“What,” Daphne panted a long while later, “in the name of all the muses and every god, is wrong with me?”

“I’m gonna assume that’s a rhetorical question.”

Mark’s voice sounded as weak as Daphne’s limbs felt, which just added another car-load of guilt to her personal self-loathing train.

“Nope. I’m genuinely asking.” Daphne forced herself to keep moving towards the still-distant mountains, cursing inwardly as she stumbled over loose stones. “Why did I have to write apocalyptic progression fantasy? Why couldn’t we be stuck in a cozy slice-of-life story, or a fluffy rom-com?”

Mark stopped walking just long enough to let her steady herself, then resumed his dogged pace across the desert plain. “I don’t think rom-coms are nearly as fun for the people inside them. Remember, all comedy is built around pain. As for cozy…” Daphne couldn’t meet his eyes, but she heard the smile in his voice as he tightened his grip on her hand. “Sure, that’d be great. But it wouldn’t have been this story. Right? You have to let each story be itself. And Wordmaster is…”

“Non-stop party times. Sure. Like those three Devouring Winds we’ve managed to avoid on this super fun hike,” Daphne said. She released the now icy-cold Prism, gave that hand a shake inside her pocket, and sighed. “You’re right. Ultimately. But at the moment, I’d happily give the story an identity crisis if it meant we got something to eat.”

“Yeah, we never did make it to lunch, did we?” Mark looked at his watch, but the hands were still frozen in place from when they’d entered Euloban. As she watched his motion, Daphne fervently hoped that meant time had stopped back in the ‘real’ world. Then he suddenly crouched down, staring intently at the rocky ground. “What about story soup?”

“Story soup?” Daphne echoed.

“C’mon.” He gave her hand a tug, forcing her to join him as he began a slow, half-crawl forward. “You invented it. Words are everything in this world, right? They grow right out of the earth, and you can use them as weapons, or —”

“Cook them in water to make soup,” she finished. “But that requires water, and fire, and a pot.”

Mark nodded. “No cooking. Word salad it is, then.”

She let go of both his hand and the pen, spreading her arms to indicate the vast, desolate landscape. “I love the energy, and I hate to be a downer, but… do you see any words?”

“There have to be some,” Mark insisted. “Even after the Wordmaster did his thing, there were still patches of wild words here and there. That’s how Amelia survived until she met up with the griffins.”

“That’s what worries me.” Daphne shoved her right hand back into her pocket, holding on to the pen for support. She hated to burden Mark with even more stress, but honesty was the best chance they had of getting through this. “I’ve been thinking. This whole place feels… different, from how I first imagined it. Worse. Further along the apocalyptic calendar.”

Mark went very still. “Like an alternate timeline? What Euloban would be like if the Wordmaster won?”

Daphne forced herself to look him directly at him. “Something like that.”

“So…” For the first time that day, Mark had no trace of a smile, even in his eyes. “So, Amelia never came?”

“Or she was defeated. Captured. Maybe she’s in the Wordmaster’s dungeons right now.”

This, apparently, was one horror-show idea too many for Mark. His breath started coming in rapid, shallow gasps. His eyes were wide and panicked.

Daphne took his hand, feeling strangely calm. This was one thing that had made her and Mark such great friends for so long, and an even better couple: their freak-outs tended to happen at alternating times. When one was melting down, the other stayed cool, and vice versa. Daphne had more than her share of existential hysteria over the past few years, and Mark had been an absolute rock star through it all, somehow striking that tricky balance between validating her feelings and not letting her drown in them.

Now it was her turn.

“If Amelia’s here and in trouble, we’ll rescue her,” she said, thanking every god that her voice sounded confident and steady. “And if she’s not, we’ll take up the banner. Either way, we get to save Euloban. Not bad for a Tuesday, right?”

Mark nodded, clinging to her with his eyes as much as his hand. “Not bad.” Then, with a brief flash of normal-Mark, he added, “Better than lunch, really.”

She smiled. “Exactly.”

“Though the turkey pesto BLT at the deli is pretty great,” he mused.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Nothing is better than the turkey pesto BLT. But still, this can be great too. You and me, right? We can make it great.”

Mark nodded again. His breath was mostly normal again, and his hand didn’t feel quite so shaky in hers. “We are pretty awesome,” he admitted.

