Chapter 6: Worlds Collide

Derek didn't remember falling asleep. His memory picked up at 3 a.m. when he woke to an amberkin berating him for his lack of a "respectuous archive." Half-asleep, Derek stumbled out of bed. Teetch wanted an archive? Derek had the quintessential archive just sitting on his desk. Derek booted up his laptop, opened a search engine, and tried to explain the internet to a magical creature. It did not go well.

Teetch hissed in response to Derek's futile attempts to get him to use the computer so Derek could go back to sleep. At that point, Derek realized Teetch was still in his cat shape from the night before. "Why do you still look like that?" Derek asked, blinking sleep from his eyes, "And why don't you try and get some sleep like a normal person?"

"Carving this shape required more Ambessence than I anticipated. I recover more slowly in this barren landscape you call a Realm. Tell me, Derek Dunn, are all Humans this lazy?" Teetch asked, "I let you sleep several hours more than myself as a courtesy, but even my vast patience has its limits. We have work to do."

"Well, since I don't weigh under fifty pounds, I assume my body needs more sleep than yours." Derek said, "If you require an 'archive,' you're going to need to use the computer. It's like a library but better."

Teetch's eyes flashed, and a light pulse rippled down his body. "Kindly recant your blasphemy, Human," Teetch said. "This… device cannot compare to the wonders of the written word. I would be hard-pressed to imagine it could contain more than a single page, not to mention it has no scent. A real archive smells like parchment and ink, not pine. No student of Vaasla worth a drop would settle for such a meager excuse for an archive."

"Do you have an 'off' button or something?" Derek asked, running a hand through his snarled hair. It was way too early for this. "I'm going to go back to sleep. I'll take you to the library in the morning."

Cat-Teetch hopped onto Derek's bed, blocking his path to sleep, "I demand you take me at once. You may not care about the Giild, pride, or overall cleanliness, but I draw the line here. We have wasted far too much time sleeping." Teetch said, nearly spitting out the last word.

"Teetch, humans need sleep!" Derek said, "You should try it sometime. You'd be less cranky. Besides, all the other humans are still asleep, so the library will be closed when we get there."

"All Humans are like this? Even Lisa Dunn and Harmony Walker? I refuse to believe that, but I'll acquiesce to your strange customs and wait for this library. However, the time for sleep is over. We must plan. One does not simply stroll into Othiamphuus."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Derek said, "If I'm going to deal with this crap, I'm going to shower first."

The warm water soothed Derek's aching muscles and washed dried blood down the drain. He ignored how it stung his arms where he'd been scraped, burnt, and cut in the last forty-eight hours. The pain felt right, justified. Derek would've stayed longer, but Teetch's golden eyes kept peeking into the small shower space through the translucent glass and commenting on how much water Derek wasted. Apparently, modesty wasn't a concept shared by amberkin culture. Despite Derek's best attempts to explain, Teetch was too fascinated by how the shower could produce so much warm water without using Mana or Ambessence. Since Derek didn't know how Mana, Ambessence, or hot water showers worked, he couldn't explain it to the amberkin either. Teetch defaulted to believe it was some Human ritual, and Derek let him. It was too early to argue with the world's surliest fantasy creature. To Derek's surprise, Teetch offered to seal Derek's wound, but he declined. He wanted something to remember the night that a living being was no longer in the world because of him.

When Derek was as ready as he could be with four hours of sleep, Teetch hopped onto Derek's dresser and started to pace back and forth, "To get into the Giild, we have several qualifications to meet."

"Hold up," Derek said, "Before we get into that, you've got some explaining to do."

Teetch stopped pacing and bared his mismatched teeth at Derek, "We do not have time for this, Derek Dunn. The fate of the Giild is at stake!"

"If I'm going to help, I need to know what I'm dealing with," Derek said, "The fate of my life is at stake!"

"I expect my plan will succeed or fail, irrespective of your efforts," Teetch replied, his cat ears flattened in anger.

