I dashed up the stairs, trying not to trip over the four wands I was carrying. “Ry! Ry! We get to be Knockers!” I shouted. While talking, I forgot that there was a raise at the top of the stairs, and did trip over that, falling on my face in front of my sister.
“What? Knockers?” She never seemed as excited as me, but I could tell she was interested.
“Yes!” I replied happily. “He told me to bring your wands to you. Starting tomorrow, we defend the weapons that were created to assist the Great Project with some workers and we can make friends because there are some other Knockers! ”
Ry did not ask who “he” was, but we both knew I meant our father. She smiled. “All right, then.” She took the two wands that I held out to her and we went off to practice together.
The next day I had calmed down a bit. After all, the dreaded knights might invade at any time and I was scared I might not be able to stop them unless I was prepared. Ry had always said this is why she stayed calm at all times. I thought she was quite right to do so.
A Mender and a Thwacker showed us the way to the place. It was in what the Knights called “Wasteworks”. I thought the green mist around the place looked nice though it dispersed as we travelled deeper. I was in awe of the looming walls and the powerful creations of the Gremlins, along with some Gremlins themselves, defending the Weapons.
“What a smell,” said Ry, laughing. “This is the point we are to defend?” she asked the Mender when they stopped. I could tell she liked this Mender. The Mender and the Thwacker were quite nice, actually, especially the Thwacker.
“Yes,” said the Mender, “and we are to defend it with you.”
Curious, I peeked around a corner. And I gasped at what I saw. It was the Weapons! We were going to defend the point closest to them! I felt so proud.
We unpacked and then set up targets, which we practiced on, for, as the Thwacker said, we might as well with nothing better to do. However, the Mender stayed as a guard at all times, since there was nothing for her to practice. Ry was all for helping her, but the Thwacker and I argued against that.

“Scuttle’s-eye!” I exclaimed, grinning. Ry chuckled and turned to look at the Mender. Her smile was wiped right off her face. “Wh-what’s that?” she asked nervously, pointing.
“Hmm?” The Mender turned. She looked in the direction Ry was pointing, and drew in her breath sharply. “Intruders,” she said in a voice firm as Ironwood.
“Now listen,” said the Thwacker hurriedly, “I will attack, you back me up, Yiy will heal us.”
“Uh, right!” said Ry. She was confused by all this sudden movement. I was quite scared by now, and all I could do was nod. “Tep, please,” I stammered, “p-please, b-be caref-ful.”
Tep sighed. “I guess… I’ll try.”
He swung back to the approaching Knights, and with a loud “Rrrraaghh!” he charged at the enemy. One knight slashed at him with a sword that had a red stripe on it, but Yiy was prepared for this, and healed Tep almost before the knight struck.
The other knight was holding something over his head; a bomb, similar to our own, if I remembered correctly. I growled as the knight began to glow. If it got much brighter, the knight could set the bomb down and Tep would be in trouble, because the knight was right beside him. Tep had not noticed him.
So I ran up behind the bomb-wielding knight and smashed my two wands together, causing the knight to drop and break the bomb. I sighed in relief, but then I heard something. Half turning, all I saw was the other knight glowing, and she released her attack on me, hitting me hard. I staggered back for a few seconds before falling to my knees.
The knight turned and made her way past Tep and the bomber, who were fighting it out, and towards Yiy, who was too occupied healing Tep to look out for herself. My legs were in agony and I could not move. If Yiy should die…
To my surprise and relief, a small dark brown bolt shot towards Yiy; red and blue lights clashed, and the knight was knocked off her course. Ry was not about to let the Mender die. However, a flash of brown and red, and some balls seeping with dark energy were revolving around Yiy. Frozen in horror, Ry could not move as the other knight walked past the bolts, and in seconds Yiy was dead.
I stumbled unsteadily to my feet and then, anger overriding the pain, I charged furiously at the knight. I touched my wands together and was knocked across the room, stunned. As I flew I noticed Tep on the ground. He could not be alive.
The knight walked up to me. I saw her powerful blade glisten in the dark room as she charged it up.
I could not tell what made Ry so fast that day. The sword-wielding knight gasped in pain, her arm falling to her side, and Ry was standing in front of me. But the bombing knight darted in and out and Ry was immediately frozen by a white mist. Encased in a block of ice as well, I could not do anything but watch when the other knight, with a powerful blow, sent Ry into a wall. She dropped to the ground and lay still.
I picked up my wands to fight. But I was very tired. And all I could do was touch them together….
At a sudden burst of pain, my eyes shut. All I knew was that I heard a large explosion.
Then silence.
-
“That’s sad,” said the Scorcher. “Very sad. But what happened then? You didn’t die, or you’d not be here.”
“I-I can’t go on right now.”
“Hey,” said the Mender, “why don’t we go up to the main floor? Should be a lot of Knights arriving around now.”
Tih stood up. “Good idea J.”
He turned. “Follow me,” he said, and walked off. J and the Scorcher began to follow, and Nat decided it was a good idea so he jogged off after them.
“Hey, Nat, come look! New party just arrived.” Nat peered over the edge of the platform at the two knights. He gasped. Tih and J looked at him, but the Scorcher remained staring at the knights. “What is it?” asked J.
“It-it’s them. The intruders. They have different weapons, but it’s them.”
“Oh!” J was startled.
The Knights were talking. One, whom Nat pointed out as the sword wielder, was saying “But I felt bad about just walking in and slaughtering all the Gremlins we found.”
“Hey, they’d have killed us!”
The knight smiled a bit. “At least that Knocker survived. There was the explosion, stunning us, and when we could see again he was gone.”
The Gremlins were instantly certain what they were talking about. “So, you vanished?” asked Tih.
“I suppose I did. I never knew.” He looked at the knights, and back. “Think I’m feeling better. I can go on with the story.”
All three were alert. “So, what happened next?” they all asked at the same time.
Nat smiled. “Well…”
-
‘I’m…not dead,’ was my first thought when I regained consciousness. Immediately afterwards I wondered why I was thinking that. I opened my eyes.
‘Where am I, anyway?’ I thought. I was certainly not at home. This was a dark room. My own was bright. This looked as if – yes, it was the Menders’ Building!
Where was Ry? Ry! I sat up quickly.
Ry was dead.
A door I had not noticed opened and a Mender came in.
“Warmaster Seerus will see you now.” Under his breath, he muttered “Dunno what he wanted to save him for. Waste of time, if you ask me.”
I wished Warmaster Seerus had left me to die. Despite this, the emotion of curiosity remained within me, and I decided to speak with Lord Seerus.

