Young Writers Society

Raptor sighed.

"I've been trying to figure that out, too," he admitted. He paused for a moment, briefly mulling Nikolai's first question over. "I haven't been thinking of it that way, but I've been trying to understand why I'm not in the game anymore. This place doesn't follow the rules of the game. It's different. I must have ended up outside of the game somehow, but I don't know why I still look like this instead of what I actually look like."

He wished he could look like himself right now, but part of him was secretly and guilty grateful that he didn't. Barely anyone had taken him seriously before they split up. If he hadn't been a tall, intimidating man in a suit of armor, he was sure they would have paid even less attention to him.

He glanced down at the chalk in his hand.

"I guess it could be used for street art," he said. "It's actually what I use to summon demons. I need to draw pentacles for me and the demon and in order to summon one. Chalk is one of the easiest things to draw the pentacles with."

Nikolai gave the chalk a long look. Except for the drawings he'd tried to do on the cave floor earlier for Aeshan, he didn't think he'd ever used it much to draw anything. It seemed a little inconvenient and clumsy, hard to hold in your hand, too dusty and imprecise to use skillfully. Besides, the thought of putting so much work into art that would just wash away the moment it rained was sad. Nikolai liked street art just as much as the next person, but he preferred longer-lasting creations.

Even so, when he thought back to what had happened when he'd first started to draw with it, he hadn't understood the feeling that had come over him. Part of him wanted to try it again.

"So it's magic?" Nikolai asked. "Magicians actually have magic?" The question sounded silly to him, but he couldn't help but wonder out loud.

Raptor faltered.

Magician magic didn't feel like demon magic. It didn't entirely feel like Minecraft magic, either. He hadn't really encountered the last two kinds of magic before, but magician magic always felt like he was borrowing something. The kind of magic that demons could do—and the kind that could be found in Minecraft—felt like it was part of the person. It felt real in a way magician magic never quite did.

But it felt like heresy, even when he was admitting it to himself.

"Not anything major," Raptor carefully said. "It's just enough magic to summon demons and issue their charges."

Raptor put his chalk away and got to his feet. It looked like Nikolai had finished preparing their sleigh. He...liked talking about magic with other people for once, but he knew they needed to focus on getting out of here. He still had to meet up with May back in Minecraft.