Paragons 1.4.5

In the fifth chapter of the Paragons episode The Magic Emporium, Savannah dives deeper into the supernatural side of the Fortress. Beware of bandits and ghosts!

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I felt like I was falling through the floor. I was spinning, spiraling, twisting, twirling—and then I slammed into an invisible wall, bounced back, and smacked against the ground like a fumbled pancake.

“Why hello, girly.”

I stumbled to my feet, my ears ringing, my head swimming. Blurry black smudges lurked in the foggy abyss. I blinked a few times, and the fog cleared. Sort of. I was still seeing double, and I felt like I really had to throw up.

Seven bandits stood in a crooked line in front of me. One of them stepped forward, a man dressed in a black tunic and tights that made him look like an evil version of Robin Hood.

“What happened?” When I spoke, my voice fizzled in and out, like a radio with a bad signal.

“We snagged you in a teleportation trap,” said one of the bandits, almost singing the words.

“Quiet, you idiot.” Evil Robin Hood shot him an annoyed look. “We don’t share our secrets with Apprentices.”

I looked up at the buildings all around us. I didn’t recognize any of them. “Am I still in the Fortress?”

“Of course,” laughed the talkative bandit. “This spell can’t move between realm—” He snapped his mouth shut when Evil Robin Hood gave him a seething look.

But I needed to know more. “What district are we in?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Evil Robin Hood drawled from behind his drawn bow. “Now hand over the bag,”

I clutched the paper-thin shopping bag to my body. I wasn’t sure how valuable the magic ingredients were, but they were certainly worth a lot to me.

“You can’t have the bag,” I shot back. “This is my Quest. If I can’t even go shopping without failing, then I will never accomplish anything. I will never be a great Knight.”

“Stop talking and hand over the goods,” Evil Robin Hood demanded, impatience straining his voice.

Obviously, he didn’t care about my troubles.

This Quest was a disaster. First, the bandits in the mall. And now this band of armed supernatural thieves.

It was a testament to how terrible today was going that I was feeling almost nostalgic about the good old days of facing the Cursed Ones. At least there was a Handbook that told me what to do when I met the Cursed Ones. I had no Handbook on bandits.

“Hand over the bag, you say?” I laughed. At least the nausea was fading. “Do I have ‘newbie’ stamped on my forehead?” I demanded, trying to buy a little time so I could think up a way out of this disaster. “Am I wearing a t-shirt that says ‘mug me’? Did someone write ‘gullible’ on the ceiling?”

The bandits looked at my forehead, at my t-shirt, at the sky that wasn’t a ceiling. They frowned in confusion.

“Stop stalling,” Evil Robin Hood growled at me.

I still had no idea how to get out of this mess. Fighting seemed foolish; the bandits had weapons. And they had me surrounded, so running wouldn’t work. If only I could trick them into leaving.

The question was how to do that. Sure, I had a few wild ideas, but none of them would work given my total lack of useful spells.

“Time’s up.” Evil Robin Hood waved his hand, and one of the bandits rushed toward me.

I managed to evade him, but the movement put me off balance. I tumbled into a group of people who’d gathered here, probably to watch me get mugged. Maybe that’s what people did for entertainment around here. Wherever ‘here’ was.

The crowd pushed me back toward the bandits.

“She moves pretty fast for a little girl,” one of the bandits laughed.

“I think we were doing this all wrong, boys. We shouldn’t be stealing from her. We should be stealing her. A cute little firecracker like that girl must be worth something.”

“She’d make a decent serving girl to an Elven princess.”

“Or a tasty snack for a vampire.”

“I’m standing right here, you know,” I told them, annoyed. “So stop talking about me like I’m not.”

I’d had quite enough of that before I became an Apprentice. But I was someone now.

“I’m not invisible or irrelevant, and I’m not going to let you treat me like I am either of those things,” I scolded them.

The bandits stopped laughing. They looked at me in surprise, as though they’d actually forgotten about me. Which was pretty stupid. How could you possibly forget about someone while you’re talking about them? Then again, these bandits didn’t look like the sharpest tools in the shed.

Low chuckling drew my attention to a teenage girl who stood away from the rest of the crowd. She looked even younger than I was, though maybe that was because of her skinny pigtails and round face. She even had dimples.

“So this is your strategy for dealing with the bandits?” the girl asked me.

“I don’t suppose you have a better idea?”

“Not tripping over your own feet is usually a good way to start.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Were you planning on helping me, or are you just here to poke fun at me?”

“I don’t do. I watch,” she replied. “The name’s Nixi, and I’m a ghost. You know, non-corporeal and all.”

She demonstrated her point by passing right through one of the bandits.

“Oh,” I said, feeling very foolish.

How could I not tell the difference between a living person and a ghost? At this rate, I was never going to be a formidable Knight.

“Grab the crazy girl who’s talking to herself,” Evil Robin Hood commanded his bandits.

“They can’t see you, can they?” I asked Nixi.

“No, they’re way too dense to see a ghost.” She laughed at her own joke.

It was then, as the bandits were all rushing toward me, that an idea hit me. It felt like some deep instinct inside of me had just been unlocked—and now it was taking me over.

“You don’t want to do that,” I said, pushing my hands out in front of me like a pair of stop signs.

Evil Robin Hood laughed. “And why is that, little girl?”

“Because I am not a little girl,” I told them. “I’m a Never-dragon.”

They stopped.

“A what?” one of them asked.

“A Never-dragon.”

“There’s no such thing!”

“Of course there is,” I replied calmly. “Wait, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Never-dragons. I thought every intelligent being in all the Many Realms has heard of the Never-dragons.”

The bandits blushed.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. None who meet us survive to tell the tale. So rumors blend with reality and stories become legend. Just so you know, Never-dragons don’t actually eat people.” I winked at them. “But one touch from a Never-dragon will turn you to stone.” I reached out my hand toward them.

They tripped over one another in their haste to get away from me.

“You think you trapped me, but you didn’t.” I allowed a slow, cold smile to curl my lips. “I’ve trapped you. Now, hold still. Struggling will only prolong your pain.” I winked at them. “Oh, and did I forget to mention I can breathe fire?” I opened my mouth.

That did it. The bandits pivoted around and bolted down the street. The audience also quickly dispersed. I guess they’d bought my story too. Nixi the ghost gave me a wink, then vanished.

Finally alone, I breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t believe that had actually worked. These people must have never met any humans before. That meant all the old tricks were new again. Good to know.

Soft applause drew my attention to a teenage girl standing in front of a garbage dumpster.

“You’re pretty clever, tricking the bandits like that,” she told me.

I shrugged. “It helped that they were pretty dumb.”

“Yeah.” Her face was serious, despite the giggle. “You can talk to ghosts, can’t you?”

“So it would seem.”

“Then I need your help. Please.” She folded her hands together, pleading. “My little sister has gone missing. And I need you to find her.”