Chase stared down at the jerky and hard rolls in her hand. “They let you keep the food?” her voice rose with incredulity.

“I know,” Her father chuckled. “They took our weapons, but left us the food. I had the feeling they didn’t know too much about halvens.”

The small group had spent half an hour running full tilt, only slowing as they grew exhausted. And that’s when her Father’s group broke out the food, more than enough to share with the adventurers.

Well, those that could eat, anyway. Chase’s eyes fell back on Renny and the pig knight… Baconator, that was his name. Those two had been carried by the red-haired women. Those two, sisters if Chase was any judge of it, were sitting and ravenously devouring their way through a stack of cold pancakes.

You have regained 5 stamina! Chase glanced over to Susan Crabapple, who sat and drummed her hands on the hollow log she’d found, humming a jaunty tune. The old lady had Bard levels, and her song was speeding their regeneration.

“Dad?” She edged closer to him, where he sat reworking the straps on his borrowed shield. “What kind of skills were you using in there? Dijornos used skills like those.”

“Mercenary skills,” her father said, shortly. “Most of us here have that job to some degree. We used to be in the same band together.”

“Still are,” Ruggle Casker said. “We just don’t fight no more.”

“You were an adventurer?” Chase’s voice squeaked. It seemed absurdly unfair, somehow. Her father had lived an exciting life, and she knew nothing about it! She shot a look at Greta. Had her sister known? But no, Greta raised her hands and shook her head.

Her father just laughed. The sad laugh, this time. “No. We got drafted. Told to take our farm tools and fight for our lord’s land. We did, but our lord lost, so we hit the road after that. Our country ceased to be, and the new lord wanted to charge us too many taxes for fighting him. No other land would have us, so we joined up with Taran’s Tallymen.”

“They called us the Tiny Terriers,” Benjy Lapin snorted. “But we made them eat their words. After the siege of Grimaldi they said it with respect, damn it.”

“How… why… Bothernot? Bothernot is like the opposite of that!” Chase said, grasping, trying to understand.

“Yes,” Stem Berrymore said, his voice very, very quiet. “It was the opposite of that. Until today.”

Silence fell across the clearing then, all save for Susan’s steady drumming. But even that had taken on a sad, poignant undertone. And Chase looked around to see the older halvens sitting, eyes looking far away.

“Weren’t many of us survived those days,” Grummer said. “Bout one in five. We got out once we had the coin to buy farms. Never hit the high levels, and that’s quite alright with us. Had our fill o’ blood. Had our fill o’ dead friends.”

“Bothernot was that way because we made it that way,” Chase’s father said, and his hand reached out and stroked her hair, like he had when she was much, much younger. “We wanted different for you. We wanted peace.”

No wonder they never spoke of it, Chase realized. It’s breaking their hearts just to remember those days.

“I’m sorry,” Renny said. “This is all our fault. If we hadn’t come here, then the prisoners would still be in Pandora. None of this would be happening.”

“No, it wasn’t your fault,” Stem said, shaking his head, and giving Chase one last squeeze on her scalp. “If it hadn’t have been you, it would have been something else eventually. It was a bad idea, building that prison here. I don’t know what Baroness Floria was thinking.”

“Ever since she started sending the Camerlengo ‘round to handle us instead of coming herself, she’s been right unreasonable,” Danver Posey said. “Time would come we’d need to move on anyway.”

“Speaking of that…” Stem stood up, and looked around at the others. “Everyone full up? Good. Let’s do another Forced March.”

Instantly, Chase felt herself speed up… and she knew the same thing was happening with Greta and Renny, and the three other halvens who were in her temporary team. Across the way, two other halvens invoked the skill, assigned to their respective groups, and the twenty-strong group charged once more into the woods, their speed far faster than their usual pace. Dancing lanterns bobbed and weaved around them as they went, as Renny did his thing, illuminating the path through newly-fallen night.

Midway there, great peals of sound echoed through the forest. The bell in the Church! Chase realized. That’s the alarm! We’re too late!

The others evidently thought so too, judging by the expressions she saw on shadowed faces, and Greta clutched at her arm like a drowning woman. Even though it slowed her, Chase let her sister cling to her, find what comfort she could. If the worst had happened, then she couldn’t grudge Greta that.

Had it all been for naught? Chase wondered, and ran, hoping against hope, sending up a silent prayer to Hoon.

The prayer, it seemed, was answered.

No carnage awaited them at the village. Just the whole of the village gathered in the town square, as far as Chase could tell, nearly a hundred halvens and three tall humans standing out in the crowd. Torches blazed and flickered, and Mother Bloom stood on the steps of the church, trying to calm the frantically babbling mob.