“Lord Warmaster Seerus,” I said dully, barely bowing. The room seemed rather warm, a creamy white all over lit by strong torches, throwing golden light around the room. It was quite a contrast to the large gremlin, dressed in dull pale blue at the time.
“Ah, you are here. Noi, leave.” The Mender dipped slightly and left the room. “By the way, you bow to me every time you speak, or-” he broke off, frowning at me. “Back to what I summoned you for, you should know, being…” he stopped and started again. “Being a Knocker. You had better know that these great wands I created can backfire and stun you.” He stopped and looked at me, clearly expecting a reply.
I wondered how I could have forgotten that. ‘That is why Ry is dead.’ Aloud, I said “Yes… sir.” I gave something that might be considered more of a bow, although I didn’t feel like doing it.
He went on. “Well, Knocker,” he said, stressing “Knocker” in a mocking voice, “as I was watching the progress of my weapons, which, by the way, you failed to guard well enough,” here he scowled at me before continuing, “I noticed, before you miserably lost consciousness, instead of stunning yourself, you stunned the knights. Tell me how you did it or-” he broke off before amending this by saying “That is, if you know.” He peered at me, as if trying to search my mind.
“I don’t know myself, sir.” I didn’t care, anyway. But I still bowed, while wondering why I was doing so.
“As expected from a lowly Knocker.” This time he did not break off, but expressed his bitterness. “Then you will find out how you did it. You have a week. If you have not completed the assignment in a week’s time, I will personally declare you a traitor and an idler and you know what happens to both.”
“Yes sir.” Traitors were chased out of the Colony. Idlers were treated the same way. I didn’t really care. But I supposed I might as well try to find out what exactly I had done. It might be useful. Though I had no good feelings towards Lord Seerus, I might assist other poor Knockers to live.
“Go now.” He waved a hand in dismissal, though he did not stop frowning at me.
I nodded, turned, and walked out of the room, feeling quite the opposite of what I had felt some time ago when Ry was still alive.

