“Hey, guy! R&R is over, we’re going to Prairieton again!” I announced as I opened up the stable. “How are the stitches… holding…”

As I meandered into the relatively-neat stable-for-one, the emptiness became immediately clear. I looked around the room. No signs of forced entry, nothing to suggest a struggle… my eyes then fell on the hollowed-out mule skin in the corner. I approached and confirmed it was the pelt I knew and loved. Something inside was wriggling. Rather than touch it, I got out my knife and very delicately opened it up.

A little black ball of tentacles with a single mouth crawled out. It looked at me with one oversized eye and raised tentacles toward my hand, asking to be picked up like a kitten. I obliged and it clung to my hand, sitting in my palm. It started to speak.

“Ohk mugth ablgeth mechhechh duthakc. Nerbf thalak sunck arga nursht. N’gackla bulllem desta. Tekeli-li!”

The little messenger flesh-construct then inflated to a ballooned state, floated into the air, and burst into flames. As it disintegrated to nothing, the nasty smell went with it. I sighed and dropped my hand.

“Here’s hoping your next vacation spot is as good as this one. Happy trails, pardner.” I looked around for a moment, lost. “Fuck, where am I gonna get a horse on such short notice?”

……

Parsnip pulled at the lead as we made our way toward the office. I tried to slow down and keep her calm, but she was in a state of mild-yet-continuous upset. She snorted and stomped her hoof, at least being polite enough to not scream her complaints of—gasp—being up early to work a job. We eventually rounded the corner to my street and sighted the office. Cameron had the cart ready and was sitting on the front, but as I approached him…

“Hey, sleepyhead! Ya puttin’ the cart before the horse!”

He startled awake and fumbled for a response, ending up with a salute. “M’rnin, Boss,” he mumbled.

I waved dismissively. “Oh drop the hand, wouldja? On your feet and help me get this girl hooked up,” I ordered, pointing to Parsnip.

He hopped down and helped, still half asleep but able to work with his hands nonetheless. We got the reluctant new horse tied up to the carriage and were off before the morning mist cleared. Right after we passed through the city gates, he suddenly sat up.

“Wait! Somebody could have stolen something!” he barked.

I caught his arm as he attempted to crawl back into the carriage. “Hold on a sec, Cam. These carts have some anti-theft wards. That’s why Pokle got you that small tattoo with the invisible ink. It takes some real effort to yoink our crap outta these.”

He sat back down and sighed with relief. “Oh, man. For a second there, I thought I blew it on my first day.”

I gave him an elbowing. “Nahhh. A nap’s a nap. In fact, these are packed in a way that there is a person-shaped dip in the boxes. Go ahead and unroll your sleeping bag and catch a good 40 winks.”

For a moment, he tried to think of a response. Then he nodded in appreciation and crawled back to get some Zs.

……

The sun shone its pleasant rays down on me as Parsnip finally hit her stride. She’d realized that I had purchased her for the exact thing she was trained for since birth. She would be getting a carrot and some good brushing when we stopped for the night.

Stirring and shuffling caught my attention as Cam crawled up to the front and sat shotgun, rubbing his eye. “How long was I out?” he asked through a yawn.

“Like, two hours if I had to guess. Feel better?”

He rubbed his back. “Yeah, but those boxes are not great to sleep on.”

I cracked a smile. “That’s travel for ya. Your choice often comes down to bad sleep or no sleep. You awake enough to take the reins for a bit?” I took a mental step back. “Do you know how to?”

“Yup,” he answered with all the casual energy in the world. The reins seemed almost natural in his hands. “Funny story, but my cousin married this guy who worked for one of those romantic horse-drawn carriage ride companies. He was a higher-up or something and I got to see some of the operations.”

I leaned back. “Huh, I didn’t figure you for a horse guy.”

Cam shrugged. “I didn’t either. Horses used to scare me. Bad. But then I met some of the ponies, got to feed the bigguns… eventually I interned there. Or was it apprenticed? I forget which, but it was one of my job prospects in the near future.” His lips contorted awkwardly. “Fuck, I had so much promise. I bet my funeral was sad as hell.”

