Petals aimed her staff at the wall. “Secret door to Gondra’s space, give only us Access to that place.” A glowing outline presented itself. Petals poked it with her staff, and it swung open.

“I’ll check it out.” Cherri crossed her arms and passed through, with Ash draped around her neck, holding a flashlight. Only her scuffling footsteps sounded through the door until she called out, “Clear to enter.”

Elena directed the possessed Kat to go through next. Tara hesitated to follow Elena, but a glance back at Petals and Greta motivated her. The Pink Wizard motioned for the Green Warrior to go next.

Passing through the magical door last, Petals aimed her staff at it. “Secret door, you did as asked. Now Move yourself closed to complete the task.” She had, after all, requested during her Access invocation that the door only allow her group passage. She didn’t want the pirates coming through this way.

“Yes, yes, yes,” hissed Gondra’s disembodied voice. “You have done well. But to complete your quest, you must place the shadow monster itself before me, not the person or item it possesses.”

Elena pushed Kat closer to the eyeball suspended over the instructor’s desk. “Do your thing, Ash.”

“Turn her around, so the possessed rifle is next to Gondra,” said Ash from his perch around Cherri’s neck. “When I oust the shadow, get her away from it as fast as possible. Cherri, take me right beside Elena. Can you hold my flashlight and still do your commands?”

“The Stop command I can, yeah.”

“Tara, make yourself useful.” Elena handed her the loose end of the jump rope binding Kat. “Stash your rifle for now. When you see a black thing come out of her weapon, tug that rope and keep tugging. Get both yourself and Kat clear.”

“What do you mean, stash my rifle?” Tara held up her weapon.

“She can’t stash it until she’s Awakened,” said Ash.

“Give it to me.” Greta held out her hand.

Tara hesitated. “Will you give it back?”

“If I wanted it for my own,” Greta said, “I wouldn’t need your permission to take it.”

The rifle girl reluctantly handed it over. Greta stashed it as she stepped away, leaving her bow equipped.

“Okay, then, if everyone’s ready….” With Cherri to her left and Tara to her right, Elena grabbed Kat by the shoulder with one hand and kept her rifle trained on her with the other. She spun the prisoner around.

As Ash sprang at Kat, an unnatural fierceness transformed her blank face and her mouth opened wide. An instant before the Gray Healer landed on her shoulder, an oily blob of blackness spewed from the orifice, directed straight at Elena’s head.

“Stop, fiend.” Cherri extended her hand in front of Elena’s face, open palm towards the flying shadow monster. It halted an inch from her flesh.

Kat’s body went limp, and the red-headed prisoner slumped forward towards the blackness, but missed hitting it by inches as Tara pulled her away with a strong jerk on the jump rope. The no-longer-possessed girl fell backwards against Tara, who caught her in her arms.

“Come on, Kat.” Tara dragged her bound friend away.

Elena and Cherri both took three steps back from the paralyzed shadow monster.

“Incoming, Cherri.” Ash jumped from Kat back to the Moon Priestess. “I’ll take the flashlight off your hands now.”

“I need the monster a foot closer,” Gondra said, hissing the last syllable. “Over the desk beneath me.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Petals aimed her staff. “Shadow monster, do your best, Move yourself over the desk.”

The black blob stayed where it hovered.

“I think your spell is fighting both the monster and Cherri’s Stop command,” said Ash. “As soon as the monster starts moving, try the Move spell again. Cherri, get ready to Stop it again if the spell doesn’t work. If it does work, then use your Stop to freeze it in place over the desk.”

Everyone waited in silence for the monster to move.

Something pounded against the secret door. “Oh, crap,” Petals muttered. “The pirates are in the broom closet.”

Muffled gunfire sounded from beyond the wall. A bullet smashed through the hidden door. Fortunately, no one stood in its path. Two more followed soon after.

The shadow monster fell as though shot.

“Move,” yelled Petals, “atop the desk, you lousy pest.”

