#dreaming

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"Okay! There's Lane!" Connor waves her over as the childling centaur approaches himself and Jack in the garden. "Did you bring your backpack? We'll need to have plenty of room to bring back goodies from our trip."

"Yup. I also got this strannd to help me walk trods without too much trouble as i'm not sained yet... " She holds a friendship bracelet "It helps"

Jack nods "We should move"

"We're not going on a trod, so it should be safe." He holds up his fingers crossed. "And we're not leaving the Lodge bound'ries. So it's Safe!"

He talks Jack's hand and Lane's, and recites, "East and West, North and South, that's where map lines are found. But going DOWN and going up, We're still on Trolly Ground!" With his bunk released, and gripping his friends tightly, he hopscotches them UP towards the top of the beanstalk!

Depending on height, they may need to land on a leaf and make a few more jumps ALL the way to the top. But, Connor has gathered dross for this!

Handy that a guest arrived just in time to make the distraction...

And hey up they go.. up and yup and yup

And Lily observes this , stepping into the hateful sun. She sighs. Symon is right. Leave non slaugh alone and they get themselves in trouble. Up she climbs as easily as a spider or fly.

And off the kids go... to the top of the Beanstalk and to their adventure

"Is the ground made of clouds, or do the clouds cover the ground?" Connor wonders, as he takes a few tentative steps away from the beanstalk. "That's one small step a Paw...one giant leap, for Shadowpaw kind..."

And he bumps... like in a bubble

Olgar's voice speaks up "This trod has been closed on orders of the Hearth of RIvervale" Just his voice, he's nnot actually here, no mater how much they squint "Password or no dice"

"What? Nooooooooo...." A soft howl of disappointment. "But we were going to go to the candy castle!" He gives a look at Jack and Lane.

Then back to the invisible wall, he reaches up to tap on the 'glass'. "The Password is.. um.... Old Rover, Old Rover, Let Connor Right Over?"

the bubble is quiet, then.... "nah" goes the voice

"Jack, you try."

Jack tries "Uhm... Olgar is AWESOME?"

"Nah" repeats the locking magic

Connor looks to Layne...

He tries again. "Um... "Rugmonster!"

"Hey sweetie" the voice says "Didn't know it would be you. Password accepted"

and it opens.. the bubble gone

and Connor falls onto the silver cloud

without falling THROUGH it

"You did it" Layne says "i'm sorry, I could't decide"

"You didn't know the secret word." He nods. "I knew it all along!"

He looks around... clouds... clouds are COOL... what else lives up here?

The others join... and Lane almost sinks through "Jeepers!"

Connor reaches over and snags a hand of each! "Like in Wizard of Oz. If we hold hands, we can't get hurt."

"Even if there are Lions and Tigers and Bears." He nods. "Oh, my."

Annd that buoys her..

Jack grabs her other hand

He looks around, to see what exactly is up on top of the jelly-bean-stalk

Welll, THEY are.. they've reached the end and are now walking on clouds of silver. However, the silver lining they're on is kind of trod like, and it leads further out... they can see it splits... one fork is going to what looks like a big ole forge/smithy but instead of smoke it's spewing dark angry bits of storm cloud. Another fork heads to a big pearl colored castle.... hugemonggus

"THAT doesn't look friendly. Candy doesn't come in black unless it's licorice, and that tastes bad." Connor looks doubtfully at the Forge.

meanwhile, Connor has been scattering bits of Cap'n Crunch (with Crunchberries!) behind then as a trail.

Clever is Connor

"Then the castle?" Lane asks

"In the stories the Castle is a giant's place" Jack says

"I've heard about Jack the Giant Killer. You're not planning to do THAT, are you?" He asks Jack, his ears perked. "That doesn't sound very nice."

"Onnly giants I know are Seelie trolls, and they're nice" he says

"Oh, I HATE Trolls." His tail wags. "Well, let's go and say hello!"

And so they wander to the giant's castle

"Whoaaaaa. Even a TROLL would feel tiny here." He comments, peering around. Then he calls, "HALLOOOOO-OOOO-OOOO?"

Indeed, everything is UBER big

They're in front of tthis door that looks four times as tall as the lodge

"What are you doing?" A voice says from a swimming pool, oh wait, that's a founntain

Ears perk UP and he looks over. "Visiting! We know the owner of the castle, but it's been ages since we came to play."

"You KNOW the giant? " A fish pops out of the fountain, he appears to be a large Koi, as big as Oak "she's not the playing sort, far from it. She has locked up all the toys in cloud kingdom, if she finds out you have any, she'll lock them up too"

"Why would she do that?!"

"I don't know... all I knonw is, toys are draggged in, and they're nnever dragged out"

"I don't have any water toys... but for your fountain!" He digs into a pocket and tosses the fish a shiny coin!

He looks to Lane and Jack. "Stealing toys is wrong. We should go look into this. The Shadowpaw can't allow it!"