked to the door and nodded, using a spell that magically sealed the door shut on them.

“All right, now let’s get out of here.” Brandon said as he finished off the last of the suits.

We went through the large double doors at the other end of the room and up a set of spiraling stairs. Several doors were on the walls to each side, but all of them were locked.

“Larissa would have tried to unlock these with the keys, if she couldn’t open them; obviously none of them were the right door. Let’s keep moving” Jordan said. We continued going up. Several of the doors we passed now had many hack marks in them.

“Looks like Larissa tried to get inside these. But how could she possibly know which door is the right one?” I asked.

“The keys must be leading her, kind of like how Excalibur led us to the shield and the key in the Great Lakes.” Lance suggested. “The key must have been glowing pretty strongly here if she tried to force the doors open. We just have to find the open one.”

As we ascended we all tried the doorknobs. None of them turned.

Soon we reached the top of the staircase, where a dark gray wall greeted us.

“This doesn’t make sense. Larissa either would have had to come back out the way she came, or go through one of the doors on her way up. But all of the doors are locked.” Brandon stated.

“Maybe she locked it behind her?” Victoria suggested.

Luke shook his head. “Remember what the wizard told us in Bismarck? The only way to destroy the keys is by putting them in their locks. If she had unlocked a door, the key would have like self-destructed or something. She wouldn’t be able to lock it again.” he reminded.

“We didn’t try all of the doors. Maybe it was one of those that we didn’t try?” Victoria supplied.

“Um, I remember on our way up, when we went past the ones that had sword marks in them, there was one with a gold door knob and no hack marks.” Ella chimed in.

“A gold door knob? But all of these door knobs are--black. That’s it! The one Larissa went through was that one. Ella, can you take us there?” Jordan asked. Ella nodded, grinning and gallivanted back down the stairs. We followed her to the door. Sure enough, a distinct gold door knob and padlock were on the door. But the padlock was open.

“I don’t know how we didn’t see it before. Great work, Ella.” Lance commended.

I turned the knob and the door creaked open.

“If she used one key to open this door, there must be five doors to open. One down, four to go.” I said.

We filed inside the next room. It was dimly lit by torches on the wall, and water dripped from the ceiling in a never-ending rhythm.

The floors and walls were made of cold, black stone. Puddles littered the entire floor. One particularly larger torch was above a stone pedestal with a set of stairs leading up to it so that one could stand on top of it. The firelight from the torch reflected off of something metal that stuck out from the pedestal.

“What is that?” Luke asked.

“Let’s find out.” Brandon said, running forward.

“Brandon, stop!” I shouted. I was too late. The floor crumbled from underneath him and he fell into a pit.

“Oh my gosh, Brandon!” Jordan cried. We raced to the edge of the pit.

“Brandon, can you hear us!?” Luke yelled into the pit. His voice echoed back to us from the abyss.

“Yeah, I can hear you. You guys won’t believe how lucky I got. I almost fell on some spikes down here.” he replied, his voice faint and echoic.

“Hang tight, we’re going to get you out of there.” Lance called.

“Where would I go? I’m stuck in a pit!” Brandon responded.

“Luke, do you have anything in your bowling bag that we can use to get Brandon out?” I asked.

Luke rummaged through his bag. “Sorry, no luck.” he said.

“You’re kidding. You can hold like a dozen exploding bowling balls, your laptop, and a mini-catapult in there but you couldn’t find room for a piece of rope?” I snapped.

He shrugged.

“Hey, I found a chain here. Let’s try this.” Ella suggested, heaving a length of chain over to us.

“Great job Ella. Okay, Brandon, here it comes!” Jordan called. She lowered one end into the hole.

After some time, Brandon told us he had a hold of it and we all heaved on the chain. Soon we had Brandon out of the pit.

“That was crazy.” he said.

“Wait, where is Lance?” I asked.

“Hey guys, over here!” Lance called.

We all turned our heads to see Lance standing on the pedestal waving a sword over his head. The object that was stuck in the pedestal was gone.

Lance hopped down and walked back to us.

“It was stuck in the pedestal, king of like how Excalibur was stuck in the rock in the woods.” he explained. “I just yanked it and it came out, like the pedestal was made of butter or something.”

The sword was very shiny and clean, with a silver blade, iron hilt, and a leather-bound handle. The blade was extremely thin, almost thin as paper. It was a wonder that thing didn’t snap in half from the weight of the handle.

“Any idea what it is?” he asked.

“Um, a sword?” I responded.

“No, I meant its name. Most swords that are found stuck in rocks seem to be pretty important, so…”

“I think I could answer your question.” a voice answered.

All of us snapped around to see Dwayne and the twins standing in the doorway.

“Dwayne.” Brandon said with disgust.

“Brandon.” he responded. “Anyways, that sword just so happens to be Seure, or Sequence in English. It was the sword wielded by Lancelot in battle with the Saxons at Saxon Rock. I assume that only the descendant of Lancelot could pull it from that pedestal. And, of course, open the door.”

“Open the door? What do you mean by that?” Victoria asked.

“He means that the door was magically sealed to only open once the descendant of Lancelot claimed it.” called another voice behind us.

Once again we turned towards the unknown voice. Larissa stepped out from the shadows.

“Once I realized I would not be able to open the door without a descendant of Lancelot, I figured I’d let you all catch up, pull it out, and open the door for me. Thanks, Lance.” she said.

She turned towards the door that we could now see along the right wall, when a red orb blasted the ground in front of her.

Dwayne turned to Alan and nodded with satisfaction.

“Alan, Kendall, kill her.” he commanded.

The twins smiled wildly and ran at her like mad dogs. Larissa held them off by lashing out with her tentacles.

Dwayne smiled and ran at us.

“Is he crazy? It’s seven to one. We’d beat him in five seconds flat.” I said.

Brandon parried a sword strike from Dwayne. Lance joined in the sword fight, swinging at Dwayne’s chest with his new sword, Seure.

I loaded an arrow and fired it at Dwayne, only to have it disintegrated in mid-flight by a red orb. I looked back at the door we had come in. More members of the More Dread Gang were filing into the room.

Jordan and Victoria whipped out their wands and Luke pulled out a canister of his acidic silly-string.

We turned our attention to the thugs in red that now populated the room. Orbs of different colors flew throughout the room. Victoria shouted a spell and all of the orbs began flying back towards the gang members that fired them. Several gang members leapt out of the way in the knick of time, narrowly avoiding their own projectiles. The impact of the orbs hurled many of the gang members back.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ella had joined in the twins’ battle with Larissa, turning their dispute into a three-way fight. She seemed to be holding her own though. She swung her sword with ferocity and moved with great agility. I had underestimated her.

Jordan used a spell that trapped the majority of the gang members in a blue energy-bubble. We finished off any that had not been trapped.

I spun around, looking for Brandon, Lance, and Dwayne. I couldn’t see them anywhere.

“Where did they go?” I asked.

“There they are!” Luke yelled, pointing to the pedestal. I couldn’t see them very clearly over there because during the battle the large torch that had lit that part of the room had been extinguished.