"Look at it this way: if you want me to take you to the library or help you in any way. I'm going to need some answers."

Teetch's brow furrowed, and he waited a long time before answering. "Fine, you get three questions. Then we will discuss my plan."

Teetch hopped off the dresser and trotted to where he'd discarded his robe the night before. He burrowed into its folds. A few stray strobes of light flashed through the holes, and Teetch's humanoid limbs seemed to ooze and bubble from the openings. When the fully formed Teetch emerged, Derek knew it wasn't his imagination; the amberkin looked dimmer than he had moments before.

"Proceed," Teetch said, acting like he hadn't just changed shapes.

"One, I get that your people sent those Seekers after you and that they made them Amber Mad. What I don't get is why your people still have dinosaurs. They went extinct 66 million years ago.'"

"Ah," Teetch said, "Your confusion is understandable, a surprisingly good question. After the desiccation of the other Giilds, the Queen put all of Othiamphuus in stasis, sealed in Amber, to wait for a resurgence of Mana. Still, it appears our stasis ended prematurely several Human years ago."

"Wait," Derek said, "So, you're millions of years old?"

"Before stasis, I was twenty Human years old," Teetch said.

"That's how old I am!" Derek said, "We're the same age! How did you already get this grumpy?"

"Hah, I am 100 million and twenty years old. Hardly comparable," Teetch said proudly, "Now, hurry along, onto the second question."

"I have one last question connected to the Seekers, so it still counts as part of question one," Derek said. Teetch nodded his assent, and Derek suspected the little guy enjoyed lecturing. "Why did you have to stick your hands inside the Seekers after we killed them, and how is that mercy?"

"Right, sometimes I forget you lack even a rudimentary understanding of the world. It's better you ask now, then slow us down in the Giild later, where time will be of the essence. Amber is the lifeblood of the amberkin, but it is hostile to any other living being. This is the source of Amber Madness. However, Amber is a finite resource. I reclaimed it from the Seekers rather than let it dissipate. Does that explanation suffice, or will you be needing pictures?"

Derek ignored the insult and nodded, "Alright, Question Number Two, why'd you steal that Scroll? You seem to love your Giild, so why betray them by stealing their only hope?"

"Betrayal? I, Teetch, am the only amberkin who remains loyal to the spirit of Othiamphuus. If the Wheel had its way, the last of the amberkin would fade into oblivimity, adhering to the old ways. The Queen would never have allowed it to go this far, but she is gone. That's why I need your help. Question Three, if you please."

As Teetch answered the second question, Derek could see the light pulses speed up, if not get any brighter. He noticed the instances when the light sped up corresponded with the amberkin's level of frustration. Derek filed that away as a mood detector of sorts. He wished Harmony or his mom had one so he knew when he was in imminent danger.

Mentions of this Queen tempted Derek to waste his third question, but something more pressing had been niggling at the back of his mind for a while. "What makes you a Heretic? Is it because you stole the Scroll?"

"Pass," Teetch said, "Next question."

"Hey! You said you'd answer any three questions."

"I will not answer that question. I don't know where you heard that term, but it is not Human business," Teetch said. "If it means our deal is null, so be it."

Derek put up his hands placatingly, "Relax, I was just wondering. It popped up on here when I tried to Identify you. I didn't know it was that big of a deal," Derek said, mentally scrambling for a backup question. It's a stretch, but here goes nothing. "If the Queen is gone, how is she still singing?"

Teetch's ears perked up, and his eyes glowed brighter, "The Queen sang to you? Hah, my suspicions were right! We must get started at once!"

"Not so fast, ShortStack. You still owe me an answer."

"The Queen is not physically gone, but her mind has fled. When we returned from stasis, she never recovered, but we shall change that," Teetch said, gleefully rubbing his clawed hands together and wiggling his hairless eyebrows.

"And just how are we going to do that? If you haven't noticed, all I've got is a fishing pole, and all it does is hook stuff."

