Cal pulled his consciousness back into his body in the Sangretta sunset hallway outside of the Chessboard Chuckles. He went to the doorway and created an illusion of himself standing at the end of the Long Hallway facing the troll.

When Inke pushed over the cabinet and climbed over it, Cal waved at him. “Give up yet, Inke? How about you take off that potpourri pendant so we can talk?”

The Tattoo Troll only smiled. “Me not really here. Me in my inner sanctum. With surprises there. So many surprises.”

“Are you under the Vanilla Master’s control?”

Inke didn’t respond. He merely flung out his hands, spraying ink out of them at Cal’s illusion, which immediately vanished.

It wasn’t an answer, but Cal was glad he was in the sunset corridor, safe for now. He was nearly shaking he was so nervous.

Inke walked out of the Long Hallway onto a black square. All of the black squares vanished, and the Tattoo Troll almost fell onto the spikes hammered into an old desk below. Instead, he leapt onto a white square.

He stood there, as his bats flooded the room. They ignored Cal’s illusion and went right for Cal standing in the corridor. Only, they had to get through the dust bunnies first. All those bundles of hair and dust rushed out of the empty black squares that Inke had triggered. They caught the bats, but they also swarmed over to Inke, who still had the paperclips on him, some patches of the exploding ink pens, and several bright yellow Post-it notes. That was nothing compared to the mask of dust bunnies.

Some of the bats managed to escape the dust bunny attack, so Cal used the Ruby Staff’s TK to grab them and smash them against the wall. It wasn’t long before Cal had cleared the room of all the metal-mouthed bats.

As for Inke, he couldn’t catch a break.

The spider-like hand monsters rushed into the room, going single-filed onto a white square, which made all the white squares vanish at the same time bringing back the black squares.

Inke went falling through the floor, and right into the snapping jaws of the rabid staplers and broken desk furniture and cast-off desks, broken and jagged and spiked. Nothing can hurt you like broken office furniture and combat-specific office supplies. The rabid staples stapled Inke, over and over, as the dust bunnies threatened to suffocate him.

His three remaining ponies hit the chess board, jumped onto the black squares, which changed the board again—white squares back, black squares gone. Inke had fallen through a white square, and if they’d had more Apothos, they could’ve had the new squares slice through anything in its way. As it was, the square didn’t return. And yet, Inke was having trouble climbing back onto the board. Whenever he tried to latch onto anything, the dust bunnies would try and race up his nose even as the rabid staples continued to staple his flesh.

The ponies paused—Rainslicker, Sparkle Pretty did, but Painbow took flight. The dust bunnies had swarmed out to stop the bats, but Painbow came forward, a living new school tattoo with wings, fangs for teeth and rainbow-colored eyes. Fanged horses give herbivores a bad name.

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Dave swung into the room, flinging webs, which caught Painbow, and it went crashing down onto the white squares. Again, the toggle was hit, and all the black squares vanished.

Weavelord called down from the ceiling, safe on his web. “Rainslicker, you’re a living tattoo, but your outlines are so bad. Is it so hard to get a black outline? And your proportions are so off.”

Rainslicker shrank back, a tear forming in his eyes.

Cal was confused for a minute, but then remembered that Dave was not just a Spidercrat, but also an Arachtuary, who had a Belittle ability. He was making Rainslicker feel bad about himself, and it was kind of tragic.

Dave then flipped through the air and came down on Sparkle Pretty’s back, slicing through the pony’s neck with his hands. When the pony turned to growl at the Spidercrat, Dave spat poison into Sparkle Pretty’s face. The Little Nightmare began to cough and spit. He was out of action.

Painbow reared back, opening her eyes wide, and sending rainbows splashing onto the Spidercrat’s face. Dave’s Spectacles of Awareness flashed, and the drider caught another web, swung up and sliced open Painbow’s throat with a single razor-sharp fingernail that was loaded with venom.

Rainbow-colored blood splashed down before the Little Nightmare returned to Inke’s skin.

Cal stood there, completely impressed. He had no idea his boss had such combat abilities.

Dave was back on his webs. “Cal, step on the squares. Toggle them!”

Cal slammed a boot down on the white squares, and all the black squares returned.

Rainslicker, standing on a white square, went tumbling down, right into the jaws of more of the rabid staplers. The horse had his rainslicker armor, though, and he pulled himself up onto his front hooves, even as the staplers clicked and clacked.

Dave spat venom right into Rainslicker’s face, and a second later, he was gone, back down into the ocean of broken furniture and monster office minions. Rainslicker would not survive both the venom and the staplers.

Inke managed to worm his way back onto the board. He stood up, on a black square, when Cal toggled the board again. The Tattoo Troll leapt onto a white square even as Dave swung around on a web. The Spidercrat knocked the troll off his feet and face first through a hole. This time, the rabid staplers didn’t just attack his legs, they stapled his head, face, and throat. The Tattoo Troll’s legs went rigid as he shook and spasmed. This had to be the end of him. Could his regeneration take care of all the damage?

Too bad the staplers didn’t break the pendant, or Cal might’ve been able to talk with the troll. Kronke couldn’t use his Smell of Freedom, not in his present state. They would just have to destroy Inke’s guardian form.

Cal watched in horror as the tattoo on Inke’s back—a traditional Kneeponn dragon from the world of Kneeponn, also known as Napaj—pulled loose, growing larger and larger. That dragon would probably fill the room and kill them all. How much had Inke spent on that huge back tattoo? It was super impressive.

Cal steeled himself. He and Dave were going to have to fight that dragon and then kill the troll. Luckily, he had his boss with him. In all of his time working for the Department, Cal had never felt so supported.

Gwen’s voice suddenly broke through the room even as the dragon roared. “Hope I’m not too latte to the party. Fullgeers! Order up!”

Coffee puns from Gwen? What was happening?

There was the coffee machine, still on Perkle’s scooter wheels, in the doorway to the Long Hallway. Gwen was up top.

A mixture of scalding hot milk steam and boiling coffee gushed out of the coffee’s steamer and hit the dragon and Inke, covering both with scalding milky goodness.

The dragon began to get drippy, its ink running, as the tattoo trolls lost layer upon layer of skin to the burns. Hard to have tattoo magic when third-degree burns remove most of your skin.

When it was over, the room smelled like the coffee shop where Cal used to work on his ledgers, back when he was doing the books for the Illudere Family Singers.

A silence followed. Weavelord was up in a corner. He’d taken refuge there during Fullgeers latte attack.

Cal stepped leaned out of the entryway. “Gwen? Where is your IBM?”

The rogue held up a hand. “It’s official. While I don’t like Electronic Abacuses, I loathe copy machines. However, the worst things in the universe are printers. You don’t want to know the levels of printer hell I’ve seen, Cal. You don’t want to know!” She gave Fullgeers a few friendly pats. “But the best machine of all? The simple coffee machine. Is there anything it can’t do?”