Protagonist Bound (38 page)

Blue and I pulled open the glass doors of the Treasure Archives. The tiny green security lights inside turned red, and the whole of the cases began to flash in the same shade of crimson. Thankfully, all remained quiet.

I exhaled with relief. SJ really could brew a mean potion. Maybe for once one of our plans would actually go smoothly.

Ha. As if.

When I reached out to grab the objects we were after, a dark gray force field went up around the trinkets and a puff of surprisingly solid, purple smoke exploded in my face and pushed me back. Suddenly, five side-by-side, tapestry-sized pieces of glittering parchment with the thickness of steel appeared in front of us—blocking access to the case. They were all blank with the exception of the center parchment, which had three words written on it: “Fairytale History Prerogative.”

Two smaller puffs of purple smoke appeared then. One produced a glowing, green quill in front of Blue. The second morphed into the shape of a countdown clock above the giant document, which was set at twenty seconds but had not yet started counting down.

It must have been a back-up security measure of some kind. We probably had twenty seconds to pass whatever fairytale history question it was asking in order to gain access to the case.

Easy enough.

SJ and I motioned toward Blue. She was the fairytale history whiz after all, so she was unquestionably our best bet to pass such a test.

Blue nodded at us, stepped forward, and plucked the quill from midair. The moment she did, the three words on the parchment vanished and were replaced with—not a single question—but a
massive
riddle. Like, so big it might as well have been a final exam in one of our honors classes. Glowing red words with letters the size of bologna slices appeared in stanzas across the five magical documents—their brightness contrasting against the formerly dark room.

A second later the smoky countdown clock began to tick backwards.

19, 18, 17 . . .

Blue attacked the riddle as fast as she could, but was clearly worried by its size. Each and every line was missing at least one word (as noted by the silvery, sparkling lines scattered throughout the stanzas).

We wanted to help her, but there was only one quill and none of us could speak. So all SJ and I were able to do was watch nervously as Blue scrambled to fill in the dozens and dozens of blanks before our time ran out.

9, 8, 7 . . .

She was barely a third of the way done when it became obvious that we weren’t going to make it. We were going to run out of time and the magic security precaution would inevitably lock us out.

4, 3, 2 . . 1 . . .

The countdown clock vanished when it reached zero, but the tapestry wall remained ever in our way.

Well, that’s just great
.
Now how are we supposed to—

Oh, snap!

An enormous plume of smoke burst from within the unseen depths of the enchanted tapestries. It somehow both solidified and rapidly expanded to the shape and size of a fifteen-foot octopus tentacle, swinging in our direction.

We were knocked ten feet backwards onto the floor.

After a second to absorb the shock, my friends and I jumped up and watched in horror as this smoky limb released six more puffs of purple smoke that rapidly started to change shape as well.

It seemed that the Archives was releasing some kind of defense mechanism. We hadn’t solved the riddle in the time allotted, so now the back-up safety measures were kicking in. And boy did they kick hard.

I realized that the giant parchment and the accompanying quill were still levitating in front of the center case, though. So I figured (or rather, hoped) that if we could finish the riddle, maybe we could turn off the security system.

The clouds of smoke had now taken the shape of six solid knights that began drawing swords from the sheaths strapped to their backs.

I grabbed my wand from my boot. It immediately started giving off an off-white glow (which usually happened whenever I utilized it in a dark space).

We still couldn’t make any noise, so I gave Blue an
“I got this”
kind of look and gestured toward the tapestry, indicating for her to try and finish it while I bought her time. She got what I was implying, but shot a worried glance toward SJ. Our friend seemed a bit nervous, but waved Blue toward the tapestry riddle just as vehemently.

The knights came at us then. Blue dove left while SJ and I went right. I had to distract the smoky swordsmen away from Blue while she worked on the puzzle, so I morphed my wand into a boomerang and hurled it at the three knights pursuing her. It smacked one of them directly in the head and ricocheted back to my hand.

