[Sig – 13 years]

Since today is the event day on the SMP, Axel and I decided to hang out around spawn until it's time for it to begin. Everyone is online except for Xander, who said he'll be setting up for the party today. I can understand why he didn't want to be here.

Even with only nine of us hanging out here, it really is noisy.

Right at the time for the event to start, the only non-Agent/Manager NPC appears. His body is mainly white, with several green and gold accents on it, including for his eyes. I haven't actually met him before, but Axel said to be careful if I ever meet him – he's the only NPC with a known sex.

The Master of Trials, as the others call him, seems to issue out quests to players randomly. If they complete them in a timely manner, they receive a reward. If they fail to complete the quest… they lose a significant amount of their items.

In addition to dying and having to go through an obstacle course to return to the rest of us.

Axel's only quest so far was to take on thirty drowned. In a single battle. There was a designated zone for it and the thirty would spawn in as soon as he entered. He wasn't allowed any assistance, and barely managed to complete the quest within the time limit.

Lexi's second quest occurred when she logged on yesterday, and it was to build a petting zoo before the end of her normal stream time. Now, there's a petting zoo not far from spawn – far enough away Central Plaza can expand a bit, but close enough people can reach it easily. I think it's near the edge of the spawn chunks, though I'm not sure.

So maybe a little bit of a distance away from Central Plaza, but still plenty close. It's not like we have to travel across several mountains to reach it.

She gave it a rather basic design, and said she'll fix it up later. Three hours isn't much to build a full, proper petting zoo on the fly.

Especially not when she had to find animals to put into it.

I think that was the admins' way of announcing that another mod was added to the server, this one adding in additional animals to various biomes.

I'm not sure I want to know why Lexi thinks wolves and tigers belong in a petting zoo. Goats and chickens make sense, but wolves and tigers do not. Or maybe she's just holding them there with plans to build a proper zoo later? That would explain its distance from Central Plaza – it would give her more space to build and still allow for Central Plaza and spawn to get built up.

The Master of Trials waves to everyone, then turns and starts walking.

"Follow me," he says.

We all begin following him, and he leads us a little away from Central Plaza, taking us almost directly north before stopping. When he does, he plops down a warp pad and sets a crystal into it, then turns and faces us. A moment later, it turns to night.

"Come."

He steps onto the warp pad and a few moments later, vanishes.

"Seb first!" Lexi says.

"Why me?"

"First members go first," she says. "And I don't doubt that Xander wanted you on before me, so you go first!"

I'm not so sure about that logic, since she was actually helping him with this game. Chances are, she wants me to go first because I'm a better fighter than her. If a fight awaits on the other side, then a god-tier combatant is better than a high-tier combatant who prefers building.

"Alright!"

I step onto the pad and get warped to… whoa. They probably customized the terrain a little here, though it definitely looks like natural terrain. It's a sort of bowl-shaped dip surrounded by hills with a river flowing down one side, into a series of short waterfalls before ending in a pond. Several houses are set up around it, in tones of blacks, greys, and reds. The trees in their yards are all custom-built and made with blacks and greys with some oranges, giving it a little bit of a spooky appearance.

Large jack-o-lanterns made from pumpkins and other blocks are scattered around the area, and so are skeleton figures, scarecrows, floating candles, and more. Stone brick walls with iron bars atop them surround the entire valley, right at the crests of the hills forming it. Scattered along various parts of it are candles, smaller jack-o-lanterns, candles, and more decorations. Also scattered throughout the valley are banners and flags in black and orange.

Two graveyards can be seen from here, and at the center of it all, a market area with NPCs whose models are black with orange eyes.

There are more than three of them, and I know Ms. Katie is helping Xander with setting up the party for tonight. Are those the regular admins running stalls? Or they could be just an NPC mod the team added in, but I think they're actual people.

"This is… spooky," Niko comments when he arrives.

"My inventory's empty!" Abby realizes.

