The whole episode couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes. Penny made it clear that Seymour needed to be quick about it, so he hit the Stuczis with rapid-fire questions. The information gleaned from them left him numb. Noticing this, Penny had taken control of the situation, laying out what she wanted Seymour to do next – and deep down he felt grateful for her guidance. But as the interrogation came to an end and he followed her directions to tie up the Stuczi Brothers, doubt found cracks through which it could seep into his noisy mind:

  “So you’re sure about this? Leaving them here in the carriage, I mean.” He cinched the rope he’d used to tie the Stuczi Brothers together in the cab of the funky-ass steampunk carriage, assuring the last knot was tight. “Shouldn’t we hand them over to the sheriff or the constable or whatever? They’re crooks, you know? I’m just saying, these dudes will definitely do more crime if we let them go. It’s kinda their thing.”

  “There simply won't be time to deliver them unto justice,” Penny explained. Her semi-paralysis had ended entirely at the precise moment when Seymour fed her the backup Potion of Indemnification she’d brought along, which returned her to the precise physical state she’d been in upon waking that morning. It was the same, expensive concoction she’d used earlier to repair his mangled hand, and her habit of over-preparing for any situation had served her well. “The Directors would no doubt intercept us on the way back to Ghizo’s Crossing, of that I am most certain. Indeed, it is no small miracle that they haven’t arrived here already. You should hurry and finish binding the Brothers Stuczi so that we may flee the scene at once.”

  “This is crazy and if I were watching us on a tv show or something I’d probably be screaming ‘kill them! Kill them!’ But it’s your call, I guess. You’re the magical girl and whatnot.”

  “When you speak in this way, it vexes me greatly. Do please stop at once.”

  He tested the rope one last time and felt satisfied it’d keep Gaspar and Janez contained, at least for the time being. Janez glared at Seymour, but neither brother could nag him due to the gags he’d stuffed into each of their mouths. They’d already said more than enough, with their insane story about the vampire who had supposedly abducted Seymour and brought him to this world.

  The question had immediately become: how much of their bullshit can I actually believe?

  The idea that back on Earth the Stuczis had been following him around because they suspected him of having some means to rig sporting events seemed ludicrous, even though he had to admit he’d been on one hell of a hot streak – so maybe that part was possible. Maybe they really did want to learn his non-existent secret so they could use it themselves. But their claim that in the course of their stalking they’d then witnessed a vampire kidnapping him away to another world felt like the brand of lie a five year-old would concoct if he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “He be vampire, for sure,” Gaspar had explained matter-of-factly. “We hunt them when we were kids back in Old World, so we know when we sees them.”

  Penny had chimed in to demand he, “explain what you mean by ‘Old World’.”

  “He means Transylvania,” Janez answered for his brother. “Where we was born. The bloodsuckers is not so uncommon there.”

  At first, that tidbit had hit Seymour like a wisecrack, but it soon became obvious the brothers weren’t joking at all. They didn't come from Latvia or Moldova or wherever – they came from freaking Transylvania. And vampires were real, of course. They had hunted them when they were young, after all, same as every Transylvanian kiddo with something to prove.

  And then, after they had watched a vampire carry me through a freaking magical portal thing, they just said, ‘screw it, let’s follow them’? That didn’t really happen, did it? They just made that part up. Right?

  But they had added details that somehow made the story feel legit. Seymour couldn’t explain how they knew anything at all about his Uncle Rick, who he himself had only met on a handful of occasions back when he was a kid. His father’s brother lived in a quaint and quirky artists’ colony high in the Colorado Rockies, where he’d owned an antique shop since the eighties.

  An antique shop that Uncle Rick supposedly built right on top of something called a ‘demonic blood gate’.

  That was what Penny here had called it after hearing Janez’s description. According to her, it was an exceedingly rare thing his uncle owned: a stable portal between here and Earth – one which could theoretically allow Seymour to return home if they could only find an access point on Heschia.

  As dubiously insane as the whole story sounded, Seymour knew that it had to be true. The Silver Badge of Full Transparency didn’t only give him the power to turn invisible for five minutes – it also allowed him to toggle on an Aura of Truth, which performed exactly as advertised, ensuring the brothers had answered all of his questions honestly.

