Cal pushed his face into his hands. His heart was broken.

“Kronke!” Helga fired her musket blindly, and the bullet whined off stone. “If he’s killed Kronke, I’ll kill him and pretend I’d forgotten that his mind is nae his own.”

“My mind is my own!” Amorfo shouted. “And yeah, your troll buddy is gone. Hard to be alive when your lungs are stone.”

“Then I will decoupage you, villain! To death!” Helga couldn’t use her Demo Day ability again, and she didn’t have the Apothos for Lesser Transmogrify, but her Combat Decoupage was fully charged.

Cal couldn’t move, still so shocked at losing their troll paladin.

Gwen tossed him a compact mirror. “Hey, boss man, you’ll need that.”

Cal was confused for a minute, but then he remembered the lore. You could look at the reflection of Medusa, or Dudusa but not the gorgon itself—or in the case of Amorfo, a guygon.

Dave flung webs and swung into the room, and immediately disappeared from view.

Gwen contacted the team through the Conference Call.

Cal was the last one in the room, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He crept along the wall in the shadows, going Off the Books. But he did send his illusion in front of him, into the darkness, and he got the light right, which was hard. There were torches burning, but they were so dim, it was almost maddening. Cal fixed the lighting in a heartbeat with his Mood Lighting skill.

Helga jumped Hurricane from one half-submerged pillar to another. The place was stifling, with the steaming water, the torches, and the humidity. Gwen’s shrimp blimp traveled above them, circling the room. Every so often, it would fire a magic missile into a statue.

“I’ll get to the core gem!” Cal shouted.

He made his illusion leap onto another pillar, and then onto the circular marble floor at the center of the round chamber. Amorfo’s core gem floated there.

It was a ruse to bring out the Dudusa.

Gwen gave them a warning.

Cal wasn’t looking, but he glanced into the compact mirror and saw Amorfo hurl a javelin through Cal’s illusion.

Cal went to grab Amorfo with his TK Oh! ability, but Amorfo stepped back, did a complicated gesture with his arms and hands, and the body he was in hardened back into stone as he vanished, sending himself into another statue.

Cal ignited another illusion, bringing it to life, and trying to have it sneak up to the pedestal.

Amorfo only laughed. “Like my sanctum skill? It’s called Body Double Trouble. You’ve gotten pretty good with your illusions, but I can still tell the difference.”

Cal made his illusion turn. “We’ll see about that. Look, Amorfo, we don’t want to destroy your core gem, but we—”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Gwen called out.

Helga and Hurricane fled forward, leaping to a back ledge, away from the pedestal.

Amorfo flung his javelin, and it struck the battle goat, bringing him down. Another javelin followed, but it clattered across stone. Helga whirled with her musket. She fired, missed, and the round ricocheted around the chamber.

Dave swung down, but a javelin caught him, and he fell into the water, and he let out shriek. It was boiling hot. The only reason why Amorfo could stand it must’ve been part of his Body Double Trouble magic. Maybe it kept his skin like stone so it wouldn’t burn. Amorfo swam away, moving through the water like a knife before vanishing under the surface. What was he? Half-fish?

He popped up near the central platform, did the complicated gesture with his arms and hands, and left that body to enter another of the statues. He moved with supernatural speed and grace, probably one of his racial skills at work.

Gwen sped into the room, tossed her magic rope, and pulled her father out of the boiling water. Dave was hurt badly, and now Gwen was in the room, and susceptible to Amorfo’s tricks. The doors slammed shut.

The Dudusa laughed. “Come into my parlor said the guy to the spider. Get it? Instead of spider to the fly. I changed it ‘cause it’s funny. It’s called word play, dudes. Look it up. Y’all are in trouble now. I’m just happy that I finally got to javelin my boss. Dang, Weavelord, you don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to do that. And you got burned besides. Anybody else finding this fun?”

Helga had vanished into the darkness. But her voice was in their heads.

For a second, Cal felt too scared to move. However, he took stock of the situation and realized he did have some Apothos left, and his Ruby Staff still had some charges. Surprise, surprise, he suddenly had a plan. He cast his Triple A, and he saw the vast amount of Apothos coming out of the pedestal and channeling it to the statues. All of them had the same Apothos signatures, except for one, which glowed a bit brighter than the others.

Using his Laser Focus ability, Cal flashed a red dot across the Amorfo standing in the water right behind the pedestal.

The next series of events happened quickly.

From Hurricane’s saddlebags, Helga flung all different colors of paper up into the air. All that bright paper blizzarded around the room, and at first, it seemed like Kronke’s new wind abilities, but then the paper smacked into Amorfo, covering him with layers. He tried to run, he tried to dodge, but there was simply too much paper flying around. No, there wasn’t just paper, there was also varnish swirling around. And with every new layer came another layer of varnish.

Amorfo’s javelins were soon glued to his body, and his arms were pinned to his side, but Helga couldn’t decoupage his face because his snake hair whipped away any paper that even came close. They also kept Helga from covering the potpourri pendant on his chest.

The Dudusa wasn’t happy. “Hey! Guys! I can’t jump into another body if I can’t move my arms. It needs a very definite gesture. This sucks! But I have another trick up my sleeve.”

Cal didn’t like the sound of that.

Shrimpie came buzzing around, but several statues came alive all at once—one crying, one that looked frightened, and one that looked like it was laughing. All three of the marble men flung javelins into the air. Two spears missed, but on stuck home, piercing its envelope, which made it start sinking toward the water.

Gwen stood on a ledge, hands over her goggles.

Cal watched as Dave slung webs from across the room. The sticky silk latched onto Amorfo’s pendant, ripping it off his neck. One of the snakes whipped off his sunglasses, and suddenly the room was filled with the petrifying light shining out of the Dudusa’s eyes.

Helga spun, not looking, but with a final burst from her Combat Decoupage ability, she finally was able to cover Amorfo’s head with paper and varnish. The light in the room faded now that his eyes were sealed shut by varnish and paper.

Amorfo was beaten, powerless, but he could still talk. “Hey! No fair! Do I look like an antique dresser to you?”

Well, they’d won the fight, and Cal had a sense of what decoupage was.

Now, to finish the job and get more info on the Vanilla Master!