“Um,” I said as I tried to deal with the question. How was I still alive? Was this place really that dangerous? Sure the ghosts were scary, and there were bears and things, maybe, but nothing I had seen topped the evil ghosts or the monsters in the dungeon. “Well, mostly I just fought ghosts, some zombies and that was it, really. I’ve been eating berries and honey for the most part. Is that what you meant?”

Arianne shook her head. “Ghosts aren’t too common, but zey are easily dispatched by most. It’s ze sombrals, ze pixies, and ze dryads zat are ze issues here.”

I stared at her, then at the others around the fire. Donat had rejoined the circle, plopping himself down right on the ground without even a log to sit on. Emeric was still wearing a smile, but next to him, Leonard the mean samurai was glaring suspiciously. Valerie was the only one ignoring me as she focused on the stew. The ranger was... gone? I couldn’t see him, and I never noticed him leaving. Neat!

“Well,” I said. “I never saw any dryads, and I don’t know what sombrals are. I did meet a whole lot of pixies though. They were nice.”

“Nice?” Arianne asked. “I have seen zem melt the flesh off of creatures an order of magnitude bigger zan zey are wiz zeir magic. Each pixie has a different and mostly unique set of spells zat zey will use to tear you apart.”

“Uh.” I shrugged. “I offered them some honey to let me stay in their territory. Then I gave their leader a second jar to escort me around for a day.”

“You--” Emeric started to croak with laughter. “Oh, zat’s priceless. Hear zat, Leo. No need to scare off ze pixies with your big sword. Just give zem honey!”

“She could be lying,” the samurai said.

I nodded, which set him to blinking at me. “I could be. But that wouldn’t be very nice of me. I have some honey left over, if you want to try it for yourself. It would be a real shame if you hurt the pixies just because of a little misunderstanding.’

Arianne looked like she wanted to pat me, but she didn’t which was good. People were always doing that and it was very rude.

“Can you tell me about the sombrals and the dryads?” I asked.

“Are you going to offer zem some honey as well?” Emeric asked.

“I might. But I don’t know what dryads or sombrals eat. Maybe they don’t like honey, or can get some themselves.”

“Sombrals,” Arianne began in a tone that sounded an awful lot like some of my teachers. “Are one of the monsters native to the Darkwoods. Dryads, on ze other hand, are common across ze whole world. Zey tend to be wherever zere are large forests. Donat, tell Broccoli about sombrals.”

The young grenoil jumped, looked around, then rubbed at his face where his nose would be as a human. “Ah, right, sombrals. Second tier monsters. Scary, big, zey like ze taste of fresh grenoil meat. Do you know what a wolf is?” I nodded and he continued. “Right. sombrals are like wolves if wolves were made of shadows and didn’t need to sleep. Zey aren’t as big as some kinds of wolves, but zat only means zat zey are sneakier.”

“And how do you fight zem?” Arianne asked Donat. She was leading him on, making him recite information that he was probably already supposed to know.

“Fire works. Zey don’t like it. Light magic is best. But we don’t have zat. Hitting zem on the head works too. Zey are not like ghosts who are immune to physical harm. But zey do resist it better.”

“Can’t you just run away?” I asked. I didn’t want to go around booping any poor wolves on the head for doing what was in their nature.

“No,” Donat said with a shake of his head. “Sombrals are blind. Zey can’t see. But zeir sense of smell is incredible and zey will hunt you for days if zey must. You can run to find a better place to fight. Or into a town with lots of people if it’s close, but zey can’t be outrun in zis forest. Zey hunt in packs and will try to encircle you if zey can.”

“Scary,” I said. “I guess I’m lucky I never ran into them.”

“Zat’s the strange part,” Emeric said. “Zey would track you down by your scent. How did you avoid zat?”

I thought about it for a few moments, but the answer was pretty obvious. “I am very clean,” I said. “I have the cleaning skill, so I shouldn’t have much of a smell at all.”

Emeric blinked his big froggy eyes at me, then tilted back and laughed, his feet thumping on the ground as he croaked and gurgled with mirth.

“Tch,” Leonard said. “I would call what you did clever if it was not so obvious that you merely managed to avoid death through sheer dumb luck.”

“Now now, Leonard,” Arianne said. “It’s good information to have. We might be able to use it ourselves.”

“Stew’s ready!” Valerie declared. “Hey, tadpole, get ze bowls and such.”

Donat grumbled, but he ran off to the tents in a hurry at the sight of Valerie’s glare and soon returned with a stack of tin bowls and a handful of wooden spoons. He passed them around, then got shoved aside by Valerie when he reached for the ladle. The frog girl started filling everyone’s bowls, and I got to go first for some reason. Maybe some sort of guest custom.

I sat back down, tummy gurgling as I took in deep breaths of the vapours coming off of the stew. It smelled so good my eyes nearly rolled back into my head. Still, I noticed that the others were waiting before digging in.

Pierre the sneaky ranger walked out of the woods as if he had just been standing in plain sight all along and took a bowl of his own. He was the last to sit down.

