When it came to their captives, the goblins were brutal. Zeke seethed as he watched the small, green-and-blue humanoids poking their prisoners with sharp sticks, throwing rocks at them, or, on one occasion, even biting one that didn’t respond to a command as quickly as the goblin would’ve liked. Through it all, Zeke remained stoic, knowing that, soon, their time would come.

It was difficult for him, though. Throughout his life, he had been a creature of action – never more so than after he’d been reborn. Watching and waiting just wasn’t part of his comfort-zone, regardless of how much sense it made. He wanted to solve the mystery as much as Abby; he just wasn’t as well equipped to deal with the mental stress of it. So, while they crouched down, observing the goblins, his entire body was a mass of tension and anxious energy.

He needed to move. He needed to act. He desperately wanted to attack, to make those goblins pay for what they’d done, for what they obviously planned to do. Beside him, having picked up on Zeke’s nervous energy, Pudge was a ball of barely constrained stress.

By comparison, Abby was a lake of placidity. Her eyes never wavered, and she didn’t move a muscle. Clearly, she had plenty of experience in such a situation. Even so, her jaw never unclenched.

Idly, Zeke was reminded of the few times his father had taken him hunting. Even as a child, he’d known that those scattered trips were less about father-son bonding and more about his father trying to mold Zeke into a younger version of himself. It wasn’t enough that he try to live vicariously through Zeke’s athletic accomplishments; Zeke had been forced to adopt the same hobbies as well. Even that had faded into the background when Zeke’s baseball career had begun to take shape, and it became clear that he had a real shot at making it to the big leagues.

But he’d never forgotten how much he’d hated sitting in those tree stands and waiting for some poor animal to walk into his line of sight. It wasn’t even hunting, per se. His father and his buddies had seeded the area with corn, basically training the wild animals to blithely walk into their own demise. It was slaughter, plain and simple. No skill was necessary. Just an eagerness to wantonly kill and a willingness to stack the deck against their intended prey.

Zeke had been glad when his father stopped taking him along.

The hours wore on, with Zeke’s anxiety building with every passing minute. Soon, the sun would begin to set, and they would finally act – regardless of whether they acquired any information. Zeke thirsted to take out his mounting frustration on the vicious goblins, to rescue those poor people, and avenge the ones who hadn’t made it. He wasn’t sure which he wanted more, and he wasn’t eager to figure it out.

Suddenly, the brush on the other side of the camp rustled, and a second later, a figure in a hooded cloak appeared. Zeke immediately used [Minor Inspection] on him.

Unknown – Level ??

“What the…”

“Shielded,” Abby whispered. “Not good.”

Zeke could only nod. The figure was human-sized and human-shaped, but that didn’t mean much. There were plenty of monsters out there that could pass as a human, especially cloaked and hooded. The fact that the figure’s level was hidden – something Zeke didn’t even know was possible – only made things worse.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a person,” Abby said, her voice low enough that neither the goblins nor their visitor could hear. “Stealth skills, unless I’m mistaken. Which isn’t a good sign.”

“Why not?”

“Most people who take those kinds of skills are assassins or thieves,” she explained. “Maybe a scout, but he doesn’t really look the type. Either way, this just got a lot more complicated.”

The figure pulled back his hood, revealing a pale, pinched face with stringy, black hair. But he was human. Zeke used his inspection skill again, but he got the same result – which is to say that he got nothing but question marks.

The man barked something in some guttural language, and the lead goblin growled something back. With its shoulders thrown back and its jaw jutting forward, it looked like it was spoiling for a fight. The pair argued in that same language, their words completely unintelligible to both Zeke and Abby. As they argued, the goblin kept gesturing toward the human captives, as if to say, “This is it. Take it or leave it.”

Or perhaps he was saying something else altogether. Zeke had no way of knowing for sure, but he got the feeling that the argument was about the number of captives. Perhaps the goblin had promised more; Zeke was reminded of all the dead bodies back at the road.

“Any idea what they’re saying?” Zeke asked.

“I don’t speak goblin,” Abby answered. “I do understand a little orcish, though. It’s similar, so I can pick up a word or a phrase here and there. From what I can tell, the man expected more captives. The goblin’s making excuses for why they killed so many of the caravanners.”

“That’s kind of what I thought was going on,” Zeke stated. “What do you want to do? How do you want to attack?”

