The advantage of having a sister who you grew up with and involved in pretty much every shenanigan you’ve ever shenaniganed, is that sometimes, words are quite unnecessary.

This was one those times.

Chase gave Greta a slap and ran, not bothering to look behind her, hearing the crunching of dead flesh on glass as the last of the broken windows gave, hearing the unearthly howling of the wights as she fled. But none of those noises mattered now, because under them all, Chase could hear Greta scrambling behind her.

In front of her, Millie Wheadle’s eyes grew bigger and bigger, until they were visible under her shelf of bangs. The little halven groped for the handle of the fallen trapdoor, tried to haul it up and shut...

...but not in time as Chase dove to the ground and slid, bowling Millie over and down the wooden stairs. “No, you don’t!” Chase shrieked.

And then they were tumbling down in a storm of red numbers. Fortunately, most of them were pretty low, but when they hit the bottom in a groaning heap, Chase gave herself and Millie a few Lesser Healings with no regret or remorse.

You have healed Millie Wheadle 25 points!

You have healed Millie Wheadle to full!

Your Lesser Healing skill is now level 26!

You have healed yourself to full!

Well, that was nice.

Millie immediately rose and started shouting, and Chase slammed a hand over her mouth and looked backward.

And to her vast relief, she saw Greta on the stairs, closing the trapdoor and sliding the bolts into place. Immediately the trapdoor shook, as someone dove onto it, and Greta flailed, but managed to catch her balance. The big girl bounded down the stairs as fast as she could.

Then and only then did Chase let go of Millie’s face. Chase spoke rapid-fire, “We’re even. You tried to lock us in there with the undead and I pushed you down the stairs. Good? Good. Come on, let’s go find Dad and the others.”

She turned her back on Millie, trusting Greta to intervene if the girl tried a rabbit punch, knowing the odds were high. But there was a church full of undead up there and that trapdoor was starting to shake in an alarming way, so Chase had other worries right now. She glanced around, and picked up a lit lantern that lay next to a packet of opened cookies. Then it was off into the darker recesses of the cellar.

To her surprise, she didn’t hear Millie scuffling with Greta.

Instead, two sets of little feet fell into step with her, as Chase walked past the empty spots where the festival decorations were normally stored. Normally the place was a maze of junk and boxes full of mysterious and occasionally useful things. Halvens tended to hoard, never throwing out something that could someday be useful again, even if only once.

Of course, the problem with that idea was that you had to find the useful thing again, once you’d stored it away. And if you did that year after year, decade after decade, well...

The end result was towering walls of boxes and crates and barrels, extending up to the high ceiling of the cellar. Once the three girls were past the open area where festival stuff normally sat, it turned into a labyrinth. Corridors twisted and turned through the mess, with the occasional set of shelves trying to lend some order to the chaos.

Chase was glad for the lantern, otherwise the gloom would have been pretty much impenetrable.

But only for a little while. As they went, she caught flashes of light from up ahead. And the sound of shifting feet and a rattling noise as metal scraped against a crate. That one came from fairly near, she thought.

“It’s me!” she shouted. “It’s Chase! I have Millie and Greta with me!”

“Oh, thank gods,” a familiar voice came from ahead, and a shadowy figure stepped into the light. Benjy Lapin smiled, and sheathed his sword. “Come on, I’ll walk you in.”

Behind her, Chase heard wood crack and winced. “We’d better run. They’re not going to be far behind us.”

Benjy’s face whitened... part of it. Chase took another, closer look, and saw that half of his face was covered with a mask of dirt— no. Blood.

But then he was trotting forward, and Chase ran with him, trusting the other two to keep up. “What happened? Is everyone all right? We saw the inn burn.”

“We did that,” Benjy said. “There were too many undead to fight. The inn couldn’t keep them all out, so we fought in the kitchen while it burned, right up until it was ready to go. Then we fled down here. We hoped that it would get them all, and the Necromancer would think we were dead.”

“Yeah. I didn’t think he’d have this many zombies. Or wights.”

“Wights?”

“The blue-eyed things.”

Benjy shook his head. “Those things were terrifying. Hold on, let me get you past the traps.”

“We have traps?” That was very, very surprising.

Then she heard wood splinter, from far back in the cellar, and the triumphant groans of the hunting zombies, and suddenly the fact that they had traps was very, very reassuring, instead.

“What was that?” Benjy asked, straightening up from a tangle of ropes at the edge of the lantern-light.

“They’re coming in from the church,” Chase said, glancing between him and the darkness behind her. “So I hope you’ve got a lot of traps.”

“Not nearly enough. Grummer!” he called out, holding the ropes aside so they could pass...

…and Chase sighed in relief as they passed out of the last of the maze, entering into a neatly-ordered wine cellar, full of kegs and barrels. A set of human-sized stairs led up to the sturdy, oaken door into the inn’s kitchen. And between Chase and the door stood the survivors of the Dew Drop Inn’s last defense.

For a second, Chase dared to hope that everyone had survived. But then she realized that there were faces missing, and as she focused in, she realized that it had been pretty bad on this side of things.