It isn't just our inventories which are empty, even our armor and other slots have been emptied out. I noticed that happen the moment I arrived here. Did they manually clear each person's inventory? Or was it through some sort of setup they can do with admin stuff?

The Master of Trials doesn't say anything until we've all arrived, just watches us.

"Inventories will be restored upon departure," he states. "And a peace is enforced while present. Within this valley are puzzles and trials. Complete them to earn Pumpkin Coins, which you may turn in at the stalls to buy food and drinks, masks, outfits, and more."

"This looks really amazing," Lexi says.

"The King of the Fairies gave great input," the Master of Trials says. "And has personally tested every challenge and puzzle here. Enjoy."

The Master of Trial vanishes.

"Xander tested this?" I ask. "When did he find time for that?"

The only time he would have for it would be after dinner yesterday, I'm fairly certain. He hangs out with us after streams, Monday had a shopping trip, Tuesday had bowling, and Wednesday had Youth Group. I suppose he might have done it on Tuesday, before bowling, but would he really have had time for it?

Xander made it seem like this was something decided over the weekend, so I doubt this could have been arranged before then.

"It's Xander," Niels chuckles. "It wouldn't surprise me if he found a way to fit it into his schedule. I'm gonna go look at the mansion. Anyone want to come with me?"

I check out one of the smaller houses first while texting Xander.

[Sig]: you tested the event? All of the puzzles and stuff?

[Xander]: Dad, Mom, and I worked together to try and solve everything. To make sure they could be solved. Not on the SMP, though. On a separate server for testing it. Good luck!

"Huh."

I begin looking through the smallest house's yard and quickly find a secret passage under one of the trap doors adding detail to a tree. The trap door seemingly just covers a block of wood, but that's a ghost block. Inside is a brown sign with "PUMPKINS" in glowing orange text.

That's all that's in here? It must be part of the puzzle.

I explore the rest of the yard, then the house itself. In various hidden spots are other words by themselves, and I find a book among the dozens on the shelves which has one, too. The book itself refuses to leave the house – if I throw it on the ground, it vanishes and reappears on the shelf and if I take it out of the building, it leaves my inventory and reappears on the shelf.

Definitely some sort of admin-command magic at work here, especially since I can't mess with anything. I can open containers, pull books off of shelves (they all return to the shelves if I try to remove them from here), read the books, open doors and trapdoors, and so on. I can't break anything, change signs, et cetera.

"Oh!" I realize something. "Wasn't there a book… here!"

I pull a book off of the bookshelf acting as an end table in the living room, in front of the fireplace. A fire crackles inside of the fireplace, the main source of light in the lower level of the house. The entire building is fairly dark right now with most of its light coming from either this or leaking in from outside.

No monsters are spawning, so I guess they disabled those for this event. That, or we don't hit completely zero anywhere. The might have hidden lights in a few places, though I can't tell for sure.

"What does it say again?" I ask as I open it. "'Granny always warned me'. Hm… it's the only thing with more than one word on it. What were the other words, again? 'Pumpkins', 'watch', 'night', 'for', 'at', 'the', 'walk', and 'which', right?"

Chat confirms I remembered the words correctly, though a few chatters try to misdirect me. One chatter event says it's "dance" rather than "walk".

"That's got to be the answer to this," I say. "And the others go together to make the answer. Unless I'm missing something, I can make something. Let's see… a night watch? A night walk? A pumpkin night walk? Which pumpkins walk at… oooh! Watch for the pumpkins which walk at night!"

I'm able to write that in this book so I do, then return it to the shelf. Nothing happens. I pull it out and put it back a few times, and nothing happen. Then a chatter suggests signing the book, so I do.

When I put it back in its original spot this time, twenty Pumpkin Coins pop out of the ground.

"Oh, nice!" I exclaim. "I guess that means this is a one-solve thing? Since once you know the answer, you could use it to get infinite coins if it wasn't."

I pull the book back off of the shelf… and it's an unsigned book with just the original phrase once more. It isn't just a one-time solve thing, it's something which others might be able to solve. They're probably relying on us to not tell the other members the solution to it.

