Join our involuntary heroes again this week as their path back home is thwarted by a raging fiery inferno. Faced with the reality that innocent bystanders need the help of the “agile four”, they are forced to reconsider and, together with King Gaudenz, they set out to brave the relentless flames. Are their honed collaboration skills going to be enough to meet the challenge? Or will their adventure end before it has even really begun? Let’s find out together!
King Gaudenz whirls around fiercely, his spine rigid and his face showing hard determination. “It would seem to me that your departure must be slightly postponed.” With a firm step, the monarch hurries back toward the throne room. “Please, take a seat in my banquet hall and await my return.”
Before the king has finished uttering his last words, Marcus raises his hand and hurries after him. “Wait, I will accompany you! We might not be heroes, but we can do things, right? I’m not going to simply stand around while people need help”.
The rest of his group exchanges brief glances. “To think I was actually invited to a party tonight…”, Angie sighs, as her legs start moving to follow Marcus and Gaudenz.
“Yeah this looks more like a total party killer to me,” Pauline mutters as she and Caroline hurry to catch the king. They’re certainly not going to sit around here when Marcus puts himself in danger.
The king points towards the stables. “I’m afraid we’ll have to saddle the horses ourselves my friends! Follow me there is not a moment to hesitate.”
A precious handful of minutes later, the riders are galloping through the cobblestoned streets of Connectalot. The steady rhythm of hooves resounds like thunder echoing off the once inhabited half-timbered houses in which now only the smell of fire and smoke seems to be at home. At breakneck pace, the helpers rush around a last corner, already experiencing the scorching heat on their skin as they pass the last house. In front of them spreads the multi-storey construction of the chapel, wrapped nearly completely in flames and acrid, black smoke.
A crowd of soot-smeared survivors has already formed a bucket brigade, but there are too few of them to stop the inferno. Gaudenz swings himself off his skittish horse in one fluid motion, unbuttoning the brooch of his cloak and letting it slide carelessly to the ground. “King Gaudenz is here, take courage!” shouts a voice from the crowd.
“I cannot spot Father App anywhere around here,” Gaudenz bellows to his companions over the deafening inferno. “I will assist my people here and buy you more time, I beg of you see if you can retrieve the father and rescue him”.
Marcus hurries towards the main entrance, while the rest of his colleagues follow him. But his footsteps become slower and slower, “Guys, the entrance! The tower is collapsing and parts of it are blocking our way! What now?”. Heavy burning beams of solid wood lie on top of each other, making it impossible to reach the large double doors of the chapel.
“Maybe there’s a side that’s not burning yet?!” roars Angie, keeping a proper distance from the flames, the smell of burnt fur mixing with the smoke.
Caroline walks past her friends and heads straight for the burning beam blockade. She squares her shoulders, gets down on her knees and reaches directly into the flames with a strong grip. She clutches a sturdy crossbeam and begins to lift it. A thick vein emerges from her neck, the muscles in her arms tense to the breaking point, but the log lifts only a few inches. “Not enough,” Caroline thinks to herself as the flames reach greedily for her.
Marcus and Pauline both hurry to Caroline’s side. Marcus puts a hand on her shoulder ready to pull her away, but when he touches her, a strange golden light emanates from him to her and the beam lifts a few more inches. “It’s no good Caroline, you’d need three of you to move those beams-“. Inspired by Marcus’ words, Pauline raises both hands and loudly shouts words in an unfamiliar language. Immediately, Caroline’s figure grows to twice her normal size. She effortlessly pulls out the beam, spins in one impossibly swift action, and hurls it like a spear against the church door. As if struck by a battering ram, it blows asunder. “-or maybe just one really big Caroline,” Marcus whispers, who stares dumbfounded at the now towering figure next to him.
“Guys?” shouts Pauline, whose begins to levitate off the ground, a cold light in her eyes. “Clear the way!”. Caroline grabs Marcus like a toddler and dives to safety, just before a cone of ice and snow erupts from the elf and bursts into the inferno.
“Am I the only one here who doesn’t do cool stuff like this?” the dwarf yells from the embrace of his PMM.
Angie seizes the chance and dashes down the icy aisle, pressed close to the ground. She doesn’t seem to mind the difficult terrain, as she sprints sniffing into the depths of the chapel, relying on her fine nose. “Back here, I found him,” Angie shouts, pointing to two legs emerging from a pile of smoldering rubble, “That must be Father App?”. Unable to follow the lithe feline, Caroline instead breaks through a barricade of burning timber, the other two teammates following in her wake. Caroline snatches the unconscious man out of the debris and the group turns towards the entrance, but the path leading back is again swallowed by flames. More beams rain down from the ceiling, and a deafening groan signals the building’s impending collapse. Caroline charges forward through the flames, forging a path for her friends with her free arm, her sights set on one of the colorful stained glass windows. With a final roar, the rescuers break through the glass almost simultaneously, falling a few feet and landing with varying degrees of grace on the hard pavement of the street.
Caroline rolls off and cries for help immediately, the limp body of Father App in her arms, as she reverts to her natural stature. King Gaudenz shoulders past a flock of bystanders, but horror spreads across his face as he sees the priest’s lifeless body. He raises a bony finger and gestures to Marcus, “Quickly, we have no time to lose; cleric, bring him back from the brink, harness your power!”.
Marcus stares at him in confusion, but then stumbles towards the priest and falls heavily to his knees. He reaches out with both hands towards the pallid priest. “I don’t know any mantras, but maybe with a little luck…” Marcus focuses his thoughts inward, and soon a golden light streams from his palms and extends into Father App’s body. The priest starts coughing heavily as Marcus stumbles backwards, staring dumbfounded at his hands.
“Do you see the power that resides within all of you, see what you can accomplish?” Gaudenz’s soot-smeared face seems to take on a new life as he kneels beside Marcus. “You are just beginning to comprehend what you can achieve! Stay, save our kingdom from darkness!”.
The group rises from the ground as bystanders rush to take the still fragile and coughing priest to the other injured. “Maybe there is some good we can do after all. And, we can leave any time if it gets too dangerous, right?” asks Pauline, rubbing the growing bump on her head.
Marcus and Caroline nod in agreement, and only Angie still appears indecisive, nursing the several burn marks in her fur. “This could kill us, guys. We aren’t in Texas anymore. We don’t know anything at all about this!”.
“Then we should find someone who can shed light on this,” the beaming Gaudenz interrupts her, “it’s time we found Atlas!”.
Diagramming Inspiration
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Last Updated on August 1, 2023 by Admin