There's a clarifying moment before all Hell breaks loose. The proverbial calm before the storm. Ava observes the Scums acting in cooperation. They're close to formless, entirely faceless, utterly absent of any humanity – but they were people, once.

Do they know what they're doing?

“Fall back!” shouts Ostby, but as the party attempts to retreat back onto solid ground they find themselves surrounded and the way is blocked.

They're organized – using tactics.

Suddenly the energy is frenetic. The Scums race in directions which at first glance seem completely illogical. Like panicked ants emerging from underground when their hill has been kicked. Ava flinches as two of the Scums collide at the far end of the bridge. And then another pair smash into one another and it is loud. It's all so seemingly haphazard and disorienting.

They're mindless, Ava concludes – but only for a second.

Because their collisions aren't accidental. It's happening all around the party now. The Scums are combining, smashing themselves together in a catastrophe of mechanical clicks and liquid smacking sounds like some huge creature slurping up victims.

They're transforming into something worse, abandoning their vestigial humanity to become parts of a monstrous fiend. Rotten gray flesh and hunks of fatty tissue seep out between their grinding mechanical parts as they assume their new form.

Their freshly combined masses extrapolate to absurd size, thinning out and stretching to become a pair of tentacle-like appendages at each end of the bridge. The river beneath the bridge begins to boil because they are down there, too. It's too much to witness; too bizarre to understand.

And the brain hates to be disoriented. It spends all of its time trying to avoid or escape that state; inventing reasons for the absurdities and the evils it can't directly comprehend.

Ava sees these Scums combining to form a single creature, a monster from a fantasy world. Something like a hydra or a robotic octopus. A Scum-Squid?

And so her brain, in its attempts to reconcile the insanity, can only wonder:

Are the Scums on some sort of quest, too?

When the transformation is finished the Scums are a single entity. At each end of the bridge they present as a pair of long tentacles. The four slithering appendages connect someplace down below, beneath the water, and a fifth comes slithering up – a tongue extending from out of the mouth of an infernal robotic beast, a vortex of teeth down there disrupting the river's flow.

“What in the shit!” Ellie exclaims, “did they just turn into a killer octopus?”

Ava is bombarded with math. She blocks most of it out, but she's immediately aware that the tongue of the tentacle-Scum will make the first attack.

It strikes at Ostby—he's riding in the lead and therefore simply the closest—but the blow does not strike him. It isn't intended to. Instead, the tongue slaps against the shoulder of his horse and then swiftly slithers up around the neck and begins to constrict.

Ostby struggles to release its grip but prying it is no use. He stands in the saddle and draws his bow and fires but at the last moment the tentacle jerks the horse out from under him and the shot misses. He leaps off and lands softly with action points remaining for one more shot. This time his aim is true and the arrow whistles clear through the tentacle tongue.

It's Ava's first time witnessing a critical blow and there is some information to be extracted. Perhaps most vital: the enemy has the same Hardiness score as her—meaning they're quite fragile and susceptible to crits—likely on account of the way they've altered themselves structurally to be long, thin, tentacles.

Second, she's fascinated seeing the Critical Magnitude modifier in action. It would seem Ostby's bow would crit for Severe damage in less-skilled hands, but is bumped up to Lethal by his exceptional Finesse.

And finally: it turns out Lethal is lethal in name-only. The Scum Tongue evidently can endure more than ten wounds, but for the damage to be healed would require a skill capable of mending that most dire category of injury.

Can Scums be healed? Ava wonders. She sure hopes not.

Now it is Uri's turn to act. He jumps down from Ellie's horse and draws his [Crude Bow]. He and Ellie had been bringing up the rear so he focuses his attacks on the twin tentacles back there, blocking the party's retreat. He has action points remaining to fire off two arrows. The first sails harmlessly past its target and the second hits but Ava registers that it inflicts only a Light Injury.

