Once Upon an Adventure Read online

  “Wouldn’t you be?” I flashed an extra toothy smile and noted the falter in his smile.

  “Yeah, I think I would be." Rey agreed, shaking it off.

  “While I love backups, we really need an actual plan." Vincent pointed out as we looked at the shop. We had as much of a solid plan as last night. It was almost infuriating how terrible we were at this.

  “You all suck at hiding." a voice said, causing us to turn. “Even disguised, I guessed just by the conversation.”

  A girl I did not recognize stood with her arms crossed, a bored look on her face.

  “Oh, Rose, was not expecting you to be out here." Vincent supplied, his voice sounding uneasy but his posture looking as confident as ever.

  I could only guess this was one of the step sisters.

  “So, like, you’re all here because Diamond and mom are being total snob trolls who can’t lose anything." Rose stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe.

  “Um, basically?” Vincent shrugged, both confused and surprised. He gave a small laugh to offset his unease. “Anything you can help us with?”

  “Yeah, I probably can, but it’s a total boring waste of time. So what’s in it for me?” Rose may have been young, but she still knew enough to play this to her advantage. While it annoyed me, I couldn’t exactly fault her for it.

  “What do you want?” I asked bluntly. “I’d rather not waste time. Money or some spotlight are easy enough grabs if that’s what you’re looking for. Name the price.”

  Rose looked at me curiously. “Here’s the thing, since Nessa left, the shop has been falling. I hate the place, and Di can’t do a damn thing since she’s useless. But that means there’s no money for fun and important things, and I want to go to the Talarium Academy. I was good enough for an invite, but not a scholarship.”

  We all seemed to be a bit surprised.

  “Done. Consider your dance school paid for.” If the kid wanted to dance, so be it. I had instructors from there on and off growing up and knew what it meant for a dancer to attend there.

  Rose gave a single nod before smiling. “Perfect. The important things you need to know are mom and Di have amulets that can dispel illusions. Cat’s stepsister has a sword that can break stoneflesh and cause a lot of physical harm, her nasty step mom didn’t want to get her hands dirty so she’s out of the picture. That annoying Donny guy though is a real pain and has arrows that never miss their target. They’re poisoned I guess. Maybe, like, seven minutes and you die or something.” She shrugged.

  “That’s pretty awful. How did they even get all this stuff?” Rey shook his head.

  “Some magic lady from space.” Rose shrugged. “She’s like a super mad wicked witch, and pure chaos and stuff.” Rose gestured vaguely. “She, like, um has rules, but like doesn’t have to play by them all? Just as long as like she goes unnoticed enough she can get away with a billion things before she needs to vanish.”

  Well, that wasn’t a good sign.

  “Thanks Rose.” Vincent nodded with some relief.

  “Anything else we should be aware of? Or any idea where they’re being kept?” Rey asked hopefully.

  Rose looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s that unicorn place but they’re like, in this loop thing so even if they find the exit they’ll keep walking in a giant circle.”

  “Unicorn place?” Unicorns aren’t real. Well, at least I hadn’t thought they were. I guess if Daeum’s were a thing, why not magical horses.

  “Yeah…” Rose shrugged, not sounding interested in the least. “I don’t know where it is. That annoying Donny guy with the IQ of two squirrels glued together somehow found it, but of course won’t tell us. I hardly believe him though. Come on, for reals. We’ve got a freaking absurd amount of magical people and there is just no way we’d not have found them by now, ya know?”

  I wasn’t going to mention I was hidden from the entire world both physically, and in memory, for about nineteen months. Instead I nodded. “Yeah, that guy does have an IQ of two squirrels glued together, doesn’t he?”

  Rose nodded. “Anyway, that’s all I know. Good luck with that stuff. Now, that school thing?” She stared at me expectantly.

  “Of course. You have my word. Sadly, this space lady nonsense has hidden all my people, but…” I pulled out my phone. “What is your contact information?”

