Speaker 1: Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world.
I'm Martin, and you are listening to Dad's Bedtime Stories.
Tonight we're going to be headed into another super episode,
a compilation episode of Dad's Bedtime Stories, and this time
we're headed back to the Magic Library, a series I've
only done I think three episodes of so far, but
I really enjoy doing them, and today or this week,
I got another suggestion for it, so I thought it
would be a good time to do a compilation episode
so people can catch up on the series if they
haven't heard it before we start. I want to give
a big shout out to Julie, Scott and Kurt because
your mother wrote me a really nice comment telling me
that she really likes the compilation episodes and I should
do more of them. I used to do one every
single weekend when I first started the podcast, and then
I slowly stopped, and at this point I don't always
know what to do. So if you have a specific
request for a compilation episode, certain episodes you'd like to
see put together, you can leave me a message any
of the normal ways, speak Bype, Google, form, email. It's
all good now, As you guys know, I never ever
put ads during the story on Dad's Bedtime Stories, but
we do have to fund the podcast some way, so
I leave ads at the beginning and right about here.
Now it's time to get as comfy as you can
in that bed, close your eyes and imagine yourself doing
what the kid in the story does. Imagine yourself hanging
out in your very own bedroom. Things are a little
boring today. There's not much to do. You've done everything
you really feel like doing. Man, you're just sitting around
on your bed, trying to decide what's next. Out of
the corner of your eye, you notice a little line
of light on the wall. What is that? You walk
closer to examine the strange line of light, and as
you get closer, you realize that something strange has appeared
on your wall. It's not just one line, it's three lines,
and they're in the shape of a tiny little door.
You press against the wall. It clicks and then pops open,
revealing a tiny little doorway and a series of steps
that lead down a long cavern. What is going on here,
you say out loud, as the walls of the cavern
are suddenly lit up by a series of blue torches.
That line the walls. You obviously can't not explore the
strange cavern that you've just found in your house, so
you begin down the steps. You walk down the stairs,
and then you head through a stone hallway lit by
the same types of blue torches, And soon you come
to another door, a large wooden door. You grab a
hold of the handle, press down on the latch, and
swing the door opened. It reveals a gigantic cavern, or
a gigantic room anyways, a room full of bucks. You
step inside and look around. When you look to the left,
there are stacks upon stacks of bucks. As you look
to the right, stacks upon stacks of books, books on shelves,
books just kind of stacked up on the ground. And
even stranger than any of that, some of the books
seem to be flying from one place to another, using
their book covers as if their wings, and just sort
of gliding magically through the air. You walk into the
large cavern and you look around some more. You come
to a railing and look down upon well other floors
full of books, all surrounding a very cozy looking reading
area or something like that. This place is some sort
of library. Welcome, a voice says, wait, what was that
you say, looking left and right? That was me? I
am the voice of the Library. The voice says, you're
the Are you like a real person or what exactly
are you? You ask, Well, that's hard to explain. But
if you're asking if I'm about to just appear in
front of you, No, my more of a magical voice
or a consciousness built into the library itself. The voice explains,
I will act as your guide here. Okay, you respond,
where is here? Anyways? Where? Here is the magic Library,
a place where any book ever written, any adventure ever
will thought up in someone's mind, appears in the form
of a book. Oh well, that's pretty cool. I guess.
So you have a lot of books. Huh, you say, yes,
but not only that. Our books have a different wave. Well,
the experiencing the story is probably a good way to
put it. It's sort of hard to explain until you
read one. The Voice of the Library says, oh, okay,
should I try to read one? Then you ask, yes,
I highly recommend it. Why don't you head down to
the reading nook and I will find a story that
I believe you will like. What kind of story are
you into the voice of the library asks, I don't know,
maybe something with dragons or nights or something like that.
You respond, that is an excellent suggestion. Working on that. Now,
you walk along the rail until you get to a
set of stairs. You walk down the stairs, which wind
around in a circle and eventually lead you to the
reading knock, a gigantic circle of couches upon couches, couches
of all different shapes and sizes, some fluffy looking, some harder,
a lot of them covered with all sorts of pillows.
There's a couch for any type of couch person. You
find a couch that looks rather comfortable to you, and
you climb on top of it, cozying up into the
side of it. When you see a book floating through
the air, I believe I have found the perfected venture,
the voice says, as the book floats down once again,
using its book covers as wings or something like that.
You put your hand out and the book shifts its position,
closing up and landing gently in your hands. The cover
of the book reads the Dragon King, and it has
a picture of a large golden dragon sitting atop a
mountain with a castle on it. What do I do now?
You ask, well, you open the book, of course, the
voice answers, and so you do. But instead of seeing
pictures or words on pages like you would have expected,
you just see, well, a glowing blue portal, a miniature
glowing blue portal, right on the page of the book.
Only it's moving and clearly not a still picture at all.
What's this, you ask, That is how you enter the book?
Of course, that is a book portal. What's a what's
a book portal? What do I do with a book portal?
You say, where, Just move towards it with the intention
of entering the book and it would do the rest.
So with that, you sort of your head down towards
the book until there's this strange pulling sensation and your
entire body is sort of sucked through the buck. When
you open your eyes again, you find yourself in a
completely different place, a completely different time, and wearing completely
different clothes. You look down at your one hand and
you're holding some sort of flute. Once upon a time,
the voice of the librarian says, in the Grand Kingdom
of Eldoria, that was a kid, a kid named Finn.
You assume that you must be this Finn character, or
at least playing the part of the Finn character. Finn
was the son of a humble musician, a man who
played the flute with such beauty that even the birds
would stop singing and listen. Finn had learned to play
from his father, and though young, his melodies carried through
the kingdom like a whisper on the wind. You experience,
for a second, flashing through different scenes, different scenes of
Finn's life, learning to play the flute with your father,
walking through Eldoria, until once again you find yourself sitting
in a room, sitting with the flute. Eldoria was not
a kingdom ruled by a kind king or a noble queen.
