100th Post!

It's the 100th post! Come one come all! And you know what that means: FINALLY that uber-special chapter of The Diadem! Here's the epilogue to the previous chapter and the story by me to get you caught up:

Prequel: Melting Fear

By Caroline Dawnrunner

    I trembled, feeling suddenly cold all over. I felt a warm, reassuring hand on my shoulder. I turned around and I saw Rebecca’s faceless expression staring at the bed.

    “What happened?” I asked shakily.

    “Well, uh, you started whispering, ‘ehh, go away’, and then you started shivering and turning over. Then my elbow got really cold, and I, uh, realized the bed was turning to ice. So I unstuck you from the sheets and bed (which were all turning to ice) and I got you in the kitchen to get warm. I, uh, also started breathing on you, does that bother you? Naw, it doesn’t bother you, I can tell.”

    “Oh my gosh, really?” I muttered.

    “Uh, yeah,” Rebecca replied. “Listen, you, uh, should get some sleep. You probably shouldn’t sleep on the bed; sleep on the floor. You can have my sleeping bag if you like.”

    I thanked Rebecca and crawled inside the sleeping bag.

    I woke up a bit later with my head feeling cold and wet. I looked up behind be and saw that the black ice on the bed had melted. I looked back down at my sleeping bag-covered body. I pulled the cover closer to me, but I still didn’t feel safe.

Part 1: Meowiarty, the Crime Boss

    “You ready?”

    Valerian Seasong stared at me hard.

    “Yeah,” I said quickly.

    I stared up at the sign Big Ben. It stared back at me, as though repeating Valerian’s question. I looked now at the 1700’s style elevator with the intricate designs on it. Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the gauntlet and started the countdown. I heard Valerian join behind me. 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1—in.

    Ding!

    The elevator stopped at the first floor. The doors opened and the two of us scrambled outside, but only to be attacked by rats! We leaped into combat with the first challenge in the tower. Luckily our turn was first. Whew.

    I casted a Myth Blade on myself and Valerian used a Fire Blade. Then the rats used those things I really, really hate—Weakness. Awful spell. They casted both on me. That wasn’t a good start. I rifled through my deck, looking for my wand attacks. There! Super Clash. I used it on the next turn I had. One of my weaknesses was gone. Valerian used a trap. One rat used a blood bat. Very injurious. The second one passed.

    Third turn I used my second wand attack, ridding me of the last weakness. Valerian used a Kraken on one of the rats, making the rat fall over on its feet and fade away. The remaining rat passed again. The next round started and I got a power pip. Yes! I casted the Minotaur spell on the last rat, ending the fight.

    “Meowiarty, finish them!”

    Malistaire vanished, leaving behind a puff of smoke

    “Omigod, he’s gone!” Valerian hollered.

    “He said something about a Dragon Spyre…”

    Valerian and I were on the top floor of Big Ben, which was inside the clock. You could see the cogs and the flywheels and the gears turning on the clock. In the center of the room was Meowiarty, in the flesh and proud of it. Next to him was the Agony Wraith (I think Wraiths are actually supposed to be ghosts, but natural definitions don’t work that way in the Spiral.) Next to the two was one of the constructs from Katzenstein’s Lab. All three looked like they meant serious biz.

    Valerian eyed the three nervously. “Nobody told me there would be THREE foes at the end of Big Ben! Maybe we should come back next time with a friend—”

    “C’mon, the construct doesn’t count! And we’ve come this far. Besides, do you wanna get to Mooshu right away or not?”

    Valerian grinned. “Alright. For Mooshu!”

    So we jumped into combat.

    “Caroline!” Valerian shouted over the music (annoying music I should mention—really pierces your eardrums.) “I’m gonna target Meowiarty! You get the construct!”

    Ok: He gets Meowiarty; I get the construct—no fair! I brought prisms—what if I wanted to fight Meowiarty too? He gets all the boss glory and I don’t. That’s not cool.

    So on the third round I casted a Minotaur and defeated the construct. The horned menace struck the damaging blow on the thing and then it started bobbling its head around, just like when you defeat a wizard in PvP. Not as exciting as Meowiarty falling flat on his face. Then it was Valerian’s turn, and he casted a 2k-damaging Seraph—on the Agony Wraith! How unfair is that? He gets both bosses while I only get the construct.

    So the duel went on. Valerian used all his Storm Treasure card buffs: Storm trap, Elemental trap, Stormwind… it felt boring to keep passing. Meowiarty attacked Valerian a lot, but he didn’t seem to really care. It wasn’t fair. He was all greedy for fighting the bosses and I got left in the dust. He’d been my friend for… how long?

    “Where’s the museum, where’s the museum, where’s the museum…”

    Since the week before I started Big Ben. I guess that wasn’t very long.

    “Do you need help?”

    Valerian. That’s the first time I met him.

    “Actually, yeah. Do you know where the museum is?”