-Remiliaoftheearth

As soon as I was out of the room, a Mender came up to me. This wasn’t the one called “Noi”, this one was female.
“Hello. I will show you to the experiment area. Please follow me,” she said, then hurried off in what seemed to be a random direction. I supposed I had better follow her. So I walked after her. The passage was dark, lit only by weak torches. It seemed quite gloomy.
After what seemed to be rather a long time, we came out into a bright room. The walls were naturally white, but yellow tapestries were hung all over them. The ground, probably hard, was covered by an orange-and-red carpet, orange at the edges where it overlapped with the tapestries, blending into a crimson in the very center. The gremlin who made this must have had an unusually good sense of colour.
There were desks dotted around the room, with screens sticking up on one end, and gremlins sticking up on the other. At least, gremlins were sitting at most of the desks. Some here and there were vacated. The Mender led me over to one of them.
“You will be working here. There are your wands. What you do is put both wands to a setting, then slip them into this-” (here she pointed to a slot in the desk) “-and then look at the screen. It will show you what the results would have been if you were to touch them together. Now I really have to go. Excuse me.”
She turned and ran off, only to come close to colliding with a Thwacker who was entering the room.
“Jeez, Nem, don’t act as if all the knights on Cradle were after you!” I heard him say.
“S-sorry Tih,” she stammered, but began to run again, and was soon out of sight from where I was sitting. The Thwacker, whom I now knew to be Tih, walked over and sat down at the desk to my right. He seemed to be expecting me.
“So, you’re Nat? You probably know who I am.” I was so startled by this I could do nothing but nod.
“Well, we’ve all started work on our various projects today, and we were told you’d likely be with us. Most of us know one another, but some, like you, are a bit new here. Over there is a Mender named J, and over there is a Demo named Lene. And there’s a Scorcher named Ghen, but all the rest are either new or we don’t know them too well. The only thing we have in common is… we have to finish our projects in a week, like you.”
I was a bit confused by this stream of knowledge, but I understood that a bit to the left of me, there was J, somewhere behind me was Lene, and in a corner near the passage leading to this room was Ghen.
“Well, then,” Tih concluded, “we had better get to work, eh?”
I had already lost any sense of excitement, and was feeling depressed again. “I-I suppose….” I said.

Hours had passed, and although the day was not over yet, I felt I knew the other four quite well.
Ghen was the one I knew very little about. I had not heard him speak yet, and he didn’t seem very social. I did not bother asking how the three gremlins claimed to know him. I admit, I was rather afraid of him, because at the time my opinion of his type was that they were cold-blooded, and merciless. Besides, he was almost twice the size of a normal gremlin. I felt rather sorry for his enemies.
Tih seemed to be recognized by J and Lene as the leader, and I learned early on I should treat him as such too. He said he would attack fiercely any who dared to challenge him. He also seemed to enjoy talking, and I was already tired of his never-ending voice, droning on and on, talking to anyone who was listening. While he was not as big as Ghen, he was stronger than us. I noted he seemed to… bump into Nem a little too often.
Lene was the youngest of the group. She had shown herself to be strong-minded and courageous at an early point, and was thrown from Tenderfoot to Ironclaw at a point when she had little to no experience. Despite this, she was confident and few people could lose heart while with her. She stood for nothing that got in her way and her speed, as well as her skill with bombs, made her a tough opponent. I admired her.
It was hard to believe J was a Mender. He preferred making jokes to healing people, although he did realize healing strength was rarely found among gremlins and those that had it were important. He could make anyone feel better when they were sad and even I was not feeling so depressed anymore; not that I wanted to be. Ry would not have wanted me to be. While he didn’t seem as determined as Lene, he believed patience was the key to success.
Nem was a Crimson Mender. The core of the healing branch, they held the front portion of the Crimson Building; where all gremlins titled “Crimson” resided. They held the Menders’ Building, our only hospital. Nem herself was quite reserved and shy, particularly so when Tih was around. She came around quite often, sometimes to go from one part of the building to another; sometimes bringing others to help fix a gremlin who made a mess with his screen, etc.
At the time, I was watching my screen intently. I seemed to have gotten a little closer to the right setting but something wasn’t working. I removed the wands, adjusted their settings, and replaced them. Still, no decent results. I sat back, sighing.
“Hey,” J said, “it’s taken years for most of these to be completed. Not sure how they expect us to do it in one week…. Anyway, you can’t expect to do it on the first day.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks. By the way, do we get anything to eat around here?”
J chuckled. “Not sure myself. As Tih said, we’ve only just started working here. But I seriously doubt they’d let us starve.”
-
The whole room turned as the sound of footsteps sounded on the passage floor. Nem came into the room.
“Noi says Lord Seerus wants you all to stop for the day. If anyone wants a meal, please follow me; those who want to go straight to mat follow Quon here.” All of the gremlins in the room stood up. Another gremlin, Quon, walked through the room and down a passage I had not noticed. Some of them went after him, but the majority followed Nem, who had set off back down the passage. Myself, and the other four were among them.
After a time that seemed much shorter than before, we came to a door I recognized as the one to Warmaster Seerus’s room. To the left and in front of us were two passages. Without pausing, Nem went on, past both the other passage and the door, and we continued to run after her.
Soon the passage began to widen, and a few seconds after that we came out into a wide room. Rectangular blocks were dotted around the room as irregularly as the tables in our working space. Stools were placed around them. There were white lights in bowls hanging from the ceiling, and the bowls were green. This casted a green aura around the room.
The group of gremlins who had been following Nem dispersed, sitting down on stools. A door to the right displayed a sign that stated that the room beyond the door was the place in which food was cooked, baked, or otherwise changed.
Nem turned. “I have to-” she broke off as she bumped into Tih. Her face grew slightly red.
“Ex-excuse me,” she said, and hurried off. Tih stared after her. Then he shook his head, and walked over to the block at which the four of us were seated.
Five menus had been left on the block, and we were supposed to scratch a line through the foods we wanted.
Tih chose an opened Rocky Core, spiced with Rock Salt. J had a Gel Core plain. Lene wanted to try a Perfect Snowball, coated with Blaze Pepper, Ghen said nothing as usual, but had a Perfect Snowball wet with a single Chroma Tear, and I knew Jelly Gems were delicious, so I took a few.

