Joe grins as he takes the composite weapon up in two hands. He gives it a light toss and catches it at the sword grip, then gives it a playful twirl like a baton.

  “Uh,” Todd’s eyes narrow.

  Randall wipes his palm over his forehead and through his hair. “Dude, are you okay?”

  Joe’s gi hangs open and disheveled. His belt is missing and his lips peel back too wide from white teeth.

  Candra’s head pokes out from over a building overhead. “Hey, Sue Ann’s alright. She just maxed out on her magic.” She looks down over the smoking rat corpse, at Randall’s missing helmet, and at Joe’s bloody arm. “Which is a thing now, I guess. Everything good down there?”

  Joe wobbles on his feet and his eyes unfocus. At first, he doesn’t seem to register Candra’s voice. “I gotta say – I mean, don’t get me wrong, the giant monsters bit’s full rancid taint – but this medieval stuff? S’all... kinda growin’ on me.” Then he twists to face back towards Candra and hikes his weapon up overhead. “Oh hey, it’s Candra! Candra! Look at my sword! It’s dope, right? I look like that guy! From the movie.”

  “Yea,” Candra calls back. “I guess? Like, the barbarian guy with the accent? Or the dirty sexy beard guy who whispers all his lines?” She shakes her head, offing the distraction the way a hound sheds wet. “Joe, what’s wrong? You’re talking weird.”

  “I guess I hit my head on the roof,” Joe admits. “I’m a little dizzy.”

  “Shit, well sit down then.”

  Todd shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s safe. I think we should find a building to hole up in. Someplace defensible. Plus, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t pick up the stuff I bought. It’s still in the hut. We should collect everything.”

  Candra accedes. “We’ll make a loop all together then.”

  The five of them gather themselves and make a formation with Todd replacing Joe at the front. Randall dusts off his helmet carefully and replaces it, and Sue Ann cringes as she walks. Her [Mercury Rod] takes the shape of a machete out in front of her.

  Randall pierces the silence. “This place is roasted. What do you think happened here?” He asks.

  “I thought it was supposed to be the crabs,” Joe replies.

  “That burned everything? This looks like a volcano went off,” Todd guesses.

  The group quiets. First they visit the room Sue Ann appeared in. A basket sits placidly on the floor across from the corpse of the rat monster.

  Randall stands outside of the door behind them. “Guys, there’s something coming,” he announces.

  Sue Ann hurries to collect her meal tokens and herb collection manual. She stuffs them in her satchel along with a handful of rags, her healing pills, a fire-starter, and a round frying pan. Next she pulls out a backpack with a tent and bedrolls, a pair of leather bracers, gloves, water flasks, and a helmet.

  A squeal rises as a naked rat scrabbles up the terrace and flings itself towards the open door. Candra smashes it with her wooden mace and blood oozes from its eyes, ears and mouth. It twitches on the ground.

  “I really need to use my weapon token, don’t I?” Todd muses.

  “I’ve got everything!” Sue Ann shakily announces. The helmet sits crookedly on her head as she straps on her arm guards.

  “Okay, so next spot?” Joe asks.

  The group exits out and down the stairwell and on towards Randall’s stash. Two rats skitter out of the shadows to flank them, and Joe chops one right in the midsection. Todd sprays the other in the face, and Candra steps in to finish it.

  “There are a lot of these things, aren’t there?” Todd remarks.

  “It’s hard to cut them,” Randall adds. “They’ve got slashing resistance or something.”

  The team turns a corner and collects Randall’s gear from a first floor dwelling. He hefts a heavy simple wood ax and sports a set of leather armor. He bears another traveling pack on his back. The others batter three rats away from the doorway while he changes.

  “Ugh, I’ve got ash caught in my armor,” Randall squirms. He shoulders forward and blasts fire into the rats. They scream and collapse.

  “I think you should save your cosmic energy, man,” Todd warns him.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “It’s fine,” Randal pants. He wipes his sleeve over his face.

  “Who’s next?” Candra asks.

  Joe raises his hand. “I think I’m close. I can’t quite remember where I came from though. We might have to check a few houses.”

  “I remember mine,” Todd announces. “I’m fine with looking around for a bit.”

  “Me too,” Candra asserts. “I’m right over there.”

  Unfortunately, Joe is as turned around as a goat in a henhouse. He leads them in winding confused circles searching for his goods while an ever increasing stream of rats find them.

  “God, this is creepy,” Candra declares.