The voice says no. Atop the highest mountain sat the
Dragon King, a massive golden beast whose scales shimmered like
molten treasure. He was powerful and wise, but also kind
of grumpy, impatient, and quick to temper. If taxes were late,
he roared. If the weather was too hot, he grumbled.
If someone dared to look at him the wrong way,
he would huff a great puff of smoke in their face.
The people of Eldoria feared him, though he did not
burn their homes. A demand war he was not a
very nice ruler. One evening, after a long day in
the village square, Finn sat by the fire as his
fire told him a tale. You find yourself sitting by
a fire, holding the flute in your hand, and listening
to some old man you don't really recognize. Across from
you must be Finn's father, You realize, well, kid, I
think it's time to tell you the story of the dragon.
Finn's father said, once, long long ago, the dragon king
was different. He was fierce, but he was tamed by
the great hero. You sit up suddenly, a hero. You respond, Wait,
you're not really sure what compelled you to say that
at all. Your father nods towards you or Finn's father,
depending on how you're looking at it. A warrior clad
and enchanted armor, golden armor, carrying a golden sword. This
hero did not slay the dragon, but rather he tamed
him with his strength and wisdom. They ruled together for
years in peace, until the hero passed away. With no
one to guide him, The dragon king grew bitter and lonely.
The armor was sealed away in a hidden dungeon where
only the worthy may reclaim it. You feel your heart
begin to pound as you hear this revelation, something about
you really wants to find that armor. I'm gonna find
the armor, you declare out loud, gripping your flute tightly.
Your father looks at you and just chuckles. It's not
gonna be easy, kid. The dungeon is a place of
trials only a true hero can pass through. But you,
I guess, experiencing the life of Finn, have made up
your mind. Where with nothing but his flute, continues the librarian,
a satchel full of bread and his courage. Finn ventured
beyond the kingdom's borders, through the dark forest, and across
the River of Mist, where he found the entrance to
the Forgotten Jungle. As the Librarian reads through each part
of the adventure, the images flash through your mind until
you find yourself standing in front of a strange, huge
door carved with old ruins. You step inside, and the
torches on the wall flared life, revealing a large corridor
that stretches out lined with dangerous traps. You tiptoe forward
when you suddenly hear a thunk. As spikes shoot out
of the walls. You gasp and jump backwards, just in time.
The floor too, is littered with all sorts of pressure plates.
One wrong step and swoosh more spikes. You hear the
voice of the librarian again. Finn took a deep breath.
He realized that this was much like playing a song.
Every step had to be precise, just like every note
on his flute. He focused listening to the tiny clicks
before the spike shot out, and carefully he made his
way across. Oh that's how I do it, you realize, man.
Trying to follow that advice, you listen for the clicks
that happen just before the spikes shoot out. You notice
the rhythm of the spikes, and you get kind of
a beat for it. And then as you look at
the pressure plates in front of you, certain ones sort
of start to light up just the right times, just
the right times to avoid the spikes. So you leap forward,
jumping from pressure plate to pressure plate exactly at the
perfect time, missing every single one of the spikes, and
making your way safely to the other end, panting next,
the librarian's voice continues. Fit and came to a room
filled with bubbling lava. The only way across was a
series of crumbling stone pillars and With that, a lake
of lava appears in front of you, dotted of course,
with a series of crumbling stone pillars. You carefully climb
onto the first and then make your way to the second.
The pillars wobble, but you hold on tight. You can
feel the heat and it starts to make you feel
a little bit dizzy, but you keep going anyways. Suddenly
one of the stones starts to sink, and you jump
just in time to the next one. Now only one
jump away from the end. You get a feel for
the pillar below you in the stone, and then with
a huge leap of faith, you jump into the air
across the last gap and land on the other side.
And that's when you hear the librarian's voice once again.
And then Finn had to head into trial number three,
the Test of Spirits. You step into another large room,
only this time it's incredibly dark. The only thing you
can see on the other end is a gigantic golden door.
As you walk forward, whispers of doubt and fear and
failure start to hit your ears. Yawn, just a kid,
One of the voices said, the dragon king will never
listen to you. Yaw, not a hero. And then you
hear the voice of the librarian again. Finn's heart began
to pound listening to the strange voices, but he gripped
his flute tighta and you do exactly that music had
always given him strength. He lifted the flute to his lips,
played a soft tune, and the voices began to push backward.
You decide to try that exact thing. As you walk
through the dark room. You lift the flute up towards
your lips. You instinctively place your fingers on it, as
if you've played it thousands of times before, and then
you begin to play a beautiful melody on the flute.
You're not even sure how you can do it. It's as
if you just sort of remember every move, every note,
and before long, the voices disappear. You continue through the
corridor and the large golden door opens up. Inside, sitting
atop a pedestal, you find the enchanted golden armor and
the enchanted golden sword. You quickly walk towards the armor
and begin snapping it into place. As you put on
the last piece of armor, a strange tinkling sensation passes
through your spine, and you suddenly have flashes of hundreds
and hundreds of hours of training, of using your sword,
of moving with grace, of martial arts lessons and wrestling
and battles beyond measure, and then you find yourself back
in the only You now feel like you could do
just about anything, at least with this sword and armor on. Anyways,
something about this armor has given you the experience of well,
all sorts of heroes who have worn it before you. Maybe, then,
the voice of the librarians continues. Clad in his armor,
Finn felt different. He felt strong, as if he had
trained for centuries. He swung the golden sword, and his
body moved with perfect precision, as if the knowledge of
all warriors before him now flowed into his veins. But
it was time time to face the dragon. Wait a second,
you say, I'm actually gonna have to fight a dragon here? Well, yes,
the voice of the narrator response, how else would we
finish the story? I'm not sure I want to finish
this story. I'm not really sure I'm up for a
battle against a dragon. I mean, I know, I just
learned a whole bunch of martial arts and sorts stuff,
But it's a dragon. You say, Well, if you would
not like to continue. You may exit at any time,
and with that, a glowing portal appears beside you. Oh okay.
Then you move towards the portal, and once again you're
sucked through it, finding yourself back in the library, only strangely,
you're still wearing the gold armor with the golden sword.
