Beyond the forest was the village, and beyond the village was a city with glass skyscrapers and smooth paved roads. In the streets there were empty cars lining the curbs, parked in front of empty restaurants and empty shops.

Scarlet, wearing her sparkly red dress and heels with the heel torn off, looked around each street corner as if she expected someone to jump out at them.

“I’m surprised this place is still here,” Scarlet said as they passed an empty schoolhouse. “You’re all going to think I’m being stupid, but it's nicer than I remember.”

There was once a part of Rava that would have been in awe of the grandiose architecture and modern city design, though that part had now faded, replaced with a more cynical voice that pointed out all the inconsistencies. The cars all looked like copies of each other, and the buildings were just facades, many of them with blank signs and incomplete interiors.

“Don’t let it distract you,” Rava said. “All this place is, is another reminder of just how much the Bastard cares about us. It may look pretty, but it's empty for a reason.”

Scarlet looked down at her feet and sighed. “I know that. I just meant—” She traced her finger along the side of an empty car. “Oh never mind. I was just being stupid again.”

“Well I think it’s real nice,” Dave said. “I ain’t never been to the city before. I never knew buildings could get so tall.”

Dax pulled out his massive sword and charged at one of the cars, screaming at the top of his lungs. He swung the sword down in a large slashing arc and smashed through the roof of a car, cutting all the way to the engine block, before the sword stopped.

“Now what in the hell do you think you’re doin’? Dave asked, sounding offended, as if Dax had just broken something that belonged to Scarlet.

Dax looked back at them with an impish grin. “What? I’m just having a bit of fun. You were all gushing about how nice this place is, and I thought it was a little too nice, ya know?”

He lifted his sword and heaved it onto his shoulder.

“Now that ain’t right. How would you feel if Scarlet started mucking up your village?”

“Honestly I wouldn’t care. All I care about is one thing, and that’s killing the WizaRd king. I’m only tagging along on this little journey cuz I think we might run into him.”

“Dax, for the millionth time there ain’t no Wizard King.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever,” he said taking another swing at a car. He swung the sword with such power that it launched the car through a large glass window, shattering it into tiny pieces. The noise of the car crashing through the glass rang out, echoing across the empty streets.

“Stop that!” Dave said, taking a step towards Dax.

“It's fine,” Scarlet said. She looked at the car, crumpled and surrounded by shards of glass. “It actually looks like fun. You think I could have a swing?”

“Sure!” Dax said, looking delighted.

He handed Scarlet the sword, and she took it timidly, as if expecting it to weigh a thousand pounds. But much to everyone’s surprise except Dax, she lifted it with ease.

“It’s so light.”

“It was made by one of the previous WizArd KIngs, and you know Wizards aren’t the best at lifting heavy objects.”

Scarlet ran with the sword dragging the blade across the ground, sending a shower of sparks off the concrete. She swung the blade like a mallet, smacking a car and sending it bouncing down the street. It took down light posts and smashed other cars leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Scarlet laughed, and then swung again, this time smashing up a traffic signal.

“Hey, don’t hog all the fun,” Dax said, like a kid who was watching someone play with his favorite toy.

“Hold on, just one more,” Scarlet said smashing up another car until it was a pile of bolts and shreds of leather.

“You think I can get a turn?” Rava asked.

“Me too!” Dave added.

The Banana Man started flinging bananas in all directions.

“Let’s tear this sucker down!” Scarlet yelled. And all at once they jumped into action. Smashing windows, lighting fires, and breaking anything that was even remotely breakable. Dax was nice enough to let everyone have a turn with the sword. Once it was Rava’s turn she felt a deep satisfaction as she completely pulverized every half-written street sign and incomplete store front. The buildings fell like houses of cards, the street burned like tinder, and when it was all said and done, the five of them looked back at the pile of flaming ashes covered in sweat, laughing hysterically.

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“That was by far the most fun thing I’ve ever done,” Rava said.

“See? I told you!” Dax said, hanging his sword over his shoulder.

“You know. It really was,” Dave said, sounding as if he was happy with his decision to tag along. “What about you Scarlet? You okay with the fact that we smashed up your old home?”

Scarlet’s smile was by far the biggest of the whole group. “Okay? Okay!? I’m great! I’ve never felt so alive. What else can we smash?”

Dax put his hand over his sword to protect it from Scarlet’s hungry eyes.

“I’m sure we’ll find plenty more to smash out there.” Rava nodded to the path that led out of the city. “And who knows, maybe if we’re lucky we’ll even be able to smash up the Bastard himself.”

They followed the black asphalt highway out of the city and along a long dusty stretch of desert. After the desert they came to a swamp. And across the swamp was a jungle. Dax hacked and slashed his way through the thick vines, until they came to a mountain. The mountain was difficult to cross, and Rava nearly froze to death as they did, but they made it to the other side, only stopping to eat bananas and drink from their magic faucet. On the other side of the mountain was a…um…a forest. Another forest, I guess.

