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The Sky Lord’s Tower, One Day Later

Jenny paced back and forth in her room. It was a suite offered only to the necromancer's personal friends. The furniture resembled H.R. Giger's design for the Alien movie. Considering the various sharp protrusions from the walls and the drop from the balcony into the wastes below, she shuddered to think what would be reserved for his worst enemies. Either way, this clownbox was the only chance she had of getting back home to her own world. Too bad her lackey had screwed it up. They would both end up in the wizard's dungeon if they were ever discovered.

The pocket of her robe buzzed, and she pulled out an iPhone. It was just an Instagram notification. She stuffed it back inside. The smart phone was ancient by cell phone standards, but here, it was the source of her moon magic. The flashlight app had dazzled more than a few villagers before she discovered there were items imbued with magic anyone could wield. She thanked her lucky stars that she had bought a solar powered charging station for her hike up the Pacific Crest Trail. In fact, she probably wouldn't have survived at all if she hadn't been fully loaded for days of backpacking in the wilderness.

On the other hand, she wouldn't be stuck here if it wasn't for that stupid movie starring Reese Witherspoon. Either way, since the primary mode of transportation in this land was horses, she had enough backpacking to last a lifetime because she didn't trust the creatures. In her opinion, any animal that let another being ride on top of it was up to no good. Horses might seem docile and contending for best friend status, but she knew the truth. They were just biding their time, waiting to buck their riders off and leave them in a ditch for dead.

Her phone buzzed again. Finally, it was that halfwit Mr. Jackson. When she pressed the camera button, she finally got a look at his face. He had jumped into a barmaid's body. She was thin and petite. Her hair was blond, pulled back in pig tails, and her face smudged from labor. The woman who once inhabited the body was gone, and Mr. Jackson's creeper stare was behind the eyes.

The barmaid on the other side of the screen said, "It worked! Can you believe it? Here I am! In Carnt. And my phone! It traveled through just like you said it would!"

"And you're wasting battery power fondling yourself," Jenny said. The sigils she had him scrawl on the back of his phone had worked. She hadn't been sure if they would. Considering this was her first attempt at the spell.

Mr. Jackson took his hand off his breast. "Sorry, I just never was a woman before."

"There'll be plenty of time for that later," Jenny said. "Now, do you mind telling me why I'm not talking to the face of Lady Ameria right now?"

"I did it exactly as you asked. I collected the requisite number of people, and we all sat around the device. But one of them stood up and tried to leave the room, so we weren't sitting in the right spots when the portal opened. Oh, yeah, and one of them brought her kid."

"Brought her kid? Are you kidding me?! How complicated is 'get me five people'?!"

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"I couldn't just leave her kid outside the room. They were already suspicious."

"A text would have been nice! I could have at least adjusted here on my end."

"I'm sorry, Mistress," Mr. Jackson said, and brushed his golden hair back. "Please don't feed me to the Beast of Vol."

"I'll consider your request," Jenny said. "Now, I don't care who is inhabiting those bodies. However, that won't happen if anything should befall Lady Ameria. I don't care who is in her body, but whoever it is, you need to get them here, unharmed. The others – cut off their legs and drag them here if you have to. I just need their hearts to be beating when they arrive. The rest is up to you."

"Begging your pardon, Mistress," Mr. Jackson said. "But how do I do that?"

"The same way you'd do it if you were in Lady Ameria, just pretend like you know what's going on, and they'll follow you."

"But I'm not a high priestess."

"Neither are any of them. They are scared kids caught in something way over their heads. Take advantage of that."

“One of them is a TA.”

“Whatever. Get them here!”

"Right, my goddess who travels the realms of the world—"

"Okay, okay! Enough! Turn off your phone and quit wasting battery!"

"Yes, sorry, um—bye," Mr. Jackson said, and hung up.

Jenny knew why the necromancer couldn't keep his stranglehold on the world. Even as the icon of a secretive religious sect, Jenny couldn't find good help. She couldn't believe that she was actually feeling sorry for the odious man, Duke.

She wasn't worried yet. The real problem would be after they got here. If Mr. Jackson had been in the body of Lady Ameria, it would have been easy to lure the evil wizard into the trap. The fool would do anything for her. Now she would have to coach a prepubescent boy or whoever was inside the priestess's mind to do her dirty work.

Even though she was monumentally prone to worrying about things out of her control (another reason she had gone on the Pacific Crest trip), she decided there was nothing she could do for now. She spent the rest of the evening updating her Instagram. It wasn't everyday one found oneself in an evil mage's tower. At least she knew way more now about how this world worked than the day she had arrived. It made for strange reading on her Tumblr because of the turn it took when she got sucked into an alternate dimension, especially since she had never bothered to change the title from "The Pacific Northwest is Cool and Maybe I'll make it to California One Day: The Story of a Girl, Her Backpack, and an Instagram Account".

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