“We define awesome.”

“Plus, a Reader and a Wordsmith.” The corners of his mouth turned up slightly in an almost-smile. “That’s a great combo. If we only had a Lorist… that’s how it’s all designed, right? All three classes have to work together?”

“Most of the griffins are Lorists,” Daphne reminded him. “I’m sure we’ll find some once we get to the mountains.” She stood, pulling him with her. “And, to get there, we need lunch.”

“But…” He spread his free arm out, mimicking her hopeless gesture from minutes before. “There’s nothing here. No words growing that I can see.”

“That I can see,” she corrected him. “I’m just a Wordsmith. I can put words together once I find them. You’re a Reader. What are Readers best at?”

His eyebrows crinkled in concentration as he tried to follow her train of thought. “Fighting, right? Wielding word-chains once the Wordsmiths put them together?”

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“That’s one use of your abilities, sure. But remember, Euloban wasn’t always about combat. The Wordmaster forced everyone to learn how to fight. Before that, words weren’t just weapons, they were tools.” She gave him a playful elbow-nudge. “What did you say about your status book? You already have a high Aesthetics stat because…”

His eyes widened, not in panic this time, but in wonder. “Because I appreciate a good story.”

“You know good words when you see them,” Daphne said. “I never really got to explore this in the series, but I always thought Readers would be really good at finding words no one else could see. Even better than Lorists, maybe, in certain situations.”

“Like post-apocalyptic crisis situations?” Mark asked hopefully.

“Especially those.” Daphne closed her eyes, giving him another nudge to indicate he should do the same. “Worth a try, anyway. Let’s just… breathe, for a bit. Reach out with your story-senses. If there are any word-seeds left in this dust, maybe Aesthetics will tingle.”

“Tingle?” he repeated incredulously.

She gave him a third nudge, this one with the sharp part of her elbow. “Spark. Flash. Something.”

He snorted. “Anything but ‘tingle’ honestly.”

“You’re the boss.”

“I thought you were,” he objected. “This is your world, right?”

“We’re taking turns. Start sensing.”

Daphne counted forty-two long seconds before Mark’s hand tensed up.

“I — I think I got something.”

“A tingle?” she asked.

“More like a tinglet. It could be a tingle, if…” He started walking slowly, to the right and slightly forward, pulling Daphne with him. “I think I need to get closer.”

Daphne walked silently, hardly daring to breathe for fear of disturbing things. Mark shifted directions a few times, but slightly, always moving on a diagonal course.

It was probably only a few minutes, but felt much longer before he stopped abruptly and pointed down.

“Look.”

She looked at her feet to find them standing on the verge of a narrow but deep trench, cutting across their path. Looking to either side, she saw it followed its own course towards the mountains: forward and slightly left.

Finally, she looked at Mark and raised her eyebrows. “You found… a ditch?”

Now it was his turn to give an elbow-nudge. “Not a ditch, you beautiful mad genius. A stream. An old stream bed which, in days of yore, when the world was young and the Wordmaster hadn’t leapt fully formed from your sick brain, was filled with—”

“Water!” Daphne finished, the pen in her pocket actually giving a little buzz of answering excitement. “Leading to the Pool of Eloquence!”

“She gets it!” Mark let go of her hand, but only to give her a high-five. “And lining those streams, if you remember, were…”

“Word gardens.” She actually released the buzzing pen so she could throw both arms around him in a hug. “Mark, you did it! Your tingle did it!”

“My highly refined aesthetic sense picked up a spark of something, you mean.” Mark returned the hug briefly, but then dropped to his hands and knees, his eyebrows back in their most intense scrunched state. “But let’s not celebrate too soon. It’s faint, even now. Might not have anything left.”

Daphne’s stomach growled. “I don’t mind digging. Just point to a spot.”

Mark ran his hands through the dust, then turned, moving to the left along the edge of the trench. Daphne followed, copying his crouched movements but trying not to disturb the dirt. She focused on these efforts so intently that she bumped into him before she noticed he’d stopped.

“Oof! Sorry.” She inched backwards to give him space, then paused. “Mark? You okay?”

He stayed completely still, giving no sign that he’d heard her or had even felt her bump into him. She scrambled around, taking his face in both her hands.