   “Yeah! You can follow me.”

  Pretty much how it started. We’d gone through Marleybone side by side, from Hyde Park to the Counterweights. It kinda burned knowing that now he was being selfish when it came to beating bosses. I don’t think he knew he was being selfish either.

    Valerian casted another Storm Treasure card, but instead of it boosting him, I had a Storm Blade. Whoops. I thought he kind of deserved to make a mistake there. Then the next round came, and Meowiarty used a Minotaur on Valerian, bringing him down to 3 hp. Then he used another Treasure card—this time Elemental Blade. On me. I thought it was a coincidence that he messed up his buff a second time, but then he threw a Storm treasure card at me—Stormzilla. He wanted me to deal the damaging blow. He wasn’t so selfish!

    The next and final round began with Meowiarty. He smiled and used a Bloodbat on Valerian, dealing 75 damage. Not a lot, but Valerian was defeated. His head spun around like he was dizzy.

    So then I used the Storm Treasure card on the cat—the spotted yellow egg appeared at the center of the swirling vortex, then split appeared and unleashed the huge dinosaur. It hopped up and down a couple times, then blasted 6k damage at Meowiarty. The evil feline comically fell flat on his face, and the duel ended. I received the Mastermind badge, but Valerian didn’t. I kinda felt a little bad for thinking that he was selfish.

    “Hey Caroline?”

    Valerian was whispering to me from Regent’s Square.

    “Yeah?”

   “Sorry I died. You think we could do Big Ben again so I can go to Mooshu?”

   “Sure. That’s what friends are for.”

That was from a post before this one, but since so much time has passed...

Oh yeah, and Aedan did a story. I didn't actually understand the whole plot, but he said it was an assault by The Cold Master...

The Snow Devil

By Aedan Thunderpyre

    “Uh…whoa.”

    Yeah. Whoa. Rebecca and I watched as a bright purple blimp soared over our heads, then disappeared into the stormy gray clouds.

    “What…was that?” Rebecca asked.

    “Noooo idea,” I replied.

    Marleybone was turning out to be a weird place from the moment we stepped outside. For one thing, it was only nighttime there. For another, I had had enough of these Twilight Zone people. The dogs in Krokotopia were just a taster for the people here. All the people were cats, dogs, rats, frogs, or something or the other. No human exceptions, except for wizards doing quests.

    “Hey Aedan?” Rebecca asked.

    “Yes?”

    “Look! A water fountain!”

    Rebecca ran toward a drab-looking water fountain with murky water and jumped right in, getting her whopping Marleybone dress wet. She didn’t seem to mind at all. She just splashed around, making ripples and laughing. Her Heckhound was just as crazy. It was swimming all over the place, doing doggy paddles and such. A couple dogs shot disapproving looks.

    I shot Rebecca a look. She didn’t notice. Instead, she plugged her nose and went under. I sighed and walked a few blocks away—and almost fell when I met the end of the world.

    I didn’t fall. Instead, I toppled over. Beneath me was an endless stretch of sky with twinkling stars going on forever. I gripped the edge of the sidewalk before I could fall into the chasm and pulled myself back up. I decided I would walk back over to Rebecca, but instead I stood at the edge, staring into the void and wondering why all the realms in the Spiral are so small. Well, actually the entire spiral was supposed to be one big world like all the other worlds in the universe, but during the war between the Dragons, Frost Giants, and Tritons the world was broken up into little hubs that created the Spiral. The space between each realm was sort of the intersection between worlds. I wondered if I jumped down there I would fall somewhere else in the Spiral…

    “Hey Aedan?”

    Rebecca stood behind me.

    “We’re supposed to be at the Museum,” she said, sounding a little annoyed.

  

    Twenty minutes later I was on a balloon ride with Rebecca to Hyde Park. Whatever this mysterious mystery was, it started here. Once the balloon landed, I couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped into combat at the first rat I saw.

    The dueling circle lit up and the spinner pointed at me. I was first. I took out my Adept deck and consulted my cards, then chose Lighting Bats. This rat had to know who he was dealing with. So I pulled out the card, traced the Storm symbol, and let it rip.

    The bats swirled out of the dark void thing and circled around the rat, getting rid of half his health. Past him, I saw Rebecca walking by me, her eyes avoiding the fight like the plague.

    It was the rat’s turn now. He only had one pip, so I was sure he couldn’t inflict too much damage. He took out a blue card and grinned. He traced the ice symbol, and something happened that I wasn’t expecting.

    He had a Snow Angel card.

    The scene went all chilly, and the not-so-angelic Angel appeared and took a swipe at me. I jumped back in surprise and fell out of the dueling circle. The circle disappeared as though I’d fled, because if you leave the dueling circle, the fight’s over. That’s why you have to learn how to keep your eyes open when someone slaps their hands in your face in Ravenwood. But the Snow Angel was still there.

