An empty hallway in the Temple of Light shook and trembled. From around a corner, the team emerged into view. Yarid’s bloody ghost-white and almost limp body was slung around Glorissa’s shoulder, her slim short girl’s body rigid with the determination to drag him along all the way to the end. Behind her, Rose was walking with a limp, as blood dripped from her unmasked face. Kylus was walking normally as if he did not have a jagged bleeding dragon-bite in the right side of his torso, and Sylis was wobbly and stumbling about, although he had taken to using the glowing sapphire-topped scepter as a cane and was walking with it for support. Only Nathan and his pet slime seemed to have made it through the dragon battle unscathed, his black cloak sweeping about him as he brought up the rear of the party like a liquid shadow flowing around him.

  “Wait,” Rose said. She half-fell over, half-stooped and took a seat against the wall of the hall. “I can’t… go on. Go on without me. I am… prepared to die, and... I want you to live.”

  “Go on ahead: where?” Sylis asked. “Don’t joke, Rose. You know we’re all going to die here. I say we make our last stand together.”

  “I agree,” Kylus said. “With both parts of what Sylis said: we none of us survive this. And, if we die, we die as one.”

  The hallway shook and rumbled again.

  “How far behind us is the dragon?” Glorissa asked. “We have no way of knowing. I might be dead in five minutes. Eaten by a dragon. At least I’ll see my sister again when I die.”

  “The dragon is still in the Crystal Chamber fighting the armor soldiers,” Sylis said. “Through the magic of the scepter I can see through the eyes of each of the enchanted suits of armor as well as control them. They’re putting up one hell of a fight, and the dragon is still occupied. But I summoned hundreds of the armor knights, and now there are less than fifty left. The dragon will be through with them in maybe five or ten minutes. And we’ve been running for, what, twenty minutes? Within the hour, we face the dragon. And end this, once and for all. We die with honor.”

  “Honor?” Rose said. “There’s no honor among thieves! That was my mistake! We none of us were ever really thieves! I had honor! And so did all of you! What was I thinking? Why try to steal the Crystal of Light when it’s good, when it’s the source of all that’s good in the world? I was so proud of being a rogue and a crime boss that I raced ahead with it, but I’m not evil! And none of you were evil either! Why did I lead us into this? I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I never should have taken part in this crazy stupid plan to begin with, and none of you would die if I had said no! And I was the team’s leader! The Dark Wizard needed each one of us, and if I had declined, none of you are here and none of you die! The Dark Wizard’s plan was so complicated and crazy and stupid and evil, I’m smart, I should have known it would never work. I am so, so sorry…” Rose broke down in tears and began to sob uncontrollably. Kylus reached out uneasily and placed his hand on her shoulder to give her emotional support.

  Nathan gasped.

  “What’s wrong? Did the dragon bite you too?” Kylus asked.

  “No, it did not, but it might as well have eaten my brain given how stupidly I have been behaving,” Nathan said.

  “I can’t argue with that statement,” Kylus said.

  “I meant I have been behaving stupidly with respect to our recent battle against the dragon, not that I behave stupidly in general!” Nathan said. “I, the great necromancer zombie army general, and it was right in front of my eyes the whole time! In all the chaos of every part of the Dark Wizard’s plan that went wrong, I had forgotten all the details of that plan! I know how to kill the dragon! I have a plan! We can slay the dragon!”

  “Are… you… insane?” Rose asked.

  “No, actually I am not, I’m just smart,” Nathan said. He looked at the walls of the hallway, examining them with a care that the others did not understand. “Yes, I believe we should be right in the courtyard-facing side of the Temple’s East Tower, midway up the tower, if we are where I think we are,” Nathan said. “I saw the blueprint for the entire Temple of Light in the mind of the dead architect. We need to cut a hole in the wall. I believe a hole in this wall where we are will form a hole into the courtyard between the Temple’s four towers. We need to get through this wall and get outside into the courtyard, and I mean now, before the dragon reaches us.”

  “Blue magic can’t do that,” Sylis said. “None of us have magic that can do that. A Red or Black spell can set stuff on fire, but can you melt a hole into a wall?”