"Leave the finer details to me. I wouldn't expect a Human to be able to understand." Teetch said.

"Then why do you need me at all?" Derek asked.

"You're the bait."

Φ

By the time Derek dropped Teetch off at the library, he was ready to go back to bed. Despite the amberkin's nonstop chatter, Derek didn't know any more about the Giild or his role to play besides being the distraction for the giant fish monster in the lake. He didn't hate the idea. In fact, every time he thought about it, he felt a thrill of excitement, but the amberkin was a little stingy on details about how Derek was supposed to distract it. Was he just supposed to catch the ancient city's protector with his fishing pole? Teetch was intentionally vague but still talked about it for several more hours, regardless. He also made sure to belabor that Chaasmyth was still loyal to the Queen and that Derek was supposed to treat the lake monster with the utmost respect. Derek nodded his assent, but respect was not his strong suit.

Derek's mind whirled with all the new information and possibilities he had laid out before him. His life had gotten so much bigger, more important. The more Derek thought about it, the more he realized he couldn't go to work like this. He would be useless with his head in the clouds. Derek had promised his mom he'd do better, but was he giving her his best if he showed up distracted?

Before Derek had even finished convincing himself, he opened his contacts list for someone to cover his shift. Most of the other employees were part-time high school students, so they either didn't answer or unhelpfully told him they couldn't come to work because of school. As Derek was about to give up, he remembered one person he could call. Harmony worked at Dunn, Dunn, Dunn every summer until she finally got hired as an apprentice at the boat repair shop, and there was no way any boats needed urgent repairs while the lake was frozen over.

Harmony ignored his first couple of calls, and when she finally answered, she seemed annoyed with him. He didn't feel like that was fair because she was the one who punched him, but he was willing to forget the whole thing ever happened. Since he needed a favor from her, instead, Derek apologized with his fingers crossed, and Harmony finally agreed to cover his shift. She'd do a better job than him anyway. She only had the fate of one world to worry about. Now that he was finally free of his responsibilities, he could finally go and think. Derek knew just the place.

Φ

Sticking a hook in ice didn't give him any bonuses with his Iron Fillet Knife, so Derek cut himself a new ice-fishing hole the old-fashioned way. It felt like ages since Derek had gone to the lake with his trusty pole and let the day's cares and worries melt away, leaving nothing in his mind save the bare essentials. Derek didn't care if he caught anything that day. That's not the point.

Derek shivered in anticipation when his marshmallow-baited hook sunk into the water. He couldn't wait to leave behind thoughts of amberkin, Seekers, and World Wide Wilco and return to the times when his biggest worry was whether or not any fish were alive in a frozen lake. The day wasn't nearly as beautiful as a few days before. Ominous, dark clouds obscured the sky, casting Golden Lake in a dreary filter that made it hard to remember the existence of warmth or happiness. Derek tried to slip into the state of fisherman's zen, but he found something blocking him. Teetch's shrill nagging, Harmony's punch to the face, the burning in his arm, and the tearful look on his dad's face all swirled around in the ordinarily tranquil pool of Derek's psyche, distracting him from the mindset necessary for successful zen.

My dad was really a fisherman and friends with Rod? Teetch's whole world is down in that lake somewhere? How many more times will I get to do this? Is this my last winter in Golden Lake? Didn't I have a level-up in MythMaker?

Derek would get back to fishing after he checked his phone. The level-up seemed essential in his development as an Angler and might help him devise a plan to get into the Giild. Derek couldn't think of any Angler ability with that potential, but he wouldn't know until he checked his phone.

The MythMaker interface had four main buttons. The last button, Party, used to be inaccessible to Derek, but that was no longer true. His Character could wait until he checked his Party. The Party menu only contained one option, a square containing a miniature version of Teetch taking up a quarter of the screen. Above mini-Teetch's head, it read Teetch the Heretic. Derek tapped the Teetch icon. It zoomed in on the little amberkin until a little 3D model of Teetch hovered on the screen, spinning on an invisible axis with the word Abilities under his feet and the word Equipment hovering near 3D Teetch's right shoulder.

