They headed back toward the glowing VIP sign. Fyrir led the procession, marching boldly toward the two guards at the door.

  “I already told you, you can’t—” the first guard began.

  Fyrir raised a finger sharply, cutting off the guard, and pointed to his pinned-on badge. “Now, out of our way, before I report you to the organizers,” he admonished.

  The guards squinted at the badge.

  “Look at that! The old man pulled it off,” mused the second guard.

  “Alright. Get in there, Gramps,” grumbled the first guard.

  “There’s one girl who can call me Gramps,” replied Fyrir. “And you, my Neanderthalensian friend, are not her.”

  The guard tilted his head and struggled with the long word, as Fyrir led the others through the door. It emerged into a short hallway with another door at the opposite end, which they opened.

  Beyond it was luxury. The room—nay, the chamber—sprawled before them, majestic and broad. The tables were marble. Each had a chandelier above it. The chairs were capacious and cushioned. There was, miraculously, no shortage of them.

  Half-full glasses were all over the tables. They came from an open bar, where some steampunk alchemist was in the process of ordering—indeed—a martini with an olive.

  Nerds with contest-winning badges sat beside beautiful cosplayers with millions of YouTube followers, regaling them with stories of their triumphs. A green-haired woman in a leotard listened attentively as a bony guy in a Hawaiian shirt described his strategy in Settlers of Catan. Four teens wearing 19th-century schoolgirl outfits flocked around some actor from a 1990s video-game adaptation, who was struggling to keep up with their questions.

  “Waste of life!” declared Fyrir grimly. “If these crapshooting libertines spent half their time on science instead of dice, vice and devilry, we’d have a second Renaissance!” He shook his head at the Jenga table, where several realistic-looking demons carefully pulled out blocks, and scantily clad succubi gasped with delight.

  “Science . . . and wild rummy? With martinis?” asked Lilac.

  “Well, card games are different, of course,” Fyrir stoutly explained. “Why, I daresay wild rummy made me a subtler thinker!”

  “The difference between wholesome interests and wasteful obsessions is whether they existed before you grew up,” observed Astrid.

  “Spare me your harebrained philosophizing,” waved Fyrir archly. “No one likes a Bond girl for her philosophy. All I’m saying is, there’s a reason classic card games became classic.”

  “‘And thus, a century and a half, they trod the footsteps of a calf,’” quoth Dahlia.

  “Save your old poetry for the stacks, you double-stacked humanities major!” admonished Fyrir.

  “Oh, can I call myself that?” cried the curvaceous bookworm.

  “What do you think, Proto?” Lilac’s black eyes glimmered. “What are your views on dice, vice and devilry?”

  He looked at her, then at the enthusiastic succubi around the Jenga table. “I think . . . I’ll go play with some old-fashioned, wholesome, classic building blocks.”

  Astrid and Lilac flicked his ears. Dahlia shrugged and nodded agreeably.

  So did Fyrir. “Yes, well, I can’t argue with that,” he mused. “Spoken like a younger me!”

  Dahlia gave Proto two eager thumbs-up.

  “Speaking of classic competitions,” said Lilac, “we’ll have to get that cookoff scheduled. Assuming we save the world.”

  “Save the world?” Fyrir frowned and tilted his head. Mists started swirling upward. He squinted as though half-recalling something.

  “You should try her cooking,” Proto hastily jumped in. “She’s a wizard in the kitchen.”

  “Indeed! Well, as I often say, a man needs two things in life,” said Fyrir. “And both are in the kitchen.” He wandered off to find Mercune.

  “That guy!” Astrid smiled and shook her head.

  “I know, right?” enthused Dahlia gleefully.

  “Also, Lilac, is it really you who dreamt up this room?” Astrid eyed those succubi and blue-and-green-haired divas.

  “I think Proto’s having an influence,” Lilac answered drily.

  “No comment.” Proto admired what looked to be two Tifas strolling by. “I have no comment.”

  Astrid and Lilac flicked his ears.

  “Ooh, I need that crop top!” Dahlia looked down at her chiton and sized herself up thoughtfully.