  Rose held out her hand. Reluctantly I handed over my phone and she put in her number and email. “There you have it.” She handed it back. “When this resolves, I expect everything to be immediately taken care of.”

  “Agreed.” She had solved a fair amount of our problems before we could even put together a game plan. It was the least I could do. The least any of us could do.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to fashionably be late to." Rose stated as she headed toward the building.

  “Should we tell her you can’t be fashionably late to work?” Vincent muttered.

  “Don’t you dare.” Rey tried to hold back a laugh. “We have half this matter figured out now.”

  “But not the where." I pointed out.

  “Well, we sort of do. It has to be one of those places that Donny guy disappeared to." Rey countered.

  “Yeah, maybe Marcus has figured something out. I bet he looked into those locations already." Vincent agreed.

  “Marcus needs to sleep sometime.” I didn’t have a real counter.

  “Yeah, but his sister is missing, again, so I bet anything he’s stayed up all night trying to uncover as many details as physically possible.” Vincent shook his head and pulled out his phone. “He did say he’d keep us updated.”

  “I’m pretty sure tech and gamer people don’t really sleep anyway.” Rey gave a small laugh.

  “And he did find something!” Vincent smiled for a moment. “It looks like it involves a lot of hiking though.”

  “Of course it would.” I shook my head. “Let’s go somewhere a bit safer. I don’t trust staying here any longer.”

  “Agreed. We’ve done the deed, let’s get going.” Rey glanced over at the shop before we headed away.

  Chapter 3

  ——Cat——

  What a mess we’d landed ourselves in. I wasn’t sure why anyone would want us. While Arnessa and I were engaged to royalty, and Ash just about there herself, we weren’t exactly the most exciting bunch. I had a great job making enchanted things, but overall I was just a gamer nerd a bit too obsessed with niche things.

  I wouldn’t say the other two were much different. Arnessa had her painting, and Ash had probably read a library’s worth of books just this year alone. Of course, we all did some form of gaming, hence the roleplay group monthly meetup. If it was money they wanted, they were certainly barking up the wrong tree. While they may get the funds for a while, in the end, they’d be caught. I couldn’t imagine the sentence for this level of crime.

  But what if it was this Daeum being that Ash thought it was?

  Would they just mess around with us until the person who summoned them had their goals met? What could those goals be? I was confident Melanie was still bitter on several fronts, but aside from not getting the prince she was terribly unsuited for, nothing bad actually happened to her. We broke ties. I hadn’t spoken to her since the incident where she tried to attack me when I was moving out. I couldn’t imagine why she would still waste energy and effort to go after me, but I knew that magic, and she was somewhere around here.

  I didn’t think the others doubted me when I stated that, but there was so much magic going on. I wondered why they would pick a cave system to stick us in. Honestly, that answer might be the easiest to come by. I highly doubted Melanie would explain her hand in this mess. Maybe there was something more going on here that I was missing. I shook my head as if that would be enough to clear this mess away and instead tried to focus on the danger at hand.

  The hidden tunnel we found after hours of searching ended up being just the right ticket and got us outside. A forest
greeted us just a few yards from the cave entrance and a large rocky hillside was at our backs. Thankfully, there were normal forest sounds going on around us so we likely weren’t being pursued or hunted. At least not by anything to startle the animals and insects into hiding. Wherever this place was, the sun was just now setting.

  “We’re not on Caslein anymore are we?” I commented. It was nice to step away from the cave and breathe fresh air. Cozy, slightly warm air at that. It was getting chillier at night back home as fall started to show its colors. That didn’t seem to be the case here.

  Ash and Arnessa both looked at the sky and the slowly setting sun, shielding their eyes from the few bright rays remaining.

  “It doesn’t look like it." Arnessa agreed, turning to me. “We were wandering long enough for it to be dark back home.”

  “We’re going to need to rest soon." Ash commented as she pulled out her phone. “Nothing. No service. No time update.” She sighed. “Maybe we’re on Pangwen?”

