Cal found himself in Kronke’s Paper Shredder of Destiny Room with a bad feeling in his belly. Normally, he’d have kept his body near Dave’s core, just to avoid the combat, but they were low on minions. That’s why he’d shown up in person to fight Inke in Helga’s Rage Cave. For now, he was keeping his consciousness inside his body. The parallelogram in his pocket was a small miracle.

They’d survived their first encounter with Inke, and they’d taken out a few of his minions, but the Tattoo Troll was far more powerful than Cal would’ve thought.

Hurricane limped out of the secret passageway, half-hidden by peeling drywall, and stood there, trembling.

Kronke dropped from the air, hit a few boxes of paper, and then went sprawling. Helga went sprawling with him. Both rolled across the door and slammed into more boxes full of paper which tumbled onto them.

Hurricane then went over to bleat into her mistress’s face.

Helga’s mouth opened as she said, very slowly, at quarter speed, “Ayyyyyyeeeeeee, Huuuurrrrriiiiiccaaaaannnne. Iiiiiiiii’vvvvvve beeeeeeeeennnnnn ssssslllooooweed.”

Cal would deal with the halfling in a minute. For now, he had to see if Kronke was okay. He’d been shaken out of his Reaper Knight form, the cloak was gone, and so was the scythe, both back in the bracelet around his wrist. It took like a full thirty seconds for the troll to realize Cal was looking at him. Kronke brightened. “Hi, Cal. Kronke hungry. Have cookie?”

Sure, the troll paladin wasn’t the sharpest pencil on the office supplies shelf, but the little twinkle of intelligence he’d had was gone. A certain numbed blankness had replaced it.

Cal saw the dunce cap tattoo on his skull. That wasn’t good. And Helga’s snail tattoo was equally worrisome. “Kronke, I think you might have cookies somewhere, but we need to get out of here. Inke is coming.”

Kronke’s fingers fumbled at the pouch on his side. He clearly couldn’t figure out the clasp. A zipper might’ve driven the troll insane at that point. There was no way he could summon a tin of cookies he kept on the charm bracelet around his wrist.

Helga stood and walked slowly—oh so slowly—over to help the paladin. Between the two of them, it was going to be a good ten minutes before any cookie eating.

Dave’s voice crashed through Cal’s brain.

Cal felt the sweat leak down from his armpits, and his hands had never been sweatier. He was an Eldariana elf. He should not be sweating.

Gwen asked from her position in the electronics storage room.

Cal left his body to check on Inke. There was a little bit of dizziness, but then he was watching the Tattoo Troll and his minions creeping across Helga’s Rage Cave. They were headed toward the secret passageway, but they were going slow, looking for traps.

Dave returned.

Cal returned his consciousness to his body and helped get Helga on Hurricane—it was just easier to lay her over the saddle than try and get her slow-moving feet in the stirrups of the saddle. Cal then hurried to help Kronke to his feet.

The troll stood, and a second later his eyes flashed pink as the scythe reappeared in his hands. Pinkerton’s voice spoke on the Conference Call.

Gwen’s sigh came through the conference call loud and clear.

Kronke grinned like a dim, drooling toddler. “True wuv? Babies. Kronke wuv babies.”

Cal got behind the troll and pushed.

The troll paladin hurried out of the room with Helga on top of Hurricane, slowly trying to pull herself upright. That was going to take some time. Quarter speed? More like one-eighth speed.

Cal sent his team a message.

Dave got huffy.

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Gwen’s cutting laughter filled the line.

Cal sent.

Pinkerton declared.

Kronke wasn’t completely gone.

Cal kept them moving through the Filing Cabinet Alley. There were filing cabinets stacked on filing cabinets, from floor to ceiling, so even Inke’s bats weren’t going to be safe.

One drawer opened, full of pens, about to explode, but Cal closed it.

Dave was starting to lose it.

Gwen couldn’t stop herself from commenting.

Cal felt himself inches from panicking.

From Gwen,

From Dave,

Cal pushed Kronke down the long hallway and Hurricane kept up. Helga had finally got herself upright in her saddle, and she was painfully reloading her musket, which would probably be ready to fire an hour after the fighting ended.

Kronke suddenly went rigid.