“The Dijettos? Old Man Carver?” She asked Benjy, but it was her father who answered.

“Dead,” he said simply. “And that adventurer, Moira.” he gestured to the other red-haired human woman, who was huddled on the stairs, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the wall. “Maddie’s taking it hard.”

But it was more than the humans. Chase counted no less than four missing faces among the halvens who had stood to defend the Inn. All told, they had lost one full party.

“Where’s Renny?” An oddly deep voice snorted from around her legs, and she looked down to see the pig knight staring up at her.

“They’re fine. Uh, I think. Hang on. Party Screen.” She studied it, then nodded. “He and Gadram are still alive. They were going to try to hunt down the Necromancer and kill him...” she slapped her forehead. “...but that was before we ran into Thomasi. They don’t know he took Thomasi’s hat.”

“Thomaaaasi’s Haaaat?” Father Gronk hopped up, bulging eyes staring down at her. Chase blinked a bit, nonplussed by the enormous frog. She’d seen him before, of course, but it was a different matter when that swampy breath and that enormous maw were mere feet from her.

“Yes.” she glanced back. “He’s in the church, passed out. His hat is magical; it lets the Necromancer control attention. He’s sneaking around somewhere out there, coordinating the groups of undead.”

“Groups. Yes,” her father said, straightening up from where Greta and Millie had been talking to him, their arms waving frantically. “I’m glad you’re alive. I’m not glad you led the undead down here. This is going to be dicey.”

“Sorry. We didn’t exactly plan to do that,” Chase said, looking around the cellar with sudden worry. “Wait. Where’s Mom?”

“I sent her home before this started.”

Chase decided to be relieved, and focused back on the matter at hand. “What are we going to do?”

“You’re going to stay here and heel. We, on the other hand... we just got a level or two from that fight, most of us. We’re going to head into the maze and ambush the heck out of the undead that come this way.” Stem Berrymore took a deep breath. “And I hope that’s going to be enough.” He waved his shield toward the dark alleys of junk. “Terriers! Let’s go!”

Without a word, the surviving halvens grabbed up their weapons and filtered into the maze. Chase watched as Soli Jerbean clambered up on top, then caught lanterns as Baconator, the pig knight threw them up, one by one. She lit them and hurried off on top of the precariously-leaning piles, leaving lanterns here and there to light the stacks below. Only then did Baconator follow them, snout twitching.

“The undead can see in the daaaaaaark,” Father Gronk explained. “We caaaaan’t. This helps.”

“All right,” Chase said, staring at the maze and heading back to sit on the steps. Father Gronk went with her. “You’re not going to help fight?”

“I’m low. We’re higher level thaaaan you lot. We didn’t get enough experience to level from the inn fight, so we didn’t refill.”

“Well, we can fix that,” Chase said and headed to the kegs, checking around until she found some sweet summer wine. “What are you low on?”

“Saaaaanity mostly, so nothing alcoholic. My moxie’s fine.”

“Right. Don’t want you getting drunk,” Chase said, wrinkling her nose and moving from the wine, over to a keg of grape juice. “That’s one heck of a horrible... debuff...” she said, freezing in place.

An interesting idea teased at her mind.

But by itself, it wouldn’t be enough to justify the risk. She needed more, more to make something like a plan.

“I know that grin,” Greta said, as Chase returned with a cup of grape juice. The frog downed it gratefully, and Chase ran back for a refill. “You have an idea, Chase Berrymore,” Greta said, keeping up with her.

“Yeah. But we need to track down the Necromancer to make it work. And we need to get him to the church.” Chase puffed out her lips, let breath escape. “I mean, he might be there already, but there’s no guarantee. It’d be a big help if we could get back into contact with Renny and Gadram.”

“We caaaaan,” Father Gronk said.

“What? Really?”

“Maaaaaddie.” Father Gronk said, hopping over to the red-haired adventurer.

She looked up, then down again, at a glowing black gem in her hand. “What?”

“We need you to send a messaaaage.”

“She can do that? She’s a Scout?” Chase pushed forward. She knew how Scouts worked... well, sort of. They could whisper messages that could be heard from a long distance away. No wonder they hadn’t needed Gadram to scout for enemies; they had an honest-to-god Scout already in their group.

“Aye,” said Maddie. “What do you want me to tell ‘im? That he should run and keep on running?”

“Maaaaaadie. It’ll be fine,” Father Gronk said, patting her shoulder with one webbed hand.

“My sister’s dead,” Maddie said, in a flat voice. She finally looked up at the frog-man, up and through him as she glared. “We’re all going to die down here. Then the Necromancer will take our soulstones and lock us inside shambling shells until we’re torn to bits by his next victims. It is not fine!”

“No.” Chase said, moving forward until the woman turned those glazed eyes down in her direction. “It isn’t fine. It’s pretty horrible. You see that girl over there? Her name’s Greta. Greta’s my sister, too. And if anything happened to her, I’d want to break. I’d want to fly to bits, and scream, and cry, and lock myself away until I could get the sadness out of me, and I don’t know that I ever would.”

Maddie’s shoulders sagged. She closed her eyes.

