The walk to the palace had been nerve-wracking for Anton. Even though he had managed to keep it together up until a few hours ago, the lack of quality sleep, together with the fact that he had run a lot and flown on top of a giant eagle at speeds way over his comfort zone (and altitude) was starting to take a toll on his nervous system.

Also, he wasn’t very good at speaking with important people, especially when said important people had such important sounding names like “The King’s Counsellor”.

“Do I really need to do this?” He asked Morgan, who was walking a few steps ahead from him.

“Yes, most certainly.” He answered. “It is usually the King who receives the Travellers when they come every so often, but due to the fact that your arrival is one probable cause of yesterday’s Magic Surge, that makes fall right into the counsellor’s area of interest… Also, it will make me look better…”

Anton looked at Morgan, who was wearing an honest grin.

“At least you’re honest…” He said.

“But there shouldn’t be anything to worry about, I mean, you aren’t lying or anything, right?”

Anton’s stomach churned inside him at the sound of that question. He had lied about how he had arrived here.

“Of-Of course not!” He said, channelling all the confidence he could.

He knew it was silly to try to keep his situation a secret from the game’s NPCs, but from what he had gathered, these NPCs appeared to be sentient, or at least they believed they were alive, and if movies had taught him anything, was that AI never took it well when it was told it wasn’t real.

He looked down to his hands and tried to keep them from trembling, which was easier said than done with the questioning look Morgan was giving him.

Soon after, they arrived at an unassuming wooden door at one side of the palace, which was being guarded by two men clothed in what appeared to be a heavy duty version of Morgan’s armour in which the strong but light leather had been replaced by heavy metallic plates, reminiscent of a medieval knight’s armour.

“My name is Morgan, member of the 19th Air Patrol Unit.” He said, standing in front of the other two guards. “We have important matters to relay to Madame Counsellor, Chief Dennis from the relay station said he was going to get us in.”

“Ah, yes, the Traveller” Said one of the Guards. “Is that him?”

He looked down at Anton, who was fidgeting like he had never fidgeted before. The guard was at least 30cm taller than him and produced a very heavy aura around him, probably common for a grizzled foot soldier.

“Yes, this is him.” Answered Morgan.

“H-Hi…” Whispered Anton, trying to get away from the guard’s glare.

“He looks skinny.” Said the other guard.

“Yes, he is, but don’t look down on him, he was able to outrun a troll and kill it with just two attacks.”

Even from behind the helm, you could almost see the eyes of both guards widening in surprise.

“Hmph…”Coughed the first soldier. “Either way, we did get the news from Chief Dennis. You can wait inside, the counsellor should arrive shortly after.”

He turned around and opened knocked twice, which was apparently a code used to tell a third guard inside that he could open the door.

They walked inside to a small room with a few boxes and another door on the opposite side.

“This is smaller than I expected…” Said Morgan.

“What, you’ve never been here before?”

“You really think you can get an audience with the King’s Counsellor anytime you want? I’ve barely seen the King in one or two parades…”

“Please deposit your weapons in that box.” Said the guard that had opened the door pointing them to one of the small boxes near to the other closed door. “This is neutral ground and no weapons are allowed.”

Morgan pulled his sword and shield and placed them inside the box without thinking twice. Anton took out his only remaining dagger, the other one probably lost during the troll incident, and looked at it.

It wasn’t like he knew how to use it or that he actually wanted to use it, but having a weapon with him had saved him from the troll and helped him to pass the night, so it was inevitable that he felt more secure with it hanging from his belt.

“Weapons please.” Urged the guard. “They will be returned to you after the meeting is over.”

Anton looked at Morgan, who was hurrying him with his eyes, and placed his short dagger inside the box.

“No more weapons?” Asked the guard.

“No.” Answered Morgan and Anton at unison.

“OK, you can continue now to the conference room.”

The guard closed the box and walked to the second wooden door. He then proceeded to pull from a chain that hung from the ceiling which Anton hadn’t seen in the dim lit room. A piece of the wall a to their right shifted and moved into the ground, opening a passage to another bigger and better lit, room.

Anton’s jaw dropped a little, the other door had been a ruse. Someone who didn’t know the layout would have just run into the wooden door where he would surely find some kind of trap, and even if a person had managed to ruse the guards into letting him in the right passage, without weapons he would be an easy target for the heavily armoured guards, so the secret of the passage would probably never get out into the wrong hands.

Trying not to geek over the whole thing, Anton turned around and followed Morgan into the next room.

They found themselves in a large room with rock walls the same colour as the palace walls illuminated by a large glass ball, suspended from a golden chain to the ceiling, that appeared to contain what looked like a small sun.

Red banners with pictured of the giant eagles adorned the walls, together with contrived weapons made of colourful and strange metals that shone under the light of the fake sun.

A wooden table surrounded by several chairs carved out of the same dark, elegant wood, filled the room. At the opposite side of the room, on an elevated place, there was a throne adorned with gold and red velvet, the sit for the King.

They stood awkwardly without knowing what to do as the passage closed behind them. They made a silly looking pair, on one hand a mounted guard that had forgotten to put away his flying goggles, which still hanged from his neck, and that had some specks from ogre blood on him and a high school student wearing clothes he didn’t feel totally comfortable with, which were also muddy, sweaty and a bit bloody.

