Interlude:

Frank quickly made her way down the sidewalk, heading back to the hotel so that she could meet up with Maestro. They’d completed their earlier bit of business, but now, Frank needed to talk to him about what her team would be doing next. Their last mission hadn’t been as profitable as she’d hoped, and that last batch of clients had been a relatively poor investment. They needed to plan their next move and Frank had a few ideas that she wanted to discuss.

When Frank reached the hotel, she was surprised to see Jag standing out in front of it, using the wall for support. The illusionist, her sometimes lover, looked unstable and almost drunk.

“Jag,” Frank said, the disapproval clear in her sharp tone.

“Frank?” Jag asked, looking around for a moment before squinting at her.

“What is going on?” Frank demanded.

Jag had been completely sober the last time she’d seen the illusionist, and that hadn’t even been half an hour. There was something wrong here.

“What was that?” Jag asked.

Frank activated her soulbound axe and it suddenly appeared in her hand. The familiar weight was comforting, especially when she didn’t know what was going on.

Before Frank could repeat her demand, Jag spat out, “That fucking enchanter…”

“What about her?” Frank asked, her grip tightening around the handle of her axe.

“She escaped,” Jag snarled. “Hit me with some kind of enchantment that really fucked up all my senses.” She shook her head and added, “It’s only about half worn off.”

Frank stared at the other woman, then looked around. There were other people around, people who’d probably seen the entire thing. However, none of them were looking at them. In fact, everyone seemed to be intently looking away. That was to be expected though as most players liked to mind their own business.

“Which way did she go?” Frank demanded.

“No idea,” Jag responded with a growl. “I couldn’t see a damn thing.”

Frank took a deep breath to calm herself, then went into the hotel and straight to the room where she’d last seen Maestro and the enchanter. She grimaced, wondering what she was going to find. As soon as she opened the door, the question was answered.

Maestro and Michaelangelo were both present, though each leaned up against a wall and looked to be in a similar condition as Jag. Both also looked angry. Maestro’s wooden puppets were motionless on the floor, indicating that their magical strings had been cut for the moment.

Frank’s eyes narrowed as she considered what Jag had told her. As far as she knew, Donna didn’t have any banes that could do that kind of thing. So, either Donna learned a new trick, or she’d been keeping an older one up her sleeve just for such a situation.

“I can respect the latter possibility,” Frank mused.

“Frank,” Maestro said with a growl.

“I see that our asset escaped,” Frank said, her eyes darting to the now empty chair. “How long did it take? Fifteen minutes?”

“She wasn’t restrained properly,” Michaelangelo spat out angrily. “And she seems to have some abilities that you never warned us about.”

“She’s a player,” Frank reminded the man. “You should always expect surprises.”

“Frank is correct,” Maestro reluctantly agreed. “We underestimated the rookie enchanter and paid the price.”

Michaelangelo grunted as he picked a scepter up off the floor and examined it. “It was probably some feature of her soulbound artifact.” His expression shifted from angry to almost hungry. “Now, I want to examine it even more.”

Maestro scowled as he picked up the staff that he’d dropped and leaned on it, trying to recover some of his dignity. He took a deep breath to settle himself, then looked at Michaelangelo.

“If the enchanter was to be lobotomized,” he asked carefully, a sadistic smile forming on his lips, “would that interfere with your ability to research her equipment?”

Michaelangelo considered that for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t see why not.”

Frank scowled, not sure that she liked the direction of that question. Capturing the enchanter had come with certain risks, but they’d also come with quite the potential payoff. Unfortunately, her escape had drastically increased those risks and added additional complications, without providing any increase in the final reward.

However, she could see from the expressions of her allies that they wouldn’t accept that option. Michaelangelo was famous for his obsession with artifacts, and this incident seemed to have solidified his resolve. And as for Maestro, this had just changed from business to personal.

“If we are going to continue with this mad venture,” Frank pointed out in resignation, “then we need to be quick about it.”

“Indeed,” Maestro agreed, his eyes narrowing. “We need to recover our lost asset before she’s able to either escape or mount a proper defense.”

----------

Stine scowled in annoyance and frustration, mostly directed at himself. He leaned up against a wall, silently watching people walk past as he thought about his situation and what had gone wrong.

He hated talking about his past life and didn’t even like to think about it. All the corruption that he’d seen and had been unable to do anything about… In the end, all that life had given him had been loneliness, frustration, and bitterness. So why had he brought up the subject?

Donna.

From the first moment that he’d seen Donna, he’d been smitten. She was beautiful, with the kind of looks that hit every one of his preferences. And then there was her attitude. She was sharp tongued and had a bit of an edge, but at the same time, there was also a bit of vulnerability, as though she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. This dichotomy sparked Stine’s interest even further.

The two of them had been flirting with each other since they’d met, and now that they were out of the Labyrinth, Stine thought that they might be able to take it a bit further than that. That was why he’d invited Donna to lunch, so that they could get to know each other without anyone else around. But then he’d opened his mouth.

“Why the hell did I get on my damn soap box?” he grumbled, afraid that he’d scared Donna away. “Why?”

Of course, Donna was a beautiful woman, and there was a long history of men losing their judgement around beautiful women. And as if that wasn’t reason enough, her class relied on presence, which meant that hers was fairly high, even for a relative newcomer.

Presence was a strange stat in that it worked a little differently for everyone. That made sense since it was all about pushing your own presence out into the world, and everyone was different. Some players developed a natural aura of intimidation…or of challenge, which subtly encouraged anyone to attack. Some, like Maestro, seemed to become charismatic and worth listening to. And then there was Donna. She just seemed easy to talk to.

