“As you can see, the previous residents left this home in quite a shamble.”

Jane, Erick, and the housing agent, Xemal, stood at the entrance to a home that was more rubble than house. This was the fourteenth ‘house’ the agent had shown them since the three of them arrived at the Human District two hours ago. All of the houses she showed were in various states of disrepair, all of them right next to other, better looking houses, or apartment buildings, or mansions, that weren’t one wall and three rubble piles. Erick and Jane could never afford one of the mansions, of course, but it would have been nice to look inside.

The problem, Erick unwillingly reflected, was probably the agent.

Xemal was an incani with a perfectly practiced professional personality. She was perky, she was insightful, she was ‘helpful’. She was also something of a terrible person.

Now… Erick didn’t want to be that way, but the facts were adding up.

In one instance, there were two of the exact same house, but one was half rubble. Guess which one Xemal showed them, and which one she refused to go near, or even to allow them to see what the rundown house would look like when they fixed it up. When Jane suggested she take a peek anyway, Xemal not-so-subtly threatened legal action against anyone who ‘trespassed’. As a legal representative of the city, she was obligated to report on any illegal activities she saw, and she was obligated to let the potential offender know that what they were planning was illegal.

And that was another thing!

All Human District property was owned by the City; agents of the court were the only ones allowed to show property to potential buyers. Xemal was the agent the court shoved Jane and Erick’s way, to show them around the district.

Jane was having fun with the whole situation.

Thank god for that, because Erick was infuriated.

“What do you think, Dad? Could be a winner!” Jane pointed at the intact wall. “One wall is all we really need, for now. We could push the rubble together into a pair of nests and sleep under the stars. Cozy!”

“Oh for sure!” Xemal said, “Use a few of the larger rocks as pillows. Maybe throw a blanket over that hole in the ground. This is a good choice.”

“Exactly!” Jane said, “Or we could [Mend] the building.”

Xemal fake-frowned. “You’re going to—”

“Need a permit for that.” Jane smiled. “Of course. How much are those again?”

“Oh they’ll run you about 2000 gold for a house like this.”

“But the house itself is only 500 gold?”

“Yup! Don’t forget the 50% monthly interest on a loan, though. That adds up quick.”

Jane asked, “What’s the approval time on a Mending Permit, again?”

Xemal waved her hand. “Oh~ Only a few months. Not a big deal.”

Something crashed down the street.

Another something crashed, louder than before.

All three stepped around the broken house wall, looking for the source of the noise.

Down the street, three incani were tearing up a building, crashing through stone walls with their bodies, punching out supports with their fists. They were not enthusiastic construction workers tearing apart an old building to make way for something new. They had to be 15, maybe 16 years old. Their clothes were torn up. They were dusty with debris. They laughed the whole time they deconstructed the former home, shouting ‘die piggy’ and honking at the sky.

Jane laughed. “That’s cliché.” She turned to Xemal. “This is just silly. Are you going to report them for vandalism? For trespassing?”

“Who? Those kids having fun? No need to get the guard involved.”

Jane pointed across the street at an intact house. “And if I wanted to see the inside of that?”

“I’d have to report you to the guard.”

“Of course!”

Erick clenched his teeth, whispering, “Of course.”

They must have spent too long in sight of the teenagers, because the rampage stopped. Three sets of feet padded toward Erick and Jane, barely audible below the sounds of a ‘song’.

“Piggy piggy where are you! Piggy piggy run you through!”

They were getting louder. They were closer.

“Piggy piggy don’t you cry! Piggy piggy time to die!”

[Ward].

A 400 point [Ward] popped up around Erick and Jane, clipping a bit into Xemal. She leapt back, declaring the [Ward] an invasion of her space. Erick frowned at her and immediately activated [Meditation].

The first teenager, a young girl with one horn in the middle of her forehead, came full into view, stopping only 15 feet away. She yelled, pointing, “I thought I smelled pigshit!”

“They already warded up!” said the boy, right behind the girl, and then three steps closer to Erick and Jane. “Scared piggies!”

“Scared piggies!” echoed the second girl, right beside the boy.

Jane said, “This is just so offensive. What the fuck, Xemal?”

