Shadows of the Future 2nd Edition

"The past is prologue"

S h a d o w s

OF THE FUTURE

Learn

A

from

N O V E L

your

mistakes,

W R I T T E N

B Y

or

be

destroyed

A C T U A L

by

them

S T U D E N T S

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 01

THE CHASE

Chapter 02

THE FIRST LOOP

Chapter 03

THE HAUNTED MINES

Chapter 04

THE MAGE'S TOWER

Chapter 05

SUBTERFUGE AT THE SPA

Chapter 06

THE HAUNTED MINES II

Chapter 07

UTHER'S SECRET

Chapter 08

THE PERFECT LOOP

thank you, To all of my wonderful students, whose incredible imagination and beautiful enthusiasm enabled the success of this class.

And to Linkedkey, for taking a chance on such a bold and bizarre program

- Matthew thompson

Authors Daisy Chen Celina Wang Anneaka Zhou Felicity Lu Cindy Hu Jeffery Wang Lucas Zhang Deming chen Wenqi Sun

CHAPTER ONE

The Chase

Introduction By:Anneaka

Hi. I’m Gummy the gummy bee. Ya, what. It’s not weird OK? But anyways, I live on a mountain with many bees and bears. And other stuff. The mountain is in another dimension so I had to take this portal thingy to get to this place but whatever. I have no idea how I learned magic, well it’s not really “magic” but it’s like abilities sort of thing.

Everyone on the mountain are my friends OK? But my best friend is Gummy Bear. He is evil whatsoever so that’s how I always get tempted to blow stuff up. It’s really entertaining, don't judge me OK? When I sneak away, it’s only because I want to see if I can find more stuff that will be useful when I get back to the mountain and more things to help me blow up stuff. Anyways, enough about me and on with the story.

The Chase

So, we were chasing this shadow guy person and I’m not even sure why I even came here. I think it was an excuse for me to leave the mountain for a while because some of the bees were getting really annoying. Well, maybe not such a good idea though. I was just following around anyways so yeah. Nothing much lol.

The Chase Celina Wang

Serene Amora Calma is a 17 year old girl. She dislikes noise and messes. She likes silence, books and swimming. Her room is always squeaky clean. She is also a neat freak and goes nuclear when she finds a tiny stain in the house. She really lives up to her name.

Serene is the second eldest of a huge family of the species Big Brains. They are known to be smart. She also likes to read in complete silence. Too bad her family is so noisy.

Serene’s family consists of 3 great-grandparents, 4 grandparents, 3 great-uncles, 2 great-aunts, 1 aunt, 2 uncles, 7 cousins, 2 parents and 5 more siblings. And they all live in one house! A giant house at that.

Because Big Brains are so smart, her family is very successful.

Serene is an apprentice for a sorceress and is at an intermediate level. She was taught Aerokinesis (manipulation of air), Pyrokinesis (manipulation of fire) and Umbrakinesis (manipulation of darkness/shadows) by the sorceress. Though, her Pyrokinesis and Umbrakinesis nee ded some work. The sorceress did psychokinetic stuff.

Serene’s 17th birthday gift was some Shoes of Airwalking. They levitate off the ground. She literally wears them as much as she can, because she likes to walk when she reads and always bumps into walls. The Shoes of Airwalking steers her away from walls.

Serene and a group of people were hired to capture a man. Seemed easy enough and it was good money so she accepted. Turns out, It’s way harder than it sounds.

We cornered him in the Leaky Keg, but somehow, (we don’t know how) he got away. Ugh! It was so frustrating! Soon, he was riding a horse north so we followed him on horses. I didn’t ride one though, just levitated and read a book. :)

Soon, we started to climb a mountain. The view was killer! Literally. I feel bad for the people that were walking. They kept groaning and moaning as snow got in their boots.

We were getting closer, following the footsteps the man left and old campsites. Once, we came across a campsite and the coals were warm. We were finally getting closer! It’s freezing up here!

We soon started walking through the clouds.

We got to the edge of the mountain where there was a bridge. On the bridge, we could faintly see a figure. It was the man we were chasing. We quickly went onto the bridge.

When we walked on the bridge, there was something weird going on. We kept going up and down, and up and down, and up and down… you get the idea. Some people looked down. I was curious so I looked down too.

Below, we could see many little towns that we went to. We could even see the Leaky Keg! When

we looked back, we couldn’t see the bottom of the mountain. We were floating!

I had no idea where we were even though I read all the time. Though, I never really read books that were actually informative. Somebody suggested that we were probably in Exandria, the floating city. That makes sense, since we were floating. Duh!

A few figures appeared on the bridge and arrested us. Ugh, now we were definitely in trouble.

We were brought to a town. It looked pretty normal. Sort of like we weren’t floating. A normal town. I hoped no one was afraid of heights. We were pretty high in the sky.

We were met by the king. His name was Song?

No, Soong. So, that makes him King Soong.

Just as we were greeting him, a blue orb came towards the king. Roen(the guy who arrested us) reached for his sword but couldn’t

do anything. All of us were too shocked to do anything.

A person that was hooded, probably a sorcerer/sorceress did something And the orb thing exploded. King Soong gasped as a few shards landed. Roen went up to the person that we were chasing this whole time and well, it was gross. Let’s just say he took away his seeing ability, smelling ability and tasting ability away with a sword. And the guy sort of died.

Then Roen went up to the king and kissed him. Well that escalated quickly. Awkward!

Cindy Hu

Tuesday May 12th, 2020

The Chase Hey everybody, the homework structure for step 2 is the same as step 1 For your first assignment I would like you to describe your character and tell me a little bit about them, where are they from, what do they want in life, if they learned magic how the heck did that happen??

Then I want you to describe what their relationship with this group of adventurers is like, are they new? were they a founding member? are they thinking about leaving after this job or will they stay for years and years as long as there's work? all of these questions could be useful but you don't need to answer everything, tell your own story however you want to.

Once that's done describe the events of today's story, consider including: - The attempt to catch the shadow in Brixton's 'Leaky Keg' tavern - Chasing the shadow for weeks - Climbing the Galdarra mountains in pursuit of him - Crossing the bridge in the clouds - Your arrival in Exandria, the floating city - Watching the shadow vanish - Your arrest by Roen, Captain of the guard - What the city looks like - The river and the water fall - The citadel - King Soong, and his sorceress who you have yet to be introduced to - The assassination attempt - How Roen and the sorceress acted to stop it - Being reintroduced to Roen, the King's husband - What happens next?

Include whatever you feel is useful as well as anything I may have missed, for example not all of you looked over the edge of the cliff, some of you were afraid of the bridge, some of you didn't even need to walk on it you simply flew or hovered. Tell this story from your own perspective.

My name is Amelia Carter and I’m an only child living with my parents Fiona and my step-father Liam Carter. We live in an apartment that is small on the outside and big on the inside, personally enchanted by Liam who is a wizard. My mother and biological father are both humans. I’m 17 years old and love books. I’m also interested

in witchcraft and wizardry so my step-dad taught me how to cast enchantments. My mother doesn’t like it nearly as much as I do but she tolerates my overuse of magic because it’s extremely helpful with chores and such. Fiona used to love magic a lot but after a publicized accident, she restricted herself on it. I work part time at one of the biggest libraries on the planet. I plan to become either a writer or any job which involves me frequently working with all forms of magic. I’m also interested in making wands and how some people can channel their magic through the wand, multiplying their strength. My mom works from home online keeping track of who uses magic and what type, making sure it’s legal. I think she wants to be around magic without using so no ‘accidents’ happen and hurt her friends. My does confidential work for a school for witches that he's always trying to get me to go to. I like learning with him or by myself though, so I always decline the author.

I really like this ‘job’ and the people working on it. It’s nice meeting new people and experiencing new things, I would l​ ove t​ o stay and work here for as long as possible.

Even though I love books, experiencing adventure is ​so ​different from reading it and truth be told, it’s better. Even though I could d​ ie ​at any time pretty much. It’s more exciting than my ‘old’ life. Which was rather boring although I do miss my parents. I hope to visit them soon. Even though the experience was thrilling, or maybe because, everything seemed like a blur to me.

It was ​so ​hard trying to catch the shadow in the ‘Leaky Keg’. We looked for ​such a​ long time! We even had to cross the Galdarra mountains and cross a bridge in the clouds. I was astonished when the shadow disappeared in Exandria and even more so when Roen, captain of the guard, arrested us. The city was nice enough though, complete with a river and waterfall. Not to mention the citadel, King Soong and his beloved sorceress. We heard news of an assasination but thankfully, Roen and the sorceress put a stop to it. That news went in one ear and out the other but since it was so infamous now, I don’t think I’ll ever here the end of it. At least we got introduced to the king. I have no idea what will happen from then on though. Will he help us capture the shadow?

Daisy Chen 20/5/12

The Chase

My character’s name is Abigail Gloom. She has multiple brothers (no sisters, sad ) and a lot of great - great - great - great - great - great - great - great grandparents. She has a big house, as big as a mansion but she’s not rich because she has a lot of relatives that need to spend the money on. Her whole family lives in the mansion. Abigail’s parents died in a car crash but she has over 20 brothers that are overprotective (and annoying).

She is 18 years old and likes to read books and practice her spells. She hates her brothers and doesn't really have any fear. This is her adventure…

The first thing I felt in the morning was… a cold splash of water? EEEEKKKK!!! It’s SO cold!! Turns out, it was my brother, Lewis (why am I suprise?) I took a refreshing bath and packed my suitcases. I stored my lucky penny in a special necklace I just bought.

Safety first! I went down for breakfast. I saw my brothers Lewis, Cory, Mattew, Eric, Andy, Ali, Matteo, Jerry, Ayden, Christain, Asher, Ash, Aaryn, Aaron, Ales, Ben, Benjamin, Xavier, Edison, and Ken. How am I supposed to remember this? Dunno. Sadly, I have no sisters. :( “Bye!”I told my brothers “ btw (by the way) where’s great-great- great-gr-” “They're still sleeping” Asher interrupted me. “Kk”, I responded, “Bye!”

I decided to summon my wand and fly to the base. My crew members were there already. “Let’s start chasing that man we need to chase” I shouted. We followed him for weeks. In this small valley, called Leaky Keg, we ALMOST caught him, ​almost! ​We surrounded him in the corner. He used a smoke bomb to escape!

We followed him for another week or so, we climbed a bbbbbiiiiiiiiigggggg mountain. We walked for weeks following he left over camp trails and other stuff like that. We came to a point where we saw his horse galloping freely. We also have to leave our horses. We walked upon a bridge. We started walking on it. It felt like someone was walking in the middle.

The bridge kinda felt like up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down… As we reached the end of the bridge, there was an island! We never saw an island before! We realised this is the The floating island of Exandria. Some guards came up to us. Just then, the man we needed to capture was there, behind the guards! The man just leaned back and vanished in the darkness. The guards then faced us…

The head guard just immediately arrested us even though we explained that we did no harm. How rude! We walked through the city and went to the castle. Somewhere in the crowd, Felicity saw… the shadow! Suddenly, a blue bottle came out of the crowd.

Spinning and spinning and spinning… This part was blurry. I don’t remember anything that happened but when the smoke cleared, “We need to talk” said Roen.

Deming The Snow was colder than ever​ ​the shadow must be miles ahead of us by now.We arrived at a bridge and it looked unstable,Lucas went first and the bridge was fine so we all went on.the bridge had a weird feeling,It felt like i was walking down hill.on the other side of the bridge there was a castle.Some guards came running out and surrounded us with weapons in hand,”what brings you to the city of atheria.I responded by saying we were chasing a shadow .but no one believed us.We were taken to the king and was questioned.while we were being questioned though the shadow appeared and tried to ooooooooooooooooof the king but that attempt was quickly turned down by the sorcerer AKA John Cena jk(vaccelia i spelled her name wrong)then he was decapitated by Ronan.

Stella Marlow By: Felicity Lu Hi! Im Stella! I’m a fairy from an enchanted forest called Fiji Woods with other magical creatures that live there.

Like some of the other fairies from Fiji Woods, I have blonde hair, peachy skin and beautiful green eyes. Also, no, I am NOT the size of an eraser, I’m about the size of an average teenage girl. In fact, at school I have average marks, I'm okay at magical sports and I like what most other fairies like so I guess you could describe me as normal.

The Chase

My crew and I(that i’ve been with for more than a year by now) are so frustrated that there isn't even a word to describe how angry we are. We literally corner the man that we were ordered to chase and somehow he escaped.

IT WAS LITERALLY OUR WHOLE CREW VERSUS HIM! But anyways, the last thing we saw was the cloaked man riding his tall jet black horse north so we got onto our horses while rolling our eyes because obviously we're still annoyed that he escaped.

After nearly 3 weeks of following the hooded man through forests, prairies and jungles, we arrived at a snowy mountain. I could just sense that we were close to him. Even though we haven’t seen him in a while, we could definitely make out his footprints in the soft snow and we would always pass the campsites that he had set up.

As we continue to follow the man's footprints on our horses, I see something black move in the distance. It’s way too large to be the guy we're looking for so what could it be? Oh, to my suprise, it’s his horse! ​Why ever would he leave his precious horse? ​I thought. Well I get my answer immediately after hoping of my beautiful white horse with a gleaming gold tail. The snow is way too dense for the horses so we leave them next to the man’s horse which is beside a big tree.

For some reason as we start to get higher on the mountain, fog begins to appear and we suddenly feel as if we are on the edge of the mountain so we all immobilize for a second, then start to walk slower. Even through the fog, I can see a bride ahead of us that doesn’t look entirely stable. As we form a line and slowly step onto the bridge, it starts to vibrate. Then I realise that the vibration must be from someone else walking on it and the man that we were chasing’s footprints ended here. It must be him.

After 2 or 3 minutes of walking, we look back and notice that we can’t see the mountains behind us anymore.

Clouds have been the only thing we can see. As we were walking down the bridge, I got an odd sensation that I was walking downhill which I didn’t have before. But after more walking, I feel like I'm walking uphill which doesn’t make sense because the bridge isn’t a “u” shape. Finally after about 10 long minutes, we see a pillar and a gate at the end of the bridge. And as we continue to get closer, we can see a cliff at the back and on that cliff I can make out a castle.

As we exit the bridge and step onto solid ground, out of curiosity, I look over the edge and I see the town of Brikston in the distance and some farms but what I didn’t expect to see was that we’re floating. We're on a floating island.

I’m so surprised by this that I didn’t see the guards coming to us until they started talking in their very deep voices. “​STATE YOUR BUSINESS”​, says one of them. One of our crew members steps forward and tries to explain why we're here. What seems like the king seems to understand but arrests us anyway. I hear the crew member beside me whisper “​stupid idiot”.

The king brings us to a crowd and in the corner of my eye I see a dark hood who is unmistakably the man we were chasing. I warn our group.

Jeffrey We’re leaving soon, I was with my team talking to the king about the shadowy figure that tried to kill him. Wondering what had happened? Well, it all started a few months ago. We had found the mysterious shadowy figure we were sent to capture. I was the well rounded guy on the team, knowing a little bit of everything. I wasn’t bad at anything in particular and was able to take hits well. Out of all my teammates, I was the most durable. We had cornered him in a bar and were about to capture him. Suddenly, he disappeared! I looked at my teammates to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. He must have escaped! We rushed out of the tavern and saw him galloping away on his horse. I cursed, we all jumped on our stallions and started running towards. His black horse sped up and hurried off into the horizon. We followed his footsteps for weeks, he led us down forests and onto beaches. Eventually, we started climbing up a slope of a mountain. Someone told us that this was the Galdarra mountain range. The higher we got the more snowy it got, everyone was covered head to toe. Eventually, we had to abandon our horses as they no longer could walk in the foot deep snow. We stumbled onto a ledge of a mountain wondering where we were supposed to go next. The footprints had stopped here.

Eventually we found a small wooden plank bridge dangling off the side of the ledge. It led to somewhere we couldn’t see. Someone on the team walked on the bridge and slowly crossed.

We started walking in a line down the bridge and I had a sudden feeling that we were going down a slope several times. We eventually reached an edge of a mountain. Our group realized that we were on a floating island on the clouds! I realized what this was, it was the myth of the floating island of Exandria! We saw the shadowy man running towards the gate and as soon as the alarm sounded and the guards came rushing out, he disappeared again. The people of Exandria arrested us and took us to their king. Next to the king was a sorceress and next to her was the guard who arrested us. We explained we were mercenaries that collected people in exchange for cash. Suddenly, we saw the shadowy man in the crowd inching closer to the king.

The king was still talking as the man held a vase and threw it at the king. Time seemed to slow down as the vase headed towards the king. The knight realized what was happening but was too slow to react. Luckily the enchantress created a wall in between us to protect the king. The vase exploded and everyone on the other side of the wall froze, except the man. The knight ran over and chopped the man’s head clean off. What will happen next, I don’t know? What I do know is that there will be a lot more to come.

Lucas Zhang

The Chase

THIS IS RATED PG-13, KIDS!z First things first, this is a JOURNAL. Second things second, I’m short, like to eat and have furry feet. That’s right! You guessed it! I’m a Hobbit from the faraway land of the Shire.