I heard the sound of the three swords resounding off of each other as they clashed together.

“This battle will never end,” Dwayne said, “not as long as all three of us have magical swords.”

“You have a magic sword?” Lance exclaimed as he ducked a swing.

“Galatine, sword of Gawain. I had to trick some foolish descendant of Gawain into pulling it out of its stone for me, but that was no problem.”

“So you tricked him and then killed him off?!” Brandon shouted in anger.

“Of course not. I’m not that cruel. The idiot didn’t know what he had, figured it was some junky sword and so I simply took it off his hands.” Dwayne replied.

Brandon took a wild swing at Dwayne’s head. Dwayne threw his left arm in front of his head while simultaneously chanting a spell. A large round shield of iron appeared on his left arm, blocking Excalibur’s blade. The sound of iron on steel resounded through the room. The shield was three feet in diameter and looked heavy. A red dragon head was on the shield’s face. The dragon’s eyes were menacing and black. A forked tongue stuck out between the dragon’s teeth. On the dragon’s snout was a black sword.

Dwayne slammed his shield into Brandon’s chest, sending him toppling off the pedestal.

Lance blocked another attack from Dwayne with his shield and then spoke the magic words located on the shield’s strap. The shield folded back over his arm and then unfolded more and more metal casings that grew and surrounded the rest of his body. Soon Lance was wearing a full suit of armor.

Victoria and Jordan had run to Brandon, helping him up. Luke had gone to help Ella fight Larissa and the twins.

“We’ve got to wrap this up and get out of here!” I shouted.

“I agree.” Dwayne said. He kicked Lance in the chest in an attempt to knock him off the pedestal, but Lance grabbed Dwayne’s hood and they both fell to the ground. Lance rolled him over so that he was on top, with Seure’s blade poised against Dwayne’s throat.

“Go, I’ll catch up!” Lance called. The rest of us ran towards the exit. I looked back to see Dwayne kicking Lance off of him and rolling to his feet.

When I looked back, Larissa was blocking the entrance.

“None of you are going through here. You have no idea what is back here.” she hissed.

“I’m pretty sure our enemy’s greatest secret is back there and that knowing it would give us a great advantage in all of this, now step aside!” Jordan replied, drawing her sword.

“You don’t understand, I--” Larissa began. Suddenly she was hurled across the room by an invisible force.

“C’mon, let’s go.” Victoria said, putting her wand away. We raced through the door. I looked back and saw Lance running towards us.

“Oh no.” Jordan said.

“What is it?” I asked. She pointed at the doorway. I then saw a slab of rock gradually sliding down, threatening to block the entrance. “Hurry Lance!” I screamed.

Lance was nearly there when his ankle was snagged by a tentacle, pulling him to the floor.

“Lance!” Brandon shouted. At first I thought it was a shout of concern, but then I knew it was a call to attention when Brandon slid a dagger to Lance. Lance groped it and stuck the blade in Larissa’s tentacle.

Her grip on him faltered and he scrambled towards the doorway.

There was only about three feet of room left for him to get in.

“Hurry!” we chorused.

He then rolled straight under, into the hallway.

He breathed heavily. His suit of armor had reverted back to a shield. Seure was in his right hand, looking clean and shiny as usual. He lay on his back, exhausted. Luke helped him to his feet.

“That,” he breathed, “was close.”

Chapter Fifteen: We Cater for Ghosts
The hallway was well lit, making the stone walls and ceiling glow with a golden color. The doorway behind us at completely sealed.

“We must have hit a tripwire or something that made it close.” Jordan had said.

The hallway was very long. It seemed to never end. A few times we might run into a trap, the occasional cave-in, or the cliché arrows firing out of walls Indiana-Jones style, or the ever-dangerous spike pit.

We avoided each of these with very little injury, although I had gotten knocked on the head with a small stone a few times. We carried on, the tunnel stretching on for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, Luke said, “Does anyone else feels like the tunnel is getting smaller?” “Luke, are you claustrophobic?” Victoria asked.

“No, he’s right, the tunnel is getting narrower. Everyone start walking in a single file line. Ella goes in the middle, Brandon, you’re last in line. If you see or hear anything coming behind us, just shout. I’ll be in front.” Jordan assessed.

We continued forward. I looked up at the ceiling, and it did seem to have gotten lower.

I looked forward in the line to see that Jordan and Luke were hunched over.

“Guys, stop, I hear something.” Brandon called. We all halted.

“I don’t hear anything.” I said.

“Shhh!” everyone hissed. Then, I heard it. It sounded like heavy breathing. I turned around towards Victoria. The breathing stopped.

“Victoria?” I said in an expectant way.

“What?!” she snapped.

“You’re claustrophobic, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Well…maybe just…a little.” she piped.

“I think I know what will fix that.” Jordan said. She chanted a spell.

Suddenly, the room got bigger. The walls were getting taller.

But something felt…strange. Like my entire body was being compressed down. It felt like I was getting crushed by a garbage truck.

Suddenly, the feeling lifted.

“Cool, you used a spell to make the room bigger?” I asked.

“Not exactly. That was a shrinking spell. Now we are smaller.” Jordan answered.

“What!? It’s going to wear off, right?” I rambled, panicked.

“Of course. In about an hour.”

I sighed with relief.

We all continued down the hallway. About ten minutes later, we reached a door.

“It’s about time. I thought this hallway would never end.” Luke said.

“It has a silver doorknob. We must need the silver key for this one. How are we going to open it?” Lance observed.

“We could use this.” Ella piped. She produced from her pocket a silver key.

“Ella! How did you get that?” we exclaimed in unison.

“I took it from the mermaid while I was fighting her. I also got this greenish one.” she explained, holding the two keys with pride.

“The copper and silver one. Great job, Ella.” Brandon commended.

Jordan took the silver key and unlocked the door. The door was actually small enough that we could reach the doorknob and lock.

“I guess we were supposed to use the shrinking spell after all.” I said. We stepped into the next room.

The room was very large (probably because we were still shrunken) and was faintly lit by torches. A long dining table was in the middle of the room, with at least a dozen chairs set around it. Candles were on the table, revealing a large feast of chicken, ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, barbeque ribs, green beans, tomato soup, and a multitude of desserts.

“C’mon, let’s find the next door.” Jordan said.

We walked farther into the room.

Suddenly, a loud booming voice came from the head of the table.

“Ah, our guests have arrived! I thought they’d be a bit larger…but nonetheless, welcome lords and ladies! We are so glad you could join us today.” the voice said. I couldn’t see who had spoken because my view of the person was blocked by a large platter of tacos. I shinnied up the table legs and onto a chair, and then climbed onto the table from there. I saw that my friends had done the same.

The man who had spoken was tall (he’d be tall even if I weren’t tiny) and had slick black hair. He had a neatly-trimmed beard and a large nose that looked like someone had smashed against his face. His eyes were pitch-black and reflected the candlelight. He wore a black jacket over a black vest and black shirt with a black tie. I’m guessing his pants were black too. He almost melted into the shadows behind him.