“It probably hasn’t happened yet.”

He seemed appalled. “What do you mean, man? It’s been three months!”

“Three months here,” I corrected. “Lemme paint a picture. What day did you die?”

Cam thought for a moment. “Uhh, May 17th, 2021. Why?”

“Well, I died at age 17 sometime in August of 2019… and I’ve been here a little over 25 years.”

The face of sheer confusion and horror was honestly amusing. He looked me up and down. “You don’t look forty! And you said five years last time!” he cried.

“Did I say five? Well, I lied to help keep your head screwed on straight. I always say a small number when first talking to a new GC, helps keep the panic down. And yeah, I don’t feel forty… or act it, for that matter.

“Time’s still linear here, but a bunch of the GCs got together and did the math on their trucking dates. Always in chronological order, but NEVER consistent on the comparative rates of time passage.”

“Uhh, so, three guys die 24 hours apart, and the first two appear here in 5 minutes, but the last is a month later?”

I pointed at him. “Yeah, you get it! It’s a little more bullshit than that, but there’s never been a deficit of GCs to step up for legendary hero status.”

Cam nodded, then slowly returned his gaze to the road ahead. The world’s messiness didn’t seem to jive with him. An idea came to mind and I sat up.

“You wanna learn a bit more about stats?”

……

After some learning about the card itself—chiefly, that the owner is the only one who can change what it’s showing—we finally made it to the stats. I started with the elephant in the room.

“You know how important HP is, but there is a vital caveat that you might not be aware of.” Cam raised an eyebrow. “Zero ain’t dead.”

“Really?”

“Nope. Zero is like those guys that Mike Tyson decked once and they stumbled around the arena while the ref stopped the fight. Dead is your max, but in the negative and knocked out is… somewhere in-between. Zero really is a great time to potion.”

He took the information in for a few seconds. “Alright, I think I got it. What about mana? Any bullshit with that?”

“That’s actually pretty normal, I told you last time that it regenerates, but I should add that you can go majorly negative with big spells. Zero and below means no casting and slow regen, so use with caution. Oh, and it feels like crap too.”

Cam scratched his chin. “Is there any fiction where hitting zero mana doesn’t feel like shit?”

I looked off to the horizon for a moment. “Uhh, aside from the ones that don’t address it? I can’t think of any. The rest of the stats are pretty self-explanatory… except the one little detail.”

“Oh great, small details. I’m learning that those are the biggest problems.”

“Heh, smart man. Gimmie your right hand, we’re arm wrestling.” Cam gave me a concerned look. “Trust me, this is illustrative.”

He shook his head, then we locked hands. We wrestled without an elbow rest, but he won fair and square. It only made sense, considering his beefy arms.

“Great! That was both of us giving it our all. But… neither of us were using our strength stat. And that’s the most important part. We call it: The zone.”

“So… no stats unless you’re focused?”

“Focused, afraid… it varies. The only guarantee is that your stats are always on when the adrenaline starts going. It’s a feeling that you can eventually recreate on-demand. Wrestle me again!” I offered with an outstretched hand.

Cam looked even less sure the second time. Our hands locked and he almost won again, but then I engaged the zone. The battle stopped right where it was, then I destroyed him in less than a second, despite his strength kicking in at the last moment. His pinkie knuckle slammed against the wooden seat and he snatched his hand back, biting his lip in a pained hiss.

“FFFFFUCK that hurt. I felt it though, the zone. Still… owwwww.”

“Ohhh, don’t be such a baby,” I started, tapping his finger with all the garbage healing magic I could muster.

“Ribs grow back!”

……

Cam was slowly coming down from his storm of curses. Despite his best efforts, the tent was pitched and in one piece. He finished unrolling the sleeping bags and walked over to me.

“The hell, man? I thought you were starting the fire!” he complained, pointing at the pile of cold wood in front of me.

I gave him a huge smile, then sneezed out a geyser of flame, instantly lighting the firepit. “I had to wait until you were watching!”

He had to manually shut his hanging jaw. “I gotta learn some magic sometime,” he mumbled.

