“I could just simply melt the lock. I don’t understand the argument.”

  “Dancer, the whole point is to make it, so no one knows we were here. Even though I’ve never been to this planet, I’m almost certain that this is a crime anywhere.”

  “Theres a chimney up here, but there is a strong metal grate in the way. I could bust it open, Captain!”

  Vorin sighed and then groaned.

  “Again, no one is breaking anything! Prith, can you try to pick the lock?”

  “It’s been a while, so it might take a minute.”

  A bright flash of light caught their attention, and they all looked over to the window next to them. Dancer was standing on the inside looking out at them. Moments later she disengaged the lock of the door.

  “What was that?!”

  “I used my skill to turn into a beam of light and went through the glass.”

  Vorin looked at her with a defeated stare.

  “You could do that this whole time?”

  She shrugged. “Never occurred to me before. We didn’t have glass on my home world. Wonderous material though.”

  A crash at the back of the house broke them from the conversation and sent them running though a finely furnished set of rooms.

  “Zuls, what the—”

  “Sorry, Captain! I couldn’t get the door unstuck and Pioneer got tired of waiting. Hyren almost beat him to it.”

  Zuls stood there amongst splintered wood and shattered glass. Her twelve companions were all standing behind her looking curiously inside.

  “I thought we weren’t breaking anything.”

  “We were trying not to, Dancer. We will have to get Synexus to fix this before morning. Let’s just hurry up and search the house for information. No one break anything else.”

  The group shrugged and split off into the dark house. Dancer summoned a mote of starlight to help with their search.

  When they found the inn, all the former prisoners found a room to sleep. Dancer decided to go with the group to keep herself busy. The innkeeper nearly fell down when they rented every empty room in the inn. After that the group kept moving towards a glow in the distance.

  The glow ended up being the Glistening Lake that Velvet told them about. Every ounce of the water gave off a subtle blue glow that could be seen from anywhere in the city. When they arrived at the edge of the body of water, they were quite impressed at the size. Even with their enhanced perception, they were unable to see the other side. Luckily, that wasn’t their destination.

  Much like the glowing lake, the mansion of the lost playwright couldn’t be missed. Every stone or piece of wood was extravagant. It almost rivaled the Grand Drama House in size, and it was surrounded by a magical gate which Kumo threw them over with great gusts of wind. Several sprinklers were launching water everywhere and the group was dripping wet by the time they arrived at the front door.

  All doors and windows seemed to be locked. Vorin had Zuls go around with her bonded to check the back for an entrance while the rest stayed in the front checking every door and window. The goal was to get in without leaving a trace. A plan that obviously failed.

  Getting inside wasn’t the hard part of the mission. With the size of the building and the limited manpower, and the fact that they had no idea what they were actually looking for, the mission kept getting more difficult. For all they knew, every little knick-knack lining the walls was important or could provide insight into the connection between the play and the labyrinth.

  Vorin and Prith took the first floor. Kumo and Dancer volunteered for the second. Zuls took her bonded to the third except for Siz, Sovereign, and Snowfall who immediately started breaking things due to their large physiques. Pioneer was also too large and preferred to stay outside anyways. The plan was for them all to start on opposite sides then sweep the floor until they met up. There was approximately four hours until daylight broke and they wanted to be out before that happened.

  Most rooms were filled with decorations that even if they had significance to their quest, there was no way they would know. Some rooms had photos lining the walls, but none jumped out to them saying “Connection this way”. A lot of the drawers were completely empty, but some were filled to the brim with random junk. It was clear that the woman who lived in the mansion had lived a full life. She had everything from expensive you-never-truly-need-something-like-this-decorations to objects that were clearly sentimental that would be worth nothing except to the woman.

  Kumo crept through the second floor until she came across a room with bookshelves wrapped around it on every wall. Portraits stood along the bookshelves in between the clearly self-bound books. Some were of a man standing in various poses while using a skill or gardening. Others were of the man and a little girl with strawberry colored hair. Right in the middle of the furthest bookshelf was a framed picture of the whole family. Kumo looked at it and gasped.