The babbling ceased, as fourteen halvens, two humans, a gribbit, and two golems, and a dwarf surged out of the night, skidding to a halt so fast that they kicked up a small cloud of dirt.

“They’re back!” Chase heard Milla Wheadle cry.

“Who’re those longshanks?” Gammer Burke whined.

“Holy fump it’s a walkin’ pig! With armor!” An unidentified voice shrieked. “Tell me someones else is seeing this! Tell me this ain’t the gin talkin’!”

“They’re here to help,” Stem shouted back. “There’s trouble coming.”

“There’s trouble here!” Goody Fobs shouted back. “Tollen Wheadle’s gone missing! Him and that dwarf you brought in, Stem Berrymore!”

A good number of the crowd muttered, and shifted over to stare suspiciously at the dwarven adventurer. He shrugged, and shook his head, doing his best to look innocent. It didn’t seem to work, and the muttering grew.

Her father tried to get them to listen, but shouts and conversations broke out through the mob, and Chase could almost feel the fear and alarm rolling off them.

This is bad. Vaffanculo will be here at any minute. She looked around the group, hoping that someone would take charge, but nobody was. Nobody could!

Unless…

Chase whispered “Status,” and checked over her skills.

Yes. Yes she COULD do this!

“Silver Tongue. Lecture!” she said, invoking her new Teacher’s skill for the first time ever.

Your Silver Tongue skill is now level 4!

Your Lecture skill is now level 2!

“Listen up!” She bellowed, slamming her hand against her father’s shield… and instantly regretting it. That hurt! She was pretty sure a red number had floated out of her from that.

But that was fine, in fact perhaps it helped gained the crowd’s attention. She saw most of the fear-filled faces turning towards her, and most of the loud conversations died.

“An evil necromancer is coming to kill us all! But we can stop him if we fight back. He’ll be here soon with his horde of clowns. So we have to prepare. My father will-”

“A horde of clowns? What? That’s ridiculous!” Millie Wheadle cried. “Are they going to act creepy and squirt us with water? Stop lying, Chase. Tollen’s the problem right now, not your stories!”

A chuckle ran through the crowd, and Chase flushed. “They’re zombies and they’re coming to eat us! We need to fight them!”

But the crowd was laughing now, the absurdity of the idea working against her. Everywhere Chase looked, she saw the faces of her neighbors twisted up in hysterical laughter. Stubborn laughter.

The more she pushed here, the more they’d resist her, she knew. They’d do it just to make themselves feel smarter. Reason was useless against halven mental inertia… or lack thereof.

They won’t believe me because they don’t want to believe. They don’t want to believe that something like that could happen here. Chase grimaced. She had double stacked skills on this, and her charisma was through the roof. True, her skills were pretty low, but they should still give her the edge…

…except that one of those skills only worked with lies, now didn’t it?

Well. When had she ever relied on the truth to get her what she wanted? Why start now?

“Okay, you got me,” Chase said, raising her hands. “I was lying about that.”

The laughter broke off into surprised murmurs, and confused glances.

“The fact is that the Camerlengo knows of the hidden harvest caches and she’s sending mercenaries here to confiscate them.”

That got a reaction. This was a village of farmers, and no farmer in his right mind would willingly report all of their harvest to their liege lords, no matter how good the lord was. And going by the grumbling she’d heard from the old hands, the Camerlengo wasn’t very nice at all, when it came to tithes.

“So why clowns?” Millie Wheadle asked, but Chase ignored her. Her voice was confused, and no one was listening to her anymore. “We need to find Tollen!” Millie persisted, casting around, looking for help.

Chase almost felt bad for her. Almost. But she was too busy feeling joy about the words that popped up in front of her. The words that told her she’d succeeded.

You are now a level 5 Grifter!

CHA+3

DEX+3

LUCK+3

You have learned the Forgery skill!

Your Forgery skill is now level 1!

You have learned the Pickpocket skill!

Your Pickpocket skill is now level 1!

You have learned the Unflappable Skill!

And why wouldn’t she succeed with this story? Zombies? Zombies were the stuff of legends, and boogeyman stories, and things that couldn’t possibly enter into the very limited imaginations of the inhabitants of Bothernot. But tax collectors? Those were an ever present fear. Lies about tax collectors were real in a way that the truth about zombies could never compete with.

“We need to go move the harvest. Fast!” Someone in the crowd decided, and the mob split up, groups of halvens separating out by family, and heading back to their farms.

All save for about a dozen, who looked around at each other, and headed over to the new arrivals. Millie was in the lead, her mouth twisted into a furious frown, bangs flopping as she charged straight toward Chase.

“Chase Berrymore! You… you… you liar!” She burst into tears as she approached, flailing at Chase with weak punches. Chase easily dodged, feeling pity for the small girl.

