When the little campfire in the middle of the floor flickered and went out, everyone was already packed and ready to go. Rita, who did not really have anything to pack, had just stood awkwardly nearby while everyone else grabbed their things from the tents.

“Here,” Ava said, pushing Rita’s phone and a full bottle of glowing blue magic into her hands, “in case you need to talk to us. If we get attacked, I’m going to need my hands free to cast. We’ve only got two more vials, so please don’t waste it unnecessarily.”

“Are you sure that Gora…” Rita began, but Ava and the others’ speech had already turned unintelligible. Talking was pointless.

At least it was not hard to figure out what they meant when Gora gestured for her to follow.

The group descended the stairs in silence, eyes and ears open, but there was no sign of their earlier company. On every floor, Gora quickly swept the area, checking all the nearby open doors while Samual stood guard over the rest of the group.

She hoped that she could corner at least one of the Droopies before they could slip away, and three floors down she got lucky. Checking an open doorway, she looked right into the wrinkly face of one of the creatures.

The moment it spotted her, it hissed ferociously. Gora was standing in front of the only way in or out of the apartment, unless it wanted to try its luck with jumping out a two-storey window, but it didn’t even try to escape. It just charged her immediately.

Gora stepped back, dodging one swipe of its long, sharp claws, deflected the second swipe with her blade and then followed through the movement by chopping into the fragile looking creature’s side, smashing it sideways and nearly folding it in half under the impact. Even as it tried to lever itself upright on shaky arms, her blade smashed into its back and it flopped down and lay still. Just in case, she stepped on its skull, crushing it into shards beneath her boot heel.

The remaining two floors down were uneventful. It was only when they stepped outside the building that they spotted two more of the things watching them from atop a nearby building.

“Can I take a shot?” Ava asked Gora, already palming a black vial.

“Go for it” she replied. “If you think you can hit at this distance.”

Rita watched a black and grey flickering shape briefly form around Ava’s hands, before a bolt of darkness shot out towards them like a missile. It looked exactly like the one that had nearly hit Rita when she had first stumbled into the camp. From the effect, Rita was really glad that one hadn’t hit her.

It clipped the side of the roof that they were standing on, splashing across the chest of one of them, who immediately began shrieking, batting at itself where the remaining dark energy had struck with its long, clawed hands. Then the edge of the roof it had stepped on in its flailing crumbled and it went tumbling down, before hitting the ground with a wet thud.

The other Droopy stared down at them for a few moments more before disappearing back into the building.

“Not exactly a clean hit, but sufficient to achieve the objective, I suppose” Zaxier remarked from atop his usual spot on Bob’s shoulder.

Ava turned and stuck her tongue out him.

“Yes. Good job making friends, Ava” Gora grinned.

***

“Damn, missed!” Ava said as her bolt splashed harmlessly against the otherstone – concrete, according to Rita – wall and the Droopy peeking out ducked back behind it.

“Don’t wear yourself out. Focus on keeping up” Gora cautioned from ahead.

They were up to at least five of the things still actively following them, despite Ava managing to nail one more with another of her death bolts. Gora was setting a blistering pace through the increasingly broken terrain, apparently intent on outrunning any mischief they could come up with.

There had been some disagreement when they had set out towards the Tree immediately, but Gora had put her foot down. Besides her contractual obligations, trying to make it all the way to the edge of the City Zone from this close to the centre of it while being harassed by Droopies all the way would be a dangerous if not deadly undertaking, she had argued. The Tree, on the other hand, could provide shelter in a somewhat similar way to the Campsites. Reluctantly, Zaxier and Ava agreed.

Rita struggled to keep up. While eight legs gave her a significant advantage whenever difficult terrain needed to be navigated, they were also four times as many legs that had to be moved to cover the same distance as everyone else when they hit flat ground. It was damn tiring and she was almost always lagging behind and puffing for breath.

They were following a street, trying to circumnavigate a particularly jagged and impassable collapsed building when they ran into the first of the monsters that that Gora had warned them would cross their path thanks to the Droopies. Movement from in front of them turned out to be a large plant, dragging a ball of dirt and wiggling roots across the ground by several leafy fronds. The ‘flowers’ of the plant looked like flytrap flowers, but the edges appeared to be quite sharp. They were snapping at a Droopy that was staying just outside the edge of their reach, slowly luring it forwards. When it turned and noticed them, it quickly ducked off into a building to the side. The plant gave one last half-hearted snap at it before also seeming to notice them and changing direction.

“Great, one of these things” Gora muttered. “If it breathes gas, hold your breath. The stuff will shred your lungs.”

“We are fighting it?” Zaxier asked. “As much as I enjoy lighting up some errant foliage, we are still being pursued, after all. Would it not be prudent to backtrack and go around? It appears quite slow.”

“That would be too much of a detour. Every moment we spend walking is a moment they can drag something else onto us,” she explained. “Instead, we’re just going to fight our way past. Everyone on me!”

“Very well, forward young Bob! Position three!” Zaxier exclaimed.

“Wait, what was that about my lungs?” Rita asked, frantically having sloshed some of the blue goop onto her translator.

“Hold your breath!” Ava shouted back at her as the whole group started running towards the terrifying plant monster.

“What? Why!?” Rita shouted back, struggling to catch up, just as the monster ahead of them reared back a tubular looking stalk and gushed out a thick, pink cloud of gas.

“This!” was all Ava had chance to shout before she was swallowed in the rapidly expanding pink fog.

Rita skidded to a halt as a wall of pink rushed towards her. She had just enough time to hold her breath before it hit, flowing around her like a river. The gas felt warm and damp, but at the same time slightly prickly. Like there was some faint substance to it.