I found it strange that despite my immense hunger, I was soon filled, and by the looks on some other gremlins’ faces I saw they must be too. Some had already left, since we all knew the way.
“I’m stuffed!” exclaimed J. Lene and Tih nodded in agreement. Ghen shrugged.
“Think we should go back?” said Lene. The three of us nodded; again, Ghen shrugged.
So we stood up, and Tih walked off, determined to lead the way. After him dashed Lene and J, and I went more calmly behind. Last came Ghen.
When we reached the work area, we found Quon waiting for us. Without saying anything, he beckoned and strode off. We followed him.
I never had a good sense of direction. And the place beyond the work area was a true maze. I cannot remember the way, but Quon seemed to know where to go. He brought us to three rooms.
“These are your rooms,” he said. If I remembered correctly, J had told me he was Nem’s cousin.
After some discussion, some arguing and some shouting, it was decided I would share one room with J, Lene would share one with Tih, and Ghen would have one to himself. Quon left us and we all went into our rooms.
I don’t know what the others’ rooms were like, but I really adored mine. On one end it was a creamy yellowish-white, blending into colours that went darker and darker until it became a deep chocolate brown. J said he wanted the lighter side, which was fine by me because I preferred the brown. It had always been Ry’s favourite colour.
Our mats matched the part of the room that we were on. J suggested we switch for it to provide a nice contrast, and I agreed. So we spent a few minutes lugging the two mats from one end of the room to the other. But finally we could lie down on them and empty a few water globes, put in the room for that purpose, over our torches.
“Nat?” said J.
“Hmm?” I was almost asleep, but that didn’t really matter.
“Well… even though we don’t know you too well, I don’t think it matters…” he paused for a moment, then continued. “You know, I think there’s something wrong with Ghen. Today he just seemed, different.”
“Oh.”
Peering over at him, I saw he was asleep. I shut my eyes and followed his example.