    The rat that attacked me walked on as if nothing had happened, but the Snow Angel took another whack at me. I ducked. Bad move. My head slammed into a building. Hard.

    I pulled out my deck and frantically looked for a card that might get rid of the Snow Angel and found Meteor Strike. I frantically outlined the Fire symbol and let the spell work its magic.

    The Meteors came out of the sky and rained down on the Snow Angel. We weren’t actually in a duel, so I had no idea how much health it had, but all I know is that the spell only did 235 points worth if damage. The Snow Angel took out a gold card and traced the Ice symbol, and out came a Frost Giant!

    The giant hit me with such force that made me lose over half my health, and stunned me. Luckily I got 5 stun shields thoughJ.

    Since I was stunned, the angel (or should I say devil) was free to cast another spell on me. This time it took out a blue card and cast Evil Snowman. Evil Frosty hit for 310 damage. After that I wasn’t stunned anymore, so I looked at my health globe. Man, I wasn’t doing good! I only had 125 hp left. I used pixie to restore my health, but it didn’t do me justice. I regret not choosing Life as my secondary school.

    Next the Snow Angel used Ice Wyvern. It nearly took all my health away. I used Meteor Strike again, but it didn’t help me too very much. The Snow Angel pulled out another Ice card, going for the kill…

    …And was blown to bits.

    An Efreet stood where the Snow Angel/Devil had been, then vanished. Behind it stood Rebecca Duskglade.

    “Hmm… good thing I have this Efreet Treasure Card,” she said. “How did a Snow Angel get in Hyde Park?”

    “Rebecca,” I said, “I think you just saved my life!”

    “Well I hope you’ve learned something from this.”

    “Huh?”

    “STOP BEING SO IMPULSIVE!!!”

And this is my friend Valerians' story, and the narration is omniscient. I know it's much better than the first two, but that's cuz Valerian took creative writing classes.

Katz Lab

By Valerian Seasong

    Sherlock Bones looked through his papers, searching frantically for some hint…

    It had been three days since Dr. Katzenstein had unleashed his army of automatons in Chelsea Court and stole construct parts from a scientist studying some of the clockworks. Why… he had no idea. For the first time in his career, Sherlock Bones was stumped.

    “Bones?”

    Watson stood in the doorway of Bone’s office.

    “Just a moment, Watson. I need to look this over first.”

    “Well, actually…” Watson shifted his weight from one paw-foot to the next. “I have somebody here who you’ve met a while back. His name is Valerian Seasong, and he has been working tirelessly on Knight’s Court to help the residents for the past couple days. He thinks he can help you with the case.”

    Sherlock’s ears perked up. This person might be able to help find out what Katzenstein was planning.

    “Send him in,” Sherlock said confidently.

    A wizard stepped inside the office. He looked confident and stood up tall.

    “Hey,” he said. “You might remember me from the other day, when I was talking with you and Baxter.”

    Sherlock stared at the boy for a moment, then remembered the events that had taken place a couple days ago.

    “Oh yeah! I remember now. Your name is Valerian, right?”

    “Yep,” Valerian replied. “And I want to help you against Dr. Katzenstein. How should I start?”

    “Well, if you would go infiltrate his lab and find out what he’s up to, that would be a dream come true…”

    “I can do it, Mr. Bones!”

    Valerian beamed at Sherlock, his green eyes shining from the light of the overhead lamp.

    Bones smiled, because if the wizard was as confident as he sounded, Sherlock might be able to crack the case after all.

    “Well, if you really think you can, Katzenstein’s lab is located on the remote side of Newgate Prison. I’m sure Watson can help you from there.”

    “Sounds good to me!” Valerian said. Valerian walked out of the office with Watson following steadily behind him.

   

    In the next half-hour Valerian defeated several clockwork bosses, right next to solving a few insignificant puzzles until he was finally ready to defeat Katzenstein.

    As Valerian navigated his way through the machine spiders, he prepared his deck with Myth Treasure cards. In duels, Valerian’s Treasure cards were his trademark in a boss fight. Whatever class the boss was, he always countered it, ever since General Akilles. This time he had some of the highest level Myth cards, like Minotaur, Earthquake, Orthrus, and Medusa.

    A few minutes later, Valerian stood in the entrance to Katzenstein’s inner chambers. He took a deep breath, gripped his staff and his deck tightly, and rushed to meet the cat.

    Dr. von Katzenstein stood down a small flight of stairs from Valerian. The feline taunted Valerian for a bit, but Valerian jumped into battle right away.

    Dr. Katzenstein’s turn was first, which meant he had an advantage. Valerian looked through his deck for a good spell to start out on. He thought a good Treasure card to use first would be Balanceblade, but Dr. Katzenstein might be one of the bosses that used Weakness, so he decided to play it safe and use one of his wand attacks from his Life staff. Sure enough, Dr. Katzenstein’s first move was Weakness—but Valerian easily eradicated it with his wand attacks. Katzenstein looked a little annoyed that Valerian had predicted his wand attack so well.

