Ostensibly, this is a four person co-write although it might be more fitting to think of it as a pair of two 2-person co-writes glued and stitched together. The first part pairs my Wildfall up with Sir Fumblies while the second section sends my Becky Joy off with Blackeagle.

 
Thanks to Mary for use of Gem, and Sassy Snake for use of Bristle

It's that feeling they write songs about. That gut-wrenching, heart-churning, nipple-slapping feeling that tears you apart.

Not love. Loss.

Wildfall felt that sense of desperation quickly wiggle its way into his head, down his throat, past his gut and straight to his heart. At least, that's what it felt like.

He vaguely heard Gem yelling for him and Bristle to be quiet. To calm down, as if Wildfall could! Mary had just vanished behind the force field after the bat got involved, so the way Wildfall saw it, maybe Mary had stepped into the creature's trap! But then Gem insisted, "The bat is there with her and I have the feeling he will protect her. You have to get ahold of yourselves and try to figure a way to open this barrier."

Wildfall didn't seem to hear her at first. He was panicking, but damn it, they had his Mary now!

He could feel his weapon shaking violently in his hands as he insisted, "I know that!" He paused, tightening his unsteady grip on his solid oak shillelagh. "That thing has her! Did you see it pull her in?"

Bristle insisted that wasn't what happened, saying he saw the barrier close "around her. The bat rushed in, that's true. But I don't think he caused it."

Wildfall tried to listen to reason, to consider that maybe what he saw wasn't what it looked like. With a frown, he insisted, "Then we still need to get in. What are we gonna do now?!"

And that's when the unfamiliar voice inserted itself into the conversation. "I might be one who can lend ye a little help on that, youngsters."

And that's what brings us to the next part of the story. Wildfall was fuming, but for some reason, the unfamiliar squeaky baritone voice relaxed Wildfall - or at least confused him enough to take his mind off his current problems for the moment.

"What?" Bristle asked. Gem scurried to get a better view of him. Wildfall just stared at the man for a moment before returning his attention to the force field, frowning heavily.

Bristle took it upon himself to ask the old man, "Pardon me sir, but who are you? And were you speaking to us?"

The old man had a grizzled light blue old robe on and looked to be about fifty. That's a good age for wizards, right? He also had a t-shirt on that said "My other wand is marble," and a Seaside Town Wizards sporting hat on. He leaned on a large silver staff absentmindedly. "Son, that there is a question and a half if you want the real answer and an origin story, but let's cut to the good parts, sonny. The name? Well, the name is Blizzard McChilledice, and I'm what some might call a cold wizard." Pronounced "Mac Cheih leaih dice" but you could still tell how it was spelled by listening to him.

"Really?" Wildfall asked, his attention again ripped from the force field and back to the old man. "So you're going with that?"

"What do you mean, son?" the old man asked, puzzled.

"The codename," Wildfall asked. "Or nickname, or whatever. It's a lil on the nose for an ice theme, don't you think?"

Bristle looked over at Wildfall, also confused. "I'm not sure I follow what you're asking him."

"Oh!" the old man cheerfully responded, smiling brightly. "That ain't no nickname. That's my real name."

"Legit?" Wildfall chuckled.

"Of course!" the old man said. "But most people call me 'Frosty.'"

"Nice to meet you, Frosty," Bristle said, shaking the old man's hand.

"Hey!" the little one squeaked. "I'm Gem. We're just working on a little mystery here."

"Well, I'd like to take a crack at it," the old man offered.

"We could use all the help we can get," Bristle answered.

"Yeah, gotta get my gal out," Wildfall said, swinging his solid oak shillelagh at the force field randomly. "And 'Frosty,' huh?"

"Yup!" He beamed proudly. "Had it for a nickname all my life. I'm hoping to help ye fine group, but are you having issues with my name, sonnie-kid?"

"No, no, we want your help; it's just," Wildfall paused to chuckle. "I don't remember the last time I ran into someone with such an ironic name and powerset before."

"Really?" Bristle sounded surprised. "When I'm with Sassy, we seem to run into people with those kinds of name all the time."

The wizard paused to think. "It does seem quite common, doesn't it?"

"As much as I'd love to comment on that," Wildfall snappily replied, "you said something about how ya might be able to help, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Oh, certainly," Mr. McChilledice replied.

As this conversation was happening, a figure walked up and took a look around.

“Any luck on find a way through?” asked Sir Fumblies as he looked between the pair talking at the rest gathered near by.