It was also completely opaque. Rita could barely see her hand in front of her face. Of the rest of the group there was no sign. In fact, she could not even see the buildings that had lined the street.

Blindly, she stumbled in the direction that she had last seen Gora run towards, but it quickly became apparent that she was hopelessly lost when she nearly collided with a wall. It provided her with some orientation, but her lungs were already starting to burn. Next to her was a door, and on a hunch, she reached out and turned the door handle.

It was unlocked!

Making a snap decision based on her rapidly diminishing oxygen, she rushed inside, slamming the door shut behind her and taking a big gulp of air.

Unfortunately, she had misjudged just how fresh the air inside was. While the door served to block most of the pink gas, it was hardly an airtight seal and quantities were slipping around the doorframe. Rita sucked in a big breath of air tainted by the gas.

It felt like she had breathed in gritty air. Immediately she began coughing, desperately trying to get rid of the feeling of sand scraping across the inside of her lungs. As she stumbled into clearer air and the feeling faded, she looked down and noticed spots of blood on her hand where she’d held it in front of her mouth.

Damn, and that had been from a single breath of the stuff! If she had been out in the thick of it, it could have killed her.

Hearing a noise, she looked up and felt a chill running down her spine.

One of the Droopies was descending the stairs, likely investigating the noise of her coughing. Seeing her, it stopped, cocking its head quizzically.

“You come? Help for glory?” it chirped in a high-pitched voice.

Rita had to stop and do a double take. It had spoken to her and she could understand it? Then she looked down at the piece of circuitry still clenched in her hand, smeared in blue goop. Of course. Her translator! She could understand this thing! And it could understand her!

“No! Stop! Stop attacking!” Rita said between coughs. Her throat felt raw.

“Attack? No, no, bring for glory! Glory of All-One!” it chirped back at her, hopping down the last few steps and stopping in front of her. “Quick, quick, follow! Back way, loop ahead! Ambush! Kill, kill!”

“No, you have to stop! There’s been some sort of misunderstanding!” she pleaded.

The creature cocked its head completely sideways, the loose skin around its head sagging below it like a wet dishrag.

“All-One is all, All-One is glory! Glory to All-One. Glory by killing enfuriators. All-One says so. Come, come!” it kept insisting.

Rita did not know what this ‘All-One’ was that it was referring to, but she had a pretty good idea that ‘enfuriators’ referred to Gora and her group. Did they enrage all creatures native to this place? Was that why everything attacked them?

“Who is this ‘All-One’ you keep speaking about?” she asked. “And why does it want you to kill the… ‘enfuriators’?”

“All-One is All-One! Big! Big spire! There, there!” the creature said, pointing as it hopped up and down.

Rita quickly glanced over, wary of taking her eyes off the creature for too long, but of course there was nothing but a wall with a dirty glass window in the direction the creature pointed. A light flashed through it, followed by a loud explosion that rattled the frame. Likely sounds of the battle raging outside. That at least gave her a direction that the others had gone.

“Do you mean the Nightmare Tree?” she asked.

“Tree-Spire? Yes, yes, All-One! Makes angry when see infuriators. Shows what wants! Kill, kill!”

The Tree was driving them mad when they saw outsiders? It was the reason she went berserk every time she ran into them? Like… like some kind of immune response?

“But… why did some of the others attack me, then? The Masked, and that giant snake-worm-thing?” she asked. She was genuinely curious why these creatures would attack their own if they all served the ‘All-One’, but mostly, she was just trying to buy time while she surreptitiously slipped the knife from behind her back.

The creature answered with a big gesture, lifting its arms and shoulders in a huge shrug, the motion further exacerbated by its long fingers.

“Who know? Hungry? Curious? Crazy? Stupid? Why not? Now, come, come! You attack? You follow, yes, yes?” it chirped, beckoning for her to follow with its long fingers, and pointing towards what she could see was a rear exit to the building. A back door, through what had once been a kitchen.

Rita thought quickly. If she turned the creature down, telling it she was not going to do what the ‘All-One’ wanted, it might turn on her. Those claws looked razor sharp and it seemed to be a few marbles short of a full bag. Who knew how it might react?

On the other hand, if she went with it, it would take her right to Gora and the others. By the time it figured out she had no intention of attacking them, it would be too late! She would be home safe! Well, safe-ish. But that was surely better than hanging out with this loony.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming…” she began and cautiously began following the creature.

Before she’d taken more than two steps, however, the front door that Rita had come in by burst open again and Bob stumbled inside, coughing and retching. The door slammed shut behind him, but Rita had enough time to see that the pink cloud had thinned somewhat. It was already fading. A good thing too, as he was spraying drops of blood with every cough.

“Bob!” she exclaimed and made to move in his direction before she noticed the Droopy’s reaction out of the corner of her eye.

It seemed to have completely forgotten about Rita, going stock still and staring at the young man. Then it raised its claws and emitted a shrill shriek, before charging right at him, claws outstretched.

Rita reacted before she even knew what she was doing. She tried to block its path, holding the knife in front of her to threaten it off, but the creature did not even slow down. It impaled itself to the hilt without hesitation, nearly bowling her despite eight legs worth of stability.

To Rita’s surprise, the creature made no move to attack her. Its lethal looking claws kept reaching past her towards Bob even as the life faded from its eyes and it sagged to the floor in a twitching heap, a pool of dark blood spreading around it.

Her knife had plunged right into its chest where its heart had been.

“Miss Rita?” Bob asked weakly, his breathing ragged and blood dribbling down his chin. He wasn’t looking too good, yet somehow, he was still standing.

Rita looked over at him as she slowly pulled the knife free from the creature she had been conversing with until just moments ago.

This time, she did not drop it.