  And prior to the interrogation, the badge had taught him something interesting about his Infringement power, too. While readying himself to ambush Gaspar and free Penny, the invisibility effect had nearly come to an end. Thinking fast, Seymour had ducked behind a tree and allowed the badge to revert back into the Silver Ring of Diplomacy. Then, he’d once again transformed the ring back into the badge, and he’d found that the cooldown had been reset, just as he’d hoped would happen. Once again, he felt a little bit like’d hacked the magical system of this world.

  This world was legit hackable. But all of a sudden it seemed possible that he might be able to leave it behind to go home one day.

  Returning to Earth hadn’t been on his mind much lately, but now—with the results of his impromptu interrogation swimming in his mind—it suddenly seemed tantalizingly feasible. And yet, an unexpected question instantly began to haunt him: did he actually want to go back?

  Here, I’m an artificer-in-training, on the path to becoming a straight up wizard or something. And back on Earth, I’m an out-of-work waiter with a little bit of a gambling problem.

  “Are you well?” Penny suddenly asked, reading something in his expression. “The day has delivered much for you to ponder.”

  “Yeah, I’m alright.” Seymour climbed out of the carriage and shut the door on Gaspar and Janez. “Or I will be, I guess. Maybe. But anyway, what now?”

  “Now,” she began, “we make our escape, and then tomorrow morning we deliver this listening artifice to the proper authority.”

  “The proper authority?” Seymour wondered. "So you mean, like, the sheriff or constable or whatever, like I just said.”

  “No, I refer instead to Gorgudan the Golden.” She smirked at Seymour’s confused expression. “He should be told about Ridley’s attempt to assassinate you, should he not?”

  Still numb, Seymour could only nod his agreement. Who was he to tell her how to report crimes on this world? And honestly, a pissed-off dragon seemed like it’d be even worse to deal with than a medieval cop. Penny probably had the right idea.

  The listening artifice she had referred to looked like a fist-sized chunk of honeycomb. It had been wrapped with golden thread so thin it could have been silk spun by a golden spider, and the honeycomb evidently served as a sort of scaffolding for the web, which looked uncannily similar to the sacred schematics Seymour had seen.

  Penny had crafted this, somehow, and claimed that it had recorded their entire interrogation of the Stuczis, where they not only admitted to following Seymour through a demonic blood gate thing but also confessed to the fact that the Malveaus had dispatched them out into the jungle to recover Seymour’s corpse after Ridley’s booby-trapped Treant Tap had killed him.

  Of course, she’d been there to save his life, instead, foiling all of their plans.

  She slipped the honeycomb back into her pocket and drew out the pinecone she’d retrieved earlier from the hollow of a tree. It, too, was webbed in the same wispy, golden thread. And it struck Seymour then what it actually meant to be an Artificer. This girl, Penny, could arrange materials like the golden thread into such precise geometric configurations that the previously-mundane object became magically activated.

  She makes sacred schematics from scratch.

  He watched then as she unceremoniously tossed the gold-webbed pinecone onto the dirt at their feet.

  “What are you up to now?”

  She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she pulled a Sculpting Wand and knelt down to briefly touch it to the pinecone she’d just deposited on the ground. The golden thread which webbed it sparkled like a disco ball, and soon the organic material of the pinecone shined with the same rich aura. It began to swell and swirl, melting flat and finally losing its physical shape altogether as it transformed into something more like a golden hole in the ground, roughly three feet across. Light no longer seemed to be shining out, but somehow falling in.

  “What is this?” Seymour asked, mystified.

  “A portal,” she answered succinctly. “To a safer place, among friends.”

  “Alright then – ladies first.”

  Dathon settled into bed to enjoy his book. The Itinerant Sage’s Almanac contained all manner of trivia covering his new world. Of particular interest to him were tales of the merfolk who reportedly dwelled in the ocean waters off the realm’s western coast. He wondered if they might be of some distant relation to his own people, even though the logical part of his brain knew that was impossible. He came from another universe, after all. Still, Dathon intended to one day make their acquaintance, if he could.