“C’mon, now, everyone wake up, look lively, our guests of honor have arrived!” he said, clapping his hands twice.

I wasn’t sure who he was talking to when suddenly several forms shimmered to life in the chairs. They were all translucent, so it was hard to make out their faces. Only one of the figures did I manage to recognize.

“Hey, isn’t that James?” I whispered to Brandon.

“Yeah. I wonder why he’s here.”

All of the ghostly guests looked to be in their thirties. Some wore shimmering armor, a few wore Civil War uniforms, and a pair of them wore modern clothes, T-shirts with jeans and sneakers.

“Go on, everyone, eat! This is a feast after all.” the man in black said. I grabbed a chunk of turkey and a green bean that was half my height. Luke and Lance were scooping mashed potatoes into their mouths. Brandon and Victoria drank tomato soup from miniature glasses and ate bread.

I had to admit, it was nice to have a sustaining meal after all of the travelling we’d been doing.

I was chewing a slice of a cookie when James hissed, “Psst, Morgan, come here.”

I rolled my eyes. I honestly was getting tired of this guy. “What?” I barked.

“You and your friends need to leave, now. Pretty soon, my dad--”

“That’s your dad? I wondered why there was something I didn’t like about him.” I replied.

“Keep your voice down. Haven’t you noticed that these ghosts haven’t eaten anything yet?” he said.

I looked around. The ghosts were just sitting in their seats, but they looked like they were tense with anticipation, as if waiting for something.

“Yeah, so what?”

“Look, there are a bunch of trials guarding the More Dread Gang’s secret. This is one of them. The only thing that ghosts can eat is human flesh. Why do you think the door was so small? It was to trick people into turning themselves into little bite-sized appetizers for these ghosts! Sooner or later, my dad is going to give these ghosts permission to eat you all, once he decides whether or not you’ve eaten enough. Ghosts like their humans full of delicious food that ghosts couldn’t normally eat.” he explained.

I suddenly felt cold. Dropping my half-eaten slice of cookie, I raced to Jordan.

“Jordan, we need to leave. These ghosts are going to eat us as soon as James’s dad gives them the okay. C’mon, let’s go.” I warned.

“Oh gosh. Let’s get the others, quick.”

We raced around the table. Soon we had gotten everyone, except Ella.

“Wait, where is Ella?” Lance said. He was interrupted by a loud sound of metal clanging lightly on glass.

We all whipped around to see James’s dad standing up, holding a glass of cider.

“I’d just like to say a few words. We are all much honored to be in the presence of such successful young people. I mean, protecting an entire centaur camp from invasion, foiling an evil centaur’s plans of world domination, and, let’s no forget, the countless occasions where you stopped the More Dread Gang. I am sure that legends will be written of your triumphs. But of course, most heroes have stories written about them after death. Let’s help that along, shall we? Let the real feast, begin!” he shouted. The ghosts hissed with joy.

“Run!” Jordan yelled.

“Wait, we have to find Ella!” Luke said.

Suddenly, I heard shouting come from the other side of the room.

“Look, there she is!” I shouted, pointing at the far side of the room. Ella stood there, next to a gaping doorway.

“Let’s g--” Brandon began. He had to leap out of the way of two lunging spirits. We ran towards the edge of the table. Plates and food flew everywhere as ghosts groped for us.

Suddenly, I sprouted up an inch.

“I think the shrinking spell is wearing off.” I said.

I continued to grow gradually as I ran. By the time I reached the end of the table, I was two feet tall.

“Uh oh.” Lance breathed. James’s dad was blocking our path. Jordan took her wand out and shouted a spell. Suddenly, the table we were standing on felt like water. We all sank straight through it and landed on the ground, continuing to run past Mr. Challister.

I didn’t stop running until I was safely in the hallway that the door led to. My legs felt like mashed potatoes.

I looked back to see Lance and Victoria dash in, with Brandon and Jordan close behind them. Luke was already in the room. Once the remainder of us was through, Ella pushed the door shut.

“Wait, wouldn’t the ghosts just phase through the door?” Brandon asked.

“No, their spirits are bound to that room. I’m guessing they once suffered the fate we almost did.” Victoria said.

We were now our normal height again, and thank goodness the hallway was large enough for us.

“Well, now what do we do? Even if we did find the next door we don’t have the key to get in.” Luke said.

“We’ll find the next door first. Then I guess we will have to wait for Larissa to show up.” Brandon replied.

“Assuming she gets past the ghosts.” Victoria added.

This hallway looked just like the other, except for the getting narrower as we walked. The walls and ceiling was an arch, so the tunnel was shaped like an upside-down U. The hallway was also shorter than the last one. Within ten minutes we found the next door.

“All right, so now we just wait for Larissa.” Lance said.

“Or, I could just kill you all now and get on with destroying the keys.” a voice said.

We all looked around, wondering who had spoken. Suddenly, Larissa melted out from the wall behind us.

“I knew that all I had to do was use a simple invisibility spell and let you all escort me through the doors. While it was very nice for you all to help me out, I think I can handle the rest of this on my own.” she said, snickering. She knocked us all against the wall with one of her tentacles while she unlocked the door. “Larissa, stop! Why are you doing this? What do you get out of discovering the More Dread Gang’s secret?!” Brandon questioned.

“What do I get out of this? Only protecting the world from the More Dread Gang and the Round Table by destroying it.” she replied.

“Destroying the secret won’t stop the More Dread Gang! They already know about it!” I shrieked.

“You guys really don’t know what is going on, so you?” she asked, releasing us from her grip. “The More Dread Gang doesn’t know anything about what they’re looking for except that it is instructions on how to prevent all possibility of their plans failing. This so called ‘secret’ is really a prophecy. It prophesizes their greatest weakness, their greatest downfall. If they get this prophecy, they could find a way to prevent it from occurring, securing their victory in the war. And I can’t let you get it either. This prophecy could start a war so catastrophic it could destroy mankind.” she explained.

“We are trying to stop the More Dread Gang! If we find this prophecy, we could figure out their weakness and prevent a war.” Brandon responded.

“You expect me to believe that the Round Table has good intentions? You want a war as much as the More Dread Gang does.” she replied.

“No, we’re serious! The Round Table has done so many things to stop the More Dread Gang! We stopped their invasion on a centaur camp, we blew up one of their bases in Canada, and we’ve saved the world from a psycho-centaur that was bent on world domination. If you really want to prevent a war, Larissa, let us get to that prophecy.” Victoria begged.

Larissa eyed us narrowly. She opened the door and then unsheathed her sword, raising it.

I braced myself for a quick death.

“C’mon, let’s go get the prophecy—together.” she said.

Chapter Sixteen: The Final Trial
We followed Larissa into the room. It was pitch black dark. I couldn’t see my hand even if I held it straight in front of my face.

“Let’s get out of here quick; I hate the dark.” Luke whimpered.

“Shut up.” Larissa barked at him. Obviously she had not yet dropped her hatred for descendants of Dagonet.