  They fanned out across the VIP room, searching for Mercune. Proto was about to ask some guys in Halo armor if any of them was a teenage girl, when he heard Fyrir’s voice nearby.

  “Ah! There you are, Mercune.” The old man patted a tanktopped red-haired girl on the shoulder. She was sitting and watching some collectible card game, played by a guy in a red and white baseball cap beside her.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Mercune?” repeated the redhead, turning around. She had blue eyes, a glib smile, and an unfamiliar face. “Nope, just a humble water trainer!”

  “Ah,” frowned Fyrir. “My apologies.”

  “It’s okay, Professor. Here, have a rare candy!” She handed him some taffy and went back to watching.

  The old man sighed, eying the wrapped-up treat. “I need a martini. A real one.” He ambled toward the open bar—and Proto blinked at what he saw there.

  Somehow, Lilac was now behind the bar and helping a bartendress in cat ears prepare cocktails. There was a line of customers, but with Lilac’s help, it was getting shorter quickly.

  Fyrir shuffled toward the bar, maneuvering past the line and chatting crowds. “Ahem, excuse me, Doll!”

  “Back of the line, please!” replied the cat-eared bartendress, rushing past him with three bottles in hand.

  “No no, just a question,” he assured her. “Have you seen—?”

  “Back of the line, please!” she interrupted, cracking an egg on the counter and straining out the yolk.

  Fyrir heaved a slow sigh, then turned around and hobbled toward the back of the line. “Fifty years ago, they called me Sir!” he groused. “And coyly smiled!”

  Clink. Lilac deftly slid a fresh batch of empty glasses into place behind the bar.

  “One White Russian!” called the bartendress.

  “Got you girl!” affirmed Lilac. “One White Russian.”

  “I think they’re calling for you, Astrid,” Fyrir grumbled to the Russian-cosmonaut-looking woman, joining her at the back of the line.

  Astrid chortled quietly.

  “You’d flick my ear if I said that,” complained Proto.

  She shrugged agreeably. “Life’s not fair.”

  Lilac slid a White Russian to a short guy dressed as Oddjob.

  “Thanks.” He tipped his bowler hat to her. “Love the French maid outfit!”

  “It’s a French waitress outfit,” corrected Lilac politely.

  Fortunately, the line continued to move quickly. Soon, the last guy in front of them, dressed as a Viking in a horned helm, was walking off with a neon green highball.

  Fyrir wrinkled his nose at the concoction. “Hmph. ‘Don’t judge a man by his hat,’ eh?”

  “If Somnus saw me make that,” said Lilac, “he’d dump it on the floor and make me clean it.”

  “Ha! I knew I liked that fellow,” declared Fyrir. “Suppose I hired him, didn’t I.” He frowned slightly, and the mists swirled up around their legs. “Wait, my colleague has you making him cocktails?”

  “I liked the little guy’s bowler hat,” said Dahlia. “The smaller you are, the bigger you go!”

  The cat-eared bartendress heaved out a weary sigh. “Alright, Pops, what’ll it be?” she asked Fyrir.

  “‘Pops,’” muttered the old man. “First, a dirty martini. Then, a question, Toots.”

  Astrid laughed quietly from behind him.

  Then, quirking her lips in thought, she surreptitiously grabbed an empty vodka bottle from the bar. Bending down, she sealed some of the swirling mists inside with a conjured cork.

  “What’s that for?” asked Proto.

  “This old man’s something special.” She smiled wistfully. “Should collect this while we can. I’ll miss him when he goes.”

  Proto looked at those violet eyes, fixed sadly and happily upon the swirling mists. This was one of those rare moments when Astrid seemed as old as she claimed.

  Meanwhile, the bartendress was sliding Fyrir his olive-garnished triangular drink.

  “Ahh.” He sipped it. “Delicious. That was worth the wait.”

  “That’s what he said,” the bartendress yawned.

  Fyrir blinked, then turned to Proto. “I’ve changed my mind. What a fine establishment!”

