Right before their eyes, a disconnected castle spire, composed of limestone, emerged from the void. It begged Mena and her friends to ask one important question: “What happened to the rest of it?”

From a colorless window, a beautiful if curious princess beckoned them towards it. It was the same girl who had appeared from the confines of the book during the winter solstice. She wore the same purple dress with puffy sleeves, a silver tiara, and two purple plumes in her white-blond hair. Her eyes, large, dark and simplified, gave off the impression that she was a drawing out of a storybook. “Come heroes, hear my plea, for the good of all New Brushwick.”

Mena and her friends swam across the void to the castle tower, and the princess spoke duly to them. “My name is Princess Plumerella, daughter of King Edgar Ink the III,”—the princess reached a gloved hand to her chest and outstretched the other—”I’m the last person in New Brushwick with any Imagicnation left in my body.”

“What happened to it?” Mena asked, realizing she wasn’t the only one in Dula who lacked imagicnation.

“Young girl,” Plumerella said, addressing Mena informally for the first time. “New Brushwick is the capital land where all imagicnation stems from. Those in Dula, and in Autolycus with vast imagicnations depend on us for their power.”

Mena gasped and squeaked. “That makes so much sense why I’m losing mine”—Mena turned to her friends who gave looks of equal understanding—“But why, princess, are we losing it?”

“Because,” Plumerella said, her voice stern and serious. “The Ghost Writer and their terrible Ink Blot.”

Plumerella spread her gloved hands apart, revealing a miniature person, dressed in a noble hat and robes. He sported a giant brush with a rainbow tint. “Certain people in the land were born with magic ink in their blood. It allowed them to draw their own happiness.”

The miniature man drew a life size (on his own scale) chest of gold, and a beautiful wife.

“These people,” Plumerella said. “Were often nobles and kings, because they made it so with their powers.”

An even larger pen came down from the sky and terrorized the noble man, absorbing all the color out of him and his brush. More nobles appeared with their magic brushes, but the enormous hand drew the magic out of them too. The first noble’s wife and his gold disappeared, and everyone else was shaded in the same black and white pallor. The stolen colors formed an gigantic blot of ink with a white eye at the center of it.

As Mena and her friends stood aghast, Plumerella continued her sordid tale. “This happened to everyone but me. My father locked me away to preserve the remainder of our kingdom’s power. That is why I reached out to you from inside my book.”

“But what can we do?” Mena asked. “Even as the Dream Ambassador of Autolycus, I’ve lost my power.”

Plumerella smiled daintily and pressed her hands together. “There is an ancient legend whispered across this kingdom far and wide.”

“A legend?” Mena squeaked.

“Isn’t there always?” Janus chimed up, giving a small smile.

“Let her talk, bony,” Ashlan barred her fangs at Janus

Miraculously, Plumerella recited it from memory:

“When a writer with an evil hand

Takes control of this magic land

A certain Phenomena can transcend

And write the world a better end.”

Mena’s face turned pale. She raised her hand to her face. ”A certain Phenomena?”

“The true prophecy is that pun,” Janus winked at Mena. “It must’ve been years in the making.”

Plumerella gracefully nodded her head. “Perhaps you can find the sacred plume with your unusual perspective of our land. I have faith you’ll be able to.”

Mena swallowed hard. She had never saved a world before, only a school. But it was up to her. She made a determined fist and pulled it forward. Gemini had tethered her to Dula after all.

“We must part now,” Plumerella said, waving goodbye. “Please save this land,”—and she lightly whined. “And let me go free, I haven’t gone to a ball in ages.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Mena said, reeling by the princess’s prophecy. “And don’t worry. I nearly missed my own homecoming so we’ll make sure you get to go to your next party.”

“Thank you,” Plumerella said, and clasped her hands to her chest. “My father will no-doubt be joyful you have arrived to save our land.”

And with those words, Plumerella vanished with her tower, back into the void.

