Magic Madness™️

Chapter Two: First Impressions

WORD COUNT: 2,992

"The...magic realm?" Eli asked slowly, giving purple-eyed man a look of disbelief.

"Yes. The Magic Realm.  Were you not paying attention to a word I said?" purple-eyed man asked.
"I mean...we read it..." Alex mumbled.
"You just weren't actually listening because you didn't think it mattered." purple-eyes sighed. Alex and Eli looked at each-other, then back to purple-eyed man, then shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads dumbly.

"Well then let me recap," purple-eyes said with a great amount of clear exasperation, "The royal family thinks they're all high-and-mighty because they pretty much are, so they want to take all magic out of the kingdom. Once all magic is removed, they will be the only remaining wizards in the land and, therefore, all powerful. We need you two to help us to prevent that from happening. The process of wiping out all magic has already begun, so we have to work quickly and efficiently."

A beat passed of Alex looking between purple-eyes and Eli, back and forth, blinking very hard before he decided to say something.
"Okay, first of all, what? Second, why do you need us of all people? I'm sure there are plenty of geeky superfans of this stupid game that would absolutely die to be in our position," Alex asked, arms folded and eyebrow raised skeptically.
"To be completely honest, I don't know. Usually, whoever clicks 'no' just gets their memories of the game erased and the game resets. I guess the game decided it wanted you, though, and I'm not really one to argue with the programming," purple-eyes explained.
"That literally helps nothing," Elijah complained.
"Third, who is 'we'?" Alex asked, ignoring Eli's commentary.
"Me, Joan, if you didn't catch it the first time, and then Amber and Evalyn," Joan replied simply.
"Who are they?" Eli asked, interrupting whatever Alex was about to say, "'Cause if they're as weird as you, I quit."
"Oh, no. You can't do that. There's no quitting. You're stuck here until we defeat the royal family. That's how the programming works," Joan said casually, as if it were no big deal at all. Elijah paled, his jaw dropped just a little bit. Alex patted him on the shoulder as a gesture of comfort, though he, himself, was rather uneasy. Eli half-heartedly brushed his hand off and shook his head.

"Alex, can I talk to you a minute?" he asked, and began to walk in the other direction before Alex could really utter his response. Alex followed regardless, waiting until they were out of earshot before he started talking.
"So what's up?" he asked calmly. Eli abruptly stopped walking.
"'What's up'? 'What's up'?! What do you mean, 'what's up'? We are stuck in a wizarding video game RPG with seemingly no way out, and you have the nerve to ask 'what's up'? I'm freaking out, man! What do you think is up?!" Elijah whisper-shouted. Alex's eyes widened a little at his aggressive tone. Eli had little outbursts all the time, but the words "freaking out" never seemed to come up. (Usually, its was something more along the lines of "I'm fine, but-" or "I'm fine, it's just" or "Don't worry about me, I'm good, but like-".)
   
"Just take a deep breath. To be honest, I'm just waiting to wake up. This is the most absurd thing that's ever happened to me, and I know it can't be real. We'll be fine. As soon as we wake up, we'll be in my room, right where we left. So just try to keep your breathing even and maybe I'll get us some ice cream or something when we wake up," Alex reasoned, managing to sound convincing enough that Eli actually listened (albeit, reluctantly). He wasn't sure whether he actually believed what he was saying or not, but Eli seemed to believe it and that was all that mattered. He took a deep breath in through the nose and huffed it out.
"I guess you're right. This-...This can't be real. It's too...weird to be real," Eli decided with an uncertain nod.
"Exactly. So let's go back there and just do whatever weird stuff Joan asks us to do, pretend like we're listening to him, and stick it out until we wake up. Then we can make another video since we're supposed to upload in two days," Alex suggested. Eli ran a hand down his face with a sigh, but he nodded and started walking back toward Joan with Alex by his side. He was slightly intimidated by his tall the hills (for lack of a better word), and he didn't enjoy having to actively avoid stepping on pointy crystals in the ground. He grew more and more angry with every rock that he failed to see and accidentally stepped on. Those rocks were pointy, they hurt. His resentment for this "Magic Realm" continued to boil.