I can bring stuff out of the books, you say, where, Yes,
as long as the book is opened, your connection to
it remains strong. However, there are some precautions to take.
The librarian says, yeah, yeah, I know, be careful with
the sword and that sort of stuff. But this is
so cool. You begin to move around the library, swinging
the sword through the air, performing jumps and leaps and
parkorel like moves over the furniture, down the stairs, and
basically all around the place. It's pretty fun to play
with this armor, and the library itself is gigantic. Then
you hear a noise, a growling noise. You move back
through the stacks of books and look out on the
reading area where you were sitting previously and where you
left the book open on the table, and there you
see a gigantic golden dragon crawling out of it. The
dragon looks up at you, opens its mouth and unleashes
a torrent of fire. You instinctively jump to the side,
roll out of the way, and hide behind a shelf
of books. Uh, librarian, what's going on exactly? You say?
Where you left the book opened, and therefore you left
the adventure opened. And if you aren't going to it,
sometimes adventure has a way of finding you, the librarian explained.
Couldn't you have told me about that earlier? You say, yes,
But it's fuddy to find out this way, don't you think,
the librarian says, and then another torn of fire passes
right by your head. You peek out for behind the books.
You grab a hold of your sword, and you realize
that if you're gonna end this thing, you better do
it how the book intended. You jump up onto the
railing and leap forward towards the dragon, obviously executing a
perfect front flip as you do so. You swing the
sword through the air and strike down the dragon as
hard and as quickly as you can, but your sort
just kind of clanks off against it and flies out
of your hand. You find yourself standing on the ground,
staring directly at the dragon's face. He takes another huge breath,
and just before he can hit you with a torn
of fire, you jump to the left and rolled out
of the way, hiding behind yet another bookshelf with no sword,
Not that it did you any good anyways. You think
for a while, how exactly was the book gonna finish
this whole thing? How can I take on a gigantic dragon?
And then you realized what Finn's father said at the
beginning of the book. The hero didn't fight the dragon
or defeat the dragon. He tamed the dragon. How exactly
would he have tamed the dragon? You think, and then
you reach damn and feel the flute. Of course, the flute.
It was a major part of the book. It was
obviously going to come up again. You lift the flute
up to your mouth and you begin to play once again.
Your fingers just move automatically, as if you've played the
flute thousands and thousands of times. A beautiful melody starts
to play, and as it does, you can tell that
the dragon's becoming less upset. You continue to play the
flute and you peek out from behind the bookshelf. The dragon,
instead of looking angry and like he wants to burn
things down, is just lightly swaying his head back and
forth to the rhythm of the music. It's obviously putting
him in some sort of trance. Stand up and move
from behind the bukshelf towards the dragon once again, and
the dragon just continues to move to the malady of
the music. Wow, the dragon says, this is the same
music my last master used to play. Only one who
can play music this well can ever earn my heart? Buddy,
you kid, you've done it. You continue closer to the dragon.
He reaches his head out towards you. You stop playing
the flute and reach your hands up to the gigantic
dragon head. The dragon then pushes its head against your hand.
Sort of been the same way a cat would. Now
The dragon says, would you like to finish the adventure?
He ducks his head down and invites you to climb aboard.
You find a perfect looking spot just at the base
of his neck, whereas scales have form themselves into an
almost natural saddle. You climb on top of it, grabbing
on to two large golden spikes that bend around making
perfect handles. The dragon jumps up in the air and
then dives straight into the book. You're once again sucked
through the portal and find yourself inside the world of
the book, the world of Eldoria. You fly just below
the clouds, high above the forests and towards a large
mountain with a huge palace atop it. The golden dragon
drifts easily through the air, circling around the palace atop
the huge mountain until it eventually comes down for a
graceful landing in the center. The dragon then walks down
a gigantic corridor big enough for well a dragon, towards
a large chair on the other end. You slide off
of the dragon and walk towards the very beautiful looking chair,
a throne of some kind. The throne is yours, the
dragon says, and you walk forward, sit down on the throne,
and another portal appears beside you. You hear the voice
of the librarian once again, where young Adventurer, good job
finishing the story and experiencing Finn's adventure. You may hag
around as long as you wish, or exit the portal.
Now you decide that it's probably been a long enough day.
You get up off of the throne and move towards
the portal. Once again, You're sucked through, and you find
yourself in the library once more. You're feeling pretty tired now,
so you carefully close the book. As soon as you do,
the armor that you are wearing disappears and sort of
re absorbs into the book itself. You rest the book
down on a table. I don't know if I want
to leave this place, will they be able to find
it again? You ask? Has that door always been in
my room? Where? Not exactly? However, I have a gift
for you. With that, a flying golden key appears in
front of you and floats down into your hand. This
is the key to the library. You may use it
anywhere any time. Simply place it inside a wall, turn
and the door to the library will appear. With that,
you walk back up the stairs through the long corridor
that led from your room and moup the set of
stone steps as well. You push open the little secret
door that led from your room to the secret library
in the first place, and you find yourself in your
bedroom once again, only it seems to be nighttime now.
You carefully close the door and it instantly vanishes from existence.
You place the library key in a nice safe spot
in your room. Then you climb into your bed once again,
You pull the covers up over top of yourself, You
close your eyes, and you begin to just drift off
to a nice deep sleep where dreams of new things
and new adventures just can find you. Good night everyone. Now,
if you didn't listen to the first Magic Library series,
it's really no big deal. Each one's kind of independent.
But in the last one, at the end, you were
given a very special key, a key that can open
up a doorway to the Magic Library from basically anywhere.
On this particular day, the world outside doesn't look too exciting.
It's raining a lot, and it's not really the type
of day where you feel like going and playing outside.
You see sitting beside your bed an old and ancient
looking key, the key to the Magic Library, and you
haven't even had a chance to test the thing out yet.
