"Where is the Bat Queen's residence anyway?" Eda asked.

The gang was flying over the forests of the Boiling Isles on Eda's staff. Luz was situated behind her whereas King was sitting snuggly in her long, ungroomed hair.

"We're literally over it," Luz explained in humorous tone, "she protects palismans that had lost their owners."

"Was she the one that took Owlbert that one time?"

Luz giggled awkwardly. "Well, technically yes, but she was looking out for the little guy; she did give him back though."

King peeked out of Eda's hair. "Something doesn't look right, guys."

Eda and Luz looked down in the direction King poked his finger towards. Scattered on the ground were the broken pieces of palismans. From the looks of it, they were shredded into shards of wood and reverted back to their frozen states if they had somehow reunited with their original staffs. They resembled creatures, but to what they were alluding to was unclear as they were shredded beyond recognition.

Eda gently swerved her staff and it made a downward nosedive. It hovered an inch from the ground over the broken pieces of the palismans. Luz bent and lifted some of the broken pieces of wood into her hands.

"What could have caused this?"

Eda gathered some of the shards and formed them into a small mound. "It looks like something came and tore them apart."

"But for what reason?" Luz asked.

"Look at that," King announced.

There along the floor of the forests was a trail of discarded pieces of the palismans. Luz, without much provocation, began down the trail.

"Wait, Luz!" Eda yelled, "it's too dangerous."

Luz turned to look at the Owl Lady with concern filling her eyes. "The Bat Queen might be in danger! We have to help."

Eda sighed and grabbed King in her arms. Eda ran after the rambunctious girl deeper into the forests. The trail began to thin out until no other shards of wood could be found. Luz darted her eyes this way and that way for any small fragment to continue her trek to no avail.

Eda caught up. Her hair was weighing her down due to the sweat that had accumulated into her follicles and were sucked up like a sponge. Beads of sweat trickled from Eda's forehead. With her knees aching, Eda hunched over to counterbalance the weight of her hair.

"I said to wait up, kid." She groaned. "I'm not a young witch anymore."

"Blegh!" King popped his head out from Eda's hair revealing that he was tangled up in strands of her hair. "How can you let yourself go for this many years, Eda?"

"Say anything else, and I'll burn you where you stand," Eda threatened.

It was a baseless threat, obviously so. It wasn't as if she could really do much anyway given how she was depowered due to the events of nearly getting petrified by Belos. Eda saw that the trail had ended as well. "Before you ran off at full speed like that, I think I see what's going on here."

"What is it, Eda?" Luz asked.

"Remember how I said that witches made their palismans from a special type of tree?"

Luz nodded. "Yes; are you saying that the tree is around here?"

Eda chuckled. "There you go speed-running through me again." She looked at Owlbert momentarily. "What I did not mention was that before you came along, palismans were becoming scarce."

Luz's eyes widened. She was led to believe that there was an endless supply of wood to craft the familiars. But there was a scarcity of them? Perhaps there were limitations that she was woefully unaware of.

"Around this part of the woods is a tree," Eda explained. "From the looks of it, whatever attacked the palismans must be absorbing the magic from within them."

"If that were the case, then what would the reason be?" Luz inquired.

There came a rustling coming from the trees. The group froze up. Eda held her staff and held it out in front of her. "It's coming from that northern part of the woods."

King hid behind Luz. "We need to come up with a plan."

"Like what?" King asked.

"Well, we need to sneak up on whatever is over there, and maybe if it's distracted enough, we can bum rush him."

Eda arched an eyebrow. "Bum rush?" There she was again confused by the human terminology coming from her young apprentice's mouth.

"Yeah, it's three of us against...maybe one of them?" Luz rationalized.

"That would likely get us killed, Luz," Eda pointed out.

"Do you have any other ideas?" Luz shot back.

Eda crossed her arms. "Good point, but perhaps we should take a side at three points."

