Before, the maze of junk had been creepy. Now, moving back into the darkness as wood splintered in the distance, shouts called warnings across the aisles, and desperate, brief struggles happened out of Chase’s sight… now the creepy had been transformed into the blatantly dangerous, and the small group moved with care, trying to skirt the edge of the enormous cellar.

It basically boiled down to Maddie leading the way, using some sort of Scout trick to make her nearly invisible in the shadows, and Chase and Greta padding along behind. The plan was to give her a one-minute head start to disarm any traps and steer them around trouble, then follow as best they could.

And like any plan, it fell to pieces once they were in the thick of it.

“Stop and hide!” Maddie’s voice hissed in Chase’s ears. Chase froze, punched Greta’s arm and wriggled into a gap between two boxes. Greta backed up, whipping her head around, finally diving into a box with a soft “ow!” Yuletime tinsel sprayed out, settling in soft puffs, and Chase hissed between her teeth. If a wight was with this group, there’s no way it wouldn’t miss the softly falling strands…

But halvens are called fate’s friends for a reason, and the duo of groaning clowns that shambled past them were zombies. Tinsel covered them, sticking to smeared greasepaint and draping bobbled hats, bringing to mind the creepiest snowmen Chase could imagine.

Once they were through, Chase snuck out and tapped on Greta’s crate. After a second, her sister’s head poked up from the tinsel, eyes wide in the dim light. “I gained a stealth level,” she told Chase.

“Good. Come on!” She looked ahead to try and find Maddie but saw nothing. “Where is—”

A withered white hand shot out from the rack behind Greta, and the big halven girl shrieked as it burst through her crate.

“Greta!” Chase shouted, grabbing the nearest thing to hand and charging the shelf.

“It’s got me! It’s cold!” Greta shrieked, and abruptly she was gone, yanked backwards through the shelf, leaving a spray of tinsel and broken ornaments to burst out in her wake.

“Like hell!” Chase shouted and leaped through the rack, feeling wood give, hearing paper rip, and bursting through into an open area among the crates.

The clown-thing, who was grappling with a squirming Greta, barely had time to turn before Chase brought her makeshift weapon crashing down on its flank.

At which point Chase noticed three things:

The first thing was the set of words appearing in her sight that said

Your attack is ineffective!

The second was that the undead she’d smacked was turning to face her, with blue glowing eyes.

The third thing was that she was holding a broken tube of wrapping paper.

“Ah.” Chase said, staring up at the wight, as it stared down. It was hard to tell, but she rather thought their shock was mutual. “Lesser Healing?”

You have “healed” Wight_06 for 28 points!

Your Lesser Healing skill is now level 27!

The wight howled and dropped Greta. Greta reached back, came up with a yule log, and properly kneecapped it.

But the damn thing staggered, twirled like a dancer with unnatural agility, and crouched there, hissing, claws reaching out to rend and tear—

—and swiping over Chase’s head as she ducked, and scampered back. “Lesser Healing! Lesser Healing! Lesser Healing! Foresight!”

That last one didn’t help much. The wight’s kick filled her vision, and she realized that she had absolutely no way to dodge it. Chase shielded her belly with her arms, hunkered down, and did her best imitation of a ball as the undead thing punted her with its busted leg, and she hit the ceiling of the cellar, crashed down onto a row of boxes…

…and somehow managed to knock an entire row of spare wagon axles down on a passing line of zombies.

LUCK+1

The zombies fell, gasping. The shelf she was on toppled.

Chase, curled around her wounded midsection, fell as well. As she went, she caught a glimpse of Maddie leaping out from behind the wight and sinking twin daggers into its back, and Greta continuing to beat the thing with a log… and Chase also saw the silhouettes of the undead clowns coming up behind them, drawn by the noise and the violence.

Then it was down among groping dead hands and honking noses as the zombies squirmed among the wreckage, trying to writhe free. Chase managed to throw the debris off and run for it…well, hobble for it, heading back to the fight and hissing lesser healings to get herself un-wounded again. That was good for a quick skill-up, but her head swam as she straightened… so much sanity used, in such a little time. She couldn’t keep doing that forever, and the grape juice was across the way, back with Father Gronk.