A blast of sharpened mana erupted from the second girl, splashing across Erick and Jane, each blade ripping a dozen points off of Erick’s [Ward]. Erick was flat out stunned. What the hell? Anger stabbed through his body, but with so many different possible outlets, he didn’t know what to do. Jane had no such problems.

Jane ignored the attack, turning to Xemal, saying, “Are you going to report them now?”

“For a few points off your [Ward]?” teased the boy, laughing.

The other two laughed, the second girl blasting them for a second time, eating 30 points of damage from the [Ward]. And that 30 damage was just the damage that Erick could see. He couldn’t see what damage the attack had done to Jane, but his [Ward] was much dimmer than it was before the girl’s attacks.

Xemal asked, all cheery, “What would I report them for? I didn’t see anything.”

Jane looked at the kids, joyful anger in her eyes. “So if I spanked these kids to 1 HP, but you first, Xemal, because this is obviously a setup, would you still be selectively blind?”

The second girl blasted them with another [Force Shrapnel]. It didn’t hurt. Yet.

No one was laughing anymore. Wind whistled through the half-destroyed neighborhood. The rest of Spur was far away, but only ten streets over. Between Erick and Jane and safety were three purple teenagers with murder in their eyes and mana in their hands.

Xemal broke the silence, saying, “You could down the old man but the daughter would kill you, and I won’t step in to save you. Run along, kids. This is not worth any of our lives.”

Two of the kids matched Erick’s glare.

The one horned girl smirked, putting a hand on the other girl’s shoulder, saying, “Come on.”

The boy left first, followed by the first girl. The girl with the [Force Shrapnel] glared at Erick and Jane as she backed away. The second girl lingered the longest. By the time the other two were two blocks away, she was only thirty feet distant.

For a few seconds, she was alone. That was probably why the shadowolves targeted her.

A shadow the size of a person lunged from the darkened edge of a nearby house, silent and full of white teeth. It raced through the girl’s legs, and she fell to the ground, confused. She only screamed when the second shadow appeared behind her, latching on to her shoulder, trying to drag her away, down a side street.

Erick blinked, frozen, watching the scene in front of him not knowing what to do.

Jane had no such problem.

A clear blue sword appeared in Jane’s right hand. A clear blue shield appeared on her left forearm. She moved in a blink of blue light, and the world moved around her. Forward, she smashed, covering 35 feet in the same instant she donned her weapons.

One wolf went flying; crashed against Jane’s shield. Her sword slipped into the head of the wolf at the girl’s shoulder. The girl screamed again, tears in her eyes, blood on her dusty shirt. The girl blindly cast a [Force Shrapnel] into the air, clipping Jane’s stomach. The spell drew a line in the fabric but not much else. Jane ripped the sword out of the shadowolf, slicing up as she did. Black blood sprayed. That wolf wasn’t ever getting up again.

Two more shadows detached from two more houses.

Jane grabbed the screaming kid and threw her twenty feet down the street to her friends. By this time her friends had turned around and realized something was wrong; they had raced back for the second girl. They were close to where the second girl landed. They grabbed her. The one-horned girl loosed a beam of bright purple that sliced across the battlefield, scoring hits against the three living wolves and Jane’s suddenly raised shield.

Jane laughed—

She kept laughing as she reappeared next to Erick.

The whole event, so far, had taken less than 10 seconds.

She held her sword hand up. Black blood dripped from the weapon. “Did you see that? Killed one instantly—”

The three shadowolves prowled around, circling closer to Erick and Jane.

“—Fricken [Conjure Weapon]! I knew it was a good skill, but damn! 508 damage, critical hit! Slid right in like the wolf wasn’t even there.” Jane flicked the sword, scattering black blood on the ground. She smirked at the space behind Erick. “Our minder is gone.”

Erick turned around. Yup. Xemal was gone. Erick turned back toward the shadowolves. He only saw two now, and one of them was dragging the body of the first wolf off the street.

“Hey, Dad.” Jane calmly walked beside Erick, protecting his left side, her shield at the ready, her sword relaxed in her hands. “I don’t know if this is an incani setup, but we have to be prepared for that. Also, we can’t run. Shadowolves either try to kill you where you stand, or chase you somewhere better. Did you pick a damage spell yet?”

“UHHHhhh—”

“Dad. Calm down. They’re still setting up the attack. I can’t tell how many there are, but there’s at least 4. Are you still meditating? Do you have mana? Did you pick a spell?”