"Let's… not tell anyone," I grin at the camera. "See who else can solve it. And remember – no chathopping! You won't be able to spoil!"

I return the book to the shelf, then head out and look for more puzzles. Lexi, Axel, and I work together to solve the haunted mansion, which we receive a clue from Niels about before entering. It doesn't completely solve it for us, but it does cut down the amount of time we spend looking for the most difficult clue within.

There's an archery game with moving targets to score points at (even our skills all reset for while we're here), a diving game to try and retrieve as many rings as possible from the pond, and more. The games are repeatable while the puzzles can only be completed once per person.

There are a total of nine different games and puzzles for us to play and by the time I've finished all of them, I've had a blast.

"You guys really cooked with this," Lexi tells the Master of Trials, who has popped in and out of existence as we wandered through.

I'm going to assume that means something different from actually cooking in English… or it might be some slang of theirs.

"The Night of the Wandering Pumpkins comes and goes as it pleases," he doesn't break character. "Though the fun will remain even as it departs."

"Huh?" Axel asks.

"I think he's saying that we'll be able to come back," I tell him. "Just… without the rewards and stuff."

"Indeed," the Master of Trials tells us.

Since the three of us have finished all of the puzzles and games, we go and watch Haley and Niko as they try to beat their own scores at the diving game. They're letting others go if they someone else wants to, but it seems they're determined to get as high of a score as possible.

Did Xander try that one out? If so, what was his score?

[Greyson – 11 years]

"And the pumpkin…" Cody, Finn, and I wait five beats. "And the pumpkin…" we wait five more beats. "And the pumpkin dances in the night! The pixies wander and the pixies curse and when the sun rises 'gain, the pixies know only fear! And the pumpkins… and the pumpkins… and the pumpkins dance in the night! And when they dance, the pixies flee, the pixies run and run and run! So carve the faces, put candles inside to let the pumpkins scare all the pixies off! And the pumpkins… and the pumpkins… and the pumpkins dance in the night!"

I used to think this was just a children's playground song. Then I found out from Xander that there really are pixies which show up on Halloween night, though he didn't know if there was a connection to the song. He did know that houses with enough jack-o-lanterns don't get pixies, though.

Now I really want to know the connection and the origins of the song, but there's nothing I can find online about it. The song probably is a children's playground song, just one rooted in something that's been long-forgotten.

Even before the internet. Which means it's from ancient times.

"Oh!" I say. "Cody! Your mom's here!"

"She is?" He starts looking around.

"Yeah!" I nod. "Over there!"

Cody looks over and spots his mom's car, then hops off of the bench and grabs his backpack and suitcase as she pulls to the curb in front of us.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"See you guys after the break!"

Because Halloween is a Tuesday, we're getting all of next week off of school. The academy doesn't see a reason to bring us back for one day just to give us another two days off (a regular weekend). That makes it an extra-long weekend, so most students are returning to their families.

I wave to Cody's mom as he gets into the car, then to Finn's dad as he pulls up behind her.

"Bye, Finn!" I tell him as he grabs his things and goes to his dad's car. "See you next weekend!"

"Bye, Greyson!" Finn waves.

Once he's gone, I grab my things and teleport straight to the Cals, who are only now exiting their school.

"You two took way too long to leave the building," I say.

"It's barely three," Cal rolls his eyes. "Did your friends already get picked up?"

"Yeah," I answer. "And now, it's time to go pick pumpkins!"

"After we pick up Henry and Travis," Cal tells me. "Remember?"

"Awww…"

"Be nice," he says. "Travis already said he'll sit in the middle, too."

"Can't I just teleport there?"

"No."

"Awww…"

We get into Cal's car as the Cals ask me about my week at school and how I spent my previous weekend. The first place we go is to pick up Travis, who sits in the middle, then we pick up Henry, who sits on the other side of Travis. Then, it's time for us to go to the pumpkin farm!

