They traveled by crumbpass.

  The Resistance’s fastest mode of travel—an underground rail system powered by compressed sourdough steam—shot them through the Starchnds, beneath yers of forgotten flour and fossilized cereal.

  Louie sat quietly, eyes on the tunnel ahead. The scroll rested in his p, its spiral symbol glowing faintly. Around him were his companions: Rond the Rye, Captain Pita, Loxley the Bagel, and Se the Cinnamon Roll, now swirled in fresh gze and wrapped in a cloak of parchment.

  “You alright?” Rond asked.

  Louie nodded. “I just… never thought I’d be part of something so big. Back home, I was just a loaf on a shelf.”

  “You still are,” Rond said. “But now you’re a loaf with purpose.”

  Suddenly, the crumbpass screeched to a halt.

  “Blockage ahead,” announced the conductor, a retired French baguette with a mustache made of melted cheese. “We’re at the edge of Crumb Canyon. From here, we walk.”

  They disembarked.

  Crumb Canyon stretched before them—an ancient rift of crumbling breadstone, where the wind howled like a kettle left too long. Somewhere at its heart, hidden inside a ruined oven-temple, y the first Stone of Leaven.

  But so did the Croutons.

  They marched on foot, led by Se, who had memorized the canyon’s treacherous paths. The sun beat down like a broiler. Loxley wheezed and fked with every step.

  And then… silence.

  “Something’s wrong,” whispered Pita.

  From the canyon walls, shapes emerged.

  Hard. Sharp. Scarred.

  The Croutons.

  Former breads, once warm and kind, now twisted by bitterness and baked to a cruel crunch. Their leader stepped forward—a cube-shaped brute with garlic scars and eyes like burnt rye.

  “I am Captain Crumbhard,” he growled. “You seek the Stone. You do not belong.”

  “We mean no harm,” Louie said, stepping forward. “We only want to restore bance. Real fvor. Real bread.”

  “Fvor?” Crumbhard snarled. “You dare speak of fvor while we rot in the pantry of time?”

  Rond whispered, “Don’t provoke him…”

  But Louie stood tall. “You were once like me. I see it. You remember the warmth of a fresh bake, the joy of butter on a new crust. You don’t have to be this.”

  The Croutons murmured. Crumbhard stiffened.

  Then—chaos.

  A young Crouton, trembling, tossed down his crusted dagger. “He’s right! I remember jam! I remember love!”

  Others began dropping weapons. Even in their staleness, something stirred.

  But Crumbhard roared. “TRAITORS!”

  He lunged at Louie.

  At the st second, Se spun forward, unrolling like a sweet, sticky cyclone. Crumbhard slipped on her gze and smmed into the canyon wall.

  A puff of garlic dust.

  Silence.

  Then, from the rubble, something shimmered: a golden stone etched with the spiral of the First Loaf.

  Louie approached it.

  The moment his hand touched it, he felt everything—ancient heat, the ughter of first bakers, the promise of something whole.

  The Stone of Leaven was his.

  The Croutons bowed. Even Crumbhard, cracked but humbled, grumbled a grudging, “You bake true, Loaf.”

  As the sun dipped over Crumb Canyon, the Resistance had won its first great crumb.

  And far away, in a tower of minated evil, Armand du Croissant crushed a teacup in one buttery fist.

  “They’ve found it.”

  To be continued...