“I did! I did! [Force Beam]. I practiced with it already. I have some mana left. Uh. Clarity leveled some in there. Wow, they’re like tiny Darknesses.”

She spoke in English, maybe to confuse potential listeners, “Here’s the plan. Hit the forward one with your spell, then rush forward. They’ll try to hit us from behind and the sides, but they won’t commit because they think we’re running. Then I attack them and you stay safe. If you can hit the forward wolf in the head, I think you can crit. Think like you’re shooting a gun; if you hit well, you’ll bypass most of his HP shield.”

She hunkered down a tiny bit. “Are you ready?”

HELL NO. I CAN’T MOVE MY LEGS.

“Yes.”

Growls echoed from all sides. Sweat dripped.

Jane smiled.

“Your go, Dad.”

Erick had tried [Force Beam] before now, alone in the river room, shooting the water and hoping no one caught his abysmal failures at working a proper damage spell. Al probably saw him, but Al said nothing. Erick quickly learned at least three things about himself. One, he was bad at magic. Two, he wanted to be better at magic. And Three, he did not like how the Script activated basic magic in the same way for everyone.

He was supposed to activate [Force Beam] with a pointed finger.

That was stupid. He did not like that. He couldn’t aim for shit with a finger. But he could certainly look at the part of the monster he was supposed to hit.

[Force Beam].

A two second long beam of clear white cutting mana pulsed from just in front of his eyes, staying on the shadowolf’s skull as the beast tried to run and dodge. Erick stared at the monster, cleaving the shadow from face to spine, with a bit left over to scar the stone road.

Crit for 350!

Crit for 350!

You have slain Shadowolf C!

90% participation!

+2097 exp

Everyone was too surprised to stick to the plan.

Jane yelled, “Damn, Dad! You splattered tha—!”

A growl and a slap of shadow sounded from behind. He turned. Jane swung her sword at a 200 pound mass of shadows and teeth that she had locked down underneath her clear-blue shield. The wolf slithered out of the pin, escaping Jane’s strike, running away behind a pile of rubble. The shadowolf ambled behind a low wall, barely visible but for flickers of darkness that fluttered above the stone, and then it was gone.

“You didn’t run forward, Dad. That was probably a good thing since they didn’t swarm us like the textbooks said they should have. Walk forward. Slowly. If you see another wolf come for the one you killed, kill it.”

With all of his tenacity, Erick took a step forward, down the street, toward the wolf corpse in the middle of the road. Then he took another. Growls vibrated from the shadowed eves of nearby buildings. Erick stopped as he was about to exit his [Ward].

Jane noticed, and stopped with him.

One wolf stood up from the roof of a house in front of them, maybe a hundred feet away. Another stood up from the roof of the opposite house. Both of them were outside the range of his [Force Beam]. Medium range did not go that far.

Behind him, Jane cursed, then said, “They aren’t going to let us go. Some of your [Ward] is still left so we fight here. Slowly look behind us, Dad.”

Erick did. There were three more shadowolves prowling toward them. Two of the shadowolves were out of range. The last one was ten feet away.

[Force Beam].

The close wolf skittered backward, but not before Erick clipped its face, neck, flank, and the road again.

Crit for 350!

Hit for 35!

You have slain Shadowolf E!

65% participation!

+1514 exp

Jane cheered, “HELL YES!” then vanished in a [Blink].

She reappeared thirty feet away, cleaving a shadowolf’s head from its body. She [Blink]ed back to Erick’s side, just in time for the remaining wolves to descend, all at once.

Erick shot out two more beams. He clipped some wolves, but they were too fast. Like eels in a river, they slipped this way and that, crushing for the kill, jaws wide, growling, snarling. Jane crashed into one, tossing it into a wall. She sliced into another and that wolf collapsed to the ground, two legs severed, left behind to sit on ground like the incani girl’s legs over there in the middle of the street. Jane spun and inserted her sword into the downed wolf’s chest, and then she was moving to the next target. There was a kill message, but Erick didn’t bother to read it and the box vanished as soon as it appeared.

Black blood scattered and wolves raced toward Jane’s feet, but she dodged, sliding her sword into writhing not-flesh, scoring more hits, scattering bodies.

