Chapter 12 – A Small Problem

Kendra and Warren grasped each other's hands as they adjusted to their new surroundings. The two of them were confined to a small space, illuminated by the orange glow of the Sizeshifter. Due to the fact that they had shrunken in size, the Sizeshifter was much larger than they were. Kendra and Warren were actually inside of Raze's leather sack, unbeknownst to the four-armed gargoyle. As it was, Raze was currently towing the Sizeshifter out of Frozen Fortress, oblivious to the fact that he was taking two stowaways along with it.

"Was this your plan?" asked Kendra in a voice much higher than usual.

"I didn't know what else to do!" replied Warren in a similarly high-pitched voice. "Be grateful that Clover was able to teleport us into the bag at all!"

"When Raze finds us, he'll kill us!"

"We'll make a break for it as soon as we can!" exclaimed Warren.

"On top of that, everyone thinks we're dead!"

"It was a last ditch plan! But at least those monsters thought so as well! They'll never suspect that we're here!"

"They're going to take us straight to Navarog!" muttered Kendra. "He's going to be a happy dragon when he sees us all wrapped up with the Sizeshifter!"

"Look, you're the one who suggested that we use the Sizeshifter to shrink Ikkim!" exclaimed Warren.

"And you're the one who stupidly shrunk us with it instead!"

"Sorry, but it didn't exactly come with an owner's manual!"

Kendra huffed. "So how do you suggest we get out of this situation alive? We don't know how the Sizeshifter works and if we're not careful, we could shrink ourselves down even further!"

"We're not messing with this Sizeshifter any more until we're positive as to how it works. I'll go over these notes again just to be sure, but I'm still wary about testing it."

Warren pulled his copy of the notes out of his bag, both of which had been shrunken down with the rest of him. Likewise, Kendra did the same with her copy just in case she could offer any additional help in finding a clue. The ride was fairly windy, as the sack swayed back and forth at some rather extreme angles. From what the two of them could gather, Raze was now flying across the Siberian Mountains, and the sack he was carrying was being blown around by the wind.

After a fair bit of struggling against the windy conditions, Warren and Kendra could not make heads or tails of the Sizeshifter to comprehend as to how it worked.

"It doesn't really tell us anything that we don't already know," said Kendra.

"It could be a translation error of some sort," noted Warren. "Though the words appeared to be in English to your eyes, what you were reading was truly originally written in some ancient texts. Not only that, but the details in the tome are very vague. Probably to further prevent people from finding and using these instruments in the first place."

"But that doesn't help us," said Kendra. "From what I've gathered, it just says to hold the Sizeshifter against the desired target to either shrink or enlarge it."

"I guess we were the desired target," said Warren. "When we get out of here, I'll give it some more thought."

After what seemed like hours, the entire sack felt as though it had been smacked against the ground. The impact had caused Kendra, Warren and the Sizeshifter to all get jostled around the sack.

"You okay?" asked Warren, as he helped Kendra out from under the Sizeshifter, the top of which had fallen on top of her. Thankfully, she wasn't in any real pain.

"Yeah," said Kendra, as she stood up. "Guess we've landed. Where are we?"

Warren shrugged. "Beats me," he whispered. "But keep it down. Now that we're not in the air, the monsters might hear us. Jark especially. We should lay low."

"Hey, Raze!" came Jark's voice from outside the sack, "I wanna look at the Sizeshifter!"

Upon hearing Jark, Kendra and Warren's hearts momentarily stopped.

"Forget it!" responded Raze. "We don't know how it works! Remember how those stupid humans shrunk themselves cuz they didn't know what they were doing? That could happen to us, and I don't know how it works any better than they do!"

"I just want a peek! Before we hand it over to Navarog!"

"Fine!" whined Raze. "But if you screw up and shrink yourself, I'm not helping you!"

"What do we do?" asked Kendra, as she and Warren could sense gigantic footsteps approaching the sack.

"I dunno! Summon Bright and just do something!"

"Bright!" shrieked Kendra, as the rainbow-colored fairy appeared before them.

"What happened to you two?" asked Bright, who was roughly the same size as Kendra and Warren currently were.

"I think I heard something from inside the bag!" said Jark, as the bag was suddenly hoisted into the air.

