Nowhere To Go But Up

Egg Bomb

The tropical island of Wild World was rife with odd setpieces. An ancient temple, spinning contraptions, waterfalls, it was exactly the type of place Taranza wished Magolor had at least gotten to see once. An oddity among the oddities, the haunted castle, the place he hid the core, stood before Taranza and Susie. Some three and a half years ago, he'd come here to update the hiding spot. He led Susie through the corridors, heading for the room that used to be inhabited by that mischievous poltergeist.

When they entered the room, he gestured to the painting of Magolor on the wall, before the coils on his body tightened. "Then, it's just right back there?" He nodded. Susie giggled and pulled something out of her clothes. "I don't even need to go back there. I can just blow it up from here-"

"I'm afraid you won't be doing that, Susie." She spun around and saw Magolor entering the room. "You really should be getting to that last leg soon, it's in danger."

"I don't need you to tell me that. The room's gonna blow in one minute. We can leave now, or you can try something funny and he dies."

Taranza evidently thought that was a good time to speak up. "The core has a shield. If you can get in there, you can turn it on. It'll last five minutes."

Magolor moved over to the painting and tore it off the wall. "Why does the shield have an activation code? This place makes no sense!"

"Taranza, know that if you tell him the code, you won't have long to regret it. I could crush you like an empty can of soda if I wanted to. Don't do anything rash."

Magolor looked at the keypad, then the bomb, then Taranza. "It's okay. Go."

"But Magolor, all of Floralia-"

"Go. I'll figure the code out myself."

The timer on the bomb ticked down. 34. 33. 32. Magolor noted that a label on the top read PRG. Susie laughed. "So sorry, but we must be leaving now. Have fun blowing up! Or don't. It doesn't matter to me." They left.

Magolor stared at the keypad. It wanted four characters. 25. 24. 23. He searched his mind for anything that might be the code. 19. 18. 17. A distant memory appeared in his mind. Hallway, door, Taranza, knock, code. 10. 9. 8. He reached for the keypad and typed. H2A6.

ACCEPTED. SHIELD ACTIVE.

4. 3. Magolor put up his own shield, which wasn't yet as effective as it could be, but it would work to keep him safe from the bomb. 2. 1. The explosion was moderately large, and destroyed a large amount of the area, but the core was fine. It just looked like a shining sphere of some kind. Some debris fell on Magolor, but it didn't hurt too bad. He scanned the landscape and deduced that Susie had taken Taranza pretty far away from here, trying to avoid the blast.

Daroach entered from the direction of where his ship was. "You good?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I need to go catch up with them, you make sure no one gets their hands on that core there. It's not valuable, so don't even think about taking it yourself." Magolor left. Taranza was a short distance away, still bound by the coils. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine. Could you get this off of me?"

"Of course." He began removing the coils. "Where'd Susie go?"

"She said she needed to defend the last leg."

Magolor finished untying his friend, and then led him back to where the core was. "You're going to need to find a new home for this thing."

"That isn't my job. I'll wait until someone in charge gets here, and they can handle it from there. Maybe then I can be unbound from it. Or they'll try to kill me. They might do that." Taranza looked a bit forlorn.