  “That lines up with my guess.” Arnessa nodded, taking in the surroundings. “It’s beautiful here. I wish I had my sketchpad.”

  I had no opinion. It didn’t matter where we were until we found a way to reach people anyway. I’m sure they were freaking out by now. Hopefully they weren’t in a worse situation.

  “Where should we camp out?” I wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know if the tunnel is technically safer or not. We don’t know what’s out here.” Ash shook her head as she glanced around. “We don’t know what lives in there either so…”

  “I'd rather be out than in." Arnessa stated firmly, putting her hands on her hips. “I can create an illusion so nothing bothers us, so that should be safe enough. I'd rather avoid cave creatures.”

  “We should set a watch just in case. While illusions won’t have anything purposefully bother us, something could accidentally.” I really hated sleeping outside, but that cave was giving me more anxiety than the engagement photoshoot I did two months ago. I hated proper, fancy dresses, but I would deal with that before possibly encountering my step-sister again.

  “That sounds reasonable.” Ash nodded as she walked in a slow circle around us. “But where do we set up? What if it gets too cold?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. My stone flesh actually was fairly insulating.

  “I’ve got nothing useful for that.” Arnessa frowned.

  “Maybe your magic will help if that’s the case?” I suggested to Ash.

  Ash gave a shrug. “It’s not impossible.” She had set a few things on fire before.

  The magical category she was in was rare, annoying, and exceedingly unreliable. Even if I accidentally blew things up, at least I had that option. Sometimes Ash couldn’t even get her magic to do that much.

  “Okay, let’s set up a camp I guess.” I motioned vaguely around. “This will probably be the best area. We can climb up this bit of hillside in the daylight and get a better perspective on things.”

  “Great idea. Have you camped a lot?” Arnessa seemed impressed.

  I shook my head. “It’s what I’d do in my games honestly.”

  Ash gave a small laugh. “Well, if it works, then why not.”

  Arnessa walked over to the hillside but gave the mouth of the cave a wide berth. “Here I guess?” We all joined her and I could feel magic shroud us. It was comforting at least, even if it just upped our stealth.

  “Do you still feel your step-sister’s magic?” Ash asked quietly as we settled into our hiding spot.

  I shook my head. “I haven’t felt it since we found the passage out of here. There was a lot of it but I can’t tell if she just had a hand in setting things up, or if she was actually hidden in there.”

  “Maybe both.” Arnessa shrugged. “If she teamed up with my step-sisters’ friend, I bet they could cause the right amount of chaos. Adding in a Daeum would make things even worse.”

  “I just wonder what could have been asked for that would get a Daeum’s attention.” Ash shook her head tiredly. “The last time I encountered one with Nadia was confusing. The council had one member wanting a happily ever after, a fairytale ending to a terrible situation, and that one call was heard. Something in their phrasing was enough.”

  “So, good or bad, whatever weird phrasing this Daeum caught wind of was enough to catch their interest,” I sighed. “But we don’t know the way out. Isn’t there a rule where we’re supposed to know what’s going on?”

  “Not if it’s a Lesser Daeum. They skirt the rules at best.” Ash laid down and looked up at the clear sky as stars began to show in the slowly growing darkness.

  I nodded, remembering some of it from the files she sent me. “What rules will it abide by?” My words came out more quiet than I intended and I wasn’t sure if anyone heard them.

  “The cave is likely the safe place we were meant to reside. That’s probably the only rule they’re guaranteed to follow." Ash replied, equally quiet.

  Be trapped in safety or less secure in freedom? None of us suggested to move back inside. Being stuck in there wasn’t worth it.

  “Let’s try and rest.” A yawn escaped my lips as I stretched out.

  With little more to discuss, we quickly set a schedule and tried to sleep.