You pick up the key, and remember what the librarian said,
that strange voice of the library. All you have to
do is use the key in any wall, anywhere, and
a doorway to the library will appear. You walk over
to a wall in your room and you push your
stuff aside, making a large enough space for the door
or the door to be. You hold the key in
your hand and you push it toward the wall. Strangely,
just as it's about to hit the wall, a key
slot magically appears. You place the key inside, turn it
to the right, and with a click, a glowing outline
of a door peers. You pull on the key and
the door opens up, leading to a long set of stairs,
followed by a long hallway, all lit by blue torches.
You walk down the stairs, down the hallway, and eventually
you come to a second door. With a turn of
the knob, the door opens up into a vast and
impressive library, stack upon stack of books, floor upon floor
of book stacks, and a whole bunch of books just
sort of flying through the air using their covers like
little magical wings. Where Welcome back, A voice says, a
voice you know to be the library. What can I
help you find today? The voice asks, I don't know.
I was looking for something kind of adventurous. I kind
of have my mind set on a pirate adventure. You
have anything like that? WHOA do I have pirate adventures?
You ask? Of course, we have pirate adventures, and I
think I know the perfect one. Please have a seat.
You walk down a series of steps that wind around
in a circle down to the main reading area with
circles of couches that are incredibly comfortable. You find a
little nook with a whole bunch of pillows. You jump
onto the couch. You pull a blanket over your leg,
and you get as cozy as you can. Book in coming,
the librarian says, And you see a book float towards
you in the air. It shifts its orientation and floats
down gently into your hands as the cover of the
book opens. This book, the voice explains, is called the
Pirate King's Treasure. Ah, you ready to depart, I guess,
so you respond, And with that your eyes become lost
in a strange spiraling portal inside the book, and then
your whole body just sort of gets sucked right into it.
When you open your eyes, you find yourself standing aboard
a small pirate ship, surrounded by a small crew of pirates,
with the wind passing through your hair. As you moved
towards some sort of pirate port, you hear the voice
of the librarian began to narrate the book. The storm
sparrow drifted into the pirate port, its sails, catching the
last of the evening breeze. Around the docks. Towering galleons loomed,
their massive halls, creaking against wooden piers, the ships of legend,
commanded by captains with decades of adventure behind them. And
then there was Kid's ship, the Storm Sparrow. The Storm
Sparrow was much smaller than the other pirate ships, but
it was fast, agile, and most importantly, it was kids. Now.
Kid was no ordinary pirate. No one expected someone so
young to have a ship, let alone a crew. But
Kid had something that no other pirate did. Pirate jitsu,
a secret art known only to a handful of warriors,
lost to history. With that, you begin to have flashes
of memory passed through your mind. Hours upon hours of
training in pirate jitsu, practicing your skills, battling other pirates,
and you suddenly feel like you know every single move.
Once again, standing there top the deck of the boat,
the librarian continues to narrate the book. Through skill determination
and a few well placed kicks, Kid had earned the
respect of a small but loyal crew. And then, of
course there was Sparkles, the parrot hound, half parrot, half
pirate dog, and twice the size of any normal beast.
It was perched on the mast, scattering the port below.
You look up at the mast of the ship, and
sure enough you see a gigantic and mean looking dog
with huge parrot like wings that must be Sparks. Sparkles
was strong, fierce, and most importantly, he could fly. That
the sound of kids whistle, the parrot hound would come
soaring through the sky, ready for action. You look down,
and hanging around your neck is a whistle. As you
look down at the whistle, another memory passes through your mind,
a memory of you blowing the whistle on many occasions,
and your parrot dog, Sparkles, swooping in and saving the day.
You watch as the ship approaches the dock. As soon
as the crew ties it down, you step off of
the ship. All around you are a whole bunch of pirates,
singing sea shanties urchints, hollering about stolen treasure, and in
the small corner of a smoky tavern, a weathered old
pirate leans back, watching the world with eyes that look
like they've seen too much. You order yourself a root
beer and you slowly drink it as you listen to
the tales that pass between the sailors. And then you
hear it, or the pirate king. The old man mutters.
You turn the pirate king, you ask. The man eyes you,
sizing you up. I Eva hear the legend. You shake
your head. Ah, the pirate King was the greatest pirate
ever sail these seas. He took everything, gold, jewels, ships said,
he was the best there ever was. Oh what happened
to him? You ask? That's the thing, the old pirate says.
One day he just sort of vanished. Him and his
whole crew sailed off to find an island where pirates
could live forever, rich and free. But they are never
seen again. You lean forward, so you're saying, the treasure's
still there. The pirate grins, revealing a whole bunch of
missing teeth. I and I happened to have a map.
He pulls out a tattered piece of parchment and unrolls
it very dramatically. The lines and markings are faded, but
you see an ax on a distant island. The whole
thing starts to feel a little bit like a scam.
You wonder if they give every new pirate in this
area this exact same map. But as you reach down
into your pocket and pull out your coin purse. You
realize that you're not doing too badly. You can probably
afford to fall for at least one scam. You slide
a handful of gold across the table, and the pirate grins,
and that is how the Adventure for the Pirate King's
Treasure began. The librarian narrates once more. You immediately head
back to the ship and signal to the crew that
it's time to go. New adventure awaits. You watch as
the crew quickly loads the last of the supplies aboard
before untying the ship and paddling back out to sea.
Before long, the storm sparrow is cutting through the waves.
It sails billowing as your crew works the rigging. You
hold the map in your hand and find that you
are an excellent navigator, easily able to decipher what's on
the map and tell your crew where to go based
on it. It's actually kind of strange. You soon come
to a very treacherous looking area of water that is
labeled on the map as the Devil's Teeth, which sounds
rather ominous. Ahead of you, you see treach waters littered
with whirlpools, jagged spires of rock, and crashing waves that
could splinter any ship in just seconds. Luckily, the map
indicates a clear path through all of the treacherous waters.
Then you shout commands and steer the ship as you
and the crew zigzag your way through the proper channel.
Yeah we're getting close, your first made, shouts, But the
waves are turning against us. The wind howls, and suddenly
there's a crack as a massive wave slams on the
side of the ship and sends you skidding across the deck.