The Equipment section only contained one item: Heretic's Robes. When Derek tried to tap the robes, a pop-up appeared that read:

Additional Information Function Disabled for Temporary Party Members

The same pop-up appeared when Derek tried to tap Teetch's abilities. Teetch's "abilities" had less imaginative titles than Derek's.

Flash

Carve

Scald

Passive - Amber's Vessel

Passive - Scrollworm

Derek tried clicking on various elements of the Party screen, but that was all the information he could dredge up. Some were easy to figure out, while others were a bit esoteric. Derek wondered if Teetch considered himself to have abilities or if these were just elements of Teetch that MythMaker categorized in a way for Derek to understand. He debated whether he would show the amberkin the Party screen, considering how much he made an ordeal of everything else. Ultimately, he decided against it when he remembered how Teetch reacted when called a Heretic and when Derek showed him the internet.

Before Derek dealt with his level-up, he had one last bit of maintenance. When he'd been talking to his parents, he picked up a side quest.

Side Quest Acquired!

Cat's in the Cradle: Being a Hero of Prophecy has its costs, but it doesn't have to. Regain the trust of Harold and Lisa Dunn and restore honor to the Dunn family name.

Derek returned to the main menu and immediately clicked on Character. He'd dwell on that side quest later. Dirk Dawn was back in the dungeon, but Derek could've sworn it looked a little nicer. The torches on the wall shone brighter, and the stone looked cleaner and crisper. Dirk was still in a room with a locked wooden door, but over the archway of the door were the words Level 2. A wooden chest, a deep crimson red labeled Quest Rewards, rested in the corner.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When given the choice between the known and the unknown, Derek chose to open the chest first. Who knew what could be behind the Level 2 door? Lights beamed from the lid as it cracked open. There were no grey or green items this time, and there were fewer items than in the Starting Equipment chest. The new crimson neon script described only two items. Derek claimed them with two deft clicks.

Guts (Rare Ability)

The Angler must intimately know each catch to know where to stick the knife to offer a swift and merciful end. Description: Guts instills vital knowledge of the weak points of the Angler's catch. Gut gains additional effects when wielding a fillet knife. All fillet knives are more effective while Guts is active.

Seekerclaw Hooks (Uncommon Equipment)

The claws of the Seeker are known for their ability to tear and rend. Hooks made from their claws are no exception. Description: Seekerclaw Hooks can pierce even the thickest hide, opening up new possibilities for the Angler. Once hooked, a catch cannot wriggle free from the grasp of the Seeker. Seekerclaw Hooks remaining: 10/10

Warning: Seekerclaw Hooks are not reusable.

Derek watched crimson beams of light emerge from his phone and start printing him a tacky-looking box of Seekerclaw Hooks with a queasy feeling. The box was the same forest green as the Seekers, and the hooks had the same look and feel as polished bone. The first round of rewards and equipment seemed goofy and geared explicitly toward fishing, but MythMaker tailored these new rewards more toward his encounter with the Seekers from the night before. He had no interest in being able to kill and gut things better. Derek had always been a catch-and-release kinda fisherman. When he thought about it, he didn't have any interest in even being able to take down Chaasmyth, Teetch's giant fish bogeyman. He only wanted to catch it to prove he could. The enormous creature was protecting his home, which didn't feel like a guttable offense. Derek could relate to someone protecting their home.

It didn't do Derek any good to wring his hands over it. He had free will. Nothing could force him to kill or hurt anything he didn't want to, and he had to admit that Guts would have been a huge help against magical, rabid dinosaurs.