“Mark? Mark! Answer me!”

He stared at her blankly, rigid, for three more seconds. Then he blinked, gasped, and pushed her away, reaching for his pocket.

“Mark?”

“I got it! I did it!”

“Keep your voice down!” She looked back the way they had come, trying to listen for the start of another sibilant whisper-chorus, but Mark was too ecstatic to notice. He pulled out his status book and flipped it open, displaying the second page proudly.

“I got my first skill!”

She swallowed the urge to slap him in sheer relief and, instead, took his book in her trembling hands.

NAME: Mark Sanders

CLASS: Reader

LEVEL: 2

WISDOM: 3

STRENGTH: 4

INTELLIGENCE: 2

DEXTERITY: 2

AESTHETICS: 7

SKILLS: Seeker of Meaning

Seeker of Meaning

Eager to seek and share delight, you can find wonder even in a wasteland. These remnants of beauty can be used to nourish yourself and others.

“You — you leveled up!” Ignoring a whiny pang of guilty jealousy, Daphne gave him a hearty kiss of congratulations. Then, keeping her voice level at an excited whisper in the hopes that he would follow suit, she exclaimed, “That’s amazing!”

“Thanks!” he whisper-shouted in return. Then he took the book back from her — and frowned at the page. “Also, bummer. The point in Aesthetics is nice, and makes sense, but I wish it had let me pick what to do with the other one. Readers need Strength to wield word-chains. I won’t be much good in a fight if I keep beefing up my Wisdom.”

“This is a special case,” Daphne assured him. “We don’t have a Lorist yet, so it’s good to have some extra Wisdom. And we’ve managed to avoid fights so far.”

He pocketed the book, still frowning. “I guess.”

“Dude, this is huge!” She gave him another kiss to drive the point home, then pulled him down to start digging. “No more frets or frowns till after lunch. Let’s see what beauty your tingle found ‘to nourish yourself and others’.”

At first, the dirt was bone-dry against their fingers, and full of sharp pebbles. But only an inch or so down, Daphne swore it was starting to feel slightly moist, more like soil than desert sand. Another inch, and there it was: the three points of a letter, sticking up through the dirt like the tines of a fork.

She could feel the warmth of the Prism through her jacket — or maybe that was just her writer’s heart, suddenly glowing at the sight of her creation come to life.

“Is that an ‘E’?” Mark’s voice was hushed with awe, not fear. “Or a ‘W’?”

Daphne touched one of the points lightly with her fingertip. The texture was like the skin of a raisin.

“Vowels are more nutritious,” she said softly, remembering the exact color of the sunlight when she had devised this particular bit of lore. “But consonants have more flavor.”

“So either way, let’s eat?”

Daphne felt a tear slide down her cheek. It caught in the corner of her mouth, suddenly stretched into the biggest smile she’d worn in years.

“Let’s eat.”

They each grabbed a point, pulling gently until the letter dislodged from the dirt. It was a capital E, about the size of Daphne’s palm. Maybe it had once been plump and juicy, like a giant grape. At the moment, it was thin and shriveled.

But it smelled amazing.

And, Daphne reflected, it’s magic food. We get to eat magic food, in a magic world that I made up. I actually get to eat words.

She turned her smile towards Mark, and found he was beaming at her with his own teary-eyed smile.

“Chef gets first bite,” he whispered.

She tore off a portion of ‘E’ and was just about to put it in her mouth when a shadow loomed over them, blocking out the late afternoon sun.

They whirled around to find a creature climbing out of the trench: a thin creature, at least ten feet tall, with absolutely colorless, shiny, and strangely rippling skin, like it was made of liquid metal. Daphne forced herself to look up at the creature’s face, knowing that she would find no eyes, ears, or nose, but only a huge mouth designed to devour sound.

The Rabid Daydream leered down at them with that horrendous mouth. Just another of Daphne’s creations, come to life…

Why, in the name of all the muses, did I come up with something like this? she thought in a sudden flash of hysterical inner laughter.

The pen had gone icy cold and completely still in her pocket — as cold and still as Mark, absolutely rigid beside her.

She forced her hand to find his and grab hold, speaking in a whisper even she could barely hear.

“Mark… run.”