“May our wills be the will of the world,” they all intoned at more or less the same time. Then they started digging in.

“You don’t worship the world tree?” Valerie asked between two bites.

I shook my head and hoped that wouldn’t cause any troubles. I forgot all about that as I put the spoon in my mouth and the savoury taste of meaty juices and some sort of potato-like root filled my mouth with an explosion of flavour. “This is so good!” I said when I swallowed. I might have burnt my tongue and throat but it was worth it.

Valerie made a gesture my way, a sort of thumbs up, but her thumb was webbed and it came out weird. Still, I understood what she meant and didn’t blame her if she didn’t want to stop eating for even a moment.

I slurped down a few more bites then started scooping up some of the meat and vegetables out of the juice. Some were crunchy, which was strange, but not too bad.

“Needs more roach,” Donat said.

“Hard to find out here,” Arianne said.

I wondered what they meant. Then I looked into my bowl and saw that thumb-sized and very dead bug in my stew. Another floated up to the surface next to it. “Ah,” I said. I debated losing my supper all over the campfire, but then held back. It had been really good until then. I picked up another bug on my spoon, then placed it in my mouth and chewed.

It crunched and crunched and I just couldn’t do it knowing what it was.

“I, I’m full,” I lied as I pushed the bowl to Valerie. If there were tears in my eyes at losing such a delicious meal she didn’t comment.

The girl smiled wide and took my bowl without protest to chug it all down. Emeric’s eyes were turned up as if to say he knew exactly what had happened and thought it was hilarious.

“So, um, dryads?” I asked.

“If you run into a dryad, you’ll know,” Leonard said. “They are immensely dangerous, usually past their second tier, though you might find younger ones around. They can kill an entire squadron of ill-prepared troops. But, for the most part, they will not hurt or hunt you if you make an effort to avoid them and are careful about not cutting down trees in their presence.”

“So they’re peaceful?” I asked.

Arianne shook her head and swallowed. “No. Zey are merely not aggressive. Do not confuse ze two.”

“The pixies weren’t aggressive at first and they became friends,” I said. “Maybe you’re just approaching them the wrong way?” I wondered.

“Oh, please do try to make friends with a dryad,” Leonard said. “As long as I am there to watch, of course.”

I harrumphed and reached into my bandoleer to pull out Orange. The kitty had been sleeping all afternoon, but the motion of taking her out woke her up. She looked around at all the people around us and shook to fluff out her fur.

“What’s zat?” Donat asked.

“This is Orange,” I said. “She’s a spirit cat.”

“Did you find it in ze wild?” Arianne asked as she stared at Orange with an intense look. Her eyes opened wider after a moment. “Ah, a summon.”

“What a useless summon,” Leonard said.

Orange glared at him.

“Watch out Leo, it might scratch you,” Emeric said. “Where did you find a spirit cat? Attracted it with some honey?”

“No, I got her from an item,” I said.

“Cute,” he replied. “Not zat useful, but a handy companion. And perhaps it will grow into a large and fearsome tabby cat in a decade or two.”

“Well I like her,” I said as I pulled Orange in for a quick snuggle. She, being a proper kitty, objected to the display of love and squirmed out of my grasp to run away. She didn’t go far and was soon distracted by some swaying leaves. “So,” I asked as I refocused. “What are you guys doing out here? Is there a village or something nearby?”

“I was zinking of asking you ze same. What is a level four Cinnamon Bun, whatever zat may be, doing out in zese woods?” Arianne asked. She set her bowl aside then hugged her staff close, fingers running across the well-worn wood.

“I’m a bit lost,” I admitted.

Emeric chuckled. “A little, yes. You can stay wiz us tonight. Tomorrow we will point you to Rockstack. It’s a small outpost run by a few guilds. If you’re as clever as you look you’ll be able to find work. Maybe one day you can join the Exploration Guild.”

“Is that who you are?” I asked. “Members of an exploration guild?” That sounded so cool! Like an adventurer’s guild, but with less killing rats in someone’s basement and more exploring tombs and looking for cool places.

“Zat we are,” Emeric said. “Myself, Arianne, Pierre, and most recently Valerie are all members of ze same exploration team. Leo here is a senior member who joined our team for zis expedition because we’ll be exploring a more dangerous place, and Donat tagged along because we need someone close to reaching zeir class evolution if we find a dungeon.”

“So cool,” I said. I now had about a million questions to ask! “What are you guys looking for?”

“She isn’t part of our group,” Leonard said. “Don’t spill confidential information.”

“She might have come across what we’re looking for. At least she might save us some fruitless searching,” Emeric argued back.

The samurai considered this for a moment, then nodded. “Very well.”

Emeric smiled triumphantly. “We are looking for a lost town zat was once occupied by humans. Zere is nearly no human presence left here, and it was a frontier town when it fell, so we don’t know where it is. But someone discovered something interesting in zat town and we want to see it.”

Frowning, I considered what he’d said. A human town around here. The only one I had seen so far was... “Are you talking about Threewells?” I asked.

In a blink there was a hand clasped over each of my shoulders.