Marauders, Raiders, and Buccaneers

The pirates escorted Anne, Penelope, and Hiro back to the main lobby. From there they proceeded down the long corridor to the headmistress’s office. The hallway was lined with the statues of the former headmistresses and headmasters of Saint Lupin’s. As always, Anne felt a lingering sense of disapproval as she passed them, perhaps from a mildly guilty conscience for all the times she’d snuck around where she wasn’t supposed to. As the group approached the office door, the sound of breaking glass came from inside the room.

The office was octagon shaped. There were three tall stained-glass windows and in the center a great oak desk. Along the walls, floor-to-ceiling shelves held thousands of glass domes, each displaying a unique quest medallion. A pirate wearing the badge number fifty-three was moving swiftly along the shelves, plucking off the glass domes and tossing them aside, and deftly sweeping each medallion into a burlap sack.

“Hey, that’s our stuff!” shouted Penelope.

Anne started toward the pirate, but their four beefy escorts blocked the way.

Yet another pirate stood off to the side holding an orange-and-white cat who was struggling to get free. Her Royal Highness Princess Fluffington Whiskers of the Mousetrapper Clan—or Princess Whiskers, as she liked to be called—was technically the headmistress of the school. The cat sank her claws into the pirate’s bare arm, and the pirate released her with a yelp. Princess Whiskers landed gracefully on the floor and immediately sprang at the pirate closest to Anne. The pirate shrieked and tumbled into one of the shelves, and Princess Whiskers bounded onto the desk. She arched her back and hissed.

“And a hiss hello to you, too,” said Marri. She held up another one of her dice and captured the feisty cat midpounce in a flash of blue light.

Anne was too furious for words. The only thing keeping her from flying at the “captain” was the meaty hand of a pirate three times her size on her shoulder. She remained where she was, trembling with outrage. Marri moved behind the desk while the other pirates guided Anne, Penelope, and Hiro to a spot on the floor where an X had been painted long ago.

Pirate Twenty-Two laid Anne’s gauntlet on the desk, but Marri didn’t reach for it. Instead, she waited patiently until Pirate Fifty-Three finished going through the quest medallions. He dropped the last medallion into the sack with a clink and then headed out the door. Anne surveyed the damage with gritted teeth. Every medallion was gone, stolen, including a special copper medallion bearing the image of a dragon that had been on display on the desk. That was the medallion from her second quest. She had never managed to recover the silver medallion from her first quest, but if she had, no doubt it would be gone as well.

“Those medallions belong to me,” said Anne, doing her best to hold her emotions in check.

“Not anymore,” Marri replied. “They fall well within standard pirate looting rights.”

“Are you at least going to tell us what this is all about?” Penelope asked impatiently.

“All in due time.”

Marri sat there with her hands on her lap, studying them but otherwise unmoving, as though waiting for something to happen. Soon the sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the corridor, and moments later two more pirates entered, each carrying one end of a wooden chest bound in thick iron straps and secured with a chunky iron lock. They set the chest down with a thump and stepped back.

“Thank you,” Marri said to them. “Now we can—”

Another commotion arose from the corridor, and a woman with dark brown skin and a head of voluminous black hair burst into the room wielding a rapier. Her name was Jocelyn, and she was for all intents and purposes the actual headmistress of the school. She was meticulously dressed in black pants, a red vest, and a white blouse. Her normally warm brown eyes carried a glint of steel.

“Marauders!” shouted Jocelyn. “Raiders! Buccaneers!”

“Personally, I’ve always liked the term swashbuckler,” Marri said calmly.

“Well, I hope you like dungeon cells, too, because that’s where I’m going to put you,” Jocelyn continued. “How dare you attack this school! I am Lady Jocelyn Abigayle Daisywheel the Third, and I demand that you—”

A blue ray struck her and she disappeared. Marri dropped yet another dice into her cloth bag.

“Hey, you release our teacher right now, you… you… pirates!” yelled Penelope, her cheeks reddening with anger.

Even Hiro looked livid.

Anne slipped out of her captor’s grasp and leapt forward, but before she even rounded the corner of the desk, Marri held up yet another one of her dice and Anne came screeching to a halt. She wanted to rip those dice out of Marri’s hand, but there was no point getting herself trapped as well. She would have to bide her time until the right opportunity presented itself. The pirate who had been holding her guided her back to the X.

“As I was saying,” said Marri, “now we can discuss why I’ve come here and what you’re going to do for me.”

“Why would we do anything for the likes of you?” asked Penelope.

Marri upended the cloth bag on the desk and dumped out seven dice. They each had a different number of sides. The first contained a tiny Rokk. The other six held Sassafras, Dog, Copperhelm, Princess Whiskers, Jocelyn, and Nana, the school’s black dragon. They all appeared to be in a state of suspended animation. The flashes of blue light during the pirate attack hadn’t been from the cannons. They had been from Marri capturing people. And by the looks of it, Anne, Penelope, and Hiro were the only ones left.

“Let them go!” shouted Hiro. He tried to rush forward, too, but the pirate holding him was too strong.

“I will release them. You have my word on that,” said Marri. “But first you need to complete a task for me.”

“Why should we take your word for anything?” asked Anne.

Marri stared at her with a grim expression. “Because you have no other choice.”

She reached into the pack on her lap and pulled out a medallion—a gold medallion. The light reflected off its highly polished surface, nearly blinding them. Marri set it on the desk next to the gauntlet with a heavy thunk.