We have pumpkins in the garden at home, but those are for making desserts. Carving pumpkins are different.

"By the way," Kale says as he twists a little, holding out a box. "Xander left this for you, Greyson."

"He did?" I grab the box and open it. "A pumpkin? Oh! It's gotta be another puzzle!"

By the time we arrive at the pumpkin farm, I've solved the puzzle a grand total of zero times. This probably won't be as difficult as his original puzzle sphere, but it's definitely more difficult than the ones on the market.

Hopefully, it stumps S.G. even more than it stumps me. I need to solve one faster than him. It doesn't make any sense how he can solve them faster than me, I'm definitely leagues smarter!

"Greyson," Cal says. "Put that away. It's time to pick pumpkins."

"Can I pick your pumpkin?" I ask.

"No."

"Aw…"

"You can help me pick mine," Travis tells me. "I want a good one about this big," he makes a gesture with his hands. "The plan is to carve a magic octopus onto it."

"I can help you!"

"Just with the picking," Travis tells me. "I want to do the carving on my own."

"Okay…"

Travis and I split off from the others once we reach the pumpkin patch, and we look around until we find pumpkins which look just right for us. These pumpkins aren't still on the vines, they were already cut and then moved over here. This ensures everyone picks only ripe pumpkins, not unripe ones, and that no one needs to worry about cutting or anything. It also ensures no one damages the crops still growing or causes harm to the actual fields.

"This tall one should do!" I tell Travis, pointing at one nearly two feet in height and about three-quarters of a food in diameter. "You can do the magic octopus on it! The head up here, and the arms and tentacles down here!"

"Need help with that?" An employee asks. "We've got wagons for rent."

"I've got it," Travis tells her as he grabs the pumpkin and lifts it up.

"Oh," she says. "My apologies. Most of the people who pick from this patch have lower mana levels."

Since my brothers and I were all born with around 100 or so mana, that puts us well-above average. Though now that I think about it, our birth mother is average. Which means our father would have needed to have quite a lot of mana for us to be born at about that strength.

Whoa. Was his history that I could find online fabricated? What if he's like Xander's father and is actually still alive? But I doubt he'd have left us in the situation we were in, unless he didn't love us.

"There's a field with magic pumpkins?" Travis asks.

My brother's learned the difference in taste between ordinary and magic foods and I think he properly prefers magic ones over ordinary ones. He's texted me several times to thank me for using magic crops for our garden rather than regular ones.

Now that we're receiving additional money for food from Grandfather Adrian, more of the diet at home includes magic foods rather than regular ones. My brothers are all learning magic now, so they need extra food as well. Even Dad and Papa have begun learning magic.

Meanwhile, all of the food at the academy is made with magic ingredients, so I'm always satisfied! Mostly. They don't always have food I like. But they usually do, so that's okay. And I can just make stuff I want more in my free time, as long as I have the ingredients for it or their free kitchens have enough and I don't go excessive.

They do stock quite a lot of food there, though. We're also allowed to go back for seconds, thirds, fourth, fifths and more as well. I might be the most powerful student at the academy, but there are plenty who are really gifted in magic.

"The patch over that way," the employee gestures. "They're a bit pricier since magic pumpkins take more effort to grow properly."

"Grandfather Adrian gave us extra money to spend for holiday stuff," Travis tells me.

"Hm…" I look around for a moment, then back to the employee. "Is there a reason behind using magic pumpkins over regular ones? These are all carving pumpkins, aren't they?"

"We have both carving and dessert pumpkins," she tells me. "And for the carving pumpkins, the magic ones have a trace of light and shadow magic in them. If you carve them and put a candle in them, the insides of it will spread the light and make it more of a glow than normal, and the shadows cast from it will be a little bit deeper. It makes them spookier."

"Ooh!" I say. "Travis, let's go get those!"

Pumpkins are disgusting, but they make for good spooky decorations for the holiday. The spookier they are, the better.