Derek had no choice but to forge ahead and hope his level-up wouldn't be nearly so killing-centric. Dirk Dawn stood unmoving before the Level 2 door, but Derek could've sworn the 16-bit figure felt eager to continue. Derek tapped the door, and Dirk walked into the blackness. When he emerged, he walked along a well-maintained forest trail with the occasional torch to light his path. Dirk didn't walk long before he arrived at a five-way intersection similar to the one during character creation. Instead of five colored doors, five wooden arches were marked by paper lanterns, all of which corresponded to the same five colors: red, blue, green, yellow, and purple.

The first time Derek saw the five colors, he'd had no idea what they meant. Now that he had received two different colored chests, each with two completely separate types of rewards, and due to the fact that MythMaker said he had a stat point to assign, Derek had a working theory. He guessed that each color corresponded to a different attribute in Dirk's and, therefore, Derek's skillset. Careful not to choose a pathway by accident, Derek clicked around the screen, hoping a clue would reveal itself, and he felt stupid when he had the answer. Tapping on Dirk himself conjured a stat screen for the Character.

Dirk Dawn

Level: 2

Race: Human

Class: The Angler

Attributes

Hardiness: 1

Mysticism: 0

Survival: 2

Community: 2

Fortune: 0

Abilities

Improved Cast

Line of Steel

No Sudden Moves

Guts

Derek read the list of attributes and abilities and was immediately thankful that MythMaker didn't share D&D's rules regarding attributes. If any attribute reached zero, the Character died. Derek didn't feel like any of his stats should be zero, but there was no arguing with a semi-sentient magical video game. Derek didn't consider himself particularly mystical or fortunate, and the game had assigned stats accordingly. However, if MythMaker did follow gaming conventions, Mysticism probably represented this game's version of a magic-user type attribute, and Fortune was just a throwaway luck stat. Derek attempted to categorize the rest of MythMaker's attributes to fit normal gaming standards better. Hardiness represented anything physical, including Derek's overall health and physical strength. Survival was trickier to pin down. Derek wanted to say it was comparable to dexterity, his overall agility, and quickness, but it didn't fit perfectly. Lastly, Community had to be his social statistic, describing how others would respond to him and vice versa. Social skills weren't super helpful for an Angler, but Derek was thankful for the game's inadvertent compliment for ranking it the highest, along with Survival.

The colored doors made more sense when viewed in this light. Derek looked at the five attributes. Assigning each one a color was easy. The colored paths appeared in the same order as their corresponding attributes: red for Hardiness and so on. Typical gaming wisdom dictated that Derek should pick stats that accentuated his character's strengths instead of shoring up his weaknesses. Still, something about that felt wrong when applied to real life. In a game, it didn't matter if your Character died; all that mattered was the most optimized set of statistics to deal the most damage, but MythMaker and real life didn't work that way. In real life, weaknesses are where your enemies exploit you, and Derek's current problems seemed mystical in origin. Therefore, Dirk Dawn needed more Mysticism.

Derek tapped the blue trail, and Dirk Dawn walked to the entrance to the blue path.

Are you sure? Y/N

A quick tap of Y sent Dirk down the blue path. Dirk plodded through the procedurally-generated forest trail in the same mechanical motion as he did through the dungeon. He walked briefly before arriving at a sunny clearing with no obvious exit. Dense foliage blocked the way in every direction. The only feature that stood out was a gnarled and bent tree oak, the same deep ocean blue as the Mysticism trait. The tree had a dark-knotted hollow at chest height, and Derek figured that must be the forest level's equivalent of a rewards chest. Derek didn't see any reason not to tap on the tree.

The second Derek touched his screen, rays of blue neon light sprayed from the tree's hollow, writing out Derek's new abilities.

Inexorable Pull (Uncommon Passive Ability)

An Angler's will is not to be trifled with. All manner of creatures populate the Realms, but none of them can resist the Angler's pull. Description: A hooked catch will always move toward the Angler's current position while reeling. Warning: The rate at which this occurs depends on the hooked catch's size and level.

Infinity Line (Rare Passive Ability)

A true Angler is beholden to none but himself, least of all greedy merchants, and his line should always be an extension of himself. Description: The Angler will never run out of line.