That definitely got their attention. The knights after Blue switched their focus to me—giving her a chance to return to the riddle and continue where she’d left off.

Spear.

My favorite new weapon elongated in my hand, still giving off an off-white glow. The enchanted attackers began to come at me—swords swinging—and I signaled for SJ to get back.

The first knight swung at my arm and I easily jumped out of the way and stabbed him in the side with my spear. He disintegrated back into smoke, which, for a moment, caused me to believe that maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all. Unfortunately, seconds after dissolving, the living smoke began to re-shape itself into a full-bodied knight again.

All right, that certainly makes things more interesting.

I soon realized that no matter how many times I killed these guys they would always regenerate like the first one had. To say this situation grew increasingly rough as the trend persisted would’ve been an understatement. I was doing my best to keep them all at bay and keep them away from the Archives where Blue and SJ were now huddled, but they were persistent, and definitely had an advantage over me what with the whole not-being-able-to-die thing.

One took a swing at my head and I ducked—sidestepping him. I twirled my spear to the right, knocking the sword from the knight’s hand, then turned to jab a second opponent in the chest.

By then, the knight I’d disarmed had reclaimed his sword so I whirled around to face his charge. He came bearing down on me with an overhead strike. Gripping the staff of my spear firmly in both hands, I shoved it upwards to block his sword. Immediately following, I sent a swift, powerful thrust-kick into the knight’s abdominals—causing him to fly backwards.

At that, I brought my spear down just in time to stab a knight approaching me from behind. With another rapid motion I continued to drive it forwards, nailing an overzealous attacker. Then, hard and fast, I swung it back across my right side to hit another knight closing in on my rear.

What a workout.

As the three knights I’d just eliminated reformed, I stole a glance in Blue’s direction. By the looks of it she was about sixty percent done with the riddle and probably only needed a few more minutes to finish the job. But I was unable to further verify this, as my assailants did not seem to believe in time-outs. One barely missed me in the next second as he slashed at my forearm while I dove to the left.

As I rolled out of the way, I discovered that I actually hadn’t managed to completely avoid this last strike. The knight’s blade had skinned my arm and a small gash by my shoulder was now openly bleeding. Apparently, even though I couldn’t kill these things, the limitation was not mutual. They could certainly end me if given the right opportunity.

Shield.

I turned back to block the knight’s next blow, but was caught off guard by an additional attacker who’d just popped out of nowhere.

Spear.

I countered his jab as fast as I could, but he was so close that the impact of his blade caused my spear to fly out of my hands. I was now unarmed and out of time. The knight drew back his sword to finish the job.

Luckily, right as he was about to, SJ plunged a sword into the back of
his
head.

In response to my shocked expression she gestured at one of the hollow suits of armor in the back of the room to explain where she’d gotten the weapon.

I let out a sharp breath of relief at the fact that I was, well, not dead. But this temporary feeling of safety drained from my face when I saw a knight charging at SJ from behind. I rapidly kicked my spear back into my hand and hurled it at the knight. It flew over my friend’s shoulder and nailed the aggressor in his head. The strength of the throw skewered him backwards, pinning him to the wall until he burst into smoke again.

SJ mouthed a “thank you” in return and I winked at her as I went for my spear.

It was jammed into a high spot on the wall and another knight was running toward it—trying to cut me off. He was fast, but I was faster. When I was just a few feet away from my weapon, I leaped into the air and grabbed the staff with both hands. Like a gymnast using a bar, I swung myself forward to kick the knight in the face with all of my body weight—sending him sailing in the opposite direction.

Wand.

My spear shrank down, dislodging itself from the wall.

Spear.

I stabbed the knight as he got back up, causing him to burst into yet another satisfying puff of smoke.

Just then I noticed that across the room knights were starting to approach SJ—backing her against the opposite wall.

Sword.

I went to my friend’s rescue, slashing at the opponents in my way as I did.

