anko gently took the burning wooden baton very carefully with both hands, as if at any moment the flames would leap from its end and consume them all.

“I am Vicereine of the King’s Province of Kulnas.”

The woman used her free hand to pull back her cowl. All six girls were wide-eyed and silent. Reina’s long white hair rested on her shoulders. The golden irises of her eyes shocked Jessica, who held her breath.

She looked over the group, fixing on each of them with an unsettling gaze. Talitha was mystified: acutely aware of the presence of an immense intellect.

“That doesn’t help us very much,” Alanna said. “We have no idea where we are, or where Kulnas is.”

“You are in the Kingdom of Aventar. The relics you found are artifacts of knowledge belonging to an ancient people. They were stolen by a murderous renegade named Noret. He was responsible for the attack against you on Vuran’s Wharf.”

Each of the girls examined the treasure they were carrying, as if noticing it for the first time once again. Cici started spinning the Lantern, delighted by the pinwheel effect of the colors on the ground.

“Here.”

Jessica handed her Charm to Reina. She enjoyed wearing it, but she also knew it wasn’t hers to keep.

Reina’s expression seemed to soften just a little. It had been so long since she had seen genuine honesty. She closed Jessica’s fingers over the Charm with her own hand.

“I am here to instruct you. Not to reclaim them.”

Jessica’s expression brightened, and she cradled the golden treasure once again with a look of wonder in her eyes.

“What happened to that Cryptic?” Cici asked suddenly and at a slightly higher than normal volume.

The Vicereine regarded the youngest member of the group with a certain approval. After all, Cici had succeeded in getting her friends, the Chronicler’s Lantern and the map all the way from Mudwood to the Lockvern.

“He timed his attack unfortunately. By shifting into another dimension, he also managed to strand and paralyze his minions, leaving him with no advantages. It seems that Jarthius prefers an unfair fight.”

Cici didn’t have the tiniest clue what Reina meant, but that didn’t dissuade her rapt attention to the Vicereine’s every word. Jessica noticed the patience in her voice: how Reina spoke evenly and slowly. She also noticed Cici’s expression and understood. The sound made Jessica less anxious too.

“Why are we all saying such stupid things?” Shannon asked, brushing her long hair back over her shouder and indicating her Ring. “What are these supposed to do for us besides drive us crazy? Am I going to be hearing wolves everywhere I go now?”

Reina didn’t answer right away. She looked as if she were just letting Shannon calm down.

“I have introduced myself. May I know your name?”

“Shannon.”

“There is no more noble pursuit than the reasoned study of wisdom, Shannon. But impatience such as yours clouds the mind and starves you of peace.”

Alanna noticed Shannon’s contemplative expression. Reina’s voice seemed to affect everyone similarly.

“Each of you will face great danger if you choose to enter the Lockvern and study the powers your weapons possess. There are beasts in Aventar that will make you believe you have confronted your own nightmares: monsters coughed forth from the most foul depths of soulless avarice. They will pursue you tirelessly.”

The expressions of the six girls were all the same: wide-eyed and silent.

“But the people of Aventar face danger greater than that of monsters. The Cryptics threaten to afflict them with the curse of despair. This must not be allowed to happen. To avoid their machinations, you must all learn leadership. You must acquire discernment. You must learn to fight for what you believe in. These are the ways of a warrior. When you emerge from the Lockvern, you will be prepared to seek the wisdom your weapons represent.”

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anko closed her eyes, turned her head away and motioned urgently for Jessica to come over to their side of the Lantern. Jessica ran to join the others. As she passed Talitha, the enormous phantom wooden Shield came into view.

“Sugoi! Is that what my charm looked like?”

“Same idea. It’s like spooky weapons. Your charm is a Sword, the Professor’s charm is a Shield.”

“I wonder if they go together?” Talitha asked rhetorically.

“Cici, turn the Lantern so the purple lens is lighting up Talitha’s jewel” Alanna said.

As the Lantern rotated, and the blue light was replaced by the purple light, the semi-transparent shield image disappeared.

“Okay, now turn it back.”

Once the treasure was lit by the blue light again, the Shield re-appeared.

“We gotta figure all this stuff out,” Ranko said. “Blue light makes these ghosts appear but the purple light doesn’t do anything.”

“Yes it does!” Cici replied, looking up at Ranko. “The purple light is the power of time, it made you come back after Reina said so.”