    On the second turn, Dr. Katzenstein put a Storm Trap on Valerian, and he used a Myth Blade. On the third round, Valerian used a Myth Trap on Katzenstein’s minion, and next he used Humungofrog which slayed the minion and took away a fraction of Katzenstein’s health, but it wasn’t enough to beat him.

    Valerian and Dr. Katzenstein spent the next few rounds using traps and blades and different boosts. Finally the round came when Katzenstein pulled out a gold card and showed the other side of the card to Valerian from the across the dueling circle, grinning. Valerian swallowed hard.

    The Treasure card said ‘Leviathan’.

    Valerian gulped. He may have been a Theurgist, but he didn’t have enough health to withstand such a big attack. He crossed his fingers in hope that he would have enough health left to heal after the assault.

    Dr. Katzenstein activated the Storm symbol…

    And fizzled.

    Valerian could barely keep himself from breathing out a sigh of relief. He was safe! The spinner landed on him next. He desperately needed this one not to fizzle, because then it would be over. He pulled out his best trump in the deck: Medusa.

    The snake-woman appeared in the dueling circle and gave Katzenstein the beating he deserved. Valerian had hoped that the cat would have been defeated, but Dr. Katzenstein still stood adamantly in his little circle. But it didn’t matter, because Katzenstein was stunned! There was no worry now in finishing him off.

    Sherlock Bones sat at his desk, flicking through papers but not actually taking in a word on them. It had been nearly an hour since Valerian had left for the Katz lab. Had he succeeded in his task? Or was he recovering in Regent Square? All these thoughts flashed through his head, but were interrupted when the creaked open.

    In stepped Valerian and Watson, both grinning from ear to ear. Valerian’s Aeronaut badge had been replaced by Smogger Smasher. Bones gazed at the two elated men, until Valerian broke the silence:

    “I beat Dr. Katzenstein! He was making a clockwork that knew where Meowiarty is hiding. He’s in Big Ben!”

    Sherlock jumped up.

    “Quick! Go over to the Museum! I’ll meet you there. We have no time to waste!”

    His blood pumping, Sherlock Bones watched as Valerian sprinted out the door. This kid is really something, Bones thought to himself. Could he be the one who will actually beat Malistaire?

That's it. Not very long, huh?

I would've posted this on Friday, but my family and I were going on a mini-vacation that day and only came back on Sunday night. Oh yeah, and I started playing this MMORPG called Dragon's Call.

It's this free Browser game that gets you started right away. As in right away I mean RIGHT AWAY. It's literally like, you register your email and password, you pick a server, you choose a class, gender and name, and that's it. End of story. You're on your  way.
    The game is really fun up until you lose all your newbie health packs. Then you have to start buying a bunch from the Tavern in a town or city, which is a real pain in the neck, plus it eats up all your money. I'll probably never play it again.
    Rereading the short stories makes me kinda homesick for Wizard101. Tears actually spring to my eyes as I realize there might me zero chance of me ever playing Wintertusk...
    Today was pretty cool too because I went on a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village. It's my second-to-last field trip until my 7th year of schoolin and it was fun!!! I got a bonnet in the Gift Shop and it looked nice :)
    I'm pretty amazed that this blog reached the 100th post so fast. I'm also encouraging you to read some of the past posts of A Spell of Role-Playing Games and Randomness.

--Have fun Gaming!
-Caroline Dawnrunner

The Diadem Part 4

NO! NO! NO! NO!
FAIL! FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

So now I have a subscription to Runescape :)
You know, they warn about Mild Violence and Crude Humor in Wizard101, but how about the drinking contest in the Runescape quest 'Fremmenik Trials'? Yeah, that's appropriate for your children. Booze. Yeah, that's a REAL good influence. *cough* sarcasm

And here is your short-awaited next chapter in The Diadem: The Bed of Ice!

    “CAROLINE, CAROLINE, CAROLINE!”

    I was being shaken awake by Rebecca Duskglade.

    “Mehh,” I muttered sleepily.

    Rebecca shook me harder. “Get off your lazy bum! I want help in Grizzelheim!”

    My eyes snapped open. The first thing I saw was a sky blue eye staring me in the face. “Come again?”

    “Please help me with Grizzelheim, I’m not gonna do it alone with that pest,” she said.

    “Okay, but you have to help me with the Ironworks after,” I sighed. “But what’s wrong with Aedan? Seriously?”

    Rebecca did not answer.

    I put a foot out of my warm bed and put pressure on the floor. I took out my robes and got dressed behind a divider.

    “So how is Grizzelheim?” I asked Rebecca.

    “We haven’t started yet, but it sounds fun,” Rebecca said. “Aedan wanted to fight Krokopatra, but Grizzelheim is supposed to be really cool, so I wanna do that first.”