The black blob halted its descent. It couldn’t be dead, or it would have imploded, if it was anything like the other shadow monsters. Probably only pretending to have been shot, hoping to escape. It floated upward under the power of the Pink Wizard’s Move spell until it cleared the top of the desk, and then floated across the surface to the middle of the desk.

Three more bullets tore through the hidden door.

The fiend attempted to flee off the back of the desk, but Cherri’s invocation of, “Stop, monster,” halted it in an instant.

The eye over the desk looked down on the shadow monster. A cone of light rays shone from the pupil. The black blob withered under the illumination, shriveling into a crispy twist of charcoal.

Three more bullets blasted holes through the door.

First quest completed, said a block of white text floating before Petals. Second quest assigned: Allow entry to the pirates and keep them in Gondra’s room for thirty seconds without killing them. Quest auto-accepted. No mention of another level gain, but then, she’d not assigned the point earned from the last level gain. She should have an unassigned skill point for reaching level five. Others should have some unassigned points, too, unless they’d assigned them already and hadn’t said.

“What’s going on?” Kat sat in a student desk, still bound and glancing about.

“We were possessed by ugly black blobs.” Tara stood next to her friend. She held up the loose end of the jump rope. “Do I untie her now?”

Another round of bullets came through the hidden door. The bullet holes formed an X pattern.

Greta handed Tara her rifle. “I’ll untie her. You get ready to shoot those pirates if they get in.”

“We can’t kill them,” Petals said. “Not for the first thirty seconds after they enter. It’s another quest. Cherri, you’ll need to Stop them once they’re in here. I suggest we all take cover. Cherri, do you have any unassigned skill points?”

Something banged against the X on the hidden door. It splintered but still held.

“Yeah,” Cherri answered. “I just gained level five. You thinking I should put the point on Stop?”

“If you don’t mind. That’s a powerful skill. So is your Moon Defense, and I hope you can increase it soon, but we need the Stop worse at the moment.”

“Done.”

More splintering followed another bash on the door. But the pirates weren’t coming through yet.

“Is everyone behind something?” Ash jumped from Cherri’s neck onto the floor. He slithered over to the chalkboard and crept along its base, stopping three feet from the hidden door. He turned off his flashlight. “Turn off your light, Petals.”

“What are you doing, Ash?” Petals peered over the student desk she knelt behind. She turned off her flashlight as ordered.

“When they come through the door, we’ll hear them. They won’t go far without light to see by. It’s just to buy a little time while they all come in. We want Cherri’s Stop to catch them all.”

“Ready or not, we’re coming for you, Flower Head.” Splinters groaned as something unseen pushed through into the room, boots slamming onto the floor. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. We know you’re in here. Don’t make us start firing randomly. We don’t want to hurt you, and no need for your friends to be hurt, either.”

More splinters groaned and another set of boots hit the floor inside the room. Two in the room, two still to go.

“Wait up, guys,” said the first pirate’s voice. “Listen for a moment. Do you hear anything? Anything at all?”

Everyone stayed silent.

Light shone from the back of the classroom, though not enough to illuminate more than a couple feet from the wall. The silhouette of a female figure stood against a backdrop of light shining through an open doorway. The doorway was located five to six feet from the one the group had earlier used to enter the classroom from the corridor of traps.

Silhouettes of flowers towered over the mystery woman’s head.

“Is that her?” asked a second pirate voice.

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“It sure looks like her,” said the first pirate. “Come on in, guys.” The tromping of his booted footsteps sounded three times before pausing. “You stay right there, Flower Head. You move, and I shoot.”

The mystery woman made no reply and didn’t move.

Splinters groaned and a third set of boots landed with a thud on the classroom floor.

“Hurry up, guys,” said pirate number one. “I’ve got her in my sights. Get through that door, now.”

A girlish giggle sounded from the Pink Wizard’s right.

Boots scuffled. “Who’s there?” demanded pirate number one. “I said, who’s there?”

The fourth set of boots came down on the classroom floor. All four pirates were in the classroom.