"Make us invisible and disappear!" said Kendra, just as the top of the sack was opened. Raze and Jark peered inside, but could not see anything other than the Sizeshifter. Raze reached inside the sack, barely missing Kendra with his scaly hand, and pulled out the instrument.

"Here, but don't play with it!" said Raze, as he placed the bag down. As it hit the ground, he sensed that something was still inside of it. He gazed down into the bag, staring directly at both Kendra and Warren, despite the fact that they were invisible to him. "I need a break."

Although they could not see each other, Warren and Kendra stared into each other's eyes. Had the monsters been more thorough, they would've spotted the two unwanted tag-alongs. After about a minute, Bright's power wore off, causing Kendra and Warren to both reappear. To make things worse, the top of the sack was opened up. Raze carefully placed the Sizeshifter back inside, although he had failed to notice Kendra and Warren in the process.

"There, you got to see it," said Raze after a few seconds had passed. "Now let's go hunt some grub and get some rest."

Kendra and Warren stayed inside the sack as Raze carried it with him and flew off with Jark. The ride was similar to the first one, only it was far shorter. Along the way, they could hear goats squeal and people screaming. Kendra and Warren could only imagine that the two monsters were hunting down innocent bodies and devouring them for their meal. After a few minutes, they landed.

For the next few hours, Kendra and Warren laid low inside the sack. As the sack was on the ground, the Sizeshifter was lying on its side, causing the neck of the sack to be on its side as well. Warren ventured out of the sack, followed by Kendra, to examine their surroundings.

From what they could gather, they were on a plateau, somewhere in the mountains. As it was night, only Kendra could see properly, as Warren lacked her ability to see in the dark.

"Do you see Raze and Jark?" asked Warren in a whisper.

"Yeah," whispered Kendra. "They're sound asleep."

"Good. Clover, I need you, but keep quiet!"

Clover appeared before Warren and Kendra, greeting them with a wave, rather than speaking.

"What's your plan?" asked Kendra.

"You'll see. Clover, we need you to levitate this entire sack away from Raze and Jark."

"Now that I can do," she said. "Now that you're much smaller, it'll take less power!"

Clover stepped out of the sack and encased it in her own magic. It suddenly began to levitate into the air and eventually landed elsewhere.

"I hid the sack behind some boulders for now," said Clover, as she climbed back into the sack. I can't carry this whole thing for too long or I'll exhaust my powers again."

"We need to get this Sizeshifter to a safe place!" said Warren, no longer whispering.

"Us as well," said Kendra. "Maybe then we can figure out how to get back to our normal sizes."

"Think you could make us grow, Clover?" asked Warren.

"It'd be very temporary," replied Clover. "Besides, if you're bound to this size by the Sizeshifter's magic, my powers to counter it would pale in comparison. I'd rather not waste my magic just to find out that I can't do such a thing."

Kendra observed Clover. Up close, she looked a lot like a normal human, aside from her green hair, makeup and clover-shaped wings. Her cheeky face appeared to be quite pretty. She wondered if Warren thought she was attractive.

"You think that you and Bright might be able to just carry the Sizeshifter by flying?" asked Warren.

Clover placed her hands against the Sizeshifter, unable to push it. "I can barely move it with my own strength. Either you make yourselves big again, or this Sizeshifter isn't going far."

"I've got a question, Clover," asked Kendra. "When you go into your pocket dimension, where does it lead?"

"Nowhere special. Just a small, private void the size of a small room. From my perspective."

"Can you take other things with you?"

"It depends. What'd you have in mind?" asked Clover. Kendra responded by tapping the side of the Sizeshifter.

"It might work," said Clover, as she placed her hands on the Sizeshifter. "It's kinda big, but it looks like it'd fit."

Clover vanished in a puff of green sparkles, as did the Sizeshifter. A moment later, she reappeared without the jewel.

"Awesome!" laughed Warren. "They'll never find it in there!"

"Think you could hide us in there if the need came up?" asked Kendra.

"No way!" exclaimed Warren. "I'm not going into a pocket dimension like that against my own will!"

"Relax," said Clover. "Even if I wanted to, I'm forbidden from bringing other living beings into my dimension. "What are you worried about, anyway?"