Cal rammed into his muscled back, hurting his nose.

Pinkerton roared.

From Gwen,

Kronke jumped over the section of carpet, a slightly lighter gray, and the troll giggled. “Kronke play leapfrog! Funny Pinkerton.” More drool and giggling.

Cal jumped over the pressure plate and made sure that Hurricane did the same. Then they ran down the hallway to the Chessboard Chuckles room. Opening the door, it was the chessboard again.

Gwen just had to respond.

Cal couldn’t help but bark back. “You’re wrong, Gwen! He did love you. He was torn apart by his responsibility to you and his responsibility to the Tree of Souls. You’ve got to get over this resentment.>

Dave appeared in the passageway across from them. His face was bruised up, and he was limping, but he was refusing to rest his guardian form. It was clear Gwen’s words were hurting him.

Gwen just laughed.

Cal rushed Kronke across the room.

Dave said. “We have to find a way to get it off him.”

Cal asked.

Gwen’s sarcasm pulled them out of the conversation.

Dave hooked an arm through Kronke’s.

Cal paused in the passageway, blinking, and leaning against a mural of a Sangretta sunset. Part of him was still connected to the Dungeon Meld. It took him a second, but then he was seeing into the File Cabinet Alley, just as Inke pushed open the door. He sent his bats and his spidery hands in first, to trigger the traps. But these traps worked differently.

Gwen had calibrated them for larger figures—break a magical line up top and at the bottom—either one would trigger the trap.

Inke stared at the filing cabinets.

Cal prayed he’d walk in there. It wasn’t like he was killing the guy because Inke’s soul was in his core gem. Even if the tattoo troll’s entire body was crushed, he could grow it back given enough Apothos.

Inke motioned with a big, tattooed hand. “Naravvo. You go. Zollie. Stay back.”

So those were the names of the Inkmages. Good to know.

The one called Naravvo gave his master a salute. He was so handsome that Cal felt a little jealous. He was like Eldariana minstrel good-looking. It brought back memories of his family, and yes, like with Gwen, family resentments ran deep.

Naravvo swept his hair out of his face, uncovering both eyes for a moment, and then waltzed into the room. The first drawer opened. Pens exploded, splashing the Inkmage with ink.

Naravvo just laughed. “Did these eggheads really think this would bother me? It’s like honey to a honeybee.”

Zollie gestured with his lollipop. “Careful bro,”

The Inkmage turned and a second drawer opened, and the paperclips rushed out, but since the Inkmage was a magical creature, he didn’t have the natural electromagnetism your typical body has. Nothing in there was flesh, except for Inke, so suddenly the tattoo troll was covered in paperclips.

The Post-it notes did swarm out and stick themselves to Naravvo, who tripped forward. One of the huge filing cabinet drawers came rushing out, punching the top half of Naravvo’s body off the bottom half. Ink, like spilled blood, gushed out of the severed hunks as the drawers retracted.

Bats fluttered back, but by then, the drawers were drawn to movement. They started opening and closing like crazy, bashed anything they could, creating a horrendous amount of noise. Three bats were crushed, and one of the roving hands, but Inke, Zollie, along with the last of the shadowy horses stayed back.

All of the filing cabinet drawers then slammed shut at once.

Both halves of Naravvo went rushing back onto the tattoo troll’s body.

Inke let out a roar, grabbed one filing cabinet and pushed it over, and then climbed on top of it. He was still covered in paperclips, but he could move and function. They were more of a distraction than anything.

He shoved over filing cabinets over, even as pens exploded, and push pins clattered across the floor.

All in all, Cal was pleased with the trap room. It had taken out another Inkmage and a few lesser minions, but the Tattoo Troll still had three ponies left, three hands, ten metal-mouthed bats and whatever else he was carrying around on his skin.

As it turned out, Zollie went first down the Long Hallway.

When he walked across the pressure plate, he turned, lollipop near his lips. “Wouldn’t it be crazy if something came falling out of the ceiling?”

And then the filing cabinet, stuffed with the parts of other filing cabinets, came falling out of the ceiling.

In a splash of color, Zollie was sucked back onto Inke’s skin.

Cal closed his eyes. They were doing well against the tattoos, but how were they going to bring down the Tattoo Troll himself?