Sepulchral, that’s a five dollar word. It’s accurate though. Xiǎo Shāngǔ is an empty place which feels like there are ghosts on the other side, trying to scratch their way through.

  Todd and his friends move in a cluster through the streets both broad and narrow. Every few houses they stop and send one of themselves inside a house to search for clues.

  Todd wades through ash as he circles the blackened, glassified inner wall, searching for artifacts, or anything at all. The layer of ash beneath him isn’t flat. Here and there there are lumps. One of those lumps looks vaguely humanoid, curled up and deflated. He gives it as much berth as he can fit in such a cramped space.

  “Hurry up,” Candra chides him. “These things are disgusting.”

  Seven slate colored, leg sized millipedes have crawled out from between nearby houses. Like barreling tiny trains, they locomote towards the crew, coming from all sides.

  Todd stubs his boot toe on the last, corroded husk of an ancient cookpot. It crumbles. “Okay, I don’t see anything,” he calls out.

  His friends squat uncomfortably as they lash out at the arthropods. Joe’s sword staff cleaves big chopping rents into the body of a millipede. Candra’s whisk mace rattles as it bops another, paralyzing a body segment. Randall misses with his ax. Sue Ann evokes her [Phantom Maul] and a shimmering, clawed arm swipes across a bug – wet exoskeleton bursts from the wound like confetti.

  Still, the millipedes drop yellow spores from their bellies as they move, and the the surviving five crawl towards the feet and legs of the group.

  Todd springs out of the house and levels his arm. He sprays one bug and unzips its shell with a cutting band along its backside. Switching his [mercury rod] to his left hand, he swings it in the shape of a golf club; a strike that thumps a millipede in its middle and strips it off of Randall’s leg.

  “Ow,” Randall cries, backpedaling. The large young man steps to the side and chops again, this time severing the millipede’s head. Yellow dust stains his pant leg.

  Candra yelps as she leaps away from two bugs. Joe kicks one in the face and sprays yellow spores everywhere. Todd swaps his weapon again and shoots another [water spear] along the side of a millipede chasing Candra. With a new hole punched in it, the bug’s front section loses its grip on the terracotta and rolls, twisting its body. It roils on the ground, yellow water dripping from its underside.

  “I hate fighting short things,” Randall complains.

  “Don’t jinx us,” Joe exasperates, “I don’t want to fight something big either.”

  “Now you’ve jinxed us,” Candra wails at Joe.

  “Shut up! You’re all just bringing more of them to us,” Sue Ann snaps as she falls behind the others for protection.

  Todd huffs as he batters a millipede into gooey lumps. His [mercury rod] is bent and he has to send some cosmic energy to reshape it.

  Twenty seconds later, the many-legged enemies lay twitching and dead. Joe inspects the thin scratches on his leather thigh guards, Randall puts a finger through a torn pant leg, and Candra sneezes as she shakes goo off of her [Marut sonic scepter].

  “Take a minute to rest or keep going?” Joe asks.

  Candra raises her hand. “Keep going,” she says breathing heavily.

  “I could use a break,” Randall endorses.

  “I don’t know why we can’t just clear out one place and stay there,” Sue Ann grumbles.

  “You voted with us,” Todd reminds her gently.

  “Just because everyone else wanted to,” she complains.

  Joe sighs. “Okay, that’s fine, 4H. That’s two for staying. Drips, what do you want to do?”

  “Sorry. But I still think we need a lead on this quest. We should keep on.”

  Joe nods. “Okay. And I still think we should hole up at the mansion. Toast, can you go a while longer?”

  “Fine,” Randall gripes, “can I take a healing pill though?”

  “You’re hardly scratched,” Todd indicates his own legs. “You’ll be fine after you cultivate a little.”

  “Joe used one!”

  “Joe had a head injury, man.”

  The five stiffen in the middle of their discussion as scrabbling noises sound from around the corner.

  Joe points a street ahead. “Let’s set up against that wall.” He turns to jog away. “I want our backs up against something solid anytime we have to fight. Any time they give us a second to breathe we move up again.”

  The others shift their gear on their backs and follow afterwards; then they line up against a long building. Millipedes stream towards them into the street, one after another. Over a dozen have followed in a staggered convergence.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Todd bends his knees and shoots a bug further back in the group. Its frons and vertex crumple. He steps back, his cosmic energy is running low.

  “Do we have fire?” he calls out.

  “I can’t,” Randall apologizes.