As he sat down, I passed him an empty bowl with a ribbon tied around it. “Dinner is served!” He looked into the bowl, then at me, disappointed. “Cut the ribbon, then there’s food. We call it Italian roulette.”

He inhaled, then mustered himself for another dumb story. “Um, why?”

I popped the ribbon on mine and it filled with beef and mushrooms in cream gravy. “Well at the first location we tried these, we would split the bowls evenly and everyone would get some dish in bulk… buuut we didn’t coordinate. So, one time, we ended up with five-hundred servings of lasagna, ravioli, braciola, and risotto… and about a hundred worth of bacon and eggs over rice.

“So it was like Russian roulette. Every meal on the road you’d give it a spin and one-in-six times it wouldn’t be Italian.” I took a big bite. “In the end, we went nuts and ordered like, a thousand more kits to dilute the pastas, which was enough to share with the other locations. We coordinate what goes in them now. It also spawned a tradition of having at least one pasta dish in every rotation.”

Cam nodded along as he popped the seal. “I guess I’m dead then,” he announced, holding up spaghetti and meatballs.

……

“So you haven’t been to Prairieton?”

Cam shook his head. “Nah, I ended up heading the other way when I set off adventuring. I only did about five-six quests then came right back. I haven’t seen much of the world.”

“Well then we’re starting off strong 'cuz Prairieton is awesome! Well, the sights. Towering veggies 'n shit like it's Jack and the Beanstalk. The people in charge are a bit snobbish, though. I packed some special reading alongside the manuals. Take the reins for a sec and I’ll go find ‘em.’”

I crawled back and popped one of the trunks open. It was the right one, so I dragged it forward and got out the Prairieton manual of pest control; a veritable treasure trove of hastily-jotted notes, context-requiring information, and near-nonsensical scribblings that we had collectively piled up to be sent off to an editor for assembly. Surprisingly, he did not gouge his eyes out upon reading it, and, despite the source material, the end result was easy to read. At least the bill was understandable…

I sat back down with the book. “So, Prairieton is a repeat job. Half because their leadership is incompetent as fuck and kinda lazy. And half because the local beasties are all catch-and-release... paired with the fact they got legally shafted and the only traps used for relocation are owned by Golden Point.”

I turned to page 17 and Cam leaned in. “These big local earthworms are burrowing around in the soil, you see. Usually anywhere between 40 and 200 pounds apiece.”

“Damn, that’s huge! Why do they keep them around?”

“Well they eat the detritus and shit out this stuff that you snort and you see the future.”

He stared at me a moment before I cracked and had to laugh. “Okay I’m joking. They do shit out valuable stuff though. Once they’re done with a field, you can plant anything there and it grows monstrously large, then you cut that down and plant again for the same results like… a dozen times. Then you let the worms eat the dead plants and whatever other compost and the cycle repeats!”

“Cool story. But why are we needed there so often?”

I sucked in air for a moment. “Well… the fucking chihuahua of a mayor decided that my services were inexpensive and effective enough to fire the Wormsmeisters Guild. I talked it out with them and we’re cool, but they took some baby worms and promptly fucked off halfway across the continent. Now there’s no competition, I’ve raised rates to pressure Mr. Chihuahua into making a local solution, but he’s stubborn as a bull and convinced I’ll give him a discount eventually. So off we go again! We’ll relocate some worms and burn some rats.”

Cam leaned back. “Okay, now that’s actually kind of a cool story. He does sound like an ass though. By chiuhuahua, I’m guessing you mean some sort of… rabid Danny Devito?”

“Iiiii hadn’t thought of it that way, but sure, I guess. You have to listen selectively, picking out what needs doing from all the posturing and vitriol. Just ‘okay, sir’ and ‘whatever you say’ him to death.”

“Service with a smile!” he declared sarcastically.

I poked with authority. “Uh-uh. Training manual one, page seven, paragraph two, line one. Smiling not required. Did you miss that part?”

He scratched his cheek nervously. “I uhh… crammed the whole thing at 2AM like I did for history tests.”

……

“Hey, there he is out on the front deck! That runner at the gate must’ve told him.”

Cam did his best not to stare. “Him? He looks like the Penguin.”