Travis and I pick out our pumpkins, encountering the Cals and Henry as we do. They're also in the patch of magic ones, though it seems they're getting both carving and dessert ones even though we have dessert ones in the patch at home.

"Yours all have fire magics," Cal says. "I'm not sure we can really taste the difference, but I want to try ones with light and shadow magics, too."

"Oh," I say. "Well, I won't be eating them."

"I know," he chuckles. "You're more likely to want to blow them up than eat them."

"Does he really?" Kale asks.

"They look really cool when they explode!" I confirm. "And it's fun figuring out the best explosion types for them! Sometimes, I'll even carve different magic runes on them to make them explode!"

"He likes to buy up all of the extra pumpkins after the Harvest Festival," Travis tells him. "And blow them all up. He sends up videos of them exploding, though we never could figure out where he was doing it… or how he was getting the money."

"The mobs I robbed were generously donating their money for me to buy up the pumpkins I could find in the shops."

"It's not donating if you're robbing them."

"And you're not going to be doing that anymore," Cal reminds me. "Don't forget that. I'm sure our great-grandfather will be willing to acquire pumpkins for you to blow up once the Harvest Festival is over."

"He's already made sure I know that," I sag my shoulders forward. "Said he'll be watching me closely to make sure I don't rob any more mafias. They're all criminals, and most of them aren't even natives. They're run by immigrants. I don't get why Grandfather Adrian doesn't just wipe them all out. Or let me."

Not all immigrants are evil, it's just that very few natives start running mobs. From what I've seen, that's true for most countries. The mobs aren't run by locals, they're run by foreigners. I'm not sure if there are Kenzibri mobs in other countries, but there might be.

Or there might not be. I'll have to do further research into that. If they exist, they better make some really good pancakes. Or our great-grandfather doesn't allow them to exist.

I still don't understand why he won't off all mobs and mafias.

"I'm sure he's got a plan," Cal tells me. "Come on, let's go pay for our pumpkins."

I lift my pumpkin up and set it on my head as we walk, making sure to hold it firmly in place with my hands to ensure it doesn't fall.

"And the pumpkin… and the pumpkin… and the pumpkin dances in the night!"

[Luke – 13 years] → begins during Greyson's PoV.

"No costumes?" Tyler asks as Seph, Cyrus, Parker, and I join him outside of the academy's property.

Cyrus has hung out with us every day this week, and I can tell Tyler is curious about him. I didn't let him know we'd made a new friend once he let me know he was back in town, and I made sure not to let any pictures of him be in any of the ones I uploaded to the cloud storage I share with Tyler.

That's because I don't know if Tyler can recognize the heir to the company he and his dad sells their catches to. It doesn't seem he does, based on his reaction to our new friend.

I've also determined that in addition to the slight crush Cyrus has on Xander, he has one on Seph as well. His intentions for hanging out with Seph were definitely for that over trying to meet Xander.

Though he'll be disappointed when he finds out that Seph isn't into guys.

As for Parker, he was granted permission to ride home with us today rather than needing to be driven to wherever we'll be hanging out. That was a surprise to all of us, but I guess his parents are more comfortable now that he has the orb following him around.

"Nope," I answer. "We're not allowed to dress up for the last day before Halloween here due to professionalism. And you're not wearing one, either."

"We only just got back a little bit ago," Tyler says. "And I didn't know what to do for a costume. Halloween ain't exactly something we celebrate often… we're usually hunting for it. This is actually the first time I can remember that we'll be in town for it."

"Seriously?" Seph asks. "You've never gone to a Halloween party before?"

"Nope!"

"Then your first experience is going to be Xander's," I say. "And none of us know how that's going to go…"

"As long as he doesn't randomly decide to kill a leviathan during it," Parker says. "I think we'll be fine."

"Do what now?" Tyler asks, and we fill him in as we start making towards my place.