  On the other side of the room, the man-shaped energy being, Rucktizzeran, continued to arrange crystals around the bed which had previously belonged to Seymour Little. The crystals came in a rainbow of colors and evidently required precise placement in order to alter the bed so that it would become conditioned to contain Rucktizzeran’s aura while he slept. With Seymour now living on-site at Dragon Dan’s Adventure Depot, Dathon had invited Rucktizzeran to be his new roommate, an offer which had been accepted instantly.

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  “That Arnok creature snored in ten-thousand tiny voices. We are most pleased to be rid of his company. Most pleased.”

  “And likewise,” Dathon said without looking up from his reading, “I am most pleased for the blessing of your company.”

  But the truth was: Dathon already missed his old roommate. Not because Rucktizzeran had done anything wrong, but simply owing to the energy—for lack of a better term—which had surrounded Seymour Little.

  And he recognized the irony, since his new cohabitation partner’s body consisted of pure, unbound energy – but that wasn’t the type which Seymour had brought. Intrigue had followed him the way flies followed Dathon out to the alley whenever he emptied the chamber pot. The human had attracted the attention of powerful artificers and in turn that had presented Dathon with rare opportunities. Soon, he expected they would compensate him as they had promised, and he would then leave Ghizo’s Crossing.

  He turned the page in his book. He didn’t read this night for pleasure alone, but rather to plan his next moves. Perhaps he would travel directly to the western coast after all, to see if he might be able to find the merfolk who might be kin. And in the likely event that they were in no way related, perhaps he could still join them in their underwater dwellings. The saltwater would do wonders to cure the crusty condition of his skin.

  Across the room, it appeared Rucktizzeran had finally finished configuring his crystals. The bed—Seymour’s old bed—began to glow with a golden light. The warm glow shone out from the hollow beneath the straw mattress.

  Rucktizzeran slid back a step, and then one of his crystals vibrated loose and fell off the bed, clattering to the floor. His aura suddenly became bright, blood red.

  “What is happening?” the energy-man asked, and something in his voice made all three of Dathon’s stomachs suddenly tighten up with dread. If his new roommate wasn’t responsible for the golden light glowing out from beneath his bed, then who was?

  Blown up off the floor by a sudden gust of wind, the bed toppled onto its side, spilling the rest of Rucktizzeran’s crystals like a seer scattering the bones of an animal. Dathon closed his book and set it aside as he cautiously rose to his feet.

  “It is a portal,” he surmised, moving closer to the golden pool.

  “To whom does it belong, I wonder?”

  As if on cue, a delicate hand emerged from the portal, and then a whole person climbed out and dusted herself off.

  “Miss Amberwine?” Dathon wondered. “What are you doing here?”

  She swiftly moved away from the portal and locked her gaze upon him.

  “Say nothing to Seymour,” the girl demanded. “Make no mention of our prior relationship.”

  “As you wish.”

  And in the moment which followed, his former roommate then flopped out of the portal’s golden mouth, as well, and struggled clumsily on his side like a capsized turtle.

  “An inelegant entrance,” Penny laughed, helping him to his feet. “But not too bad, for your first intentional portal.”

  Seymour scanned the room, wearing a look of pure disorientation. “What the hell are we doing here?”

  Early the next morning, after sleeping only briefly on the floor of Seymour’s old room, Penny insisted they catch the shuttle down to Dragon Dan’s Adventure Depot. Once there, she marched directly up to Dragon Dan and announced herself.

  “I am Penny Amberwine, Apprentice of Melvina Malveau.”

  “Welcome to my magic shop, Miss Amberwine.” The dragon spoke slowly, his voice booming and deep but surprisingly gentle. He looked down on Penny and Seymour like a benevolent sun. “Should you require any assistance finding that which you seek, the skill of my sales staff is exceeded only by their eagerness to aid in your quest.”

  “I appreciate that, Gorgudan.” Penny’s voice was clear and confident. “But truth be told, I haven’t come to buy or sell anything.”