-Remiliaoftheearth

Most of the gremlins in Emberlight were geniuses. Especially those who had constructed the mechanism that cycled day and night as it was on the surface. A pale light shone over the whole place, rousing some from their sleep.
“Gurruh. Ow.” Nat’s throat was sore from all the talking he had been doing the day before. “Be careful next time, silly.” This remark could be addressed to no one but himself, as every gremlin had a separate room. There was no roof to these rooms. The place was extremely quiet, and Nat realised that his voice was loud enough to wake others up if he wasn’t cautious.
Grunting something, softly this time, about not overworking oneself, the large Knocker went over to the place where he held his wands. They were not there. For the first time, Nat remembered what he had done. The corners of his mouth turned up. He had shown Tih. Anyone would’ve thought it would take a century, the way he went on. But, Nat had completed it in a month.
Now he would have to remain in Emberlight another day. The Ember-Haven elevator didn’t come until the day after. He’d take the elevator, speak with the higher knights of the Spiral Order, to report his success. ‘I wonder if they will take to using wands?’ he wondered, chuckling at the thought.
He would either laze around doing nothing, help the other workers, or continue his story – with generous rests for his throat, of course. Probably the two latter.
A knock on the door startled him. He stood up quickly and hurried over. It was much brighter, and he could hear the sound of chatter among other gremlins. Emberlight was waking up.
Nat swung the door open, to meet J, who flung himself at Nat, knocking them both on to the hard stone floor.
“Seriously, J,” growled Nat.
“Man, I have to remember there’s no soft carpet ‘round here. Oh, I almost forgot. Surprise!” He grinned at Nat. Nat stared back at him, confused, before J admitted “I was supposed to say that when I, um, ambushed you, but I got kinda surprised myself. No, more like startled. By that stone floor. You don’t go easy on yourself at all, do you?”
“Why should I?” Nat was grinning too now.
Footsteps smacked on the carpeted floor from around the corner and Tih strode into sight from one end. He stopped at the doorway, and looked down at them, with an expression half of confusion, but he was also looking as if he wanted to burst into laughter.
“Really, J, you have to stop that. Especially,” here he did start giggling and had to suppress it before continuing, “that jumping off a bedroom wall onto a bed. You nearly broke it.”
“He did that?” Nat was quite ready to believe this, though.
J appeared to be listening to something. “Someone else is coming,” he said.
Tih had his mouth open to reply to Nat. He shut it and focused for a moment. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I do believe you’re right.”
The footsteps sounded louder every second. Nat thought for a second, then exclaimed,
“Of course! It must be the Scorcher from yesterday.”
He turned out to be right as the gremlin turned a corner and they could all see her. She walked over to them.
“Good morning,” she said gravely.

A while later the three were at work, and Nat was just starting his story from where he left off.
“The next day started as what one might have considered a normal day. However, disaster struck at exactly midday.”
-
“I think I’ve got it! No,” I quickly amended, “it seems I haven’t.”
“False alarms all the time,” Tih said, grinning. “This stuff is rather tricky—hey, what’s that?” Heads turned to look at the passage.
Nem came in, looking genuinely sad. (J told me that Crimson Menders made a habit of showing emotions that they were not actually feeling to, as they themselves put it, “make the poor gremlins feel better”.)
“Lord Warmaster Seerus,” she began, “just got a load of newer, and as he calls them, more interesting discoveries. All of you- all of you, are to be “cleaned out” as he put it. Your time,” here her voice began to shake, “has been cut short by half. And you are to be exiled without another chance.”
“Ragh. And what does this mean, Mender?” Ghen was now fully a Darkfang Thwacker. His eyes glowed as few Darkfangs’ eyes did. He seemed angered. He leapt to his feet.
“T-that-” Nem took a step backward and he began to thump towards her.
Tih stood up quickly. “Woah, Ghen. Slow down.” Ghen either did not hear him, or did not care. He was storming towards Nem, his eyes on fire with fury. Then they darkened and became cold. All the gremlins in the room had crowded around and everyone heard him mutter one word beneath his breath. “Kill.”
At once things started to happen, so quickly only Nem and Ghen seemed to be moving. Nem thudded against the wall. Ghen was not stopping. She snatched up her wand and held it in front of her for defense. Ghen reached her, grabbed the wand, flipped it so its sharp end was pointed at her.
Then, he stabbed her.
At this time, not even they were moving. Just Ghen’s arm and the wand, sweeping forward until it hit her. She moved then, jerking with the pain and then slumping lifeless on the floor.
She stopped moving. Ghen stopped moving. There was a new movement, now the only one. And a sound.
Tih was crying.
Ghen straightened, then turned. A sudden scramble out of the room, and now only Tih, J, and I, out of all the gremlins, remained.
Then Ghen smiled. “Who is next?” he said. His voice was gruff, deep…
And scary.

