Forgotten Magic

Chapter 52

Well guess what? Throughout all that, we actually made it to the top of the spire! Though, let's be honest, we probably could've done it ourselves anyways. However, what we did need Calliope for was the key the the Spire's vault. Guess what Calliope couldn't find? The key to the Spire's Vault...And that wasn't the end of it.

"Uh guys, I think this is its home," Rapunzel concludes, nervously looking around at what was surely the Kurloc's lair. This was only confirmed by the roar and the appearance of the red bear-like creature.

"Uhh, Calliope!" Eugene calls, "Now would be a great time to get that door...open!"

"I'm trying!" the Keeper insists, jamming key after key into the lock to no avail. "Oh come on...come on, key! I'm trying!"

Behind us, the Kurloc breaks an animal bone in half and charges.

"Open the door!" Cassandra demands, grabbing Calliope by the collar. Nickolas steps up as wall, unsheathing his sword.  "Now."

"I-I don't know which is the right key!" the ginger confesses. Sadly, there's no time for either of the soldiers to threaten her further, as the Kurloc barrels towards us and we have to dive out of the way.

"What do you mean?!" Rapunzel demands. "You're the Keeper of the Spire! How could you not know which is the right key?!"

"Because I...I'm not the real Keeper of the Spire," Calliope admits shamefully.

Nickolas storms over to them and kinda tosses his sword, the tip lodging itself in the ground lethally close to the fake Keeper's head. "Are. You. Kidding me. You're telling us you dragged us through all this, heck, Savannah had a mental breakdown, and never even considered mentioning that you're a fraud?!"

"I-I was just-"

"Guys, watch out!" Cassandra called, grabbing Rapunzel and Calliope and dodging out of the way of the charging Kurloc. Alarmed, Nickolas grabs his sword and pulls me out of the way. As the Kurloc swerves and charges after us, all we can think to do is attempt to outrun it.

"You know, for a 2,000 pound flesh eater, he is surprisingly nimble!" Eugene yells, looking back at it.

"Not the time to compliment the beast, Rider!" Chance yells back.

"Guys! The trees!" Rapunzel yells, leading Calliope and Rapunzel towards one side of the path. Eugene, Lance, Nickolas, and I, run to the other side and scramble into the trees.

For once, it was hard to make out what they were saying, and we all just sat in the trees and watched.

As soon as the Kurloc was gone, Eugene suggested we climb back down, but Nickolas thought it'd be better to wait. Eugene, Lance, and Hookfoot went down anyways.

As we waited for the others to get rid of the Kurloc, I kinda got lost in thought. Despite how angry he'd seemed, and trust me, I've seen Nickolas plenty angry, he'd still kept in mind what we'd talked about.

"So what do you want me to call you?" I asked quietly, leaning against the trunk of the tree.

He seemed startled. "Huh?"

"I mean, Cassandra calls you Chance or Caleb, which is probably annoying. Most of them don't call you anything, and Rapunzel calls you Nick, which...bugs you? So..."

The guard shook his head. "I'd prefer if you don't call me anything."

"Right...and you teased me for not caring about names."

"No, it's not like that." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "If you gotta call me anything..."

Unfortunately,  I never got to hear the end of that thought, as the sound of the Kurloc falling off a cliff interrupted our conversation.

"Hey Caleb, get down from there!" Cass called. "What a coward..."

"When deciding between getting rammed off a cliff and living, I choose the latter," Nickolas called back, climbing down and gesturing for me to follow.

"Surprising," Cassandra answered, rolling her eyes. "Considering how many times you've come close to death."

"Guys," Rapunzel nudged. "Let's get that scroll."

We all nodded and followed her.

That's kind all I have to say about this one. We got the scroll piece and everything. The actual Keeper of the Spire even showed up to announce that abandoning his apprentice was actually a test for her to take his place.

That evening, we all sat quietly around the campfire, feeling exhausted.

Rapunzel pulled the third piece of the scroll out of her bag. "We went through a lot of trouble for this..."

We all gathered around her to check it out.

"it better be one amazing scroll is all I gotta say," Lance comments.

"Let's...see what we got." Rapunzel unrolls the scroll piece.

"A guy in a hood?" Eugene exclaims. "All this for a guy in a hood?!"

"Who d'you think he is?" Cassandra wonders.

"I'm not sure," Raps murmurs. "But I have a feeling we're going to find out." She handed the piece to me.

"Oh yeh, about that," Nickolas speaks up. "Princess, are you sure-"

"She's the one translating it," the princess explains. "Doesn't make sense for me to have it."

I couldn't help but smile.

The next few weeks were fairly uneventful. This new scroll piece didn't have much to decode on its own, so I returned my attention to the first piece. We traveled from town to town, getting supplies and just...living. Nothing much happened. That is, until the black rocks led us to an ocean.

"Well this is....a problem," Cass mutters, leaning against the side of the caravan.

"Yeah, I didn't even think about the rocks going across an ocean," Rapunzel admits.

"Suppose we'll have to find a nearby port," Nickolas decides, pulling a map from inside the caravan. "That's....oh......"

I leaned outside the caravan to take a look. "Oh......that's...."

"What? What is it?" Cassandra snatched the map from her cousin. She grimaced. "Raps..."

Rapunzel glances at the map. "Well...if we can't go around..."

"Princess, if you're suggesting we go over it, I have to disagree," Nickolas admits. "Where in the world are we gonna get a boat?"

"We're not gonna get one, we're gonna build one!"

The guard grimaced like "you've gotta be kidding me..."

A/N: Hello y'all! I'm writing this as I'm bored in an art class.

Um, nothing much going on lately. School's kinda boring, other classes are...something, and yeah. Oh, one of my friends announced the start of a dnd campaign recently. It's starting in a month and three of us have already finished making characters. We are all very very sane people.

Anyways, uh, not much to talk about. Hopefully y'all are doing well!

See ya next week.

-Zera