Abby’s brow furrowed as she considered the situation. With an unknown like the cloaked human, it was difficult to make a viable plan. He could be a weakling, but he could just as easily be far stronger than either of them. They had no way of knowing, one way or the other.

“I’ll put an arrow in the human from here,” Abby said, unlimbering her bow. “You get a little closer so you can get the prisoners out of the way. Once they’re safe, do your ‘Zeke’ thing.”

“My ‘Zeke’ thing?”

“You know, run in there with your club,” she said. “I’ll try to put the human down without killing him so we can get some answers, but if it comes down to it…”

“I understand,” Zeke said. She would try, but if push came to shove, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill the man. Zeke took a moment to reapply [Mark of Companionship] on Abby, giving her access to the watered-down version of his skills, then activated [Leech Strike]. Once that was done, he gave Pudge his instructions.

Hurt as many of the goblins as you can.

Smelly, little people?

Yes. Kill them if you can, but don’t overextend. You’re there to cause chaos and confusion first, damage second.

Zeke wasn’t sure how much of that Pudge actually understood, but the bear cub seemed eager enough. The communication between the two was hit-or-miss in the best of times, and though Zeke tried to put it into words, it was more like a combination of impressions, thoughts, and emotions. Either way, he felt reasonably confident that Pudge would do his job; he could only hope that he’d do so without getting hurt. With [Leech Strike], Pudge could heal, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t like a stab through the heart every time Zeke felt the cub’s pain.

“Pudge will attack the goblins,” Zeke whispered. “Confuse them, hopefully. It might buy us a little extra time.”

“That works,” Abby said. “Go. It sounds like they’re wrapping things up.”

Zeke nodded, and in the fading light, he crept to his right, circling the impromptu campsite. Remarkably silent, Pudge went in the other direction. Presumably, Abby readied her bow. Zeke found his spot behind a particularly dense thicket of foliage and settled down to wait. The prisoners, sporting bonds of coarse rope, were only a few feet away. Zeke could practically smell their terror.

It felt like an eternity, watching and waiting for Abby to make the first move. He summoned the hunting knife he’d taken from Julio’s men from his spatial storage and readied himself to free the prisoners. His mace was only a thought away.

Suddenly, an arrow slammed into the cloaked human’s shoulder with enough force to stagger him. A moment later, another struck him in the leg. But by that point, Zeke was already barreling through the thick brush. A goblin reacted more quickly than expected and threw a crude, stone-tipped spear at him. For Zeke, who was used to fighting the incredibly agile drachnids, it was like slow motion. He dodged it easily, covering the ground between them in only an instant before grabbing the little monster’s spindly arm. It was cold and slightly scaly, slightly resembling the skin of a troll. Zeke’s fingers closed around the limb like a vice, and he yanked the goblin into the air. Its beady eyes went wide as it screeched in fear – a sound that was abruptly cut off a second later when Zeke slammed it into the ground with all his considerable might.

The monster practically exploded with the impact. Blood splattered everywhere, and its arm was wrenched from its socket. It still lived, if only barely, but it was out of the fight. Zeke kicked it away and into its stunned brethren. The goblins dodged, but by that point, Pudge was barreling into them. His claws flashed as he stood on his hind legs, swiping with everything he had. Goblins howled in pain and shock as they tried to avoid the bear cub’s deadly claws. Pudge didn’t let up. In that moment, finally facing monsters that weren’t orders of magnitude larger than him, he fought like a true bear.

Another arrow thudded into the cloaked human, sending him to the ground with an agonized wail. Zeke paid him no attention, instead focusing on his task. He knelt beside the first prisoner and sawed through the ropes, then the rawhide collar around his neck. “Calm down,” he said, trying his best to mitigate the excitement in his own voice. He pointed back the way they’d come, explaining, “The road’s back that way. There’s a man named Reginald. He’ll help.”

“T-they killed…they…oh, God…”

The man sobbed, but Zeke couldn’t spare the time to comfort him. Instead, he moved to the next prisoner, and yelled, “Go! Run now! Grieve later!”

Thankfully, the man took his advice and stumbled in the appropriate direction. Meanwhile, Zeke bent to his task, quickly freeing the other five captives. They’d all heard the directions, so as soon as they were freed, most of them took off towards the road. One – a young man who couldn’t have been more than fourteen – wanted to stay and fight, but Zeke convinced him to go, telling him he needed to protect the others. The boy responded with a stoic nod before following the others, a determined look on his face.