  “Oh? Then what brings you to my shop today?”

  “I intend to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  The dragon drew closer, showing an intrigued twinkle in his enormous, turquoise-colored eyes.

  “Well then, don’t leave me in suspense, Miss Amberwine.” Dan sounded relaxed, but the situation—Penny’s insistence they stop to talk with the dragon—had Seymour’s guts tied into anxious knots. “What exactly is your offer, and what makes you so confident that I can’t refuse?”

  Whatever she was up to now, Seymour had no clue. She hadn’t mentioned making Dan any sort of offer. As far as he’d known, they were just going to rat on Ridley. The further she went off-script, the more he wanted to run away – but his feet felt like they’d been bolted to the dirt outside Dragon Dan’s Adventure Depot.

  “As we’re surely both aware,” Penny began, “your chief artificer is a scoundrel of the highest order. A would-be murderer, in fact.” The dragon didn’t respond except by narrowing his Penny-and-Seymour-sized eyes. “You are aware, aren’t you?”

  “Possibly.” He offered nothing more.

  “Apologies, is this a sore topic? Should we find someplace a bit more private for these talks?” Again, the dragon said nothing. Penny nodded, smiling. “No need to fret, Gorgudan, the case against your man need not become public knowledge, I assure you.” She paused, pretending to give the dragon a chance to question what she was saying. When he didn’t, she continued:

  “You see, there’s no reason the public—including the Law—need ever learn of the crimes which have been perpetrated out of this magic shop, because the evidence of Ridley’s misdeeds has been carefully contained. Contained within a single piece of artifice, to be more precise – artifice which I am willing to hand over to you, to do with as you shall please.”

  She held the gold-wrapped honeycomb up for Dan to see. Plumes of black smoke seeped from the dragon’s nostrils, a sure sign that Penny was getting under his scales. Seymour wanted nothing more than to grab her by the arm and drag her away, but he knew that doing so would only implicate himself further in her scheme. For the moment, at least, he still held some plausible deniability.

  “I do not suffer the sort of human frailties which might make me susceptible to extortion, Miss Amberwine.”

  “I fear you’ve mistaken my intentions, Gorgudan. I do not desire to extort anything from you. I do not desire to exacerbate your troubles with Ridley – quite the contrary, in fact. I wish merely to soothe them.”

  Seymour could only stare at her in wide-eyed wonder. How is she staying so cool?

  The dragon rolled his eyes. “Come to your point now, girl.”

  The sky turned suddenly dark, despite there being no clouds. Seymour recalled how Dan had done this same thing during their one previous conversation. He fell to his knees in the dirt and tears welled in his eyes – but he pushed down the urge to cry out in despair.

  He could only manage to resist the effect because Penny had cautioned him that this might happen during the shuttle ride down from Ghizo’s Crossing. She had warned him that Dragon Dan’s Presence attribute was that of a celestial-ranked creature, which meant that he could exude various auras including Doom, and that if Dan became angry at the news they brought him he might use that Aura of Doom to metaphorically crush them. But to Seymour, it seemed more like the dragon had somehow seized control of the local gravity and was now quite literally crushing them where they stood.

  Except Penny didn’t appear to be affected at all.

  She simply continued her pitch, completely unintimidated, and Dan quickly abandoned his attempts to dominate her. Once more, the sun shone down upon Seymour with its full glare and the air stopped trying to crush him. And as his breath came back into his lungs, he realized that Penny must have possessed another of her homebrewed artifice pieces which had protected her. He dragged himself back to his feet and brushed the dirt from his knees.

  Holy shit, who is this chick?

  Dan’s frustration was obvious now from his body language. His ludicrously-elongated torso coiled and slithered across the savannah behind him, seeming to act with a mind of its own.

  “I will lay it all out for you in the most simple of terms,” Penny continued, not even pausing to acknowledge the dragon’s failed intimidation tactics. She stared hard into Dan’s oversized eyes. “I will hand over the evidence I possess pertaining to Ridley’s misdeeds so that you may dispose of it before it can evolve into a scandal. And in return, I ask only to replace him as your chief artificer. My qualifications are unmatched, as I’m sure you know. Since as far back as I can remember, the directors have been grooming me to one day lead the Guild of Artificers.”