Brace yourselves, you yell as you roll to the side.
The whirlpools churn, spinning like hungry mouths in the water,
but you see a path directly between them, a narrow,
little opening between two spires of rock. It's tight, but
your ship's pretty small, and if you're fast enough, you
should be able to make it hard to starboard, you yell.
Your crew jumps into action, hauling the sails as you
grip the wheel, turning with all of your strength. The
ship lurches, nearly capsizing as it squeezes through the gap.
For a moment, you think you've made it, and then boom,
a massive wave crashes over the deck. The mast groans,
the ship shutters, the storm sparrow barely holds together as
it breaks free of the rocks, and the sea calms
x sharply to have much report, you ask, there be
some broken boards and a busted sail. Your first mate shouts,
but we're still sailing. You grin good because I have
a feeling that the real danger is still ahead. It's
a long time before you finally see the island in
the distance, but before you can celebrate, you see something
moving in the sky. At first you think it's a cloud,
but then it makes a strange shrieking sound and you
realize that it's not a cloud at all. It's hundreds
upon hundreds of winged creatures. They descend down towards the ship,
their talons glinting in the sunlight. Your crew begins to panic,
but for some reason you don't. You step forward, take
in a deep breath, and then you strike. The first
creature dives. You dodge, spinning and kicking with perfect precision
pyra jitsu. You execute a perfect backflip and knock a
creature out of the sky. Another lunges, but you parry
you with a kick, sending it tumbling into the sea.
The creatures shriek and fury swarming faster. You're amazed at
your own ability, but there's just too many creatures. You
look down and see it a whistle, your whistle. You
grab a hold of the whistle around your neck, blow
on it as hard as you can, and with that,
Sparkles launches from the mast with a mighty flap his wings.
But you also notice something strange. All of the creatures
around you seem to react to the whistle, shrugging themselves
backward and kind of I don't know, grimacing for a second,
if winged creatures can grimace. Sparkles joins the fight, using
his talon like feet to rake through the creatures and
knock them away, but there's just too many. And then
an idea strikes you. You run over to the speaking horn,
the device that's used to call across the deck, and
hold it in your lips. Then you grab your whistle
and blow it as loud as you can. The sound
amplifies a piercing note that shakes the air. The creatures
all shriek, but this time in pain. Then, like a
storm breaking, they scatter, disappearing into the sky. You continue
to blow the whistle again and again until all of
the creatures are gone. You lower the horn and the
crowd cheers, and before you the island rises from the mist,
Your destination, the Pirate King's Island. The storm sparrow drifts
towards the shore. Its haull is kind of broken, but
it's still afloat. The crew moves swiftly, securing ropes, lowering
the anchor, and nighttime begins to set, lit by a
very bright and very full moon. You leap off of
the ship onto a series of rocks, use your pirate
jitsu and gracefully land on the sand of the beach.
The moonlight glistens over the sand, revealing something that shouldn't
be there. A shipwreck, A massive, black sailed ship, half
buried in the sand, its masts splintered. It's once proud
flag torn and faded. Your chest tightens. This is no
ordinary wreck. This must be the Pirate King's ship. Capt'n
your first mate, says something's wrong. You feel it too.
The air starts to feel heavy and wrong, and then
you feel a tremor. The sand shifts, the water stirs,
and with a terrible roar, something rises from the depths.
A giant octopus. It's massive tentacles, moving around and slamming
against the shore, knocking crew members off of their feet.
Its eyes are huge, and you see something in them,
not hunger, something worse intelligence. You barely roll aside as
a tentacle whips down, cracking the sand just where you stood,
and the battle begins. You do a perfect flip, dodging
another strike, and with pirate jitsu, you land a powerful
kick against the creature's side, but it's gigantic and barely
phased by that at all. Your crew attacks as well,
sparkles dives, clawing and slashing at the giant octopus. But
it's not enough. You need something more, and then you
see something very strange, a golden necklace hanging around the
creature's neck. Something about it feels wrong, and then in
a flash, you understand this isn't just an octopus, this
is actually the pirate King. You run toward the wrecked ship,
diving through the cracked hull, and inside, half buried under
gold and jewels, you find it. A gigantic box with
its lid thrown open. Patched into the surface is ancient
pirate writing a warning, a curse. Those who seek the
treasure must be pure of heart else, they become what
they take. The pirate king took the treasure, and it
took him in return. You hear the beast roaring, and
you realize you don't have much time. You grab your
whistle once again and blow it as hard and as
loud as you can. In second, Sparkle swoops in, landing
beside you. I need your help, buddy, you say quickly,
I need you to find the necklace, the necklace that's
hanging around the octopus's neck. The parrot hound sniffs, its
eyes sharpen, and then its head snaps up in a
flurry of wings. He launches into the night. You race
back to the beach, just in time to see Sparkles
snatch the golden necklace off the octopus's neck. The beast howls,
its tentacles flailing, Sparkles soars through the air, drops the
necklace toward you. You jump up and, using the box itself,
catch the necklace, slamming the lid of the box down
as quickly as you can. For a second, nothing really happens,
and then there's a burst of golden light. The beast freezes,
its massive form glows, its tentacles start to shrink, its
eyes start to soften. Then, where the gigantic octopus once stood,
the Pirate King himself stands before you, human once more.
He looks at his hands, at the wreckage around him,
and then at you, and he smiles, kid, he says,
his voice rough from years lost. You've done what no
other pirate ever has. I always knew some scally wag
would come after my treasure, but I never thought they'd
be the one to save me instead. The rest of
your crew gathers, still in shock, sparkles lands beside you,
ruffling his fur, and the Pirate King shakes his head,
looking around at the ruined ship, the golden treasure spilling
out of its broken hull. I thought I had it all,
he mutters, the biggest horde of treasure the world had
ever seen. But I took what wasn't mine to take.