With the exception of Cyrus, we're all going to Xander's "pumpkin party" (as he's calling it). Cyrus is just joining us for the trip to my house, then he'll split off to his once we're there. He doesn't live near us, but he's willing to hang out that far today just to hang out more before he heads home.

If we weren't going to be going over to Xander's in a little while, Cyrus would hang out at my place as well. He's also attending a benefit dinner occurring tonight – there's always one for us in higher society on the Friday before Halloween. I'm able to get out of it due to Xander's party, but Cyrus doesn't have that benefit.

They can be really boring, even if they're good for making connections. I'm not fond of the "doing good things to make others look at me better" deal, and I'd rather be at a party where I can play and goof around than a stuffy dinner with a lot of speeches.

As we ride our bikes and hoverboards, a girl about our age joins us. Bridget, Cyrus's twin sister. Seph hasn't met her yet since she attends our school's sister academy. Even at joint events, there's not a guarantee to meet everyone.

Though judging by how Seph's face reddens a little upon seeing her, I think he'll be happy to hang out with her. With how well her brother's accepted Seph, I'm sure she won't care that his family is lesser.

Tyler's reaction to learning that Cyrus and Bridget are Sunfangs is amusing. He doesn't know what to say and settles on telling them that their family has fair prices. That gets a laugh out of both twins, and I manage to hold back a snicker.

"Why's he outside your gate?" Parker asks as we travel down the street towards my house.

Xander's pacing in front of the gate, hands flapping a little. Once he notices us approaching, he stops and starts staring at us, though he's bouncing a little as he does.

"Hey, Xander!" I say as we come to a stop in front of him. "Did something happen?"

"Lots of things happen," he tells me. "All the time."

"I mean for the party," I say. "You waiting out here is a bit odd. Did you have an update? You could've texted!"

Though I won't complain that he wanted to come talk to me in-person. That just means he's opening up to me more, I think.

"It's not for you," Xander tells me before looking at Cyrus. "You're Cyrus Sunfang, right?"

"You know who I am?" Cyrus seems extremely surprised by that.

Not that I blame him. Xander knows who the Sunfangs are? Also, how did he know Cyrus was going to be here? It must've been psychic powers.

"Yeah," Xander answers. "Most magic beast hunters in the area sell their catches to your family's shop or get their catches processed there. For the ones who don't process it themselves, I mean. Your family sent some employees out to the big hunt last weekend, to help the hunters with their processing. It wasn't all of the ones doing the butchering there, but y'all did a lot of help, including the appraising, right?"

"We did," Cyrus says. "I just… didn't know you'd know about us. The Kings usually have their own processing place."

"Some of them do," Xander says. "And where my stuff gets processed depends on a few things. But I was thinking, and I didn't want to do that, but do you want to come to my pumpkin party tonight? There's a sleepover involved, too. It's too close to when it starts for me to do this, but I'm doing it anyway. I even invited some boys I only briefly met, because they were good kids when I met them, too. They're also friends of Sig's and them's, and they're all blessed by gods, so I know they're nice. And you are, too. And your sister," Xander looks at Bridget. "I want to invite you, too, but the parents of all of the other girls I invited said 'no' because there are too many boys. That's even with parents' abilities to access a stream exclusively of their kid or kids, with censoring for if they're in a state their parents shouldn't see, like if they're in the bathroom or are changing. It'll just be a black screen with a note about what they're doing, where they are, and who they're with. So your parents will probably do the same."

Xander's inviting people last-minute? That's… honestly really insane. Xander really prefers not changing plans at the last-minute, especially not for something with a lot of planning involved.

"Oh," Xander pulls out a box with a pair of invites on it. "But you can still get the treats I'm gifting to everyone who's coming."

"Thanks," Bridget accepts the box.

"Please try to let me know by four," Xander tells Cyrus as he summons another box.

"Did you plan for extra people?" I ask. "You already went shopping to get everything, didn't you?"