We continued walking straight, not exactly knowing where we were going.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked Larissa.

“Not exactly. Let me try something.” she replied. She chanted a spell and the darkness dispelled to a bright blue light.

I looked around. The room was made up of gray stone. I couldn’t see any doors or exits anywhere. There were statues all around the room. I gasped.

“What is it?” Jordan asked. I pointed at one of the statues. It was carved so that it looked to be wearing modern clothes, specifically a purple T-shirt and jeans with white tennis shoes. It had a quiver slung across its back and it held a bow in its left hand. On its left arm was an armband with a mini-crossbow on it.

“It’s…it’s you.” Lance breathed. I stared blankly at my stone clone. It was even my height.

“Guys, here is one that looks like Victoria.” Brandon said.

“This one looks like Luke!” Lance called from across the room.

“How…how is that possible?” I asked.

“I’m guessing that whoever foretold the prophecy was a seer, and saw all of you in a vision. So he carved these statues in your honor.” Larissa replied.

“So…some dead psychic guy predicted that we’d have something to do with the prophecy?” Luke asked.

Larissa nodded.

“Well, as creepy as this has been, we’d better find the last door.” Jordan said. We all searched the whole room, looking for any secret doors. We had no luck.

“I don’t understand. How could it just turn out to be a dead end?” Brandon asked of no one in particular.

“Hey guys. Come look at this.” Victoria called from across the room. We joined her at the statue of herself.

“My statue version doesn’t have the Book of Merlin. But right here in this space between the arm and the waist there is a little rectangular slot. I wonder…” Victoria took the Book of Merlin out of her pocket and used a spell to grow it to its normal size. She slid the book into the slot. Nothing happened.

“I don’t understand. I thought--” she began.

“Wait, my statue version doesn’t have Excalibur. Maybe I need to give him his sword.” Brandon said, racing across to the other side of the room where his statue stood. He slid Excalibur into his statue’s open hand. A few feet away, Lance had put Seure into his stone copy’s hand. I suddenly felt the room shake. Between the statues of Jordan and Brandon, the wall slid aside. Behind it stood a wooden door. The last door.

“There it is!” I shouted. “Let’s go.”

Victoria grabbed her spell book while Lance and Brandon took back their swords. Then we all raced for the exit.

“Stop!” a voice shouted. We whipped around. There was Dwayne and the twins, smiling proudly.

Victoria was the first to act. She chanted a spell. At once, the statues of us sprang to life, hopped off their pedestals and advanced on Dwayne.

Dwayne shook his head and smiled.

“Disperse!” he shouted. The statues were hurled away from him by an invisible force.

“Alan, Kendall, deal with the statues while I deal with them.” he ordered.

“Aw man, why do we always have to fight the tough ones?” Kendall complained.

“Because he’s the one giving the orders.” Alan replied, blasting Luke’s rock copy with a barrage of red orbs.

“Oh yeah.” Kendall stated flatly, ducking under a stone arrow, courtesy of my granite clone.

Brandon and Lance readied their swords. Jordan and Victoria whipped out their wands. Luke produced a red bowling ball from his bag. Larissa let her tentacles slither out. Ella raised her heavy sword as high as she could. I loaded an arrow, aimed at Dwayne.

“Draco Mutatio!” Dwayne chanted.

I nearly dropped my bow at the sight of what happened next.

Dwayne turned a red color and a scaly layer of skin grew all around his body. He dropped to all fours as his clothes melted into his body. His legs were now shorter and his feet had grown claws. His arms were covered in spikes and spines and he had claws on the ends of his fingers. Wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, leathery and scarlet. He grew in size, and a she did his face began to morph as well. His teeth became dagger-sized fangs, his tongue was forked, and his face elongated into a scaly snout. His eyes turned red and became slits. Horns protruded from the back of his head and a tail sprouted, long with a pointed end. Smoke puffed from his nostrils.

Dwayne had become a dragon.

He grinned, showing off his pearly white set of stalagmites and stalactites. He roared a ferocious sound that carried the smell of garlic with it.

“Dude, take a breath mint or something!” I yelled over the roar.

Dwayne turned on me. He opened his mouth. At the back of his throat I saw a bright orange glow.

“Look out! He breathes fire!” Larissa shouted.

Lance pulled me out of the way just before Dragon Dwayne exhaled a hot fiery breath. Once we were at a safe distance I raised my bow and fired an arrow. It sunk into Dragon Dwayne’s left shoulder. His eyes narrowed in disgust. Or was he just blinking? When his eyes are slits it is hard to tell. Lance had spoken the words on his shield and was now manning the gun on his giant tank. Victoria and Jordan were frantically shouting spells to attack Dragon Dwayne, but not much seemed to bother him. Not even the bullets Lance was firing were doing much. They seemed to bounce off the scaly armor.

Suddenly Statue Ella flew into Dragon Dwayne.

“Sorry!” Alan called from across the room.

Brandon was fighting Dragon Dwayne head on, parrying the monster’s claws with Excalibur.

Luke was hurling bowling ball after bowling ball at Dragon Dwayne, but they were greatly ignored. Dragon Dwayne swept his tail across the floor, tripping most of us. Brandon and Larissa still stood, attacking him at the front with their swords. Ella rose from the floor and hurled her sword at Dragon Dwayne, which I’ll admit I found impressive.

The sword struck Dwayne in the side. He shook it off and then released a blast of fire from his throat. I gasped. Brandon and Larissa had still been in front of him. When the smoke cleared, there they were. Larissa was holding out her hands, a blue wall of protection in front of both of them.

She let the magic shield fade and helped Brandon up.

The two of them parried Dragon Dwayne’s claws and then swung at his head. He recoiled and then furiously flapped his wings, generating strong winds that buffeted us.

“Guys, let’s get to the door. Dwayne can’t fit through there in this form.” I said. I heard a scream come from the middle of the room. Larissa sunk to the floor. She had a set of large gashes in her right arm and chest. Brandon scooped her up and ran from the fray, Jordan and Lance guarding them. Brandon laid Larissa on the ground once he was a safe distance away.

Victoria and I joined them. Victoria used a healing spell on Larissa. The blood flow slowed and the gashes narrowed. I knew it would take time for the healing spell to take full effect and heal her completely.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be all right.” Brandon supported. Larissa’s hand flew to her pocket.

“The…the key. Take it.” she stammered, her breath shaky. Brandon took the key and dropped it in his pocket.

“You have to st—stop the…More Dread…Gang.” she breathed.

“You’re going to be all right. Victoria, Morgan, get her over to the door. Take the key. Don’t unlock the door until everyone is over there.” Brandon instructed, handing us the final key.

“What are you going to do?” Victoria asked. He grimaced, and then took off into battle.

“C’mon Victoria, let’s get Larissa to the door.” I said. I grabbed Larissa’s right shoulder and Victoria took her left. We began dragging her towards the door.