  “Listen, maybe we should head back before we lose track of Candra and Todd’s stuff,” Randall proposes.

  “We need those food tokens,” Candra denies him. “That was the whole point.”

  “Let’s keep going,” Todd reassures them. “Maybe Joe should take a healing pill.”

  There is a quick debate. Then, after swallowing one dose of the medicine, Joe’s head clears as they continue. He finally guides them to the right building. In short order, once he is equipped, they return and collect Candra’s and Todd’s own gear.

  Todd straps on his gorget while his friends hold the line in the street against a pack of five rats. Even Sue Ann is waving her machete around. Candra bounds between targets like a woman possessed, covering for Sue Ann. She is nearly hit by her wild flailing.

  “Okay. Got everything,” Todd shouts. His gambeson is hot and itchy, but sturdy. His helmet doesn’t fit right. He ducks out the door and punches a rat in the jaw with his redburr gauntlet. Randall chops down with his ax and its skull crunches.

  “Finally!” Candra gasps. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where can we go?” Sue Ann pleads.

  “Maybe they’ll stop coming if we clear enough of them out?” Randall guesses.

  “I vote to get someplace where can form up in a line,” Joe suggests. “These roofs are no good.”

  Weary, the squad catches their breath.

  “We could try heading for the hills,” Sue Ann notes.

  “Maybe. But I know I saw a bigger building over that way. It looks like a mansion. Could be a place to hold out.”

  “Or it could have a whole nest inside.”

  “Are we making too much noise or something? Maybe we could move more quietly.”

  “I’m pretty sure they’ve all already heard us.”

  Candra cries out in exasperation. “Guys, come on! Where are we going!”

  Todd thinks about it. “Well, did anybody check their quest yet?”

  Randall shakes his head. The others are silent.

  “Two seconds,” Todd says. He looks inward and opens his active quests menu.

  “Okay. We’re looking for something called a bèi crystal. Three of them. It doesn’t explain what they are.”

  “Does it say where to find them?”

  “No.”

  “Crap.”

  “Watch out, rat!”

  Joe swings his ox-tongue blade. Its tough skin resists the cutting edge but its shoulder shatters. He steps on its neck and holds it down with great effort.

  “Sue Ann, get it!” He calls out. “Take the levels.”

  The young woman jumps. Candra prods her forward, and Sue Ann wrings the handle of her [Mercury Rod] machete. Joe moves his foot as she begins sawing at its throat, but the pink rolling folds slip and catch. Getting loose, the rat rolls up and stands again, hissing and spitting. Joe and Todd tackle it to the ground again. Bottle jangle in Todd’s collection bag, and his bedroll slips out from the rope he’s tied to himself.

  “Get it in the eye,” Todd growls.

  “Or just smash it in the head,” Joe counters as he pulls his hand away from snapping teeth.

  Scrabbling back claws scratch at Todd’s legs, cutting bleeding furrows under his pants. “Just get it!” he cries.

  Sue Ann reverses her grip and falls to her knees. She stabs down on the rat’s head repeatedly until the skull finally cracks.

  “Good job 4H,” Joe comforts her.

  “Yea,” Candra steps in. “You did good. Come here. Come here.”

  Sue Ann is engulfed in a hug.

  Todd pulls himself up and groans. He steps over to Randall and inspects himself. “I should have gotten leg armor.” Pink blots appear on his pant legs in stripes.

  “Ouch,” Randall commiserates.

  Joe shakes his head, rubs his temple and works his jaw. Then he addresses the group. “We’ve got to decide where we’re going. This is getting ridiculous.”

  Todd resists the urge to scratch at his burning legs. “The only clue we’ve got is that they sent us right here. I would hope that we’d be close by to at least one of these crystals.”

  “There has to be some hint somewhere,” Joe affirms.

  “Does there?” Candra asks. “We don’t know that. Maybe there’s nothing. Maybe we’re nowhere close to these things.”

  “I don’t think the pixies would give us something impossible,” Todd says. “Hard, absolutely. But not impossible.”

  “Maybe. But we can’t search the whole town,” Candra asserts. “Not while we keep getting jumped.”

  “Let’s find a landmark. Maybe just sample a couple of houses as we make our way to someplace that looks important.”

  Joe interjects. “How about that mansion?”

  Todd looks around the circle. “We could try it,” he hesitates.

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” Joe suggests. “Who’s for trying the mansion?”

  He raises his hand. Slowly, one by one, the others do too. It’s decided.