Here Nat stopped. “Apologies, folks, but I am going easy on my throat today. Excuse me.” He left the room and came back.
“Well,” Tih said, “Nem is dead, and there- there’s nothing I can do about it.” He turned away from them all.
“You loved her, didn’t you?” It was the smooth voice of the Scorcher. Nat glanced towards her. Her visor was on now, but there was no doubt about it, she seemed familiar.
Tih looked down. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
At this, the Scorcher smiled. “There is nothing wrong with admitting something. I also believe that you, Nat… felt… for Lene.”
Nat was startled. There was nothing to show this. The Scorcher seemed to know this without any hint.
Who was she, anyway?
But just as he made up his mind to ask her this, J said suddenly,
“Nat, why don’t you get on with the story? None of us but you knows what happened afterwards.” This was J.
“Yes,” said Tih, looking a little happier. “Do continue.”
“I will. Just let me adjust the settings on my wands a bit.”
J laughed. “Any more of that, and you’ll lose ‘em completely, and have to miss the Haven-Ember elevator!”

Ghen took a step forward. None of us moved. He turned to his desk, lifted his burner and held it out to us.
“Very well then. I shall attack you all.” We saw the end of it heating up, ready to destroy us. Lene and I, who were facing him from the right, grabbed a desk each and propelled ourselves backward, out of its path. Ghen did not seem to mind. He pressed the flamer button. Strong fire tore out of his burner, slicing through anything, burning it to ash.
Tih was right in the middle of said path and he didn’t seem inclined to move. J understood this, and dashed forward, grabbing Tih and dragging him out of the way.
A blast of hot air was flung at us and Lene quickly let go of a nearby desk as a spark caught on it and within moments at least half the things in the room were on fire. The deadly maze had separated the other two from us. I had known I was sweating, but suddenly my forehead felt uncomfortably wet.
The Darkfang’s purple was getting darker and he was growing large. He strode right through the flames as if they were not there, going towards the others. Tih had stopped shaking. He was watching Ghen come closer, and was holding something in a closed fist.
When the huge gremlin was quite near him, he drew his hand back, and threw its contents at Ghen, and I wondered where on Cradle he had got it from. It was a globe of water. Oh, of course; J always kept a stash in his pocket.
The flames around him went out but some drops touched Ghen. He gave a cry of pain and dropped to his knees. J just realised what had happened. He turned on Tih.
“Hey, you don’t have to steal!” Tih gave a faint smile and said,
“My apologies.”
Then they both heard something and saw Ghen on his feet, just in time because he charged at them. J fumbled in his pocket for a globe, fitted it on the end of his wand, and as Ghen reached them he sidestepped and plunged his wand into the Scorcher’s side.
Ghen roared and wrenched the Mender’s wand out of his body, and he swiped at J with the other hand, which was holding the burner. It sliced across J’s chest, although it was not pointed, and he flew over the fires in the room and landed by the doorway. I stifled a cry of fear, knowing that would not help anything.
Tih snatched up J’s wand, still wet, and tossed it at Ghen. The Scorcher dodged it, and ran at Tih, who backed up, likely wishing he had his hammer, until he was on the edge of the flames. At least he did not get set on fire, but he was burned. His chances of survival, though, looked very slim. He was shivering even in the flames. It was as if the world had gone silent. I would have thought I was dead but for the pounding of my heart that seemed almost deafening.
Ghen stopped just before reaching him, though. He stood for a second, staring at Tih. Then he let out a sound that I hope never to hear again. His purple colour, that had been growing darker by the second, was now black. And he began to turn black completely. Black smoke rose from him and suddenly the sound got louder. The three of us covered our ears. He was now becoming covered with black flame. The sight was horrible. We shut our eyes as well.
Then the sound stopped. I dared to look once more. The terrible heat was gone too. And where Ghen had been standing a group of black ashes drifted to the ground. And I noticed that only one of the desks had been untouched by the flame. It was Ghen’s.
As I looked at the thing with strong hatred, a black beam shone onto the ashes, which were engulfed by darkness and disappeared. Tih and Lene had seen this too. Tih then retrieved his hammer from the ruins of his desk, went over to Ghen’s, and chopped it into very small pieces.
Lene walked over to the only wall that had no doorway. “I explored this at one point, and there’s a secret exit here. We should take J and get out of here. I heard someone saying that Crimson Gremlins must kill one “enemy” for every one of them that dies.”
Walking over to J, Tih nodded. He picked J up.
“Still alive,” he said, smiling. “Well, better do as you say, Lene.” He carried J over to where Lene was standing and she turned, shoved at the wall, and it swung open. Tih walked out through it. Although smiling, he was not happy at all.
At that point, there was the sound of running and Quon came into the room. Seeing what had happened, he growled “Better kill one of you then instead.” Startled, Lene yelled out through the door to hurry up and get away. Then she pulled the door shut, darted to her desk, and geared up to fight. I was already holding my wands.
Without giving us a moment to prepare, he ran at Lene. She dropped a bomb and he skidded to a stop. He turned and went after me instead. I sidestepped and he leapt backward as I smashed my wands together.
Lene had been busy for the past few moments, and suddenly Quon realised he should now watch his step. I hopped over what I knew was a bomb and clashed my wands together.
Bad idea. I got knocked onto one of the desks, however Quon discovered too late that he had been distracted. Something exploded right under him however, angered but not damaged, he grinned and Lene saw the previously invisible purple ball of strong dark energy.
It went right through her. She never moved before dropping to the ground. It all happened so quickly I stood frozen too.
He turned to me. “Would be prudent to get out of here, Knocker. You are now a traitor and an idler and are to be treated as such if found by anyone else in the building.” He turned and walked away.
But I snatched a bomb from Lene’s body and, he thinking himself safe, did not notice what was latched onto him until it started to beep. He turned, startled, saw it, gave a cry of fear, then it exploded, and him with it.
NOW I ran.
-
Despite being one of the most important buildings of all, it was right on the edge of the Colony. As I fled in the first direction that came to mind, I suddenly realised that for the first time in my short life I was not at home anymore.
I didn’t even have a home now.
The two gremlins were quite far ahead of me but I didn’t even bother hurrying to catch them up. Tih saw me, though, and stopped.
Upon reaching them, the first thing he asked was “Lene is… dead, right?” He seemed even more sad at this thought. I myself did nothing but nod.
He turned to face the edge of the platform and the others in front of him. “Well, I think the best we can do is just keep on going. Either we’ll die, or we won’t. Staying right on the edge of the Colony is the easiest way to get killed.”
I stared at him. “But- how are we going to get from platform to platform?”
Tih went forward. I followed him. He lowered himself to the ground and set J down, then looked over the edge.
“See?” I was looking too. “If we drop down there, we have a clear path to Emberlight. In my opinion, that’s the only place we can go.”
“Wait, Emberlight isn’t supposed to be so close, is it?” I could not think of any possible answer to this.
“The Clockworks move around a lot. Yesterday it wouldn’t have even been in sight had any Colony gremlin tried to see it.”
“How are we going to get down there?”
Tih gestured to the ground behind us. It was covered in all sorts of mechanical rubbish from the Colony. There were broken cogs, smashed weapons, even a bit of rope. And I suddenly remembered that both Tih and J were geniuses.
“With that,” he said.