As Mena and her friends soared into the void, the blue green aura dissipated giving way to a cerulean sky with placid, cumulous clouds. Deep in the blue, a small rectangular room converged with them. It was quite peculiar in how it was missing two walls, giving way to the endless sky. As they zoomed closer, they saw it was a very cozy room for something positioned miles into the sky. Bearing an idiosyncrasy of its own, the room featured an average-sized dinner table in the center of it, and on that table was an entire black and white panorama of a kingdom.

A castle with tall spired on one end nearly rivaled the stone peaks on the other end. In between it was a small castle town and a wide forest that stretched all the way to the mountains. “That must be the kingdom of New Brushwick,” Mena exclaimed. “But why’s it on a table?”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Mena looked to the far end of the room and her question was answered. There, at a slanted desk was a sparkling purple plume was a small brown notebook that resembled a diary.

A coffee mug beside it read: “#1 Ghost Writer.”

Mena gasped. “This is the work room of the Ghost Writer.”

Unfortunately, Mena and her friends seemed to be following an invisible track, and it pulled them towards the panorama, rather than the meta-space where the Ghost Writer wrote their unhappy endings. They flew straight towards the castle bridge, all three screaming at the top of their lungs. With a loud crash, they found themselves in another land in a most uncomfortable fashion.

Dusting themselves off from a fall that would seemingly kill a regular person. Mena looked around. They were standing on a lengthy bridge of large slabs of limestone. It crossed over a what seemed like a bottomless pit of darkness. “So,” Mena remarked, taking in the sights. “Should we introduce ourselves to the king?”

“Well,” Janus asked curiously. “You really think we can waltz right in there?”

Ashlan put her hands on her hips and twirled her nose up in the air. “It’s the only formal thing to do. What’s the matter, dead eyes? My father is the king of the jungle in Dula. I’m nobility.”

“Of course,” Janus laughed in a mocking tone. “You’re nobility, but I’ll have you know, Miss Prissy that people don’t take kindly when death arrives at their doorstep.”

“Ugh,” Ashlan groaned, her arms sinking. “Why did we bring you, bony? You’re going to be dead weight.”

“As much as I appreciate a good pun,” Janus remarked. “I’m Mena’s friend. Not someone who’s got a very funny way of showing their interest in her.”

Janus’ incendiary remarks brought out Ashlan’s fangs and claws. “Grrrr!” she growled. “I oughta…”

Janus merely scoffed. “What? Kill me?” Good luck with that.”

“Guys, guys,” Mena said, waving her arms frantically. “We don’t need to fight. We need a plan.”

“Snoik,” a loud snork came from the far end of the bridge. Everyone’s mouth dropped.

A man (or so it seemed) half their height scurried across the gap. His skin was pale, his dark eyes were small and round like beads, and he, most alarmingly, possessed a protruding pig snout. He was sharply dressed for a pigman, shuffling about in a black suit with a white bow tie. “Visitors,” he gasped. “Visitors with hues. The great and honorable King Ink was searching for those with bright hues.”

“Was he?” Mena asked, curiosity, lighting up her eyes.

“Snoik, oh yes,” The pigman beckoned them. “Come. He was indeed looking for them.”

Mena and her friends looked at each other, before deciding that following the pigman was the only viable course of action.

As the pigman shuffled away, Ashlan politely called after him, “Er…what shall we call you?”

The pigman stopped in place, turned around and waddled back on his short legs. He narrowed his eyes and looked up at Ashlan. He didn’t bow but simply condescended up to her. “I am the butler here. Pigchard the III...snoik.”

“Wowie zowie, that’s another ‘the third’ I know,” Mena exclaimed. “Why are upper class people always called the third?”

Pigchard caustically glared at Mena. “The master insisted on calling me that title so it sounds like I’ve got more heritage than simply being from the wilderness.”

As the pigman waddled off again, Mena looked at Janus with curiosity. “He came from the wilderness?”

“Didn’t you hear him?” Janus responded.

“Yeah, but he’s a talking pig,” Mena answered back and began walking. “If the farmers of Autolycus had a smart talking pig, he’d be the talk of the whole town. Wonder what he’s doing as a butler.”

Janus shrugged her shoulders and sang in her carefree way. “Who knows. Times are tough, I guess.”