The group agreed. Luz grabbed a stick and drew the plan on the ground. "Alright, so at the center is whatever is out there." She then drew crude replicas of all three of them. "I'll take the left side; Eda will take the bottom; and King will take the right. Understand?"

King raised his hand. "Hold up; why do I look like I was mangled by some wild beast?"

"You can question the creative liberties later," Luz said somewhat annoyed, "we need to focus."

More thrashing came from the distance. The group of weirdos quietly walked through bushes to ready their positions. They heard claws ringing in the air. "Almost there!" Luz announced.

They advanced towards a small patch of green. The movements of the unseen creature were more pronounced. They were met with another shrub that obscured their view. Luz knelt down and started to shuffle the tufts of grass away.

"Be careful, Luz," King informed her.

Luz nodded and gently pushed herself through the branches of the shrubs. With her vision cleared, she peeked through it. She grew motionless.

Eda's eyes widened. "What is it, kid?"

Luz moved over to allow her mentor to see the same thing she was seeing. "What could be so bad?"

A large, batlike creature was hunched over a large tree relentlessly slashing at the bark. It was as black as dark, or rightfully speaking, a darker shade of black that sizzled from the creature. There was a smacking of the lips and a wet slurping sound that echoed in sickening succession within the group's ears. Its massive wings crowded the surrounding area. Around the beast, the vegetation became brown and rotted. The lives of flowers were snuffed out.

"That's definitely not the Bat Queen," Eda said in observation.

They quietly walked closer to take a look. Some large, invasive organ, the creature's tongue – with its black, slimy drool – was wedged in the tree and was pulsing rapidly. The gross proboscis soaked up the magic from within the tree resulting in the bat creature becoming bloated from the magic coursing through its veins. But the most pressing thing was the tree itself.

There was a face on the tree; the eyes were doubled over in pain with its mouth hanging agape. It was then that it dawned on the gang: the tree was not only alive, but it was a thinking being that could feel excruciating pain. The bark on the front of the tree was ripped apart and pitched to the side in heaps. The bark was removed from top to bottom so the creature could better get access to the magical source of the plant.

"Look!" Luz said in a hushed voice.

When the other two saw it, they were taken aback. There was another discarded palisman tossed nonchalantly to the side. Unlike the other broken pieces of the previous palismans, this one was still largely intact. It resembled a large human head with the bat wings on opposing sides of the palisman. Long, thin strands of hair were mopped over its head. A frozen angry glare was plastered on the lifeless palisman. A large gap made up a major section of its mouth and light reflected off the back of the victim's head.

"We're too late," Luz said in defeat.

The Bat Queen was dead but from the looks of it, she went down with a fight. The tree was growing darker and shriveling from having the magic inside get stolen from it. Luz looked down on the ground pillaging for something.

"Kid, what are you doing?" Eda asked in alarm "what about the plan?"

"If we don't act now, that tree will die!"

Luz cupped a large rock between her fingers and lunged it towards the bat creature. When it collided with the back, a shrill hiss rumbled from it. It stood in straight fashion on its hind legs. The bat wings flapped and shook the ground. Luz struggled to keep her feet in place.

"Luz!" Eda yelled.

Regardless of whether the ground itself was shaking, Eda darted towards Luz with King barely keeping up. Luz collapsed on the ground powerless before the large abomination. It turned its head around and glared down at the human girl.

"Wha?"

Eda became frozen in place, awestruck. The beast had one, three-lobbed eye darting this way and that. Fire danced within its eye in rapid movements. King's eyes widened and he too fell on the ground.

"King?" Eda yelled.

King was sprawled on the ground doubled over in pain. The bat creature saw this and reared on its legs once more to stretch out its mighty, 9 ft long wings. Luz saw this and ran towards King to shield him. Quickly, Luz took the stick that she had from earlier and sketched a pattern on the ground.

"I hope I know what I'm doing," Luz noted.

