Fantasy

Deliver us from digital dragons

Hi Readers,

This past week, we wished our scribe’s deceased sister, Carolyn, a happy birthday in heaven, and our scribed missed her a lot. We (the cast) implored Carolyn to have a quiet word with my Auntie Sovvan the next time Papa’s Guardian Angel drags her back to heaven. We need her to:

  1. stop doing cool things
  2. stop encouraging other characters (Nolo, we’re looking at you.) to do cool things so our poor scribe can end Curse Breaker: Sundered.

I have big plans for the sequel, but we must get there first!

We really wanted Sundered to come out this past Friday, but Nolo decided to do some seriously awesome things. See what the whole Death’s Marksman thing means for Papa’s master in Sundered. We know you’ve been wondering.

Our scribe is working hard to bring it to a conclusion ASAP, and edit it. We hope to have an updated release date by next week if Nolo allows.

As for me,  I’m doing everything I can to usher in the end of that book, so Papa will feed me. You can’t see me, but I’ve grabbed Papa’s hand, and I’m dragging him to the final clash right now.  Just don’t tell him okay? Sometimes the walls between your world and ours thin out, and we hear you. So mums the word. 😉

Last week, we upset the Newsletter-Dragon so much, she delivered an ultimatum instead of the message J.C. gave her. And now back to us trying to extract that information without infuriating her. Wish us luck!

Today’s Adventure

 

Information should only be shared by those you trust, or in Papa’s case, only when absolutely necessary except where I, [Ran], am concerned. Even Uncle Miren looked stunned at the Newsletter-Dragon’s demand. The wheels inside his head were turning and grinding out a counterargument.

I touched Papa’s arm to stop him. He’d been about to cover the crystal with his big hand and do what he’d threatened—un-enchant it. I couldn’t let him do that until the dragon glaring down at us from the ceiling said her piece.

“What’s the cost?” I asked before Uncle Miren or Papa could say anything.

Knowing them and how obstinant they could be, whatever the Newsletter-Dragon demanded wouldn’t go over well unless I made it. That was my job, after all. Too bad no one had informed Uncle Miren about that. He shot me a look that told me to keep quiet, but I couldn’t do that. There were too many hotheads in the room. Even Bear looked upset. If he chimed in, things would go from tense to bad very quickly.

“What do you want in exchange for giving us J.C.’s message.”

The Newsletter-Dragon blinked in astonishment. “I never said—how do you know it’s from Him? It might be from someone else.”

“Like our scribe?”

“It could be. How do you know it wasn’t?”

“Because she doesn’t send messages like that. She doesn’t need to.” I folded my arms over my skinny chest.

“And why not?”

“Because that’s what scribes do. They watch cool characters do interesting things, then they write them down for other people to enjoy. That’s what scribes do.”

And Papa and I were always doing cool things because he couldn’t help it. Papa was as curious as I was, and we both liked to help people. And, Papa was being awfully quiet. Once that wouldn’t have been unusual for him, but after the events in Enchanted, he’d been more talkative.

“If you know everything, little man, then I don’t have to deliver this message.”

The Newsletter-Dragon’s projection flickered, and that made the blue-glowing 1s and 0s zip around her digitally enhanced scales. She seemed to grow larger until her head covered not just the ceiling, but the walls too.

I shrank back and plopped onto Papa’s lap. His magic enfolded me in a warm, protective embrace, and he wrapped a possessive arm around my waist. I leaned into his chest, taking comfort from its regular rise and fall. He’d never let anything happen to me. Ever.

“What do we do now? we need to know what JC’s message was, but she won’t tell us,” I asked him.

At a loss for what do next, I curled into his embrace. It was time for the adults in the room to take over the negotiations. Preferably not my uncle since he was seconds from an outburst of truly epic proportions.

“Oh, she’ll tell us,” Uncle Miren said as he rolled up his sleeves. It sounded more like a threat than a promise.

“You’re going to negotiate with her?” Papa asked. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Negotiate? With that overgrown worm? No way. She’s giving us that message, or she’s not leaving. Can you do that right?”

“I think so.”

Papa’s voice drifted off as his magic dove into the crystal transmitting the Newsletter-Dragon’s likeness on our ceiling. Finger-long stalactites poked through her big glaring eyes and her wrinkled snout, and that just made her look scarier. But there wasn’t much Papa couldn’t do with a crystal, so I took comfort in that and in the brilliant onion-like dome of Papa’s magical shield. Let the newsletter-dragon just try to burn through that.

“Overgrown worm? I’ll show you what an overgrown worm can do.”

Smoke curled out of the dragon’s mouth even though it wasn’t real, and it wreathed her head. I elbowed at Bear. He was playing spectator for some reason.

“Can you help?”

“I guess I can’t make things any worse.” Bear heaved a tired sigh. “Hey, you, dragon, there’s no need to get testy. We can still come to an amicable agreement if you still want that, and I think you do. You came here because you want something from us as badly as we want your message. So let’s discuss that exchange of information you mentioned. What are the terms?”

Bear gave her a gimlet stare with his button eyes. He looked mighty fierce for a stuffed toy animated by a ghost.

“Tell us what you want.” I asked when the silence dragged on for more than a minute, but my plea fell on deaf ears.

The Newsletter-Dragon was locked into a staring contest with Bear. Both refused to blink first. Neither one wanted to lose their dominance game. White light limned Bear’s fuzzy body as a ghostly outline of a black bear rose out of my toy.

“Bear? What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer, but Papa tightened his hold on me, and he tensed for action. So did his magic.

 

Find out next week what Bear’s doing, and hopefully, what the Newsletter-Dragon wants. (Bear permitting. Because you never know what will happen when Bear gets involved.)

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Until next time, dear reader

This is your host, Ran, son of Sarn, “the asker of hard questions” wishing you a great week!