I whispered. “Yeah. Suit almost fits the bill, but don’t say it to his face.” I pulled the reins. “Whoa, Parsnip. We’re here.”

We disembarked onto the boardwalk patio of the town hall. Monsieur chihuahua clomped right up to us, flanked by his nice assistant in her brown and blue dress. “You’re two hours late!” he bellowed with a finger in my face.

I gestured over my shoulder. “New horse, still getting her used to travel. ‘Sides, we weren’t going to start until tomorrow.”

He shoved a packet of papers in my hands. “Take your forms and begone! I am late for an important social function! Your company owner will hear about this!”

“I’m sure he will,” I muttered under my breath. I looked up to his assistant. “Still can’t set his head on straight, eh Eltia?”

She smiled sweetly, shaking her head. “No, sir.”

“I still can’t believe you put up with him.”

“As long as he’s in office, sir!” she announced in her cheery voice, accenting the statement with a devilish wink.

I chuckled, remembering the long talk we had two years back. “Alright, well, Cameron, meet Eltia, aaand vice-versa!” They shook hands as I continued. “I have to go get these filed, so, Eltia, would you be a peach and guide Cam to our accommodations, please?”

“Of course, sir!”

I watched as she and Cam hopped on the cart and rode off. He seemed a bit creeped out. I get it. It’s like those maid cafes where they call you ‘big brother!’ the whole time. Eltia was essentially sweetened-condensed Pokle. Oh well, she doesn’t bite (she just schemes). I set off inside for the magical journey of paperwork.

……

I sat down next to Cam on his bed. “Alright, so I got the map right here. See how there’s six sections around town?”

Cam leaned in and read the map in some detail. “Yeahhh. It… looks a bit like the radiation symbol. And the main town is built on some kinda giant boulder?”

“Correct. Can’t build a house here unless the topsoil is six inches or less, else the worms’ll give you grief.”

“Right. Step on one that’s too shallow and it pops out to bite you. And they’re in the… even partitions this year. It says right there.”

“Good, good, you’re picking up on the details. So these little numbers on the side tell us how many worms are in the planting zones. Looks like five in zone one,” I started, motioning to Cam.

“Four in zone three, and NINE in zone five? We’re gonna catch all these in two days?”

“One if we’re lucky. So… probably one and a half, then the rest is rats n’ bugs. It’ll depend on how well you can use the trap.”

Cam grimaced. “I mean… it’s dirt fishing. So you catch the worm this time, but it does look clunky as hell… you’re going to train me, right?”

“Yeah but that’s tomorrow. I need to talk to you about your assistant first.” Cam raised an eyebrow again as I continued. “You see, the mayor—in all his infinite wisdom—has it written into the regulations that anyone from Golden Point gets assistance from… well, the hottest chicks on staff.

“Now, people here are built different. They’ve been eating this hyper-nutritious, magic-laced diet for years. They work all day and don’t even give a fuck. Pair that with how worm fishing is a lot of sitting around doing nothing and… she’s not gonna be tired by the end of the day, and you’ll have been talking and socializing since sunrise while you wait for a bite.”

Cam made that fish-lip face. “Oh. Oh… she’ll wanna fuck?”

“Long as you weren’t an asshole to her, yeah. Two-three times before bed usually, and six or seven if you’re good at it. I packed a potion for that, if you need it.”

“Damn, that much? Built different indeed. This place is a real cushy job compared to what I’ve been reading about.”

I sneered. “Cushy for you. I gotta run them around all the livelong day or they’ll be hella cranky with me the next morning.” He looked at me funny. “Anyway, now you know why we have adjacent rooms. And don’t worry, they’re magically soundproofed. I’m gonna go grab dinner downstairs. That chicken and leek soup smells divine.”

……

“Wait for it, almost there…” I muttered as the proximity crystal beeped faster and faster.

Cam and I held the giant magnifying-glass shaped hunk of metal with visegrips as Tana readied her shovel. The beeping turned to one long tone as internal spring tension released and a spell went off. Tana jammed her shovel into the ground and chucked away a chunk of dirt as Cam and I pried the wormcatcher out of the ground, dragging one thicc hecking chonker sausage of a worm into the air.

