Contents
About The Author
Title Page
Prologue – How, what, why?
1 – Kismet Cosmos
2 – The Biggest Fun
3 – A Gift from Lance
4 – The Rareio
5 – Lonely
6 – Theft
7 – Slimy Confetti
8 – Caught by a Dolphin
9 – Wanna Play?
10 – Frozen
11 – Real Life
12 – Investigators
13 – Back in the Parkworld
14 – Operation Wipeout
15 – Battle
16 – Rubie
17 – The Celestial Seamstress
18 – Three Kids
19 – Detective Work
20 – Kody’s Cache
21 – The Stealth Ember
22 – Kismet Heaven
Copyright
Ruth Morgan has written fiction, poetry and plays for children of all ages and scripts for animation and radio. She particularly enjoys writing the kind of stories she enjoyed reading as a child: adventure stories, ghost stories, strange tales and sci-fi. She lives in Penarth, South Wales in a family of enthusiastic gamers who also love real life adventures.
Ant Clancy
Games Detective
Ruth Morgan
Prologue
How, what, why?
How do you become a games detective? Why would you become a games detective? Most of all what IS a ‘games detective’??? LOL
Ant was chatting online with one of his mates from school, who’d picked up an advertising card from the local games shop.
Ant typed back:
Mate, you know sometimes you’re playing a videogame and it gets glitchy or laggy, or you can’t get up to the next level and you don’t know why? Just bring your game round to my sister’s flat and I’ll sort it, np
He couldn’t tell him the real reason for setting up the agency. He couldn’t give away his suspicions about a very famous games company, or the discovery he’d made in Jubilee Park. He couldn’t explain that he and his mates were looking for clues, waiting for Kody Crunch of Crunch Hut Games to make his next move.
Why had Ant started the world’s first ever Games Detective Agency? Because the world needed one.
1
Kismet Cosmos
Six months earlier
Tarn’s arm muscles felt like they were going to snap. He stretched even further, ignoring the branch creaking beneath him. Below – more than three hundred deadly metres below – the sparkling Arkenbarc River thundered between huge jutting rocks. Ahead of him, just beyond his flexing fingers, the rubyate key glittered in the zephyrbird’s beak.
Tarn pleaded with the bird, ‘Just this once. Please?’
Didn’t he deserve a break? Not only had he solved the puzzle path in record time, he’d also sacrificed two of his favourite nordeaters to find this shortcut. Seeing those little fellas explode in the yatcha traps had been heartbreaking. But if he could claim the rubyate key, it would cut out days, maybe weeks of travelling.
‘Pradahl,’ yelled Tarn. ‘Quick, come and help!’
Tarn’s dragon Pradahl came racing out of the bushes, with coalberry juice dripping down her chin. This was good. Coalberries were a magical item which could temporarily solidify her smoke, if she’d eaten enough of them. Tarn climbed down and pressed the shining scale in the middle of Pradahl’s chest to bring up her inventory. The coalberry icon said ‘5’, meaning Pradahl had eaten five berries, so the smoke would stay solid for five seconds. That should be just enough time. He moved Pradahl into position at the edge of the cliff.
Tarn and Pradahl had been adventuring together for so long, they could almost read one another’s minds. She breathed out an arc of smoke which solidified into a bridge leading straight to the hovering zephyrbird. Tarn raced over it and grabbed hold of the key. But the pesky zephyrbird didn’t let go and Tarn had to pull with all his might. Any minute now the smoke bridge would dissolve. He had to hurry…
‘Is it what I think it is?’
The voice broke Ant’s concentration and he let go of the key. His avatar, Tarn, stumbled sideways and tumbled off the bridge. Tarn plunged to his black-and-white death while the zephyrbird fluttered off into the clouds.
No. What? No!
Ant tried to keep a hold of his headset but it was wrenched off him. He blinked. He was back in reality, back in the overgrown Dell on a bright but chilly Saturday afternoon in January. Children were squealing in the adventure playground on the other side of the fence. Three figures stood over him.
‘Give it here!’ Ant yelled.
Brushing the hair out of his eyes, he recognised his attackers and stopped. Ant was trembling with anger, but he forced his arms to his sides. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself and looked their leader straight in the eye.
Griff Landsdowne held Ant’s headset just out of reach, like a smirking version of the zephyrbird. He laughed and the other two, Lyle and Boom, joined in as if they’d been waiting for his permission. They stared at the headset.
‘It is one, isn’t it?’ said Griff.
‘Is one what?’
Ant had plenty of mates at school but Griff wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t scared of Griff, though. Just because Griff’s family were super rich, he acted like some kind of superior being. He had all the latest stuff, every new game or pair of trainers or footie strip, the minute it came out. That impressed idiots like Lyle and Boom but not Ant. Over the years, he had learned to just answer back and Griff would give up his mouthy overlord bullying pretty quickly. But right then, Ant was worried that if he tried to snatch back his headset, it might get broken, and he’d never get another.
‘Kismet Cosmos?’ Boom sounded baffled.
Ant kept still, his expression neutral.
‘I think my grandad told me about Kismet Cosmos,’ Griff sneered. ‘Or was it my great-grandad? Honestly, where did you dig it up? Nobody plays this anymore. I don’t know anyone who’s played it, like ever.’
‘It’s dead, man. No one’s played it for thousands of years,’ Lyle added pityingly, shaking his head.
Ant forced himself to smile as they passed the headset around.
‘You’ve got the gloves too?’ cried Griff, like some delighted antiques expert. ‘Let’s have a go if it’s so good. See what I’ve been