Now, I have come here not to have storytelling time with you, I’m here scribbling this all down while our group sleeps. First, let me tell you about my background. You already know that I’m a Hobbit from the Shire. I have an old ring of invisibility passed down from my ancestors, and now it’s here right beside me. Anyways, I learned a few tips or tricks about Magic from the wizard Gandalf, an old friend of mine. I’m 21 years old. I also taught myself to be a mercenary, (a ‘Spell Sword these folk calls it) traveling around hunting wild and savage beasts, and I have been on solo missions in the past. Anyways, these people came and hired me and 7 random people to hunt a hooded black figure. We have been hot on his trail, and now he led us to the nearby (or far away as I call it) town of Brickston. If you were wondering, our group has a Hobbit (me), a Man, a weird ‘Magic Boi’, another Human, a bee, a witch, a ‘Big Brain’, and a Fairy. I knew only half of these weird species, as my folk calls them ‘irregular’. The people of my land call me ‘Unnatural’ because I like adventures, and in my spare time I fiddle around my magic ring around a chain on my neck. So back to this tale I was talking about. (And by the way, this journal is considered PG rating because it includes death, murder, weird sci-fi stuff, and messing around with sticks and that’s only the first 2 chapters, who knows what terrors await us in this tale of weird stuff and I know that was kind of anti-climatic, but DEAL WITH IT) Anyways, we were chasing this hooded fool around the pub of the Leaky Keg, and he led us to this Mountain. Of course, I had to go first because everyone was way too chicken. A dense fog fell upon this snowy mountain, and Deming the Magic Boi was behind me (I know that was kind of irrelevant). We finally arrived at a Bridge.

We all crossed it and we had some strange sensation that we were going up and down. But finally, as we crossed the bridge, we saw a citadel, and the hooded figure was standing there! We charred at him but right at that moment the Guard of the Citadel arrived and arrested us. We tried to explain, and they brought us to the Hall of King Sooon. A man of Asian descent he was, but I did not like his goatee. It was terrible. Anyways, we explained everything to Sooon and he seemed like all was ok. Then, the hooded figure threw a glass vial at Sooon. The Mage beside SOOon protected him. Then Roen, the person who arrested us, decapitated the hooded figure’s head. Well if i were him that would have been painful.

My uess is that the figure lived, since this guy was pretty dangerous and that’s why the people chose us as mercenaries, right? So I will write my next entry soon! Peace out

Wenqi Sun My character likes nature and adventures, dislikes running, and has a fear of heights.

Introduction Yo-ho! My name is Carol Misty. I am a very energetic 16 year old. Most people say that my hair is heavily ‘pigmented’ with a ginger color but, I like to call my hair “The Orange Blob.” Yes, I know… it’s a bizarre name. I have ocean-blue eyes and a few blobby freckles. In addition to my appearance, I also have a pair of circle-like glasses that I MUST wear all the time. Without my glasses, I would be walking into metal poles, tripping on rocks, face-planting, and basically, causing myself a lot of harm.

I was born in Scotland and never ​really had parents. By that I mean that I was an orphan for most of my life. My mom died from birth complications when she had me, and when I was 5, my Papa passed away from an illness. I didn’t have any family that I knew of, so I basically roamed Scotland in a curious manner. The only way I would survive was by stealing food and living in random places and worn-down shelters I would find. That is, until I was 13. I would love to talk about how I became a part of the adventure-filled group I’m in right now but, that’s another story for another day…

Although I am in human form, I am also a wizard. I can perform magic such as being able to walk through anything and being able to allow different objects (like bullets) pass through me without causing myself any sort of harm. But, I wasn’t born with this type of ‘power.’ I remember that I walked upon this huge goblet. It was gold and decorated with lots of jewelry. I remember that I was around the age of 9, still wandering around in Scotland when I found the chalice. I looked inside the goblet and saw a bracelet. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!

The bracelet was made out of jade. The natural patterns of the bracelet was one of the things that caught my attention. At that time, I was really confused on why there would be a huge, golden goblet with treasures inside resting in the middle of the road. I was even more surprised that no one has found and stolen the treasures inside of the goblet. I peeked inside the golden chalice one more time.

The more I looked, the more fascinated I was by the treasures that were within the chalice. Finally, at the very bottom of the goblet was a letter. It said:

Dear Esmeralda, This is the golden goblet that I had promised to give you... along with all the treasures within.

But the more I thought about it, the more hesitant I became. I would start to wonder if you were really worth all my riches. You were greedy, disrespectful, ignorant, and mean. I didn’t want

to give my riches to someone who was not worthy. Someone who was not caring and kind.

Someone who didn’t have a kind and pure heart. So, this letter should actually be for the kind person who I have decided to give the goblet and the treasures to. Allow me to start over.

To Carol. My one and only daughter. I have decided to give you all of my treasure and riches to you. That is, if you ever find it. No, you’ll find it. Only you can see the goblet. It is invisible to other people. I have been planning on giving my riches to your mother, Esmeralda, but I decided not to. She was not worth all the magic and power this goblet holds. Carol, if you find this, take the treasure but keep the goblet here. Don’t tell ANYONE about the treasure and chalice. Take the bracelet and wear it. It will allow you to pass through anything and will allow things to pass through you without causing yourself any harm. Be careful out there, Carol Misty. Be careful.

Love, Papa

I was shocked. This was a letter from my Papa! At least I think. After some more looking, I found a dusty book too. By reading the book, I taught myself a bit of magic. From the age of nine, I wore the bracelet Papa had told me to wear. I never took it off. I never will. Now, with the rest of the treasure, I cannot tell anyone about it. It is a secret and no one… is allowed to know.

The Crew The people and friends that have stuck with me are the ones who were able to get used to my loud and explosive personality. I wouldn’t say that I’m a ​ nnoying ​but, it's been hard for me to find friends. Fortunately, I joined--well, got accepted--into the adventure-filled group I’m in right now. They technically ‘adopted’ me. No one has ever thought about leaving this group. Most of the members were like me, orphans. We have become each other’s ‘partners in crime’ I guess. I personally don’t think of this group as a “job.” It’s relaxing to me. Most of the time anyways.

Our group doesn’t have a leader, no one is the boss. I like it that way.

We have many diverse people in our group. There are humans, wizards/witches, bees, hobbits, sorceresses, and fairies. If you stick around, you’ll understand why.

The Chase

A few weeks ago, we were hired to chase down this mysterious man. Yesterday, at Brixton's 'Leaky Keg' tavern, we almost caught him and I was able to catch a glimpse of him. The mysterious man had a hood that covered most of his face. Our group decided to refer to him as a “shadow.” As I said, we a ​ lmost ​caught him. He was an arm-length away from us, but this sneaky man somehow escaped. But we still

made sure that we were right on his tail. Eventually, he led us to the Galdarra Mountain. The further we went into the mountain, the worse the weather became.

The snow was falling heavily and the hail made matters worse. My face was frozen.

Even with my three scarves wrapped tightly around my neck. I could feel the big chunks of hail hitting my face every two seconds. We were on horseback which led to even worse situations. The mountain’s climate was awful and it wouldn’t be safe if we continued on horseback. So, we got off our horses and continued the chase by foot. By then, my face felt like it was going to fall off. Don’t get me wrong, nature is a wonderful thing but when you have a sensation that your face is going to fall off, your only desire is to go home, bundle up, and drink hot cocoa.

The further we were in the Galdarra Mountains, the more fresh footprints we could see. The footprints were still visible and we saw our target’s campsites. “We are getting closer and closer and closer to the shadow,” someone said. This gave me a spark of hope. No, not a spark of hope like “we get to catch him!” It was more a I-get-to-go-home-soon type of hope. By now, my interest in adventures is dwindling.

A couple minutes later, we saw this dense cloud of fog. Well, it was basically clouds (yes, we were that high up in the mountains). Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by this exhausted feeling. I had to breathe more rapidly and harder. My body was tired and the altitude was not making matters for me any better. But, I still decided to continue trekking. As we passed through clouds, another sensation appeared. But this time, everyone else seemed to have the same sensation as me too. W ​ e were on a mountain, could barely see where we were going and seemed to be right at the edge...of the mountain. ​Everyone stopped abruptly. We could see an object, emerging from all the fog and snow. As we cautiously walked towards the object, you could see two ropes with these planks of wood. It was a bridge. I ​ n the middle of nowhere. I ​ muttered under my breath. One by one, we stepped onto the bridge. Suddenly, you could feel a vibration, farther into the bridge. Everyone started to wonder if the person we were chasing was somewhere on the bridge with us... After a few minutes of walking, we looked back and the mountain disappeared. The clouds became the entire “world” around us. Then, for the third time today, I got another weird and bizarre sensation. I felt like one second, I was walking downhill and then another second, I was climbing the tallest hill in the world. ​You have GOT to me kidding me right now. ​I thought to myself. Then, everyone could see a cliff face rising up into the distance. Even further was a gate and stone walls. Then, a castle came to view. As we exited the bridge, there were a couple pretty pillars. This place started to look like a kingdom. A very fancy, yet modest kingdom. We explored the place a bit more. Before we knew it, we were being yelled at by soldiers and questioned. They literally picked us up by our

collars. That’s when the mysterious man that we were chasing appeared. This time, he lifted his black hood up--just enough to see his mouth--and gave us a smirk. He then disappeared in the air as quickly as he appeared. But, there was no time to worry about the shadow because the soldiers brought us to what looked like the king.

As we were face to face with the kingdom’s ruler, my heart started beating really fast. I wasn’t nervous, I was...excited. ​This could be our new adventure! I ​ thought quietly to myself. Maybe we could help accompany the king and receive permission to continue exploring this unique kingdom! But, my thoughts were interrupted by an alarmed person. She was the fairy in our group. “The shadow...he’s here again.” she whispered to each one of us. We all got into position and were ready for whatever came next. Well... almost everything.

As we were preparing for the shadow, we saw a strange movement. A glass jar.

The jar was spinning and spinning and spinning. This blue liquid was also incorporated with the glass jar. The world around me seemed to slow down. I saw some of my teammates trying to grab something to prevent the attack but, there was no time. Roan, a guard that introduced himself to us earlier, tried to pull out his sword but was going to be too slow... by the looks of it. Right when I thought we were doomed, the mage, sitting right beside the king (King Soong) moved in an elegant manner. She was very fast, unnaturally fast. The mage extended her hand and a spear of energy launched out of her hand. The magic split the glass jar in half and little shards of glass flew in every direction. A blue mist appeared. Ice suddenly formed a border around us. As time seemed to go back to normal, I heard collective gasps from people and King Soong, putting his hands up to protect his face way too late. Then, there were footsteps, Roan’s footsteps. He pulls out his sword and charges right into the ice; breaking it. Through the hole, I could see everyone frozen with shock, except a familiar shadowy figure, lowering his hood with a puzzled face. Then his face was covered with surprise, “What- No, wait!

Wait!” Too late. Roan was on him, sword drawn and in a single move, smoothly cut the shadow’s head off. Then, nonchalantly, Roan walks back to King Soong, acting like nothing happened. “Well! Looks like you have a lot to explain.”

CHAPTER TWO

The First Loop

Cindy Hu May 14th, 2020

The First Loop So much happened today that I can hardly remember everything! Just the highlights of our “amazing” journey/mission to capture the shadow. First of all, we got an audience with King Soong. Shortly after we met some guy named Vexalia and then another guy named Gabriel the bard. Which is an ​interesting name. Personally, I’m glad I wasn’t named Amelia the bard or something like that.

Then we had to rescue a ​random ​guy by the riverside. To top it off, we ended up at a v​ ery​ snotty spa with even snootier people. We spent ​quite ​a lot of time at the Fox and Flagon bar. Then to make things ​even​ more dramatic, there was a bank heist! It’s like someone decided ​all ​the excitement needs to happen the day we happen to be here. And then of course, we had to follow in pursuit of yet another annoying person. Then the ​great ​Roen decides it is the time for a disastrous management. In my ​humble​ opinion, the explosion in the Mage’s tower was her fault. I can’t say Vexalia’s reaction to it was completely unexpected, I just don’t know what to think. Or why Vexalia thinks what she thinks. Since we have incredible luck, we got to witness a ​mysterious ​barrier, followed by a column of purple light and then the next thing we know, the city of Exandria falls. I don’t have time to write a dramatic book about the fall of Exandria but I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity. I was too busy trying my best to stay alive. Then death happened. Of c​ ourse ​it needs to happen. Also did I mention Deming killed someone? I can’t believe it! Then, I guess we blacked out because I woke up in an unfamiliar place that reminded me of a throne room.

Daisy 20/5/14

The First Loop

I thought I was prepared until I met the collapsing roof...

Our crew decided to tell the truth to King Soong of the person we’re chasing. We also told him we need some money. He told us that we can find a job in the village, his trusty guide will guide you.

We stepped outside and a guy came and sang a song. “La dee dee my name is Gideon la dee dee la dee dee la dee dee…” he said. GIDEON?! I’m pretty sure that he was from that... um...oh yeah! Space mission. My friend Abigail (she has the same name as me) told me that he sucks. We followed him down to the small village.

On the way, we met an old guy and was saying hi to Gideon. Suddenly, he fell. We tried to save him by using magic except the fact it didn’t work out well. Celina and Jeffrey tried to swim in and save the old man but they got pulled into the water too.

Luckily, Celina swam out and Lucas went into the forest to look for a stick.

Deming tried a spell that lifted everyone up from the water, but then, it didn’t work and Jeffrey flung to the sky… Wenqi tried to give Jeffrey a soft landing but it was too soft and flung Jeffrey into the water and he... died... It’s pretty sad… :( The old man also died… :( Just then, Lucas came running out and said “I found a STRONG stick” We all shook our head.

On the way to the bar we did a funeral for the old man that we don’t even know his name and Jeffrey. We headed into the bar and saw several people and a very, very, very, busy maid. “Hi, what can I get you, be quick please, I don’t have a lot of time” She said. Wenqi asked for some money and in shock, she gave us some.

Deming also asked for some milk. Everyone in the bar just stopped...and started laughing. I took a look at the milk, the milk looks spoiled… EWWW. Suddenly, I heard a… dragon? I looked around and didn’t see any dragon...how weird. Fire was starting to spread. Wenqi tried to put out the fire, but it was too strong and kind of unstabled the roof.

I was outside just in case that something happened outside. Other people went fighting some bandits that had just run in. Felicity and Wenqi were holding up the roof.

When everyone was outside, Roen came and was complaining like “This is the worst day ever!” I think that he thinks that we did this.

BOOM!!!!!! The mage tower has exploded. The mage tower has exploded?! The boys decided to go chase the bandits while the girls went to heal people. Suddenly, I felt a little dizzy and we were back in the throne room? Hmmm. Demiming thinks that this is a loop and I agree with him. This is only the first​ l​ oop.

The First Loop By: Felicity Lu

The king asks us once again to explain why we're here. We decided to be truthful because none of us wants to risk going to jail for lying. Then I hear Ro’en talking so I turn my head to see what's going on. Ro’en now walks up to us since the lady he was chatting with is now having a conversation with King Soong. He offers us lots of different jobs since we require money. After our little talk with Ro’en, we walk towards the door but as this happens, a tall elfish man with a guitar leaps in front of us and I almost bump into him. He introduces himself as “Gideon”. By the way he looks and talks to us, I can already confidently say that I don’t like this guy.

Gideon leads us to a town and asks us to follow him. I don’t trust him very much but I follow anyway. When we get to the town, Gideon goes over to a river and starts singing annoyingly. An old man on the bridge that is over the river suddenly saw Gideon and waved. The old man seems to have

lost balance while doing this and falls over the railing of the bridge and into the river.

Quite a few of our crew members try to help the man but fail miserably. We end up losing 2 of our crew members and the old man. Gideon leads us back to town after this happens and proceeds to sing his annoying song while strumming his guitar which doesn’t make things any better. As we walk forwards we see this very fancy marble building with steam spilling out of the front of it. Gideon explains that this is a spa and that it is extremely expensive.

Gideon then leads us to a bar and introduces us to a bartender. I was about to order some pink lemonade but the crew member sitting beside me did not seem to enjoy his milk and spat it immediatly out so I decided to stay thirsty.

Suddenly we hear a tremendously loud “​Bang​” across the street so we all walk outside. To my surprise I see that the front of the bank across from us has been destroyed. We go inside to see if we can help and I notice there are a lot of people that are wearing purple masks and they seem to be

attacking people. Most of our crew members are now spread around the bank fighting the purple mask people and doing whatever we can to help. I see that a lady is on fire so I immediately run over to her.

Ro’en then walks toward us and starts complaining that this has been the worst day of his life but as he’s doing this happens, the roof of the bank starts to collapse. One of my other colleagues and I immediately cast a spell and motion to everyone to get out of the bank because the spell will only last a short period of time.

When we all arrive outside, we see the shinning of a purple light. As the purple light grows larger and larger, people are really starting to panic. Then the whole ground begins to shake and I can feel the vibration in my body. Huge towers and pieces of rock are flying around and I close my eyes and slip into darkness. But then in the darkness I see light. I open my eyes and look around, Ro’en kills the hooded figure and the king asks us to explain ourselves. Wait what? This already happened before? A ​ re we stuck in a loop hole?