The curse twisted me, made me something something else. His
eyes flickered towards the massive golden box, the ancient warning
still carved in its surface. He sighs. No pirates should
claim what they don't deserve. You cross your arms, So
what now? You ask? Where? Kid? The Pirate King says,
I think it's high time, this island finally lived up
to its legend. This treasure belongs to all pirates, not
just one man. Together, we can make this island the
greatest pirate haven the world has ever seen. Your crew
cheers and their voices rise into the night, and then
time starts to move faster as you have flashes of
the next few years, building up the pirate island with
the help of your crew and your parrot hound, until
you find yourself on a fully transformed pirate island with
pirates of all sorts visiting and celebrating and just having
a great pirate life. With that, a strange portal appears
beside you. Whoa, You almost forgot you were in a
book that and with that the librarian's voice appears. The
hunt for the Pirate King's treasure came to an end.
You step towards the portal and once again you're sucked
into it, only to find yourself on the other side,
laying down on the comfortable couch holding the buck. The
book closes and floats up into the air. Then, using
its covers as little wings, it floats off into the library. You,
on the other hand, are feeling pretty tired w the librarian,
you mind if I just have a quick little sleep
right here? You ask, not at all, the librarian responds.
The lights in the library begin to dim gently. You
place your head on the very soft pillow, and you
tuck yourself into the very comfortable couch. With each breath,
your mind begins to wander off a little more, and
your muscles begin to sink down into the couch, each
breath letting go of a little more tension, until you
feel like you're floating on a cloud that your mind
wanders off to thoughts of new dreams and new adventures
to come. Good night everyone. Now, this story takes place
in our Magic Library series, a place where you have
a magic key that can be put in pretty much
any wall and create a doorway to the Magic Library,
a place where all stories are recorded and where those
very same stories can come to life. Now, this story
starts in much the same way as some of the others.
There's some weather outside, weather that isn't so pleasant. There's
no use on going outside to play for some reason.
The internet's down, so you're gonna have to occupy yourself today.
You look around your room for different toys to play with,
books to read, things to do. And that's when you
see the key, an ancient looking metal key, the one
that leads to the magic Library. You grab a hold
of the key, walk over towards a blank wall in
your room, and press the key towards the wall. As
soon as you get close to it, magically, a little
key hole and the outline to a door appear in
the wall. You place the key in the key hole,
turn it, and with a click, the wall opens up up,
leading to a series of stairs that lead down to
another hallway, all lit by some sort of magical blue torchlight.
You head down the ancient looking stone stairs and through
the long corridor until you once again come to another door.
You turn the door handle, open it up, and you
find yourself once again in the Magic Library. Now, the
Magic Library is absolutely gigantic. It stretches on further than
you've yet explored, different rooms, different corridors, different floors, all
stacks upon stacks upon stacks of books, and at the
same time you can see books floating through the air,
using their covers like wings, moving from one place in
the library to another. Welcome back, young one, a voice says,
from seemingly nowhere. The librarian what kind of adventure could
I bring you today? The voice asks, Huh, I don't
really know. Actually, to be honest with you, I'm kind
of in a creative mood. I'd sort of like to
make my own book. Then I have the perfect thing
for you, one blank book coming up. You soon see
another magical book whizzing through the air, flying with only
its covers. It shoots down towards you, changes position and
floats down into your hands, closing the cover as it drops. Oh,
a blank book, you realize, as you open the cover
and see the little portal that leads inside the book,
but nothing else on any of the pages. You carry
the book down the stairs towards the large, comfortable reading area,
a huge series of couches of all different shapes and sizes,
each one extremely comfortable and perfectly equipped for reading. You
sit down on one of the couches and you open
the cover again. How exactly does this work? You ask?
As you flip to the first page. All you see
are two things, A giant eraser picture and a giant
pen or pencil picture. Well, every blank book comes with
two things. A magical pen capable of drawing and writing
in any color you could imagine band, of course, an
eraser for erasing things. Oh cool, So I just go
into the book and then I can use those two things.
You clarify. Yes, I will be around to guide you.
So you flip back to the cover page, where the
little swirling portal is sitting, and you move your head
towards it. Suddenly your whole body feels like it's been
sucked through a straw, straight into the portal and then
out the other side, where you see nothing, I mean
pretty much nothing. You look to the left and you
just see blank whiteness. To the right, the same thing,
a completely blank canvas. The only things sitting there, of course,
on a little pedestal, are the magic pen and the eraser.
You walk over to the pedestal, reach your hand out
and pick up the pen. It's completely black, but it
seems to be full of rainbow colored ink. How do
I make this work? You ask? Where. All you need
to do is use your imagination. Picture what it is
you want to create as vividly as you possibly can
inside your mind, and then the pen will do the
And I can draw anything I want to, you ask, Yes,
you can draw anything you want to. You can tell
any story you want to. It's all up to you. Cool. Well,
let's see here. You hold the pen up in the air,
you close your eyes, and you just try to imagine
a nice relaxing scene, a park with green grass and
trees and a blue sky, and maybe even some playground equipment.
Then something sort of comes over you. You automatically know how
to move the pen. You begin to swipe it back
and forth. Ink flows out of it and sort of
form itself into the pictures that you're thinking of. Soon,
the green grass shoots out of the pen and spreads
all around you. Then the pen turns blue to create
the blue sky and white for little clouds. Trees are created,
the playground comes to life. You put the pen down,
and you find yourself staring at a beautiful park on
a perfectly sunny day. And the coolest part is it
isn't just a picture. It's a fully built three D
rendering of the park itself. You walk over to the
playground equipment, you climb up on top of it, You
move around, you go down the slide. Everything works just
like you imagined. You move over to one of the trees,
a perfect climbing tree, and you climb up it. Branch
by branch, working your way higher and higher into the sky.
You look out at the landscape and as far as
you can see there's green grass and blue skies. You
move down to the bottom where what do you think?
The voice asks, this is so cool? How do I
create something new? Mah? For that, you would need the
new page button. Look on the back of the pen.
You hold the pen up and sure enough, on the
back of it there's a little button, or two little
buttons to be exact, one that says next page and
the other that says previous. You press the next page
button and it looks like reality itself is turning the
page around you. The park page flips almost straight through
your body and you find yourself on another completely blank page.