Once the captives were free, Zeke let himself take in the rest of the battle. In the time that it had taken him to free the prisoners, Abby and Pudge had decimated the goblins. Two of the small humanoids had multiple arrows sprouting from their backs, while four or five of them writhed on the ground, their bodies ravaged by claw marks. The remaining goblins were in disarray, but they were beginning to rally, surrounding Pudge and thrusting their spears to keep him at bay. The moment one managed to pierce through the cub’s thick hide, Zeke’s anger ignited.

He darted forward, Voromir appearing in his hand as he started his swing. The bone-hafted mace arced out in a baseball swing, crashing into a goblin’s side. Its ribs were pulverizes into shards, and its organs were ruptured as its torso burst like an overfilled balloon. An instant later, it flew through the air, crashing into the brush a dozen feet away. But Zeke wasn’t finished. With the little monsters’ attention on Pudge, it almost didn’t seem fair, though to Zeke, that seemed just about right. The goblins didn’t deserve fairness. They deserved to suffer for what they’d done. He only regretted he couldn’t make it last longer than it did.

In only a few more seconds, the rest of the goblins were dead or writhing on the ground in their death throes. Zeke hadn’t even broken a sweat, and Pudge seemed almost disappointed that the fight hadn’t lasted longer. Against the small creatures, he’d felt more powerful than ever.

When you get older, you’ll feel like that all the time, he thought towards the cub.

Abby slipped through the brush with barely a sound, approaching with an arrow still nocked and pointed at the cloaked figure on the ground. He was still moving, though with the amount of blood soaking through the dirt, that wouldn’t be the case for long. He had three conjured arrows sticking out of him, but they were quickly dissipating into motes of glittering dust. Abby crouched beside him and flipped him over.

A loud twang filled the air, and Abby staggered back, clutching her stomach. The man climbed unsteadily to his feet and staggered away. Both Zeke and Pudge were already moving, but neither was as quick as Abby, who’d already buried her hatchet into his back, severing his spine. He dropped to the turf, his suddenly useless legs limp and unresponsive.

“Ow,” Abby muttered, yanking a crossbow bolt from her stomach. “Thank God for your skill. Otherwise, that would’ve been a nasty poison.”

It wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened. Because of [Mark of Companionship], Abby could use a weaker version of Zeke’s skill, [Leech Strike], which had snatched enough of the cloaked man’s vitality to cut the poison off before it could even get started.

Abby flipped the man over, saying, “Now, you’re going to answer a few –”

“Fuck you!” the man growled. Then, a moment later, green foam erupted from between his lips, spewing almost a foot into the air. Similarly colored tendrils spread from his mouth even as his skin went deathly pale. He stopped breathing a mere instant after that.

“What the…”

“This is bad,” Abby said. “This is really bad. I know what he is.”

“Who is he?”

“Not a who,” she stated. “A what. He’s a Crystal Spider.”

Zeke’s eyes narrowed, and he asked, “What’s that?”

“Trouble,” she said, cutting into the man’s shirt to reveal the green-veined skin beneath. Whatever poison the man had taken had spread quickly. After a second, when she’d removed enough cloth, Zeke saw something glittering on the man’s chest.

“What is that?” he asked, stepping closer. The glitter resolved itself into twinkling crystal in the stylized shape of a spider, though it looked as flush to the skin as any tattoo.

“Be ready,” Abby said, pulling a small knife from a sheath at her belt. She stabbed into the man’s chest just above the crystal tattoo. Then, using her leverage, she pried it loose. For a moment, it was entirely inert, but it only took a second before its legs started moving, and it grew into a crystalline spider the size of Abby’s hand. She struck it with the pummel of her knife, though it didn’t shatter as expected. Instead, it skittered down the man’s body and toward Zeke. “Don’t let it get on you!”

Zeke didn’t need to be told twice, and as soon as the thing got close, he stomped on it. It shattered with a satisfying crunch.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, pulling his foot up. The crystalline arachnid had shattered into a hundred pieces, but some of the bigger parts were still moving. He stomped it again. And again. It took three more times before he didn’t see any more movement.

“Like I said,” Abby responded. “It’s trouble. Let’s get everything looted, and I’ll tell you more when we get back to the road. I don’t feel safe out here, now.”