Suddenly, three more wolves were dead and one wolf was leaping right at Erick’s face. Jaws latched around his arm and the monster pulled Erick to the ground.

82 absorbed!

Hit for 24!

Hit for 35!

Hit for 30!

A sword pushed into the monster’s face, and the monster let go. He had almost hit 0 HP.

A rush of white light wrapped around Erick.

Healed for 25!

Jane’s [Rejuvenation] ticked lots more. Erick couldn’t get up in time, the last wolf was coming for him.

[Force Beam].

Like so much shadow, the monster burned under Erick’s withering glare.

Crit for 350!

You have slain Shadowolf G!

25% participation!

+582 exp

All around them were shadowy bodies.

A breeze swirled through the street. There were no more wolves.

And then a yowl echoed from a darkened street, like a horror movie’s rendition of a tiger’s meow. Two cat eyes stared at them from the darkness, both of them bright, bright yellow, but small, like twinkles in the night sky.

The eyes closed and the darkness vanished. Light returned. The sounds of a far away city came back to Erick and Jane’s section of the destroyed Human District. Battle receded, but Erick’s heart kept right on chugging, boom boom boom boom. He stood.

Was it over?

It was over, wasn’t it?

He stared around him, trying to make sense of everything. Nothing was sensible. Everything was fantastical, shouldn’t-be-happening. Crazy and foreign.

Jane moved to one of the monsters and stabbed her sword into the body. She rooted around inside the chest cavity. Black blood got everywhere. What was she doing?

Erick’s voice returned to him. “What are you doing?”

“It’s supposed to be next to the heart in shadowolves but I didn’t expect the insides to be so strange and— Ah ha!” She pulled out a crystal fragment —a rad— its glittering warmth barely visible through the black viscera. “This one’s worth 5 gold!”

Erick promptly vomited up breakfast.

Jane said, “We should hurry and get the rads and get to town.” She looked all around at the carnage. “I don’t think this was a setup, but it might have been. And that shadowcat! Fuck! That’s a level 25 kill quest!”

As Jane went and did what she wanted to do, Erick threw up again. He did not want to throw up again, but this day did not seem to be the kind of day where Erick got to do what Erick wanted to do.

Sometimes life was like that.

There were a few level ups and several completely missed blue boxes, but Erick would deal with that later. They had to get to the nearest guard station as fast as they could. They had killed up to ‘monster G’, meaning 7 kills, but Jane only found 5 bodies, including the first one that had been half-dragged off the street, meaning two bodies had been dragged away by hidden forces. At least two more wolves were hiding in the decrepit Human District, probably a lot more than two, and they were being led by at least one shadowcat.

Erick and Jane did not retrace their steps to the beginning of the Human District; they went straight to the closest part of town, which happened to be a part of the sprawling dragonkin district, which was less of a district and more of the glue that held the rest of Spur together. After the locals stopped screaming and realized what was going on, Erick and Jane found themselves herded toward the nearest guard station.

Just to make sure that any scheming incani didn’t try to contradict the truth, Jane had cut off 5 shadowolf tails, hauling them with her like some macabre trophy. Apparently this was a completely normal way to vet your kills with the Adventurer’s Guild, because the guard took sight of the tails, the black and red blood, and the story of wolves and cats at face value. At the mention of a possible cat, the crowd that had gathered around Erick, Jane, and the guards, started talking louder among themselves.

The next thing Erick and Jane knew they were [Cleanse]d and standing in a courtroom in the courthouse, opposite Xemal and three surly teenagers, one of the teenage girls still missing her feet and having to sit because of it. Standing in the audience behind the incani were two more incani, one of them the bystander for the mugging attacks, the other unknown. Behind Erick and Jane was Al, and strangely enough, Guildmaster Mog. The story of a shadowcat in Spur had spread through the town like wartime news. Mog was here for the official report on what might be a prelude to disaster.

In the lawyer and judge’s area were Hera, Felair, and a shining bright, completely silver wrought in the shape of an aging female dragonkin. The silver wrought was wearing actual clothes like a normal person, instead of her flesh shaped into robes or armor like all the other wrought Erick had ever seen.

She was Silverite. She was the Mayor of Spur. She had been the Mayor for the last 550 years.

She took her seat in the judge’s booth; the rest of the courthouse took their seats at her sufferance.