Jeffrey It was a nice day on the island, we had just told the king what had happened and we were free to go. We decided to head towards a river and met Gideon the Bard. Gideon led us to an old man who accidently fell over his bridge and into the river. Luckily, I was close and grabbed the old man in the river. The rest of my teammates kept falling over into the water while I pulled him to shore. However, one of the teammates fell and pushed me into the river with the old man. As I clung on a branch at the mouth of the river the old man fell to his doom. As I was pulling myself up, one of my teammates smacked me with a net and I lost my grip and fell. Another teammate tried to help but wasn’t able to. Then, I fell to my doom. After what seemed like forever, I woke up. I was with my teammates while the events that happened yesterday occured. Someone suggested we were in a time loop and we would keep repeating today infinitely unless we broke free.

The First Loop Lucas Zhang Remember how I said that Roen attacked the Hooded FIgure we were talking about? Well, you might be wondering what happened next. So I’ll tell you. We had another audience with King Sooon and he believed everything. He left Roen in charge of us. Roen told us we could do some mercenary jobs around the city. He told us the options: Go catch a bunch of bandits, find out the secret of the mines, spy on an old recluse’s tower. We were introduced to and an Elvish man named Gideon. He had a guitar and strummed a short song, he was pretty nice to us. Then we crossed the bridge and a short man going by the name of ‘Tom’ called out to Gideon. Tom fell into the river, leading down to a waterfall. One of our companions, Celina (or so I remember) fell into the stream while trying to rescue Tom. However, Jeffrey with his Chicken Wing of Constitution rescued Celina and swam back to shore. Celina also managed to swim back to shore. But poor Tom was still in the river. I was getting pretty desperate so I went into the Forest, grabbed a stick, and found my way out, and fought back a bunch of wolves with a stick. I tried to use my stick, but it was too late. Jeffrey by this point was feeling confident, but he failed to rescue Tom, snd they held on to life by a branch. Another one of our Company, Wenqi, tried to cast a spell to make them float back, but it failed, and Anneaka the Bee made gumdrops fall out of the air. Jeffrey and Tom sadly died while falling off the island. I wonder if they will have a funeral when this is all done?

Actually DEMING was the cause of the murder; he is da murderer, but I didn’t say just to be nice.

Maybe and maybe not. Anyways, we continued on our journey, and then I detected something strange! The Spirit of Jeffrey had come back to haunt Gideon and posses him! (I wonder if he’ll let me eat his chicken wing).

Anyways, not that big of a deal. We went into a pub in the market and I ordered 2 pints of ale. Deming the Magic Boi, however, ordered a glass of milk and then he said it tasted like sour milk. It kind of reminded me of spoiled milk, but then Deming said it was the ‘invincibility draught’ he wanted to get, but I think he could have just conjured it or bought the draught, but maybe he got an F in Potions and he is broke. (Lol no offense Deming and please don’t take marks off Matt) Wait, who is Matt? ………..Anyways, we heard Dragon’s Breath

outside at the bank. We rushed out. Some weird people were coming out, having just robbed the bank. Those sounded like the Bandits Roen was talking about earlier! The bank was on fire! It kind of sounded like the tales my elders used to tell around the fire a night, about those Fire-Demons that dwelt in the deep places of the World. I, Gideon, and Deming charged the bandits. Gideon actually managed to fend the bad guys off, while Deming I think was casting some spells and I was helping Gideon in fending off the Bandits. We did pretty well, but I was losing health every few times I hit the bandits, and Gideon was still chanting spells.

The bank was crumbling, and Wenqi and Celina, I think, were holding up the Bank, and we rushed out. The leader of the Purple Crew vanished through a wooden post. The Hooded Figure! I told you he wasn’t dead! Deming, Gideon, and I pursued the bandits, even though we were losing health every second, and finally, Deming and I were at fatal health, and Gideon also. Gideon kept alive and slipped into unconsciousness. Deming seemingly also went into unconsciousness, and I checked his pulse. His heart was not beating. Deming was dead. That was my last thought before I put on my ring and unconsciousness overcame me. I woke up. Strangely, Deming and Jeffrey were still alive. The Mage, Vex’Alia, Roen, and King Sooon were also in the room. It was then that I realized that we had come into a thing called a ‘Time Loop’. I learned that from the Elders of the Shire too. I had returned from near death. After I received the news from the other group, I was shocked to see how Axandria had fallen. I will tell you the tale of the next adventure soon.

The First Loop Anneaka

So today, we figured out that there was a loop. yay… Why are we even in the loop??? We also met this sorcerous named Vex’alia. Weird name but OK. I don’t really remember everything that happened because my memory sucks. I remember the mage tower blowing up or something like that. I really don’t remember anything really. Other than sneaking away to do random stuff. I practically did nothing really other than follow them around and just doing whatever. We woke up in the throne room for some reason. I think it’s because of the loop but I have no idea.

Wenqi Sun

​The First Loop

After getting over the shock of the assassination attempt, we explained why we were here to the head guard. “Ghost-hunters. A perfectly reasonable profession. No need to question you whatsoever,” The guard stated simply. Then, he turned to his soldiers and said, “Aaaarrest them!”

Without hesitation, the soldiers turned sharply towards us, and gave us a menacing look. ​Okayyyy. That was NOT what I was expecting… at all. ​I thought to myself. We were forced out of the throne room. There were two soldiers in front of us, leading us to wherever we were going, and there were three soldiers behind us, poking our behinds if we were too slow or talking.

Once we walked through the gates, I could see that we entered a town. A town that I never heard of or seen before. This town looked like a normal town. Nothing unusual happened. There were people selling fruit at the market, blacksmiths working hard, and there was a town choir. Everything seemed to be going well. As we continued through the market, we saw this bridge. At the end of the bridge was a waterfall. A huge waterfall. The water was shiny and clean. We continued walking. I got my behind poked once. Oh, who am I kidding. I got my behind poked four times. I guess I was talking too much. We climbed this small hill and entered another royal hallway. There were dozens and dozens of people. Petitioners and guards.

We met with King Soong. “Roan! What have you brought us today?”

“Ghost hunters--or so they say--at the gate, King Soong.”

The King only nodded. Roan walked towards the King and sat down, on a smaller throne next to King Soong. Once everyone was settled down, I got a chance to examine the people in the royal hallway. The King--looking to be around his late 30s or early 40s-- appeared to be of Asian descent, with short, dark hair, and a little mustache that curled at each end. Sitting to the right of Soong was an elegant woman who looked like a mage. After a bit more of observing, I came to a conclusion that she ​was ​a mage. She had dark skin and light eyes. The mage also wore a robe made out of gold and silk. The robe was embroidered with different patterns in red. She seemed to be a calm person with her hands resting gently on her chair.

She was later introduced to us by the name, Vex’alia. The King stood up and asked us the same question Roan did in the beginning, “Who are you and ​what ​are you doing here, in my kingdom?” We explained everything again but more cautiously this time. ​Don’t want to upset the King! I thought

to myself. Soong stroked his mustache for a bit. Then Roan asked us, “So as I understand it, you were hired to catch this shadow?” pointing at the dead body next to us. We nodded. “...Well then, now you need a job?” No one answered. The King finally spoke, “If you’re in for the sort of… mercenary work, there has been a group of criminals who have been resistant to being arrested. If you can bring them in for me, you will all surely be rewarded.” he continued down a list of other jobs we could do.

There was the mage’s tower, where there was a man who was noisy and loud. King Soong wanted us to resolve that problem. “If you’re up for an adventure, there are the mines--which are supposedly haunted--where you could explore. Then there’s the marketplace. Find a job there if you want…”

King Soong stated simply. Shortly after, Roan had to leave for a bit, “I’ll pass you off to one of my trusted attendants. He will walk you around town, look after you, and make sure that you are all comfortable here.” We thanked him and before you know it, Roan scurried off into the distance.

As we approached the door, a tall, elfish man came walking into view from the side. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.

The man was dressed rather strangely. He wore a fancy, puffy hat with a big, long feather and had a tight, sleeveless vest on. He also wore shorts with long, purple socks and these purple shoes with large, silver buckles. In addition, the man carried a little, acoustic guitar. ​I can say that I have NEVER seen ANYONE dress like this before… ​I thought. Right after I finished observing him, he walked up to us and with a flourish, he bowed right in front of us. “It is I, Gideon the Bard, at your service.” ​GIDEON? THE GIDEON? ​Before we could reply, Gideon takes out his guitar and sings, “Greetings and salutations! I bring you tidings and vibratiooooons.” My ears. T ​ hen Gideon takes a giant and impressive leap into the town and strums his guitar again, “Please follow me and my directiooons and do not give me any grammar correctiooooooons! Kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee, kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee!” Gideon continued to hum this tune for the rest of our journey… while skipping. I was certain that I was going to receive a migraine at the end of the day. A few minutes later, I realized who Gideon reminded me of... Gideon. I smacked my head in disappointment. H ​ ow could I have not thought of this earlier?? ​I scolded myself.

As we continued walking, I realized that we were going down the same set of stairs, and the same hill we climbed last time. In a blink of an eye, we were right in front of the bridge and river that I was so fascinated with last time. Then, an old man staggered towards us, carrying a bottle of…

something. In a gruff voice, he started to sing the same song Gideon did, “Ayeeeee. Da-da-bleh-ah-giddy-da-dee, da-da-bleh-ah-gid-BLECH!” the man tumbled over the bridge and fell into the fast-flowing river. We all gasped. “We should save this poor, drunk man!” someone yelled. A couple brave people (not me) decided to save the man. But, things didn’t go as planned. We weren’t even a minute in, and three of our people were already pulled into the dangerous river alongside the drunk man. The rest of us on shore were pacing around frantically, attempting to think of a solution to this issue. Thankfully, after some time, the two people were able to swim to shore successfully. But that still left us with one more problem: the man we tried to save was still in the river, humming Gideon’s song and one more of our people was right beside him. The drunk man was either oblivious to the fact that he was in a ‘live or die’ situation or he didn’t care at all. Things seemed to go downhill after that. The man we tried to save lost his grip on our guy, Jeffrey, and disappeared into view. We tried to save both of our men. Someone tried to cast multiple spells but eventually, that put our guy in more danger. He was basically dangling off a cliff.

That’s when I decided to hope for the best and perform a spell. I tried to make a bubble and bring our guy back to us but it failed. He tumbled over the cliff and… vanished into the clouds below.

After getting over the shock and grief, we decided it would be best if we continued on with Gideon. He led us into town. As we walked forwards, we saw a very fancy marble building. In front of the entrance were two guards.

They glared at us as we walked by. But, their expression changed almost immediately as they saw two very well-dressed people walking towards them. The two people, a woman and a man, were talking until they looked at us. Their faces turned sour and they scowled at us. W ​ hat an impolite pair. ​I thought to myself. Gideon stopped and turned to us, “These are the marble spas. I don’t recommend you come here. They’re quite snooty.” I totally agree with Gideon on this. We continued walking. Off in the distance, you could see a single tower with smoke billowing out of it. The tower appeared to be very unstable. It looked like it was going to collapse any second. “This is the mage’s tower. I’ve never been there but it doesn’t look appealing to me. A lot of people are big on the mage tower though.”

as Gideon continued his rant on how awful the mage tower was, we entered the marketplace.

The first sight I saw was a man being thrown out of a bar. Gideon didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he pushed us into the bar. “This is the Fox and Flagon bar. A place you could visit sometime soon. It’s a very nice place.” In the background, I could hear some music playing. I’m not going to lie, it was quite nice. Then I saw a bartender, working very hard. Gideon introduced us to her and she gave us a warm smile. We decided that we would order some things here. After a quick break, we continued on with Gideon. “The next place we’ll be visiting is th-” BAM! There was a sudden noise. A noise that sounded like something got hit. People started screaming and yelling. The marketplace was in full pandemonium-mode now. The bank was on fire. The fire was spreading ​extremely ​fast. People were crawling on the ground, coughing and wheezing. The only person who seemed to be happy and excited was Gideon. “THIS IS MY MOMENT! MY MOMENT HAS COMEEEE!” Gideon pulled out the t​ iniest ​dagger I’ve ever seen in my life and ran full-speed into the distance. I tried to hold back my laugh. I decided that I was going to put out the fire. I muttered a spell and water blasted out of my hand. I might’ve gotten too excited and made my spell a little bit overpowered. The fire didn’t pose as a threat anymore; it was the roof of the bank. It was starting to collapse. That’s when my eyes widened in realization. ​There are people in the bank, oblivious to the fact that they might get crushed. It’ll all be my fault! I​ started to look around me frantically. I decided to run towards the bank. I was going to try and delay the roof collapsing. I produced a long, blue barrier that held down ​most of the pieces of the roof together. “GO! RUN! THIS BARRIER WON’T LAST AS LONG AS YOU THINK!” I yelled at the people inside the bank. I was also slowly edging my way towards the exit of the bank. ​I could use some serious help right now. ​I thought to myself. That’s when one of my teammates came rushing in, helping me hold up the collapsing roof. I gave her a smile. She nodded and cast a long, purple barrier similar to mine. A few minutes after, I started to feel my barrier weaken. In the background, I could still hear Gideon yelling in the background, “LET’S GO! I AM A PRO AT THIS. TAKE THIS! TAKE THAT!” I giggled. Suddenly, both mine and my teammate’s barriers were getting weaker and weaker by the second. The weight of the roof was crushing our barriers. We looked at each other and made sure that no one else was inside the bank. “On the count of three we run out. One… Two… Three! GO!” I ran. I hate running. But, I still ran. I ran the fastest I’ve ever ran in my life.

After what seemed like an eon, my teammate and I got out of the collapsing bank just in time. I looked back to see the bank’s roof collapsing. Once I caught my breath, someone yelled, “Where’s Gideon??”

Gideon was nowhere in sight. Roan came running down the hill. He came up to us and said, “This has been the worst day of my entire life. This is a nice city, everyone follows the laws. But this… this never happens. What did you guys bring with you?” He gave us a suspicious glare. But, before we could answer, Gideon was yelling “KAWABANGA!” in the distance. Roan turned to us and said, “You let G ​ ideon f​ ight?” he started to quiver with anger. “Y-Y-YOU LET GIDEON FIGHT?? You let Timmy the drunk fall off a bridge, and you let Gideon fight. Oh… My… Goodness!” I shrank back. I knew he wasn’t talking ​directly t​ owards me but, I am not the bravest person out there. Especially when it comes to people yelling at you. We told him the truth. But thankfully, Roan had other important issues of his own and left.

With all the wounded people, I decided to help heal some of them. There were apparently some purple bandits running around so a few people also went to go catch them. But before I could go and heal one person, another explosion happened. The whole town went into chaos again. In the distance, the mage tower exploded and collapsed. There were people screaming and yelling once again. Then, Roan appeared again. He put his hands up, shaking his head, refusing to believe that all this was happening in one day. King Soong and Vax’alia came running out. “I’ll handle this. I’ll handle this…” Vax’alia said in a calm manner. She drifted off towards the tower. A purple light shot up and pierced through the Fox and Flagon bar.

Well, Roan’s in for a surprise. ​I muttered. As I looked past the purple light, I could see Vax’alia at the mage tower muttering different words that I didn’t understand. The purple light grew larger and larger, and a bell started to ring. That’s when this island started to become more chaotic than ever.

The ground started to tremble and I could feel the island fall down the Gladarra Mountains and everything went dark. Then, out of nowhere, in the middle of the darkness, there was a light. And… I woke up. Around me, my teammates woke up and so did Roan, King Soong, and Vax’alia. Then, King Soong turned to us again and whispered, “You ALL have some explaining to do…” “We’re in a time loop,” someone said to me, “We’re in a time loop…”

CHAPTER THREE

The Haunted Mines

The Haunted Mines Anneaka As you can clearly tell by my past two story things, this mission is going terribly. And I have to leave sooner or later or else I might go insane. We also met Gideon. He is very very annoying. We learned about this arcade engine thingy and stuff. We also went into a mine. Apparently it was haunted. But I don’t really care anymore. I only came to do some fun things. The mine has random puzzles and traps and stuff. Someone stepped on one of the traps and I think they blew up??? I have no idea.

We also met this foreman.

Cindy Hu It’s May 16, 2020

The Haunted Mines It was just w ​ onderful t​ hat we were stuck in a time loop and that we met a guy named Gideon. Who I instantly disliked from ​very ​bad experiences with another dude named Gideon (​long story). ​We also found out that we changed something and whenever ​that ​happens, we are probably gonna end up with the task of fixing it. Which is never fun. The journey to the mine wasn’t very fun (​obviously​) and we were mostly stumbling around in the dark. And our reward was: (drum roll please) A puzzle! That we wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. Then we got into a fight with someone who I'm not gonna bother mention. It’s unimportant. The important part is, those people are annoying and COMPLETELY ruining everything!! Seriously, leave me alone. Of course, being the brilliant people we are, we got into ANOTHER fight on the mountainside. That, thankfully, didn’t end in a few people plummeting down to their deaths. Or did it? I honestly don’t remember, it was a battle after all. But none of the team died so I don’t think so. Then a bunch of my brilliant team mates stepped on some dumb traps. Which basically resulted in meeting the foreman who’s name is #1 not important, #2 a name that I forgot. He also pretty much didn’t survive our ​peaceful ​and friendly ​encounter. Fine with me, I don’t care about him. At the very least, he gave us some interesting and helpful information. Then we had to deal with an interesting thing called the arcane engine.

Daisy 20/5/16

The Haunted Mines

Nothing exciting happening here…

Nothing at all…

We told the same thing we told in the last loop, except the fact that we wanted to talk to the Mage, um, what’s her name again??? Though, she had NO idea about the loop thing. (I feel like she thinks we are crazy maniacs.)