Wildfall looked up, frowning. "Yeah. My gal Mary Kate got through. Damn thing formed back right behind her."

“And how did she manage to make that happen?”

"I don't know!" Wildfall snapped, slamming his fist again into the force field. "There was that bat.. creature.. that she thinks was protecting her. I'm worried the thing took her, but these two don't think it did."

"No way!" Gem yelled in her tiny little voice. It took Fumblies a moment to think to look down. She was young and small. Even the child-ghost in Fumblies armor would tower over her. Gem looked up hopefully at the force field. "Whatever it is, I trust it and so does Mary. It's looking out for her, just like Mole looks out for me. I know it."

Bristle nodded in agreement. "But we still have to get her out of there. I'm also wondering if my friends Sassy Snake, Linger and Icy are around town. Tell me, mage, have you seen anyone travelling around with a large troll? Because it's probably her, since there's not that many trolls around."

While the old mage shook his head, and explained he hadn't, Fumblies sighed as he put a hand on the force field while talking with the ninja kid in his armor. "Is there anything you can tell about what happened?"

"Only that there is a great and ancient power behind it, sir," replied the ghost inside of the half-orc's armor. "There is an awesome and malevolent entity at work here, thus the force field. Wait, do people use the word malevolent outside of old ninjas?"

Fumblies just shook his head as he chuckled slightly. "I do but not very often when I was your age. So other than the observation that was expected, is there anything else you can tell me about how Mary Kate was able to get inside?"

Meanwhile the conversation continued on around Fumblies, with the cold wizard talking about how there were other elemental specialists gathering around. Fumblies was only half listening but, unsurprisingly, it sounded like the wizards were a little territorial and jealous, but then again, maybe it was just this old one.

"I'm tellin you," Wildfall insisted, "she put her hand on it and something happened. Bris, that was what she was doing, right?"

Fumblies noticed the image of the ghost child take great interest in this.

"Can anyone offer up anything solid on this or not?" Fumblies was starting to get tired of the bickering around him just wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened. After all, the barrier did need to come down sooner rather than later. "Or do I have to do some experimenting of my own?"

"Here's what's solid, Fumblies," Wildfall answered. "We need to get in there now and I really don't care what you gotta do. If you can rip that barrier and the whole mansion down, as long as MK's safe, I don't care."

"Guys, relax," Bristle insisted. "And yes, the bat person was helping her press her hand to it and the barrier dissolved. I really don't know what happened since I was focusing on the hole she'd created earlier, but I'm sure the field opened up around her and closed behind her. Like Wildfall said."

Fumblies just shook his head as he turned to look at the cold mage. "I believe you said you know how to get through this barrier as I was walking up. Or was that just hogwash?"

"Well," the old man said. "I might. If we could get that crack to appear again, a little frosty magic might just be the thing we need to keep it open. I'd only question if my old body could keep up with the amount of cold we'd need."

"Well supplying cold won't be an issue since I know a pretty skilled frost mage. The question is can you get a crack to appear or not?" Fumblies asked with an air of slight frustration.

The old man looked lost in thought or maybe he fell asleep standing up. Bristle run his hand over his chin, stroking it. "I wish we knew if it responded to Mary because of magic or not."

Wildfall suddenly smiled. "Hey, Fumblies, how do ya feel about grabbin' a feel on the force field and seeing what happens?"

"Worth a shot," Fumblies retorted as it was to the point the only logical plan that anyone had come up with. He laid his hand non-sword hand on the barrier just in case he would need to draw his weapon. Once there he waited to see what would happen. As expected, absolutely nothing happened for several seconds.

"Interesting, I can feel a slight magical vibration coming from the barrier which isn't really any surprise." Fumblies spoke as if the presence of magic had been a no brainer from the very beginning of this. He started to cast an identify spell on the barrier to see what would happen next.

Wildfall wondered why Fumblies had walked off alone. It was strange seeing him without at least a small army of mostly silent Knob Goblins. Well, not terribly long ago, John and Sherri must have been wondering the same thing.

Becky Joy might have been wondering where he'd gone too, although it was equally possible her mind had skipped to another topic entirely.

"Just when things can't get any weirder," Sherri commented.

"Yeah, this place certainly unusual," John added.

"Yeah!" Becky said, finding it oh so amusing. "You should see the marketplace! Lots of strange things there. But there is good yummies to eat, if you need some yummies!"

"We are starving; it was a bit of a ride," John said.

"Thank you, Becky," Sherri added.

"Yup, no problem!" Becky motioned for the two to follow her.