  “An illustrious position, and one which would convey many privileges,” Dan noted, a growl lurking behind each word. “Tell me, then – why would you opt to labor away for me, instead?”

  “Simple: I have soured on the guild since learning that Magnus and Melvina Malveau long ago succumbed to the lure of corruption.”

  “Explain.”

  “I could,” Penny began, “but it will cost you extra. I am aware of the longstanding rivalry between yourself and the directors, and so I know how valuable information would be to you if it could be used to bring them down.”

  At that, the tension finally broke. Dan looked to the sky and laughed, sending up twin towers of flame. When he turned his snout back to face Seymour and Penny, plumes of purple and black smoke seeped from his nostrils.

  “Is this your idea of a job interview?” His reptilian lips turned up at the corners. “I wonder if you might be applying for the wrong position, for how can your talents at artificery possibly exceed the aptitude you display for sales?”

  “I do excel in many fields,” Penny quickly answered. “And I ask only for the opportunity to prove that I am the realm’s preeminent artificer, so where better to do so than here at the realm’s preeminent magic emporium?”

  Seymour flinched then as Dan turned his gaze directly upon him. “Mr. Little, would you please go inside to collect Mr. Ridley? And bring Eusebio, as well.”

  “Uh,” Seymour blinked, barely able to speak, “you bet. Be right back.”

  He headed into the depot and tracked down Eusebio, first. He was out on the salesfloor, mingling cordially with a tall, dark-skinned gentleman dressed in a fine suit. When a lull in the conversation finally presented itself, Seymour caught his eye:

  “He needs to see me?” Eusebio asked before Seymour could even say anything. “And Ridley, too, right?”

  He nodded, too taken off-guard to question how Eusebio had gleaned all that from nothing more than the look on his face. Then he watched while his manager said farewell to the man with whom he’d been speaking and bee-lined back toward the main counter and the artificer’s workshop behind it, where Seymour was supposed to have slept last night but hadn’t.

  Soon he, Ridley, and Eusebio were headed back outside and Seymour’s head felt drunker with every step. Penny was still out there talking with Dragon Dan, but now her posture had softened and they looked to be engaged in friendly banter. When Seymour and the others finally joined them, it was Dan who spoke first:

  “Miss Amberwine, please give the recording artifice to Ridley.”

  “As you wish.” She handed the honeycomb over.

  Ridley looked at it and wondered, “what’s this all about?”

  “Please,” Dan said to him, “come closer.”

  The others waited back while Ridley shuffled forward to stand right up close to the dragon. And then, without any further warning, Dan parted his lips and unleashed a lazer-focused beam of fire which struck and instantly ignited Ridley’s body from head-to-toe. There wasn’t even time for him to plead or shriek before he fell in on himself like a skyscraper being demolished with explosives, leaving only a pile of ash. In no more than two or three seconds, both Ridley and the artifice which Penny had used to make a record of his crimes had been completely incinerated.

  “Eusebio,” Dan began, white smoke leaking out from the corners of his mouth, “please show Miss Amberwine to her new workshop.”

  “Will do.”

  “And Miss Amberwine.” The dragon swayed his head to face her directly. “Will you still require Mr. Little’s assistance as Ridley did?”

  She turned and said to Seymour, “I think not.”

  Her words hit his ears like a death sentence. If the shop artificer no longer needed his help, did that mean the shop no longer needed him, either? And if the shop no longer needed him—

  Am I about to be fired? His eyes drifted toward the pile of ash which Ridley had become. Maybe even fired with fire?

  “Eusebio,” Dan said once more, interrupting Seymour’s anxious train of thought. “I’d like you to promote Mr. Little to the position of Sales Associate. Please see to his training at once.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thank you.” The dragon began to float up into the air suddenly. “Now, I must go feed. The events of this morning have stoked a mighty hunger within me.”

  And just like that, he flew up into the sky high above the savannah, and left the humans to head inside and begin their workday.