Artificial night had set in and they were still working. J had recovered a while ago, and the two set to making use of what they had to create a passage down to the platform below. I did the jobs that didn’t require brains, such as fetching a pile of scrap metal. They were too busy to do that.
“How long now?” I asked them at this point. Neither of them stopped hammering but J told me it should take about an hour more.
At a sound, I looked up quickly. Even the other two did the same. Three gremlins were standing before us. One held a hammer out towards us.
“Evil- ahem, colonists or outcasts?”
We exchanged glances. “Outcasts,” said Tih.
The gremlin nodded. “Come with us. We are a search party sent out to investigate you. Any gremlin right outside the Colony, trying to get down there is either a spy on us or an outcast.” Without waiting for an answer, not that there could be such for this, he turned and walked towards the edge.
We followed him. As soon as I came close, I saw that there was a good ladder from here to there. These gremlins must have put it up to get onto the platform.
The other ones climbed down quite fast, and we did the same much more slowly. I wondered if we’d ever have to do this again, and if so, would we get as practiced as them?
There was very little time for thoughts, because as soon as we got down, the gremlins were already hurrying to the gates of Emberlight, and we had to run to keep up.
In fact, there wasn’t much time to think for a long time afterwards.

“So, after that we saw the higher knights in the Order, and we set to work about a month ago to complete the projects,” Nat finished. “And that’s the end of the story. I truly wish it weren’t so sad, or maybe that it could end happily.”
“The story’s not finished until you are,” said Tih. Then he remembered something. He turned to the Scorcher.
“And who are you?” he asked her.
The Scorcher smiled slightly. “Well,” she said, “let’s just say I came to Emberlight about three days before you.”
Nat whipped around. “Don’t tell me-” he broke off.
The Scorcher’s smile turned into a grin. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m Ry.”
He stared at his sister, then flung himself at her.
“Looks as if the story ends happily, for now, anyway,” said J.

-Remiliaoftheearth