    I came out from the divider in my Magus clothing. “I haven’t actually started the Grizzelheim thing yet, so I guess we could make that a thing, you know, adventuring together in Grizzelheim.”

    “Yeah,” Rebecca agreed.

Y Y Y

    I hadn’t actually started the Grizzelheim quest, so Rebecca and I stopped at Merle Ambrose’s house for the quest before going to Aedan’s dorm room.

    I knocked on the door when we got to Aedan’s student dorm. The door opened after I’d barely knocked, and in front of me was Aedan Thunderpyre. He had serious bed-head and was wearing indigo footie pajamas. When I looked over his shoulder, the room looked pretty unclean. I saw half a pizza slice sitting on the floor and the bed looked as though it had been ransacked. The agreeing aroma of eggs and bacon was wafting in from the next room.

    “Oh,” Aedan sighed when he saw us. He looked disappointed.

    “What?” Rebecca asked sharply.

    “Nothing, it’s just that I was expecting the exterminator.” Aedan looked behind him nervously. Out from under his bed came a HUUUUUUUUUGE roach. It was slightly bigger than me. You could see its four legs, pincers, and beady black eyes in perfect detail. Rebecca eeped and I ewwed.

    Aedan yelled and ran to hide behind Rebecca. I’m only scared of small bugs because I heard that the black widow, the most poisonous spider in existence, is very small, but a Daddy-Longlegs is quite large and can’t hurt humans with its poison, so I went inside the room and tackled the roach. I took out my Athame of the Sleuth and stabbed it in the belly, so the insect screeched and its eyes closed. At the same time a bunch of pus or roach gut thingies were released from his wound. Aedan eeped and Rebecca rushed to the bathroom.

    “Blech,” Aedan said, covering his nose. “Gross. How am I ever gonna clean this up?”

    “Don’t worry,” I said. I took out my Cleanse Ward card and all the trash got sucked up and everything was put back in its proper place.

    “Aww geez. How can I ever repay you?” Aedan asked.

    “Well, Rebecca wants help in Northguard, so…”

    “Yeah, I’ll help her. Do you want breakfast?” Aedan scrambled to the kitchen and gave me a plate with a Cinnabun, some bacon and a bagel. A glass of orange juice was in his right hand.

    “Oh that’s okay, I just ate,” I said. “That looks really good though. Did you make it yourself?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Cool, do you take cooking lessons?”

    “No.”

    “So it’s natural talent?”

    “Yes sir.”

    “You mean yes ma’am.”

    “Meh.”

    Rebecca came back from the bathroom. Her hat was in her hands, her hair was tousled, and her breath smelled like rat poo. “Do any of you guys have a breath mint I could borrow?”

Y Y Y

    Aedan was taking forever to eat breakfast and get changed for the day. When we asked him why his entire morning routine took forever, he tried to be cute and said, “I used to have a guy for that.”

    Rebecca sighed and told Aidan that at this rate we were going to meet him at Northguard at five o’ clock in the eve-noon, because Rebecca and I both needed to go have lunch and I needed to go to Marleybone for my Crafting class with Felicia Worthington, and Rebecca had a duel scheduled with a guy she had a grudge against.

    So after those things happened, we were standing in Northguard a couple hours later waiting for Aedan to show up. I was playing with my pet Sunbird, Snoopy, while Rebecca rocked back and forward on her feet, checking her watch every few seconds. On her ten-thousandth time-check, Rebecca yelled into the air, “SIX O’ CLOCK!!! WHERE IS THAT GUY!?!?” Several bears craned their heads in our direction.

    “Man, it’s so dull just standing here,” I yawned. “Even the rainbow is no longer pretty now. Hey, can I have some water again? I left my canteen at home.”

    Rebecca unscrewed the lid and poked her eye inside the water canteen. “There isn’t any water left in the bottle. Here, go fill it up by the river.” Rebecca tossed the container to me.

    I strolled over to the river and dunked the bottle into the river. As I was putting the lid back on, I noticed a certain Adept Diviner swimming in the river.

    “OH MY GOSH, AEDAN, I’M GOING TO KILL YOU,” I shouted.

    My impractical pal swam to shore. “Oh, there you guys are,” he said aggravatedly. “I was waiting for like, an hour and a half. Where were you guys?”

    “Oh, just over the rainbow, where the pot of gold was,” I said as though sarcastically. Actually, Rebecca was sitting right near the rainbow next to her Death Leprechaun.

    Aedan emerged from the stream. His purple-and-yellow Krokotopia clothing were all sopping wet. His three-corner Marleybone hat was floating downstream, but he quickly retrieved it and placed it on his head.

    I looked back at Rebecca. She was staring glumly at the First Yardbird. I knew Rebecca would go haywire if she found out that Aedan had been here all this time—swimming—so I told him, “Listen, why don’t you go to your dorm room and dry off?”