“Now.” Ash turned on his flashlight, playing it against the third and fourth pirates. Petals turned on hers, catching the first and second pirate.

Three pirates raised rifles. The fourth pirate hoisted a huge hammer over his head, ready to smash any attacker.

Cherri jumped up with arm outstretched.

The first pirate fired before Cherri could voice her command. Missing its intended target, the bullet ricocheted among the student desks and off the floor. Maybe he had no Rifle skill, or maybe the skill ranking was so low, having a light in his eyes messed with his aim. Come to think of it, the pirate probably wasn’t the one with skills anyway. It seemed more likely that the shadow monsters imparted skills to those they possessed.

“Stop,” Cherri shouted before any other pirates could fire. All four pirates froze in place.

The mysterious silhouetted woman vanished, as did the doorway in which she stood.

“I need fifteen more seconds,” said Gondra.

Petals counted to herself. One-thousand-one. One-thousand-two….

With six seconds to go, the first pirate went again into action. He fired his rifle, pointing it at Cherri, but again his shot went wild and ricocheted in too many places. No one grunted in pain at being hit.

Cherri Stopped all the pirates again, just as the other three started moving too.

“Four,” said Gondra. “Three. Two. One. Done. Don’t attack them.”

The first pirate lowered his rifle. He faced Gondra, his back straight, his rifle pointed up, his expression as neutral as that of a soldier awaiting orders. The other three lowered their weapons and faced Gondra, too, their facial expressions the same as that of the first pirate.

“Welcome, Soldiers of Creation,” Gondra said. “You are the beginning of my Shadow Army. It is your mission to stop the Soldiers of Destruction. You know what you must do. Go.”

The four pirates saluted. “Yes, sir.” They dropped their salutes and headed back out through the ruined hidden door, making the hole even larger on their way out.

Petals shone her light on Gondra’s eyeball. “What did you just do?”

“I reprogrammed the shadow monsters inside them,” Gondra replied. “They now work for me.”

“Maybe the shadow monsters do,” said Petals, “but those boys are possessed. They’re being forced to take actions against their will. Seth was doing it to them, and now you are. You’re both wicked. This is all a game to both of you, and we’re nothing but your pawns.”

Second quest complete, flashed white text in front of Petals. Congratulations, you are level six. Third quest assigned: Find Gondra’s other eye and bring it to him. Quest auto-accepted.

Petals gritted her teeth. “Where the hell are we supposed to find your other eye?”

Gondra said nothing.

“Is that our next quest?” Ash crawled to the Moon Priestess and took up his regular location around her neck.

Cherri faced the eyeball. “So, you’re sending Soldiers of Creation to destroy your enemies. Did I get that right?”

“You’re hardly better than Seth,” said Petals. “Neither of you care one whit about anything except the competition between the two of you. You’ll both create and destroy as needed to win.”

“Ah,” said Gondra, “but Seth wins if everything is destroyed. I at least want something to remain of your world.”

“Something? If one flower remains standing and Seth has no way to destroy it, then you win. But everyone and everything else on Earth loses.”

“Then it behooves you to help me stop him as soon as possible.”

“Do you have a wager with him?” Petals blew out a sharp breath. “Can’t you call it off?”

“It is not a wager,” said Gondra. “We are to the multiverse what gravity is to a planet. We are forces of hypernature. We exist as long as anything else exists. If one flower remained on one world in one timeline, and nothing else remained alive anywhere, the struggle would not be over. Seth would not stop until he crushed its petals beneath his heel. Once he has destroyed all else, he will destroy me and then himself. He is Decay, the Infinite Downward Spiral. But even decay creates heat, and thus he is not destruction alone. As for me, I represent Creation and Rebirth. The Struggle. Not only to exist, but to thrive. The living cannot survive and thrive without death. Living things consume other living thing, or all of them die. This is my curse, to embrace destruction that I might save creation. The death of one can feed many, and thus the living multiply. It is in this way I have prevented Seth from destroying everything already.