Brandon had spread the message to the others. Everyone made a break for the door. Ella and Jordan reached us first. Luke had to dodge a flying statue and several red orbs before he made it. Brandon and Lance ran together, narrowly dodging fireballs breathed by Dragon Dwayne.

I unlocked the door. As soon as I turned the key in the lock, the key and lock vanished. I turned the knob and pushed it open. We barreled into the room, me and Victoria toting Larissa with us.

I slammed the door behind us, Dragon Dwayne roaring with rage.

The room was lit by a brilliant blue light. The room was circular and very large. A pedestal stood in the middle of a raised platform. Stairs led up to the top of the platform. The platform was strange in shape though. It was shaped a bit like a bowl, and it was filled with crystal clear water.

“The prophecy must be up on that pedestal!” Jordan exclaimed.

We all surged toward the center platform, when the floor in front of us suddenly broke away.

“We need to be more careful. It looks like the floor won’t be able to take all of us at once.” Brandon said.

“No, that’s not what is wrong. There is a breakaway spell on parts of the floor. Any weight on them at all will cause them to breakaway.” Victoria confirmed.

“Are there any parts of the floor that doesn’t have the spell on them?” I asked.

“Yes. Actually, it seems like there is a path leading to the stairs. It’s has lots of twists and turns, but it will get us to the stairs.” she replied. I nodded.

“Then lead the way, Victoria.” Luke said. Lance picked up Larissa so that Victoria could take the lead.

“Okay, everyone get into a single file line. The path gets pretty narrow in places.” Victoria warned. We all got into a line, with Lance in the back.

We followed Victoria for about ten minutes. Soon, she stopped.

“Why did we stop? Why are we stopping?” Ella asked.

“The path just stops right here. I can see the rest of it up ahead, but there is a ten foot gap between here and there. I don’t know how we’re supposed to get across.” she responded.

“We could jump!” Luke joked.

“Ha ha, very funny. Victoria, can you undo the breakaway spell?” Brandon asked.

“I can’t think of any spells that counteract it. And I know every spell, remember?” Victoria said.

“That’s it, I’m jumping.” Luke said, pushing his way forward.

“Quit messing around, Luke.” Brandon said.

“I’m not joking.” Luke said.

He ran forward, and leapt out.

“No!” we cried.

He got about five feet out and landed. The floor began to crack a little, but it seemed to hold him.

He smiled and jumped again to the next safe ground. We sighed relief. He took a length of chain from his bowling bag.

“I swiped this in the Seure room when Brandon fell in that pit. I thought we might need it again.” he said, throwing one end across to us.

“I don’t understand. Why did the floor hold you?” Victoria asked.

“Are you saying I’m heavy?” he joked.

Victoria grabbed the other end of the chain.

“All right, now hold onto the chain tight. Walk slowly, and think happy thoughts.” Luke jested. “If the floor falls apart, I’ll pull you out with this.”

Victoria took a cautious step forward. A chunk of the floor broke away from underneath her.

“What are you thinking about?” Luke inquired.

“I’m thinking ‘I hope this floor doesn’t break away from under me.’” Victoria replied.

“Okay, don’t think that. Think happy thoughts, step lightly. The lighter your spirit is, the harder it will be for the ground to…you know what.” he called back.

I thought he had been joking about thinking happy thoughts, but sure enough, Victoria made it across without anymore accidents. Ella was next. After her went Jordan. Then Brandon. Then me. After me was Lance. Larissa had healed up enough that she could now walk on her own, so she went across by herself.

“Luke, you were right! How did you know that would work?” Jordan exclaimed.

“This isn’t the first breakaway spell I’ve faced. Trust me, when you’re facing an evil wizard that has trapped you on a tiny island of ground, with breakaway spells cast on every rock around you, it helps to know how to get out of there.” he replied.

Victoria led us along the remainder of the path. Soon, we stood in front of the stairs.

“Brandon, you’re our leader. You do the honors.” Victoria offered. Brandon walked to the front of the line, a little nervous. He climbed the stairs and took a cautious step into the water. We followed him up. The water was cold. We gathered around the pedestal.

On the pedestal sat a crisp slip of parchment, golden-brown in color. It curled up slightly at the top, appeared to have been burned in places, and both bottom corners were dog-eared.

“This is it. The Prophecy of the Round Table. It will reveal to us the More Dread Gang’s downfall, and could very well predict the intensity and outcome of the war.” Larissa breathed in awe.

“Read away, Brandon.” Jordan said encouragingly.

“It’s a bit worn and faded, but I’ll see if I can make it out.” he replied, squinting at the parchment.

Brandon read aloud:

Come the autumn solstice of the year, Following the founding of this letter, The power of Mordred, Will come about, And be wielded by his youngest successor. His Majesty King Arthur’s descendant, With all his bravest knights, Into battle will ride, Against Mordred’s power’s might. A great evil that day will rise, But surely will fall, To the descendant of Perceval, its only demise.

Chapter Seventeen: The Mark of Arthur
“The descendant of Perceval, its only demise. A descendant of Perceval is destined to defeat the More Dread Gang! That’s Troy!” Lance exclaimed.

“The power of Mordred…will come about…and be wielded by his youngest successor…a descendant of Mordred is going to inherit Mordred’s power to take over the world. But who could possibly be the descendant of Mordred?” I asked.

“I am the descendant of Mordred.” Dwayne shouted from the doorway. “And also the youngest one alive. One year from this year’s autumn solstice, I will inherit the power of my ancestor, and will rise as Supreme Leader of the More Dread Gang, his followers.”

“You…you are the descendant of Mordred?” Brandon breathed. Chills ran up my spine.

“And thanks to you reading me the prophecy, I now know how to prevent failure. Alan, Kendall, get the prophecy!”

The twins ran towards us. The breakaway spell didn’t take effect. I guess it was set to wear off once we got to the center platform. They drew their hunting knives. Alan tripped over his own feet and inadvertently tackled his brother. Dwayne sighed.

“Can’t you two clowns do anything right?!” he exclaimed. He drew Galatine from its sheath and charged at us.

“Brandon, there are words on the back of the prophecy.” Jordan said, handing him the parchment. He flipped it over. The words on the back were clearer than the ones on the front.

“Gryphus Mutatio.” he stated.

Suddenly, Brandon began to transform. His front arms turned into bird feet and sprouted talons. A lion tail grew and white feathers replaced his brown hair. His face morphed, forming a hooked beak. He had the head of a bald eagle. Golden fur grew on the rest of his body and his clothes melted into his new form. He was down on all fours now and had grown to the size of a fire truck. Eagle wings had grown from his back. Griffin Brandon let out a shriek that sounded like a cross between a lion roar and an eagle call.

“Of course! The griffin is the mark of Arthur. Who knows how long Brandon has had this ability!?” Jordan exclaimed.

“Morgan, climb on.” Griffin Brandon ordered. In griffin form, Brandon’s voice was a bit deeper. I climbed onto his back. He began to flap his wings furiously. Wind buffeted everyone in the room. Griffin Brandon leapt off the floor with his hind lion legs and took flight. I understood his plan now. I loaded an arrow, aimed at Dwayne. He and Lance had begun to clash swords.

