TOA Book 1: Rose Gold's Adventure

Strange Call

In the Hero's Forge, Jim was training, dodging fire and darts from the machines.

I was providing my own means of training, of course. And by that, I mean that I was just blasting him with magic.
"Always be afraid." Blinky said. "Fear heightens your senses. Fear keeps you alive."

Jim continued to deflect the darts with his sword.

I was impressed. He's improved over the past few days. Not by much, but it was something.

I crept up behind him and blasted him with a jolt of magic, knocking him to the ground.

Jim looked at me as I smirked, holding up my wand with pride. He was also fun to mess around with.

"Arrogance gets you killed."

"Yeah, I'll have to remember that." Jim said, "Unless, Rose Gold's magic gets me killed first. No offense."

"None taken." I said, even though that was pretty insulting.

"Draal, however, does not fear you." Blinky said, helping Jim up. "That will be his weakness, but not you. You'll be wetting your armor. That will be your strength."

"Some pep talk." I said.

Jim wacked away giant stones that were being thrown at him.

"Oh, yeah. Looking good, Jimbo. Feel the burn!" Toby said in workout clothes and a sweatband. "If Jim's getting fit, I'm getting fit." He turned on the tracker on his wrist. "Don't wanna be too big."
Aaarrrggghhh!!! seemed a little insecure by that.

"Not that there's anything wrong with being big. But if I'm gonna have Jim's back, I gotta be nimble."

He began to do knee lifts and Aaarrrggghh!!! joined him.

Toby looked at his phone and said, "Yeah, baby! Hit a benchmark. I've run a total of... a hundred feet. Five calories burned. Nice!"

Jim destroyed props and deflected darts left and right.

He's getting good at this. And his confidence is improving, too. I kinda liked watching him train- what am I saying?!

"You know, I think being afraid is the one rule that I- Oh!" Jim said before ducking the spears that landed on the prop behind him, catching flames, "I excel at."

"No, Master Jim. You must excel at all three." Blinky said. "If trolls are ever going to embrace you as Trollhunter, you must ignore your humanly instincts."

Jim threw his sword at a prop, jabbing it in the face.

I was a little startled, but I gave him a side smile.

What is going on with me?

"Do that, and I have no doubt you will defeat Draal."

Draal walked into the Hero's Forge with another troll. "Look, it's training." He mocked as they walked away.

I gotta admit, Draal has a big ego. Sometimes I think that he thinks that strength is a personality.

"Let your fear keep you alive. Let his arrogance lead him astray. Defeat him... and you'll make history."
Blinky led Jim back to the rest of us.

"By the way, Rose Gold." Toby said as Jim and Blinky went back to training. "I noticed you don't have a phone, so I went out and got you this."

Toby gave me a phone that seemed similar to his. I got really excited, but was a bit confused.

"Don't get me wrong, this is really cool, but why would I need this? I asked.

"You're gonna have to communicate with us at some point. Just thought you'd like a small piece of our word."

I smiled and looked at the phone. "Thanks, Toby. I hope this didn't cost too much."

"Eh, I got it for cheap at Stuart's Electronics. I mean, he mostly sells old school stuff, but he brings in some modern stuff like once a month. Here, I'll show you how to use it."

Toby spent the rest of training training me in the art of a cellular phone. Huzzah.

Occasionally, I'd see Jim deflect a dart or dodge a rock and my cheeks would get hot.

Should I ask someone about this? I've been feeling strange around Jim recently and I don't know why.

I'm sure it'll go away eventually. No biggie.

Later, Amber and I were in my room for my lesson with Blinky.

Blinky and Aaarrrggghhh!!! told me that there was some goblin business on the surface.

Sucks to be Jim and Toby right now. Goblins are disgusting.

"Concentrate on the elixir." Binky said. "Think of its color changing."

I closed my eyes and focused on the bowl in front of me filled with black liquid.

Similar to the coal lesson that I'm still yet to master, I have to change the color of the elixir. This lesson had a few steps and this step was the easy part.

There was silence as I focused my energy on the bowl.

"Huzzah!" I heard Blinky say.

I opened my eyes to see the elixir changed from black to blue!

"I did it!" I celebrated.

"Never doubted you for a minute." Amber said from 10 feet away.

Glad to know my friend had my back.

"Alright. Now, this next part is very tricky: moving it." Blinky said.

I could levitate solid objects pretty well, but not liquid.

What could possibly go wrong?

I lifted my wand and focused again.

"Just like before, focus on the elixir moving and you are in control of it." Blinky said.

"You got this." Amber said.

The elixir began to tremble and started to slowly rise from the bowl.

It was going smoothly until my phone rang.

I got startled and dropped the elixir, splashing it all over my clothes, staining them blue. Great.

"We'll get back to that later." Blinky said.

"What's that noise?" Amber asked.

I rolled my eyes as I answered the phone, "Ugh, what is it, Toby?"
Toby screamed into the phone and I couldn't understand him at all.

"Woah, slow down, Toby. What's going on?"

Toby explained to me what happened on the surface a few minutes ago. I felt my heart stop. Was he talking about a changeling?

"Ok, ok. You and Jim come over as soon as you can." I said before hanging up.
"Jim and Toby are coming in a bit. Something happened." I told Blinky, "I'm gonna go get cleaned up."

"At least it was better than your lesson last night." Amber said.

"Don't even mention it."