"Are you sure you want to come along?" I asked.

I didn’t mind her joining me on a monster hunt. The more the merrier, and I could use a guide to this new world. But… I glanced back toward the official arena. "I thought you wanted to see the rest of the duels. The intermission should be done anytime now."

Jane shrugged and reached up to scratch under Commodore’s chin. "The duels have lost their taste, now I know Todd Lennox is involved. Besides, last time we went for a proper hunt, Commodore leveled up." She turned to Sienna. "Will you come along?"

In answer, the other girl bent to pick up her mallard dragon. "Might as well. I haven't seen a looting ability before. But Ferdinand and I aren't anxious to fight any monsters."

I shrugged. "That's fair.” I looked around. “Which way do we go?"

"This way. Commodore requires a launch point to search for spawns from the air." Jane took the lead as if this had been her idea all along. Sienna and I exchanged a mutual exasperated look and a shrug, but let the perky blonde set the path. After all, I didn't know where I was going.

As I walked, I slipped one hand in the front right pocket of my jeans. Sitting beside my dead cell phone was the gold crystal.

Maybe I should skip the monster hunt and just sell this baby in the marketplace. Get a head start on leaving town.

I bet it was valuable, even if I got screwed by the local merchants.

But I was reluctant. I had gotten the gold crystal through the quest system. Maybe I should keep it in case I came across a cool dragon that I wanted to tame.

Then again, I kinda had my hands full with Tiberius.

Taming more dragons when I wasn't sure that I could feed myself didn't seem like the smartest idea.

On the other hand, I didn’t know how I felt about taming a dragon with a crystal on the basic scale. Yes, gold would give my dragon more special attacks, but I wouldn't get any cool attributes, like looting.

On the other other hand… More dragons were better than fewer dragons.

I decided to pick my new friend's brains.

"So, let me get this straight about basic crystals. They can't give characteristics, only attributes?"

"That's right," Sienna said. "Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Gold, Platinum, Diamond."

Gold was decently high up, then.

I nodded. "But you can tame other dragons with crystals not on the basic list. There are hundreds of others, right?”

Taming with a crystal on the basic list felt like a big waste of opportunity, I didn’t say. Jane and Sienna both had both used basic crystals.

Jane turned to me, walking backward with the perfect ease a girl who'd always had two good legs could. Meanwhile, I was hustling just to keep up.

"Do you know how many people in the village have tamed dragons with extraordinary crystals?" Jane asked.

"No, I've been here for like six hours."

"Well, I don't either, but my father, the mayor, thinks that there can't be more than a handful.”

“If you're smart, you don't advertise it," Sienna added. “Especially where you got the crystal from. Spawn points are staked out and guarded.”

So… like a marijuana grow in a national forest. Got it.

“Is that going to be a problem for me?” I asked bluntly.

Sienna shook her head. "If you don't look too closely, his eyes look a lot like a Sapphire-bond. Unless you tame your dragon with, like, and Onyx crystal, it's easy to mistake them for one of the basic crystals.”

“People don’t know what to look for, anyway?” I guessed.

“Exactly.”

"And we’re okay to know, because we're all friends," Jane added.

Whatever. I didn't care if these two knew. I was leaving town anyway.

After a good half hour of walking, Jane led us up a steep hill. Sienna and Jane walked up with ease, but the muscles in my bad leg were twisted and atrophied, and the whole leg was burning from the thigh down by the time I made it up to the top.

I sat on the ground, running my hands up and down the calf. "Ugh, that sucked."

Jane gave me an apologetic look. "We'll take our time going down."

I groaned. "We have to go down the hill, too? There aren't monsters up here?"

"No, sorry. It’s better if Commodore has a high place to scout from." With that, Jane pulled out her quartz crystal and cupped it in her palms.

The little dragon's eyes flashed as the link to Jane was made.

Possibly sensing my distress, or maybe just looking for a convenient place to sit, Tiberius wandered over and curled up on my outstretched bad leg. The heat from his warm belly helped un-cramp tense muscles. I sighed in relief.

Maybe walking to the next town wasn't a great idea. I'd had to take a lot of rest stops on the way here. This time, I’d have to move quickly before Todd and friends got wind that I was dipping out.

I don't suppose this town had a version of Uber? One that took crystals as payment?

As I considered this, I watched Commodore take off from Jane's shoulder to spiral up and up into the air.

I knew that Jane's mind was currently linked with him and felt a pang of jealousy. It would be fun to fly.

"Maybe my next will be a house dragon," I muttered.

Sienna shrugged. "They're good for first dragons, but you can only have five at a time. Most serious tamers wait for the rare varieties."

"Well I already have a rare dragon," I said, petting Tiberius between the ears. "Besides, from what I can tell, it's not the type of dragon. It’s the crystal you use to bond it, right?"

"I guess…" Sienna said, "but, it’s much easier to find a rarer dragon than an extraordinary crystal."

I shrugged. "Some things are worth the wait. Back where I came from, we had a game where one creature would duel another. Um, but they weren't real creatures. They were kind of like moving pictures…?”

