Determined not to let fear overtake him, Toby tensed the wrist of his right hand. And from the base of his glove grew a long, slender, blue rod with two

white lines spiraling up to its diamon-shaped crystal tip. When it slid fully out of its magic pocket, Toby gripped its handle firmly. But he didn’t know what he could possibly do with it. <Maybe beat the creature over the head or stab it with this point,> he thought, <afterall, I don’t know how to use magic, or cast spells.>

[1 hour earlier]

“Now where are we?” Suzie repeated, this time in a low whisper. Toby still didn’t answer her. He didn’t have the answer. He didn’t have any answer.

His eyes flitted about, taking in the many details of the odd room. There appeared to be a door at one end but it was round. Toby walked over to it, Clouzi bouncing along, as the others began surveying the rest of the room. <If it’s a possible way out . . . I don’t even know how we got in!> thought Toby.

Toby rubbed his palm over the smooth surface of the wall. It was a joke. Somebody’s sick, cruel joke. The door was, in fact, nothing more than a

pen drawing. Except, as Toby moved closer to the drawing, he noticed a column of five odd notches carved into the wall within the drawing. Toby was thoroughly confused now, but before he could ponder why someone would draw a giant circle and carve holes into the side of a room, a bright flash of light caught his eye. Looking up in the direction of the light source, Toby realized the flash was that of a giant screen built into the wall coming to life. He walked over to it to get a better view.

Toby followed the others to a large couch sitting directly opposite the wall the screen appeared from. Nobody said a word.

In the dim light of the room, the screen was already bright. But when it was finished warming up, a flash hit Toby so brightly that for a moment he

considered the possibility of being blinded. When he removed his arm from its shielding position against his eyes, Toby looked around. Blinking the white spots away, he noticed his sister, Rachel, and Eric also just removing hands and arms from their faces. Their Magimon, like Clouzi, still burried face-first into their chests. Only Kurt and his green dwarf-dragon seemed unaffected. That struck Toby as a little odd.

Then the screen blinked, and the black, sillohette of a figure snapped into view. The only part of the figure not cloaked in shadow was its eyes which

glowed with a soft white light. The figure stared at Toby and his companions out of the wide, rectangular screen. Then it turned to the left and right.
Toby was about to speak when the figure fixed its luminous eyes directly on him. Then, without any visible mouth, it spoke. “Oh my! I hadn’t realized it was so dark!” the figure said in an aged, rough voice. It reminded Toby of his grandfather. “Well we’ll just have to fix that,” it concluded. Then Toby caught a slight movement at the bottom right corner of the screen before the dim lights woke up and illuminated the room.