Fatso flopped around angrily as I held the trap in place, keeping those inch-long teeth away from us. Cam administered the shot to knock it out after much effort to pin down a section of slippery body. He laid on top of it for a while until it calmed down.

“Uhh, feisty,” he commented.

I pulled my leather gloves tight. “Ayup, let’s get him over to an even zone.”

The three of us were more than able to carry the big living intestine over to zone six. After dumping it, we headed back to zone five. I lifted the worm trap to finish training Cam.

“Alright so that was the three-man method, but I’m about to jump to my own zone so you need to do the two-man style. You read up?”

Cam took a breath. “I think so.”

“Okay, walk me through it then,” I ordered, tipping the trap over to him.

He looked over the giant steel dream-catcher/magnifying glass thingamabob. The netting was still deployed in the ‘lens’, so he stuck in the crank and wound it up, which compressed the catch-ring out back to the sides. Then he moved to the bottom of the ‘handle’.

“So… I just rearmed it. Now I take this part at the base of the handle and…”

Cam twisted the bar and there was a pop as some spring tension released. Then he slid out the long rod and removed it from the handle.

“This is the syringe mount… even looks like one. Just uhh, unscrew the base, drop one of the sedation syringes in and put it all back together?”

“Good, that’s all right so far. Now, reassemble it without getting the finger pinch of a lifetime.”

……

As it turns out, Cam’s not a fucking dumbass. What a shocker! Still, he wasn’t gonna beat my numbers. After all, he had motivation to pace himself and make small talk. First ridealong and it’s the one scenario I promote getting laid on company time… I’d have to make sure he knows Prairieton is the exception and not the rule. Meanwhile, Rosalie and I were running around trying to find a worm with the proximity crystal.

Well, I was. She was just trying to stay with me. With a smidge of roundabout routing and some of that statistically-boosted mobility, I had Rosalie panting and sweating as she kept up. The little brown crystal started flash-beeping again and I rounded the 10-foot-tall carrot leaves following the signal.

“We just walked over it! Dig right there,” I commanded, pointing ahead.

Rosalie ran forward and started the magic with her shovel, slicing it sideways into the ground and creating an instant trench. I hefted the heavy wormcatcher from my shoulder and jammed it right in with some bait as the spell ended and the soil collapsed into the trench. The trap was armed and she leaned against her shovel.

“The girls were right, you’re a flighty fuck,” she said between pants. “I thought you Golden Point boys always saved a little energy for the evening?”

“Most do, but me? My goals are beyond your understanding.”

“Goals to stay a virgin,” she muttered.

I pretended not to hear it as I watched the proximity crystal blink faster. It was definitely getting closer, but their speed is measured at inches per minute… so I clicked off the stone and let the running catch up to me a bit.

“Waiting time… anything cool happen here recently?”

Rosalie sighed and started to count off on her fingers. “I can tell you about sex, the fuckhead in charge, and cooking.”

“I like cooking.”

……

“And then once you’ve chopped the roast duck you…”

Kachunk

“Hold that thought!” I interrupted as I lunged for the wormcatcher.

It shook rather violently as I grabbed the bit on top. With a twist, I slammed down the big button and the spring tension drove a spike down into the earth. It would then stop right before impaling the worm and stick the needle out to tranq it. Not simple, not cheap, and questionably effective. Rosalie started digging as she continued the duck pot pie recipe. We had the worm out and off to the next zone in a minute, then we returned to the trap.

“I’m gonna have to make that sometime. Any other cool recipes you tried lately?”

Rosalie held the wormcatcher up while I rearmed it. “Umm, lemme think.” She tried for a while to recall a good dish, then she abruptly looked over her shoulder. “Did you hear that?”

I leaned over to check the direction she’d glanced in and shook my head when she looked back at me. She sighed. “Must’ve been the wind.”

Oh god fucking dammit you have to say that ONE line. Now it HAS to be something. Fuck my life, fuck you, and fuck whatever made that noise I just want a normal fucking day tiring out some farmer chick so she’ll drop right onto bed and sleep. Can’t just ONE thing go normal in this fucked-up quarter? Just because the financials are good doesn’t mean everything else is allowed to go wrong! Fuck!

