It had been a mad dash to get out of the way, I was sitting on top of the statue with a human body and a bird’s head and a serpent crown. Tom had somehow made it up onto the jaw of the snake skull, and I could just see Boo Ra, peering out of one nostril of bird statue with a human head. “Now what?” I shouted, looking down to where Danny still stood tail raised to attack. “Don’t know” Tom called back, “I am afraid he has gone feral” I sometimes wondered why Tom had to state the bloody obvious! “Can you get him under control again?” I asked “I’m afraid not” “well, what are we going to do? Wait until he climbs up after one of us?” Tom stretched out a bit on the jaw bone, with Scar curled round his neck like a scarf, “he probably won’t” “’probably?’” I asked “normally they get very aggressive right when they break free from the spell, then they lose interest. He should just wonder off, in a little while.” There seemed like a lot of uncertainty in all of that to me. “What about Scar?” I asked “What about Scar?” Tom said, rather defensively I thought, “how far is he from going feral?” the idea of an exited ferret let loose was not appealing to me. Tom shifted about uncomfortably, before, flatly saying, “not close at all!” I dropped the subject, but I made a mental note to keep an eye on Scar.

Some time had passed, but nothing had changed. I glared at Tom who was stretched out, with a ferret around his neck, he looked like he could stay there for all eternity if needed. I, on the other hand, was sitting on a stone crown, and it was very uncomfortable. I was bored too. I started to shift around; trying to arrange myself differently. I nearly lost my balance and was only saved by grabbing on with my fingertips. And it was in this position, while I was regaining my seat that I saw the words. The words that were imprinted round the base of the crown! ‘ I was once king of the sky, once the great fire up high, ‘ But I was thrown down, and I lost my crown, ‘ HE extinguished my fire, didn’t let it grow higher, now give me my glory or die.’

As I had nothing better to do, I passed this discovery on to the others. “Maybe it is a riddle that we have to solve in order to get to the next level” this seemed a little farfetched, but hey, I didn’t have any better ideas, so, I read it through again. “’It says to give him his glory’” I said, “but what is his glory and how do we give it?” Tom was gazing off into the distance, apparently lost in thought, eventually he said, “you still have that crystal crown, don’t you?” “yes” I said, “But I have tried that, it isn’t working here!” Tom ignored this and called “hey, Boo Ra,” Boo Ra popped his head out of one giant nostril and looked from Tom to me, “should the key have stayed after we got here? Or should it have vanished or broken, or something?” Boo Ra thought about this before shrugging, “normally, they disappear after use, but every dungeon is different.” Tom smiled “well, we have got a crown. The other thing he lost was fire... Hey, Boo Ra” Boo Ra, who had started to retreat back into the nostril stopped, and looked back at Tom with beady eyes, “do you have some spare earwax we could borrow?” “No!” Boo Ra said, and his head disappeared into the nostril. Tom sighed, “oh well, we will just have to find something else to burn.” After going through both our inventories we came up with a piece of old bread [as hard and dry as a stale biscuit] I had my doubts as to whether this would work or not.

And I was definitely not going to risk my life, or my knee caps, trying to get past Danny to the altar, when there was no guaranty that I could make the key work. But I couldn’t wait indefinitely; my stone seat was getting more uncomfortable by the moment. Not for the first time in my life, I wished that I was an elemental mage; then I could have sent a fire ball down and gotten rid of the problem! But I was only an illusionist, what could I do? And then I saw something; a piece of statue, larger then most, sticking out of the sand, and, like someone striking a match, an idea appeared. I started up my spell, and watched as my illusion took shape. The statue I had selected seemed to shrink, and melt, then reform itself into an exact copy of Danny. Of cause, the statue had not actually changed at all, it just looked like a lizard now. I thought it had come out very well. Danny must have thought so too, because when he saw it, his legs went stiff and he raised his tail menacingly. He started strutting about and then thumping his tail into the ground. I made some adjustments to the illusion; and soon it was matching him step for step. It took a while to work Danny up enough to attack, but when he did at last attack; the results were better than I could have hoped for. He brought his tail down with all the force he had, on what he though was his opponents’ head, but was in fact the base of the statue. He must have packed quite a punch, because he brought the entire statue came down on top of him. I knew that he wasn’t dead because I didn’t get any exp notification, but at least he was trapped. Tom and I climbed down and made a dash for the altar; I shoved the crystal crown down, and Tom pulled out the piece of old bread. Then Tom held out his pet fire mouse [Red] and we stood waiting, Reds’ noise twitched as he sniffed the air, his whiskers accentuating the movement, and then came a sneeze, it seemed to start in Reds’ tail, and work its way down his spine until it came out his noise with a little explosion of fire. It would have been cute, if I hadn’t been worrying that Danny would break free at any second! With his work done, Red turned in Toms’ palm and walked up his sleeve. Just as his tail disappeared, I felt the world turning at the bottom of my stomach and the world seemed to fold.

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[ The 3rd Level ]

We were standing on the edge of a sea. A sea that stretched away in front of us, as still as glace, and glowing red. Just a shade darker than blood. Far out, near the horizon, a black silhouette of an island sat. A black rock in a red sea. “That is where we have to go.” I said pointing, “Are you sure?” Tom asked, looking around at the beach, “look around!” I said, gesturing “it is the only distinct feature here! That has to be where the next key is.” I “well… how do we get there?” Tom asked. I frowned at the island, at the red sea, and also at the sunset sky, “I do not know!” I admitted sourly. “Couldn’t we swim?” Boo Ra asked. I sat down on the sand and rested my head on my knees, it had been too long since I had slept. Trying hard to keep my growing irritation under control I said, “do you really think there is nothing in that water? I am almost certain there is, and I really don’t want to face it in the water, in its own territory!” “Well, what do we do then?” Tom asked, I let the silence drag a little before I said “we wait… and think.” I sat and tried to think, but nothing was coming to me. Tom pulled a pack of cards from his inventory and started a game with Boo Ra. I sat the first round out, and then, getting nowhere with my thinking I joined them. Boo Ra was bad at cards, he put up a front, but you could always see, that he was putting up a front. Tom had potential as a player, but he was too kind and never pushed his advantage enough:

“You should have played the king.” I said to Tom as I put my cards down. Tom shrugged “I didn’t want to put you in that position” “isn’t the whole point of the game to put me in that position?” I asked under my breath, I turned to Boo Ra “your ears twitched when I threw away that queen, you gave yourself away,” “let’s have another game!” Tom said and started dealing. I looked down at the hand I had gotten, I had nothing, it would have been hard to make a hand worse than this one. Oh well, Tom discarded a card. I asked for two, then discarded two, I looked over at Boo Ra; he was putting such an obvious effort into keeping his ears still, that it was plain as day that he was interested in one of the two cards. I mentally rolled my eyes, and looked back at my hand, it was rubbish, there was no way I could win this. Unless… no, that would be cheating. But Tom and Boo Ra were playing so badly; they really didn’t deserve to win, and besides; I am an illusionist, it is about the only thing this class is good for!

Boo Ra delt the next round. I planned to let Tom win that round, he had a clear advantage, and then he discarded the tortoise card. I looked up, frustrated; couldn’t he just play the game? I knew he was kind, but this was just stupid, like he wasn’t even trying. And then I saw that he wasn’t trying, he was looking out over the water, a thousand-mile stare, then in a small, lost, voice he said “I’m going to miss Danny… I always thought, when the time came… I was going to take him out to one of the caves and let him go… then at least I’d know he was out there, somewhere… but now, he’ll be stuck in a dungeon forever!” he took an unsteady breath and blinked. We didn’t finish that game.