Now what do you want to have happen in this scene?
You think for a while. With it being kind of
a sad looking day outside and you wanting to run
around and explore, you want something active, something fun and well,
something you probably can't really experience in reality. Hm. After
thinking for a while, it comes to you. I want
to be a ninja, you say to yourself, and you
picture the perfect ninja training areas, wall to climb obstacles
to jump and swing from, targets for ninja stars, swords
lining the walls, anything a ninja could imagine, And just
like before, ink starts to flow out of the pen
and it begins building itself into that reality. The ink
forms into obstacles, into buildings, into walls, into grass, and
again a beautiful blue sky. When you're finished, you look
around and see a pretty amazing ninja training area. There's
a ninja obstacle course off to the right, a huge
sparring and training area over to the left, a rack
of ninja weapons and ninja equipment on the wall of
the building. The only thing missing our actual ninjas, which
wait a second, can you draw those as well? You
picture in your mind a series of ninjas jumping from
place to place, and the obstacle course, sparring in the
sparring area, and once again, the ink starts to flow
out of your pen and your arm moves almost automatically.
Little blobs of ink form themselves into ninjas, fully equipped
in dark ninja garbs and ninja weapons. And when you're finished,
the ninja training area has come to life. There's ninjas
checking out the obstacle course, jumping from platform to platform,
swinging from ninja monkey bars and that sort of thing.
And off to the other side there's a group of
ninjas formed a circle, with two ninjas fighting each other
in the middle. Cool. How can I join in? You
wonder where It is just as important to imagine the
main character as well as the scene. What are their abilities?
What are they wearing? In a place like this, all
of it can become a reality. So you do just that.
You close your eyes and you imagine yourself in ninja garb.
You imagine yourself with ninja likeabilities, the ability to do
cool front flips and spinning kicks and strikes, and you know,
standing up on top of a single finger balancing in
the air. Then you allow the ink from your pen
to flow once again, only this time it's around your
entire body. Soon the ink moves out of the pen
and starts to form itself around your arms and legs,
well your entire body frankly into a perfectly equipped ninja outfit.
You place the pen in your ninja pocket. Since you
have the sudden urge to perform pretty amazing ninja moves,
you look around, and with nothing to run into, nothing
to hit, you start to run forward. You jump up
in the air gracefully and execute a perfect front flip
landing on the ground gracefully, something you weren't to where
you could do. But to be honest, you suddenly feel
like you could do any ninja related thing, so you
start to try different things out. You jump up in
the air and do a perfect three sixty degree roundhouse kick. Cool.
You jump forward onto your hands and find that you
can perfectly balance on them, and you begin walking around
the training area using your hands as feet. You're able
to balance without any issues at all. In fact, you
decide to see how far you can push these ninja abilities.
You remove one of your hands, lifting it up beside
your body, and you can still balance on the other one.
Then you move yourself up onto your fingers instead of
your full hand, and you find you can balance on
your fingers. Then, slowly you remove your fingers themselves until
you're standing on only one your pointer finger. Strangely, you
can perfectly balance on it as well. You bend your
arm and throw yourself up into the air, landing back
on your feet. That is amazing. Next, you try out
the Ninja Parkore obstacle course. You start on a series
of small pillars that get smaller and smaller as you go.
You put your foot on the first one and you
leap to the second. This is actually effortless, you realize,
because you are a perfectly trained ninja. You jump from
pillar to pillar as they get smaller and smaller and smaller,
but it's no obstacle for a ninja as well trained
as you. Next, you get to a series of swinging bars.
They swing back and forth in the air, high above
a large pool of water. You jump to the first
bar and grab a hold. It swings through the air
and you release it at its peak, performing a perfect backflip,
before grabbing on to one of the other swinging bars.
You make your way from bar to bar across the
huge pool of water, until you eventually land on the
other side and look up at a gigantic cliff. The
cliff looks like it should be completely impassable. There aren't
many hand holds at all, and well, frankly, you should
just slip down the thing, But you watch as some
of the other drawn ninjas make their way up, and
you assume you can do the same thing. You move
towards the wall, and your instincts take over, pushing your
hands and feet to the perfect grips places that don't
look like you should even be able to hold onto them,
But with the right movements and the right pressure and
the right places, you're able to hold yourself onto the wall.
You slowly move yourself up and effortlessly you climb up
which should be an almost impossible looking wall, but you
eventually find yourself at the top of it. Looking down
at the Ninja obstacle course beside you, you see a
huge rope and watch as other ninjas use the rope
to swing back down to the ground. You grab a
hold of the rope, jump up in the air, and
swing down on a long arc towards the ground. The
rope lifts back up on the other side. You let go,
do a perfect double backflip and land on the ground
in a perfect fighting pose. Right beside where the group
of ninjas are training. You wonder for a second if
they'll invite you in. Remember, says the voice, this is
your story. Whatever you wish to have happen will in
fact happen. Just hold the pen and picture it in
your mind. You reach into your pocket and pull out
the pen again. You imagine in your mind, the ninja's
parting ways and inviting you into the ring to battle
one of their kind. Range little strings shoot out of
the pen and into the heads or maybe the minds
of the ninjas surrounding, and then they suddenly look at you.
Would you like to join one of the masks? Please
this way? The ninja's part ways, inviting you to join them.
On the training ground, you walk through into the center
where you see another ninja facing the other way. The
ninja turns around to face you. They bowed towards you,
and you instinctively bow back, and then they take on
a very low and very mean looking ninja fighting stance.
You do the same thing. The other ninja jumps in
the air, attacking with a double front kick, a jumping
double front kick to be exact. Your arms and legs
move automatically, blocking the kick out of the way, spinning
to the sides and striking back towards the ninja, stopping
just before you strike him in the head a single point.