As the three approached the royal gateway, two knights, armed with enormous quills stepped aside. Pigchard stopped to glare at the three once again. “I warn you…snoik… ladies. Do not speak about the master and his erm…questionable facial hair.”

“What’s wrong with his facial hair?” Ashlan asked, trying to be respectful.

“Erm…you’ll see.”

Even in black-and-white, the towering height of the king’s royal chamber indicated the respectable stature of this tabletop kingdom. Regal banners depicting an eagle clutching a dripping ink brush hung heavily over the king and queen’s throne. Carved in jade, these towering thrones reached the halfway to the top of the chamber. One sight tipped Mena off that something was not quite right. There was only one figure sitting at the throne, clutching an ink-pen-scepter the size of his body. When he rose, everyone but the butler gaped at him.

The man was tall and commanding, his dark robe draping over his muscular body. It was only his face that was rather curious. He was bald and beardless, but there was dark hair, eyebrows, a mustache and a goatee drawn on his face with dark ink. Almost like someone had played a prank on him while he was sleeping, but he was still unaware of the marker on his face, the king’s deep voice reverberated through the chamber.

“Pigmalian? Who are these colorful creatures?”

Before Pigchard could speak, Mena chimed in. “Good King Ink…I’m the Dream Ambassador from..” Mena couldn’t help but stifle a giggle at the man’s curly marker mustache.

“What is so funny?” The king demanded in his booming voice.

“Err…nothing sir,” Mena said, turning a bright shade of red. “My friend here told me a joke.”

Janus bared a skeletal grin. “It was about the emperor’s new mustache…oof…”

Ashlan elbowed Janus in her bony ribs.

“You redden like the ripest tomato,” the king stated angrily. “And dare to giggle and tell inconsiderate jokes in my presence. Give me one good reason to not put you in the barracks?”

“We are friends of Princess Plumerella!”

“Lies,” the king said, “I’ve sealed her away to keep the kingdom from losing the remaining amount of color it has left.”

Pigchard waddled up to King Ink and gave a loud snoik. “Master, these are the charlatans we were warned about. I’ve brought them to you. They stole all the kingdom’s color and unleashed the Blot onto us.”

“The Color Thieves?” With righteous indignation, King Ink wiped his eyebrows clean off with his robe, and drew angry eyebrows in their place.

“We’re not color thieves,” Ashlan sneered. “Bacon boy is the liar here.”

Pigchard placed his hands on his hips. “Who are you going to trust sire? Your loyal trusted servant, or these rude interlopers who speak in cerdophobic slurs.”

There was hardly a moment’s meditation on King Ink’s drawn on brow.

“Guards, you know what to do. Place these craven color snatchers in my deepest darkest dungeon.”

Cold, colorless water dripped onto the floor. A monochromatic candlelight burning dim whites was the only source of light. Janus, Ashlan and Mena sat behind moldy steel bars. “Way to go, bony,” Ashlan exclaimed. “If it wasn’t for your terrible sense of humor we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Janus, sitting on the cold floor, smiled back up at her and spoke in her wispy voice. “I believe the proper term for my humor is dead-pan, lionbreath.”

“What matters most,” Mena said with a frown. “Is how we’re going to get out of here. We don’t have snowball’s chance in Heck of finding a way out.”

“If I were you,” a deep, suave voice said from the darkness. “I’d bet on those odds.”

A grin flashed across from the opposite jail cell. Mena, Ashlan and Janus squinted their eyes, and feasted them on a morbid yet exquisite sight. There was a man across from them, who would have been very handsome if it weren’t for one unfortunate thing: he was a corpse.

His gaunt if toned cheekbones rotted in the pale light. He was missing an eyeball but his remaining one possessed a handsome gaze. His teeth, aside from the rotten ones were well arrayed and he still had most of his hair, even though it was tucked inside a rectangular cap. He wore a vest that half displayed his bony ribcage and torn dress pants. “Chad…” he said with a smile. “Chad Abber.”

Mena and Ashlan looked at each other with horror and disgust. But Janus blushed the reddest her pale undead face could. ‘Hubba hubba,” she said.