Fortunately, with one leg reduced to meaty pulp, the wight finally gave up its balance, and Chase got there in time to kick it in the head a few times as Maddie and Greta finished it off.

“Yes!” Greta snarled.

“What?” Chase looked over at her… and past her, face paling.

“Yes, I want to be a Berserker!” Greta growled and shuddered as she seemed to expand, getting just a bit more muscular. She shook her head and glared as her sister kept staring past her. “What’s your problem?”

Chase pointed.

Greta spun around and saw what Chase and Maddie had already noticed.

Clown zombies marched in ahead of the trio. Behind them, the ones who had been toppled by the falling shelves struggled to their feet, blocking escape to the rear. Alone in a heap of holiday rubble and spare parts, the three surveyed the opposition and found the odds bad. Very bad.

“How’s your mana?” Maddie asked.

“My what now?” Chase returned.

“Your healing zap. Your pool. Whatever you use to do the thing.”

“Don’t know and no time to check.” Chase reached down, came up with a jar of sweets. It was weighty enough to throw and held circus peanuts, which Chase couldn’t stand, so nothing of value would be lost.

“Tell me you’ve got a plan,” Greta said, glancing around her, and swinging the yule log in wide arcs, knocking back the first groping hands.

“In fact, I do!” Chase said, grinning. “HELP!”

“That’s your plan?” Maddie shrieked. And then she got busy with her daggers, sending dead fingers flying.

“About twenty-five percent of a plan,” Chase said, bashing at a zombie, thumping it with the heavy sweets jar, and watching a forlorn red ‘5’ drift up.

And that’s when the cavalry arrived.

The first inkling Chase had that they might survive this was when a rain of hurler stones thwacked into the back line of zombies, sending them crashing to the floor. Then small shapes were in and among them, and Chase’s heart leaped to see her father’s shield catch a zombie in the back of the knee, forcing it forward into Maddie’s daggers.

“Clear us a way through!” she yelled, then chanted “Foresight!” as she tried to find a way out of the cordon.

There wasn’t one. Not for the first ten seconds, not for the next ten second after that, and not even thirty seconds beyond. It was all Chase could do to feint attempts, to keep the band in her chest from tightening and snapping. She had to though, for if she lost foresight now, the plan was probably going to fail.

But for the moment, she had other worries.

Your Dodge skill is now level 12!

For a hot, tense half-minute there was nothing but dodging and struggling, as the Tiny Terriers showed how they’d earned their names: nipping and darting back, playing hit-and-run, drawing off the zombies and distracting them while their comrades struck in for their own attacks, then turning back to fight again once the zombies shifted focus to a new target.

It wasn’t perfect. Chase saw Magger Bance fall as a new batch of zombies came through one of the walls of barrels, toppling them on him. Then they were hunching down over him, and there was blood, so much blood. Chase felt her ears furl, and she smashed a crouching zombie in the face, sending teeth flying as it tried to do to her what its friends were doing to Magger. Then she remembered that she might be able to do something about that. Her sanity was down, but she had to try!

“Lesser Healing,” she chanted, sparing a precious split-second to stare Magger’s way.

Error! Target does not exist.

She gaped at the words, and almost lost an ear to some gnashing teeth for her trouble. Her mind reeled in confusion, as she fought by instinct alone. He does exist, he’s right over there!

The realization crashed in, along with horror, as she realized that no, to the words he didn’t exist. Magger Vance didn’t exist because Magger Vance was dead. And whatever his corpse was, it wasn’t anything that could be called Magger Vance any more.

“Chase! Go!” Maddie said, launching herself into a flying tackle, creating a hole.

“Foresight!” Chase yelled, and this time the results were good.

Your Foresight skill is now level 21!

Chase grabbed Greta’s arm and ran.

The good news was that the stream of zombies had cleared a good gap, and there was plenty of room to head forward.

The bad news was that the stakes had just been raised.

They’re all gathered in the same place now. All the zombies and any surviving wights. Dad’s hit and run tactics won’t work if they run out of space, and a lot of the maze got taken out back there. And there is no other way out of here.

We have to stop the Necromancer or the zombies will swarm Dad.

The two sisters burst out of the maze, and Chase breathed a sigh of relief at her luck. The fight seemed to have drawn all the undead into the jumble. There was nothing between her and the stairs up to the shattered trapdoor.