The Gideon person came up to us and sang his little song again. -_- Seriously, I dislike Gideon, he led us to the bridge. That Tom guy was about to fall off the bridge … again. Deming rushed there and grabbed him. He didn’t even appreciate it.

Felicity, Cindy, Celina, Anneaka, Wenqi and ! went to the bank and the boys went to the “haunted” mine. That drunk person, Cindy spotted him and she saw a purple mask in his pockets! Wenqi tried to cast a lie detector spell and failed. I tried and succeeded and he told us that his co-workers are in the mine…

When our group went back to the third loop, a group came and sent us a letter.

That’s all...this is my shortest story ever… -_-

The Haunted Mines By: Felicity Lu

We decide to try and explain to the Vex’alia that we’re in a time loop because she is the only other sorceress that we know. Vex’alia just looks at the king and shrugs but we don’t want to give up yet.

We ask them again but this time to see if they know any information about time loops. Vex'alia and the king just shrug their shoulders one again so we take that as a no. My crew and I turn around to head towards the door because Vex’alia seems to be useless but someone leaps in front of us.

Someone with a guitar. Someone wearing bright purple socks. Someone named Gideon.

Once again he greets us then with his annoying song and leads us to the town. I look around and it's definitely the same place. There’s the bridge, the river underneath it, the old man on the bridge...the old man!!! One of our crew members realizes this too and sprints towards him. He leaps and catches the old man just as he’s falling.

Gideon is too busy strumming his guitar to be able to notice anything but there’s no use in telling him so we just keep it that way. When we continued to descend down the town rushed into a bar not caring that we didn’t follow him in. My crew and I stood outside discussing what to do next.

Eventually we decided to split up and make a few people go to the mines and the rest to the bank.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary at the bank so we decide to walk around. We see for the second time(because we’re in a time loop) that a man is being thrown out of the bar across the street but this time we notice that the man has a purple bandana hanging out of his pocket. It’s identical to the ones that the bank robbers had.

We stroll up to him and attempt to cast a spell on the man to force him to tell the truth but it doesn’t seem to have done anything but startle him. We interrogate him and we manage to find out that he has friends in the mines and that we were correct that he was going to rob the bank later. He was about to walk away so we grab him because we wanted more information but we accidentally

knock him out so we have no choice but to hide him by locking him in a room.

As I sit down by the side of the road, wondering how the crew members by the mine are doing and if they've stopped the massive explosion because there sure is no more bank robbery, the mage tower explodes once again.

Jeffrey We were talking to the king. To get out of the time loop, we had to figure out the mystery of this island and escape. This time one of our crew saved the old man instead of letting him die, and we split into two groups. One group was to go to the bank and the other was to go to the mine. I went to the mine, we stepped into the abandoned mine and found the pressure plate that had killed some of our crew last loop. We swiftly hopped over and headed further into the mine. We had found a door and it had a code and a fingerprint scanner on it. One of our crew ran out of the mine to tell the other group. Immediately, a group of the cloaked people jumped out of the door and we hid. Then, we jumped out and attacked. The other member of our crew slipped on their invisibility ring and started slitting necks. I jumped around the room hitting people but got hit really hard in the process. I ate my chicken wing to stop me from getting killed. After defeating almost half of their crew, the rest of the people ran out. I rested on a wall and waited for them to come back. Eventually, we heard a boom outside of the cave and someone running inside. Another one of our teammates had come to heal us. Once I was healed I explained what had happened and we headed into the closed door. One crew member savagely slit the neck of the person inside the door and luckily, the other teammate healed him. He explained a lot about how the island worked but after a while, the world had started to end again. I wonder what we were going to do next time?

Lucas Yes. So we woke up in the time loop in the KIng Sooon’s hall and we realized that we were in a time loop, whatever that means. So we were supposed to break the loop or something by preventing the fall of Axandria. We decided to look someplace else than the bank, the haunted Mines the bandits went in last time. So we agreed that Deming, I and Jeffrey went into the Mines and the rest of the people stayed at the bank. Gideon was in the pub we went into last time, munching on a juicy chicken leg. So we prevented Tom’s fall, the first stage of reversing the time loop, check! Then, Deming, I and Jeffrey went into the Mines but Deming had to ask God or something what his ‘invincibility potion’ was. He rushed off towards the bar and so Jeffrey and I went alone inside the mines. I was pretty scared because my deductibility of the mines was low, and I ‘believed’ that the place was haunted.

(Thanks to Matt and the dice roller a lot). Jeffrey, however, didn’t believe that the place was haunted. There was a panel, I noticed when I was inspecting the place we were at and it appeared to be 4 elemental symbols, Fire, Wind, Earth and Water, and a Hand. It was a symbol of something if I ever saw one. Jeffrey deducted that you were supposed to put your hand on the hand symbol if you were one of the gang, and a door would open. I figured that made clear why Deming exploded. He put a foot on the hand symbol and then it detected that Deming was not one of the Gang and it exploded. Just that moment, Deming came running back. He decided to run off and tell the people at the bank. I slipped on my ring and started skulking around when a group of bandits came over and saw Jeffrey, but they couldn’t see me. One hit Jeffrey pretty hard, but he ate his chicken wing and his health was replenished. I sneaked up behind one of them, grabbed their neck, and cut their throat with my trusty pocket knife. One down, a couple more to go! Jeffrey batted them off but was not that successful and they just started to pile upon him. I was getting pretty desperate, so I summoned a bunch of fireballs and knocked the bad guys away, but also hurt Jeffrey, and we both passed out. After a while, I learned that Wenqi and Deming were coming, but Deming put his foot on (I’m pretty sure the exact same trap) and exploded, but turns out the milk was the invincibility draught. He didn’t die. Wenqi came into the mines and then kicked me a few times, but I was invisible. I groaned and Wenqi went around me and healed Jeffrey. Jeffrey explained everything and Wenqi figured out the thing she had just kicked around was me. She healed me, and we went off into the mines. We stumbled upon the gang leader, and I tried to ​CENSORED. ​We had a pretty little chat with him, and we learned about the Arcane Engine, and Mages built it and stuff. Deming did a lot of the talking but I knew some of the things the leader was talking about. Deming also threatened to ​CENSORED the leader if he didn’t do what Deming wanted. The Arcane Engine was what keeps the city floating and Mages of old built it. The leader wanted to rob the bank for archives to keep the engine from exploding. Then, the Engine exploded and we went back in the loop... again.

But when we woke up, there was another group and they told us some things and stuff.

Wenqi Sun

The Haunted Mines ​We were indeed in a time-loop and we figured that we must make different

decisions each day. That way, we could potentially fix the purple light and prevent the explosion of Exandria (this floating island’s name). But before we could get a chance to go over our next steps, we realized that we were back at the throne room, in front of the King. Like we expected, he had the same curious and suspicious expression on his face. We decided to tell him the same things we told him the first time but also asked him if we could talk to the sorceress. He allowed that and motioned the sorceress, Vax’alia, to come over. She nodded and drifted her way towards us, “What… can I do for you?” There was a pause. “We’re in a time-loop.” we told her. It was hard to read Vax’alia’s face but she seemed to be thinking. She formed a small, yellow triangle and waved her hand. The triangle shooted inside my teammates’ and my head and we said the same thing again, “We’re… in… a… time-loop…” Vax’alia nodded. Before anything else was said, a familiar voice rang in the background, “Greetings and salutations! I bring you tidings and vibratiooooons.” Walking into the throne room was Gideon the Bard.

“Please follow me and my directiooons and do not give me any grammar correctiooooooons! Kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee, kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee!” Gideon started skipping down the road and we saw Tom the drunk staggering towards him. ​Oh… no. ​One of our people ran towards Tom and caught him just in time. “Get your hands off me!” was the drunk man’s reply. I just rolled my eyes. Tom began to stagger towards the town again. As we walked with Gideon again, our surroundings were the same. There was the snooty spa, the marketplace, the bank, the Fox and Flagon bar, the Mage’s Tower, and the Haunted Mines. We walked towards the bar and saw the exact same man being thrown out by two bulky people. But this time, we caught a good glimpse of him and what we saw next shocked us.

“He has a purple bandana… Like the bandits we were supposed to catch!” someone whispered. We ran up to the man and I formed the same, yellow triangle--that was supposed to make people tell the truth--and cast it on the man. I failed… miserably.

But fortunately, my teammate backed me up. She cast a perfectly good triangle and made the man say a bunch of things… some of which were n ​ asty, “My friends and I are planning on robbing the bank today. I made a stinky dump just before I got thrown out of the bar. I think that I am more superior than everyone. I love to eat bacon. I think that the smell of cow manure is actually refreshing. Oh and, I love beer. I’m going to leave now.” he gave us a weird look and stumbled away. I ​ am not looking forward to doing THAT again. I ​ thought in disgust to myself. “YOU ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE YOU THIEF!” someone yelled in our group. She ran up to

Wenqi Sun the man and whacked him in the head. He fell to the ground, yelling out profanities.

She tied him up, “I’ll deal with him.”

Later, my teammate, Deming, and I decided to go to the Haunted Mines. I’ve never been there before but my teammate has. He warned me about the traps that were set there and told me that this could be the bandits’ hideout. As we came around the corner, we saw four people wearing purple bandanas. They were part of the bandits. The four people were in bad shape. Their clothes were all burnt and they had a bunch of soot on their face. Before I knew it, the bandits disappeared and pounced on me. I moved out of the way just in time, but that led to the bandits piling on top of my teammate instead. One of the bandits came charging at me but he was so small, I just kicked him and he flew over the cliff. Once my hands were free, I was able to help my teammate. I decided to use magic. I shot out blasts of powerful wind and eventually, one by one, I was able to throw each one of the bandits off of my teammate and throw them over the cliff. “Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.” I muttered to myself. I dusted off the soot on my hands. I looked back behind me and saw one more bandit. In his hands was a glowing, red orb. He looked at the cliff and muttered, “Ah, screw it!” the bandit threw the orb at me. As he did this, I threw him off the cliff too and the orb landed right next to my feet.

CRACKLE, CRACKLE, CRACKLE. The orb emitted this sort of red smoke and screams and roars came out. It was the same sounds I heard when the explosion happened. I realized that the fire was coming straight towards me. Turning my bracelet, I disappeared into thin air and the fire blasted right through me. I turn the bracelet back and I turn into my normal self again. Taking a deep breath, I walk towards the Haunted Mines again. I had a proud smile on my face. ​I just- wow!

Doo-doo-da-da-diddy-da-da! Doo-doo-da-da-diddy-da-da!

I was just about to enter the Haunted Mines when my teammate flew out of the cave. I thought about healing him but then I remembered that he was immortal. ​I’ll come back to him later. I ​ thought. As I entered the Haunted Mines, I kept in mind about the traps I was told about. I looked forwards and saw that the cave goes back like 60 feet deep. Then, I saw some disturbing things. Carnages. Well, I think.

I looked further and saw Jeffrey; one of the people from our group who explored the mines and never really came back. His hands were tied, blood was all over his face, and he was bruised. I had to heal him. As I was healing him, my feet hit something. It was solid yet not solid. It felt like I kicked ‘hardened air.’ Then, I heard a groan, “Ughhhhhhhh.” I was ​so ​confused. I continued to heal Jeffrey and cut him free from the ropes that we tied around his hands. “What the ​heck ​is wrong with this cave?!” I asked him. He explained everything to me. “The thing you kept on kicking is Lucas. He used his invisibility power to well, you know, become invisible.”

Wenqi Sun He slowly turned back to his normal structure and looked just as bad as Jeffrey did before I healed him. Without hesitation, I started to heal Lucas too. Finally, once the two boys were stable enough, I went outside the cave and healed Deming.

It took some time but I got there eventually. “Want to go back inside the Haunted Mines?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Why not…”

We traversed deeper into the cave. With further investigation, I realized that the Haunted Mines weren’t actually haunted. T ​ hat’s a relief. ​I thought to myself. We finally got to the back of the mine and heard a voice, “B-b-back so soon?” We glanced at each other. As we looked deeper, we saw a figure stand right in front of us. A man who was about 40. He was dressed as a miner, wore a hat, and most importantly, wore a purple bandana around his neck. B ​ andit. ​I thought. “Oh! You weren’t who I expected to see. Ummm… To what do I owe the pleasure and welcome to my Haunted Mine.” Before we could say anything, one of the boys charged at the man and knocked him unconscious. We revived him a minute later.

“Oh my. I-I-I are you- WHAAAT??” The man was confused. We apologized and asked him some questions, “Are you the leader of the bandits?” There was a long pause. “Yes I am the leader of the bandits. Wait, no. We’re not bandits. We’re just… concerned citizens who’s calls for change have gone largely… ignored and unneeded.” We continued with the questions: “Why would you go blowing up the bank?”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, my friend.”

“Then could you tell us why the Mage Tower is going to explode any second now?”

“That doesn’t make sense, my friend.”

He wasn’t much help but we chatted with him for a bit. He told us about an ‘arcane engine.’ In simple words, the arcane engine here is what is essentially keeping Exandria… ‘alive.’ If the arcane engine fails, everyone in Exandria will die. Suddenly, the ground begins to shake. The explosion was happening. The shaking intensified.

“We have to move,” the man said simply. He took a lantern and led us to an area. It was a dark chamber on the exterior but on the interior, there was a sharp, purple glow. As we entered the room, there were a bunch of gears that stopped moving.

“N-n-no no no no no! This should be MOVING.” the man paused, “This is too late…

It’s all too late…” As he says this. This purple beam expands, and he was consumed by the beam. We didn’t have time to run. We couldn’t run. The world around us became dark, once again.

And we woke up. But this time, it was different. We were in the throne room but we saw another group of adventurers. Just for a moment. Then, they disappeared...

CHAPTER FOUR

The Mage's Tower

The Mage’s Tower (Anneaka)

The Mage Tower was very very tall. And I tried to fly to the window but it was way too tall. Why is it so tall. I think it may be impossible to get up there. Then, I had to do the tedious thing of flying all the way back down.

We met Uther, the mage. Gideon was singing this horrible song that hurt my ears. Wait a minute. Nevermind I have no ears. Do I? Meh, I dunno.

I’m pretty sure the Kingdom falls or something and that’s why everyone is weirdly floating but I’m not sure lol. That’s pretty much all I remember from it.

Cindy Hu It’s May 19th, 2020

The Mage’s Tower

Today was interesting, I can’t think of any other word to describe today. It pretty much started off like this. A group of us went to the ‘snotty’ spa, as we call it.

Anneaka wanted to sneak off, Felicity did I forgot what and I went to investigate what was happening that got everyone in such a state of panic. At first glance I saw a guard who wasn’t holding his weapon which was on the floor. But then I realized he wasn’t moving at ALL. As I stepped forward to get a closer look, a shadowy figure came from nowhere and kind of reached inside me like a ghost. Then I got flung backwards, taking a fair amount of damage. Daisy tried to heal me but only barely succeeding and not making it worse. Then we slowly returned to our friends and teammates. Unfortunately, we had to ignore some people who really needed help to pursue a different part of the loop. We also reviewed our message from our other teammates who were in a much different area with the same problem. The message was slightly confusing, such as the part about the mage lying. Which mage? We weren’t completely sure since there are probably thousands of mages, if not hundreds.

We decided to go to the Mage’s tower because we haven’t been there yet. It looked exactly as I envisioned it, if something was wrong then it wasn’t particularly obvious.

Upon a closer examination, it was clear something was off. I’m not quite sure how I can describe it though. All I’m going to say is that it gave off a kind of bad vibe. For some reason, it wasn’t exactly easy to get in there, we tried so many different methods, I’m not even gonna name them. We all died several times trying, believe me it wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to me. We learned a bit about the Age of Arcanum, actually way more than I need to know. Then we met Uther the Unforgiving, whose name tells you a lot about him. For obvious reasons, I disliked it home immediately not because he liked to call the tower ‘his’ but because of his personality. Since something was wrong with the current Arcane engine, we had to get a new one. You’d think in this magical world it would be fairly easy to obtain. But nooo, it has to be hard to find. It was rather dramatic when ‘Uther’s’ tower exploded.

I didn’t feel bad for him though.We learned that the city was pretty much relied completely on the Arcane engine. I don’t know if it’s entirely their fault they don’t have a back up, but after this whole fiasco, I’m gonna insist that they do go find an Arcane engine or maybe two. I don’t think anyone would want this to happen again,

for me I just don’t want to get stuck in a time loop or get nearly killed by a shadowy figure ever again!

Daisy Chen 20/05/19

The Mage’s Tower

Okay, let’s begin the story... oh wait, i forgot. This part is continuous from the last story...

While the boys and Wenqi were at the mines, we saw a lot of people running out of the “Snooty Spa”. Felicity went to ask them what’s wrong. They were like... panicking. They told us something about a shadow. Cindy went inside, I don’t know what happened to her, but she got flanged outside! I immediately went to heal her. That was the end of the last loop.

Let’s start today’s loop

At the throne room, Deming tried to explain that the old miner was trying to help the arcane engine. He misunderstood and thought we needed to arrest him. Vexalia hurried out and she seemed suspicious. Felicity decided to follow her and read her mind.

Just then, Gideon came and sang “Greetings and salutations. My name is Gideon...”