  “No,” Nathan said.

  “I… can’t,” Rose said. She winced in pain as she spoke.

  “I think I can,” Kylus said. “With this.” He brandished the Sword. “A magic sword like this can cut stone. I’m sure of it.”

  “Are you thinking of wielding me against solid stone?” the Sword asked. “The Temple’s stone is enchanted to make it resist breaking! Do you have any idea how much that will hurt me? I will not be abused by some stupid girl-turned-boy piece of common filth!”

  “I think I’m going to enjoy this,” Kylus said with a grin on his face.

  The hallway shook again.

  “Do it. Now!” Nathan said.

  Kylus took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Then he raised the Sword up above his head with both arms, and slashed it into the wall, as hard as he could. The stone wall did not budge and Kylus felt his entire body vibrate with the force of his blows, and his elbows and shoulders were screaming in pain. He raised the Sword and swung it again. Again, the wall held, and pain shot through every nerve of his body. He slashed, again again again again again, slamming the blade of the Sword into precisely the same spot on the wall. After slashing into it repeatedly, Kylus noticed that the wall was beginning to chip.

  “You’re hurting me!” the Sword said.

  “That is such a tragedy,” Kylus said. He continued to slam the Sword into the wall, hyperventilating with exertion and feeling his entire body scream and shriek with the pain of each blow. The wall chipped and a hole in the wall formed, it got bigger… and then, with one sharp blow, the wall fell in where Kylus was hitting it. A hole formed, and blue sky was visible through the hole.

  “I can’t… do any more…. Hurts too bad….” Kylus said, forcing the words out between deep breaths. He planted the blade of the Sword into the floor and leaned on the Sword, placing all his weight upon it to have the strength to remain standing.

  “I believe that hole is large enough for each one of us to squeeze through if we go one by one,” Nathan said. “Go. Now.”

  “Let me go first,” Sylis said. “In case we are high up in the Temple right now, which I think we are, I can slow time for myself so that I land in one piece, and then slow down each of you as you fall.”

  One by one, they went through the hole. Slowed by Sylis’s time spells, they floated down to the ground. They were in the courtyard at the center of the Temple of Light, with the South, East, North and West Towers rising above them like thick white cylindrical mountains of pale ice-white stone clawing up into the sky. The heist had taken so long that it was morning now and sunlight was coming from the east, tinging the dawn sky with streaks of bright pink and purple. The four white towers were so tall that they seemed to poke their spires into the very clouds themselves. However, the East Tower was shaking and trembling every so often, as if something very big and angry was smashing into its insides.

  “Rose, I need the bag,” Nathan said.

  “Bag? What bag?” Rose asked. She was dizzy and knew nothing other than intense pain.

  “The bag we brought the box in,” Nathan said.

  “The box is gone,” Kylus said.

  “I know, boy! Rose, give me the bag!”

  Rose reached into her robes and pulled out the small red-wine-colored bag. "Here. Take it. Have fun with it,” she said sarcastically.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Nathan said. He turned the bag upside-down and shook it, as if trying to empty it.

  “Oh wait,” Sylis said. “We also brought the gnome hot air balloon in that bag.”

  “Indeed,” Nathan said. The gnomish hot-air-balloon contraption fell out of the pocket dimension inside the bag. The entire thing fell out, a large wicker basket attached to an inflatable cloth balloon and the gnomish hot-air fire-torch mechanism to heat it and fill it with air. Nathan stepped into the basket and began to fiddle with the gnome fire-machine.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Nathan said. “Get in the basket!”

  Glorissa dumped Yarid’s semi-prone body into the basket and then stepped into it. Sylis and Kylus followed. Rose groaned but forced herself to somehow crawl her way into it.

  “Aha!” Nathan said, a gleam of triumph in his eyes. The mechanism activated, and a flare of red flame burst into light before their eyes. The balloon filled with air, and the balloon, now massive and inflated, pulled the basket up. The six companions floated up into the air.

  “Is your plan for us to escape by air?” Sylis said. “Because, you know, dragons can fly. It has wings. And oh, by the way, look, there it is.”

