Taken

A loud "BOOM!" shook the room as the Proscribrary door blew off its hinges, slamming into Mom's desk. Every ceiling light box flipped open, releasing strange contraptions with blue crystals that dissolved into swirling gas.

The alarm frog in the Goh Slip Bestiary flung open the cover and screamed, joined by a chorus of cicadas from all over the room. Four creatures rushed in—bodies almost invisible, heads hidden in wooden helmets that looked like gas masks.

Another intruder sprinted for the corkrest but was beheaded by a shelf that shot from the wall. As the head rolled away, the shelf's books tumbled to the floor and began stacking themselves in front of the entrance, slowly swelling in size.

"Grab the Proscribrarian! Quickly—before we're trapped!"

One of the remaining two crawled up the wall and skittered across the ceiling to the corkrest, where the Proscribrarian appeared to be passed out—a victim of the gas. He seized her arm and leapt down, unaware she had just flung Maizy to the back of the corkrest with her free hand.

They bolted outside just as the entrance vanished behind a barricade of enormous books.

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A kad-sized hole opened in the tree just above the Proscribrary, and the Woodmaster hopped down in front of the empty doorframe.

"WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED HERE!?"

He yanked a whistle from around his neck, blowing five sharp blasts while pounding on the tree. He kept this up until several tree frogs scrambled down from above—Mr. Un among them.

"THE PROSCRIBRARY!" Mr. Un boomed, turning to his companions. "Look around and see if you can find anyone or anything. Notify the ground forces immediately!"

He moved to shove books aside, but the Woodmaster blocked him, summoning wooden bars across the entrance.

"Whoah there, Mr. Un. I know you're tough as steel, but we still need a Proscribrarian to check for active traps." He looked at Mr. Un very seriously. "There are things even you can't survive."

Mr. Un nodded. "Understood." He then boomed, "SOMEONE GET PATHY OR FLOOR!"

Moments later, a very tired-looking Pathy glided down next to them.

"GODS! What happened!?"

The Woodmaster spoke. "I came to pick up some cookies..." He cleared his throat. "My sister, for a day of fun Woodworkery activities—and stumbled across..." He gestured at the blasted doorway. "This."

"I warned Mr. Un not to go in—we need a Proscribrarian." The Woodmaster pointed at Pathy.

"Right! Smart." She gave him a thumbs-up. "Okay, I need someone to take Path." She pulled a sleeping keedo from her pouch, and the Woodmaster took him.

In a millimoment, a cozy corkrest grew from the tree, and he set Path inside. It shot upward like the tree was liquid. When it stopped, a sheet of paper rolled down over the opening, a small platform jutted out, and a tidy shingled roof formed above it.

"He should be safe up there." The Woodmaster smiled.

"Everyone, stand back." She looked serious. "If a book hops out and eats someone, just grab it.  They'll be fine. We can pull them out later."

Everyone present just nodded—like that's a perfectly normal instruction to hear this early in the morning.

Pathy started shrinking books and moving them to the side. Visible, blue gas wafting out the doorway.

"Sleeping crystal gas." She said it casually, then continued, "I'm immune. If anyone suddenly feels sleepy, let me know—I have an antidote."

She peeked inside, then leapt in. Running up the wall, she shut the open ceiling boxes one by one, disabling the sleeping crystal mechanisms. At the corkrest, she spotted Maizy.

"Oh! Maizy's here!" she shouted, then ran over to check on her. "She's alive! Don't come in yet!"

When she finished disabling the traps, alarms, and sleeping gas, she pouched Maizy and walked outside.

"All clear."

She turned to Mr. Un. "Only you, the Woodmaster, and..." She scanned the area. "Mr. Vo. He can come too." She pointed at a tree frog clinging near Path’s corkrest.

Once they were inside, Pathy asked the Woodmaster to make a temporary door. A ridiculously ornate one appeared instantly, emblazoned with the words CRIME SCENE – NO ADMITTANCE. It even had elaborate hinges and a handle shaped like a kad.

"There was a break-in, obviously." Pathy gestured around. "I’ve disabled most of the traps, but don’t pull any books without asking me first."

Then she noticed the Goh Slip Bestiary.

"Wait! I don't recognize that book. Stand back!"