Deming decided to sing the last part of the song. Gideon was really pleased. After the little tour, we decided to go to the Mage’s Tower. Felicity came and told us that Vexalia is in the mages tower and she is in the loop too.

Deming tried to create a door, but it killed all of us... :(never letting Deming do that again ): Our second try, Lucas tried, but the tower had protection. He succeeded but the tower itself killed us. Anneaka tried flying to the window but it seems that you're never going closer.

Deming tried any way to enter the tower but nothing worked. Finally, Deming said “ Mr. Tower, can we please come in?” Suddenly, A voice came and said “Why didn’t you say so?” We looked up, there was a mage standing there.

His name is Roen. We went inside and explained how the arcane engine didn’t work. He went and checked. It was glowing purple. Outside, we saw the miners and the guards fighting. I used my magic broom and flew out the window. It was really strong at first, then I was able to control it. I said “GOD COMMANDS YOU TO STOP!!!”

That is the end of our loop.

The Mage’s Tower By: Felicity

Once again we appear in the throne room and the king starts to question us as usual. But this time Vex’alia doesn’t look at the king when we tell her we're in a time loop, she walks out the door completely ignoring us. Immediately the idea that something is going on hits me so I sneak behind a bush and attempt to follow her.

Vex’alia seems to be drifting to the mage tower but I soon lose the ability to keep up with her. I don’t know what to do so I start trodding back to the throne room but I realise something. I have an earring that can read people's minds! How did I not think of this earlier? I run back to the tower while trying to put on the earring. The first thing I hear her murmur is “I’VE BEEN TELLING HIM AND HE’S BEEN LYING THIS WHOLE TIME!” I can tell she’s mad but i have no idea why so I continue to listen.

After a while I figured out that she must be talking about the mage and surprisingly she also knows about the arcanum engine falling apart. But what I am about to hear is the most shocking of all. I hear

Vex’alia say in her british accent, “I can’t believe it’s taken me this many l​ oops​ to figure out he’s got something to do with it.”

I’m glad that I’m a far distance away from Vex’alia because I let out a huge gasp after she says this.

She is in a time loop just like us? The mage has something to do with it? I’m so excited that I zoom all the way back to my friends while bumping into several people doing this. This is such surprising news that we all decide to go to the mage tower to find out more.

But as we walk up to it, the first thing that we notice is that there is no door. We all just stare at the tower blankly thinking of what to do when one of our crew members hop to his feet and he starts to cast a spell. It’s not very clear what he’s doing but bricks start shooting out of the mage’s tower faster than the speed of light. Then suddenly there’s a bright flash. When I open my eyes again we’re in front of the mage’s tower anymore but in the throne room for the millionth time. Just great.

Finally after talking to the king and meeting Gideon, we’re back at the foot of the mage’s tower.

Right away the same crew member gets up and attempts the same spell before any of us can stop him. This time the entire tower glows as I feel a vibration inside my body. When I see that familiar flash of light I know what’s about to happen.

After so many more tries we all sit down looking miserable. Our last attempt is to shout at the tower disparately hoping for a response. We all start to walk away thinking that nothing would happen.

But a man’s voice replies back saying “You don’t have to shout, I’m right here.” We all turn around to see a man standing on the balcony of the tower while sipping a cup of tea. It must be the mage.

We try to explain to the mage about the time loop, Vex’alia and the purple light. The mage seems to understand so he welcomes us in. As we walk in, we see this very welcoming lounge with a fireplace and very puffy couches around it. As we are about to have a conversation with the mage, Vex’alia appears right beside us. Immediately one of our crew members tries to expose her by saying we know she’s in a time loop but there’s a confused look on her face. “What are you talking about?

We're all in a time loop”, says Vex’alia. After that, we

all have a deep conversation together with Vex’alia and the mage. The talk goes on and on and on... until a purple light hits the mage’s tower which we are currently in.

Jeffrey Wang We were in the beginning of the time loop again. This time Vixalia snuck away from us and one of our group snuck with her. After we saved the old man, we headed towards the wizard's tower.

First, I tried to cut a bit of the drunk guy’s skin off but failed. The tower was a very stub-like tower with a max of two stories. However, as I got closer the tower got bigger and bigger. When we got to the wall, the tower looked like it was thousands of feet tall! After a series of trying to get in and dying several times, we resorted to the only method left, asking. Eventually, the wizard showed up. He explained much about how the kingdom worked and how the age of Arcanum progressed. Then, an explosion rang in the air, the purple bandana people had started to fight with the king's army. Someone on our team rushed out to stop them and Uther transported us to the arcane engine. He explained a lot about the engine and how it worked and led us back to the tower after a few of us ditched him to fight. Then, he pulled out a potion and told us that it could stop the engine from blowing up. After a few seconds of explaining, he pulled the potion and put it into the engine. It blew up. We were all transported back into the time loop and we had to think of another strategy next time.

LUCAS ZHANG Ok. So y’all probably are wondering what happened. I’ll give you a quick recap because I’m feeling extra loopy (no pun intended) today. Ok. So Vex’alia went to the Mage Tower and Felicity followed her. We all went somewhere else and Deming went and drank his milk. Things went as usual and then, Felicity met up with us and she went with us to the Mage Tower. Deming tried to make a door in the tower and got us killed. Then I made a door so powerful that it got us killed again. We asked the mage on his balcony and he let us in. the mage was weird. That’s all I’m gonna say about him. We learned something of the Age of Arcanum, the First Age of the World. We told him some stuff, and I asked if the Mage and Vex’Alia had a crush on each other. They spat at my feet, so I’m guessing that’s a no. Then, we heard a fight. Daisy went out and conjured a broom. She told the guys to stop fighting, so they did. The Mage put blue liquid into the bowl of yellow stuff and the Tower Exploded. The Kingdom falls because the Arcane Engine fails. (and by the way, I went to join the fight) Bye for Now!

Wenqi Sun

The Mage's Tower Like usual, we woke up at the throne room. But, this time, the shadow wasn’t here. I didn’t think too much about it though. We began to talk with King Soong again. We told him about our encounter with the leader of the bandits, how they aren’t actually bandits, the arcane engine, what will happen without it, and how King Soong must give the ‘bandits’ the parts to the arcane engine. “Ohhh, Rufus? He was once a wealthy man. But as time went on, his mind… wasn’t as productive. He kept on piling money on his mine business and eventually, that made him bankrupt.” As King Soong was saying all this, we noticed that Vex’alia started drifting out the front door. It was a strange behaviour from her. One of our people went after her quietly. A few minutes later, we heard a familiar song again, “Greetings and salutations! I bring you tidings and vibratioooons! Please follow me and my directiooons and do not give me-” Gideon was cut off. “...any grammar corrections…” someone said, “We’ve heard this song way too many times.” Gideon stopped on his tracks, eyes wide open, “Ooooh! Let’s sing together! Kawabangaaaaa…” he motioned for us to sing, “...da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee, kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee!” I let out an exasperated sigh. As we went off with Gideon, we saved Tom the drunk once again, and continued our little walk. The person who went to go follow Vax’alia came running back, out of breath, “Vex’alia… is also… *huff* *huff*... in a… time-loop!” she collapsed on the ground. We gave her some water and she was back to normal. ‘’PARDON ME?? Vex’alia is also in a time-loop?” I asked her again to make sure that I was not going crazy.

“Yes. I am almost certain anyways. On her way to the Mage’s Tower, she was whispering about time-loops and whatnot.”

Soon, we also learned that the Mage at the Mage’s Tower had a connection with the purple light that causes the end of Exandria. After around 20 minutes, the Mage’s Tower came into view. Something was off. The closer we got to the Mage’s Tower, the taller the tower became. Now usually, this is normal but in this case, the difference was really dramatic. Before we got closer to the Mage’s Tower, it looked to be around 15 feet tall. But once we were close to the Mage's Tower, it appeared to be around 60 feet tall. It felt like it was an optical illusion. As we inspected the exterior of the tower, we realized that there was no door. Very tall tower, but no door. W ​ eird. ​We went through multiple attempts to create a door with magic but it failed miserably. Instead of ​creating ​a door, we were ​killed ​by the bricks that flew out. The world around us became dark again. Then, we woke up.

We had to redo everything again...

Wenqi Sun

Once we finally got back to the Mage’s Tower, someone decided that it would be a good idea to cast the same spell as before, but more powerfully. He did and nothing changed. A ​ t least we aren’t dead. ​I thought happily to myself. We realized that whoever built this tower was e ​ xtremely p ​ owerful. There was no way we could get inside. Nevertheless, we continued to attempt to get in… with no luck. Then, someone yelled to the tower, “I THINK VEX’ALIA CAME HERE! PLEASE LET US IN. WE HAVE IMPORTANT MATTERS TO DISCUSS WITH HER!” It was our last choice. Then we heard a voice, “Well, you don’t have to shout. I’m sitting right here.” As we looked up, there was a balcony around 15 feet above us. Sitting on the balcony was a mage wearing green and white robes, drinking tea. “Oh, pardon me.

Could you please let us in? We have some things that we would like to discuss with Vex’alia.” we asked. The mage smiled and said, “Well, why didn’t you say so? Come on in!” A door appeared. ​You have got to be kidding me. ​We opened the door and went inside. The interior was as bizarre as the exterior. As we walked in, directly across from us, was the mage, sitting on the balcony. He was very close to us right now but when we were outside, he seemed to be 60 feet above us. Other than that, the interior was quite normal. There were bookshelves, maps, tables, chairs, cookies, and a bunch more. The mage started talking to us about things that I couldn't understand. From beside us, we heard a sigh. It was Vex’alia and she came into view, “Quiet down Uther… Here I am travelers, here I am.” She looked annoyed. “We know you’re in a time-loop.” we said to her. She didn’t seem to be shocked, “Everyone is in a time-loop, darling. Don’t think too much about it.”

WHAAAAAT?? V ​ ex’alia passed us to Uther. We started to ask him some questions.

“Do you know how to get us out of this time-loop?”

“Well, exiting the time-loop is quite easy. Vex'alia could help us do that now if she wanted to.” “​IF​ I wanted to…” Vex’alia said.

“Are you responsible for the purple light that destroys Exandria?”

“Yes. Of course I’m responsible for the light. Of course I am. The person you’re being killed by when the machine explodes is me. I have been working on this… thing that can stabilize the arcane engine, prevent any sort of destruction, and everything will be fine. It will be completed in a few months’ time. No worries. As I keep on telling Vex’alia,” Uther glances at her, “there’s still several years until something wrong goes with the arcane engine. It’s perfectly fine.” Our little group glanced at each other, “Well, I am sad to say, that we disagree with you, Uther.”

We explained patiently and cautiously to Uther and Vex’alia about the miner we met in the last time-loop. We told them about how the purple beam exploded already and that it destroys Exandria. Before Uther could reply, a grumbling noise appeared. A fight was happening right in front of the mine. Uther chuckled and

Wenqi Sun

Vex’alia spoke to us, “Everything falls down in 20 mintues. Why don’t you guys stay here, and fix the engine?” We decided that she was right. Outside, we could hear Rufus yell out, “GET OUT OF MY MINE!” I laughed. I was starting to like Rufus.

Uther approached us and said, “Well, if you will like to come with me…” He clapped his hands twice. I didn’t feel anything except a little tug on my chest. In a second, we were back with the arcane engine we saw last time with Rufus. We were in the mine again. The middle of the arcane engine was glowing purple. Someone in our group was telling Uther about all the things that we would need to fix the arcane engine. “Alright, alright. Don’t tell me how to fix my machine.” was Uther’s reply. “​Your ​machine??” Uther nodded, “Yes… It’s my machine. Do you know how Exandria was constructed? Why we levitate three miles off the surface of the Earth? No, probably not.” Uther went on, “Three thousand years ago, we were in a time where wizards and sorceresses worked together in harmony. We bonded these powers together for the good of human kind, elf kind, bee kind and all kinds across the world. There were six of us. Some of us were great builders, some of us were great planners, some of us were great visionaries, some of us were great lawmakers… I was just great. My strength... was strength,” Vex’alia rolled her eyes, “But, as we all grew more powerful, the more suspicious we became of one another. My friends started to become worried that I was growing too powerful. That Uther the Unforgiving was too strong… But all I was worried about was that all ​my friends were the ones growing too powerful. This led to numerous conflicts and I won every last one... “ He stopped dramatically.

“If this is your engine, why can’t you fix it?” Vex’alia asked.

“Well, dear. I didn’t build all of it… We worked as a team. Some of us put together the finicky bits,” Uther pointed to the walls,”and one of us had to be the battery.”

What Uther the Unforgiving was essentially saying was that he was part of a team who built the arcane engine but he didn’t fully understand how the whole thing works. Uther’s contribution to the engine was massive amounts of power. Right after Uther was done talking, we saw the purple light blast through the roof. “Oh that’s not good… Not good at all,” Uther said, “Okay.” He clapped twice again. We were back at his tower but in a different location. There was a large bowl in the middle of the room. Uther walked towards it, “Well… I thought that I would have more time but this… This’ll work. 90% chance this will work, 9% chance it’ll fail, and 1% this will kill you. But that won’t happen. Don’t worry.” I gulped. As this was happening, the ground began to shake. The bells started ringing. The explosion was forming. Uther told us to stand back. He pulled this blue dropper and squeezed it. I was scared. I didn’t get to see what the blue liquid would do because right after the explosion happened, we fell down the Galdarra Mountains and the world around me turned dark again…

CHAPTER FIVE

Subterfuge at The Spa

Subterfuge at the Spa (Anneaka)

I didn’t do much this time. Actually, I barely did anything. I forgot most of what I did do but we interacted with some people and some people went to the bank and some people went to the spa.

Cindy Hu May 21st, 2020

Subterfuge at the Spa

​Today was very exciting! Unfortunately, I forgot most of it, except the very interesting parts.

That makes sense though, who would forget things like that? I’ll start with the first thing I remember; had to go to the bank to look for the purple bandanas. Interesting people who are most likely connected to the shadow. Who I’ve held a personal grudge against ever since he almost killed me at the Snooty Spa. That’s normal right? We had two main destinations to go to. The spa & the marketplace. To go to the bank we had to earn money first. So we did. Then we got another bag of gold from the king for the people who were going to the Snooty Spa (because we were lazy).

But first we got magical items from dear Vexalia. I got magical glasses that helped me see the world in detail. It made everything seem clearer. As we split into the two groups, I decided to go to the bank (Did I mention almost getting killed last time I went to the spa?). Since we were ‘customers’ we were allowed a tour because of all the money we had to put in the bank. The guy who showed us around was probably talking but I wasn’t listening (it’s not ​my f​ ault he’s monotone and more dull than a museum for history). Honestly, I don’t think this encounter did much for Exandria but that’s just my personal opinion. Maybe I should have listened to that bank guy? I don’t know.

Daisy Chen 20/05/20

Subterfuge At The Spa

Today was the weirdest loop of all time…

Like always, we start at the castle, But this time, it started slowly. I mean literally everything was slow...very slow. Vexalia came over while the other things were really slow. She handed each of us another magic item. She gave me a purse. She told me that I can get anything from the purse but I can only use it once a loop.

We did the explaining things and the catching Tom thing. Then, We decided to split up. At first, I went to the bank, but then I changed my mind. I decided to go to the spa. The weirdest thing is that ANNEAKA IS TRYING TO BLOW UP THE MARKET!!!!!!!!!!

SURGAGHR0GARUJGOROP HR MT7A49N RGHAUBREU!!!! DUDE!!!! Okay, sorry.

We needed to make some money first, to get inside. We decided to go make a job at the market. What I saw was that… Anneaka is putting flour around the market??? Oh well, it’s not harmful. We managed to get money and went inside the spa. We slipped into the bathtub. We decided to chat with them.

They specifically told me a secret. Roen wants Vexalia’s Diary!! Suddenly, we saw the shadow. I ran outside and saw Anneaka putting wheat around the market with the flour… and blueberries...what is she thinking??? I saw that she also summoned her swarm of bees.

That was the end of this loop… or is it???

Subterfuge at the Spa By: Felicity Lu

I wake up in the throne room and I expect to see the king walking up to us and I do. Except he’s doing it slow motion. In fact everyone seems to be in slow motion beside our crew and Vex’alia.

Vex’alia starts to calmly walk towards us, ignoring everyone else that was in slow motion. She informed us she would be giving each of us a weapon that we most desired because we have proved ourselves. I had no idea what she was talking about but I didn't really care. All I cared about at this moment was the weapon.

Before any of us could say what we wanted, Vex’alia handed it to us with a smile on her face. “Looks like I’m not the only one who can read people's minds”, I thought. I look down at what Vex’alia gave me and I see a pair of glasses. Vex’alia walks around in a circle explaining our items. When she finally gets to me, she explains that when I put them on I will be able to tell if someone is lying or not. Thoroughly impressed , I thank Vex’alia just like everyone else.

After she does this, she snaps her fingers and king and everyone else begins to walk at normal speed again. The king begins to trodd towards us and says that we have a lot of explaining to do. We decided to try something new this time. We tell him why we’re here but don’t mention anything about the time loop, the mines, the purple light and the bank robbery. We look at Vex’alia and she gives us an agreeing nod. Just as we head to the door, I bump into someone. Oh yeah. I totally forgot about Gideon mainly because he’s completely useless.

