Princess Iba Algi - Time For Another Astral Adventure

"It's time for another astral adventure!" said Iba Algi.

"Oh my gosh!" said Harlecuin Sols. "Really?"

"Hooray!" said Nin. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to save Cute Boy," said Iba Algi.

"Is Harlecuin Sols in danger?" asked Nin. "But he's right here!"

She hugged Harlecuin Sols. He hugged her back.

"The other cute boy," said Iba Algi.

"Renjie?" asked Harlecuin Sols. "Is there a giant snake monster after all?"

"There is no giant snake monster," said Iba Algi. "There is a giant mechanical centipede monster. But it's a big sweetheart and Renjie doesn't need saving."

"Then you must mean…," said Nin, "...the cute boy with a sexy vampire sword!"

"You said 'sexy,'" giggled Harlecuin Sols.

"I did," agreed Nin.

"We can't save everyone," said Iba Algi, "but we should be able to save that saucy gigolo!"

"What does the saucy gigolo need to be saved from?" asked Nin.

"A lich," said Iba Algi.

"Is that like an angry customer?" asked Nin.

"A lich is a bad guy," said Harlecuin Sols.

"Although we should never make superficial moral judgments without understanding the full context of a person's suffering," said Iba Algi, "I can confidently say that anyone who turns themselves into a pile of animated bones so they can keep casting spells is a bad guy."

"Let's go get the bad guy!" said Nin.

Iba Algi slipped out of her body and jumped into the air. Instead of flying up to the edge of reality and falling back down into Tianming Town, she bounced along the dome of the world and its all seeing eyes several times before descending. Screaming in delight and pursued by Mr. Featherpuff, the children fell toward an octagon of solid rock. As they got closer, it became clear the octagon was at least a couple hundred yards across.

"This rock is weird!" said Nin. "I can only sink a little bit!"

"This is the top of Kadar-Jormu Citadel," said Iba Algi. "It's a telescope the ancient giants used to spy on Heaven."

"Really?" gasped Nin. "But it's a big rock!"

"The rock is so perfect that it hums with the vibrations of the universe," said Iba Algi. "Inside are layers of orichalcum which do funny math stuff with the vibrations."

"I don't like funny math stuff," said Nin. "What about you, Harlecuin Sols?"

"I like music," said Harlecuin Sols, "and paintings – and dancing."

"I like those things too!" said Nin.

Nin and Harlecuin Sols danced happily ten miles above the world.

"But why are we here, Iba Algi?" asked Harlecuin Sols. "I don't see the cute boy."

"I see one," said Nin.

"I see two cute girls!" said Harlecuin Sols.

Everyone danced happily ten miles above the world. 

"We have to turn off the telescope," said Iba Algi. "Now that the giants are gone, the bad guy has hacked it so that he can spy on Heaven."

"Oh, no!" said Nin. "But why hasn't Heaven turned off the telescope?"

"Heaven has its own problems," said Iba Algi.

"But we have a problem too!" said Harlecuin Sols. "We can't go through the rock!"

Iba Algi zipped over to one edge of the octagon.

"We landed on top of the telescope because it's easiest to see," said Iba Algi. "Now our impossible mission is to climb down to the control room."

She pointed down.

"Oh my gosh!" said Harlecuin Sols. "That sounds so exciting!"

"I think so too!" said Nin.

"We have to be careful, though," said Iba Algi. "It's windy up here."

"Is it?" asked Nin.

She adjusted her ghostly shell to manifest more strongly in reality. When she manifested enough, a blast of wind traveling two hundred miles per hour knocked her over the horizon. Harlecuin Sols put both hands up to his face and exclaimed in shock. Then Nin materialized back on the stone octagon.

"Oh my gosh!" she said. "That was so much fun!"

The children spent the next ten or twenty minutes manifesting their ghostly shells in reality so that a blast of wind traveling two hundred miles per hour could knock them over the horizon. Then they climbed down the side of the telescope. After descending about a mile, the children reached a conical structure. Harlecuin Sols suggested it was an upside-down ice-cream cone made out of stone instead of waffles.

"Now I'm hungry," said Iba Algi.

Harlecuin Sols apologized. The upside-down ice-cream cone was about two miles tall. It rested upon an irregular solid that looked like it might once have been part of an actual mountain. Underneath that was a collection of strange columns. The columns were made of rock that the giants could move through. That meant three little ghosts could also move through it.

Most importantly, they could move up the center.

They were inside.

"Hooray!" said Nin. "We're amazing!"

"We're secret agents!" Harlecuin Sols told her.

"That's amazing!" said Nin.

There were several empty chambers inside the irregular solid that might once have been part of a real mountain. Compared to the size of the solid, the empty chambers were relatively small even if they were giant-size. Empty chambers didn't do the secret agents any good.

"We need to parameterize a volumetric search algorithm," said Iba Algi.

"A what?" asked Nin.

"That sounds like funny math," said Harlecuin Sols.