“But then he discovered virtual worlds. Within them, he seeks vulnerabilities that allows him to take virtual warriors into the world of the living. If his virtual warriors die, I can’t use them to create new life, for they aren’t living to begin with. The birthing process takes time. If his virtual warriors can destroy all life on the planet before it can be replaced by the next generation, then he has won the planet.”

“I’m confused,” said Petals. “If what you’re saying is true, why doesn’t Seth just do to everyone what he did to me and Ash? He transformed us. Made us virtual. We’re no longer living.”

“Maybe that’s his plan,” said Ash. “He might already be changing everyone in the real world that he can. For all we know, these NPCs with us aren’t actually NPCs, but people from the real world transformed to virtual persons in Darkentide. If he were to convert every living thing to virtual things, is that as good as destroying us all? He’d still win, right? Perhaps he would even look to convert himself to a virtual existence rather than destroy himself.”

“I thought he was virtual to begin with,” said Petals. “Just like Gondra is here.”

“You misunderstand,” said Gondra. “I am not truly virtual here. But without my other eye, I am stuck in this place while he’s out there busy destroying the real world, or converting it to virtual if that is indeed his plan. But enough talk. Time is wasting. You have your quest. Go.”

Petals shined her flashlight up and down on the eyeball. “I asked before, and you didn’t answer. How are we supposed to find your other eye if we don’t know where it is?”

As before, Gondra gave her no answer.

“I know where it is,” said Tara.

Everyone turned to look at her, both flashlights aimed at her.

She squinted against the light. “I saw it on the big TV screen in the main hall.”

Jaws dropped around her.

“Duh,” said Ash. "Let's go."

“Did everyone assign any unassigned skill and stat points?” asked Petals. “Tara, you’re an Awakened NPC now, right? Have you had a chance to look over your character sheet?”

“I’m an Awakened NPC, too,” said the red-headed Kat.

“I did look at mine,” said Tara. “I made my point assignments already.”

“Okay,” Petals said. “What class are you?”

“Level two Illusionist.”

“So that was your doing earlier,” said Ash. “The silhouette that looked like Petals.”

Tara laughed. “Yeah.”

“Good job,” Ash said. “It lured all the pirates into the room.”

“I would have thought you’d be a Shooter, like Elena,” said Petals. “Did you make all your stat assignments?”

“Yup.”

Greta had been right. Petals wasn’t in complete control of her merry band. “What are your skills? We all need to know our strengths.”

“I have two skills. Illusions, rank 3, and Invisibility, rank 1.”

“What are your Mind stats?”

“Offense 4, Defense 2, Initiative 1, and Balance 1. Mind HP is 11.”

The girl’s Mind Offense was 4? That was higher than the Pink Wizard’s. Petals swallowed her jealousy. “Okay, good. What are your Body stats and HP?”

“Offense 0, Defense 0, Initiative 0, and Balance 1. Body HP is 6.”

So that was where the extra point of Mind Offense had come from. “You didn’t put any points on Body Defense?” Petals shook her head. “If you get hit, you’re most likely dead.”

“I know.” Tara shrugged. “I would be anyway, with only 6 Body HP. You’ll all just have to protect me. I’ll go invisible if I need to.”

Petals understood the logic. With an Invisibility skill of even the lowest rank, the girl could successfully hide from most anyone who had no skill for spotting her, such as the Pink Wizard’s See spell or Elena’s Scout skill. For a PC or NPC to spot her without the aid of a skill or spell, they’d need to be a much higher level than she. “What about you, Kat? What’s your class?”

“My character sheet says I’m a level one Psi-Thief.” The red-head shrugged. “My skills are Detect Device 1 and Disable Device 3. My Body stats are Offense 1, Defense 1, Initiative 0, and Balance 2, with Body HP of 9. My Mind stats are Offense 2, Defense 1, Initiative 2, and Balance 1, with Mind HP of 9. My spirit stats are all 0, except my Spirit HP, which is 6. I know, I’ll suck at Spirit combat.”