Below, Ella and Jordan were combating the twins. Victoria stood on the pedestal, which was now levitating in midair, while she threw magic projectiles. Luke had put the prophecy in his bowling bag and was running from the fray. Jordan followed him, ready to guard him from attack. Larissa was staring at the pool of water. She seemed to be concentrating on something, but I wasn’t sure what.

The pool of water blasted forth from its container and slammed into Dwayne and Lance. The two of them flew across the room, drenched with water.

“Sorry, Lance.” she called.

Her sudden water attack had pushed Dwayne away from the arrow I had just fired.

“Hold on.” Griffin Brandon told me. I could feel his heavy breathing. He approached a wall and grabbed onto it with his talons. I wrapped my arms and legs tightly around him. He was leaning back and soon unlatched from the wall. He flipped over and dove downwards. He twisted and when we were mere yards from the ground, he unfolded his wings. The eagle wings caught the rushing air and we glided along the stone ground.

Brandon veered towards Dwayne.

Dwayne was distracted by Lance, and so when Brandon slammed into him with all his weight, he took full impact. Dwayne was hurled into the twins.

“Brandon!” Luke shouted. Brandon turned his new eagle head towards Luke. Luke was pointing up at a doorway high above the ground. Brandon nodded. He crawled over to Luke.

“Get on.” he bellowed.

Luke climbed on behind me.

“Do you still have the prophecy?” I asked. Luke nodded, patting his bowling bag. Brandon took flight over to the doorway. Luke and I scrambled inside the small passageway.

“I’m going to go and get the others. You two stay here.” Brandon instructed. With that, he dove back to the ground. I looked down the pathway that was behind us. It was small, big enough for all of us to crawl through. It was more of a crawl space than a path. Far down the tunnel, I thought I could make out a hint of light.

“I think this tunnel leads outside.” I told Brandon when he returned. Jordan and Victoria crawled in with us.

“Great. We’ll check it out once everyone is up.” he replied.

The next time he showed up, Larissa, Lance and Ella climbed into the doorway.

Brandon had already begun to transform back into his regular self. His tail was gone and his head was human, not eagle. His bird feet shrunk and turned back into human arms. He grabbed the edge of the doorway. We all scrambled to help him. His human arms couldn’t bear the weight of his large griffin body, and his wings had already vanished.

Everyone pulled with every ounce of their strength. We almost had Brandon up, the only remnants of his griffin form being a few feathers still sticking out from his neck. Luke slipped and hit the floor, and our strength decreased. The group poured in one final struggle, and Brandon was up.

“Guys, guys!” Luke shouted.

“Oh man, that was close.” Brandon said, panting. Everyone started talking at once about Brandon’s newfound ability and his near fall to the death.

“Guys!” Luke cried.

“Now, let’s check out this tunnel. Do you really think this is the exit?” Brandon asked.

“Guys!” Luke whined.

“I think so, if it is--” I started.

“Guys!” Luke yelled at the top of his lungs.

“What?!” we shouted back.

“I dropped the bag.”

Chapter Eighteen: Serenity
We peered down over the edge. Luke’s bowling bag lay on the floor, fifty feet below us.

I was filled with horror as Dwayne lifted the bag off the floor. He pulled the prophecy out, looked it over, and put it back in. He was grinning.

“I really must thank you. I couldn’t have made it through the door without Lance pulling out Seure. Or without you reading me the prophecy, and, let’s not forget, handing it over so kindly.” He spoke in a mocking tone.

“That’s what you think, Dwayne.” Victoria replied.

“What is that supposed to-” he began. He yanked the bag open, his eyes wide. One of Luke’s bowling balls flew out. Dwayne staggered back to avoid it and dropped the bag. The bag then exploded into a cloud of smoke.

“What-what-” Dwayne stammered.

“I wanted to make sure you didn’t get the prophecy, so I used a spell to teleport it into my hands as soon as you entered the room. C’mon guys, I’ve got the prophecy, let’s go!” Victoria shouted. She began to crawl down the tunnel. “Corpus Delecto!” Dwayne chanted. Victoria suddenly glowed red and began to float out of the tunnel. We all made a grab for her, but none of us could get a grip. The glow kind of acted like a slippery soap that loosened our grasp. She floated out of the tunnel and down to Dwayne. Dwayne grabbed her and pointed his dagger at her throat.

“Victoria!” Lance cried. He began to shuffle towards the edge of the tunnel.

“Make one move and I’ll open her throat!” Dwayne shouted. Lance halted.

“Stilla Arma!” Victoria said. Dwayne cried out and dropped his weapon, which had begun to steam. Victoria turned and punched him in the jaw, causing him to stagger back.

“Gaea Ballo.” Victoria said. Stones lifted up from the ground and flew towards Dwayne.

“Gaea Katastrefo!” Dwayne shouted back. The stones shattered in midair.

“Whoa, it looks like we are witnessing a full-fledged magic battle.” Jordan said.

“Pyro Ballo.” Victoria chanted. Following her chant, a large fireball formed from thin air and rocketed towards Dwayne. Dwayne chanted another spell and a plume of water burst in front of him and extinguished the fireball.

“Shouldn’t we do something?” I asked.

“Oh, right. Sorry, got distracted.” Brandon replied. “Gryphus Mutatio!” he called out. Feathers and fur began to grow on his body, but receded as quickly as they had arrived. Brandon clutched his head, crying out in pain.

“It seems that your body could only handle one transformation for now. You’ll have to wait a while before you can turn into a griffin again.” Jordan explained.

I grabbed an arrow from my quiver and loaded it into my bow. I aimed at Dwayne, but with so many magical spells being cast, my target was constantly blocked by something like a ring of fire or a tendril of magic energy.

At last, I had a clear shot. I let my bowstring go and the arrow flew forth. Dwayne looked up at me as soon as I released it, as if he could here the thrum of my bowstring.

“Oistos Katastrefo!” he shouted. My arrow exploded into splinters and fletching mid-flight.

“Morgan, let me try a spell on your arrows.” Jordan said.

“All right.” I replied warily, wondering what she had in mind.

“Mageia Aegis.” Jordan chanted. My arrow flashed white and then returned to normal. “Your arrows are now magic-proof.” she explained.

My eyes lit up, understanding what she had planned. I loaded another arrow and fired.

Dwayne looked up at us again. “Oistos Katastrefo!” he cried. When nothing happened, he dove out of the way quickly to avoid it.

I could see Victoria down below, blasting orange orbs at Dwayne. The twins attempted to attack her, but she used a spell that caused roots to burst from the ground and demobilize them.

Dwayne deflected the orange orbs off of his knives and then used a spell that blasted lightning at Victoria.

Victoria countered the attack with a spell that grounded the lightning bolt.

“Funis Impedio.” Dwayne said. A length of rope appeared out of no where and entangled around Victoria. Victoria fell to the ground.

“Funis-” she began.

“Silentium!” Dwayne shouted over her.