  “I am counting on it flying after us,” Nathan said. Yarid was laying on the floor of the basket, but the other five leaned over the rim and stared as a portion of the East Tower crumbled and the red dragon crawled out into the courtyard. The dragon looked around, saw the hot air balloon rising into the sky, and let out a blood-curdling roar of anger and aggression.

  “The dragon is going to attack us again, and we’re going to have to survive somehow,” Nathan said. “But we only need to survive one onslaught, and then I’ll be able to put my plan in motion. So, team, get ready to fight, but know that this is it: if we survive one more round of combat, I know I can kill that overgrown lizard.”

  Has Nathan lost his mind? Sylis thought. “What’s so special about withstanding one more attack? What is your plan, Nathan?”

  “I don’t have time to explain why it will work!” Nathan said. “You’re going to have to trust me! It has to do with the fact that when the dragon is hit by a Mythic and Legendary weapon such as the Sword it loses its magical invulnerability shield for one or two minutes and then regains it, and it also has to do with the wind and where we are and something I saw in the dead architect’s mind, but I can’t explain it more right now. We came here to steal God’s stone, which is what got us into this mess, so all I can say is: have faith!”

  Sylis shook his head. I can’t believe I’m going to choose to have faith in Nathan, but—I am. “Okay. I’m up for one more fight with the dragon. Our final battle.”

  The dragon spread its huge leathery reptilian wings and leapt into the sky. It flapped its wings and took flight, flying in the direction of their balloon.

  “It’s coming for us,” Sylis said. “Get ready, everyone.”

  “Can someone… please help me… to stand,” Yarid said. The threat of their final stand against the dragon had roused the elf king out of his coma, and he sat up, although his face twisted with pain as he did so. “I, too, will fight. If this is to be our final battle, we win, or we die… as one.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Glorissa and Kylus pulled Yarid up so that the elf king could lean against the rim of the basket. The six of them stared at the dragon. It was coming right at them, and the closer it got the bigger it appeared.

  As the dragon flew towards them, Sylis sent several Blue time-stop spells at it, but the dragon dodged left and right, flying up and down and in circles, dodging each of Sylis’s time-freeze spells. The dragon flapped its wings and came up next to the balloon.

  Glorissa leaned down and pulled out a small silver blade that had been strapped to her ankle.

  “This is my lucky dagger,” she said. “Somehow I feel now is the right time to use it.”

  “You think that tiny thing will hurt that magical beast?” Nathan asked.

  Glorissa took careful aim, cocked back her arm, and tossed the dagger at the dragon, with an expert motion that spoke of much training and practice. Her dagger sailed through the air and hit the dragon on the head. The instant it did, a White magic spell activated, causing a blast of lightning to shoot down from the sky. The dragon shrieked as white bolts of electricity coursed through its body. It stopped flying for a moment and fell, but then it shook off the damage, flapped its leathery wings again, and began to ascend.

  “It was worth a shot,” Glorissa said.

  “Perhaps you had the right idea,” Nathan said. “White, Black and Red should work together. Use your magic to try to knock it out of the sky.”

  Glorissa clasped her hands in front of her, closed her eyes, and began praying to God, while Nathan pointed at the dragon, shooting Black incineration spells at it.

  “I am so injured, I think one bad roll of the dice will be the end of me,” Rose said. She cupped her magic dice in her hands. “Lady Luck, don’t fail me now!” She rolled the dice, looked at them, and gasped: a sixteen, an eighteen and a twenty. The dragon flew up and tried to find an angle from which to bite at them, but while it was hanging in mid-air, Nathan’s Black spells hit it just as Rose’s Red spell also took effect. The Red magic punched the dragon repeatedly in the face, while the Black magic exploded at its head, booming apart in a burst of red fire. The dragon again roared in pain and spiraled away from the balloon, temporarily blinded by the damage to its head and eyes.

  “We are almost there,” Nathan said. “Just buy me a little more time!”

  Sylis leaned over the rim of the basket. “It’s coming at us again!” he said.

