Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Dawn of the Water Ship Battle

"They're going to... fight?" Kipo stared down at the screen in front of her, watching the tiny version of her friends yell at the creature around them. What they said sounded confident, but they were looking at it from Kipo's perspective: they were completely surrounded, with only a little bit of space that they could actually use, and they were in the middle of the ocean, with very little shadows! How did they think they were suppose to win, or even survive this? "What are they thinking?!"

"The odds are certainly against them," Gale noted calmly. Kipo could only hold her head in her hands. What was she going to see on that little screen?!

"What am I suppose to do?" she asked him. "You said I could help, right? How?"

"It's simple," Gale replied, and Kipo's eyes widened. "Within this place, you have... some level of control over these fights. You can help them, turn the battle in their favour."

Kipo glanced at him, and then quickly back down at the screen. But... there was nothing happening there anymore. Kipo blinked: her friends, and their enemies, had froze on the screen, stopped in time.

Some level of control, huh? Kipo's eyebrows knit together.

"Have you ever played chess?" Gale asked her, and Kipo nodded her head, finally drawing her eyes away from the screen. Gale was peering at her intently.

"Chess? Yeah, I used to play all the time with my dad," she told him, despite the fact that she doubted he even cared.

"Then this will be similar, though it will be far simpler," Gale chuckled at that, and Kipo frowned at him. Perhaps seeing her confused look, Gale shook his head. "Get up. Perhaps it will be better to show you."

Kipo stood up, and waited, wondering if perhaps Gale was going to cast a spell or something.

"Got to the big desk, behind me," he said, instead. A little disappointing. "In the top drawer on the left, there is a case. Bring it here, and don't touch anything else."

"Why do I have get it?" Kipo questioned, but she went to the desk anyway. As she went, she peered into the darkness that surrounded Gale, but even here, it didn't let up. So while Kipo could see the desk and everything else in the room easily, there was just a dark spot in her vision from which Gale looked back at her. Kipo looked away, ducking behind the desk.

Gale told her not to touch anything else, right? But, well... Kipo didn't trust him nearly enough to listen. Before she grabbed the top drawer, she picked up the second one.

It was locked.

"I told you not to touch anything else," Gale called to her. Kipo flinched.

"I didn't! It was... an accident?"

"Hm. Just hurry up."

"It was the one on the right, right?" Kipo asked, pulling that one open. Locked as well. "Ah, no, not that one..."

Kipo glared at the drawers in front of her. Locked stuff would usually have a key, right? But where would these keys be hiding in this room with literally nothing in it, and wouldn't the drawers also have a keyhole, in that case?

She sighed. If Kipo wanted those drawers open, she'd have to think outside the box.

"What could possible be taking you so long-?"

She was out of time. Kipo wrenched open the correct drawer.

"I found it, I found it!" she called. She didn't know whether Gale would actually stand up to check on her, she hadn't even seen him move from the big desk to the small, kid one (where had that even come from?), but she didn't want to find out. She peered inside, and took an old, worn, wooden case out, carefully holding the leather handle so the multitude of slivers didn't touch her.