“And that’s why my father wants us back here. Not because I can heal. That’s the excuse,” Chase said, realizing that she was right. “He wants us back here because we’re what he’s fighting for. I know how you feel. I know you want to fall apart.”

“It’s not like I want to.” Maddie muttered and opened her eyes again, staring at Chase with weariness.

“I know.” Chase said. “Believe me, I know. You would not believe the day I’m having, and after it’s done, I’m pretty sure I’m going to lock myself in a room with a tub of cream and a whole pie and not come out for a very long while. But... if I do that now, then Greta probably gets eaten by zombies. And so does my Dad. And so does everyone else I’ve ever known or care about.” Chase let out a long breath. “So you see my dilemma. Which sucks, because there’s some really awesome pie around here.”

Maddie snickered.

Chase took it as a good sign. She patted the human’s knee, reaching up to do so. “Do you think you can help me? Really, I just need you to send a message. I can handle the rest.” She glanced back at the jumbled maze... and winced, as the sounds of groaning and metal thwacking flesh rose. Someone had found a zombie or vice-versa. “Well, probably most of the rest. With a little help from my friends.”

“Whaaaaat do you need?” Father Gronk asked.

“A lot of pluck, a little luck, and some help getting back through to the church after you send that message. Also a bottle of scumble...” Chase was rummaging as she spoke and pulled one free from a rack. The amber liquid coiled gleaming golden in the light. She wasn’t fooled. This was what apples wanted to be when they grew up. This was the reason you didn’t let bulls forage in orchards after the harvest. “...yes, this’ll make a good backup plan.”

Maddie and Father Gronk shared a look. “I haaaave to staaaay here,” Father Gronk croaked. “But with enough juice I can cover healing. We can spaaaare you.”

“I’m going with you,” Greta insisted.

“Yeah, I didn’t figure I’d persuade you otherwise,” Chase shrugged.

“I’m going too!” Millie declared.

Chase looked at her.

“Um. If you need me?”

“I won’t say no. But I’m not sure what you can do,” Chase replied. “Why don’t you stay here and help keep Father Gronk full up on sanity?”

The little halven set her mouth into a line and looked between them. But as her bangs swung wide, Chase caught a flash of relief in her eyes. “Okay,” Millie conceded, clearly trying to keep relief out of her tone. “I can do that.”

“Good. Party Screen. Kick Millie.”

“Hey!”

“Relax. Now the Father can invite you into his.”

“Oh. Uh, right.”

“This plan of yers,” Maddie asked, rolling the soulstone across her knuckles, before grabbing it and popping it into a pocket. “Does it involve meeting back up with Renny and Gadram?”

“Yes. It hinges on that. Without them things get a lot trickier.”

Maddie nodded and rose to her feet, towering over the rest of the people left behind. “I’m no just a scout. I’m an assassin.”

Millie Wheadle gasped. Greta elbowed her in the side.

“That’ll help,” Chase said. “If you’re up for more than just a message.” She’d been firming up the plan as they talked, figuring out how to stack the odds in their favor. It was still pretty bad, but maybe, just maybe, she could make it work.

“Tell me the message first, and then we’ll see if I feel like takin’ a walk with ye.”

Chase did.

Maddie laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I think he can do that.”

She sent the message, and the group turned to face the maze. Moans and yells, and the sounds of metal hitting flesh and wood alike filled the cellar. The battle was in full swing now, the halvens making their last stand.

“Yorgum’s Blessing on your Luck,” Father Gronk said.

You have gained the buff; Blessed!

Your luck has been buffed by 28!

“Thank you,” said Chase.

She knew she’d need every point of it for what was to come...

CHASE'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Chase Berrymore

Age: 15 Years

Jobs:

Halven level 9, Cook level 4, Archer level 4, Grifter level 5, Oracle level 6, Teacher Level 1

Attributes / Pools / Defenses

Strength: 55 Constitution: 31 / Hit Points: 86 / Armor: 0

Intelligence: 53 Wisdom: 81 / Sanity: 134 / Mental Fortitude:30

Dexterity: 88 Agility: 57 / Stamina: 145 / Endurance: 0

Charisma: 108 Willpower: 43 / Moxie: 151 / Cool: 35

Perception: 59 Luck: 106 / Fortune: 165 / Fate: 30

Generic Skills

Archery – Level 1

Brawling – Level 7

Climb – Level 15

Dagger – Level 2

Dodge – Level 12

Fishing – Level 14

Ride – Level 10

Stealth – Level 14

Swim – Level 7

Throwing – Level 23

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 2

Missile Mastery – Level N/A

Quickdraw – Level N/A

Rapid Fire – Level N/A

Ricochet Shot – Level 2

Grifter Skills

Fools Gold – Level 1

Forgery – Level 1

Master of Disguise – Level 3

Pickpocket – Level 1

Silent Activation – Level 6

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 20

Lesser Healing – Level 29

Omens and Portents – Level N/A

Transfer Condition – Level 2

Teacher Skills

Lecture – Level 2

Smarty Pants – Level N/A

Unlocked Jobs

Farmer, Herbalist,