“I recently acquired this,” she said. “It’s called the Darkflame Medallion.”

Penelope gasped. “You stole it from the museum. Hiro, they have your family’s medallion!”

Hiro stared at the medallion. “Why did you take it?”

“It’s what we do,” said Marri matter-of-factly. “We seek out the medallions from failed quests.”

“But why?” asked Anne.

“To claim their treasure, of course. When someone fails a quest, the treasure usually gets left behind.” She shrugged. “Pirates like treasure. And I happen to know that the treasure for this quest is worth a fortune.”

“But prophecy medallions can’t be reactivated,” said Hiro. “Once a quest has been attempted, you can’t access them again, regardless of whether or not the quest was completed.”

“I’m not trying to reactivate it. I only need the information inside it, to point me in the direction of the treasure. And for that, all I need is the gauntlet that originally activated the medallion—and a little ingenuity.”

“What makes you think it was Anne’s gauntlet?” asked Penelope.

“Simple deduction,” said Marri. “I know that the gauntlet that activated the quest ended up at Saint Lupin’s. Yours is the only gauntlet here. Add to that the fact that the youngest son of the Darkflame family is a member of your group, and there’s really only one possible conclusion.”

“And if you’re wrong?” asked Anne.

Marri ignored the question. Instead, she motioned to the two pirates who had carried in the chest, Pirate Sixty-Six and Pirate Seventy-Five. Pirate Sixty-Six produced a rusty key and inserted it into the lock on the chest. There was a loud click, and the lock snapped open. The pirate pulled off the lock and lifted the lid. An eerie silver glow came from inside the chest. Holding a pair of tongs in her thick leather gloves, Pirate Seventy-Five reached into the chest and lifted out a small vial containing a viscous black liquid that seemed to be moving of its own accord.

Anne felt Hiro tense beside her.

“What is that?” asked Penelope.

“This substance is a relic of the Old World,” said Marri, her eyes glistening. “No one alive today knows how to manufacture more. It is extremely rare to find it in its liquid state, and this single vial is worth more than the entire Saint Lupin’s tier.”

“And what are you going to do with it?” asked Hiro. For all that he didn’t really care for quests or adventure of any kind, he was fascinated by anything to do with the Old World. Although this time Anne noted a hint of concern in his voice.

Still using the tongs, Pirate Seventy-Five carried the vial over to the desk. She removed the stopper and tipped the contents into the circle on the gauntlet where a medallion was normally placed.

“Hey, what are you doing?!” Anne shouted.

She struggled to get free again, but this time the hand gripped her tightly. She watched helplessly as the dark substance pooled into the medallion slot.

As the black liquid oozed out of the vial, Marri dug a small leather pouch out of her pack and pulled a small crystal shard out of it. She held the shard between her thumb and forefinger with great care. It glinted in the sunlight that streamed through the windows.

“Is that a dragon stone?” asked Anne.

“A piece of one, yes,” said Marri. “We’re attempting to modify the gauntlet’s GPS.”

“What?!” Anne exclaimed.

Marri dropped the shard onto the pool of black liquid. As soon as it made contact, there was a blinding flash of light and a familiar rainbow-colored form appeared above the desk. It was Jeffery, the magickal holographic sparrow who lived in the gauntlet and acted as the General Pathfinder Sparrow for any quests that were activated. His form expanded and contracted randomly, exploding into bursts of colors and re-forming, deforming and seeming to melt, bursting into flame, and then becoming a pillar of ice. This was all accompanied by an unbearably shrill screeching. Anne cried out with every transformation, but after several heart-stopping moments Jeffery returned to his normal size and disappeared. The black liquid and the piece of the dragon stone were also gone.

Marri closed her eyes and raised her fists in a sign of victory, and several of the pirates in the room hooted and hollered.

Anne nearly collapsed against the edge of the desk. “What did you do to Jeffery?”

“I believe the Old World term is hot-wired,” said Marri. “Presuming the shard and the black liquid worked together as planned, we have just modified a part of his code. He should now be able to access any medallion this gauntlet has previously activated.”

“But what if they didn’t work as planned?” stormed Anne, struggling against her captor. “What if all you did was hurt him?”

“I guess there’s only one way to be certain,” said Marri. “Put it on.”

Anne fell completely still.

This wasn’t at all what she’d been planning for her first day of classes. She would do whatever it took to free those who had been imprisoned, but it was clear Marri and her pirates currently had the upper hand. That didn’t mean they knew everything, though. If Anne gave the impression of cooperating, they would give her possession of the gauntlet. The gauntlet would allow her to control the iron knights, presuming she could signal them from this distance. It was a long shot, but right now it was her best hope.

Anne walked resolutely over to the desk and picked up the gauntlet. It felt the same as ever. She looked one last time at the blue dice lined up on the desk, took a deep breath, and slid her hand inside.

Marri handed her the gold medallion. Anne took it in her free hand but hesitated. Everything was happening so fast, and she needed a moment to think. She turned the medallion over several times. Anne had never held anything made from gold before, and she found it surprisingly heavy. There was something else, too: The medallion bore the image of a dragon—the Sign of Zarala. It had been on the medallions from Anne’s first two quests as well. Given how those quests had gone, she did not take it as a good omen.

“The sooner you insert it, the sooner we can finish this,” said Marri.

Steeling herself, Anne placed the medallion over the inset of the gauntlet and gave it a gentle nudge.

The medallion slid into place with a soft click.

And then it exploded.