“What’s that lens made out of, Cici-chan?”

“The purple lens is made of amethyst, and Reina said if there was danger I’m supposed to use my Spectrum Deflect power.” Cici put her Lantern down and sat next to it.

“This is stupid,” Shannon said, plopping down on a large nearby tree stump with her arms folded.

“Maybe all our treasures have some special powers,” Jessica said, turning her Charm back and forth and watching the light reflecting from the faceted gems. “I wish we knew what they are.”

Talitha straightened her glasses.

“I don’t care. This is all stupid and confusing. I want to go home,” Shannon replied.

“What’s a Cryptic?” Cici asked, spinning her Lantern around.

“Sounds like someone I don’t want to meet,” Alanna said.

“We don’t even know who this lady that Cici is talking about is. I don’t think we should be listening to people we don’t know. She could be on the same side as those guys that attacked us!” Shannon exclaimed.

Talitha sat down across from Cici. “Did you say that green lens in your Lantern is made out of emerald?” Talitha spoke very quietly as she pointed.

Cici nodded. “Uh huh. It is a emerald.” She continued spinning the treasure.

“The whole thing?” Talitha asked, noting the lens was nearly a foot tall.

Cici nodded again. “I like the blue one and the purple one too. Reina says the purple one can control time with magic. The rest of it is gold and bronze and a little iron too.”

“What if we can’t get home?” Ranko asked the obvious question. There was a pause as all six girls considered the serious possibility they were stranded.

“I miss my cat,” Cici said. “Hikousen won’t eat if I don’t feed him.”

“The ferocious guard cat looks like he hasn’t missed many can opener activations,” Ranko said.

“No more band practices,” Jessica said.

“This is stupid,” Shannon snapped, arms still folded.

“Alright look–” Ranko started.

“We can’t panic here,” Alanna said. “If we get all bent out of shape–”

“This green lens is worth more money than all of our parents’ houses put together,” Talitha said quietly.

“Well I am bent out of shape!” Shannon exclaimed. “First, we shouldn’t have been down in that ship where we didn’t belong. Second, the tour group should have come back to get us and third, this whole thing is stupid and I don’t know why we’re sitting out in the middle of nowhere because some weird lady that we don’t even know said we have to wander off in the middle of the night. We should just leave and forget this and find our own way home.”

“And go where?” Ranko replied. “We don’t know where anything is, even if we do have the Professor’s whiz-bang map. For all we know the next person we meet could be worse than anyone we’ve met so far.”

“I sure don’t want to go back to that ship,” Alanna said, folding her own arms.

“Why? Who says we can’t?” Shannon raised her voice further. “What if I want to? What if any of us want to go back to the ship!? Are you saying we can’t?”

“No,” Alanna replied in an appeasing tone. “Noboby’s saying that. I just think it’s a bad idea to go somewhere we know is dangerous.”

Shannon finally relaxed and folded her arms again. Her hair fell over her shoulder and she sat quietly. It was about as close as she was going to get to admitting Alanna was right.

“What’s this one again?” Talitha asked, pointing at the blue lens.

“That’s a sapphire,” Cici replied. “And the orange one is a sunstone.”

Talitha looked up, pushing her glasses higher on her nose with two fingers. “If what Cici says is correct, this blue lens is the largest sapphire gem on Earth.”

“Great, we’re lost and sitting by some river and now we’re the richest high school students in the world,” Shannon said.

“We need to make the best of it!” Jessica said. “Come on, everyone! We have to help Reina! She’s all by herself and she got attacked by that evil Cryptic, and she might get attacked by those guys! What if she gets hurt?”

Cici jumped up. “She can make herself better! She has green swirly magic that sounds like bells and it made my ankle stop hurting! It’s all because of her ring. She has lots of rings.”

Alanna knelt down to look Cici in the eyes. “Cici, I want you to tell me the truth, okay?”

Cici nodded intently with a serious expression.

“How did your ankle get hurt?”

“I fell all the way down that hill we were by and it turned sideways and then I was under this tree and I couldn’t get out.”

“And that lady climbed all the way down the side of that ravine?” Ranko asked.

Cici nodded.

“That would be dangerous for any of us,” Ranko concluded.

“I guess that answers the question of whether she’s one of the good guys,” Alanna said.

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