  The dragon flew up, and again flapped its wings to maintain itself in a position next to the basket. The dragon seemed to smile, its fangs long and jagged in its grinning mouth. It opened its claws, ready to grab the hot air balloon.

  “He who hesitates is doomed,” Yarid said.

  “What?” Glorissa asked. She saw Yarid reach up and pull his giant longsword out of its sheath at his back from over his shoulders. “No, don’t! You’re too injured!”

  Yarid looked at Glorissa. Their eyes met, and he smiled at her. Then he disappeared.

  The elf king reappeared directly above the dragon and began to fall onto it. He grabbed the dragon’s right wing as he fell past it, and somehow the fae found the strength to hang on. The dragon looked from the balloon to the elf clutching its wing. The dragon’s wing seemed to drag with the weight of the fae, and the dragon began to wobble and droop on its right side, its flying unbalanced by the additional weight. The dragon began to claw at Yarid.

  “What does Yarid think he’s doing?” Sylis asked.

  Yarid summoned all his remaining strength, took hold of his sword, and stabbed it into the dragon’s wing, activating the enchantment hidden within his sword at the same time. Yarid’s longsword began to spew out clouds of thick, sticky blue-black goo, which went all over the dragon’s wing, and seemed to wrap around it and the harden. The dragon, who was now unable to flap one of its two wings, grabbed Yarid in a claw and threw the elf away, but too late to save itself: the dragon began to descend, unable to fly, and it flapped its left wing to try to direct itself, using that one wing as a sail to float down, away from the hot air balloon. But Yarid fell through the air, with nothing below him. The party in the balloon watched Yarid fall.

  “Rewind time, Sylis! Bring him back!” Rose said.

  “That won’t work! He’s too far away for me to target him with a spell!” Sylis replied.

  Glorissa clasped her hands tightly in front of her while tears poured from her eyes. “Oh God, please! Save Yarid! I love him!” she said, quickly casting her White magic spell and hoping that she was in time.

  There was a flash of white light, and Yarid reappeared in the hot air balloon basket, saved by Glorissa’s White magic spell.

  Glorissa leaned down to Yarid’s prone, dazed face, kissed him, and then raised her right hand up high above her head, brought it down, and slapped him in the face with it.

  “There. I think I deserve to do that now,” Glorissa said to Yarid. “Don’t lie to me or break my heart or go jumping out of hot air balloons onto dragons ever again, you stupid fae! I like you too much for you to do that to me!”

  “So where is this great plan of yours, Nathan?” Rose asked.

  Nathan gazed around again, looking north, south, east, and west, as if looking for something. There was only blue sky above, brown-and-green ground very, very far below, and a giant angry red dragon chasing them. I wonder what he’s looking for, Sylis thought.

  Suddenly Nathan’s eyes lit up. He sees something. What? Sylis wondered. All Sylis could see was that the hot air balloon had flown slightly closer to the Temple’s North Tower.

  “The positioning is perfect. Glow, I need you to make the dragon mad and attack us again,” Nathan said. “Let it come right up to the hot air balloon. Kylus, when it does, I need you to hit it with the Sword again. And, Sylis, after Kylus hits it with the Sword, move time somehow so that we dodge it. Speed time for us so that we move away quickly.”

  “Sir Yes Sir!” Kylus said. There was a big grin on his face.

  “Not a problem, on my way,” Glorissa said, and she gave Nathan a Star Knight salute. She leaned out of the hot air balloon’s basket and made silly faces at the dragon king. She wiggled her thumb and fingers on her nose and stuck out her tongue at it. “Hey, you big ugly lizard, you know who’s smarter than you? Us humans! You’re a dim dino doofus compared to any human!” The dragon snarled, its eyes glowing red. Glorissa laughed. “That’s right, thunder lizard! You’re a moron! We’re better than you!” Glorissa said. She smiled down at the dragon.