"We need to be careful about where we're going," said Iba Algi.

"It's hard to know where we're going when we're inside the rock," said Nin.

"Everywhere we're going is the same shade of grey," said Harlecuin Sols.

"Nin is good at finding secret rooms," said Iba Algi.

"Am I?" asked Nin.

Mr. Featherpuff nodded enthusiastically.

"You found the secret vampire crypt," said Harlecuin Sols.

"That was in my own house," said Nin.

"But you knew there was a deep basement that wasn't in your house," said Iba Algi.

"I guess so," agreed Nin.

"I'm sure you'll know the right way to go if you think about it calmly," said Iba Algi.

"It's hard to think calmly when you're a secret agent," said Nin.

"Do you want to have tea and cupcakes to help you relax?" asked Iba Algi.

"Do we have tea and cupcakes?" asked Nin.

"Madame Misone!" yelled Harlecuin Sols at the top of his ghostly lungs, "may we have some tea and cupcakes, please?"

"Please!" repeated Iba Algi and Nin.

An instant later, an enormous ghostly woman with a teapot in one hand and a tray in the other appeared. On the tray were teacups and cupcakes.

"She got here so fast!" said Nin.

"Madame Misone is amazing," said Harlecuin Sols.

After her third astral cupcake and second cup of tea, Nin got a feeling. It was a little tickle. An intuitive whisper that maybe, just maybe, the eerie giant citadel's deep basement was this way.

In fact, it was that way.

"This room has an interesting shape," said Nin.

"It's a dodechamagon!" said Harlecuin Sols.

The room was in fact a dodecahedron. Strange obelisks grew out of the walls. Panes of projected pale blue light hovered above every surface. It wasn't clear from anything which way was up.

"Which side is the floor?" asked Nin.

"There isn't a floor," said Iba Algi.

"Where would the giant astronomers spying on heaven stand?"

"There would only be one at a time," said Iba Alig. "He or she would float in the middle."

"Oh I see!" said Nin. "That way he or she could look at all the screens!"

Then the specters attacked.

They were feral, sinister creatures made of grey fog. Their bodies were long and spindly. Their fangs were also long. So were their claws. The specters fixed beady red eyes on the three little ghosts and hissed. A game of tag began. In her solid body, Iba Algi got exhausted easily and was not coordinated. In her astral body, she was bouncy – and found it particularly fun to bounce off screens made from projected light. The specters did not want to take turns playing tag, so Nin trapped them all in electrified ghost wires.

"You need to improve your participation skills," she told them.

"That's right!" said Iba Algi.

Harlecuin Sols nodded emphatically and folded his arms across his chest.

Madame Misone appeared with the ghosts of a dozen other children. The children looked around the dodecahedron with great big eyes. Then they looked at the spectres wrapped up in Nin's wires and gasped. Then Madame Misone bonked each of the spectres on the head so hard with her bare fist, they turned into grey dust and evaporated. All the children cheered.

"They went away just like the fake vampire!" said Nin. "Hello everybody!"

"Hello everybody!" said Harlecuin Sols. "Thank you, Madame Misone!"

"How do we turn off the telescope, Iba Algi?" asked Nin. "Is there a button?"

"I don't think there's one button," said Iba Algi. "We might not be able to turn the telescope off, exactly."

"Oh, no!" said Harlecuin Sols.

"How will we save Cute Boy from the lich who is spying on Heaven?" asked Nin.

All the children expressed concern. Iba Algi thought.

"I think…," she said.

"Yes?" asked Harlecuin Sols. "What do you think, Iba Algi?"

"I think we'll point the telescope at something else!" she said.

All the children cheered. Iba Algi threw her arms out to the side. An elaborate clockwork mechanism made of the same pale blue light as the screens flickered into existence around her. The mechanism resembled an abstract model of the cosmos. Glowing spheres (each large enough to fit a ghostly child comfortably) materialized inside the apparatus. There was one sphere for each child present. When all the spheres were occupied, something like a steering wheel materialized in front of each occupant.

"But what will we point the telescope at, Iba Algi?" asked Harlequin Sols.

"Hades!" said Iba Algi.

"Oh my gosh!" said Harlecuin Sols. "That's inside out!"

"Iba Algi is amazing!" said Nin.

All the children cheered – and started turning steering wheels inside glowing bubbles. As they turned, the symbols appearing on the control room's screens flickered and changed.

"Does this mean that all the bad guy's calculations will be wrong?" asked Nin.

"It does," said Iba Algi. "But there's more to it than that. Heaven is a mess."

"Why?" asked Nin.

"It's full of fake angels," said Iba Algi. "But Hell King Hades has his act together."

"Oh my gosh!" said Nin. "Is he going to come here? Am I dressed okay?"

"He will follow the information to where it's being sent," said Iba Algi.

"Oh I see!" said Harlecuin Sols.

"It's being sent to the bad guy?" asked Nin.

"Hell King Hades has a special place for bad guys," said Iba Algi.

All the children giggled maniacally.