  “She looks exactly like that actress tonight!”

  She thought about grabbing the picture and leaving, but something pulled at her thoughts. Her eyes drifted over to the books that she had immediately judged to be self-made by the quality of the bindings. Her hand reached out and pulled one of the closer ones out to read it.

  Grass in the Night

  Reealda Rose Pen

  Kumo stared at the cover before opening it up to the first page and reading the first paragraph.

  “The inspiration for this play came from that feeling of walking through the grass in the middle of the night. Why does it feel different? In the silence you can hear the blades of grass falling beneath the weight of your feet. It’s always fascinated me. Gretio and I used to lay on the grass looking up to the stars to talk about the bigger mysteries in life. While we talked, he used to pluck blades of grass out of the ground and fiddle with them. Sometimes he would let them fly away in a strong breeze. Most times the blades of grass wouldn’t get far and would stick to me. When we got up, I always had to brush myself off. To this day, I think he did it on purpose. It’s how he stole that first kiss from me those many years ago. I was covered that night and lost in laughter. He kept apologizing and used the grass as an excuse to start running his hands down my body to brush the grass off of me…”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Kumo didn’t finish the sentence before closing the book and putting it back. She looked around the room at the hundreds of books. She knew they were all plays and that meant their play was among them.

  Dancer came into the room half an hour later to see Kumo pulling a book out and then immediately putting it back.

  “Find something?”

  “Maybe. Could you help me—what are you wearing?”

  “Oh, I found the woman’s bedroom. She still had all her clothes. I figured she wasn’t using them and this fit me, so why not. This is a garb from my planet.”

  Kumo chuckled. “Don’t tell Vorin you stole that. Can you help me check these book titles. Each one is a play, and they have a little backstory to why she wrote them. I’m hoping The Class Labyrinth will be among them and she will have shared her inspirations for the play. Oh, and look at that picture. I think the actress from tonight and this woman are related.”

  Dancer lit the room up further and stared at the picture. She didn’t comment, she just nodded before starting on the opposite side of the room from Kumo.

  On the top shelf of the bookshelf directly in corner of the room, Dancer pulled the dusty leatherbound book from the shelf. Dust cascaded down and, in her star light, danced in the air. She brushed the front of the cover off and read the title.

  The Class Labyrinth

  Reealda Rose Pen

  “Found it, Kumo!”

  “Let’s read it and get out of here.”

  She went to open the cover when both of them jumped at a scream downstairs. The two women took off running towards the stairs.

  Zuls heard the scream and recalled all her bonded before sprinting towards the stairs. She heard Kumo and Dancer on the flight below her and she nearly ran into them at the bottom where they stopped to look at the scene before them.

  “What are you doing in my home?!”

  Shadows formed around the woman and were ready to strike out. Vorin and Prith stood with their hands up. Synexus and Shell were standing behind the woman who they all recognized was the actress from earlier.

  “We didn’t realize you lived here. We were looking for clues about the playwright. Please, we mean you no harm.” Vorin naturally spoke first.

  The woman turned to Synexus.

  “Do you know these people?”

  “Yes, these are our friends. They mean you no harm like he says.”

  “Well, this is quite rude! First, these two sneak up on me in my dressing room of all places and now I find a bunch of strange people in my home. What did you do to my back door?! And why is this woman wearing my grandma’s clothes?!”

  Vorin shot Dancer a glance. Kumo couldn’t help but laugh causing Zuls to start too. Then a flash of realization lit up his face and turned back to the woman.

  “Wait, your grandma?”

  “Yes.” Lillian sighed. “I just went over this with these two. I’m Lillian Rose Pen. My grandma is the lost playwright, and we believe she made this shadow labyrinth thing somehow.”

  Vorin looked past Lillian to Synexus and Shell.

  “We were heading over here to see what you managed to discover while discussing how it’s possible that this woman’s grandma created the labyrinth.” Shell explained.