They followed her to a quaint looking cafe looking place. Even though it looked like a regular cafe like they would see back home, there was something odd about the place they couldn't quite tell.

"Hmmm. I didn't know they had cafes in your world," John said to Becky.

Sherri gave John a look. "Honey, I am sure not all areas here are as primitive as Degrassi."

While she listened, Becky kicked the dirt, frowned and made an unhappy noise.

Sherri looked over at Becky. "Ok, is there another place you like to eat?"

Becky blushed, and giggled. "Sorry, hehe. I don't care, I was just hoping I could go to the hot dog stand maybe, if I was good! Yum, hot dogs. Specially the cold ones. Yummie!"

John peeked over and excitedly said, "Ya'll have hotdogs in this world?" with a smile.

"Yeah," Becky said, smiling brighter. "But they are probably way better in the future where you come from, huh?"

"Show us the way girl," John said eagerly.

Sherri laughed. "Never thought we would have hotdogs again since coming to your world."

Becky nodded and lead the way again. "I wish someone would hurry up and invent pizza, though!"

Sherri asked, "How do you know about pizza?"

Becky looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"You mentioned you wished they had pizza here," John said.

"Yeah," Becky said, frowning. "But I don't know anything about it. They haven't invented it yet! Wahh!"

"Perhaps if we find the ingredients here in this world, we will make you one," Sherri told her.

"Yeah the pizzerias in our world are great, even can play games," John added.

"That makes sense!" Becky said, smiling as they passed by a pizza stand. "Yes.. this conversation is completely logical. Also, games! Cool!!"

John pointed in the direction of the pizza stand. "Shall we?" he asked with a smile.

Sherri and Becky went off into another direction, not paying attention.

As they walked along the cobblestone covered streets, they saw various shops, one titled "Shags Sweets." All sweets fifty percent off. Another caught their eye. "Gobs' Gadgets." They stopped at the entrance and saw a display of all kinds of things. Trick arrows. One set promised it had "the cooling and refreshing properties of minty death and peppermint decapitation. Unleash the power of your inner snow-yeti." The store also had an assortment of "sharper sextants," "the new and improved abacus for teens," and even gimmicky glass vials or larger flasks which promised to "keep healing potions fresh longer," "improve the taste of stamina serums," or "boost the effectiveness of stat altering syrup!"

John and Sherri looked at the displays of odd looking gadgets with curiosity. They picked up a trick arrow. John asks the proprietor, "Hey, what's this thing do?"

Since the merchant seemed busy with a bunch of other people in their way, Becky read the sign to him. Well, she read part of the sign to him. "Contact poison. Kills on contact. Sounds cool! They must sell special gloves so you can touch it without getting poisoned."

"Good thing it says 'display model,'" Sherri told Becky to Becky's relief. "So the one John's holding is just a fake."

"Not our thing but cool though," John said.

"Yeah, we prefer less lethal methods," Sherri pointed out.

John set the arrow down and spotted something. A drawing. Crude looking but obviously plans nonetheless. He walked over to take a closer look. "Hey, this looks like a hang glider." John smiled.

"I can see the lightbulb burning a hole in your head already with a crazy idea," Sherri said.

Just then, the shopkeeper turned to them. "Oh, I'm sorry, ladies and sir, but we're closed. I'm just handling the last few customers here but I can't see anyone else. Please come back during normal business hours."

They walked out with John thinking about the glider. "Looks like I got a great project for when we aren't so busy," John said.

"Yeah, I saw you eying the plans for the glider," Sherri commented. They then stopped as they got onto the cobblestone street.

"So Becky, we need to make our way back to the mansion and see what's up," John said.

"Good idea," Sherri replied.

"Ummm.." Becky looked worried and apprehensive as she suggested, "Eat hotdogs first?!"

"Sure we can scarf down a hotdog or 2 while making our way back," Sherri said to Becky and John's delight.

I love the contrast in styles between the two halves. There is only a bit of story covered, but it's covered in a fun way. Besides that, the bit with Becky won her and Blackeagle runner up for funniest moment for the “I wish someone would hurry up and invent pizza, though!" sequence. Which Ichiro (our voter) called "great." Congrats to the two on that. (Although there's two members of Blackeagle, they're considered a single player character, which is currently unique in all of AIL.)

The voter also twice called Becky a "joy." The voter praised Blackeagle's continued growth over the mission as well. We're winding down towards the Finale, but there's still a couple solo stories ahead as well as a final co-write.