As Derek finished reading the skill's descriptions, blue light coalesced into a tight beam that passed over Derek in sequential, descending rows, starting at his head and working down like a typewriter. Derek didn't feel anything as the beam continued its descent, not until it reached Derek's torn-up arm. A searing pain followed where the beam met damaged flesh and the unpleasant sensation of skin moving and independently knitting itself back together. Derek was thankful he had a coat covering his arm. He could barely watch when someone drew his blood.

When the beam finished its work, it returned to his phone, still clutched in Derek's hands. He felt a smile tug at his lips. Derek felt good, better than 100%, as if he were entirely on a whole new number scale. His muscles weren't sore, he was well-rested, and MythMaker had healed his injuries. In a weird way, it was like the level-up had 3D-printed a slightly better version of himself on top of the old one.

Additionally, his new abilities were the exact types of skills he wanted. He wasn't interested in abilities that made him a better killing machine but a fishing machine he could live with. Derek imagined all the possibilities. He'd never have to buy anything from Rod again, and he could become a world-famous fisherman. Derek had never been in it for fame, but there wasn't a single catch out of his reach if he had enough patience.

He didn't know how long he sat there, but the sounds of a heated conversation startled him from his thoughts of catching a narwhal with his Wooden Fishing Rod. The voices sounded close enough and upset enough that Derek was surprised they were speaking so candidly right next to him. Derek almost called out to ask if everything was alright, but then he realized why neither had spoken to him. No Sudden Moves.

Derek had sat on the dock long enough without moving that it unintentionally triggered his passive camouflage. The two speakers talked openly near a stranger because they thought they were alone. Derek would have sworn he'd recognize any voice in Golden Lake, but these two didn't sound familiar, and they didn't sound particularly pleasant either. As they got close enough for Derek to hear their conversation, he was thankful he hadn't revealed himself.

"Remind me why we couldn't wait to do this when it's warm," a man said in a smooth, cultured voice, the type one would expect from a high-end salesman.

The second voice, a woman's, said, "You really want locals crawling all over us while we're trying to do this?"

The sound of a snow shovel punctuated the woman's voice. As the conversation continued, it did so with the backdrop of two shovels steadily removing snow. Derek carefully listened and pinpointed them near the shoreline, underneath the wooden docks.

"I don't see why it's such a big deal. Even if a Golden Laker saw us, what could any of these simpletons do about it?"

Derek heard an audible sigh. "Just my luck, I get stuck with the novice," the woman said, "Idealograms are most effective when left undisturbed. Attention dilutes their effect. Even a novice should know that."

Derek's ears perked up when he heard the word "Idealogram." It was one of the many magical words Derek recognized from Teetch's ramblings, but he didn't know what it meant. He had to remind himself not to turn around and look at the speakers. Whoever they were, they valued their secrecy. Besides, who knew what else they'd reveal if he kept listening?

"Show some respect, witch. I'm no mere novice. I am simply expressing that the working will be big enough that attention from a few civilians should hardly shift the needle."

"Witch?" she asked, laughing in what one could only describe as a witch's cackle. "I suppose you can call me that, novice."

"Being the newest member of your little club hardly makes me a novice. The Craft has been passed down in my family for generations, and I've been among the Initiated for over a decade. I gave up my Ideal for this."

The woman just laughed. "We all did, novice. That's the price of entry, but I have to admit your Gram does show some skill… for a novice. I'll only need to fix the connector glyph and genesis line, " she said, "Let's go back and see if they've finished the measurements for the next placement."

"Nitpicky little witch, my lines were fine," the man said under his breath. It sounded like the woman had already started to walk back to wherever they'd come.

Derek heard the witch's voice start to berate the man for something, and the man defended himself in a whiny voice. However, the voices had faded so that Derek couldn't hear specifics. When Derek could no longer hear the voices, he sprang to his feet. Derek crossed the length of the wooden dock at a record pace, taking boards two or three at a time, careful to avoid the areas weak with age and rot.