The ninja bows acknowledging the point and gets back to
his fighting stance. This time he runs forward using his fists,
moving one hand around in the air left, right, up
and down, trying to sort of fake you out, but
once again your hands move automatically, blocking the ninja's hands
one by one, ducking underneath, spinning around, and executing a
perfect spin kick, which again stops just before it hits
your opponent. Once again, your opponent acknowledges the point, bows
towards you, and reaches out their hand. You shake their
hand and leave the arena. You feel amazing, like you
could do anything, but also a little bit tired. As
much as you moved with ease, your lungs can still
feel it, and you find yourself panting, I better take
a break, and you pull out the pen again and
hit the button for the previous page. The world shifts
around you and you find yourself still wearing the ninja
outfit inside the park again. You press the button once more,
and you find yourself on a blank page, standing in
front of the portal. Back into the real world, or
into the magic library, anyway is. You move towards the
portal and you're once again sucked through it until you
find yourself back on the other side, sitting on a
couch holding the book. You place the book down beside
you and see that you're still wearing your ninja outfit.
Of course, without closing the book. You can still use
these things in the real world. Of Course, the last
time you did that, things didn't go that well. But
this time you created the book. What could there be
to even worry about? So you place the book off
to the side and you tuck the marker into your pocket.
You decide to see what you can do here. You
jump up on one of the couches, and you find
that you can leap from couch to couch with ease.
You start jumping from couches to bookshelves, over towards the
bottom of the stairs, and flip up backwards onto the
next platform, where you stand atop a rail. You run
across the rail with perfect balance, and then jump through
the air, performing another series of flips, before landing on
the ground, rolling and standing perfectly. It's amazing the agility
that comes with this sort of thing. You look over
towards the blank book, or the you know, the partially
blank book, and you see something else coming out of it,
something unexpected. The eraser, the eraser which you never actually
took in your hands, come to think of, It floats
up in the air. It looks around the room, at
all of the books sitting around, and then it starts
to shoot towards them, smashing into different books and well
trying to erase them, where the voice of the librarian says,
this is not good at all. I suggest you get
a hold of that eraser before it erases everything in
the library, and without hesitation, you try to do just that,
running across the library, jumping towards the eraser that moves away.
Just before you can grab it. It floats up in
the air, sort of taunting you, and then zooms off
towards another stack of books. You run, jump up on
the top of the couches, leap up towards the stairs,
and find yourself standing on the railing once again, running
after the eraser down a long corridor of books. The
eraser stops for a second to erase a book in
its path, and then floats up and shoots in the
other direction. You jump up in the air, aim for
a shandelier that's hanging in the middle of the library,
grab a hold of it with one of your hands,
and swing around the left, shooting up into the air
towards the eraser. This time, you swipe with your right
hand and grab a hold of the eraser in mid air.
You fall to the ground, land perfectly with a little
roll to kind of spread out your momentum, and keep
a hold of the eraser that tries to move left
and right. I think I got it. Ah, what do
we do about those erased books? Though, you ask, Well,
lucky for us, we do keep a backup button. This
button can restore the library back to a former save.
Wait a second, you can. You can make a save
in the magic library. You ask, why, Yes, it is
magic after all, right, I guess I should have assumed that,
you respond, where is this magic button? Well, it's down
a secret corridor. Follow the books, the librarian says, and
a whole bunch of flying books hover around you. They
then start to move through the library. You run after
the books, and the zigzag through different bookshelves, up seek
paths of stairs, and then they come to what looks
like a wall. They lower themselves down to the ground
and shoot through a tiny little corridor. You move over
towards the corridor, accidentally bumping into a bookshelf on your way.
Some books fly off of the shelves, one of which
lands on the ground and opens up. It has a
picture of a banana on it for some reason, like
a living banana with arms and legs. But with no
time to worry about that, You look back at where
the books are, headed through a long corridor that will
require you to crawl. You crawl through the corridor, down
a long series of tunnels until you come to a
small room where you can stand once again. The room
looks kind of like a control center. The whole bunch
of large magical books float in the air, each one
with a picture on it, a picture of different parts
of the library. It looks kind of like a magical
surveillance center. In the center of the floating books is
a large pedestal with a button on it. The reset button. Ah. Perfect,
you found it. Now all you have to do is
press the button. You walk towards the button, when suddenly
something jumps out in front of you, a gigantic banana.
The banana looks at you and then gets down as
low as it can in some sort of banana fighting stance.
You realize that you probably we should have paid a
little more attention to that book that fell off the
shelf and opened up. Seeing us open books to have
a way of coming to life in this place, but
there's no time for that. Now. You move yourself into
a perfect fighting stance as well. Face the banana, hold
out your front hand, and make a little motion that says,
come towards me. The banana jumps through the air, and you,
still in your ninja outfit, spin to the side kick
the banana, pushing it off of its center of balance
and onto the ground, and use your other hand to
hit the reset button. A flash of energy shoots out
of the button and into the library itself. Your ninja
garb disappears, the banana disappears, and presumably the whole building
is reset. Reset complete. The librarian announces. You make your
way back through the little corridor, and when you crawl
out the other side, you see that all of the
books you knocked off the shelf have been put back
in their place and closed. You find that you no
longer have the same strange ninja abilities you had before,
so you carefully walk through the stacks of books back
through the library towards the comfortable sitting area. You see
that even the book you drew yourself is gone, presumably reshelved. Well,
I think that's enough for one day of adventures, you say,
as you walk back up the staircase and back towards
the door to your home. Goodbye, librarian, you shout, goodbye,
see you again. Soon you walk back through the long corridor,
up the ancient looking stone steps, and through the door
back into your bedroom. You close the door, turn the key,
and pull it out of the wall. As soon as
you do, the outline to the door and the keyhole
itself disappears, leaving your wall in pristine condition. Once again.
You see that it's now night time. You must have
been on that adventure for longer than you thought. You
place the key on a shelf, You climb into your bed,
and you close your eyes. You start to focus on
your breath, and with each breath you allow your muscles
to relax a little more, and you start to sink
down into the mattress. And the deeper you go, the
better you feel, and the better you feel, the deeper
you sink, until you feel like you're floating on a cloud,
and your mind wanders off to thoughts of new dreams
and new adventures to come. Good night, everyone, M M no,
and never never m M more than ne m