I smacked my lips. “You’re probably right, just the wind…”

……

My head remained on a swivel as we waited for worm #5. My jovial, joking attitude was out the window all of a sudden and Rosalie had noticed.

“Is something wrong?” she asked innocently.

I huffed. “I dunno, call it a gut feeling. I just feel like there’s something bad.”

She laughed. “C’moooon, nothing ever happens here.” Oh my god shut the fuck up you are literally guaranteeing something will happen. “Tell me a stooory. Take your mind off things with some cool shit you did,” she whined.

My mind turned to the shimmerlands, then jumped right past that and skipped over a few options in favor of Castle Sidia. “How about the time I helped a vampire princess clean up her castle?”

“Whoa, that’s like, way cooler than any of my stories. How did you get on her good side?”

……

“So she got rid of all the vampire bats? Why?”

I shrugged as we power walked on over to a zone with worms left to catch. “I dunno, they needed to go I guess. She was serious about bug bats being the new thing, but I have my doubts if they’ll catch on.”

Rosalie paused for a moment. “She hates mosquitoes, doesn’t she.”

“Huh, easy to puzzle that out I guess. Yup, she does,” I answered as I checked over the shoulder not carrying a 120lb trap.

“Oh my gooods Dennis, what are you worried about? I get spooked once and suddenly you’re a wet blanket. There’s nothing there.”

Oh my god, this girl is Chekhov’s gunning me SO fucking hard right now. “Yeah, whatever. Maybe I’m a little twitchy after working so many jobs in the Lands of Darkness.”

She paused for a while and got a little meek. “Okay, maybe you have a point there.”

……

We were waiting for—you guessed it—another worm as I continued the story.

Rosalie giggled. “Oh my gosh, those gargoyles sound adorable! I want one.”

“Trust me, you don’t. They sit around all day and night and you only get to scratch them every few months. Plus you have to bathe them after they roll around in the bloody giblets leftover when they’re done with the intruders.”

“Okay, maybe not after that last part. Still, it sounds cute.”

“In the moment yeah, but overall nah. Anyway, next I…”

My eyes caught movement. A single hanging grapevine waving side to side. There was no wind. I could see all around, and there were was nobody nearby. Not even a footprint in the soil. That narrowed things down a little bit. It was definitely something, but beyond that, dunno. Probably invisible. Oh well, nothing to do about it right now. Whatever it is, it hasn’t done anything yet… FUCK, I just did it to myself.

“You what? What happened next?”

I blinked and shook my head. “Uhh… oh, it was the mishap with the pain spells.”

……

I ran my magically-heated hands through my hair, turning the bathwater to steam so I didn’t get a bedhead. As I dried my mane, I debated whether to sleep in the long johns. The debate lasted all of two seconds, since they’re statted as fuck and I still don’t know what my invisible stalker is. Safety first! I started up some protective wards and sigils. The increased housekeeping bill would be worthwhile.

Halfway down the ‘thaumaturgical brick shithouse’ list, a knock fell on my door. “Dennis? Can I come in?” Rosalie requested sleepily through the thin door.

I walked over and opened it a crack to peer through, definitely not holding my tomb sword like that baseball bat you’d keep by your bed. It was her though, no arguing that. She was in some nice, long silk underwear and carrying a blanket.

“May I bunk with you?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’m too tired for any action, but you can if you want.”

“S’okay. I just wanna use your pillow. All the girls say it’s the best pillow ever and I didn’t get to try it with how often you send someone else here.”

“Yeah, that’ll be fine.”

I opened up the door and she traipsed on in. As she passed me, I tapped the back of her head with a spell that an alert person might notice and even resist. Instead, it worked perfectly and returned all I needed to know:

That is Rosalie Thorne

Rosalie is not under the effects of any spell

Rosalie is not being controlled by anything other than herself

Rosalie does not have any intentions detrimental to you

Error: Definition not found for intention, auto-generating…

Result: Rosalie wants to be [impaled] by you

Please contact Sir Tarthun with feedback on this error resolution.