Rava perked up. “Can you feel that? He’s running out of ideas! Hurry! I think we’re getting close to the edge.”

They all picked up the pace, invigorated by Rava’s realization. But then they came to an ocean, a really big ocean. And there were no boats either. And no wood to build one with.

“Bastard!” Rava said kicking up a pile of sand. “How are we supposed to cross that?”

“Now don’t worry. I’m a carpenter. I can build us a boat in no time,” Dave said.

“I thought you were a farmer,” Scarlet said.

“I’m whatever I want to be. And right now I want to be a boat builder.”

They had to double back to the forest in order to get the wood for the boat, and if this were any normal place that would have taken them months to complete. Perhaps it did take them months, but this far from the house of Dave, day and night didn’t work like they were supposed to, and in what felt like no time at all they had all the materials they needed. But that was only the beginning of their problems. As they built the boat, packs of wolves, and bears, and other monsters, big monsters, scary monsters, like the ones from Skyrim, came out of the forest to attack them.

Dax used the sword to defend them, and each time a monster came he smacked it with his sword and chopped it to pieces. Scarlet helped too, and Rava thought Scarlet was an even better fighter than Dax, but she was too afraid to say anything. She just let them go back and forth one upping each other, as she and Dave worked on the boat.

Soon enough the boat was completed. It wasn’t a very stylish vessel, but it was seaworthy and its sanded wooden deck was large enough for them all to pile on at once and not sink. They set off on high seas, each of them taking turns paddling the boat while the others rested.

The ocean seemed to stretch on forever, never yielding its dominance to the horizon.

“What’s that!” Dax said pointing at something he saw in the water.

“It’s probably the Wizard King!” Rava said with a sarcastic glance.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny. But I’m serious, there really is something out there.”

Rava turned and saw what Dax was looking at. In the water, Rava saw a strange anomaly. There was a black hole that was sucking up a whirlpool of water. It was like a hole in reality and it was pulling in everything that came near it.

“PLOT HOLEEE!!!” Rava yelled.

“There’s another one!” Dax said pointing straight ahead.

“Go around it!” she said to Dave and The Banana Man, who were currently the rowers.

They narrowly avoided being sucked into the plot hole, but there were more of them, and the further they got into the ocean the more of them that appeared.

Whoever wasn’t rowing was forced to act as a spotter, calling out the plot holes and pointing out how to steer around them. And just when she thought they were finally getting a handle on things, a clap of thunder boomed in the distance. Rava looked out at the horizon and saw a massive gray storm cloud gathering.

“Maybe we should go back,” Dave said, looking fearfully at the storm.

But they didn’t go back. And it didn’t take any convincing to get them to continue either. They had come so far, and they knew there was no giving up now, so they steered directly into the storm.

The swells of the ocean tossed their boat back and forth, and the rain, which started as a light drizzle, picked up to a skin tingling torrential downpour.

“The waves are too high! We can’t k-gbglghsdkfdgdfg,” Dave said as a wave crashed over their heads, filling his mouth with water.

The wind was howling. Lightning flashed and thunder followed. The oars they spent weeks carving were ripped away by the current, and they were forced to huddle up against each other for warmth.

“If this is the end, I just want to say that you are the best friends I ever had,” Dax said. “And even though I never got to kill the Wizard king. You guys were the next best thing.”

Rava shared a puzzled look with Scarlet but then they both smiled at Dax reassuringly.

“Stop talking like that,” Rava said, feeling her frustration bubble over. They had come so far. And they were so close to the edge, she could feel it. There had to be something she could do, some way to overcome whatever the Bastard threw at them. Then she had a terrible idea. Or a great idea. Maybe it was both at the same time.

She stood up and leaned over Dax. “Here take this,” she said, miming the action of laying a crown over his head.

“You didn’t give me anything. You just pretended to.”

“Sure I did,” Rava said. “It’s just invisible.”

“Then what is it?”

Rava shook her head and smiled. “It’s plot armor. Here I brought one for everyone.”

She mimed the action of laying the plot armor on everyone and Dave even pretended to struggle with the added weight of the invisible armor.

“Do you really think this will work?” Scarlet asked.

Dave pretended to adjust the straps on his cuirass. “Well, if it doesn’t work, it’s been a pleasure y’all. If we’re gonna be forgotten then I’m glad to be forgotten with you,” Dave said.

The Banana Man hugged them all. “I love you guys,” he said.

The moment was immediately interrupted by a rogue wave that crashed against the boat spraying them with cold salty water. The wave knocked them directly in the course of a massive plot hole, and she felt the boat be sucked into its whirlpool. The storm blew them closer and closer, and all they could do was hug each other and hope that Rava’s plot armor would protect them as they were sucked into a place beyond the edges of imagination.