Soon after the passage finished closing and after sharing a few awkward looks, another arch similar to the one they had come from opened behind the King’s throne and a group of three people came in.

The man that came first was tall enough to have to lower his head a little when walking through the portal. He was wearing a simple black vest with some silver details, from his collar, hung a silver depiction of a flying eagle and on his back he carried a trident almost as tall as himself.

Morgan tensed up next to Anton and clenched his fist against his heart.

“Good morning Captain Lear! Sir!” He said.

“Hello once more for you too Morgan.” Answered the giant captain, smiling. “Looks like you found something interesting during your flight.”

Even though it boomed through the room, his voice felt at the same time easy going, like the voice you would expect from a friendly giant.

“Move your body out of the way you freaking giant!” Said the second man, almost invisible behind Captain Lear’s large figure.

“Oh, sorry James.” He said, smiling and moving to his right.

The second man was a lot smaller than Captain Lear and he was probably even shorter than Anton himself, but the white vest with black details, the symbol of two crossed swords hanging from his collar, his quick, sharp movements and the two short swords hanging from each side of his hips sold the idea that he wasn’t a person you wanted to get in a fight with.

Also his voice was high pitched and slightly annoying when compared to the Giant’s voice.

“Ever since we were kids…” Began saying the man, but was cut off by the third person to enter the room.

“Oh, don’t fight over silly things boys!” Said the woman, who entered third.

She was wearing an elegant white dress with a light green and gold vest hanging over her shoulders. Her long, blond hair waived behind her as she moved into the room. She was the image of elegance.

Anton was silent, the two characters had strong personalities that had scared him a little, but the presence of this third person was just incredibly oppressive. He felt incredible amounts of energy pouring out of her and into the room and he could have sworn the magic itself inside the glass ball wavered a little when she walked into the room.

But what had left him speechless were her eyes. Captain Lear and Morgan’s eyes were grey and the short man’s eyes were of a burning red colour, but this person’s eyes changed every time she blinked, sometimes green, others pure white, but then they were blue and red, sometimes all of them together, as if a rainbow had been trapped inside her eyes.

“Uh!” Said the woman, quickly making her way towards Anton as if she had seen something interesting.

“Angela! We have to check him first!” Screamed the short man.

“Don’t be silly James!” She said. “We don’t have time for that!”

“Always so pushy…” Said Captain Lear, face palming.

The woman got close to Anton’s face and peered right into his eyes.

“Yellow!” She said, smiling. “What a pure shade of Yellow!”

“Wh-What?” He asked. Having her so near to him was making him feel dizzy.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to women being around him, or the fact that he could almost smell the nice aroma coming off of her hair, it was just that this woman’s presence was so heavy that standing next to her felt like standing next to a sleeping lion… a huge lion… that could breathe fire… and fly… and probably transform you into a snail so you couldn’t scape…

“Your eyes! They are yellow!” She said. “You haven’t seen them, haven’t you? I didn’t see mine for a while when I first arrived here, people just told me my eyes were beautiful…”

“Ah?” He said. “But my eyes are brown…”

“Yeah! Mine used to be green before I came here! But here they show the colour of your magic attribute, so given that yours are yellow, your main attribute should be lightning, am I right?”

“When you… came here?” He asked. “Eyes colour is… magic attributes?”

The world began to spin around him. She spoke really fast and her voice was pushy enough to make him feel uncomfortable.

“Yes, when I came here!” She said. “My name is Clara May, I’m from New Jersey and I’m a Traveller, just like you!”

“What?” He said. “That… can’t…”

He felt the world was turning around him, his legs lost strength and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

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He woke up in a comfy bed next to a window. It was night outside, but a smaller version of the sun in a glass ball lit the room well enough for him to see where he was, he was in some room inside the palace.

He saw that he was just wearing his linen shirt and a pair of loose trousers. Someone had taken his armour off, undressed him and placed all of his clothes neatly on a chair next to the door. It had all been cleaned of all its dirt.

On the night table next to him was his dagger and a piece of paper written in perfect English.

“Sorry for what happened before, when I get too excited I tend to lose control over my magic and your body wasn’t able to hold, the guard was also feeling a little bit unwell, so he went back to his house. We’ll continue our talk tomorrow after you get a nice night of sleep; I have so many things to ask you about!!!

Xoxo Clara.”

Another traveller? Weren’t he and his classmates supposed to be the travellers? If she was a traveller, did that mean she had been trapped in here years before? Or was she just an AI that believed she was a human from the real world? So many questions yet so much tiredness, he decided he would rest for now and would leave the task of answering them to tomorrow’s Anton.

He covered himself with the bedsheets, feeling happy to have a bed to sleep on and looked out of the window into the alien sky above him. He was thinking how the moon wasn’t the exact shade of white when he fell asleep.

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On another bed she wakes up to the sound of crows outside her window.

The day is sunny, but she feels tired and spent, last night had been horrifying.

The red light and the mysterious circus that had appeared in town’s plaza but had now disappeared together with the disturbing noises she had heard outside her room, especially the knocking and the cackling laugh that came from hallway, had managed to keep her from falling asleep most of the night. Dark bags were forming under her eyes.

As she looked at the now normal town, with normal people running around and normal cars moving towards their destination as if nothing had happened, she could only hope but wonder why.

“Why the fuck did I choose the horror demo…”

She went to the bed, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.

The sun was rising on Lowercreek.