Thank you for using Tarthun’s Threat and Espionage Assessor v0.71.

“Whawsat?”

“Oh, I was trying to squish a mosquito. Hop in bed I’m just doing up some wards for like, bugs ‘n stuff.” Well that’s good I guess. I hope Tarthun comes out of hiding to release the next version soon. I mean come ON espionage detection without definitions for sex? Honeypots are a thing.

“‘Kay cool. Izzis the pillow?” she asked, settling in on the far side of the bed. “Wooow, this is awesome! How much was it?”

I finished ward 11 of 12. “A lot, but worth it.” Some noise started to spill through the wall. Sounds one might associate with a… good(?) porno. “Ope, there go Cam and Tana. At it already.”

“Thaw’s fas. I can’t even hear it.”

I finished up and slid the components pouch under the bed. “As I said, worth every penny.”

Rosalie tucked further in as I laid down myself. The moment my head hit the pillow, the room melted away to a hilltop scene, leaving the bed to appear as a luxurious hammock hung between two trees. Birds sang along with the crickets, all at a pleasant distance as the wind gently buffeted the moonlit flower fields. Every. Last. Penny.

……

Day 2 shaped up to be a breeze. We had three worms left to locate, then the farmhands swept the fields with proximity crystals. For once, nothing went wrong on that front, so Cam and I were on to burning out some rats and roaches. It seemed he’d already been trained on the soulfire nexus, so I just had to put one of them fiery orbs in his hands and send him on his way.

Soulfire is always so fun. It’s basically just napalm but can only impart heat onto living creatures. And there is an incantation of ‘nehi-nehi’ that makes it go out if any gets on you. It’ll even do you one better and put all the skin back that it burned, just like new. Everyone in Prairieton knew the drill: Get outta the way and let us hose.

Grain silos, gardens, sheds, houses, inns, restaurants. There were rats coated in green flames running all around the place. Smelled like barbeque too. Of all the places that spring for the cheapest, most brutal option, Prairieton somehow managed to give the least fucks out of any of 'em. I used to make Vietnam or napalm jokes but… ehh, I’ve grown up a bit since then. It was a long, uneventful day full of charred rat remains, which promptly got thrown in the compost bin en masse.

By the afternoon, I rendezvoused with Cam and we started to load up the cart. “You know, that wasn’t too bad all in all,” he commented while packing away the orbs of flaming green crystal.

“I did ask Pokle for an easy first ridealong, it will get tougher.” He shrugged instead of saying ‘duh’. “But that’s neither here nor there. Did Tana treat you right?”

He smiled and probably blushed. “Built different is a true statement. And the potion helped. You were right about the magic soundproofing though! Didn’t hear a thing from you all night.”

“Ayup, it’s good stuff. Oh hey! There’s the potato I asked for. Hook Parsnip up while I get this thing in the back.”

A few minutes later, we were on the road again. “You think we can make it to that campsite again? It’s kinda late in the day.”

“Yeah, should do. I’ve done this trip a half dozen times or so.” The cart rocked strangely over a bump and my eyes instantly narrowed. “Hey, Cam, take the reins for a minute, I think they tied down the potato wrong.”

I passed the reins and readied my ultimate bitchslap-o-matic spell. I crawled back, keeping a hand in front of me. Over boxes, past the potato… all the while I waved my hand about. As I reached forward, closing in on the back of the carriage, my hand was very gently smacked away. The sheer audacity of it gave me pause. Then, I was flicked in the nose. Repeatedly.

We were at an impasse for a moment. Then when nothing happened after a bit, I reached into my postman shoulder bag and pulled out an actual magnifying glass. I looked through it, not able to see through the invisibility, but it did say one little thing.

[Redacted] LVL 592

I slowly nodded and backed away. The redaction told me plenty, considering only one bunch had the litigational muscle to get monster names redacted on identifying items. I crawled back up front.

“Sorry about that, the potato should be all good now. It was a bit off to the left.”

Cam bought it. “Oh damn, that thing is like three hundred pounds. Nice catch.”

“Ayup. Nice catch indeed. Gonna have me some fries for dinner tomorrow. Want in?”

“Hell yeah.”