Spear.

When I reached her, I shot my weapon into the three that were cornering her and it went through them like a violent shish kabob.

I had appreciated SJ’s help, but it was dangerous for both of us if she stayed in the area. We were clearly on the same page about that, as she gave me an understanding nod and ran through the reforming clouds of smoke to rejoin Blue at the front of the room.

Honestly, I wasn’t worried about being able to take care of myself while the two of them finished the riddle. They didn’t have that much more to go and I was doing pretty well handling the defensive on my own.

Not to toot my own horn, but let’s be real; I am a totally boss fighter with this spear. Like so boss I wish that the silence potion would wear off just so I could shout some sort of battle cry, like “Whablamo!”

Alas, all remained silent as I speedily stabbed and disintegrated one knight after another—my friends completely unaware of the epic battle raging behind them as they filled in the riddle’s remaining blanks.

It wasn’t long before I actually managed to get all six knights disintegrated at the same time. With a moment to breathe as they reformed, I took a look at my friends and discovered that Blue and SJ were almost done with their task. As I did this, though, out of the corner of my eye I suddenly realized that the six individual puffs of smoke were now unexpectedly merging and growing into one, enormous cloud.

Uh, okay. That’s new.

The blob kept expanding. It then went on to take the shape of some huge serpent/octopus/kraken thing with six tentacles—three for moving and three for trying to kill me.

Before attacking, the newly formed monster tried to emit some kind of screech that (thanks to SJ’s potion) my friends, the rest of the school, and I were unable to hear. However that didn’t really matter; I did not need to hear the creature’s cry to make me nervous. The sharp snout, fanged mouth, and massive, tentacle-like arms were enough to get the job done quite sufficiently.

I dove aside as one of the arms came crashing down where I’d been standing, then rolled out of the way as another attempted to do the same. When I jumped to my feet, the third arm came sweeping around low to try and trip me, but I leaped over it and kept running in order to lead the monster away from my friends.

I was able to keep this up for about a minute—ducking, diving, jumping, diving, ducking, diving, ducking again, and so on. The problem was, I was so busy trying not to get smashed by the arms that I was unable to have even a second to plot some kind of offensive strike.

Finally, when I gained enough footing to attempt one, I slid under a moving arm and stabbed my spear into one of the creature’s tentacles. The monster released another silent screech as the leg dissolved.

I drew my spear back—intending to take out another leg—but as I did, I didn’t see one of the other arms coming at me.

A tentacle grabbed my hand by surprise and began to tightly wrap itself around my entire arm before I could pull away. It had been the hand holding onto my spear too, so the monster’s grasp now kept me from moving the staff and jabbing my way free.

With my weapon neutralized, a second arm did not hesitate to move in. It entwined itself around my waist then thrust me up against the wall, knocking the wind out of my body. The third arm pinned my free hand while the second arm continued to wrap its way around my diaphragm and throat—tightening its grip in order to squeeze out all remaining oxygen.

“Guys!” I tried to yell.

But it was no use. Despite the fact that I was only about twenty feet behind them, SJ’s potion was still active. And the resulting silence kept her and Blue unaware of the action, smoke monster, and throttling of their friend that was currently going on behind them.

Maybe if they can just finish the Archives’ riddle this thing will disappear before it finishes choking me
, I thought hopefully.

I glanced back at them and squinted at the silvery lines they still had yet to fill in. It seemed they only had one stanza left to go:

“Few weaknesses pertain to the Mer-people’s world,

But that which they fear most is all that is ___________.”

My eyes widened in disbelief.

Oh, geez. I know the answer.

“Blue! Blue!”

Right, they couldn’t hear me. So how was I supposed to tell them what to put in that last blank? Neither of them appeared to know, and this smoke beast thing was growing. So not only was I about to be finished off by being wrung out like a flimsy towel, if this monster kept increasing in size pretty soon none of our weapons would’ve been effective in stopping it.