Gideon completely ignores the fact that I bumped into him and starts strumming his guitar. The stupid song he is singing is starting to get on my nerves but I don’t say anything due to the fact that the king is nearby.

After Gidon leads us outside, our group decides to split up once again but this time we decided to make some people check out the spa and the others to the bank. Since last loop I went to the bank, I decided to take a look at the spa with a few other crew members this time. Once we got to the spa after a short walk, we quickly realised that we didn’t have any money so we were going to have to work. We walk back to the market hoping that we

can get a job there. Thankfully we all get jobs at the market and earn enough money to enter the spa.

All of us try to act as casual as possible by grabbing a towel and sitting in a hop tub with some other people which felt quite uncomfortable. We all try to join in other people’s chat and they seem to like us very much because we are new so eventually we get them to tell us about the latest gossip. They tell us a man called Rufus which has to be the same Rufus in the mine. They say that the thing Rufus wants most is Vex’alia diary. This makes all of our mouths drop wide open.

Then the person telling us the gossip starts to say that the service today at the spa was particularly bad. We hop out of the hot tub and decide to check out what's happening. We look into a hallway that seems to be for staff only and I see 3 dead staff and a shadowy figure beside them and smiling when he sees. I cover my mouth before I can let out a scream and run back to warn everyone. I burst out the door with one other crew member. We look through the window hopelessly wishing that our other crew member in the spa will be ok. I don’t see her anywhere because of all the steam but suddenly she appears behind us. I have no idea

how she escaped but that’s not important. What is important is that one of our crew members who is a goo bee, is setting some blueberries and bags of flour on fire!

Jeffrey Wang This loop we decided to go look for the shadowy man. Before the loop, Vexalia came and equipped us with more items. Many people took something that would let them shadow sneak or go into an Ethereal Dimension. I took a brooch that would take my health in exchange for strength. When the loop started two of our teammates went into the dimension to test it out. In there they found the shadowy man. We realized he had a way of getting in the dimension and that was why he could disappear easily. We headed off towards the spa and the bank. I went to the bank. One teammate jumped off the island. We arrived at the bank and got some money.

Then, we waited for a long time to get the contract. After what seemed like an eternity, we finished the account. The accountant led us into the vault and we peeked at the code. I didn’t see much of the password and she led us into the vault...

LUCAS Z.

Today was a really bad day for me. One: ​CENSORED ​Two: I jumped off a floating island. Now, I had this crazy idea if I jumped off the island I would be out of the time loop. When we woke up in the throne room e went off to the bank and the spa. I turned left and jumped right off the cliff. I successfully conjured a spell that made me survive the 3.5-mile fall and landed on my feet, without taking any damage, fortunately. I began my journey in the forest, which was a very bad idea the moment I stepped into it because there was a distant howling in the distance. I made my way about half the way out and the howling got louder. I saw a town at the mouth of the river, and I began to follow the river. The howling got louder, and I saw a pack of wolves right at the mouth of the river. I fought them off, but I got a nasty cut on my arm. But I won’t tell you what’s next because that’s in the next chapter. Luckily my companions weren’t that dumb this time and that’s why the loop didn’t end.

Wenqi Sun

Subterfuge at the Spa ​Like always, the throne room was the first destination we arrived at. But

everyone seemed to be moving ​very ​slow. Everyone, except Vex’alia and us.

She walked towards us and said, “Well… You have all proven yourselves to be… more useful than I anticipated. It seems to me that it’s about time that you all have the proper equipment to accomplish the tasks that have been laid before you.” Everyone in our group gave each other excited glances.

One by one, Vex’alia used her powers to read our mind, and gave us a power that she thought would be best for us.

Finally, she got to me. I was super excited. Vex’alia gently laid her hands on me and closed her eyes. When she finally opened her eyes, Vex’alia gave me a pair of thin, black gloves. “These are the gloves of aspects. Go touch an object.” I walked over and touched a stone. As I walked towards the walls, I realized that I started to blend in. “It’s not just a look. If you want to,” Vex’alia tossed me a diamond, “you choose and inherit the attributes of an object. If you touch a diamond, then you would be like one; Unbreakable and strong. But, this comes with pros and cons....” Vex’alia clapped her hands and formed a pool. I was sinking. “As you can see, you have the properties and attributes of a diamond. You may be strong and unbreakable but you are also very heavy.” THUD. I hit the bottom of the pool. By now, I was somewhat comfortable with how the gloves worked. I released the diamond and touched the pool’s water. I started to float back up to the surface. I​ t worked! ​I thanked Vex’alia and watched as she gave other people their powers. Once everyone got their own unique powers, Vex’alia snapped her fingers and the rest of the people were back at their normal speed. No one was in slow motion anymore. Then, King Soong looked at us and said, “It looks like you guys have some explaining to do.”

We started to talk to King Soong but this time, we didn’t tell him about the mines, and the bandits. We continued to talk with Vex’alia for a bit. Then, we heard a guitar strum. ​Oh no… ​“Greetings and salutations! I bring you tidings and vibratioooons! ​Please follow me and my directions and do not give me-” someone started to sing along with Gideon, “... any grammar correctiooooons! Kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee, kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee!” Gideon started to tear up, “My friends are learning from me *sniffle*!” I smacked my head. T ​ his ​is going to be a long day. Gideon started to skip off into the distance. We followed him, saved Tom the drunk, and continued off with our day. Right when we got to the marketplace, one of our teammates came running up to us. He received

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the power of being able to go into the ethereal realm from Vex’alia and he said that once he entered the realm, there was an evil feeling around him.

Could it be the shadow? ​But before I could finish my thoughts, our group split up. Some of us were going to the bank, some were going to the marketplace, and some of us were going to the snooty spa. I chose to go to the spa.

As our little group got to the front doors of the snooty spa, the two guards narrowed their eyes in and said, “... Welcome to the spa…” They seemed to be waiting for something. We walked past them and the guards shoved a plate in front of us. The thing they seemed to be waiting for was their payment. We didn’t have any sort of money so we went to the marketplace to earn some. As we apologized to the guards and walked away, the guards scoffed at us. R ​ ude. ​I headed towards the Fox and Flagon bar. I’ve worked for Karin, the bartender, there so I thought that it would be easier for me to get a job. As I expected, it did receive the chance to earn money. A couple hours later, our little group met outside and counted our earnings. We had enough money!

One by one, we met with the unpleasant guards again and placed out money on the plate. We were in and started to explore the spa. The interior was very steamy and the spa smelled like lilacs. There were fancy chairs, large and decorated hot tubs, and the staff were even dressed fancily. The walls were marble and the doors were outlined with gold. The clients here looked like they were really wealthy too. The reason why we came to the spa was to hopefully find information about the shadow and locate him.

As we entered the spa, we acted as if we were patrons. We changed into our bathing suits and walked over to the hot tubs. As we dipped our feet in, I looked around me. There were a few people in the hot tub as well.

Once I got in and was comfortable, I tried to eavesdrop on the other people’s conversation. Maybe the people could drop some valuable information. They were talking about politics.

“I thought it was quite sad.”

“I found it absolutely hilarious!”

“Of course you did Marcus.”

We cut in, trying to fit in with the conversation, “Oh I know! It’s just the funniest thing.” The people stopped. Then, they started to smile. As we continued chatting with them, I made a horrendous mistake, “Ohhh, tell me more secrets about this city!” Right after I said that, the people gave me weird looks. “Uh, Celina! T-t-the chocolates here are delicious!” I exited the conversation awkwardly. As I moved to the side of the hot tub, I tried my

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best to continue to listen to the conversation. I only got bits and pieces of the interesting conversation my teammates had with the strangers, “Rufus… yammering about the arcane engine… a man who was very wealthy at one time… has a mine… bankrupt now… sad little man… says we’ll fall out of the sky… ridiculous person!” That was all heard. Then, I saw my teammates running out of the hot tub too. But, in the other direction. I followed their horrified gaze and saw the shadow, right beside them. I looked one more time at the shadow and saw that he could see me. I took out the gloves that Vex’alia gave me and touched the water. I started to liquify and float out of the hot tub. But, I was too late. The shadow got up, smirked at me and started to walk towards me. I waved my gloves once again, and touched the steam that appeared from the hot tub. I started to float up and heard the shadow laugh. He then disappeared to the back of the building.

A couple minutes later, from my position, I saw the shadow pull his hood up and vanished into the walls. As I looked closer, I saw written along the sides of the building, “​Exandria Trust​.”

CHAPTER SIX

The Haunted Mines II

Cindy Hu May 26, 2020

The Haunted Mines, revisited

Just because I’m slightly lazy and certain experiences aren’t funny to remember, I will only tell you the most important parts (IMHO). Let’s start with the little adventure at the bank. We FINALLY found Vexalia’s diary and we got to flip through it. Quite interesting, that little thing. It contained the usual. You know, diagrams) sketches, random notes on random (or not so random) things. We found a secret that Uther is actually Vexalia’s dad! So hard to believe that grumpy, grouchy Uther was exciting, interesting and mysterious Vexalia’s dad! At least we all know why Uther was grumpy now. Or actually just the 3 of us, anyway. Before I could suggest we use my stone of farspeech, the Shadow popped in. Me and Jeffrey just shrank back against the wIt esall. Thankfully, the shadow ignored us and headed straight in Deming’s direction. He eventually went outside where we could see the village was on fire.

Courtesy of Anneaka. Then many more important things happened like going to the haunted mine (as the name suggests). Ooh, spooky. It is important but it isn’t as fun to hear as it was fun to witness. We also met many people like Rugus along the way. Then we encountered the shadow again! FUn! Then he told his interesting sob story and the fact that he was willing to destroy the whole city for revenge on one guy. Poor city, poor guy. But life isn’t fair! Yay! (sarcasticness overload here)

Daisy Chen 20/05/24

The Haunted Mines, Revised

This is the ending of the last loop…

Outside the spa, I saw the bank people (except for Lucas) outside. They were running. Deming handed me a book. It was Vexalia’s diary! We saw the shadow, he was in the fire that had just started by the P.M.B./Purple Mask Bandits (I got lazy writing it so…

-_-) I ignored what was happening and started reading the diary. It told many secrets and BINGO! A recipe of a pie!

The secrets were quite surprising, such as Uther was actually Vexalia’s dad (despite the fact that we tried to ship them…) I looked up to see the shadow. Many of my friends were attacking him, oof. We despised him and wanted to kill him. We tried to take the ring but it won’t budge. Same with the cloak.

When we killed him, he turned into ashes. Lucas came running and he handed me it. I wonder if I put something, for example, the diary into my bag, will it stay? It’s worth a try. I put the diary in, then I put the gold. But the diary fell and I tried to put it back. When I put the gold in, the diary fell. -_- I decided to leave the gold.

We did the usual beginning so… I’m gonna skip that part… but not when Gideon burst in.

Lucas and Anneaka (who jumped off the island) weren't there when we appeared back in the throne room… I guess they escaped the loop. Vexalia was quite disappointed when she figured out that some of us jumped off. Gideon came and sang “Greetings and salutation, I bring a good vibration- wait, isn’t there usually more of you? “

Wait, how did Gideon know? We decided to question him. He told us that he is also in the loop and Vexalia scares him. Also he was the one that pushed old Tom off the bridge!!! He had to do that everytime because he didn’t want to admit he did it. We told him to go to the mines and do some rescuing.

I decided to go to the market. The boys went inside the mines. After finding out that everything was fine at the market, we all decided to all go to the mines. We came to the wall that required fingerprints and a password. We eventually figured out the password (After some explosion) because we have BIG BRAINS!!!

We also found something unusual. There was a liquid, or is it goo, and it’s red. We did a DNA test and it was Gideons! When we went inside, we saw several dead P.M.B. We also found Rufes, tied up. We freed him and he said “How did you guys get here???” We responded “We guessed the password.”

“That was REALLY risky, If you guessed it wrong, an explosion will set off.”

“Weeelllll, we have BIG BRAINS!!!”

“The Fingerprint was the worst, it will turn you into goo.”

Suddenly, Gideon appeared behind us and said ”Yeah, I tried it and I turned into goo. The second time, I thought I used the wrong hand, so I tried the other hand and II got turned into goo again. Thus time, I followed you to the passage.”

Suddenly, Lucas appeared in front of us. He told us that he died trying to fly off the island. I decided to heal Rufes and we went inside the room with the arc way engine.

We went there and saw the shadow. We questioned him and figured out that he was trying to ​REVENGE.

In a flash, Uther and Vexalia came and the shadow took Vexalia’s soul. Uther was raging​ (believe me, he was like ​SUPER ANGRY​) and a burst of green light came. We woke up at the throne room again and Vexalia was there. She said “Let’s take our steaks”

Deming We awake in the throne room and I immediately go into the ethereal realm to look for the shadow.i saw him go down to the haunted mines so i told gideon to go look for the shadow.I went to the bar to get some milk then go to the mines.When i arrived we saw some blood on the ground and realized its gideons.We thought he was died so we tried the codes.It blow us up.After many explosions we got the password correct and i nside was lots of died purple bandana people.The shadow was in the engine room and when we entered and questioned him he said he was surviving justice at that moment .Then vaccalia came into the room.The shadow killed vaccalia and uther got insanely mad:you mad bro.He told us next loop to tell him its pentagast.Then you know what happened.

The Haunted Mines, revisited...

By: Felicity Lu

Once we get out of the spa, I see people in red holding what seems to be a ball of fire. But suddenly they launch it at the bank before either of us can do anything and the bank erupts in a massive explosion. We all turn around to see the hooded figure breaking into a full sprint. Just as we are about to follow him, he falls to the ground due to the fact that his cloak starts to catch fire. For a split second I want to help him but then I remember who he is. A ​ murderer.​ So I step back.

I see one of my crew members walking towards the shadow and I think that he is trying to save him but instead he cast a spell at the hooded figure and now he is pinned to the ground. I look around and I see that one of my crew members is holding a book. When I walk over to her, she explains that it's Vex’alia’s diary and she found it in the bank. We curiously opened it together and what we found is not what I expected at all. Vexalia is the mage’s daughter.

As I look back to see how the shadow is doing, I spot that one of our crew members is now blasting spells at the shadow until he laid motionless even though I was quite sure he would be coming back in the next loop. After that, we attempted to rip off his hood so that it would reveal his identity, but the hood wouldn’t budge. It was almost as if it was connected to his body.

After a few more attempts to uncloak the shadow, we heard a massive thumping sound. Everyone turned and saw that 2 massive buildings were starting to collapse on us. Next thing you know, I was in the throne room with all my other crew members.

We spot Vex’alia immediately so we run up to her and show her the diary we found that belonged to her. She squints at the diary then looks back at us. “I think we can fix the Arkane engine if we work together”, says Vex’alia to everyone's surprise. Right when she says this, we hear the strumming of a guitar. Oh not again. We all pretend that he doesn't exist which seems to deeply annoy him. Then he says “Aren’t there usually more of you?” We all lie to him and say no but I suddenly realise something.

How does Gideon know that there are usually more of us? “Gideon”, I say slowly, “Are you stuck in a time loop like us?” Gideon replies with “yup” and we just stare at him for a few seconds. We ask Gideon why he does the same thing every single loop and he explaines that he thinks we’re kinda scary so he thought that was the safest thing to do.

We stare at him even more but I can tell he’s enjoying the attention. We tell Gideon to go to the mines and find us information if he’s such a hero so he proudly does just that.

A couple of other people and I go down to the market to see if we can spot anything that is out of the ordinary. We are quite disappointed to find that nothing seems unusual. I meet back with my group and we all decide to go to the mines. Wait what? No way am I going into that place. Instead I decided to go chill at the spa. Best choice ever.

Jeffrey Wang This time loop we decided to talk to the king and Vexalia for a long time. This time Gideon got impatient and came inside instead of waiting. We were all really curious because we thought only a few people could break the time loop. Eventually, he told us that everyone was in a time loop and decided not to do anything since they were scared. We convinced Gideon to go and help Rufus from the shadowy man and we went to the mine. We went into the mine and accidentally stepped onto the explosion. Luckily, the bomb was defused and we walked past it without exploding. When we got to the door we quickly solved the puzzle after blowing up a few times. Then, we went into the cave. We met Rufus sitting in a room with a bunch of dead purple bandanna people. He explained that the shadow man came into the room and killed all his followers. We headed deeper into the mine to the cave and met the shadow. He told us he was out for revenge against Uther and when Uther showed up, he took Vexalia’s “soul”. Uther then told us a code word before we were “killed”.

Lucas Zhang The Haunted Mines, Revisited Pg-13, Lots of Violence and Death and some weird guy with a broken voice “Greetings and Salutations I bring good tidings and Vibrations Just follow my directions And don’t give me grammar corrections” Ok. You were probably wondering what happened. So I hopped in an old man’s cart pulled by a bunch of oxen and then I just realized that the town I was going to was Brickston! I cursed under my breath, and you’d probably if you have a good memory, realized that this was the town in my first entry. Then I realized that Anneaka, our little bee friend, was hovering above the forest. Some people were running like chickens with their heads cut off and the Old Man said: “Eh, what’s the commotion?” A bunch of people pointed up and then I knew: it was Axandria in the Time Loop. Axandria was falling out of the sky and then rebuilding itself. I got to admit, from Brickston’s point of view, The time loop looked pretty cool. I decided to fly up to Axandria with a spell, and then my magic failed and I fell out of the air to certain doom. Anneaka didn’t save me, so we got two murderers in our group now. I, for some reason, woke up in the throne room and quickly found my companions. So, me Deming and Jeffrey went down to the mines again, and we told a recap to Deming everything me and Jeffrey had discovered down there when the rest of the group came blundering down to the mines. We had the 4 digit combo thing again and we guessed 3 times and we got blown three times into a new time loop. We saw a pile of reddish goo. I conjured a bottle and using my brain, figured out that this was not blood. So what was it? We suspected it was the remains of Gideon the Weird Obnoxious Singer. Just that moment, we went into the room that had now slid open and we found a bunch of dead guys and Rufus.