    “Alrighty.” Aedan ‘ported to his dorm room. I walked over to Rebecca and said, “Ya know what, I don’t think Aedan’s coming. We should probably just go back to Wizard City.”

    “Yeah, it’s getting late,” Rebecca agreed. We ambled back to the Spiral door.

    “You wanna come to my house for dinner? We’re having angel hair pasta for dinner,” I suggested.

    “That sounds awesome!” Rebecca said enthusiastically. “My parents usually have rabbit food for dinner anyway.”

Y Y Y

    Dinner was a wonderful affair. Rebecca rarely ever has pasta before, so my parents received many compliments from her until my mom was blushing pinker than Pinkie-Pie.

    After dinner me and Rebecca went up to my room for homework. My homework is like impossible-hard because my Professor Drake hates me. He tries to give me detention everytime there is a class period. Luckily there won’t be any lesson for me until I ding level 42, but I still had to write a thirteen-page essay before then. Rebecca’s teacher loves her; the Theurgists only get homework when it’s like a lesson review or something. We usually do Rebecca’s first and then mine.

    It was getting really late by the time we finished with homework, so Rebecca decided to crash for the night at in my room. We said good night at eleven o’ clock and I turned out the lights. There was silence for a few minutes. Then—

    “Hey Caroline, you know those schools in Mooshu my parents were looking at?”

    “Yeah.”

    “They’re going to enroll me in one near Kishibe Village.”

    “Oh.”

    “What do I do?”

    “Go to sleep.”

    “Yeah…thanks.”

    “Anytime.”

Y Y Y

    I opened my eyes. Looking down upon me was a hooded figure. It saw me waking up, then whispered, “I want the Diadem.”

    “No…go away, I’m sleeping,” I yawned blearily. The hooded figure disappeared.

    And suddenly, my back was ice.

    My body was so cold…I turned over, but now my left side was sub-zero. It twisted and turned, unable to get rid of the cold feeling…

Y Y Y

    I woke up sometime later in a chair, a blanket wrapped around me and a steaming mug of hot chocolate sitting across on my family’s kitchen table. Rebecca was sitting across from me, staring at her knees looking all-in. I tried to turn my head, but I felt pain shoot through my body. I groaned and sat back in my chair. Rebecca instantly looked up. Her face was hard to read.

    “Caroline,” Rebecca said shakily. “You need to see this.”

    She led me upstairs to my room and turned on the light. I gasped at what I saw.

    My bed was covered in ice. Black ice.

Next chapter is special so I'm not gonna give away what happens ;)

Haven't Been On

It's my new favorite song!

And also, what time is it? You guessed right. It's the holiday season.

Season's Greetings!

The Diadem: The Frost Submersion,

And Help is Sent

By Caroline Dawnrunner

   

   

    The Diadem…The Diadem…

    Caroline Dawnrunner ran through Ravenwood, completely alone. Not even Rebecca Duskglade or Brill was at her side. Caroline had to stop the Cold Master from destroying the Spiral. Caroline ran out the door of the Myth school and ran the other way around Ravenwood. She passed the Death school; which was now there again, the Fire school, and she had nearly passed the Ice school when hands made out of icicles crept out of the door. The ice hands grabbed Caroline. Caroline tried to run away, but the ice-hands stuck to her, and they tore at her robes and clawed at her breast. Then her heart was exposed to the air, beating frantically like a frightened bird. The ice-hands found an opening and went inside of Caroline.

    Caroline’s wounds closed, and she was trapped inside of the ice. No – the ice was trapped inside of her. Caroline Dawnrunner was the ice. The Phantom of Memories appeared and said, “Apparently two cannot do the work of ten. Help will be sent.”

    The Diadem…

    “Caroline!”

    I was awake. A sort-of-familiar looking woman was trying to feed me something that looked like green Jell-O. the woman had pretty blue eyes, just like…

    “Just like Rebecca’s,” I mumbled from my pillow. “Rebecca’s what, dear?” the woman. She had the same serious look of concern the Rebecca sometimes had. “I…nothing,” I responded. “Are you Rebecca’s mother?” “Yes I am,” she said, looking grave. “We’re lucky we found you. A sprite told us that she was flying on Triton Avenue, and that she saw both of you laying there as though dead. And, recognizing Rebecca, she flew to us and told us what happened. We got you out of there OK.” “Did I miss class to —”“Sh-sh-sh,” Rebecca’s mom shushed, putting a hand over my mouth. “Your health is in the negative 200 right now. No wizard has ever had negative health before. You need to rest. And please finish the Life Essence.” Rebecca’s mother indicated the green Jell-O and walked out of the room.

    I decided I’d back up and remember what had happened. Before I passed out, Brill had said that help would be sent. Was the help the sprite that Rebecca’s mom had mentioned? Yeah, that was probably it.

    But I felt like I was missing a detail that would change the meaning of ‘help’ completely.