Then it is her turn. It's been a while since she's used her gun but there's no fear she's forgotten how. It's all automatic at this point. Sitting in the saddle in front of Bach makes it impossible for her to turn back toward the tentacle Uri has already wounded. She focuses on the enemies directly ahead, instead.

First, she slips the pistol from its holster and performs a [Quick-Draw]. The tentacle's Quickness advantage is negated and the bullet embeds itself in its target's metallic trunk, inflicting a Moderate Injury. This is worth four wounds.

Next, she squeezes off an [Aimed Shot], and it also lands successfully:

The +1 bonus imparted by her [Aimed Shot] causes the blow to crit but her low Finesse and subsequent penalty to Critical Magnitude reduces the injury she inflicts from Lethal to merely Severe. Still, the cumulative wounds—twelve in total—are enough to send the tentacle into collapse. It slams to the bridge, twitching and lifeless, and now there remain only three plus the dire tongue.

With a single Action Point remaining, Ava activates [Vigilance] and waits.

Next, Bach draws his pistol and performs the same sequence of attacks as Ava. He focuses on the tentacle partnered with the one she just killed. Both shots land but his [Aimed Shot] fails to crit.

Firearms are a Mind-based weapon, and his score in that attribute is evidently lower than Ava's. She'll have to reconcile that fact later. For now all that matters is that Bach inflicts two Moderate injuries on his target and it sparks and seizes but does not die.

“Get wrecked, shit-snake!” shouts Bach.

And last to act is Ellie. She draws her gun and takes a shot at the tentacle Uri struck with his arrow but the whole act is awkward and she misses badly. Worse still, she has fired too near her horse's ear and the animal is spooked.

It rears back and bucks and she and Uri are both ejected. They slam to the bridge and Ava registers that both have suffered a single wound as part of a Light Injury. And they are left prone and vulnerable as the Scums prepare to attack.

In a world where there are 'critical' successes, Ava wonders, could there also be critical failures?

There's no time to rationalize it. The next round of combat begins with the Scum Tongue still strangling Ostby's horse. It struggles and stomps but the Scum is too strong. The horse thuds to the bridge and then the tongue drags it over the edge and there is the shriek of saw-blades whirring and suddenly the air is full of horse-blood. That monstrous mouth beneath the bridge is unseen but they can hear it grinding and gurgling as the blades decelerate.

The tentacle Bach shot twice attacks next, thrusting once at Ostby and missing but landing its second attempt, constricting around his waist. Will he suffer the same fate as his horse—perhaps as early as next turn—if he isn't freed from the grapple?

Ellie rolls to the side, dodging a blow from the lone undamaged tentacle. At first her evasion seems miraculous but there's no time to relax. The blow has instead struck against the bridge and sends splinters flying. And the tentacle attacks once more – and again Ellie squirms out of the way.

But this time the bridge can't withstand the damage. The planks beneath Ellie crack and tumble into the water below and the true miracle is that she doesn't go plummeting along with them, instead somehow catching herself – clinging to the edge with a white-knuckle grip and her feet dangling dangerously near the saw-toothed vortex.

Fortunately for her the other tentacle on their side of the bridge targets Uri – he's already plinked it once with an arrow; evidently enough to draw its aggro. It coils upon itself briefly before unleashing a vicious whip-like snapping attack. Uri rolls out of the way and the tentacle plummets past – demolishing the last planks connecting the bridge to the near bank. Now there's no way back.

As the Scum-Squid's turn concludes it's a bad scene for Ava and her party. Ellie is going to need help – she can't hang on forever.

But even more dire is Ostby's situation. His horse is already murdered and now he faces the same fate, caught in the clinch of the constricting tentacle. Ava has already seen him fail to pry his horse out of this choke-hold – how will he fare any better now?

She watches his face as he strains to get free but it's no use. But he's grinning. And just as Ava is realizing he must have some trick up his sleeve – Ostby simply vanishes:

Suddenly Ostby is perched overhead, balancing precariously on one of the narrow posts which previously formed the frame of the once-covered bridge. He has blinked his way out of the crisis and still has two action points to spend.