"I once spent three months trapped inside of a sub-dimensional storage compartment. It wasn't very comforting to say the least."

"That's awful!"

"Yeah, and you can thank our friend Navarog for trapping me there. The sooner we stop him, the better."

"Let's just deal with the problem we're facing now," said Kendra. "Bright, appear!"

Kendra's fairy appeared next to Clover. She too dwarfed Kendra and Warren at their reduced heights.

"Yes, Kendra?" asked Bright.

"Hey!" shouted Jark from a distance. "The Sizeshifter! It's gone!"

Kendra felt her heart sink to the bottom of her stomach. Sure, Jark and Raze had no idea as to where the Sizeshifter could even be, but she got the idea that Jark would instinctively know where to find them.

"Don't make a sound," whispered Warren. "Slorffs have incredible hearing."

Kendra, Warren, Bright and Clover all pressed against the boulder that was concealing them from the rest of the world, and listened in on Jark's ranting.

"Wake up, Raze!" said Jark. Kendra envisioned the slorff tapping the gargoyle using nothing but his enormous tongue.

"Whaaaaat?" grumbled Raze tiredly.

"The Sizeshifter is missing!"

"Missing?" asked Raze. Kendra imagined Raze getting up and scrambling to look for his sack, only to find nothing. "Where'd it go?"

"Those other knights must've followed us and swiped it! We should've finished 'em off instead of fleeing back at Frozen Fortress!"

"We had what we came for," snuffed Raze. "I didn't want to risk fighting with them. Had we stayed, it would've given them a chance to swipe the Sizeshifter from me. I didn't think anyone would track us down so easily."

"Well, what do we do now? We can't tell Navarog about this! He'll get angry! I don't like him when he's angry!"

"We can't tell him it was stolen," said Raze. "If anyone gets on Navarog's bad side, he'll rip out their bones and use them as toothpicks. And that's if he likes them. I know! We'll tell him that we went to Frozen Fortress, went all the way to the end, but that the Sizeshifter wasn't there! We can say that we just concluded that the Knights of the Dawn beat us to it! Sure, he'll be mad, but at least he won't kill us! I hope."

"What do we tell him about Ikkim?"

"Say he ran off or something! Anything to keep him from knowing about what really happened! Of course, if we tell him that Kendra and that other guy died, he'll know that we did run into the Knights of the Dawn, and complain that we didn't succeed in stealing the Sizeshifter from them!"

"Either way, Navarog's not gonna be pleased when we tell him that the Knights have the Sizeshifter!"

"It's your fault," said Raze. "We had the Sizeshifter. "You're the one with the so-called excellent hearing. If someone came by and swiped it, why didn't you hear them?"

"Maybe they were really quiet!" exclaimed Jark. "It doesn't help that you snore!"

"Oh yeah, blame it on something I can't control!"

"Why didn't Jark hear us ?" asked Kendra to her friends. "We had to have been making some noise."

"Our voices are very tiny at this size," said Warren. "And we've been whispering! Plus Clover used magic to move the bag, so that didn't make any real noise either."

"But without all five instruments of eternal power, Navarog can't have his wishes granted!" continued Jark from afar.

"Serves him right! Remember how he told us about being that Seth kid and snatching the Drakesoul? If he was patient, he could've waited until the knights found all five instruments before claiming them for himself!"

"Let's just get back to Navarog," said Jark suggestively. "Maybe he'll buy your story that the Knights beat us to the punch, and that allegedly did nothing wrong. That way, he'll have no reason to blame us for anything. Except maybe for being too slow."

"You're right. I can't sleep after all this. Let's just go meet up with Navarog. If we're lucky, he'll have found the Essence of Immunity by now. That's the instrument he wanted the most anyway. If that's the case, he'll be in such a good mood, that he might even go easy on us!"

"That's assuming he did get the Essence of Immunity."

Kendra, Warren, and their fairies listened as Raze and Jark flapped their wings and ultimately took off. Peering around from behind the boulder, they watched as the two monsters flew off into the dark, night sky, until they were out of sight.

At long last, Raze and Jark were gone. But Kendra and Warren were still faced with several problems. They were tiny, they didn't know where they were, and they had no idea as to how they would get home.