We told Rufus what happened, and Wenqi healed Rufus. Gideon the Weird Obnoxious Singer came down and confirmed that the reddish goo was his remains. He did the Handprint thing and he melted into a pile of obnoxious goo. What a moron. We went down to the Arcane Engine and then we met the up to no good Shadow guy. Uther and Vex’Alia were also there and then we had a quick discussion with the Shadow. Apparently he was out for revenge and he said other stuff. Then he put his hand on Vex’Alia and took her soul or something. The vanished, and then Vex’Alia’s body crumpled to the ground. Uther got really mad and pushed life into Vex’Alia and then she began chanting the time loop spell thing and Axandria fell. The next thing we knew was that we were in the throne room of Axandria….again.

Wenqi Sun

The Haunted Mines… Revisited

“​Exandria Trust​” ​was the name of the bank of Exandria. I was a bit confused on

why the name of the bank would appear on the walls of a building. Nevertheless, I stopped thinking about it. I still had the attributes of steam, so I quickly turned back into my normal self and leaped off the building. A couple minutes later, I caught up with the whole crew. Right when I got there, I saw one of our teammates running and huffing towards us with a large diary in his arms. Someone in the distance was yelling “THIEF!” repetitively at our teammate; causing unwanted attention towards him. As I saw guards running towards our teammate, he disappeared into the ethereal realm. He was one of the two people in our group that could travel to the ethereal realm anytime they wanted to. ​That was a close one. ​As soon as I looked in front of me, I saw a person reach into a pouch, and throw a glowing, red orb at the bank. Fire erupted from the orb causing commotion everywhere. As we turned around, we saw the Shadow running extremely fast, pulling up his hood as if he was going to do something, but then instead, his eyes widened. He leaped to the side and ended up on the ground, impacted by the fire.

His cloak was very burnt and singed. He started to crawl away, despite his conditions. ​I can’t let him escape! ​I thought quickly to myself. I decided that it was magic time. I performed a spell, casting a hand made out of stone and bricks, and closed it down on the Shadow. I pinned him. He wouldn’t be able to escape… for now.

“WHAAAT?” As I was keeping an eye on the Shadow, a friend ran up to me and told me some… interesting news. Apparently, Vex’alia is Uther’s daughter. I never would’ve thought--or even consider--that they were related. I double-checked with my teammate again and again. It wasn’t ​difficult ​to believe that Uther and Vex’alia were father and daughter. I was just surprised and made sure that I wasn’t going cray-cray. But, I couldn’t continue to make sure that I was sane. The fire was expanding each second and the Shadow was still right beside me. As I was still contemplating what I would do about the Shadow, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another one of my teammates run over to the Shadow and ask him, “any last words…?” Before the Shadow could answer, he absolutely ​annihilated ​the Shadow. I gasped at the sight and covered my eyes. Way too late. It was a sight that I would never want to remember, ever again. Then right after this incident, I got the scare of my life. Well, I might be over exaggerating, but I was genuinely scared. Gideon walked up behind me and yelled to our group, “ANYBODY WANT TO HELP ME WITH THE FIRE?” Before I could hit him in frustration, the purple light bursted out and shot up into the marketplace. The destruction of Exandria was coming closer and closer… The buildings around us were crashing down and panicked screams appeared from the marketplace. I could feel Exandria, the floating island, fall down, passed the Galdarra Islands, and crash. The world around me became dark again… and then, there was light.

Wenqi Sun

As I got up, we were in the throne room again. My head hurt a little but other than that, I was completely fine. I looked around once again, and saw that everything was normal and the exact same. I had an urge to leave the island and have my own little adventure but, the more I thought about it, the more I lost interest. I remembered how two of our teammates decided to leave the island but they never returned... Vex’alia turned to us and said, “Hmmm… The way some of you are behaving is rather disappointing. Would the rest of you want to jump off the island too, or would you like to help me save this kingdom…?” I looked at her eyes. They were piercing. Vex’alia was the last reason why I decided that I would NOT jump off the island anymore. For some reason, she can make you feel incredibly guilty even when you did nothing wrong. As Vex’alia continued to wait for an answer, someone finally replied, “We will surely stay here and help you save Exandria. The only reason why two of us jumped off the island was because we wanted to see what happened. Don’t worry, Vex’alia.” ​Phew. ​I would have never stepped up and talked to Vex’alia face to face. She frightened me. We continued to talk for a bit when suddenly, something caught my attention, “... we went to the bank and took your diary. We think that the Shadow is after you or your father, Uther. Although… It’s most likely you because you control the time-loop.” I never knew that the diary was Vex’alia’s and I never thought that the Shadow was after her either. This was brand-new information to me. But, by the looks of it, the rest of the group knew about it; considering their not-so-surprised looks on their faces.

As we handed the diary to Vex’alia, she ran her hands over the cover and said, “Wow… I haven’t seen this in ages… Oh yes, you did all for me. I’m quite sure of that,” she rolled her eyes, “… hmm, I did like this pecan pie. It was delicious…”

Then, Vex’alia squinted her eyes and seemed to go into her own world, “Huh… Huh…” Vex’alia finally looked up from her diary, realizing that we were still there, beside her, “Well, perhaps if we worked together…” She paused again, “I think I know how to fix the arcane engine.”

“Really?” we asked her but never got a reply. We were interrupted by a guitar strum. ​Gideon… ​I thought that I was going to explode. I tightened my fist, resisting the urge to run up to him and whack him in the head. “Greetings and salutations! I bring you tidings and vibratiooooons! Please follow me and my directions and do not give me-” He stopped singing, “Aren’t there usually more of you?” ​How does Gideon know that? I​ thought suspiciously to myself. I watched as Gideon continued to sing. I was a little bit uneasy so I decided to cast a truth triangle at Gideon. I wasn’t too confident with casting truth triangles but, I decided to give it a go. For once, it succeeded. As a group, we asked Gideon numerous questions.

“How do you know that there are usually more of us?”

“Well, usually at the start of the loop, there’s 9 of you.”

“You know about the loop???”

“Yep.” “Why didn’t you tell us then?”

Wenqi Sun “You guys are kind of scary and everything around us is kind of scary too. Vex’alia is flying around and she’s kind of scary. Uther is kind of scary. I don’t want to do anything with him. So I thought that the safest thing to do is to do the same thing every loop.”

“Do you have any secrets?”

“Well… I felt pretty bad when I pushed the drunk guy into the river.” I stared. ​That was more or less how one of our teammates died in the very beginning.

“Anything you know about the Shadow?”

“I know that he’s scary, killed a lot of people, and that he can kind of vanish and when you kill him, he also kind of vanishes.” I smacked my head. The truth triangle wasn’t ​awful but it wasn’t super helpful. As I released Gideon from the triangle, he skipped off into the distance.

Our group decided that we would visit the marketplace again. The boys were going into the market itself and then they'll go to the mines while the girls were going to try and learn about the Shadow. But eventually, this all led to our group arriving at the mines together. Although a few people went to the spa, I decided to stay at the mines.

As I entered the mines for the second time, I truly realized how far and deep it was. It took us around 20 minutes to get to where the boys led us. By now, the boys were the mine ‘experts.’ They have been exploring this mine since day 1.

Finally, we got to a door. There was a pad where you type in the password and there was a hand print. As a group, we decided that we would try and figure out the password. On the pad, there were four columns: ​Earth​, ​Water​, ​Fire​, and ​Wind​. After some examining, we found out that you would need to press each column a certain amount of times in order to open the door. Everyone started to pitch in and help.

After around 15 minutes, we figured out the password. Then, the door opened.

There were a group of dead bodies wearing purple masks. Up on the wall was Rufus. He was badly wounded and looked very tired, “How…? How? How did you get past the wall?” We told him that we guessed the password. He looked shocked.

Without wasting any time, we asked Rufus if he knew where the Shadow was. To our luck, Rufus nodded and pointed deeper into the mine. We scurried past him and down a hallway. Soon, we reached a room. The same room where Rufus led us to last time. As we entered the room, at the back, there was a figure. The figure looked up and walked into the light. It was the Shadow.

There was silence. Then, we asked him why he was doing all of this and his only reply was, “Revenge.” The Shadow’s voice was deep and gruff. It sent shivers down my spine. I stayed at the back of the group, huddled in the middle. “Can we bargain this out?” we asked him.

“There will be no bargain. There will only be ​justice… and revenge.​” At this, I was already starting to feel nauseous. I was scared and I was tired. My headache from the beginning of the loop started to reappear again.

“Who are you trying to get revenge on…?” we asked again. The Shadow’s reply was simply, “Who on this island is most deserving of retribution? Uther. Uther the

Wenqi Sun Unforgiving. Uther, the person who killed all the mages a long time ago. That Uther.​ ” The Shadow started to scowl and his eyes filled with a violent look.

Suddenly, Vex’alia and Uther appeared inside the room. The Shadow smirked and moved quickly. He gently touched Vex’alia on the shoulder and a gray reflection of Vex’alia exited her body. She then crumpled to the ground. Then, the Shadow disappeared. “NOOO! I WON’T ALLOW IT!” Uther yelled out. Then, a ray of power radiated out of his hands and he twisted his hands upwards. Vex’alia then stood up.

Her eyes weren’t the same blue, icy color anymore. They were gray. Vex’alia didn’t seem to be herself… yet she was alive. The purple light inside the room began to expand. Uther turned to us and bellowed, “What kind of sorcery is this? I destroyed all of them and WHO are all of you?” He gestured at us, “Find me. Find me next loop and tell me this was pentagast! Tell me this was pentagast and I will understand. GO!” He told us to run. Of course, we were too slow. The purple light was now on the urge of exploding. As I stood there in shock, the purple light finally exploded… Consuming all of us. Then, it was dark again… and then there was light.

As we woke up in the throne room, Vex’alia turned to us, “Well… Now we know the stakes.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Uther's Secret

Cindy Hu It is March 26, 2020.

Uther’s Secret​:

As always, I have forgotten pretty much everything that happened. ​Okay, so basically we woke up at the same place as usual, most of us. Also, did I mention Anneaka (smart fellow here) tried to escape the island? I wish I came with her although I have this feeling she didn’t succeed. I don’t know if I should've tried to contact her using the stone of farspeech but I didn’t. Then we went to see our old friend, the arcane engine. And some more friends, namely Vexalia and Uther who were arguing pretty much the whole time. Kind of a waste of my time but sure. I mean thanks to Vexalia, we have all the time in the world to explore things so why not? Then we learned the secret to fixing the engine, which is not for your praying eyes and ears. Then we learned secrets about some other people. Totally wasn’t the already too mysterious Vexalia. Then I made what was pretty much the biggest decision in my whole entire life. We decided to ​break​ the loop. Yes, that’s right peeps! I’m so excited that this whole adventure is going to be over after a final loop! Yes, it was fun and a great new experience but I miss everyone back home, the house included. I don’t care what happens in this final loop as long as it: a) gets me home b) doesn’t get me killed. Those are all the conditions for me. I think I might miss people like Vexalia and of course, the city of Exandria itself. I’m so excited for whatever is going to happen in the last and FINAL time loop.

Daisy Chen 20/05/26

Uther’s Secret

Okay, well…this loop, I kinda felt more...powerful, I guess… meh -_-...

As we woke up in the throne room,.. for the 7th time… -_-. It’s getting VERY annoying! >:( We told Gideon who was about singing his “very bootiful song” to search for the shadow in the mines or the spa. While he did that, our group went to the mage tower.

At the mage tower, we all decided to do what we did last time. “HEY, CAN WE COME IN???” we yelled. “Why, of course” a voice said. We all looked up and saw Uther on the balcony. All of a sudden, we were in the room we were last time when we came.

We tried to tell him about pentagast. (I didn’t mention the last loop because I forgot.) He just… wouldn't listen. He summon Vexalia to appear and question them. They were arguing like how I argue with my brothers but this is father daughter.

Uther ​finally d​ ecided to listen to us after he saw the damage on the Arcane engine. He also continues arguing with his daughter in a different language. Utheer decided to search for the shadow with the boys.

Us girls stayed at the Mage Tower. I saw Felicity and Wenqi look around. Wenqi stared at a goldfish and… SHE TURNED INTO A ROCK!!! I bet that was a Medusa goldfish.

Felicity saw some books and took them. It was Vexalia’s # ,2,3, and 4 diary! Vexalia came and started reading them.

After, she made a potion and threw it in the air. Suddenly, Uther came. He looked at us and discovered that Felicity was the one that took the book but Vexalia cut his sentence. And… they started fighting… AGAIN!!!

Suddenly, Vexalia teleported us to the srcane engine and she fixed it! Then, we were back in the throne room and this will be our last loop...

Deming We woke up in the throne room again and it was the same process with gideon coming in with the fadidiadiaidiadaidaijdohfnbrasjb,n;.But now we have to go tell uther that its pentagast or something.On the way to the mages tower i went to get some mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllllllllllllkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk,and as usual i spit it everywhere.I arrived at the mages tower in time to see jeffery fall from the ceiling.The i told uther about pentagast and he was as usual very stubborn about it.Veccalia came and she and her father started arguing again.I mentioned pentagast again and he sent me flying through this dark tunnel and when i fell out i saw lucas and jeffery leaving.Wenqi looked at a goldfish and turned to stone,I refused to save her.Then we found another copy of veccalias diary but this is and older copy with more info.This book mentioned somebody known as uncle pentagast.Veccalia saw this and started making some dust powder,While she was doing that i went to the spa through the ethereal realm.I saw three ghost people and they told me lot’s of info.Apparently Uther betrayed the other wizards and backstabed all of them.Right as they finished the sentence the spa exploded and there was uther holding the shadow AKA PENTAGAST.I tried to stop uther but he didn’t seem to care and he kind of killed the shadow(because we all know that shadow will come back).jeffery and lucas arrived and i told them what the ghosts told me and i rushed up to the mage tower.Vaccalia now know everything because of the dust and uther and vaccalia starts arguing again.After a while of arguing we went to the arcane engine and vaccalia knowing how to fix it now because she has her memory back fixed it and finally stop the time loop.”so this time it's for real”.

Jeffrey Wang This loop was so eventful some parts were a blur to me. We first decided to go to Uther's tower and tell him the word Pentagast, the word he told us to say to him last loop. When we told him the word, his face clouded with anger. He asked me to repeat the word angrily and asked me how I knew the word. I told him everything we knew and he trapped me in the pit of screams for a while. Then, he realized that the shadow was in the bank, he quickly teleported away and a few of us followed him. When we reached the mine, we found Uther looking for the shadow. We told him he was probably then in the spa and he teleported there. When we got to the hill overlooking the spa we saw an explosion, Uther was holding the shadow by the neck and killed him. Then, he teleported ​again​. We reached the tower and went inside while he and Vexalia were arguing. From all the evidence I had heard from the argument. I pierced together Pentagast was a mage who taught Vexalia a lot of cool magic, Uther killed Pentagast because he was with Vexalia and when Pentagast was dying, he sent a curse and to make sure whoever killed him will get hunted down endlessly and will never truly die. Uther had made Vexalia’s memory of Pentagast fade, making her magic that she learned also fade. This meant she couldn’t fix the engine. The time loop was a type of magic that allows you to perform a “save” so you will reset and basically, never get killed. However, the magic isn’t without flaws and on the loop that you want to actually continue time, if you died, you would die forever. Vexalia decided to do one final loop which was the real thing. If we died, we would never wake up.

Uther’s Secret By: Felicity Lu

For this loop we decide that it would be a good idea to all head over to the mage’s tower. We order Gideon to go to the spa just in case the shadow is lurking there and he agrees after 5 minutes of persuading. Once we arrive at the mage’s tower, we remember that we have no idea how to get in. I suggest shouting again since it worked last time and to everyone's surprise, it succeeded! Uther walks out of the balconie and invites us in just like he did previously.

After walking inside, we start to ask Uther about a “Pentagast”. He decides to call Vex’alia and we inform her on what happened after she died. We have a conversation with Uther and it seems that he is not in a time loop so we explain everything to him. Uther suddenly disappears from the room then reappears a few moments later. Without another word, he walks out of the mage tower towards the haunted mines. 2 of our crew members decide to follow him but I decide to stay back.

The rest of us in the tower decide to explore it. After one of our crew members turns to stone by staring at a goldfish, I am extra careful with my exploring.

Suddenly I spot a bookshelf containing 3 diaries. I take them all out and I find that the covers of the diaries look identical to Vex’alia diary. When I open them up, I find that the older the diary, the more detailed her writing is. For a split second I think about taking the diary but then I realise that Uther is the most powerful living wizard so I probably shouldn't do that.

Vex’alia suddenly looks at us and asks us what it is.

