With local law enforcement too busy cleaning up the mess Luz had a hand in to actually track her down, the rest of her workday went ahead with only minimal disruptions. There were a few occasions where some of the people—and in some cases, the architecture—tried to eat her, but Luz didn't know if that was due to Murphy's Law or just part of how the Boiling Isles worked; in all likelihood, it was probably both. Still, life went on, and as it did, it was time to make the last delivery of the day.
"Wow. This is a lot fancier than I'd expect from one of Eda's clients." Luz's statement was in reference to how the final delivery brought her and King to a large castle decorated in golden banners and intricate shrubbery. It was such a fancy sight that the sun even seemed to be shining on it brighter than it did anywhere else in town. Of course, that all stopped when a large bird somehow managed to fly through the sun, a sun that turned out to be some sort of magical artificial light source floating overhead that deflated like a balloon. "The rest of it looks nice, though."
"You really don't think the fake sun is a reason to leave?" King asked, still floating next to Luz in the flying boot he stole.
"Hey, we shouldn't hold it against someone for wanting a little ambience." The balloon-like artificial light source fell down on top of Luz and King; fortunately, her blimp-cutting scissors made short work of it, even if it wasn't the intended use, and they were back on their way to complete the delivery. Luz went up to the front of the castle to ring the doorbell and the large doors swung open, which was immediately followed by them falling off of their hinges. "I'll fix that when we're done here."
"You really don't have to. In fact, let's just toss it in there and go home."
"Hello there! Luz's Delivery Service, at your, um, service! Sorry for the redundancy, and sorry for breaking your doors and your shiny balloon!" Luz ignored King's suggestion as she skipped inside of the castle. Lanterns lit up with each step she took, and soon enough, she ended up in the center of a library with a massive staircase leading up to a door, a door that was quickly opened as a bearded witch in sparkling robes decorated in stars stepped into view, his visage a perfect match for the large portrait that was hanging up above.
The large portrait that would have fallen on top of him, had Luz not been quick to lasso him to safety.
"Argh, you infernal little—I mean, thank you for assisting me, young lady," the bearded man said; it was odd that the thing he ended up saying ended up being so different from what he was first going to say, but it probably meant nothing.
"No problem, mister magic wizard man. It was probably my fault, anyway, so it's the least I could do," Luz said as she put her lasso back in her backpack.
"No, the least you could do is nothing, so let's do that," King said, floating close by.
"Now, now, no need to be in such a rush," the bearded man said. He drew two white spell circles in the air and summoned a pair of fancy chairs and a small table decorated with desserts. "Sit, stay, chat with me, play with my baby fox." The bearded man moved his beard a little to reveal a baby fox with adorable blue eyes tangled in it, although the tangling quickly came undone and it fell toward the ground.
"I gotcha, little guy!" Luz said. She reached into her backpack and threw a mini trampoline in its path. The baby fox giggled as it bounced up and down, but the giggling stopped when one bounce sent it flying in an arch right into a poorly placed sword.
"Oh, wow. Even I think that's in bad taste," King said while stuffing his mouth full of scones.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I'm so sorry! I didn't know the baby fox would land like that, I didn't have any time to grab something out of my backpack, and—Wait, why isn't there any blood coming out of the baby fox?" It was that observation that brought Luz out of her panic and put her in a state of questioning everything around her.
"Oh, well, you see, unlike the foxes in your world, magical foxes don't, um—" Luz ignored the bearded man's rambling as she stepped over to the baby fox's corpse to perform an autopsy. Admittedly, Luz had never done an autopsy before, and she still didn't need to try, because the second she touched the baby fox's corpse, it vertically slid down the sword and was split in half; a second later, both halves of the baby fox's corpse disappeared in a puff of green smoke.
"Oh, it wasn't a real baby fox. That's a relief; I almost had an existential crisis there about the effect I have on the world, but no need for that, anymore. Wait, why didn't you just say it wasn't a real fox? And why do you even have a fake fox?"
"Well, I think it's time for you both to be going. Goodbye, thanks for stopping by, please come back never." Rather than answer any of Luz's questions, the bearded man started trying to push Luz and King out of the library, but they both stood their ground.
"But I didn't give you your package!"
"And I want more scones!" King said. He was resisting the bearded man by grabbing onto the table, and as a result, the tablecloth was pulled down and everything went flying off. The desserts that King didn't catch in his mouth went flying to various spots in the library, a lot of them ending up smearing against the lock holding up the chandelier, and the dishes all shattered and sent their fragments flying about.
One particularly large fragment flew right into the bearded man's forehead, and a second later, he disappeared in the same puff of green smoke as the baby fox.
"This isn't a normal thing people do here, right?" Luz asked. King shook his head at her. "Well, now I'm even more confused. I mean, if that guy wasn't real, who's gonna sign for his package. I could bring it back to Eda, but she'd probably just throw it away."
"Enough!" Coupled with the mysterious new voice was the odd sound of slithering movement coming their way. The doorway atop the stairs was broken apart as what appeared to be a giant octopus monster charged into the library.
"Oh, is this your house? Great," Luz said. "I have your package, so if you could just sign for it—"
"Shut up, you annoying whelp!" the octopus interjected, the shouting making King take cover behind Luz. "This was supposed to be a simple scam! It shouldn't have been that hard to trick a dumb human like you into thinking that she was destined for greatness—"
"I think I'm pretty good the way I am now, honestly."
"Shut up! But you ruined everything! You destroyed my puppets, ruined by solar illusion, broke down my fancy door—I can't deal with you, anymore! I'll get rid of Eda in some other way, but for now? Now, you die, so says Adegast!" The giant octopus that was apparently named Adegast slithered over in Luz's direction to give what Luz assumed to be the fight of her life, and Luz, prepared to meet that challenge, drew the life-sized replica of Azura's neon magitek staff from Azura vs. Doctor Zone: Dawn of Merchandising from her backpack to meet Adegast head-on.
Fortunately, Luz never had to risk lowering the resale value of her staff, for at that moment, the cream from the desserts that went flying up toward the chandelier had fully loosened the lock on it and made it fall right on top of Adegast. Adegast let out a scream that more or less perfectly matched what Luz imagined the scream of a giant talking octopus would sound like, and when that was done, a much smaller octopus had popped out of wreckage, presumably Adegast in some sort of weaker form.
"Curse you, human! Curse you!" Luz did her best not to laugh at Adegast yelling in a high-pitched voice.
"Hah! He sounds like a baby!" King had no qualms about doing just that, though.
"Don't mock me!" Every word Adegast said made it harder to not do just that. "This is not over, you hear me? One day, I will regain my power, and then I will have my revenge! Do you hear me? I will have my—"
At that moment, a raccoon, of all things, ran into the library from somewhere, scooped Adegast up in its paws, and scurried away from Luz and King, but not without giving them a wink, something Luz didn't even know raccoons could do.
He's Recurring Raccoo~oon. He's Recurring Raccoon!
"Well, that was weird," King said.
"Yes, yes it was, but despite what the song said, I have a feeling we'll never see that raccoon again. Ever," Luz said.
And with this, I have decided to make this story its own thing, so keep an eye on my profile for it.