  The first millipede reaches Todd and he slams it into the rocky ground such that its neck turns into paste. “I said you should have saved it,” he half-jokes.

  Candra leaps forward and wails on a distant millipede, then is bent over at the waist as she snaps back into her place in line as if she’s been jerked by a rope. Joe’s ox-tongue glows dimly purple as he cleaves an arthropod in half with an upstroke.

  Yellow spores are puffing out from the dying bugs.

  Sue Ann shrieks and stumbles backwards into the wall. Randall leans over and chops down through tough shell.

  Surrounded, the five strike and dodge and struggle. Mouthparts chew at their legs, stopped by their shin guards or leather armor, but bruising any unprotected flesh. Their long legs scratch as they attempt to climb the humans and topple them over.

  Soon Todd finds himself lashing out with his fists rather than rely on his long [mercury rod].

  But regardless of the numbers, and the clumsiness of attacking so low, Todd and his friends crush and slash the bugs to death. They stand with red-black ichor on their weapons and yellow powder dusts everything below their waists.

  “Check the house, or keep going?” Joe asks, pointing towards an empty doorway.

  “Keep going,” call out the others except for Todd.

  Just like that, they are moving. Sue Ann climbs on top of a stairwell to double check their direction. Joe catches her as she jumps down. They continue.

  A pack of naked mole rats stop them briefly, but are slain in short order. Joe’s armor protects his arm from a nasty bite, and Candra is knocked down briefly, but they come to each others’ aid and make off without any major injuries.

  Candra has risen to level nine. So has Joe. Sue Ann has reached level eight. Their statistics strengthen their bodies and reduce their exhaustion. Endurance toughens their skin, and vitality recovers their small lacerations and abrasions. Strength overpowers the beasts, and dexterity keeps them dancing out of reach of their bites.

  Still, the close calls are coming closer, and the monsters are growing more numerous.

  Randall gets sick first. Nausea strikes him gradually, and his pallor bleaches. Heavy sweating starts next, and weakness in the limbs.

  “No, I don’t know what’s wrong,” Randall groans.

  A single rat lies at Candra’s feet. A second rodent squeals as it launches out of a first floor building and towards them.

  Joe’s gorge rises. “I’m not feeling great either. What the hell.”

  Candra meets the animal with a cracking swing and it bowls into her legs as it dies. She trips over it and then disentangles herself gracelessly. Her backpack wobbles as she gets upright.

  “Now you’re making me sick,” she hurks. “I swear, I’m gonna hurl.”

  Todd wrings his hands around his [mercury rod] and looks around in a circle. “Do we need to stop?”

  “No,” Joe raises a hand, “we’re almost there. I’m fine. Toast’s fine too, aren’t you?”

  “I guess so,” Randall wavers. He bends over, hands on his knees and shakes out his head.

  “Good,” Joe says. He chokes down reflux. “Just another block or two.”

  Along the way, Candra thumps into a nearby wall and heaves. Her pupils have dilated, and her balance is suffering mightily. Shortly after, Todd feels the queasiness coming on and he slows to a walk.

  “Huh,” Todd states. “Oh man. Wow. That’s no good.”

  “Come on, come on! It’s right over there! Don’t stop,” Sue Ann urges them.

  “What is this?” Todd spits out, “is there something wrong with the air?”

  “Maybe it’s our food.”

  “It can’t be, we would have gotten sick sooner, right?” Joe doubts.

  “It’s probably these fucking rats,” Candra growls. Her forelocks are pasted to her pale face, and her scepter shakes in her hand.

  “Why isn’t Sue Ann ill then?” Randall asks.

  “Don’t jinx her!” Candra snaps.

  Another three rats appear, and Todd curses as he changes his weapon back into a needle. He stabs clumsily at its body, and then beats it into submission with his [knuckle-shell bracer] until he can safely slide the point of his weapon down its throat. Once it has stopped moving, he puts his boot on the rats nose to pry it loose.

  Finally, the group trudges out onto a boulevard and their view opens up onto a great three story building. Each floor is terraced, with rounded edges. Just like everything else in the village, the mansion is blackened and burnt. Above, the roofs have collapsed inwards such that only the lowest story remains intact. A little to the right, a great rounded arch cuts a doorway into the darkened space.

  The five stagger forward. Eight rats empty out of nearby houses and rush them.

  Joe steps and straightens up. “Just a few more, guys. Just a few more.”