“Too easy,” Stine grumbled to himself. And he wasn’t even sure how much of that was her presence, and how much was just her.

Just then, Stine noticed two men walking past. They were both dressed in casual clothes that were similar to what he was currently wearing, and neither of them seemed to be players. He assumed that they were among the normal people who worked in town. What caught his attention was their conversation, which he couldn’t help but overhearing.

“So,” the first man said, “these three wooden puppets were just walking down the street… No strings or anything…” He gestured back the way they’d come. “There must be a new summoner in town.”

“Wooden puppets?” Stine asked.

The man who’d been talking paused and gave Stine a look of annoyance, though whether from the ‘eavesdropping’ or the interruption, Stine didn’t know. His friend stopped as well, giving Stine a suspicious look.

“Sorry,” Stine quickly apologized. “I couldn’t help but overhearing your conversation.” Then he carefully asked, “But did you happen to see a black man nearby. No hair and a white beard. Probably holding a staff.”

The man who’d been speaking blinked at that, then looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know, I think I did.”

“Do you know him?” the second man asked, now more curious than suspicious.

“Yes, I do,” Stine answered with a thoughtful frown. “But I had no idea he was in the area.”

“Well, he was down that way,” the first man said, gesturing back down the street again. “If you wanted to catch up.”

“Thank you,” Stine told the men before they continued on their way.

Stine frowned, wondering what Maestro was doing in Moose Tow. He knew that Frank had called Maestro a couple days earlier, almost as soon as they’d gotten out of the Labyrinth, but he saw no reason for the animator to have come to see them personally.

“Something is going on,” he mused as his old instincts stirred. “Something fishy.”

A couple seconds later, Stine started moving towards the hotel where he knew Frank was staying. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew how to find out.

When Stine reached the hotel, he saw that Jag and Frank were standing in front of it, having a conversation. Jag looked kind of messed up, the kind that usually happened after a night of hard drinking. Frank was clearly annoyed at her, at least until she explained what was happening.

Stine was about to join them, until Jag said the words ‘fucking enchanter’. He paused at that, then stood back and continued to listen in. His interest sharpened even further when Jag added, “she escaped.”

For a moment, Stine considered marching over and interrogating his teammates about what was going on, but he had a feeling that he already had an idea. Frank had been unusually interested in Donna since learning that she had a soulbound item. Stine was sure that this had something to do with that, though he was still missing the details. After all, it wasn’t like soulbound items could be stolen.

Once Frank went into the hotel, Stine turned and hurried away, being careful to not be seen by Jag. He didn’t know what his teammates were up to, but he was going to find out. But first, he had to go see if Donna was okay.

----------

The man in the ragged cloak, who had once been known as Wolf, stood back and stared at the approaching primal. It was an earth elemental, a being that resembled a ten-foot-tall stone statue. It came straight at him in a slow but steady charge that was obviously intended to crush him.

Wolf rolled his shoulders as he readied himself to deal with the threat. He wished that he still had his sword, but he’d lost that during his most recent battle with Big Bad, and he had yet to find a replacement.

He wasn’t worried about this primal, but he was frustrated. It had attacked him without apparent cause, though Wolf knew exactly why it was doing so. It couldn’t help itself. Ever since he’d made that deal… That stupid deal that he still cursed himself for, every primal he encountered either attacked him on sight or ran away. As an invoker, that effectively crippled his class. How could he bargain with a primal for new abilities when they never gave him the chance to do so?

“You don’t have to do this,” Wolf tried to reason with the elemental, though he already knew it was pointless. “I don’t have the time to waste with this nonsense…”

The elemental didn’t respond or even hesitate in any way. Instead, it punched at Wolf with its massive fist, though he quickly stepped aside. He grimaced, hating to waste his power this way, not when he would need every ounce he possessed to deal with Big Bad.

Wolf activated one of his abilities and a swirl of black smoke formed around his body. Black smoke tentacles reached out and wrapped around the elemental, pulling it off balance so that it fell to the ground.

The invoker leapt on top of the primal, knowing that he only had seconds to act. He held his hand against the entity and snarled, “Syphon,” as he activated the named ability.

This ability tore primal power straight out of the elemental and pulled it into Wolf’s body. He felt it joining the power that he’d stolen from several other primals, giving him power and abilities that he once would have had to bargain for.

Seconds later, the elemental tore free from Wolf’s grip and got back to it’s feet, knocking him off. It turned to stomp on him, but he flared one of his other abilities, one which surged around him. In an instant, the primal’s aggression changed to fear and it turned to flee. Wolf stood back and let it go.

“Damn infernal,” he spat out, thinking of the last primal that he’d actually been able to bargain with.

At the time, he’d known it was a bad idea. However, he’d been a fool. A power-hungry fool. Well, he got the power he craved, but it had come with a price. He was now stuck with an aura that he couldn’t turn off, an aura which that every primal in the area could sense.

It was this aura that had woken Big Bad from where it had been long asleep. It was this aura which drew the primal wolf to him over and over again. Every primal could sense his aura, but Big Bad seemed to be especially sensitive to it, and Wolf knew that this was no coincidence.

“That damn infernal,” Wolf snarled with even more vehemence.

The infernal had intentionally connected Wolf to the wolf, and had pushed them into a conflict that was kill or be killed. In the end, only one of them would be able to walk away. And the entire time, the infernal was probably laughing its ass off at the irony of the situation.

Wolf took a deep breath to steady himself, then he growled under his breath. This whole situation with the elemental had slowed him down and had allowed Big Bad to get even further ahead of him. With that in mind, Wolf continued following Big Bad’s trail while hoping that he wouldn’t be too late.