  The dragon, who by now had removed the sticky stuff that came out of Yarid’s sword, roared and flew up on its wings and came after them again, shooting right at them like an angry serpentine rocket. Just as the dragon flew at them, Sylis cast a Blue spell. The hot air balloon’s time became faster, and it zipped forward, so that it was not where the dragon was expecting it to be. The dragon missed, and lunged past them, narrowly missing them, its mouth open and fangs gleaming. As its head swished past, Kylus balanced himself with his feet on the rim of the hot air balloon basket, grabbed a rope to steady himself with one hand, and swung the Sword with all his might with his other hand. The Mythic and Legendary weapon hit the dragon. The dragon king screamed in pain, but no wound appeared, no blood spilled, no injury was there. The dragon king laughed. But then the dragon again began to glow with yellow light, just as it had earlier when the Sword struck it. Right at that moment, Sylis made time go faster to move them away, while Nathan cast a Black curse spell that hit the dragon in the head and burst into an explosion. The dragon was stunned, and it began to fall back down to the ground below, but it caught itself and began to flap its wings again, dizzy but very much alive. Was that the plan Nathan had? Sylis thought. I hope not!

  The dragon king circled around and descended back down to the ground, trying to shake off the Black spell and regroup for its next attack. It alighted on the ground and coiled itself up, gathering its strength to attack again. The dragon was still glowing brightly with yellow light.

  “Rose, I hope you still have that Red magic card that will trigger your magical bomb. Play your card. Now!” Nathan said. “And Sylis, get us out of here!”

  Rose’s eyes went wide, as she suddenly understood, although Sylis did not. Sylis cast a time spell to make the hot air balloon’s time speed up even faster, and it darted through the air, causing everyone to stumble backwards in the basket. Rose pulled out the bomb trigger card, and almost dropped it as she fell backwards in the hot air balloon, but she juggled it, caught it, and breathed a sigh of relief. Then she raised it up high and played it. The card flared in a flash of red light and burnt up into a small, bright fireball.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Nathan,” Sylis said. “You just made one angry dragon.”

  The six friends leaned out over the rim of the basket and watched as the dragon king regrouped and readied to fly at them again. Its eyes were wide and glowing red and the dragon’s snarling face was angrier and eviler than they had ever seen it before. Its red eyes seemed to glow with all the fires of Hell, and the dragon opened its mouth, and they could see that same red light within its mouth: it was going to breathe fire at them, so much fire that the entire sky would fill with flames, too much for Sylis to contain with Blue magic. The hot-air balloon would catch fire, and they would all crash and burn.

  Rose’s bomb at the base of the North Tower exploded.

  The dragon king heard the boom. It turned around. It stared at the North Tower. The North Tower, otherwise known as the Castle Tower, rose up to the sky, tall and wide, looking not like a tower but like a gigantic castle of gleaming white stone, resplendent in the dawn light.

  The castle fell on the dragon.

  The dragon screamed in pain as a mountain of tons and tons of stone came crashing down onto it, crushing it, burying it beneath a weight too massive for it to crawl out of, smashing its bones and breaking and puncturing its scaled skin all over its body. While aglow from having been hit with the Mythic and Legendary Sword, the dragon’s natural magic shield was gone, leaving it completely vulnerable to physical attacks. The dragon’s body writhed and twitched beneath the pile of stone rubble, and it cried and drooled, as massive geysers of purple slimy blood began to spurt from all over itself. The dragon twitched, spasmed, and, finally, lay still, motionless on the ground.

  The dragon king was dead.

  “I was waiting for the balloon to be in the perfect spot: near enough to the North Tower that the dragon would land there after the boy hit it with the Sword, but far enough so that we could get away so that the castle would not hit us when it fell,” Nathan said. “My plan worked perfectly.”

  “It did,” Sylis said. “It did. You’re a genius, Nathan.”

  “Genius is too strong a word,” Nathan said. “I prefer mastermind.”

  “Oh my God, did we just survive that?” Glorissa asked.

  “I think so,” Kylus said. “I think it’s over. We’re going to live.”

  “We live?” Glorissa said. “We live! We live, we live, we live! I thought we were all going to die!” She began to laugh while tears poured down her cheeks, and the others joined in and laughed too.

  “We failed to steal the Crystal of Light, and I have never been so happy to have failed,” Rose said, and she wiped her tears from her eyes with her hands, as she laughed and cried too. Yarid said nothing, but a peaceful smile was on his lips.