  Then, he faced the bartendress again. “So, I have a question, Kitty.” She was, after all, wearing cat ears. “Have you seen a girl in her late teens with long red hair?”

  “Actually.” The woman tilted her head in thought. “Yes. Never stops yapping, right?”

  “That’s the one!” affirmed Fyrir.

  “Yep! She was chatting with one of the organizers,” recalled the bartendress. “They went off into the back rooms together. The Organizers Only area.” She pointed at a door with two guards in front of it, both of whom were huge and wearing Calamity Calamari amulets around their necks. “Hm, they’ve been gone a while, haven’t they?”

  “Into the back rooms?!” cried Fyrir. “Alone with someone? An authority figure?!”

  “Sorry Bro, your Princess is in another castle!” declared some mushroom-headed drunkard in a Middle Eastern vest. “Probably getting bowsered right now!”

  Fyrir knocked the mushroom cap off his head.

  “Bro!” complained the drunkard. He went to lift his mushroom cap.

  Before he could do so, a plumber in overalls and a red shirt grabbed it and started chewing on it.

  “Bro!” repeated the drunkard. “Stop eating my head, you mustachioed cannibal!”

  “Look, I can break bricks now!” yelled the plumber, punching down a Jenga stack mid-game.

  “What the F!” shouted the demon-dressed players, as the surrounding succubi gasped and stepped backward.

  “Oh yeah?” The drunkard seized his mushroom cap and stuck it back on his head. “Well, I can dig quickly!” He grabbed the fallen Jenga blocks and started throwing them pell-mell.

  One of them struck another nearby Jenga tower, which leaned and toppled.

  “What the F!” shouted the demons again. They clenched their fists and advanced menacingly.

  “I’m also very fast!” noted the mushroom head. He turned and ran away.

  The demons gave chase. Meanwhile, several had formed a ring around the mustachioed plumber and now were shoving him around inside it.

  The huge guards at the Organizers Only door exchanged a grim glance. “Time to do what they pay us to do!” They drew wooden Minecraft swords and approached the fracas.

  Fyrir marveled at the sudden chaos. “Like 1939 all over again!”

  “Let’s slip in while we can!” urged Lilac, pointing at the now unguarded door.

  Proto and Astrid smiled at each other. They’d pushed this scene along a fair bit.

  Together, they hurried to the door and entered the Organizers Only area, leaving the hubbub behind them.

  It was quite a change: one moment, dodging Jenga blocks and ornery demons; the next, walking a quiet office-building corridor.

  Fluorescent lights shone palely on the white walls and blue edging. Intermittent doors led into offices, conference rooms and supply closets. They were strangely silent and free of people.

  Then again, this was post-Covid, so maybe that wasn’t so strange.

  The office proved to be a labyrinth. They began hitting frequent dead ends, forcing them to turn back and try different routes. Worse, there was virtually nothing to distinguish one area from another, save the occasional abstract art hanging on the walls.

  “Ugh!” sighed Dahlia, as they passed some splotch of red ink inside a picture frame. “Did this artist spill her cranberry sauce? Or forget her pads?”

  “Well said, Blondie,” chuckled the old man. “I’ve been saying it for sixty years. There’s more art in pulp fiction and pin-ups!”

  “I quite agree,” affirmed the bookworm. “You know they once called Shakespeare low art? They still do it for Gone with the Wind!”

  “Ah, that Scarlett. What a tart!” recalled Fyrir.

  After a while of futile wandering, they started hearing screams and shouts, echoing off the walls from afar—then, not so far.

  “Eh. That’s a mite bit unsettling.” The scientist squinted down a hallway, then frowned at Astrid. “Also, is that a vodka bottle you’re carrying?

  Astrid lifted it. “Cheers.”

  “You Russki vixen!” admired the old man.

  After some long wandering, they felt a surge of hope upon reaching a sort of lobby area where two hallways intersected, with a couple couches and an empty reception desk. Any change from the endless corridors was welcome.

  Then, better yet, they saw a sign labeled “Organizer’s Office” just past the desk, pointing them onward into another corridor.

  Their excitement curdled upon hearing a sudden howl from that hallway.