  The last watch was Arnessa’s. She claimed her body was used to being up early anyway, and I honestly wasn’t going to argue with that logic. As the sky started to lighten again, she nudged us awake. I tried to bite back a grumble as I remembered where we were. Mornings were not my thing, but I wasn’t going to be a troll about it out here. As I started to really wake up I realized why she woke us. Something didn’t feel right, something very strongly magical at that. Scales covered my skin from the neck down as everything registered.

  “What is it?” Ash asked in a soft voice before I could.

  “I don’t know." Arnessa admitted. “I can’t see anything, but there’s no mistaking something is here.”

  I bit the bottom of my lip. “I could try and draw it out. Use my telekinesis… at least we’d know what it is.” I hoped.

  Arnessa shook her head. “I don’t know if I want to know. If we can feel it this strongly and not see it, it’s already easy to avoid.”

  “I wish that were the case…” Ash whispered, the words barely reached my ears.

  “What do you mean?” I dropped my voice even lower to match hers.

  “We’re surrounded." she stated in awe.

  Arnessa looked around surprised. “I don’t sense anything that close…”

  Ash gave a small, almost defeated laugh. “It’s not normal illusion magic.”

  It clicked with me, the magic feeling more akin to my stoneflesh gifts. The magic was much more land based, but not somehow. As if the magic was pulled from the very core of the earth and not just the land itself.

  “It’s so… earthy, but not." I remarked lamely, my thoughts providing me with zero alternative phrasing.

  Arnessa continued to look around, her frown deepening. “I can illusion, I can brew, and I can conjure. This is well out of my realm.”

  Ash sighed. “Let’s see…”

  I turned to face her as her entire being softly glowed red and orange before turning a brilliant blue and suddenly the area around us changed, ever so slightly, revealing the truth. We were in fact surrounded, and never in my life did I suspect or believe I could be encircled by a group of unicorns.

  “This would be so much cooler if they were a little less stabby." I blurted, more in aw than fear. “They’re so pretty…”

  “Thank you,” I heard a voice say.

  We all jumped in surprise. I couldn’t tell which one said it.

  “What is a group of two humans doing here?” another voice asked.

  “We really don’t know…” Ash shrugged. “But I assume you can count so why did you say two? There’s three of us?”

  The unicorns looked among themselves and seemed to nod at one another.

  “A group who shouldn’t be here has a
rrived in the heart of our land. How interesting. What can you tell us about your journey here?” the first voice asked again.

  I finally pinpointed who was talking, but it was clear they didn’t speak with their mouths the way I originally guessed.

  I didn’t know if we should trust them with the details, but they had the upper hand, both magically and physically. Still, I hesitated and Ash looked just as reluctant.

  “We were at a friend’s…” Arnessa answered carefully, unsure what details to provide. “There were six of us playing a game when the power went out. When we tried to break the illusion we found ourselves in a cave here. We don’t know what happened to the others. Hopefully they are still at home.”

  The group of unicorns looked from one to another once more.

  “We’re sorry for accidentally ending up in your lands. We really just want to get home,” Ash assured, calmly. “Can you point us in a direction that might help us get there?”

  They didn’t acknowledge her statement in any way and seemed to be quietly communicating among themselves.

  “We can’t just simply leave, can we?” I finally asked after a beat.

  I got a few tilted heads before the first one replied to me again, “No, there is much magic tied to you that will take time to unthread. Then you’ll need to forget this place before we can send you back.”

  “What! Why?” Arnessa just about shouted. She didn’t seem angry, just confused, and likely not wanting anyone to mess with her mind. I sided with her on that, but what choice would we even have?

  “It is for everyone's safety." the unicorn replied. “Your kind likes to take advantage of our magic, and we can too easily wipe out most of your kind. We’re content to stay in our lands if you leave us be. History has proven this to be the best way.”

  I nodded. That made complete sense to me, and there were too many books, movies, and games that strongly reiterated that fact. While some societies could live in peace, humans were often the reason for trouble. I wouldn’t even try to argue it.

  “What sort of magic is threaded around us?” Ash asked curiously. “I was concerned a Daeum was trying to manipulate things.”