Ballard’s Trading Post is a two-story, wood-frame building that hunches in a rocky vista at the end of our path on Death’s Clutches island.

The door to Ballard’s hangs off its hinges. A section of one wall is exposed with a deep, jagged hole and splintered wood. Elsewhere, the rafters lean at crazy angles, and the front porch, lifted into the air and broken, rests on the store’s roof.

Ballard’s tables and balconies, now either scorched or wrecked, suggest it once functioned as a store, inn, and tavern before whatever war happened here.

Now the place is littered with blood, bodies, and bullets.

A dark-skinned woman dances and chants surrounded by all this wreckage, as if she were a conductor and the carnage was her orchestra. An elaborate skull mask covers her face entirely in odd contrast to her otherwise mostly nude body. From the back of the mask hang tangles of reeds and feathers that swing like floggers each time she arches her neck to punctuate a verse in her dark ritual.

She is a Voodoo Priestess, and level 4.

Her right hand drips with fresh blood that she draws from a bucket at her feet. Her left clutches a wicker talisman close to her chest, a chest not covered by any garment other than an oversized necklace made of hundreds of tiny bones. Otherwise, only strips of animal hide hang from cords around her waist like a loincloth.

“More come to reap what they have sown,” she squeals in the common tongue, her bloodshot eyes targeting wildly in our direction. “Feast upon your own kind and the fate you’ve brought upon yourselves.”

Three bodies twitch to life in front of her. Their movement is not unlike that of the skeletons we’ve fought earlier, but these corpses are still mostly skin and bone. By their garb, they might have been pirates like us, or maybe even proper sailors of an outfit of better reputation.

“Murderers. All of you.”

Their bodies bear the marks of axes, arrows, and magic from their first death. According to my mind’s eye, each is a level 2 Reanimated.

“Liars.”

“Will you shut up?” The blast of a gunshot erupts over my shoulder.

Fenna advances strafing sideways, rifle in hand, as her slug clips the witch in the shoulder.

“But aren’t you so, very, tired?” says the witch, shrugging off the blow as she raises her talisman toward Fenna. A green stream materializes in the air around Fenna’s face. She staggers but does not go down before the steam dissipates. Still, it’s enough to cause her next shot to miss.

As for me, I go to town with my pistol, firing as fast as I can into the approaching reanimated sailors, starting with the one on the left. I feel that anger from before still within me, and I let it out with my trigger finger, emptying four quick shots and dropping the first of the reanimated without much trouble.

A pair of green streaks of energy sail past Fenna, followed by two more that strike her in the leg, burning into the leather and melting her health by about a third.

God damnit, I knew I should not have advanced Fenna’s picnicking skills. So what, is Fenna going to switch tactics now and beat that witch up with an old basket and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich wrapped in a napkin? I’m such an idiot.

I can see it now:

Voodoo Priestess. Level 4. Vulnerable to delicious but somewhat underrated flavor combinations. Additional damage from Wunderbread, if used.

Fenna’s PB&J crits, sending Voodoo straight to the moon.

One of the reanimated slashes my forearm with his saber, reminding me that mentally facepalming during combat is probably a bad plan. I blast him point-blank in the face, blowing his lower jaw mostly away so that his mouth hangs too far open like a dead fish. It looks impressive but only drops his health to half.

The enemy swings keep coming. I keep firing.

Just as I finish off Mr. Jawless, his friend tackles me, grabs my pistol, and knocks it away to the side. He follows up with a hack from his saber, but I catch him by the wrist before the blade can connect with my neck as we tumble to the dirt.

For something that isn’t technically alive, the fucker is strong, and he’s got better leverage in the above position. The best I can do is keep the blade from cutting my head off, but pushing as hard as I can muster doesn’t dislodge him.

“Fenna,” I call, turning my head just in time to see a puff of green fog surround her nostrils and take her to the ground, unconscious.

“Uh…Rufus?” The monkey is nowhere to be seen, as expected.

Again I heave against the blade bearing down on me, but not enough to push it back more than an inch. The gesture leaves me even more tired, and the sharp edge gains more distance in return, beady bloodshot eyes behind staring maniacally at me.

“Rufus, I need you, bud. A little help here.”

Still nothing.

Fuck it. It’s about to be over anyhow. May as well try something.

I let go of the enemy hilt with my offhand for just a second, reach into my inventory, and pull out my head of lettuce, holding it in between my face and the sword that pushes ever closer.

Out from the bushes comes the shrill, ear-splitting scream of hungry monkey rage. Rufus comes running up, miniature sword in hand, and the next thing I know, he’s hacking at this zombie’s arm.

Three strikes. Five. Six. Rufus cuts the arm clean off at the wrist.

I pull myself out to safety and regain my footing as Mr. One-Arm here flails about, not smart enough to know what to do other than try to slap me. Rufus pulls the saber from the amputated hand and stuffs it into his now-stump wrist.

“Good one, squirt,” I say, trying to catch my breath.

The witch boils over with a scream of her own, and an arc of green blasts fires at Rufus from her blood-stained hand.

Ha, the little monkey pulled agro.

I finish off the last reanimated with my sword, taking glances at Fenna in between slashes. She doesn’t seem to have any significant injuries other than her leg. She’s just unconscious. As Mr. One-Arm goes down, Rufus successfully flees into the safety of the trees.

Tired and shaken, I reach to the ground and retrieve my pistol, feeling the hard iron and wood in my fingers. With such a simple device, a small gesture here makes big things happen over there. Is it a device at all, or is it magic?

“You wanna go?” I turn my attention to the witch. “Well, let’s go then,” I say, squaring off my sights at her chest and pulling the trigger.