Victoria’s voice went mute. She was moving her lips but nothing would come out.

“There…that ought to shut you up.” he said, walking over to her. He bent down, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the prophecy. He turned his attention to us. He chanted a spell that made a set of steel bars appear in the passageway of the tunnel. He then used the spell Jordan had used on my arrows to make the bars magic-proof.

“Good-bye Round Table. It sure was nice to see you again.” He cut the twins free of their bonds and the trio made their way to the door.

“Abrogare!” a female voice called out. The steel bars disappeared, Victoria’s bonds vanished and she could speak again.

Victoria chanted a spell and the three gang members fell to the ground.

“Limpness spell. Nice work.” Jordan called down.

Victoria grabbed back the prophecy and ran towards the wall below. Larissa lowered a tentacle and reeled Victoria up into the tunnel with us.

“Great job Victoria. But how did you chant a spell without being able to speak?” Jordan asked.

“She didn’t. I did.” a voice said from below. A seventeen-year old girl with black hair walked into the room through the door. She wore black leather pants and a leather vest over a white shirt, with brown cowboy boots to complete the outfit.

“You did? How did you get rid of the magic-proof bars? In fact, who are you?” Luke asked.

“My name is Serena. And there is one spell that can undo any spell, even magic protection. The undo spell, Abrogare.”

“This is all very interesting, but why are you helping us?” Brandon asked.

“I am helping you because the More Dread Gang is back. It has been three months and you are on a new quest to find the More Dread Gang’s biggest secret. You got the instructions and the prophecy, and now, here you are.” she replied.

“Wait, you’re the sign maker? You left all of those signs that we found? And you sent James to give us the instructions?” Lance asked.

“Yes, I am the sign maker. Now, I doubt you all want to crawl down that tunnel and find the man-eating elephant that has been set there as a trap, so why don’t you all come down so we can find another way out?”

Chapter Nineteen: Signs of Betrayal
We were all back on the ground, everyone asking Serena a million questions.

“All right, slow down. Let me explain.” she said. Our avalanche of questions ceased to allow her to enlighten us.

“Right, go ahead.” Brandon urged.

“So, it all started when I found out about the More Dread Gang. Dwayne had offered me a membership in the group. He told me their plan to channel Mordred’s power and magic energy into him, the youngest descendant of Mordred. I joined the gang. I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into. Eventually, Dwayne told me about the gang’s enemies, the Round Table. He told me that if you discovered our true plans, you’d surely stop us. But I knew he was wrong. There was something he was missing, some weakness that the Round Table wouldn’t have known about whether they discovered the More Dread Gang’s plans or not. I decided to help you find the prophecy. And I was right. The More Dread Gang has a weakness.” she explained.

“So basically, you joined the gang, realized Dwayne was a psychopath and turned to our side to help stop him?” Lance said.

“Sure, you could put it that way.” she replied.

“Okay, so now that we’ve found the prophecy, how do we get out of here?” Luke asked.

Serena stifled a smile. “The exit will be revealed by Sequence.” she answered.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Wait, Dwayne said Seure was Sequence in another language. Maybe the exit will be revealed in Seure’s reflection.” Lance said, holding his gleaming sword in front of him. He and I studied the reflection, turning slowly so that we could see the whole room. Suddenly, I saw it. In the reflection of the blade, one of the bricks in the wall glowed a blue color. I turned, but none of the bricks were glowing.

“I’m going over to the wall. Let me know when I find the right brick Lance.” I said, racing to the wall.

I pawed the wall, waiting for Lance to call out.

“Right there! You’re touching it with your left—I mean, right hand. Sorry, reflections reverse things.” he said. I pushed on the brick with my right hand. It slid inward slightly. Then, the bricks to my left began to shift aside, creating a passageway lit dimly by lanterns.

“All right, way to go Lance!” Victoria cheered. I looked over at her. “Oh, you too Morgan.” she quickly added. I nodded.

We all walked into the newly discovered tunnel, moving cautiously. After walking through the tunnel for a while, the lanterns began to snuff out.

“What’s going on?” Lance asked.

“There must be a draft somewhere. It probably blew out the candles.” Jordan suggested.

Suddenly, I heard several cracks followed by dull thumps.

“What-” I began. My thought was interrupted when something hard hit my head. I fell to the ground, disoriented, and my eyelids slid shut.

When I woke up, we were no longer in the tunnel. We were in another room. The ceiling was very low. The room was circular and constructed of gray stone. In the room’s center was a large blazing fire. Three shadowy figures stood in front of the fire. Two of them were throwing wood into the flames while the tallest one in the middle stood idly watching the fire burn bigger and brighter.

I quickly recognized them. I tried to take a step towards Dwayne and the twins, but found it impossible. I looked down at the shackles around my ankles that were anchored into the wall behind me. I was suddenly aware of my arms being held up. I looked up to see my wrists chained to a wooden beam above my head. I gazed to each side. To my immediate left, was Jordan, restrained similarly. To my right, was Serena.

Dwayne turned abruptly.

“Ah, they’re awake. And just in time, the fire is quite cozy now.” he stated.

“Let me go, Dwayne!” Serena shouted. Dwayne walked over to her.

“Well of course, sweetie. Sorry about knocking you out, it’s hard to tell people apart in the dark.” he replied, unlocking her shackles with a key.

“Wait…you’re…working with him?” Brandon shouted. I looked over to see the others lined up along the wall, all restrained.

“I never said I quit the More Dread Gang. I said I knew Dwayne was wrong. And he was. You see, I devised a plan to get the prophecy and get rid of you Round Table nuisances. I sent you a quest, and you took the bait. You led us straight to the prophecy, revealed the More Dread Gang’s weakness, and now we’ve successfully captured you. We have gang members heading to your headquarters at this very moment to kill the descendant of Perceval. And you’ll be powerless to stop us.” she said in a mocking tone.

“Wait, if it was your plan to have us lead you to the prophecy all along, why was Dwayne trying to stop us from getting all of the keys?” Victoria asked.

“Blame it on poor planning. I didn’t exactly tell Dwayne about the plan until after we were inside the castle.” Serena replied.

“General Freeman, we found another descendant outside the castle. Descendant of Maleagant, by the looks of it.” a gang member said, coming in through a secret door. Sean was being carried in by two gang members. He was awake but looked too weak to put up a fight.

“Friend of yours?” Dwayne asked. “Put him over here with the others.”

The two gang members chained Sean to the wall and left through the door they came through.

“We really must be going; we wouldn’t want to miss the destruction of your home. Once we get back, maybe we’ll do you the honors of killing you before you can really absorb the impact of your failure. Bye.” Dwayne said as he and Serena left the room. The twins dashed out after them.

“This is all my fault. I had had a bad feeling about the signs ever since we first saw them, but--” Lance began.

“Lance, stop saying that right now. None of us could have predicted this. And it isn’t a total loss. We know the More Dread Gang’s weakness.” Brandon said.

“No, I could have predicted this. I’m a seer, remember? I should have seen this coming.” Lance protested.