  Up in the sky, six thieves flew away in a hot air balloon, laughing as they ascended. The balloon flew high in the blue sky, framed perfectly by white clouds and yellow sunshine, and a flock of small green birds gracefully flew past it as it sailed through the sunlit morning.

  The hot air balloon floated lazily through the air, as the morning of the heist faded into late afternoon. There was nothing but rolling green hills spread out below them and a clear blue sky above.

  “I’m hungry,” Sylis said. “Can we please land and get something to eat?”

  “Not while those men down below are tracking us,” Rose said. She pointed down over the rim of the basket. A group of riders had appeared on the land far below them after they had cleared the city boundary of Imperia, flying west. The riders had tracked their every move and were keeping pace with them.

  “Who are they?” Sylis asked.

  “I have no idea,” Rose said.

  “Uh oh,” Nathan said.

  “What is it?” Rose asked. “What more can possibly go wrong?”

  “I am a wizard of Black, not Green, but I sense Green magic being cast by one of those riders below us,” Nathan said. “My master, the Smiling One, taught me how to sense the other colors, to be better able to defend myself in duels. Those riders have a Green wizard.”

  Suddenly the sky, which had been a bright cloudless blue, turned dark, and gray-black storm clouds formed from out of nowhere. An intense, heavy rain began. Sylis almost jumped out of his skin when a loud crack of thunder rumbled through the sky, and he could see the streak of yellow-light lightning close by, as if the sky itself were made of gray stone and the lightning was a crack in the stone that had formed from smashing and breaking it. The lightning was way too close, as if it had been trying to strike the balloon but had missed.

  “Is this normal? Can a gnome device contraption like this handle this weather?” Rose asked.

  “I think we better land,” Nathan said. “The only time I was in one of these things in Gnome Country, the weather was fine. I do not know how to pilot this through bad weather!”

  Nathan fiddled with the controls, and the hot air balloon began to descend. Sylis leaned over the basket and looked down. The riders below were slowing down to keep pace with them, and they were riding into position to surround the precise place where their hot air balloon was going to land.

  The balloon touched down, and the six of them got out, and were immediately soaked wet by the pouring rain, although the storm began to fade once they touched down. The riders, whom Sylis could now see were Serve-Swords, surrounded them and held swords out to cage them in. In addition to the soldiers, they had a Green Wizard, who wore the distinctive Serve-Sword armor underneath a loose green wizard-robe that opened from his neck to his waist to reveal the armor beneath.

  “Give us the Sword,” one of the Serve-Swords said. Kylus took one look at the men, who heavily outnumbered him and his team. He unsheathed the Sword and handed it to one of the Serve-Swords. The soldier brandished the Sword, holding its blade high in the air for the others to see.

  “What orders, great and honorable Sword?” the leader of the Serve-Swords said. “You are back among friends, and we are yours to command. Shall we kill the rogues?”

  “No,” the Sword said. “I wash my hands of them. Return them to Imperia and deliver them to the Royal Palace, with instructions to bring them before the King. I will let the King decide their fate, for I am but the King’s servant, as is my entire military order. It is the King’s job to ultimately pass judgment upon all rogues for all crime in the Kingdom—and somehow, after what they have done, I feel as though the King will want to see them. The King will choose whether they live or die.”

  “Sir yes Sir! As you wish, Sir!” the man said to the Sword. He turned and addressed his gathered troops. “Get these rogues onto horses and ride them back to Imperia! You heard the Sword’s orders! Get moving!” The men saluted. “Sir, Yes Sir!” they replied in unison.

  Sylis was dragged up onto the back of a horse behind a rider, and the horses took off, the team in tow. While they rode, Sylis formed a clear thought in his mind: I have decided to do it. When I see the King, I will ask him whether he is my father! Sylis felt his teeth and his bones rattle and shake with the force of the horse he was on riding at full speed ahead. I wonder if, now that the dragon is dead—is the King free of the Ancient Crown’s spell? And, if he is… is the King good or evil?