I have no excuses at this point, really. Hope you enjoy.

The trek to the mountain wasn't much of a trek now that I could float. The adrenaline high was still going strong, and I was doing loops in the air above Marceline and Marshall Lee, which was beginning to make Marceline's right eye twitch. Not that her annoyance bothered me in the slightest. She used me and had me killed. She deserved to feel put off.

As we grew closer, the already quiet sounds of the forest went completely dead, leaving us with an eerie, high-pitched ringing that I was sure I was imagining. Marshall, apparently, was not comfortable with the silence, as he kept cracking lame jokes and trying to get me to take a break and fuck him. Maybe I wasn't the only thing contributing to Marceline's eye twitching.

I noticed that the surrounding forest was becoming more and more dead. The leaves becoming duller until the trees had no leaves. The trunks were becoming black. Even the sky seemed more overcast. There wasn't even a breeze. We were the only things that weren't completely still.

Finally, the line of trees suddenly stopped. As far as the eye could see, instead of a mountain, was the grey, glassy expanse of a lake.

Marshall was the first to speak, "That's not a mountain."

Marceline bitterly replied, "What do you mean? Mountains aren't massive bodies of water? Yes I know that's not a mountain Marshall."

I cocked my head, staring at it. "Maybe it's not a lake," I said, "Maybe that's the cloaking spell, and if we step into the lake, there won't be water, and we'll see the mountain."

Marceline sighed. "It's worth a shot. I vote Marshall goes first."

"I second that vote," I said.

"Hey! Why do I have to go first? Isn't this place supposed to be guarded by vampires?!" Marshall protested.

"They way I see it," Marceline said, "You're the most expendable out of the three of us."

"Why am I more expendable than Fionna?!"

"I like Fionna more than I like you."

"Is that why you used me in your little conspiracy plot and then killed me for power?" I asked.

"Hey, someone has to draw the short straw."

"I didn't even draw a straw!"

"The point is," Marceline said, "Marshall is going first."

"Fine, whatever." I said.

Marshall looked like he was about to book it, so I grabbed him by the ear and threw him into the middle of the lake. He screamed as he flew through the air, but when he landed, he made no splash. He just slipped through the surface. He resurfaced a second later and yelled, "Nope, still a lake, that I was thrown unwillingly into!"

"Well, come on back out of there," I said. "Maybe we were wrong about this whole thing."

He started to move towards the surface, when suddenly, he let out a strangled yelp, and disappeared under the surface again. Marceline and I glanced at each other before diving in after him. What I saw shocked me. The water was about fifteen feet deep, and Marshall Lee was being carried off to the bottom by humanoid creatures with scaly skin and webbed hands and feet.

They were dragging him to a small, pointed rock at the bottom of the lake, maybe three feet high. I kicked my legs and swam after them, while they attempted to impale Marshall on the tip of the rock. Marshall fought them off, but they were obviously more accustomed to being in water than he was. I glanced at Marceline. Her eyes were wide, and she was swimming toward the bottom of the lake, as if she'd just realized something. She reached the bottom, and then she went through it and completely disappeared.

I reached Marshall. I twisted the heads off of one of the creatures, and before the others could react, I grabbed his arm and headed for the bottom. I passed through it, and suddenly, I was falling, then sliding down rock. I blinked. I wasn't in water. I was falling down the side of a mountain. I saw Marceline, who was floating about ten feet below us, right above a narrow cliff. I stopped, suddenly, remembering I could fly, and floated down to where she was, Marshall Lee in tow.

On the mountain side of the cliff, there was an ominous cave opening that loomed above our heads, with torches aflame with purple fire flanking the sides of the cavernous opening. On the other side, there was no ground, just endless sky beneath the mountain.

She had a look of disgust on her face. "I know where we are now, and what we'll have to do," she said.

"I thought we knew that already," I said. "Fight a bunch of monsters and steal the dagger."

"The monsters are the appetizer," Marceline said. "We're going to have to make a deal with Maja the Sky Witch."

Marshall Lee groaned, while I stood there, confused.

"Who's Maja the Sky Witch?" I asked.

"A close friend of our father." Marshall Lee said. "An old flame, actually. Like really old. Maja is older than our mother. And she's much more... Organized. She served as an adviser for our father for eons. And when he died, she just sort of disappeared. I guess she came here. It makes sense that she guards the dagger."

"Does that mean it's hopeless?" I asked. "Is she strictly loyal to your father."

"Not necessarily," Marceline said. "She's not loyal to anyone. She makes deals with people in order to gain power. She's all about what you can do to help her Apparently she has some sort of master plan that she was working on with our father, and she might still be. But she's very vindictive, and she's really big on making people give up things that they value. That's the easiest way to win her favor. Some kind of magic in sentiment. But we're demons. Sentiment isn't our thing. You just destroyed your home village without batting an eye, so I don't know what she'll make us do. She'll get inside your head, make your skin crawl."

"Fantastic," I said. "Let's go see Maja."