“Lance, you’re not sure how to control your seer abilities yet. You wouldn’t have been able to see this coming unless it somehow slipped into your mind or something. You can’t blame yourself for this. Right now, we need to focus on escape.” Victoria replied.

“Right. Victoria, can you destroy these chains?” Brandon asked.

“Nope, none of us can Brandon. Magic proofed.” Jordan said.

“Wait; didn’t Serena use some kind of spell to counteract it?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, the undo spell. Abrogare!” Victoria chanted.

The chains flashed and disappeared.

“Nice work, Victoria. Now, let’s…wait, Excalibur is gone. They must have taken it somewhere.” Brandon said.

“They couldn’t have taken it far. It’s as heavy as an aircraft carrier, remember?” Jordan said.

“Seure is gone too.” Lance said.

“All of our weapons are missing. We may never find them in this maze.”

“I know where they are.” Sean chimed in.

“You do? Where are they?” Luke asked.

“I don’t know exactly where they are, but I can sense them.” Sean replied.

“What do you mean you can sense them?” Lance asked.

“Oh! This is Sean’s special power. Your power will find the weapons, right Sean?” Ella asked.

“Yeah. You see, I’ve always had this special ability. I can sense blades and even control them with my mind.” Sean explained.

“Use the force, Sean.” Luke joked.

Sean turned left.” They’re in a secret room, over here.” he said. He walked over to the wall.

Victoria used a spell and the illusion vanished, revealing a passageway in its place.

In the small room laid all of our weapons. Ella, Larissa, Jordan, Brandon, and Lance’s swords all lifted off the ground and floated to their owner’s hands.

“Now that, is cool.” Lance said.

Sean’s mace floated to his hand. I waited for my bow and quiver to float to me.

“Sorry, only works on blades.” he said shrugging. I picked up my bow and slung my quiver over my shoulder. Victoria and Jordan grabbed their wands and Luke grabbed a bunch of his magic trinkets.

“Someone destroyed my bowling bag, so I guess I need to use my pockets.” Luke said, looking at Victoria.

“Hey, it tricked Dwayne, didn’t it?” she replied defensively.

“I want a new one.” he responded.

“I’ll get you a new bag as soon as we stop the More Dread Gang from destroying our headquarters.” Victoria promised. Luke smiled.

“Okay, now that door Dwayne and Serena left through must be an exit. Let’s go.” Brandon said.

Chapter Twenty: Retaliation
After we got out of the castle, Larissa rallied her half-mermaid army. The wizards were no where to be found. They had probably settled back into their castle home.

“Don’t worry, they’re on our side now. Right girls?” Larissa explained.

“We will eat the Dagonet spawn’s flesh!” one cried out.

“That isn’t so reassuring.” Luke said, hiding behind Sean.

“Let’s just go. We don’t want to be late stopping the More Dread Gang from destroying your headquarters, do we?” Larissa replied.

Victoria used a teleportation spell and a split second later we were standing in front of Brandon’s house. The front door had been blasted off its hinges by something. A few windows were shattered and a large hole had been smashed in the roof, tendrils of smoke rising up from it.

We raced inside to find gang members and goblins everywhere. An ogre had also managed to fit into the house.

Patricia and Robbie were smashing their way through groups of gang members. Chandellor was warding off a horde of goblins with his broadsword. Brandon’s dad was fighting some gang members with a baseball bat. Brandon’s mom was spraying goblins with one of Luke’s tomato juice squirt guns. Troy was fighting against Dwayne himself, trying to get an attack in with his long wooden spear.

Kevin was shooting arrows at the ogre, but the ogre ignored him as it raided the refrigerator.

Even Prescenan was there, trampling gang members under his hooves.

“Attack!” Larissa shouted.

The half-mermaids stampeded into the house. Patricia turned to kill one, but noticed that the half-mermaids were attacking the More Dread Gang.

She gave me a confused look.

“Don’t worry, they’re friends.” I said. She nodded and returned to the fight.

Sean joined the fight, using his mastery of metal to disarm all of the gang members. Then, using his power to make the knives float in midair, he began making pretend attacks with his mace, and the knives copied his movements, attacking their former owners.

Brandon and Luke went for the ogre, killing it in seconds.

Victoria used a spell that made the floorboards under the gang members shift and warp so that they knocked the enemies off balance.

Jordan and Lance ran to help Brandon’s parents fend off the invaders.

Ella was swinging her sword wildly at a group of goblins, warding off the creatures.

Larissa had released her tentacles, and they had a grip on the twins.

“Oh crap! Alan, we’re in trouble!” Kendall cried out as he was dragged along the floor.

Alan was gripping a railing, his body pulled out behind him so he was a few inches off the floor. “I think you mean you’re in trouble.” he said before losing his grip and thudding to the ground.

I had turned my attention to Troy. He was what they were after. I loaded an arrow and aimed at Dwayne.

I heard Serena shout as she tackled me to the ground. The arrow skidded away. I tried to get up, but she slammed me back into the floor.

“Serena, look out!” I heard Alan cry. I wasn’t sure what happened, but I guessed that Larissa had slammed Alan into Serena.

I recovered and grabbed the arrow, loading it again. I went to aim for where Dwayne had been, but he was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Troy.

“Brandon, we have to find Troy and help him!” I yelled.

Brandon nodded and called for Lance to help.

The duo started down the hallway, whirling their swords in deadly arcs at any enemy that got in their way. I followed close behind them, shooting down any goblin that got too close.

We made our way to the backyard where the training area was located. Several wooden and burlap dummies stood in a line. I thought back to the scarecrow incident and shuddered at the resemblance they had.

Over in the archery range was where we found Dwayne and Troy fighting. Troy was bleeding from a wound on his head and he had several scrapes and gashes on his arms.

Dwayne was in no better condition. His shirt had a tear in it and his chest was bleeding. He also had bruises and scrapes on his limbs.

I fired an arrow at Dwayne, but the arrow was smacked away as Troy swung his spear at Dwayne’s head.

Dwayne ducked and attempted to stab Troy in the stomach with Galatine. Troy leapt back and thrust his spear forward again for another attack.

Brandon rushed in to help, bringing Excalibur in a downward arc towards Dwayne. Dwayne shouted a chant and once again his large round shield appeared on his arm, protecting him from the attack.

Brandon did succeed in distracting him though, and Troy was able to stab Dwayne in his side. Dwayne hacked the spear shaft into splinters, leaving Troy weaponless. “Troy!” I called, throwing him a pebble. He caught it and was about to throw it on the ground when Dwayne caught his arm. Brandon tried to attack Dwayne again, but Serena came to his rescue and rammed Brandon to the ground.

Troy flicked his wrist and sent the pebble flying into the air. It came down and knocked against Dwayne’s shoulder.

The magic pebble flashed and deteriorated as it grew a new spear from itself. The spear grew to full length in midair, skewering Dwayne in the shoulder. The dull crunch of shattering bone was drowned out by Dwayne’s cry of pain. He fell back on the ground, the spear shaft embedded in his left shoulder.