    I ate my Jell-O Life Essence wordlessly. After I’d finished it, I was about to set the bowl down on the nightstand when I noticed there were things already on there – my wand, deck, spellbook, and a Booster Pack.

    I opened the Booster pack and looked at the contents. Ra, Wild Bolt, Fire Dragon, Snow Angel, and Athena (Myth card). I was surprised. You didn’t usually get Wild Bolt and Fire Dragon in your average Eye of Bartelby pack (not that I had any Crowns), plus Ra and Snow Angel were still on the Test Realm, and the Athena card didn’t even exist! I shook the Booster Pack, and one last card fell out onto the floor. I picked it up. There was a clock symbol in the corner, and the title was ‘Revisit’. The picture depicted an hourglass, and the description said, ‘allows you to go back to any point in time’. It was a charm spell, and there were no pips needed. With a jolt I realized that Brill had given me these. I put the Treasure cards in my deck, picked up my wand, deck and spellbook, and stood up.

Y Y Y

    Well, walking into Firecat Alley was a nightmare.

Rebecca and I were coming back from our first Initiate class and discussing what we’d learned. “…and then he flexed his arms, stepped back, and whammed his hammer!” I finished dramatically. “I wish my spells could actually do any damage,” Rebecca said gloomily. “Oh, don’t be such a whiner,” I whined. “You’ll get Banshee in two days.” “Yeah, but my parents seriously don’t like my Side school,” said Rebecca. “They are actually considering shipping me off to Mooshu for the semester.”

    I stopped right in my tracks. “But they can’t do that!” I exclaimed. “You’re my best friend! What am I gonna do without you?” “I was hoping that you could…uh…transfer with…me…” I noticed that Rebecca stared at her feet as she said this. “I can’t do that. My parents aren’t going to let me go in ten days. I’ve really only just arrived in Wizard City, you know.”

     Rebecca buried her face in her hands. “But I can’t go to Mooshu! I just can’t! I don’t know anyone there! It’s all going to be about Theurgy!  They’re going to hate me for having a Death Side class! And I don’t know what kind of people live there! The Manders live in Krokotopia; the dogs live in Marleybone…for all I know, the students in my class will be cows like Professor Wu!

   “Oh, Caroline, Caroline, will you transfer with me?” Rebecca got down on her knees, like she was asking me to marry her. “I’ll—I’ll see what I can do,” I stuttered. Rebecca got up and hugged me. Then she started to cry.

   “You know, Caroline, you’re a good friend,” she said through sobs. I patted her back.

   Oh, where was I? Anyways, Rebecca and I were going to Firecat Alley to find out what Private Quinn wanted. First off, we were walking into Olde Town. Rebecca said, “So…what do you think—” she cut off abruptly. “Do you – do you feel that?” Rebecca whispered. “Uh…what?” I said unsurely. This was the kind of wrong time for Rebecca to go insane. “I feel like – like we’re being watched,” she whispered. “That’s probably just—” but I cut short too. Yeah…it did feel like we were being watched. I felt a bitter cold spreading through my body. Was that how fear felt when it actually happened? It felt colder than how I’d felt during my dream. This was how fear felt: like you’re being watched. “…Shouldn’t we be going to Firecat Alley?” I said apprehensively. “Y-yeah,” Rebecca spluttered, and we sped off.

    Let’s say it one more time: walking into Firecat Alley was an absolute nightmare.

    Rebecca and I walked into Firecat Alley. I’d actually been there before when an Adept wizard let me port to her. It was all a blazing hot swirl of red and yellow and orange: the colors of Fire. There were lava fountains every few blocks, bushes made out of mini-infernos, and all the buildings had red roofs. It gave me a really hot head, and I had to teleport to the Commons after three minutes of the agonizing heat.

    But walking in there now was bone-chilling.

    Rebecca and I walked in there. At first, we didn’t notice anything wrong.

    But then we saw it. Firecat Alley was a winter wonderland.

    After fear, it felt like a warm bath. But uncertainty crept up inside me. Rebecca and I walked in silence. Every dwelling was a gingerbread house, every fountain a fountain in Central Park after Antarctica melted and refroze.

    We kept walking, and Rebecca finally said, “Wait…I thought it was supposed to be Firecat Alley, not Frostcat Alley.” “It is Firecat Alley,” I said. “I know,” Rebecca said impatiently, “But what a name for this place! It’s all, I guess, icish. And it seems so empty. You think everyone’s somewhere else today?” I raised an eyebrow. “Rebecca, have you ever been on Firecat Alley before?” “Well, no. funny enough, I never saw Olde Town until to—AAAAHH!”

    Rebecca was screaming at a window. My head snapped toward the window, and I screamed, too.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

    Holding the note to the window was a girl trapped in a block of ice, who had an expression of absolute terror upon her face.

    Next: Rebecca and I ran like wild. We ran and ran. I couldn’t remember breathing so hard in my life. I just didn’t stop; my brain worked against my lungs (which were gasping for air), and then guess what happened.

