The horse made a huge difference. Charles no longer had to walk and walk through mindnumpingly boring terrain. Now he raced through it on Diablo’s back with a Magnificent Seven knock-off soundtrack playing in the background. It was exhilarating, if a little cheesy.

They passed several intriguing locales. There was an abandoned mine that looked like it might contain treasure. After that they saw a pioneer caravan, also a possible source of treasure and information. A group of horsemen in the horizon seemed threatening, but they soon outran them and they vanished in a cloud of dust.

In a normal game, Charles would have explores all of these side-quests—the mine, in particular, was very tempting. Grace, however, seemed set on getting to that train.

They got there in a couple of minutes. At least he assumed this was the place. As far as he could tell it was just a flat, sandy plain identical to the rest of the landscape.

Grace stopped and got off her horse. “This is as far as we can go with the horses. We’ll have to do the rest on foot.”

Charles’ heart sank. He didn’t want to leave Diablo behind. The horse, however, would not be able to climb on the train. He hadn’t thought of that.

“Why does it have to be the train?” he asked. “Why not try one of the other adventures. That mine, for example, looked cool. It could have treasure, or maybe even monsters.” He glanced back. “There’s a chupacabras out there somewhere.”

A monster would be perfect right around now. He could use a good fight after all that galloping. The jackalopes, he supposed, were technically monsters, but he didn’t feel like they counted. They were just overgrown rabbits with robot antlers.

“What we are looking for is not in the mine.” Grace replied.

Charles frowned. “How would you know? It could be there. We haven’t looked—“

Grace sighed “You just want to keep the horse, don’t you?”

Charles glanced back at Diablo. The horse whinnied, looking at him with woebegone eyes.

“Just take him with you,” Grace said.

She put up her hand and her avatar’s face went blank for a second. A smooth black stone shaped like a horse appeared on her hand.

“Return,” she said.

And the black horse disappeared. The blank expression returned to her face and then the stone disappeared as well.

“They are just minions,” she said, her face returning to normal. ”Go to your inventory and find the amulet and they’ll return to it. Then you can take them anywhere.”

Charles checked his inventory and found a shiny, horse-shaped stone. He clicked on it.

Diablo whinnied and then disappeared.

“There,” Grace said. “Happy now?”

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He was, but he didn’t want to admit it. “The mine could still be worth it.”

“I’ve looked,” Grace said. “It’s just bags of gold and boxes of dynamite.”

Charles laughed. “What’s wrong with dynamite—“ Realization dawned. “Wait, you’ve been there? You’ve played this before?”

Grace sighed. “Many times.’

That explained why she knew so much about the game. “I guess you must really like it.”

Grace grimaced. “No, I dislike this game intensely. I just have to play it.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I just haven’t finished it,” Grace replied. “And to finish it, I have to find the Wastelands Power Weapon.”

Power Weapon? Charles perked up at the sound of that word.

“What kind of firepower are we talking about?” he asked.

“There’s one for each world,” Grace said, instantly launching into trademark Grace Chamorro Lecture Mode. “Each one is super powerful and enables a player to defeat the final bosses of the game. Without the special weapons you have no chance to win. Oh, and you need all of them, not just one. There are five levels at the end, and each level will require one of the Power Weapons.”

Too bad Scales wasn’t here. He would be thrilled to bits to learn that this game had something called a Power Weapon. Heck, not just something, five somethings.

“That’s fantastic,” he said. “There was nothing like this in Legends of the Universe. They must have taken it out.”

“Yes,” Grace muttered. “For a reason.”

“So, it’s very hard?” Charles asked, thrilled to tackle a challenge.

“That’s part of it.”

“And there’s one for each world? Did you already get the Islands of Terror one?”

“No,” Grace said, her face falling. “I’m not leveled-up enough yet. That’s why I came here to accumulate some XP. This is the easiest level.”

“It is?” Charles asked, aghast. He’d almost failed the easiest level? Ugh.

Grace grinned. “But I got something even better than the power weapon.”

Now that sounded interesting.

“Can I see it?” he asked. “What does it do? How did you get it?”

She pointed to the sky.

A metallic figure flew toward them, its black feathers gleaming in the sun. It was the mechanical parrot. It circled around Grace a couple of times then landed gracefully on her shoulder. The gold head turned around with a clicking sound and the bulging metal eyes stared into Charles’ eyes. The whole effect was both eerie and silly.

Charles shoulders slumped. This was the Islands of Terror super weapon? A cute little robot bird that looked like a prop from a failed Clash of the Titans and Pirates of the Caribbean crossover?

Grace doubled over in laughter. “You should see your face right now. You look absolutely horrified. Poor Polly is not the super weapon, and she is not so bad. Actually, I’m lucky I found her in that deserted rock. She comes in handy when scouting and she is a stellar thief.”

“Handy,” Polly said, her purple eyes glinting. “Come in handy.”

“So what’s the next weapon?” he asked. “The titanium Colt .45s that Ranger has in Heroes of the Universe?”

That would be a disappointment, given that he already had a Colt. Presumably it would pack more of a punch.

“No,” Grace said. “They have a shotgun instead.”

“That’s even better,” Charles said, barely able to contain his excitement. He’d been expecting a better version of his current revolver. A shotgun would be a huge improvement, particularly if it was an 1878 or 1883 Colt, which seemed likely.

The developers got his revolver right, so they would probably get the shotgun right too. The game looked rustic and unfinished, but it had killer research behind it.

“How do we get it?” he asked.

A mischievous smile crossed Grace’s face. “I told you. We rob the train.”

“Rob the train,” Polly said. “Rob the train.”

Charles looked around. All he could see was sand, rocks, and a few cacti here and there. There were no tracks, no station, and no sign of a train anywhere.

“The weapons will be in the engine of the train,” Grace continued. “We climb on it, grab the pistols, then—“

“Climb on what?” Charles exclaimed, gesturing towards the golden emptiness around them. “There’s nothing—“

That’s when he heard it—a sound rumbling sound that made the ground shake under his feet. He looked down. There, below the cliff they were standing on, the sand was shimmering.

The grains glowed and quivered. The rumbling grew louder.

And a train whistle rent the air.

Grace grinned. “Here it comes.”