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Wizard’s Quest.
“It’s like we’ve walked right into a Tim Burton film,” Elijah says, eyes wide with awe as we step into the Wizard’s chambers. To adults, it’s just a highly decorated gift shop with overpriced trinkets and bored teenage employees wearing cheap wizard robes, but we feel like it’s real magic.
“Y’all here to start a new quest?” the bored teenage employee says, looking up from her phone only because she wants to avoid being fired. Her Texas twang is as thick as the bouffant of blond hair she wears pinned back with a miniature-witch-hat headband.
“Yes, please,” I say, glancing over at Elijah, who is too taken with our surroundings to pay much attention. He’s staring at a group of ancient runes carved into the fake cave wall beside us. I know from experience that if you point your wand at them, they’ll light up and add bonus points to your warlock’s overall score.
“Wands are fifteen dollars,” the girl says, gesturing to a caldron of various battery-powered wands to choose from. “Unless you’re a Bear Cub member, and then it’s five dollars off.”
“Actually, I have my own,” I say, taking the wand from Elijah’s hand and setting it on the counter. “We just need a new quest.”
The girl eyes Sasha’s glittery wand, quirking an eyebrow. “Purple,” she says, leaning forward over the counter. “Nice. We don’t see many of those anymore.”
A few years after we’d started Wizard’s Quest, the wands were upgraded to have green LED lights at the tips. Mrs. Cade bought me three new wands over the years, but Sasha insisted on keeping her original one. Said it brought her good luck.
The girl takes the wand and drops it into a computer-port thingy that has a sticker wrapped around it, making it look like a magical object instead of a piece of modern-day technology.
Behind her, a large flat-screen displays the scoreboard, showing all forty-three players currently logged in. They all have little green dots by their names, and a user named 1D4ever is currently winning with sixty-three thousand points.
As we watch, a new name appears on the scoreboard: PrincessSasha.
“Damn,” the girl says, her eyes widening like she’s truly impressed. “One of the top five. Never thought I’d meet one of y’all.”
She hands me the wand, now that the fake-magic machine has loaded it with a new quest. She seems to regard me with a new respect now that she knows this wand’s history. “I know a kid who will totally want to meet you.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, turning the wand over in my hand.
She presses something on her computer screen and the scoreboard behind her switches to one with only five names.
THE WIZARD’S QUEST HALL OF FAME
1. MaxTheImpaler
2. PrincessSasha
3. JAXLUVSBAY
4. TexasCheerSquad
5. Bobby41
“Whoa,” Elijah says. “She’s only forty thousand points away from getting first place.”
“Yep,” the girl says. “You and MaxTheImpaler both stopped playing a few years ago, and those top two scores halted. People fight for the bottom three, but no one is even close to having your top score.”
The way she gushes, it’s like she’s standing in front of two real-life celebrities. Her eyes sparkle as she switches the scoreboard back to display every player that’s currently logged in. There, in first place, with a purple dot by her name, is Sasha’s account. She has over two million total points.
The girl’s rabbit’s foot necklace knocks against the counter and I find myself wondering if witches are known for wearing them. I’m also wondering if I should tell her I’m not Sasha, just a proxy.
But she’s been transformed from a zombie staring at her phone to a witch who’s watching me with an admiration I’m not used to at all.
She reaches for a new quest book and hands it to me, along with a pen that’s shaped like a crooked twig, thus adding more to the illusion that this isn’t a game, but a real quest. “If you hurry, you can probably get the points to be in first place.”
“I wonder if she knew,” Elijah says as we venture across the hall to where the quest begins, in a small room with a projection screen that makes it look like you’re being taken by dragon to a magical land.
“If she knew what?” I say, gripping tightly to the wand as we climb up the steps and enter the Quest Chamber. A few kids are in line ahead of us, so we have to wait to begin.
“That she was so close to winning.”
