The one-man rollercoaster car slung itself sideways, smashing Carson into his seat as it carved through another high-G turn.

Teeth clamped tight, he fought down the need to vomit, and for the ump-teenth time, cursed this fickle dreamworld.

Trussed up and strapped in like a hostage, unable to move anything but his head, Carson’s internal dialog ran an endless string of four and five letter words.

“Unghhh…” he groaned as the car whipped back in the other direction with crushing force, tickling his gage reflex, again. It was dream, he knew it was a dream, but it was also, so–damn–real.

Reality real.

Carson wanted to damn Ink to the nine hells for stealing away his initial waking spot; a library straight out of legend, a bookish wizard’s playground, or academic’s cozy paradise, thick with odors of old-leather and older paper. Then, replacing it with this torture.

The car leveled out and he snarled, “How the fuck-ducking hell do I get off this thing!?”

He’d scorched his itical system raw casting the Earthen Fury weave at the power level needed to kill the void infected mining construct, then collapsed on that third story walkway in the canyon and blacked out. He remembered it all clear as a bell.

Seemingly seconds later, Carson had come to, standing in the central atrium of a cavernous, multistory, oak and mahogany library. The levels were stacked one atop the other in great rings, like bagels piled up into a tower. All the way to the top, where a magnificent, crystal-clear glass ceiling spilled bright sunlight down inside the tower’s hollow center, filling it with vibrancy.

He’d been too shocked to believe it at first. But as he took in the details as if they would disolve at any second, he had also let his fingers trace a V-shape in the wood grain on a chairback. The tight pattern of grooves and ridges had snatched onto a tactile link to much younger self. Carson doing the same to a church pew only tracing parallel horizontal grooves that had made no V.

That cracked his disbelief into dust. He’d tumbled into acceptance, followed quickly by boyish glee.

As much as he loved to play the role of an irreverent screw off, Carson was much more of an egghead than most people knew. A fact and label, that he was quite proud of. He loved himself some books. His digital library numbered well north of a thousand. But he also had near as many in good ol’ paper and ink.

And he loved almost everything about all of them. He loved the worlds that writers spun into existence within their pages. He loved the great characters, their rich lives, adventures, friendships, and blunders. He loved that really good ones were impossible to put down and that their slowly unwinding tales could carry him along for days or weeks, living in a kind of fog between his real life and the story.

He loved to cry when characters triumphed, even in small ways, and when unexpected friendships were found, and old ones held fast. He loved that they were a window into the secret world of brilliant and creative people. He even loved the simple bits: the smell of an old, estate-sale paperback, the stiff feel of paper in a brand-new one when he creased a dogear to mark his page, the near instant filling of the download bar when he bought a digital one, the joy of gifting an old, well-loved, yellow-edged one, or receiving one of the same.

They’d been the best medicine after a couple bad breakups, after his Dad passed, and after his original Pizzeria had been destroyed during the New York succession chaos.

Even with his love for books, Carson had never, not once in his whole life, been in a real library. So, looking up the inside of the soaring wood-worked marvel of walkways and shelves lined with uncountable tomes, had left him in absolute dumbstruck awe. Just the smell of the place had been enough to make him giddy.

Every open space was filled with wonderfully soft leather chairs, reading alcoves, and tables of all sizes. Even more breathtaking, were the hundreds of soft, glowing globes of light strung throughout each level that gave the enormous space a whimsical, almost festive feeling.

Then there was the content. Book after book that he inspected was pure Kuora–all of them.

Every single volume in the place was written by someone from Kuora and printed by a Kuoran publisher. At first, he didn’t trust that the books could be real. He figured some had to be fakes, or maybe most were just filled with random nonsensical characters. But they weren’t. He didn’t find a single one that wasn’t a genuinely unique published work.

Sure, he didn’t check anything but the first floor, but that was for good reason. Even as he’d intended to climb higher, Carson had come across an entire section about Kuoran essential energy research and theory. That had ended his exploration.

Arms piled high with a dozen volumes, he’d found a ring of overstuffed chairs, dumped them on the low center table and lost himself in devouring everything he could.

He’d learned fire essence was, it fact, destructive essential energy, not fire at all. Just that little bit and the author’s explanation of the critical role that destructive essence played, completely shifted how he thought about that resonance. In addition, his notes had given Carson an idea on how to incorporate it into other spells more easily, without all the wrestling he’d suffered with Earthen Fury.

Then, just as he had been diving into essence channel theory, preferred methods of their expansion, and right on the brink of understanding his compulsion to add destructive essence to his Earthen Fury spell–it happened.

Wide, white straps, like those in mental wards, exploded from the seams of his leather chair, instantly locking him down. He was in a forward lean, elbows on his knees, when it happened. So, Carson was jerked back into the seat with enough force to give him mild whiplash. Then the library just, disappeared.

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While he was gaping in horror, his wonderful leather armchair became a hard, cold, bucket seat and he was surrounded by darkness. The confines of a small, single-seat coaster-car resolved around him and he was launched, screaming like a maniac, into what now seemed to be an endless underground rollercoaster.

That had been at least ten minutes ago. To Carson, who unlike his two insane best friends, was not a speed addict, it seemed like half a lifetime.

He decided that enough was enough. “Screw this noise!

“I.

“Need.

“To.

“Wake up!”

Forcing every muscle in his body to strain against the straps, Carson fought the hellish nightmare. He strained and strained, pushing with mind and body, with everything he had, for a return to reality. To Kuora, which was reality because it had real rules.

