(I have since learned from Alcatraz that these were “Magic cards,” though there didn’t seem to be anything magical about them to me.) This room was some kind of central chamber filled with many archive buildings, some of which were overflowing with oddities like cards with strange symbols and small writing. I leaped out of the doorway of the fallen Penguinator and bobbed through the maze of huts. I dodged, drawing on my Crystin powers to lend me speed and precision as I used my sword to deflect some of the bullets back at the shooting Librarians, who ducked for cover. Only Librarians would come at me with such primitive weapons. The Librarians must have anticipated this, because every last one of them turned their guns on me and fired. I didn’t know what the Librarians were trying to do to him, but whatever it was, I was going to stop it. On that altar was strapped a thirteen-year-old boy with messy, dark brown hair. An archive this vast could only be the Highbrary, beneath what the Hushlanders called Washington, DC.Īt the center of the room was a tower, crowned by an altar built out of massive stacks of outdated encyclopedias. Not just a library, from the looks of it, but the library. The wreckage of the Penguinator was smoking a bit, but I wasn’t in a bakery. I looked out into a wide cavern filled with small stone huts. The hatch gave a resounding clang, and then fell open. I gave the hatch a mighty kick with my bare foot. Power flowed through my Fleshstone-a crystal embedded in the back of my neck, which connected me to the Mindstone, and through it to all the Knights of Crystallia. The hatch had been damaged in a crash, and I drew upon my Crystin strength. I carried the sword with me as I ducked through the door and moved toward the hatch of the Penguinator. I snatched it by its hilt and pulled it free, then used it to slice through my own restraints. I sat straight up, finding my sword also strapped to the table next to me. It was my job to keep them out of trouble, and there I was, lying in bed. Where there are Smedrys, there are Smedrys in trouble. But I knew it must have something to do with the Smedrys. I had even less idea what the Penguinator would be doing in a burning bakery. I did not know why I, Bastille Vianitelle Dartmoor the Ninth, Princess of Nalhalla and Knight of Crystallia, would now be in a burning Penguinator in my pajamas.

The last thing I remembered was throwing a teddy bear at a massive robot in the Free Kingdom of Mokia. Beneath the cinnamon was a faint burning smell, like someone had set a bakery on fire. I was strapped to a bed in a room I recognized from the Penguinator-the Smedry family’s glass ship. I awoke to the distinct scent of cinnamon, and a sense of growing dread. So there I was, in my pajamas, having a perfectly good nap, when the world decided to end.

Alcatraz versus the evil librarians