Behind her a halven man screamed in pain, then fell silent. Chase winced. “Foresight,” she said and watched her ghost-self run up the steps, poke her head out, then shoot a thumbs up back. Once time resumed, she aped the motions, glancing around at the bottom of the pews.

And she nearly jumped out of her skin, as a patch of darkness moved.

“Chase,” Renny whispered.

“Oh, thank gods. Thank Hoon? Yeah. I guess I should thank him,” Chase babbled, panting from a combination of exertion and relief. Greta crawled out of the stairwell to join her, and the two of them huddled next to their golem friend.

“The Necromancer?” Chase asked.

“If Gadram’s idea works, then he’s coming. I put an illusion in the bakery. It should lure him in to where Gadram can jump him.”

“Why the bakery?” Chase asked.

“Dwarves get advantages when they’re standing on stone. It’s a skill.”

“Advantages are good,” Chase said, but then her brain caught up with what he was saying. “Wait! How is he going to take down the Necromancer alone? I thought he wanted you along to help with that?”

“Oh. Gadram’s not trying to kill him,” Renny smiled, and for the first time Chase noticed just how sharp his little teeth looked. “We figured out how to get him here. At the end of the day Gadram’s a Burglar, remember?”

And then Vaffanculo’s voice howled through the village, rising in a note of pure fury. “Stop, you thief!”

Renny threw his arms up, leaned out from behind the pew, and called out “Phantasm!”

The air in the church shivered and turned to mist, just as a stout figure burst in through the doors, rolling in a frantic tumble.

The Necromancer shouted from behind him. “Drain Life!” Black energy crackled overhead and scarred the wood across the room. Dust fell from a grayed and worn line, entropy eating away at the wainscoting by the altar.

Renny waved once more, then pulled back as the mist thickened. And a bearded, grinning dwarf hunkered down and ran over, showing off his prize with smugness as he waved it in front of the two girls.

He’d stolen back Thomasi’s Ringmaster hat.

“Turns out ya don’t need to exactly see someone ta steal from them. So long as ya know what you’re trying to steal and about where they are.”

Chase stifled a laugh, as heavy feet stomped into the church, and Vaffanculo swore. It got a lot less funny when he was thirty feet away from her.

“Oh. This is cute,” he said, and she could see his silhouette in the doorway, backlit by the distant firelight. “But I’ve seen too many horror movies. Hell, I am the horror movie to you pint-size pukes.”

Chase and Greta shared a look and held their breath.

“Command Undead, come to me!” Vaffanculo roared then, and the two halven sisters turned their gazes from each other and stared back at the trapdoor.

Chase pushed her lips down to Renny’s ears. “Is Thomasi still here?”

He nodded and pointed in the general direction of where Thomasi lay. The same spot, Chase realized. That was good in a way and bad in a way. Good because she knew where he was, bad because he was in pew very visible from the door.

Then she pushed her face over to Gadram, so close that his beard tickled her nose. He flinched, but she caught hold of his cheek, and whispered. “I need the wagons. Give them to me!”

“What?”

“The little toy wagons you picked up!”

Wordlessly, he passed over a pouch. It was far too small to carry them, and Chase looked from it to him.

Fortunately, he deciphered her confusion. “It’s a loot bag,” he whispered back, his breath smelling like onions. “Bigger on the inside.”

Chase nodded, looked over to Greta. Now for the backup plan, she thought. The small Oracle made sure Greta’s attention was focused on her, and mimed drinking with both hands.

Greta nodded and pulled out the bottle of scumble that they’d found under the inn. She popped the cork—

—and Vaffanculo, curse his heart, heard it. “Ah-ha! Razor Arrow!”

Razor Arrow? Chase had just enough time to wonder, and then there was a CRACK, and splinters flew from the pew they were crouching behind.

“Go!” yelled Greta and chugged for all she was worth, eyes crossing from the effort.

Chase hesitated. “Foresight!”

One dead ghostly version of herself later, she knew which way NOT to go, so she tried the other way...

...and cried out in pain, as the band of pain in her chest snapped.

Major divergence detected! Feedback generated!

Foresight inaccessible for 23:59 minutes and 57 seconds.