Greta caught Millie before she could do much more, and Millie sagged, wailing.

Before this morning, that would have horrified me, Chase thought. She would have caught me flat-footed, bowled me over, and it would have been the worst tragedy I had ever lived through.

Now? Now it was barely worth noticing. Chase had way too many other things to do, here.

“What was that all about?” Mother Bloom said, rapping her cane against the ground to draw Chase’s attention.

“I had to get them out of town, on alert, and busy expecting interlopers.” Chase said, forcing herself to look Mother Bloom in the eyes. “They didn’t believe me when I told them the truth, so I lied.”

Mother Bloom looked back at the remaining halvens… and the humans, Chase realized, as she recognized Florenzia and Janasi Dijetto, and Old Man Carver in the group. And Burt Crabapple, who had gone past them to have a long talk with his Mother, Susan.

And then Chase’s mother was there, hugging her, gathering Greta in at the same time. Chase closed her eyes and sagged into her embrace.

“That’s enough, Freda,” Her father spoke. “I’m sorry. We’ve got a lot to do and no time to do it.”

“Why?” Mother Bloom, finally said, tapping Chase’s arm with her cane to get her attention. “Why did you want to scatter my flock?”

She honestly sounded lost. Chase tried to find a good way to say it, then decided that no, the old priestess deserved the truth. “Because I’m sorry, but they’re going to be useless. I’ve spent months figuring out how zombies could eat this place, and in every case, most of the town ends up just being fodder. They get scared and scream and run around and do idiotic things like open the door and go outside when it’s quiet, or go check out the strange noises from the dark cellar, or something like that.”

“We’re not!” Millie shrilled.

“Oh yes you are!” Chase rounded on her, the venom in her town making the smaller girl shrink back. “What’s that you told me this morning? You don’t need brains? Well the zombies do, and they’ll take even stupid, lazy ones like yours, Millie Wheadle! So you better start trying to get smarter because they’ll eat you if you don’t!”

Millie slapped her.

Chase slapped her back, sending a red two floating up from her head, and knocking her on her ass.

Your Brawling skill is now level 8!

Then her father’s hand fell on her shoulder. “Easy. Don’t look down on’em. They’ve never known a real fight. They’re not who you’re really mad at, here.”

Chase closed her eyes. “Now that they’re at their farms, they won’t be clustered. They won’t be easily trapped between buildings. Everyone’s got escape tunnels, and ways out of their houses. They’ll be expecting people coming and they’ll hide… which is best, because most of them can’t fight a damn anyway.” She opened her eyes, and stared at Mother Bloom. “We could have worked together. Could have fought them off. But that would have required them to believe me. And well, they didn’t. So if they get out of the way and let a small group of really good fighters handle this, then that’s almost as good.”

“You’ve spent months figuring out the logistics of a zombie invasion?” Mother Bloom’s voice held suspicion, and Chase rolled her eyes.

“It’s true,” Greta said. “She was trying to get me to help her with the zombie thing. And she’s an Oracle.”

“An Oracle?” Now Mother Bloom sounded impressed. “You saw this happening, Chase? A vision or something of the sort?”

“Not this, not precisely.” Chase rubbed her face. “Ah… sorry about that punch, Millie. Lesser Healing.”

Millie gasped as she mended. Her bangs flipped back from where she sat on the ground, her eyes were huge and weeping big tears. “My brother… please. I just want Tollen back,” she whispered.

“He’ll be fine, I promise you,” Chase lied. “If there’s no body then that means the prisoner took him with her. She’s out of the picture, so he’s safe from the zombies. Everything else we can sort out after we survive this. And we can survive this.” She looked up to her father... and found that he’d been ignoring the conversation, talking with the rest of the crowd while she’d been straightening out Millie and Mother Bloom.

And before her eyes, they were organizing at a speed she’d never believed possible, not from how she’d seen them drag their feet and whine during the day-to-day slow idleness of Bothernot. The dozen or so that had remained behind mixed in with the veterans of the old wars and the adventurers, and started breaking out into groups of seven. Just as she realized what was happening, what was about to happen, words flowed across her vision.

Tam Berrymore has left your party!

Susan Crabapple has left your party!

Stig Stoutfoot has left your party!

Grindy Low has left your party!

“Dad?” Chase asked, as he stepped away, heading toward another part of the crowd.

He looked back and smiled. “Don’t worry, Sweetpea. We’ve got a plan.”

“All right.” She frowned. “What is it?”

“No time to discuss. Your part of it is going to be rearguard and healing.”