Before the bat monster could sink its teeth into a defenseless King, Luz pressed the pattern and from it, a thick column of ice erupted and nailed the beast in the head. Stunned, the beast walked backwards to recuperate. After regaining its composure, a rusty chuckle bellowed out in a low tone.

"Hehe, so you are Luz Noceda, I presume?"

Luz dropped the stick. "You...you can talk?"

"Well, if you want to strike up a conversation, it is appropriate to speak," the beast explained.

Luz was still somewhat fixed on the bat monster's ability to speak but looking at the lifeless husk that used to be the Bat Queen knocked her out of it. "Who are you?"

"I go by many names some even predating the cosmos, but you can call me Nyarlathotep, my dear," he said.

"I don't care what your name is," Luz stated, "why did you do all this?"

Nyarlathotep dipped his hand in a passive manner. "I'd like to think of it as taking back that rightfully belongs to me."

Eda ran over and held her staff between Luz and Nyarlathotep. "Why don't you scram back to whatever hellscape you came out of?"

Nyarlathotep grinned and exposed two rows of sharp, jagged teeth. "My, my, you both are awfully interesting; perhaps two of the most entertaining cards I have seen in thousands of years."

Nyarlathotep's form began to shift down before their eyes. His eye divided into two equal parts, and whiskers of a long beard shot down from his chin. His colossal wings rolled up and disappeared behind his back. Two large, spindling horns erupted from the top of his cranium in graphic display. He grinned at the two again now having yellow, rotting teeth.

"This form should be more serviceable for you two," Nyarlathotep said. He spoke with elegant flair that greatly contrasted with his horrid appearance. "I could show up to you in any of my thousand forms, but your brains would surely turn to mush which wouldn't be fun for both of us, wouldn't it?"

"Enough of the talking," Luz said. She pointed the stick directly towards the strange goat man's eyes. "I swear to the Titan if you do not leave this place, I..."

Nyarlathotep chuckled and swatted the stick away. "Lowly mortals like you trying to challenge a being of higher existence like yours truly? Humorous, truly humorous."

The tree had become completely black and shriveled inward until it turned into ashes. "You...you killed it," Luz said accusingly.

"A small price to pay," Nyarlathotep said, "it has been far, far too long since I have last stepped foot on the Boiling Isles; it is barely recognizable."

He walked over to the ashes of the tree and gathered some of the ashes in his hand. "After I had a cuisine meal of all those palismans that she tried to protect, I almost thought I would be missing out on the main course."

Eda clutched her staff angrily. "Well because of your gluttonous habit, palismans can never be crafted from the bark of that tree." She pointed at the ashes. "Have you anything to say about wiping out these creatures?"

Nyarlathotep placed his hands behind his back and pondered. "I have big plans for the Isles, girl. There's no stopping the inevitability. When the stars align, the Boiling Isles will reach a new age."

He turned his stare at Luz and smiled. "Hence is why you, my darling, are an important player in my plan."

Luz shook her head. "I will never help someone like you with possibly apocalyptic intentions in mind."

Nyarlathotep raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you won't? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but my dear friend would say otherwise."

Luz lowered her stick. "Friend? What are you ta"

Whack.

Luz was struck on the side of her head by a blunt force. She fell on the ground from the shock with her vision faltering. From the look of it, she was hit by a blunt object. While her vision was becoming bad, she was able to make out a long, metallic object undoubtably a...crutch? Amity's leg had healed up following the events of the Grudgby game, so it couldn't be her. Then that meant that the only other person that had a pair of crutches to walk with was more than likely...

She heard a familiar, mocking laugh. A ball of fire was glowing in the other hand of the person holding the crutch. Eda yelled out Luz's name and from her scrambling, it was clear to Luz that she was going to collect King. Nyarlathotep was saying something else but she was uncertain what it was due to his voice sounding like a faint whisper.

"Glad to see you again, round ears."