    We bumped into a Gobbler.

    Yep.

    The really obese, heavy, corpulent, portly, obtuse (and not to mention rotund) Baron Rotunda was taking a walk.

    And when I say “bumped”, I mean bounced off of. It was actually pretty funny. Rebecca and I barreled straight into his chest, and with a comical boing we fell onto our backs. “Gurg?” Rotunda slurred. Then he looked down at his hindrance. “Get outta my way!” the Gobbler said angrily, realizing we were people. So he walked along, falling down every few steps. “Hey,” Rebecca said suddenly. “If that was a Gobbler, then aren’t we on Colossus Boulevard?” Whoa! Were we? How did that happen?

    I revolved my head slowly behind me. It seemed I’d been running through a hole connected from Firecat Alley to Colossus Boulevard. And inscribed next to the hole were three words: The Cold Master.

Y Y Y

    Several things happened in the shortest amount of time: I ran to get Merle Ambrose, so he could see “Frost”cat Alley for himself. “Oh dear” was all he said before running to get Professor Falmea. The Fire Professor said the exact same thing, and then summoned a Helephant to defrost the street. When the neighborhood returned to normal, and people started coming outside, Professor Falmea opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped my Merle Ambrose. “Now is not the time, Dalia,” he warned. “She has ears in places even I cannot imagine.” While he said this I saw him casually brush a Frost Beetle off of a tree and crush it underfoot. So then we finished with our quest on the Alley, Rebecca and I, and moved onto Colossus Boulevard.

Y Y Y

    Rebecca’s teeth chattered, but I was as snug as a bug in a rug.

    When I found out that the weather never changed in any part of Wizard City, (except for maybe Firecat Alley, but I tried not to think about that, because I was still recovering from the shock) ever, so I had no use for my winter furs, I was pretty upset, but finally I could put it to some use, because Colossus Boulevard is just like Antarctica in the spring: the sun is always out and it’s 10 degrees below freezing.

    Rebecca, still shaking, opened the door to Gobblestone Castle. The two of us walked inside. Immediately, Prince Gobblestone (who is, if possible, MORE obese and obtuse than Baron Rotunda) said, “No one gets past me to see the king!” Yeah, right. In the past few days Rebecca and I had advanced to level 18 (we were given lots of experience and gold by the people in Firecat Alley for saving their butts) and I was dying to use my new spells. We easily finished them off, and I even got the Snow Serpent pet.

    The rest of the day went smoothly, but I don’t think I was expecting to be attacked again.

    Rebecca and I had just walked out from the secret trainers’ house, wearing our new Master Diplomat badges, and I was excited, because after that was the plane right to Krokotopia. But I stopped. Something was bugging me. Rebecca, noticing that no one was walking next to her, looked around. “What’s up, Caroline?” Rebecca asked. I was about to answer but then I looked at something I’d looked at like fifty times today. It was an inscription on the Colossus statue. I peered closely at it. For a minute it was blocked by a Diviner in a snowball fight with someone, but I could see it all right.

    “Caroline, what’s wrong?” Rebecca had stepped in front of me. I was jolted back to reality.

    “Rebecca, we have to get out of here,” I said quickly. “We have to get out of here now.” I pointed a finger at the statue, but too late—the Colossus statue came to life.

    The stone shattered, and out came a Colossus made of lethal ice. He gave a great roar, one that said, FEAR ME!!! as plain as day. Several people screamed; I saw Mindy Pixiecrown and a Pyromancer running like there’s no tomorrow. I was sure we were toast.

    But then he got confronted by an Apprentice Diviner. (What’s he doing on Colossus Boulevard?)

    “Hey you giant…thing!” he shouted. “I hope you like Storm because you’re in for a TEMPEST!” The guy took out a Treasure Card and began casting. Rebecca and I exchanged looks.

    And out came a Tempest.

    That swept up the Colossus.

    Which was totally-“AWESOME!” the kid said. “I’ve always wanted to use that card, but I just couldn’t find the right moment!” He looked around for someone to high-five. We were the only people in sight, so he hopped over and slapped us five in all forms possible. “That was…impressive,” I told him when he started slapping me four. “What’s your name, anyways?” “Aidan Thunderpyre,” he said. “Grade A Diviner.” He grinned. “How about you?” “Uh, I’m Caroline Dawnrunner, and this is—”“Hey, hey I can introduce myself!” Rebecca said huffily. “I’m Rebecca Duskglade.” “Oh, great, we’re all acquainted now. So what up with that Colossus? Where he come from?” Aedan said. “Well, on the statue it did say something meaningful…”“What was on the statue?” I sighed. The kid in front of me asked many questions but knew half the answers.

    But the inscription on the statue was meaningful.

    It was the same one on the tunnel from Colossus Boulevard to Firecat Alley.

    The Cold Master.