"I did," Xander says. "But I decided to plan for fifty people because my gut said to. That way, we'd definitely have enough food for all of the strong mages. And I didn't want to invite more people, but Grandpa Adrian suggested inviting Cyrus. And-and I was thinking, if I'm inviting some boy I've never met this late, then I should invite some other boys I met who I definitely know are good, even if we haven't hung out much. Especially since they're friends of my friends. So that's why I invited the other three."

"Hey, Xander?" Seph asks.

"Yes, Seph?"

"How come you invited me to it?"

This is because of what Damien said on Monday, isn't it?

"Because I think you're nice," Xander answers. "And since you proved that you're a good person at the last party, I didn't see a reason to not invite you to this one."

"What about the other one?" He asks. "How come you invited me to the last one?"

"Because Sig wanted to be your friend and you seemed nice when I met you," Xander says. "So I felt like inviting you. Anyway, I'm gonna go back home and finish preparing myself for the party. Bye."

Xander turns and leaves without waiting for us to respond, and I look at Bridget.

"He gave you an invite to tonight, anyway," I say. "If your parents aren't sure, I can vouch that nothing inappropriate will happen. My parents also said that Xander had dorm rooms put in, with a separate wing for girls from the boys."

"We have that benefit we're supposed to attend," Bridget says. "They might be willing to give permission to one of us, but not both. And I think if everyone else there is going to be a guy, then it should be Cyrus who goes. Besides, I don't think I'll have any friends there."

All fair points. Sorry, Seph. I tried to give you an opportunity to hang out with her.

"Alright," I say. "Cyrus?"

"Let me check."

Cyrus calls his parents, and they give approval for him to attend after he lets them know everything on the card and that I'll be attending. He even receives permission to stay with us until then, and his mom will drop off some clothes for him for tomorrow before we all leave.

We all head inside, Bridget joining us for this part. There's no reason for her to ride her hoverboard home when her mom's on the way to pick her up.

No one received homework due to the break from school next week, so we hang out in one of the lounges until Mrs. Sunfang arrives with a bag of clothes for Cyrus and to pick up Bridget.

It's not long after that before it's time for us to head to Xander's, so we grab our bags and begin making our way there. We ride our bikes and hoverboards over and as we near the gates, we find it… pretty decorated. There are straw bales, scarecrows, and other decorations up around the gates themselves, and along the walls. Some spots seem empty in a way which suggests something else is meant to go there.

Jack-o-lanterns?

The fake spiderweb must have stressed him out a lot, if he was the one putting it up. Trey usually just goes with a few simple decorations, so either he went all-out now that he has a son or this was all Xander's doing.

Empty spots for jack-o-lanterns was probably Xander's doing as well, though I don't understand why he doesn't make some now. Sure, we'll be carving one each tonight, but he has space for at least five here.

"Is that a real spiderweb?" Cyrus looks closely at some of the webbing on one of the hay bales.

"Is it?" I ask. "Pretty sure it's fake."

"No," Cyrus says. "It's real. I know someone who raises magic spiders for their silk, and this webbing looks a lot like theirs. Did he hire their spiders to make webs or something? I've heard he can communicate even with regular animals and magic beasts."

"You know," I say. "It wouldn't surprise me. Let's head in and ask."

Xander's on the other side of the gate, standing a little bit further back and to the side, so that he's not on the road. Once we give the guard at the guardhouse our invitations, we're all allowed in through the regular door beside the gate.

"Did you hire a spider to make the webs?" Cyrus asks. "Those are real webs, aren't they?"

"I didn't hire spiders," Xander tells him. "I made them with magic. Dad let me put them at all of the entrances and windows, in case any pixies don't get scared off by the jack-o-lanterns, once we put those at the entrances."

"You know the pixies aren't real, don't you?" I ask.

"They are," Xander says. "I see them on Halloween night. And Sig's here. Hi, Sig!"

The pixies are real? I researched them when I was little but everyone determined they were just a superstition. Either Xander hallucinates due to his own superstitions, or pixies do actually show up and cause mischief.

If they are real… what kind of mischief are they up to if no one knows they actually exist?

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