Now? She had to deal with this now? One of her most powerful abilities was useless, now, at the worst time it could happen!

Though, to be fair, she’d been lucky so far. Very lucky. She’d managed to dodge divergence up to this point. And there was no time to angst over the fact anyway. Now she ducked low and ran, hearing the bottle gurgle behind her...

...and hearing groans mixed with rattling wood, as the first clown zombies started pushing their way out of the remnants of the trapdoor.

“I’ll hold them!” Renny yelled. “Gadram, support Chase!”

A whizz-snap, and a far pew exploded into splinters. That was a crossbow going off, Chase realized. Razor Arrow’s probably an Archer skill. Where’d he get a crossbow?

The prison, of course. She ducked under a pew and scrambled, crawling through the mist. He was firing blindly due to it, relying on sound.

Snap!

Gadram yelled in pain.

The problem was, that the Necromancer had pretty good ears. The good news was that Gadram wasn’t dead. Chase started to heal him, paused, then amended her choice. “Silent Activation, Lesser Healing,” she muttered, then repeated it twice more. And wow, wasn’t that a headache coming on. Her sanity was going quickly.

Finding one of the bottles that Thomasi had drained, she glanced across the way. A shape loomed out of the mist where the Ringmaster lay in a snoring heap. He wasn’t far, just five feet across the aisle.

“Come out come out, little rats...” Vaffanculo hissed, right next to her. She looked over and saw his feet through the mist and swallowed hard. If he bent over now, he’d see her. It was that simple.

“Manipulate Air!” Renny shouted, and the Necromancer’s feet shifted. Snap went the crossbow directly above Chase, and taking a gamble, she grabbed the bottle and whipped it through his legs, through the doors, to shatter on the cobblestones of the street behind him.

Your Throwing skill is now level 24!

Chase expected him to turn and look.

She didn’t expect him to curse, whip around, and try to leap back.

She certainly didn’t expect him to collide with the pew and send the halven-sized bench flying.

She really didn’t expect him to land on her.

With a soft cry and a red ’18’ bursting out of her, Chase scrambled to move and get away.

For his part, Vaffanculo thrashed and pummeled her, and gods, he was strong. A lucky blow caught her on the cheek and something crunched, and Chase’s head exploded with pain and ringing, as her mouth filled with blood and hard little flecks. Teeth, she thought, dizzily as she rolled away and covered her head. Those are my teeth, she knew, as she spat them onto the floor. “Leshar halilng,” she tried, but as she did, a hand seized her by the hair. She shrieked as Vaffanculo rose, jerking her to her feet as he did so.

“Stupid mahb!” Vaffanculo roared. “Drain—”

Then Chase felt his grip slip from her hair, as he screamed. He rammed into her, she stumbled forward, and ran for Thomasi. The mist disappeared, and she glanced back, just a second, to see Gadram holding onto Vaffanculo’s shoulder and stabbing him repeatedly in the side, right under his tabard. But then Vaffanculo had the dwarf, and was forcing him back with inexorable strength...

Chase whipped her gaze back around, as she reached into the loot bag and dumped wagon after wagon next to the Ringmaster, six in total. Then she slammed a hand down on Thomasi’s chest. This next part would be hard. It would be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

“Abforb condisson,” Chase lisped, spraying blood through the holes where she’d lost teeth. “Abzurb confishun. Absorb Condizzi!” she sobbed.

She couldn’t speak properly. Couldn’t say the words she needed.

Behind her, Vaffanculo shouted “Drain Life!” Gadram screamed, and there was a thud. Then silence.

And Chase, in a sudden moment of clarity, remembered that she didn’t need to speak in order to do her thing.

“Silent Activation, Absorb Condition,” she mouthed. And the words, those magical words, those infuriating and inscrutable and wondrous words knew what she meant.

Which was both good and bad in its own way.

You have been afflicted with Drunken Stupor!

Instantly Chase’s pain started to leave her, drifting away. Then vision started to flee, crumbling around the edges as the world fuzzed and spun.

This was the part she hadn’t been sure about, she thought, as she tried to find Vaffanculo. She thought he was the tall silhouette to the side, knew it as he spoke.

“Drain Life,” he said again, and she flinched, but it wasn’t aimed at her. At her feet, a stout form jerked and breathed its last under the crackle of dark energy.