We hand it to her and she reads it over. She seems angry. But as this happens we hear a massive explosion. Vex’alia doesn’t seem to care at all because she continues to talk about Pentagast.

Eventually we figure out that Pentast must be very close to Vex’alia as she calls him “uncle”.

Uther suddenly appears back in the room and starts to argue with his daughter, Vex’alia.

Later on after lots of complaining between Vex’alia and Uther (I sort of fell asleep due to the fact that I

haven’t gotten any sleep in more than 24 hours), Uther explains that the next loop will be the real thing, if we die, it's forever.

Wenqi Sun

Uther's Secret “​Find me. Find me next loop and tell me this was pentagast! Tell me this was pentagast and I will understand.” ​Everything from the last loop came flooding into my mind. It was chaotic. Uther’s voice repeated inside my head. “Pentagast… What or who is that?” I muttered.

Like usual, we woke up in the throne room. But this time, we didn’t spend a lot of time there. We quickly scurried outside and headed towards the Mage’s Tower. A couple minutes later, we arrived. The Mage’s Tower was the same: No door. Illusions everywhere. Made me dizzy. I yelled out, “UTHER? WE’RE HERE TO VISIT YOU. WE HAVE SOMETHING TO ASK YOU AND VEX’ALIA, TOO!” A few seconds passed and a mage appeared on a newly-formed balcony. It was Uther. He said the same thing to us, “Well, no need to shout. I’m right here... Come on in.” A door appeared. We walked in.

As soon as we stepped foot inside, one of our teammates shouted, “Pentagast!” to Uther. The room grew dark. “Pardon me…?” Uther said in a deep voice. “Last time you said that we should find you this loop and uh, tell you it was pentagast,” someone said.

Uther didn’t seem to remember. He had a suspicious look on his face for a long time. As we continued to tell him over and over again about ‘pentagast,’ Uther acted as if he never told us about anything. It was a strange behaviour. We tried to convince Uther to believe us for the next 15 minutes... without any luck. Uther then left the tower and drifted down towards the Haunted Mines. We were alone--along with Vex’alia--in Uther’s tower. Finally, I got a chance to explore the Mage’s Tower. Last time we visited, I didn’t pay too much attention to the interior. As I observed, I saw that there were books and maps everywhere. Although there were many things in the Mage’s Tower, everything was organized. Inside, there was also a desk with a bowl on it. The floor was marble and there were tiny paintings on the walls. The chairs were soft and puffy. There was a tea cup on the little coffee table next to the chairs and couches. Then, something caught my eye. There was a goldfish on the desk. But, it wasn’t a normal-looking goldfish. It had sparkles under its eyes. It was beautiful. I walked towards it and looked into its eyes. Then, this weird sensation rose up to my face. It made me itchy and uncomfortable. I tried to move my hands to my face and scratch it but I realized that I was stone. I couldn’t move! I started to panic. But before I could even have a panic attack, the world around me turned dark. I was still alive and aware of my circumstances but I couldn’t see anything. I started to take deep breaths. It wasn’t a good time for me to start panicking. ​It’s okay, Carol. It’s okay. You’re doing great. Someone will help you.

They will surely see your stone figure next to Uther’s goldfish. ​Goldfish! It was the goldfish that turned me into stone. I started to feel betrayed… even though the fish didn’t ‘betray’ me. ​It just turned me into stone. ​I thought to myself. I continued to take deep breaths.

Wenqi Sun

After around what felt like an eon, I started to feel worried. No one seemed to notice me. I tried to perform some magic to get myself out of this stone ‘phase,’ but it never worked. I also attempted to yell out ‘help!” but I guess no one could hear me either. I eventually gave up. I closed my eyes and before I knew it, I fell into a deep sleep… standing up.

I woke up to a loose feeling. I looked in front of me and realized that I could see again!

Then, I started to shake my arms. They were moving, too! I was so happy. I looked beside me and saw that Vex’alia was the one helping me. I gave her a smile; indicating that I was thanking her. Before I knew it, I was back into human form.

Uther came drifting back into his tower. He pointed at me and said, “Oh. I don’t remember that being there. I see that you have found my little pet.” He gave me an amused smile. I just glared. ​It wasn’t fun… Uther. ​That’s when I realized that I missed a lot. Everyone, including Vex’alia, learned about Pentagast. A mage. From what I also perceived from Vex’alia--when she was shouting at her father--was that Uther somehow took Pentagast away from Vex’alia’s memories. I assumed that Pentagast was someone who was very special to her. Whenever Vex’alia would bring up the mage, she would call him “Uncle Pentagast.” He must’ve been like family to her. I also realized that Vex’alia was quite upset about her father taking away her memories with him, too. She started shouting at Uther and her face showed nothing but anger and pain. Her fingertips were glowing purple, “Don’t you know how ​much I​ lost when you took Uncle Pentagast away from me?” Vex’alia’s lips quivered when she said that. Uther just stared. “Don’t you know how much it pained me when I found out you killed MY Uncle Pentagast? Don’t you know how disappointed these travelers will be when I tell them that you killed ALL the mages you worked with before?” ​Hold up! What? I​ was shocked.

Uther simply said, “Well… They were jealous of me. If I didn’t kill them first, they would’ve killed me.” I just sighed. A world filled with jealousy was dangerous.

Then, we suddenly teleported to Uther’s laboratory. ​I guess we’re doing this now… I​ thought to myself. I looked over at Vex’alia and saw that she was talking to her father in a language that I couldn’t understand. Uther looked stunned, “How did you…? How did y-” he looked at Vex’alia. “Well. I just remembered it. You took away Uncle Pentagast and along with it, you also took away everything he ever taught me.” was Vex’alia’s answer. Later, I realized that they were talking about the arcane engine. Uther and his daughter were arguing again and I heard pieces of their argument, “...he didn’t teach you anything that I didn’t.”

“Really?” Vex’alia rolled her eyes. She clapped her hands and we teleported to the arcane engine, “Uncle Pentagast taught me how to fix the arcane engine.” My eyes

Wenqi Sun

widened. As I looked at Vex’alia again, I saw that she started to swirl her hands around.

She reached into a purple, bubbly bowl and as she did this, her eyes turned purple.

Voom-voom-voom-voom. Vooom… Vooom… Vooom. Then, everything was quiet. No more loud noises of the gears turning… No more arguments… Nothing. Everyone and everything was quiet… Rufus came running into the room and yelled, “It’s fixed! The arcane engine is fixed!” Well… almost everyone was quiet.

“The next loop will be for real. We will redo everything again but, if you die, you die for real. No more fooling around. Be careful,” Vex’alia told us. ​The next loop will be for real.

The next loop will be for real. ​I repeated in my head. I took a deep breath… and fainted.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Perfect Loop

Cindy Hu May 28, 2020

The Perfect Loop

How you chose to alter your decisions in earlier parts of the loop Interactions with Gideon What did your character prioritize in their perfect loop Anything your character did individually Dramatic events that occurred in the "perfect loop" What it means to your character to be free from the loop Where will your character go from here?

On this last loop, I decided to go to the Mage Tower because the only other option is the Snooty Spa. Bad experiences there so I thought I’d have better luck here. Although last time I went to the bank to hopefully avoid the Shadow, I ended up meeting him at the bank. I think I have bad luck with the shadow. I wasn’t sure what was the most important thing to do but I think anything that will get us closer to saving Exandria and returning home, is going to be one of my priorities. As usual, we separated into groups. I’m pretty sure Anneaka wasn’t on the island any more but I don’t know where she is. At least she isn’t trying to ‘sneak away’ anymore. Then we found out that whatever damage you do to your clones, you receive it aswell. Like when ​somebody​ thought it was a good idea to smash a guitar over his clones head, he felt it as well. Even worse, Vexalia didn’t know about it so she couldn’t help us. I mostly stayed at the Mage Tower so I didn’t die. I’m so happy we are finally freed from the time loop. I miss people like Vexalia back in Exandria though. It is also great that we no longer have to deal with dying, the pentagast, the shadow of Gideon. Still, I’m not sure what we will do now that we have escaped the time loop.

Daisy Chen 20/05/28

The Perfect Loop

As usual, we woke up in the throne room… and we discussed our plan. Vexlia just teleported us to the arcane engine and started to do magic thingy for a while. … … … … …

After Doing Some Magic Stuff...

Then, Vexalia noticed something, a yellow outline of something… or should I say someone. It was the shadow!!! I pulled out a death ray out of my purse (I don’t know why a death ray but meh) and shooted.

I kind of missed, oops. Wenqi, who was with me, shooted icicles and killed the shadow. The cave was going to collapse due to Wenqi’s too powerful spell. I tried to hold up the cave and succeeded. Then, I heard a boom outside, did someone steep on the trap again? Idk.

Suddenly, some P.M.B. and Roofus came and started shouting at us that we are destroying the arcane engine. We tried to explain and they won’t listen. I warn them that I’m holding the cave and if you take one more step, I will collapse the cave.

Uther and Deming suddenly appear next to us. He looked at the icicles and the pile of ash. Then, he looked at Wenqi and I. He did a magic swirling thingy and his wand appeared. He offered it to us. I feel like it was a test. He offered it to Wenqi and she said no. I said no too.

Uther started helping Vexalia with the arcane engine. Vexalia and I made a barrier around us. Just then, Roofus pulled out a magic red ball. This happened so fast I didn’t have time to react. We had a barrier so we were safe but some of the people outside died (P.M.B.)

Then, the purple light came. Uther (Who had +45 MAGIC) “manage” to fix it. People started to remember what happened in the loops. The king had a special speech. Uther lost interest and returned to his tower. We heard a shout in the distance “WHO FREED MY FAIRY FARM!!!!”

The End ​-v-

The Perfect Loop By: Felicity

This time when we arrive in the throne room Vex’alia is the one standing in front of. Everything that happens today has to be perfect. We can’t fail.

After much discussion, the majority of us (including me) decide to go to the mage tower and the everyone else that's remaining goes to the arcane engine. I take a deep breath then proceed to walk to the mage tower. This time however, I am pretty confident on how to get in since it’s my 3rd time. I shout at the top of my lungs and no surprise, Uther walks out of the balconie. He invites us in just like the last 2 times. We start to tell Uther everything but he doesn’t seem to want to listen to what we’re saying. Finally when we tell him that the shadow is probably located in the spa, he runs off in that direction.

We decide to follow Uther but when we arrive there, I feel that it not safe to go inside because it’s highly likely that the shadow is lurking somewhere there. Instead I decide to head back to the mage

tower and explore it. Thankfully the door that allows you to enter the tower is still open. I hover over to a table with a snow globe. At first glance, I assume that there are snowflakes floating around inside the globe but when I take a closer look, I see tiny little fairies. I start to speak to them and they claim that uter captured them just for the sake of decoration.

I’m so angry that I break the snow globe by “accidentally” dropping it on the floor. I know that Uther will notice I don’t care. The fairies expand to normal size again and thank me before flying out the window.

After hours of searching I find absolutely nothing that can come in handy so I head out of the mage tower to check on how my friends are doing. To my amazement our crew saved Axandria. We did it. It’s over...

Jeffrey Wang The sky was perfect, today was the day we would finish the loop, one final time. We huddled in a group discussing what we would do. I would go to the mine with Vexalia and a few others to fix the engine. The others would go to the tower to help Uther remember what happened last loop. Then, we put our plan into action, I created a clone of myself to act as a husk so I could send my body over to it if I died but it didn’t work. As we headed inside the mine, the purple bandanna people went out. Our clones tried to attack the bandanna people so I grappled with him and tied him up. Then, I stole his items and headed back in the mine. Unluckily, my teamate’s clone was there and pushed me onto the plate. Luckily, the teammate who had been cloned gave me their ring so I could be protected by the explosion. In return, I gave him my chicken wing which he used immediately. Then, we headed into the cave. The clone was still giving my team trouble because he was acting like Rufus. After a while, the real Rufus pulled out the red orb and was about to throw it before we intercepted it. The whole room blew up, killing some bandanna people and my teamate’s clone. The loop had been saved! After the loop I planned on studying all of my teams items and learning how to make them and when I do know how to make them, I plan to mass produce them making me rich! The loop was fun but now, I need a break.

WENQI SUN

The Perfect Loop We were in the throne room. For real this time. Everyone had to make sure that we would fix everything in time and make sure that the arcane engine won’t fail. Last loop, Vex’alia fixed the engine but she would have to do it again. Everyone discussed that the first thing we’ll do is visit the Mage’s Tower again. We’ll have to convince Uther about the potential destruction of Exandria. He is a stubborn person and the most powerful person alive. Worst case scenario, we anger Uther and get killed. ​No biggie. ​I thought sarcastically to myself.

On the way to the Mage’s Tower, I began to think about the arcane engine. If we don't fix it in time, everyone will get killed and Exandria will be doomed. I didn’t want this to happen. Finally, I decided that I would go to the arcane engine instead of the Mage’s Tower. I pulled Vex’alia to the side and asked if she could come with me for a second, “Vex’alia. Vex’alia. VEX’ALIA!” she turned her head.

“Yes?” “Could you come accompany me to the arcane engine? You’re the only person I know that can actually fix the arcane engine. We could teleport there,” I gave Vex’alia a pleading look. She sighed and agreed. In a second, she clapped her hands twice and we suddenly appeared at the arcane engine. Then, I heard this alarmed noise. I sounded like one of my teammates. I looked up and saw that half of her body was stuck in the teleportation portal. I pulled her out and gave her an amused look, “Are you okay?” She nodded. I guess she wanted to come too. ​The more, the merrier. I​ thought to myself. As I looked back at Vex’alia, I saw that she was already hard at work. She swirled her hands and the same bubbly, purple liquid splashed all over her. Then, my teammate and I heard a suspicious sound. It sounded like someone was being smashed on the head by a guitar. But, we didn’t think too much about it. On the other hand though, Vex’alia immediately perked up, “That was weird. Watch out behind you.”

As soon as my teammate and I turned around. We saw the outlines of the Shadow.

I gasped in shock. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that my teammate pulled out a Death Laser from her bag of necessities. She launched the laser out at the Shadow and hit him in the shoulder. He staggered back, face full of surprise. He didn’t show any pain whatsoever. Then, it was my turn. I conjured some magic and icicles appeared. I motioned my hands towards the Shadow and the icicles--one by one--hit the Shadow square in the chest. Before I knew it, he was pinned to the cave’s wall. I was just about to celebrate when, “SHRIEK!” the cave started to collapse. My teammate thought fast and she made a barrier and slowed down the process of the collapsing cave.

As my teammate was holding the roof of the cave, I heard footsteps down the hallway.

Soon, a group of figures appeared in front of us. They had purple bandanas wrapped around their necks. One tall figure was Rufus, “Holy cow! Why are you guys here?” The bandits took out their weapons and walked towards us. I quickly tried to disarm them…

WENQI SUN

Not succeeding. The one bandit I disarmed, looked at me and yelled out, “WITCH!” ​This isn't going to end well… ​But before anyone could react, someone called out, “Pentagast… Oh no. Pentagast doesn’t appear to be here either.” It was Uther, “What an interesting gathering. Hold up.” Uther froze us. He walked towards the pile of melting icicles stabbed into the walls. Then, Uther looked at the ashes that used to belong to the Shadow. “Who did this…?” I took a deep breath and said, “Uh.. me?” Uther looked at me and started for a moment. I winced at his cold stare. “Impressive.” ​PHEW! ​I smiled timidly. Uther turned towards me and handed me this staff. It was huge and embroidered with a bit of jewels. ​That thing looks POWERFUL! ​I thought to myself in disbelief. He made a gesture, “Here. I’m giving this to you.” My eyes widened, “Oh no, Uther. It’s yours. I won’t take it. Thank you for the offer.” I was too scared to wield such an ancient and powerful object. Uther looked at me and smiled. He said, “What an interesting bunch,” once again. Then, Uther walked towards his daughter, “Shall we?”

Vex’alia nodded and the pair worked together to fix the arcane engine. I smiled at the pair. It was nice to know that they weren’t fighting again… Although I wasn’t too fond of Uther. But, not ​all ​the problems were solved. The purple bandits were recovering from the shock of Uther and were slowly preparing to fight us again. “Form a barrier. A shield.” someone whispered. My teammate was still holding the roof up, so I was going to form the shield instead. But before I could do that, dust flew in every direction. No one could see anything for a moment. Then… It all cleared up. Everyone was quiet again. Nothing moved or stirred. As this was happening, a purple beam bursted through the roof. I looked at Vex’alia and Uther. They had a concentrated look on their faces.

Extremely concentrated look. Then, the purple beam slowly retracted. It didn’t cause any harm to people. Well… except one bandit. He died. But oh well, he tried to kill me.

As the sky lit up, people began to move again and no one came charging at me. We walked outside and my teammate let go of the barrier. The mines collapsed but everyone was safe. “Kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee, kawabanga da-da dee da-da-da-dee-dee!” Gideon. But for once, I was glad to see him. King Soong and Roan came walking up to us. “Here are your three bags of gold. You guys have not only completed the tasks, you also saved us and Exandria” Roan handed each one of us huge amounts of money. Then it was King Soong’s turn to talk to us, “Thank you for saving my kingdom. Thank you. I appreciate it. You will all be friends of Exandria for life.” I glanced at our group and saw that everyone was happy. There were people skipping down the roads (basically just Gideon), the markets were bustling again, and the birds were chirping. It was a good day. A good adventure…

The End!