When Derek reached the portion of the dock that met the shore, he jumped off the side. He immediately saw where the bickering duo had been working. Derek considered following them, but it wouldn't be hard to find newcomers in town, especially when he could just follow their footprints in the snow. Derek was more interested in whatever they were trying to hide and what they were doing under the dock in the first place.

The way Teetch described it, Awakening someone was almost impossible, but the way those two spoke, they were also hip to the whole "Magic is real" idea, and they seemed to know way more about it than Derek did. It's just my luck that they sounded like bad guys. Why couldn't they be two magical goody two shoes who came to save the day and let me off the hook? Pun intended.

Derek approached their handiwork and noted the pile of loose snow they left behind was packed tightly underneath the dock so any idle passerby wouldn't see a loose pile of snow and investigate. They'd chosen a stretch of muddy ground equal parts sand and mud. They'd drawn a shape that reminded Derek of the drawings kids did in the sand that, eventually, tides would wash away, but something about it felt off. Less cute, more sinister.

The diagram looked like a large playing card diamond about a foot and a half in length from top to bottom. The top half of the diamond had a little horizontal hash mark running through it near the tip, connecting the two slanted sides, while the bottom half had what looked like a smaller diamond drawn inside it. A larger horizontal line separated the top and bottom half equally.

At first, Derek didn't know how they expected their little drawing to last very long. He thought the lake would wash it away with the first thaw of the year, or at least that's what he thought at first. The longer he looked at it, the more he felt the opposite. The marking felt permanent, like a scar on the Earth—or reality.

Derek knew he should probably show it to Teetch, but he'd scuffed his boot through the diagram before he could stop himself. He needed to destroy it. His boot slid through T

the mud beneath the diagram. There was a long track where his boot passed through, but the diagram lay above it, untouched. Derek started to pile dirt and snow on top of the diagram, but whatever he threw at it, the marking lay on top, undisturbed.

Derek remembered what Teetch said about magic: that Humans and magic are like oil and water. They slide past each other. That's what this diagram felt like. Whatever Derek threw at it slid off, unaffected because the two types of matter, or maybe even the two types of reality, were never meant to interact. Whatever the insignia written on the ground was supposed to be, it had no place in Golden Lake.

Derek considered finding Teetch and showing him the sinister mark, but ultimately, he decided to follow the footprints in the snow to find the culprits responsible. Golden Lake was Derek's responsibility. They'd done nothing to disguise their tracks, further cementing that even though these people practiced Magic of some sort, they weren't infallible. No Sudden Moves worked on them, as well as anyone. Derek just wished he had some kind of indicator to know when he was camouflaged or not. It was eerie to have someone look through him like he wasn't there and have Derek wonder if they could see him.

As it turned out, Derek didn't have far to walk. Their footprints wound to the west, across the lake opposite Angel's Perch. Golden Lake's docks sat in a natural depression in the land and were flanked on both sides by gentle rises. The east side was more forested and had more natural rock formations like the Perch, while the west side was more of a plateau that held a series of abandoned housing projects funded by tourists, the forest continually trying to reclaim the land, and a motel/bar, creatively named The Lucky Catch, overlooking the lake.

The Lucky Catch was a two-part business: a bar on the first floor and a motel on the second. Norm Fielding owned them both. Norm used to be one of the summer tourists, but after his wife left him, he uprooted the tattered remains of his life, moved to Golden Lake, and started a business. Locals still referred to him as a newcomer, but as far as Derek knew, Norm had lived in Golden Lake for over ten years and had even garnered a loyal customer base that loved drinking and boating as much as Norm did.