“What? No, I need to-”

“Mother Bloom and Father Gronk will be our main healers for the four active groups. You’re going to get Greta and Renny and Gadram to guard you, and you’re going to be on hospital duty. Invite them now, please.”

“I can fight, Dad. I can help.”

“I know you can, but that’s not where I need you. Not unless things go bad. Chase. Do this for me. Do this for us,” he said, reaching out and grabbing his wife’s hand.

Chase withered beneath their gaze. “Low blow,” she whispered. “All right. Okay. So… hospital duty?” He had been through wars, Chase reminded herself. He knew what he was doing. And if he hadn’t, well, she could improvise. “Invite Gadram,” she said while she thought.

Gadram Granitegrin has joined your party!

Meanwhile, her father explained. “People who get wounded, but not too badly, will come to you. You heal them and send them out again.” Stem looked past the festival stage, out past the Church, and past the lightposts hung with ribbons. “We’ll make our stand around the Dewdrop Inn, use it as a fallback point. The cellar there links up with the Church, so you set up shop in the Church, and-”

“No, bad idea,” Chase said. “They’re mostly human-sized zombies, I think. The Church is big enough they can fit through and fight easily. We need something too small for them to get into. Like…” she glanced over at one of the nearby stone-walled buildings. “The bakery! Put us there.”

“That’ll mean that whoever we send through the cellar will have to leave the church to get to you. Bad idea, if the Necromancer’s got enough minions to flank us.”

“We put a watcher in the church, then. Greta can do it. Just keep an eye out, keep the lights down, and watch out the back and sides to let people know when it’s safe to run,” Chase argued.

“I’ll do it,” Millie Wheadle spoke up, and Chase turned to stare at her, surprised.

“You?” Her tone was a little harsh, judging by the way Millie flushed.

“Maybe I’m not really smart, but my eyes are the best here, Chase Berrymore! And you know it!”

Chase’s ears twitched as she considered. “All right. I believe you.” She felt bad for punching her earlier, and letting her help like this would probably go a long way toward smoothing over that little incident. Millie was just worried about her brother, after all. Chase could understand that. “Can you spare her? From… whatever group she’s with?”

“I can.” Her Dad considered her. “All right. We’ll try it this way. If there’s a lot of them we won’t be able to hold the Inn anyway. So we’ll make the bakery our fallback point. If things go bad we’ll come to you. So you stay there, understand? Protect it so that we have a safe place to retreat.”

Chase bit her lip. “All right, we’ve got it.”

“Now go! We don’t have much time!” Stem insisted, and the groups split up to their assigned places, to prepare as best they could.

Chase went, running, knowing that every second counted.

Which was a bit of a rookie mistake, as it turned out. Especially for an Oracle, who had a somewhat more intimate acquaintance with the concept of time.

As she would find out, seconds are precious beyond compare. But only the right seconds, at exactly the right moments...

CHASE'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Chase Berrymore

Age: 15 Years

Jobs:

Halven level 9, Cook level 4, Archer level 2, Grifter level 5, Oracle level 5, Teacher Level 1

Attributes / Pools / Defenses

Strength: 49 Constitution: 31 / Hit Points: 80 / Armor: 0

Intelligence: 53 Wisdom: 77 / Sanity: 130 / Mental Fortitude:30

Dexterity: 82 Agility: 57 / Stamina: 139 / Endurance: 0

Charisma: 105 Willpower: 43 / Moxie: 148 / Cool: 35

Perception: 52 Luck: 103 / Fortune: 155 / Fate: 22

Generic Skills

Archery – Level 1

Brawling – Level 7

Climb – Level 15

Dagger – Level 2

Dodge – Level 11

Fishing – Level 14

Ride – Level 10

Stealth – Level 14

Swim – Level 7

Throwing – Level 19

Halven Skills

Fate's Friend – Level N/A

Small in a Good Way – Level N/A

Cook Skills

Cooking - Level 14

Freshen - Level 10

Archer Skills

Aim – Level 1

Missile Mastery – Level N/A

Quickdraw – Level N/A

Rapid Fire – Level N/A

Ricochet Shot – Level 1

Grifter Skills

Fools Gold – Level 1

Forgery – Level 1

Master of Disguise – Level 3

Pickpocket – Level 1

Silent Activation – Level 5

Silver Tongue – Level 3

Size Up – Level 1

Unflappable – Level N/A

Oracle Skills

Absorb Condition – Level N/A

Afflict Self – Level 1

Diagnose – Level N/A

Divine Pawn – Level N/A

Foresight – Level 18

Lesser Healing – Level 14

Omens and Portents – Level N/A

Transfer Condition – Level 2

Teacher Skills

Lecture – Level 2

Smarty Pants – Level N/A

Unlocked Jobs

Farmer, Herbalist,