The water was cold and dark, and swift and very, very grabby. That swiftness yanked Kim out of the way of the next few burning arrows, their flames continuing to burn underwater as they zipped to the bottom and exploded. Kim kicked her legs, fought to rise, broke the surface, sucked in a deep breath, then was pulled under, which luckily allowed her to avoid another volley of unpleasantly exploding arrows. As her wits came back, she struggled her way across the stream and further along the bank. She had swum enough, both in public pools and in nature, that even though the temperature was shocking, it didn't completely stun her. The biggest difference was trying to make her way forward while fully dressed, with a sword that weighed her down like an anchor.

  The next exploding arrow was bright enough to reveal that the opposite bank was within reach. Kim waited until she was as far along as she could get before raising her head above water. She sputtered, clambering along the weeds and soft riverbed.

  Something clamped onto her arm, and yanked her out, just as another arrow hit right where she'd been crawling. "You swim like a dead war pig," Fiora said, throwing Kim ahead, so that she stumbled onward. "Now run like a stuck war pig." Damon was about twenty feet ahead, then ten, then five as they caught up with him. Fiora grabbed both of them by an arm and ran, dragging them along.

  The librarian continued to float above the opposite side of the river, her glowing bow making her look like some kind of avenging, vindictive and beaked goddess that had sprung fully formed from a thesaurus. She loosed another arrow.

  "Run fast! Run wild!" Fiora shouted, yanking them to the left, as an arrow hit the ground and exploded, sending dirt and potatoes in every direction like shrapnel. "All she has are her arrows—she can't use her source words because of that poem." Another arrow burst behind them and, in that same moment, Fiora spread her wings, lifting both Kim and Damon into the air as the explosion sent more potato pieces skyward.

  "The arrows seem to be enough to kill us," Damon said.

  "Deceiver!" Fiora shouted. "Don't speak!"

  They landed and kept running.

  "COME BACK OR DIE A FOUL DEATH!" Günter demanded, her voice shaking leaves off the nearby trees.

  "Ah, good!" Fiora slowed down. "She can't reach us here."

  "How do you know?" Kim asked.

  "If she could still hit us," Fiora said. "She wouldn't be asking us to come back." They turned. Günter floated above the river, holding that glowing bow. "Her power ends at the Bretbachneil river," Fiora explained. "The source words only work in a small radius of the library where she learned them. Although they can carry those words around in a book. She needed to get to us before we left Poison."

  The librarian let loose another arrow that arced in the air towards them. Kim grabbed Damon's arm, but the arrow landed in the same place as the previous one, blowing up more potatoes.

  "Return to me!" Günter shouted. "Or die!"

  "We are safe now, aren't we—" Damon started to say.

  Fiora grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up so his feet dangled in the air. "Do you have rainbow vision? Tell me right now before I go all ripper on you."

  "Uh," Damon said. "I… maybe. Can you describe it?"

  "Do you see people's Metal Health floating above them? Do you know when they are about to die? Can you tell when they are angry?"

  "Oh," Damon coughed. "You're angry now. Right?"

  Fiora shook him like he was a rag doll. "Don't prevaricate!"

  "Fiora!" Kim said. "You might kill him."

  "Good!" Fiora shouted. "Tell me if you have it! Now!"

  "I do," he whispred.

  She lifted him higher. "And why didn't you tell me you had the sight?" Fiora asked.

  "We didn't know if it was important," Kim said.

  Fiora snapped her snout towards Kim, and the look of pure rage on the dragonspawn's face made Kim step back. "You knew about his betrayal?"

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Uh, yes," Kim said.

  "So, do you have the sight, Frizzie?"

  Kim put up her hands. "No, no. We think it's gamers who have it. I'm not a gamer. Really, I'm not."

  "No secrets between us!" Fiora shouted and shook Damon. More flames came out of her nostrils, and Kim realized Damon would not need to shave any time soon. She then wondered how often he shaved, because he had grown no stubble in the time they'd been on Metaloria. Stop thinking about him shaving! she told herself.

  "Yes, I see numbers," Damon said. "As you punched that elf, his numbers went down. And the same thing happened with the j?rk and the mutt mindslayers and…"

  Fiora dropped Damon. "So, while I was fighting the j?rk, you could have told me its Metal Health?"

  "It knocked you out, remember?" Kim said. "We fought it."

  "Fine," she said. "The mutt mindslayers, then. You could have let me know how hard I had to punch them. And the Deathcrush Tentacled Rat Demon, how many life points did it have?"

  "Four hundred and sixteen," Damon said.

  "I would never have won against that rat," Fiora said. "It was too powerful. A good thing you two—wait, how much Metal Health does Blayre possess?"