Sienna was giving me a look like I was insane, so I shrugged and moved on. "It’s hard to explain. "Anyway, I had a basic creature in my stable. Like, one of the starter options. But I knew his attacks in and out like the back of my hand. Whenever I won a special attack from a championship or a loot box, I gave it to my basic creature. We ended up kicking ass. He was most my most reliable guy." I smiled softly, and despite myself, picked up my phone from my pocket. "I know that he wasn't real, that it was just a game, but… sometimes it felt like I was in sync with him. Just like I was with Tiber during the duel."

I expected Sienna to scoff. She was more cynical than Jane. She reminded me a little like the old cartoon, Daria.

La, la, laaa la la.

Damn it. Now I had that song in my head.

“I get it,” Sienna said, interrupting my brain worm. "People laughed at me when I insisted on taming a mallard like Ferdinand. But I've always loved the water and I didn't care much for the fighting. I just wanted to explore a world through him where I could never go. Someday, I'm going to have a house on a lake and swim through Ferdinand every day."

"What about the ocean?" I asked.

"Have you seen a hammerhead dragon?”

“I have not," I said honestly. "Let me guess, three rows of teeth?"

"I don't know," Sienna said. "Anyone who's tried to count hasn't come out alive on the other side."

I winced.

Yeah, this world was a little wilder than my last.

Jane suddenly let out a little gasp and blinked her eyes open. Commodore was still up in the air, but it was clear that the link had been broken. "We’re in luck. There’s a spawning site not too far away."

"Where?" Sienna asked.

“What?” I asked.

"A warren of bunnies by the graveyard."

I blinked. "Bunnies are monsters here?"

Then again, I had seen Monty Python. Maybe I should be wary…

"They’re a common pest-type monster,” Sienna said. "Good for leveling up your dragon.”

"I have a collection of bunny horns in my room," Jane added.

I cocked my head. "Huh."

"What?"

“Nothing. Just, where I come from, bunnies don't have horns.”

“That's weird," Sienna said.

The way downhill was easier than going uphill, for obvious reasons.

It was a nice day. The sky overhead was blue with scuttling fluffy white clouds. The town could be seen just beyond in the distance, and I felt a slight pang of disappointment that I wouldn't be staying here.

But, better to get the hell out of dodge than stick around and play creepy Todd's tune.

The graveyard quickly came into view. It was surrounded by a waist-high wrought iron fence painted white to make it look cheerful instead of ominous.

It looked like it could have used a lawnmower — did they have lawnmowers in this world? Or did the groundskeeper have a dragon companion to help him out?

How much like the Flintstones was this society?

I put that aside the moment I saw the rabbits.

I stopped. "Those are not rabbits."

“No,” Jane agreed. “They’re horned bunnies.”

“I’m pretty sure those aren’t bunnies, either.”

They were… small creatures, vaguely rabbit-sized, with gray and brown fur. But instead of cute rabbit feet, each had four painfully straight legs ending in delicate hooves. The heads were kind of rabbit-like, with large rabbit ears… And, yes, a single horn like a rhinoceros that curved up and back just above the little pink nose.

It was the horns that set them apart from one another. Each was a different color, from blue to pink to red to yellow. A few were double-colored like a swirled ice-cream cone.

"I wish my phone wasn’t busted. I’d show you a picture of what a bunny is supposed to look like," I said, watching them mince around on their creepy straight legs. "Those are monsters."

"Yes," Sienna said. “They are monsters."

Jane squinted towards the warren. She looked vaguely disturbed. "Have you seen so many out in broad daylight?"

"It must be a big warren," Sienna said. "When’s the last time you heard of a funeral? We’re probably the first visitors in weeks.

"More for us, then," I muttered. Tiberius had been dozing on my shoulder, and I gently pulled him my arms to wake him up.

He looked around, and his body went stiff when he saw the horned bunnies.

Immediately, he wriggled free until I let him down. Ferdinand seemed interested in the hunt, too. He waddled forward on webbed feet and made a sharp sound that was something like a quack.

Commodore, who was still in the air, swept forward. The moment he crossed over the wrought iron fence, one of the larger bunnies screamed and jumped like six feet as if to pull him down.

Thankfully, Commodore was quick on the wing and turned to sail out of reach.

Alerted, the other bunnies moved as if to follow the house dragon—though their movements were staggering and disjointed.

"What do we do, now? Do we link with our dragons?"

Neither Jane or Sienna answered. They both stared at the bunnies.

"I’ve never seen them attack before. You’re right, something’s off," Sienna said.

"Should I call Commodore back?" Jane asked.

I caught a motion from the side and looked around. Not all the bunnies were behind that fence. One came bounding up from behind, though it was smooth moving oddly. Kind of limping forward.

It was followed by another… And this one was grievously injured. The blue-gray horn was flopping sideways on its face, held by a strip of skin. But there was no blood.

And that was when the wind shifted, bringing with it the scent of rot.

In the immortal words of Han Solo: I had a bad feeling about this.

“Guys," I said. "Do you have zombies in this world?"

These weren’t just monster bunnies. They were undead monster bunnies.