Holy shit, Ava wonders, how do I become a Hunter?

He smiles while drawing his bow and his arrow sizzles through the air, penetrating the empty-handed tentacle from above and sending it crashing down in a lifeless heap. That's two down – now only the horse-murdering Scum-tongue and the two tentacles on Uri and Ellie's side of the bridge remain.

Uri uses his entire budget of action points to help Ellie safely back up onto the bridge.

And now it is Ava's turn once more. She can't do anything from her place in the saddle so she hops down and turns back around the way they came – where the two remaining tentacles loom over the broken half of the bridge. With four action points remaining she could execute an [Aimed Shot] or she could simply make two regular attacks—but she knows the [Aimed Shot] has a chance to crit for as much damage as she could hope to do with two attacks—and for half as many bullets.

She takes aim at the tentacle she's sees already wearing Uri's arrow, inhales, and squeezes the trigger.

It's another critical success, causing a Severe injury and eight wounds. Combined with the damage Uri has already done, the running total on this opponent is up to ten wounds – but she knows that's only enough to bring it to the precipice and she has just a single action point remaining. Not enough for a follow-up attack. Instead she activates [Vigilance] and hopes Bach and Ellie can end this combat now.

For his part, Bach dismounts and hurries to position himself between the attackers and the squishier members of his party. But whatever his class is he's still just Level One – meaning he only has three action points to work with. He raises his pistol and pops off a shot at close to point-blank range and the previously-injured tentacle seizes and crackles with electricity before splashing down in the river.

Ellie scrambles to pick up her pistol. She must have dropped it when she nearly fell into the Scum-Squid's saw-toothed mouth. She holds it up and her hands are trembling. She can't take the shot.

“I'll miss and hit one of you!” she shouts to Bach and Uri.

She activates [Vigilance] and her remaining action point is forfeited. Ava didn't even know that was possible.

The horse-murdering Scum-tongue slithers back up onto the bridge. It maneuvers in Bach's direction—angling to surprise him from behind—and before Ava can shout a warning the palomino she and Bach have been riding upon shrieks. She begins to stomp and kick, her eyes white at the edges from panic. The palomino has seen this Scum-tongue strangle one horse – she's not going to meet the same fate quietly.

And one of her hooves slams down on the tongue. Ava gasps – did her horse just execute an attack? It suddenly registers that the palomino has inflicted a Moderate Injury – and combined with the damage Ostby did to the tongue during the combat's opening moments this is a killing blow. The tongue quits creeping toward Bach, pinned down instead beneath the palomino's hoof.

In order to attack out-of-turn the horse must have at some point activated a kind of equine [Vigilance] Ava couldn't detect. It's a welcome discovery but she still finds herself asking:

What else might I be missing?

Before she can contemplate it any further the final surviving tentacle swings wide and smacks against Bach's side. It coils around his torso and constricts.

This last tentacle has yet to suffer any damage at all and Ava starts trying to do the math. Will they be able to free Bach before he's dragged down and shredded into Bach-bits? She can kill it in one turn – but what if she misses? What if she hits Bach, instead?

Ostby ends all her morbid math. He's still high up on the post, balancing on one foot now. He fires three arrows one after another and all three plunge into the tentacle. It's technically dead after the second, but Ostby might be showboating, knowing the threat has been ended. He performs a front-flip off the post, landing on his feet like an acrobat at the end of his routine.

“Thanks,” says Bach, unspooling himself from the dead tentacle.

“It was nothing.”

“Uh, okay boys,” says Ellie, “we gonna get out of here?”

But they've already waited too long; celebrated too much.

The water beneath the bridge roils. The Scum-squid is still alive, just with fewer tentacles. Suddenly it emerges from the water where the bridge is broken and spews a torrent of milky, gooey ooze from someplace deep in its murderous saw-mouth:

And the three of them at that end of the bridge simply don't have time to react. The slime envelops them and one-by-one Uri, Ellie, and Bach thud to the bridge, paralyzed.