Gadram Granitegrin has left your party.

“You’ll pay for that,” is what Chase tried to say. But judging by his scornful laugh, her words hadn’t been anything of the sort. So instead of banter she focused on getting nearer, one stumbling step at a time. The blackness was all through her sight now, her vision pinpricks of light.

But Chase fought on.

Thomasi had drunk himself into a stupor.

But Thomasi was a human.

Chase was a halven, and by all the gods, she would not prove inferior in a matter of digestion!

CON+1

Blurry movement, and hands grabbed her under the armpits, lifting her up to a sneering face. Beyond, she could see silhouettes in the darkness, undead clowns out of the trapdoor now, blue eyes roaming among them. Then her vision blurred, and Vaffanculo’s face was right there.

“...what were you trying to do, precisely?” he asked, looking disgusted.

Chase smiled beatifically, burped, and put her hand on his cheek.

“Silent Activation, Transfer Condition.”

Your Transfer Condition skill is now level 3!

You are no longer afflicted with Drunken Stupor!

Her sight returned as he dropped her.

Chase was stone-cold sober when she hit the ground. Unfortunately, her pain’s return bent her double as she clutched herself. She wanted to scream, wanted to cry through her ruined teeth...

But she knew she’d die if she did. So instead she burned more moxie and rapidly-disappearing sanity and mouthed the words “Silent Activation, Lesser Healing.”

No blows came, as she felt her lost teeth return. No undead claws or crossbow bolts rained down as she stood, spitting out the last blood.

Chase scurried back, keeping an eye on Vaffanculo, who was standing there shaking. He stared, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight, glassy and unfocused—

A hand caught Chase from behind.

She shrieked, pulled the heavy glass jar from her pockets, and tried to slam it into her attacker...

“Pickpocket,” snapped a familiar voice.

And the jar was suddenly gone. She looked up at Thomasi, who cracked open the lid, and took a sniff. “Circus peanuts? You shouldn’t have!” He dug one out and chewed it, staring around the church.

The nearest wights hissed and drew closer. Chase shrunk back against the Ringmaster, shuddering and counting blue eyes. Two, four, eight... oh, this was bad. And Vaffanculo himself wasn’t down! He was staring at them, leaning against the pew for support, but he was still up! She wasn’t sure what kind of demon was powering him, but she could almost feel the waves of fury and determination pouring off the Necromancer’s stout form.

“You took my hat, Vaffy,” Thomasi said, handing the jar back to Chase. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Shoulda... jus’ given it to me. Godsadam carra barra.”

“I told you this was a bad idea. We didn’t need our loot back from Pandora that badly.”

“I’ll go wivvout you! Jus’ gotta... gotta... make more undead. Better ones. Use a drinks. Restore alla sanity... Make the STRONG undead!”

“No. You’ll surrender now. You’re done.”

“Fff! Fach chant. Fact Hans. Fatch ants.”

“Good chance.” Thomasi glared at him, tugging on his gloves. “You were the one who insisted I flip my peavey pee switch, remember? I’ve still got a day left on that sucker.”

Vaffanculo’s head snapped up, and his eyes narrowed. “Comband unbread, kill them hall!” he shouted, then paused in confusion.

But the blue-eyed wights got the idea, and crept in, readying to charge.

“Not a chance!” roared the Ringmaster, posing as he pointed at the mob of undead, now spreading out around them. “Welcome to the Greatest Show on Generica!”

A pause.

A rumble.

And then six small wagons turned into six very large circus wagons, harnessed to six very angry horses, that screamed and neighed as the church’s walls blew out, unable to contain the bulk of the things materializing in their space. Then Thomasi was hauling her up and around, diving for cover as the rest of the building collapsed, and stone and timber rained down on all below.

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: 32 / Hit Points: 87 / 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: 107 / Fortune: 166 / 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 24

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 6

Missile Mastery – Level N/A

Quickdraw – Level N/A

Rapid Fire – Level N/A

Ricochet Shot – Level 10

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 21

Lesser Healing – Level 29

Omens and Portents – Level N/A

Transfer Condition – Level 3

Teacher Skills

Lecture – Level 2

Smarty Pants – Level N/A

Unlocked Jobs

Farmer, Herbalist,