Rules that allowed life to make sense. Even with magic, and void corrupted machines, and insane Elven mentors, and more insane Elven women, and an unsolved three-thousand-year-old mystery, it was knowable and knowable was safe. Leather chairs that because cars on a hell-coaster was not reality, it was not knowable or safe.

Suddenly, it seemed to get worse. His mouth felt like it was filled with sawdust, his arms and legs mired in molasses, and his chest crushed by an invisible anvil. But the change was something at least, it was progress of some kind, so he kept pushing against the imaginary restraints. I don’t give one rat’s ass! Get me off this crazy train!

When his eyes popped open and his arms and legs were suddenly freed, Carson had a single moment of joy. He was about to let out a sigh of relief. Then he was smashed back into his seat by a crushing G-force.

Across from him, grinning and laughing like a sadistic demon, as he gripped the straps of his harness was Erramir. A howl of glee from his right told Carson exactly where Val was. Their enjoyment felt like salt in his wounds. Like they were taunting him; rubbing in the fact that they were having fun while he’d been rudely jerked away from the most wonderful place ever.

Anger swelling, Carson followed his friend’s gaze to the front and to a narrow transparent window beyond which the blur of the tunnel screamed by. Through it he could get the briefest warning of an upcoming bend in the tunnel before they were slammed by the force of rounding it.

They were all strapped into what looked like a massive steal bullet with windows. It was kind of like a train, but with the minimalist seats bolted along the exterior, it had a much more military feel. It was reminiscent of a spaceship/military torture machine hybrid. One designed to go way too fast, sling the occupants around for no good reason, and test the limits of their bile retention.

Then it clicked. Carson began to get an idea of what had really happened. His sudden ejection from the library and this train weren’t independent of each other. It wasn’t Ink who screwed up his amazing paradise of books and soft comfortable leather. No, it was his two asshole friends who’d crashed his party.

After he’d saved their asses from that sadistic metal ball, they had decided to repay him by searching out what had to be the only high-speed crazy train in all of Kuora, strapping him in, and going for a joy ride!

Because that made all kinds of logical sense!

Utterly incised beyond rational words, Carson could feel his face burning with anger as he stared daggers at his best bud. He knew he wasn’t thinking straight, but the library had been so amazing that he just didn’t care.

He wanted his books back, and he could find only one person to blame. So, when Erramir’s big, dumb, green-haired, insensitive, beast-man face finally looked at him, he did the only thing that seemed to make any sense–Carson cursed him up one side of the train car and down the other.

Erramir was loving the Varden strike team train ride. It was probably one of the best thrill rides he’d ever been on, other than the rides when either he or Val were behind the wheel.

He had no idea how the thing worked, but really didn’t care. It was getting them where they wanted to go at an otherwise impossible speed and was fun to boot.

The train car barreled around another corner throwing him forward against the harness straps. He grinned and looked to Val, but his eyes skipped right past her when he saw that Carson was awake.

The look on his friend’s face erased his elation, and suddenly, the train ride didn’t seem so great. Something was definitely not ok in Carson’s world. Then his good buddy started yelling.

Erramir was well aware of Carson’s capacity for creative cussing. It was usually a good time to hear him create new and inventive ways to use foul language. This was not one of those times.

Fortunately, Erramir knew when to let him run. And run he did. Val wasn’t spared either, a couple times Carson turned toward her to unload a string of expletives, and he had to guard against laughing at some of the better ones for fear of riling him up even further.

After a full minute of this, Val’s expression got wide-eyed, she looked sharply at him then down at blockbot’s spot in the floor. A moment later the train began to slow, then it decelerated rapidly, and they slammed to halt in a level portion of tunnel. This had the corollary benefit of ending Carson’s tirade, at least mostly.

“About time you stopped this Ink-forsaken torture device. I swear you two speed addicted whack jobs are like a pair of adolescent fuck-for-alls.” He began pulling at his harness. “Get me out this demented, dream-stealing contraption.”

“No. Wait, Carson.” Val said, holding up a hand to try and stop him.

“Wait my arse. You want weight? I’ll give you weight. How about two tons of flaming rock.” He finally slowed down to inspect the harness. “Where the F-diddle is the damn release.”

Erramir tried to talk him down. “Car, we’re not there yet man. There’s nowhere to get off. I don’t even think is a stop.” He looked to Valerie and raised a hand. “Right, Val?”

“This is definitely not a stop,” she replied, then raised her brow. “Although…” Val looked meaningfully down at blockbot again. “I’m not sure how much further we’re gonna be able to go.”

Carson finally found the clasps, around on the sides, released them and stood up.

He then proceeded to storm around the car, including stomping over blockbot, huffing, and muttering without any particular goal or trying to get off. At one point he threw a series of violent punches at the air while growling through gritted teeth. Then he raised clinched fists, inhaled deeply, and slammed them down while bellowing out an animalistic roar. It was primal and disturbing. Neither of this friends had any idea what to think.

Several deep breaths later, he turned about and calmly spoke in a voice that was disturbingly juxtaposed to his display of moments before.

“You both remember I need to stress my essence channels to make them grow right?” Erramir and Val both nodded silently. “Okay, when I do that, apparently, I sometimes get knocked unconscious. If that happens,”–he entreated them with an extended hand–“please, please, please! Don’t screw with me while I’m sleeping.”

Then, he looked between them pointedly, waiting for agreement.