“Hey? Corbin, ye there?”

“Huh?”

The girl popped into his mind again, the freckled one with the black hair. A chasm of aching hit him in the chest. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to know who she was, and understand why he couldn’t remember her name. He needed to know if the little bard had erased his memory, or one of his friends. And none of that would be possible if he didn’t get his card back.

The here and now beckoned him again when an acorn bounced off his head.

“What was that for?”

“I fought you was havin’ a mental breakdown.”

“I wasn’t.” Turning back into his human self wasn’t going to happen if he was just flapping willy-nilly around this fantasy-scape. Once he got his card back, it’d be someone with knowledge he’d give it to: a wizard maybe.

“Wot happened?”

“Uh… dunno. Hang on.”

He replayed the events of the wee hours of the morning in his mind. The Five… the pissed-off bard named Steve, a woman named Stephie and a man named Jamal, out of sight but heard, a fourth one (Rico) who had gone through the portal, according to Stephie. A girl with dark skin, bluish hair and pointy ears dead at his hand. The Five.

“We need to head toward that castle,” he told her.

“You sure about that? I ‘eard that if you got no business there, don’t even get close. The people who run that place are lunatics, sure as shit.”

“I don’t remember what happened before this morning… and part of my past is there.” A lot of it didn’t make sense, and dots needed to be connected. Chances were good that while he and Prissy had been dungeon crawling, the bard, Steph and Jamal headed directly back to their castle, which meant he’d have a chance to get a look at them. There might be memories for him, despite the danger of a three foot guitarist who was also a bloodthirsty maniac… who might be entirely justified in wanting Corbin dead.

They headed on in silence for a time, before Prissy stopped, grabbed her stomach, and groaned. Corbin got it a second later: the smell of bread wafting out from nearby.

“We’re takin’ a bit of a nosh break,” she declared. “So don’t you say nuffin–”

“It’s fine.”

“Wot?”

“It’s not a problem. We’ll get a chance to figure out who runs the castle, or get a lead on an adventure that won’t get us eaten. You have to spend money to make money. I get it.” He didn’t like it, but he got it.

“And I can get a wink.”

“A… get some sleep?”

“Yep.” She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t bother. Cat nap, probably. Prissy was one bizarre person.

The little village was barely more than a dozen buildings, with a few farmsteads in the distance. This was a pretty quaint little place, from the looks of things, though the tall towers ringing the town seemed vaguely menacing. They were essentially guard towers without the castle walls spanning the gaps between them, though he now noted a rudimentary fence between the two closest towers.

The tower guards sprang into action a good two hundred feet out. A horn blew, and one of them shot an arrow wide of their location. Corbin immediately noted that the arrow had something wrapped around the shaft, so with a confused shrug they veered toward it. Someone had painted a stop sign on a piece of burlap.

“Wot ya thinkin’?”

“Safety precautions. They’ll send someone out to meet us.”

Another minute later three mounted riders indeed appeared and rode directly out toward Prissy and her handler. None of them appeared to be too dangerous, except the lead guy, who had the face of a humanoid dragon and a big sword strapped across his back. The other two were little folks… one exactly like Steve the Bard, and another dwarven fella who seemed ready to fall off his pony. The little guy had a slingshot set into her pony’s saddle, which was adorable, while the dwarf had a double-sided battle axe that was easily the size of his torso.

“Well ‘ello there!” she said.

“Who’s this then?”

“Name’s Cilla, if it please ya,” she said, before gesturing to the raven on her shoulder. “An’ Corbin, me bird.”

“And what business do you have with our town?” he asked.

“I’ve some silver to spend, need a bed, smelled somethin’ to fill me gullet, hope to get some a’ that, and if there’s a quest ta be had, I’ll take one a’ those too.”

“Level?”

“Four.”

“Class?”

“Tell him you’re an adventurer,” Corbin said.

The dragonite arched an eyebrow spine.

“Shadow Walker.”

“A Shadow Walker?” the leader repeated.

