Magic Madness™️

Chapter Twenty Four: Float

Word Count: 2,580

    "I feel like Peter Pan. Do all powers have to come from emotion? Or like do I specifically have to think happy thoughts in order to fly?" Alex asked.
    "That depends. You've only flown once, so there's not enough information to pick out a pattern," Joan sighed, "I guess just try digging up different emotions and see- woah."
    "Hey! I'm- well, I guess this isn't flying, but I'm levitating, sort of," Alex said, wobbling as if suspended on unstable wire a few feet above the ground.
    "Okay, this is great! What were you thinking of?" Joan asked.
    "My siblings," Alejandro replied.
    "So was that happiness? Anger? Annoyance? Love? There are many emotions tied to siblings," Joan asked.
    "Love I guess? Although everything you just mentioned is accurate, too. One time, my brother Benicio got behind the tv and unplugged everything just because he was small and he thought- AUGH" Alex shouted as he jolted back, and then fell.
    "Um...okay," Joan said slowly, "So that was annoyance. It makes sense, I suppose. Are you hurt or can we try again?"
    "We can try again," Alejandro said, rubbing the back of his neck and standing again.
    "Okay. Think of something else that makes you happy. A pet or a place or person- other family, maybe? A significant other or-..." Joan prompted.
    "Um...I don't have pets or a girlfriend- but there is this cool place by my house with a teeny tiny creek- there's a little stick fort next to one of the trees since it's a public park and we weren't allowed to build a treehouse, but it's- oh oh oh okay okay, um, it's really hard to keep my balance up here," Alex flailed his arms as he tried to regain his balance.
    "You're fine. Find your center of gravity. Keeping your arms straight might help," Joan advised. Alex straightened his arms and tried to keep his feet closest to the ground.
    "Wonderful. Now think of something that makes you angry. Dig into your pet peeves," Joan prompted, "What makes you angry? Is it a person? Bad habit? Something else?"
    "Oh, like when people walk super slow and then won't let you pass them up just to be rude- ow," Alex broke his fall with his arms, barely avoiding smacking his forehead on the ground.
"Interesting...do me a favor and start flying again, and then think of something else that makes you angry. But not a pet peeve or anything petty like that. Think of something that really boils your blood," Joan said. Alex nodded and closed his eyes, breathing deeply until he was off the ground again.
"Um. Okay well...I guess...something that really gets me is people who don't respect boundaries. Like when you tell someone they're doing something that makes you upset and they don't care at all and they keep doing it? That sucks. Especially when you're just having a really bad day and you specifically say you wanna be left alone, so people will poke you on purpose and stuff- and it's those guys who will do stuff like kiss girls after they say no- like it's okay if you didn't get it before, but once they tell you, you have no excuse. Like I accidentally tried to hug Elijah without asking on a bad day and he pushed me so hard-" Alex thought aloud, though he shut up when he shot a few yards skyward. He flipped a couple times, legs kicking as he tried to regain balance. Joan watched with wide eyes. Alex opened his mouth to speak, but he began to fall, and he barely shut his mouth again before he fell forward (though he got grass in his mouth anyway). He made a sour face and wiped his mouth, nose, and forehead with his sleeve.
"I'll let you off the hook for awhile. I'm sure the others are finished with breakfast by now," Joan decided, extending a hand to help Alex up.

The plains were odd. Once they were past the line of trees, the plains looked only a mile or so long before they fell away to cliffs. The grass was very tall by the trees, but progressively got shorter and shorter. At this point, there was hardly any grass at all, and it looked as if the group could be at the cliff in a matter of minutes, but time seemed to move differently out there. In normal time, the group should have been well past the cliffs by now. They all hoped to move on soon.

Once they reached the cliffs, nobody was terribly inclined to move forward anymore.
"That. Is the most terrifying thing. I have ever seen," Elijah said with wide eyes as he stared at the new horizon. Below the cliffs was an ocean, wide and quite similar to the oceans on Earth...save for one major detail.
The ocean water was crystal clear. Every creature beneath the surface of the water was visible. Waves crashed about, and the body of water as a whole had a very pale blue glint to it.
Eyes unsure what to focus on, Elijah just stared. First he thought he saw dolphins, but the more he looked, the more they looked like extremely overgrown goldfish. Some of the large things swimming about looked like prehistoric, long-extinct ocean animals that Elijah had seen in his school science textbooks. Obviously they couldn't see to the deep ocean floors, because it was still water and light simply couldn't reach that far down, but monstrously huge shadows could be seen lurking just at the edge of too-far-down-to-see.
Elijah didn't realize he had a death grip on Alejandro's arm until he was pried off.
"So what do we do?" Amber asked.
"I don't know," Joan shrugged. Amber blinked hard.
"I can't tell if you're joking," she said. Joan looked at her. She nodded.
"I mean /obviously/ you're not joking, but...I don't get it. You're the game master. You've done this a million times before. Tell us what to do," Amber prompted further.
"I can't," Joan said, looking her dead in the eye.
"Why not? Aren't you literally here to guide players through the whole map?" Eva asked impatiently.
"Yes, I am, but this is a difficult puzzle, and the solution depends on the players. It depends entirely on power combinations, skill sets, intelligence of the group as a whole, athletic abilities, and the ability to work together," Joan said, "Never once have two groups of players come up with the same solution. I don't know what to tell you."
"It is only a matter of time before I throttle someone," Amber murmured as she pinched the bridge of her nose.
"What was that?" Joan asked.
"Nothing."