“Or at resisting possession,” Petals added. “You should have put at least one point, probably two on Spirit Defense. But what’s done is done. And luckily, you’re with us. Tara, do you have any points on Spirit Defense?”

“Yeah, two,” said the Illusionist.

“Good. Well, to both of you, may I extend an official welcome into our group, the Color Guard. Anyone else have changes to your character sheet we should know about before we head out?”

“You’re wasting time,” said Gondra. “Talk about it on the way to get my other eye.”

“You’re right,” said Petals. “Okay, let’s go.”

She didn’t need to use a spell to open the secret door, as the hole in it was large enough to permit passage to any of them. On her way out of the classroom into the broom closet, she carefully scanned her character sheet. She had an unassigned skill point, but also an unassigned stat point. She should have assigned her skill point earlier, like everyone else, apparently. The stat point had just come with her earning level six. She increased her Spells skill, which then allowed her to increase her Move spell rank to 3. Raising Access from 1 to 2 crossed her mind, but if they were going down the convention’s main hall to the TV screen, there didn’t seem a compelling need to up her Access at the moment. But she might need to use Move to bring the eye down from its location near the ceiling.

For her stat point increase, she raised her Mind Offense to 4. She didn’t like it being lower than Tara’s.

Once everyone was in the broom closet, Tara placed an illusion over the broken hidden door to conceal it from wandering eyes. “It might hold for a few hours.”

“Good job, Tara,” said Ash. “Now, would you mind going invisible, and then opening the door to the hallway? Everyone, stand to either side of the door. Tara, if you could also stand to the side, but then peek your head around the door frame to see if anyone is out there.”

Everyone lined up as the Gray Healer suggested.

Tara opened the door and peeked through. “All clear.”

Petals could see Tara without using her See spell. Everyone in the Color Guard could see Tara even when she was invisible. The Invisibility skill didn’t work against friendlies.

They headed down the main hall towards the large TV screen. “I increased my Move spell,” Petals said. “Anyone else want to say what they increased that we haven’t heard yet? Ash? Greta? Elena?”

“I’ve actually got a point in Body Balance,” said Ash. “Makes jumping and slithering around a lot easier. And I raised my Oust to 3, just in case we need it.”

“I gave myself another point in Body Balance, too,” said Greta. “It helps my aim with the bow, for one thing. But I put my skill point in Sword instead of Bow, because no one else is all that good in melee combat. I have a question for you. Is HP supposed to increase at each level gain?”

“We didn’t program it that way in Darkentide,” said Petals. “You can spend unassigned stat points to raise a HP stat by one, if that’s where you want to put it. But they don’t raise automatically from a level gain.”

“Why’d you do it that way?” Greta asked.

Petals shrugged. “We didn’t see a reason not to. If you take a bullet, chances are you’re dead no matter what level you are, unless you’re exceptionally tough to begin with. The idea is to use your skills and other stats to avoid taking a bullet in the first place.”

“I raised my Shoot skill to 4, if anyone wants to know,” said Elena.

“I’m impressed,” said Cherri.

They walked in silence until they neared the respawn point. A frog standing six feet tall appeared and leapt towards them, covering the distance in a single bound. It landed ten feet in front of Elena, who had the lead. It didn’t croak or make any other sound, not even a smack on the floor when it landed.

The Camouflaged Shooter aimed her rifle at it. “Who the hell are you? Don’t come any closer.”

The frog disappeared. Tara giggled.

“Ha ha, funny,” said Elena. “I nearly shot that thing.”

“Ash,” said Petals. “Did Alfie program illusions to affect friendlies? I can’t remember, but I don’t think Justine programmed illusions that way.”

“We… that is, Justine and Alfie… had a discussion about that, if you recall. Alfie thought friendlies should be able to see them, and hear them if they had auditory components. Justine wasn’t sure. So Alfie went ahead with it, yeah.”

“If I shoot the Illusionist,” said Elena, “does her illusion disappear when she’s gone?”

“All right,” said Tara, “I won’t do it again. You all are no fun.”