  Damon hesitated before saying: "Two thousand five hundred and twenty points."

  "Metal gods!" She put a hand to her necklace. "I thought he was exaggerating his powers. Why did the sad wings of destiny entangle me with him?"

  "The numbers were almost too bright to look at." Damon hadn't let go of Kim's hand, and, feeling awkward about that, she helped him up. Kim glanced over her shoulder.

  "Uh, the librarian is gone," Kim said.

  "She's getting more henchmen or henchwomen or a source book or…" She said the next word with derision. "…more elves. Time to be hadesbent for leather."

  Fiora then began running down a wagon path between the potato fields. Kim and Damon followed. The two moons of Metaloria glowed in the sky, giving them just enough light to see a few feet ahead.

  "You should not have kept this secret from me," Fiora shouted as they ran. "It is a precious gift that you have."

  "It is?" Damon said. "I mean, I see why it is. I can guess how weak someone is."

  "Some with the sight can even tell whether their opponents are telling lies or falsehoods," Fiora said. Kim was relieved Damon didn't correct her for saying lies and falsehoods as if they were separate things. "And others have been able to change the numbers they see."

  "You mean kill someone by lowering their Metal Health?" Kim said. She was pleased with her question, because it meant she was understanding how Metaloria worked.

  "Yes. Or to make them less intelligent. Or to have their spells vanish. There are many ways rainbow vision can be used…. So, it is invaluable and incredibly dangerous."

  "Why is it called rainbow vision?" Damon asked.

  "All the colours we can see are in rainbows, so you can see all the colours of our Metal Health." She wasn't even puffing as she explained. "Also, Dio likes rainbows."

  "So did our Dio," Damon said. "The one on Earth."

  "They are not the same!"

  They had reached a forested part of the trail. The taller trees leaned over them, turning the two moons into shadows. "Why did they want to eat his brains?" Kim asked. Which is not a question she had ever asked in her lifetime before.

  "Oh, that," Fiora replied. "By consuming his squishy grey matter, a portion of the power will pass along to the eater. Uh, the eatee. Well, to whoever eats the brains."

  Damon was holding his head. "Does eating my brains really work?"

  "If the librarian, one of the most knowledgeable of creatures, believed it, then it is most likely true. Or else your brains taste extra good." Fiora barked out a laugh. "I wouldn't know without tasting them."

  Damon shuffled over so that Kim was between Fiora and him.

  "Don't fear me, spawnling," Fiora said. "If I had any designs on consuming your flesh or your brains or your entrails or your bones or sucking out your marrow or crunching down on your juicy eyeballs, those parts of you would have been long ago consumed."

  "A simple 'I won't eat you' is all you have to say," Damon said.

  "Ah, I was being insensitive." Fiora reached across, knocking Kim back a few steps, and rubbed Damon's head. "You are too valuable to lose now. King Fidds will not expect any power from someone as simple and weak in Metal Health as you."

  "Hey," Damon said.

  "I am a truth-speaker," Fiora replied. "Speaking of the truth, how did she know about your skill?"

  "Uh," Damon said. "I… I saw a word above her head when we were in the library. And I was so shocked to see it, I whispered it aloud."

  "It was once of her source words," Fiora said. "Interesting. What did it say?"

  "Yngwie," Damon said.

  "Well, that means nothing to me," Fiora said.

  "In my world, he's a guitarist. Well, not just any guitarist but a neoclassical metal virtuoso. He's amazing! You need to hear Rising Force and—"

  "Enough!" Fiora hissed. "I have no interest in your world."

  "So," Kim said. "We don't have any of our supplies. Nor do we have rations. How is it we will make this journey to the land of …"

  "Balladria," Damon finished for her. He tapped his head. "I kept the map in my brains."

  "One step at a time," Fiora said. "Ol' Strutter here is our bow fodder."

  "Strutter?" Kim said.

  "Yes, one who struts."

  "I don't strut!" Her hand naturally went to the hilt of her sword. "But I accept the fact that you only see me as a walking pincushion."

  "Yes, that's the spirit!" Fiora looked up at the stars and sighed. "This is a Rock'n'Roll Damnation of a situation we're in, but I now have a thimbleful of belief that we might actually have a chance of surviving."

  "You think we'll get this druid king's head, bring it back to Blayre, and live?" Damon asked.

  "Oh, no, not at all." Fiora added a jovial rumble of a chuckle for good measure. "I mean, we might make it to the borderlands of Balladria. After that, they'll dismember our bodies, cut off our heads and plant us in the ground as worm food. We will help their crops, and that will really rock." She sighed again. "But the good news is, as long as you're quiet, they won't eat your brains." Her next laugh scared away several sleeping birds.