  “Unfortunately, we were unable to find anything.”

  “Except my grandma’s clothes.”

  “That’s actually not true, Captain. Dancer and I found a room full of the woman’s plays. Each one has a description of her inspiration for that play. We had just located the book for The Class Labyrinth when we heard the scream.”

  “You didn’t ruin any of those did you? They’re priceless!”

  Vorin ignored the woman. “Alright, read it out loud.”

  “Ah, this one has always been one of my favorites. It was one of the plays that I had first written when I was a young woman. Obviously, the inspiration was my class day. I still remember the overwhelming fear and pressure I felt that day. My mother was a seamstress, and my father was a soldier. I didn’t want to be either. When I chose to become a Shadow Puppeteer, my mother started to cry. She knew my path would lead me away from home and the family business. The day I finally left, neither of them told me they were proud of me like they did for my brother. They told me I would get myself killed. My mother even told me I’d never find a man with an under the table class like mine. Guess I proved her wrong.

  I wrote this play on the road when I was travelling my home planet, or I suppose I should say my original planet as I no longer think of it as home. It was the smaller, simpler planet of Poln. What an awful name, right? After years of travelling, I realized it was too small for my ambitions. My skills had grown and my shadow puppets were all the friends I needed. Still, my planet was much too simple to be thinking about going out to the stars. Another few years passed as my want and need grew to escape the planet. One night my desire felt palpable in the air. My mind raced as I pictured leaving Poln and starting my life as a proper playwright. The almighty System answered my call, and a new skill was created.

  That first shadow portal left me sick for weeks. I’ll never forget that feeling. There I was a young woman on an unfamiliar planet with unfamiliar people all around me. My portal had opened inside a busy market, you see. My insides felt like they were burning and I lost my lunch right there in the middle of a group of people. But I was elated. My smile caused more people to look at me like I had lost all sense of reason. I didn’t care.

  For the next decade, I spent my life learning about the different cultures on different planets as I portaled around the universe. My brain is filled with all the memories of those different people. I made friends. I fell in love. I fell out of love just as quickly. I experienced life and everything that comes with it. My writing reached new heights, and I wrote most of my plays in those transformative years. Then I met him.

  Gretio was my anchor. He was the only person that would cause me to stop. Fortunately, he lived on the planet with the finest drama house. He helped me in those early years to get my plays out there. We fell in love and I knew it wasn’t like before. His class had him gardening all the time and he would bring me the most beautiful flowers when I would perform in my own plays. He gave me my daughter the second year I knew him. We got married the third. I’ll never forget that day.

  When the bombings took him from me, I nearly lost myself. My daughter helped me through those rough times, but she had a life of her own to live and I wouldn’t hold her back. She finally met a man and had me meet him the week before last. He reminds me of Gretio in a lot of ways. I think he was what I was waiting for. I haven’t told Tula yet, but I’m almost done with these journals, and I think I’m going to set out once more. There are so many planets to see and maybe I should finally make my way back to Poln to see my parents. Maybe they are still alive.

  Anyways, I feel like an old woman rambling. My main inspiration for this play was my class day. However, I added a bit more when I reached the rank of class master. I won’t say too much on that subject, but I do want to say that now I understand how my shadow portal skill came to be. It changed the way I looked at life. Maybe I’ll help others open their eyes too while I’m out on my journey.”

  “I haven’t read that one in a long time. My mother said she left shortly after only leaving a note to inform her. No one ever heard from her again.”

  Main Objective Updated!

  Main Objective: Remember all you’ve learned. Get through the portal floating on the Glistening Lake.

  “Well, it looks like something in that passage combined with understanding her past and lineage satisfied the quest. Let’s get the others and find that portal.” Vorin started walking past Lillian towards the front door but was stopped by shadows barring his way.

  “Hold on! You need to pay for my door!”

  Vorin nodded towards Synexus who sighed.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll repair it.”