Derek assumed that was where the footprints were leading. Most newcomers stayed at the Lucky Catch, but the prints wound up past the Lucky Catch and led to a squat, blocky building in the shadow of the motel. It reminded Derek of those temporary buildings and office suites that construction companies used when they had a project in the area. Derek would have sworn it hadn't been there the day before. The building was the grey of fresh cement and storm clouds. It had no personality and looked like the building equivalent of a punch-in/punch-out faceless salaryman. Derek tried and failed to find anything indicating what the building was or why it was there. No signs or windows. He would've assumed it was abandoned entirely, save for the two sets of footprints leading up to the door.

Common sense screamed at Derek to turn around, leave, and regroup with Teetch. But the Lucky Catch was next door, and nothing bad could happen in the middle of the day in Golden Lake. The town hasn't changed that much. Derek ignored the mental alarms blaring and approached the door. Danger or not, he was determined to find who was messing with his town.

As Derek got about twenty feet from the door, something along the treeline lurched into motion out of the corner of Derek's eye. It was huge. Derek instinctively reached behind his back to grab the Wooden Rod and started backpedaling to distance himself from what he first thought to be a walking tree. Its long strides closed the distance between them in moments. It cocked back an arm and swung a massive limb at Derek's face. Derek felt himself stumble over his feet, which probably saved his life. He felt the whoosh of air as the heavy limb passed over him. The fall only saved him a few precious seconds, but he planned to use them. Derek scooted backward across the snow, and just when the hulking monstrosity would go for another swing, it stopped.

The figure resumed a neutral standing position and then turned around and clomped back to the edge of the treeline, each heavy step sending tremors through the ground. The figure was vaguely man-shaped but stood about two stories tall. Derek had mistaken it for a tree at first because of its coloration, but now that he looked at it closer, he saw it was more bronze than tree-bark brown. He watched it for a minute, and it didn't seem to move from its position from the treeline. Derek wasn't close enough to tell, but judging by how eerily still it stood, he would've guessed it wasn't breathing. If it hadn't just tried to kill him, Derek wouldn't have thought it couldn't move at all.

What's the secret here? What makes you tick, big fella?

Derek took a couple of experimental steps toward the grey building. After three steps, the bronze figure left the treeline in long, loping strides right at Derek, but when Derek backed up, the giant returned to the treeline. Derek took another step toward the giant, but this time to the side, not toward the building. No movement. Derek made it about ten sidesteps before the bronze thing started after him. That put him about fifty feet away and not close enough to make out any of its features save that it had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head, just like any standard human, but jumbo-sized. Identify yielded Derek the ??? message and a warning that the giant had a higher level than Derek. Who doesn't?

When Derek had all but decided to use his new hooks and Angler abilities to pull the figure closer to get a better look, he remembered the most obvious fact in the world. Phones could zoom in. Derek almost laughed at how obvious the solution was. Since he'd gotten magic powers, he was starting to see the world through just that lens, but sometimes, there was no substitute for the magic of technology.

A closer examination of the enormous bronze guard statue left Derek with more questions than answers. Zoom revealed that the creature seemed to be made entirely of stacked coins, pennies, to be exact, but not normal-sized pennies. The giant's legs were as thick as inner tubes and were made entirely of neat stacks, like how they stacked them at the bank. Its torso was composed of four distinct, circular sections, each looking like the tails side of a penny, a sizeable distorted version of the Lincoln Memorial on display in each quadrant. Arms of stacked coins were attached to the shoulder sections of the torso with no visible joints or attachments that Derek could see. The arms ended in rudimentary four-fingered hands made entirely of normal-sized pennies. Its basketball-shaped head sat perched between the top two torso sections. Derek couldn't stand to look at the head for too long, so he snapped a picture and then had to look away. There was something viscerally wrong with this bronze giant using Abe Lincoln's face, even if it was only the penny portrait. Something about the cold, emotionless eyes staring blankly at Derek gave him the chills. Maybe Derek would've found it more goofy if the thing hadn't been seconds away from smashing him to a pulp while wearing that same flat expression.

Derek didn't know how long he stood there staring at the construct of coins, but when he finally left, he had a plan.