The Woodmaster’s tail glowed bright green, and wood shot from the door. A thick wall sprang up between him, the tree frogs, and the book. Pathy, apparently, needed no such protection.

"A long stick, please, Woodmaster," she asked. One popped out of the wall and clattered to the floor. It had an ornate handle, a built-in ruler with crisp markings, and a ribbon-like lanyard stamped with the word STICK, beside the official seal of the Woodmaster.

Pathy was going to do this by the book. Poking things with a stick is a well-researched, sanctioned trap-detection method, covered in detail by countless standards and testing organizations. The Proscribrary’s secret histories tell of sticks saving the tails of many a Proscribrarian. There’s even a book in the library singing the praises of the fine instrument: Of That Which Pokes by Hollow Mapmaker.

"It's got the Hardening symbol. Give it some magic," the Woodmaster said through a tiny hole in the wall. The tree frogs huddled closer to him.

Pathy pumped magic into the stick and poked the book. Nothing happened.

She then used the stick to lift the cover, and a little frog inside started screaming.

"Oh! Haha!" Pathy laughed. "It's a trapped book, alright!  Genius, Bloom. Genius!"

She picked up the frog and put it in her poncho. It shut right up.

"It's safe," she stated, as she picked up the papers to look at them. She left the tied-up scroll in the book.

The Woodmaster sent the wall and the stick back into the door, then asked, "What is it?"

"The title of the book is Goh Slip Bestiary..." She laughed again. "'Go to sleep,' hahaha. It's a trap for Maizy! For when she wakes up in the middle of the night and starts creeping around the Proscribrary." She smiled. "It was probably full of cicadas at some point."

"Ooh, that is clever!" Mr. Un was impressed.

Then Pathy noticed the paper with Maizy's titles. "Look at this title scroll!" She held it out for everyone to see.

The Woodmaster leaned in. "Whose titles are these? I saw my mom’s many wobbles ago, and some of these weren’t listed."

"GODS! It says the last magic symbol was discovered!" Mr. Un boomed. "It must be fake, right? That's not possible."

Mr. Vo cleared his throat. "Everyone thinks there's only twelve known symbols, but the truth is there are at least twenty. We just don’t know what all of them do yet."

"It's Maizy's titles!" Pathy burst with recognition. "She saved me from my curse. Look at the third title's description."

| Curse Gobbler | That couldn't have tasted good.

"You were cursed!?" Mr. Un asked, but everyone was thinking the same thing.

Pathy explained. "Yes. I was cursed about five wobbles ago. A contagious memory curse." She turned to the Woodmaster, deadly serious. "Two days ago—around lunchtime—did you, and everyone near you, suddenly freeze in a trance? That was Maizy lifting the curse."

"GODS! I was cursed!?" Mr. Un boomed. Mr. Vo went pale.

"Floor thinks most of the village was. Like I said—it spread. The curse made everyone forget you, and even forget that they were cursed. It was incredibly dangerous!"

The Woodmaster frowned in thought. "So you’re saying Maizy saved the entire village? By somehow eating an incredibly dangerous curse?"

Pathy hadn’t thought of it that way. "Well... yes!" She grinned. "Yes she did!" She smiled down at her pouch, where Maizy was asleep.

The Woodmaster seemed offended. "And you didn’t TELL ANYBODY?" Suddenly, his little sister seemed more thrilling than cookies.

Pathy felt a little guilty. "Yeah, well... The Postmaster knew.  She didn't make an announcement." She had the perfect excuse—and just the right person to blame.

Mr. Un asked a rather pertinent question. "What’s this scroll that last title mentions? And what’s debugging got to do with it? There are bugs everywhere in the multiverse. I eat them every day!"

Pathy paused, wondering how to explain what the words bug and debug mean—as the gods use them—to a bunch of well-meaning, uneducated tree frogs who spend all day, every day, in the canopy of a tree, itching for something to fight.

"It's complicated."

Then she remembered the rolled-up scroll in the book. She picked it up, untied the string, and unrolled it. Her eyes went wide.

"GODS!" She held it out for the others to see. "She didn’t just discover the last magic symbol. She discovered all the magic symbols!"

The Woodmaster—the most soft-spoken, carefully composed kad in the entire tree—completely lost it.

"WHAT THE FRICK!"