“Great. Just great,” Corbin muttered. “The brain on this one.”

“Talkative bird you’ve got there,” the dragonite said.

“Yeah. Opinionated too.”

That earned her another odd look.

“Pretty famished, I am,” she said, and pulled out a handful of silver. “Tired too. Can we hand over… wot, ten silver each, and all be on our way peaceful-like? That sound… amenable?”

“I’ll need your solemn oath you intend no harm on our fair village.”

“I swear–”

“Hold,” he said, and concentrated for a moment. A creamy whitish light began to radiate from his hand, and floated calmly to Prissy. She seemed ready to dodge, but it picked up speed at the last second and hit her in the throat. “Now… your solemn promise.”

She cleared her throat and gave a confused look. “I... solemnly… promise, I intend no ‘arm on your fair village. Wot the ‘ell–”

Her whole body radiated with that same light for a moment, before it disappeared back into her body.

“My job as Righteous Defender is to ensure no bloodshed or trickery in the village. You’re under a spell that will cause you pain if you attempt to break it. The harder you try, the more damage you take, and I’ll know the second you try anything. Its effects will only wear off once you see me, when you’re ready to leave the village. My companions and I will see you off when that happens, when you’re ready.”

The dragonite introduced himself as Darryl. He seemed stern and no-nonsense, but as soon as the light dissipated into Prissy’s body, he relaxed and came down with a serious hillbilly accent.

“Y’all, this is a dream come true.”

“What?” Corbin asked, forgetting they couldn’t understand him.

Darryl chuckled. “That thing must be a mythic at least. I’d love ta get me one a’ those, but the Holy Order don’t allow it, see? Anyway, ya didn’t ask, but I ended up drivin’ all the way up here just as soon as I seen the viral video of that van transformin’ inta a carriage and four.”

“Wot’s a carriage and four?” Prissy asked.

“Carriage… and four horses.” Darryl rolled his terrifying eyes. “Man, me and the D&D group’re just having the time of our lives out here. It ain’t exactly the same, o’ course… ya got yer cards instead a yer special abilities and yer spells and such, but we started a village collection. Protect the village, keep people safe. I used ta be a truck driver, an’ now I run this place.”

Once they crossed the threshold of the town, though, his whole manner of speech changed entirely, all over again.

“Fear not, folk of this town, for this adventurer and her stalwart companion have pledged no harm shall befall you at their hands.”

The townsfolk seemed entirely too impressed. Women of every species were cheering and giving Darryl the sort of eyes tween girls give their favorite boy bands. It was strange enough a phenomenon to see on younger girls, but on the middle-aged wives and the older crones, it seemed just bizarre. Darryl hadn’t been kidding when he said he loved this place. Clearly this place also loved him.

He introduced the little guy as Patrick the nellwynian, and Bob the dwarf. Both inclined their heads but didn’t say anything.

“Where’ll ya be headed first?” Darryl asked quietly, but it was clear he already knew.

“Straight to the inn. Oy can’t be botherin’ ya fer an escort, can I?”

“Nonsense,” Darryl replied, his voice low and with the southern drawl back in. “Ya done paid us ten silver each, an escort fee we’ll call it. Least we can do is show ya ‘round.”

Which basically meant pointing out the obvious: the smith over here, with the armorer and weaponsmith in the same place and the storefront next door, the granary across from it, the town hall just next to the inn, and the tannery way the hell over there to keep the smell off. The hostler was attached to the inn, and the leather worker’s shop just a shack sticking off the granary, blocking an alleyway. Quaint, in a way, a little sad in another.

She paid for a room, which required a little haggling, but she settled on seven silver, and got some food and a bath out of the deal. The innkeeper was a massive block of a man, who threw one nasty look Darryl’s way, and Corbin wouldn’t have caught it except he passed a Survey check.

The innkeeper produced a whole swath of keys and presented, surprisingly enough, all of them to Prissy. “You’ll start here at the brass one at the top, next key next lock, until you reach this one.” He demonstrated by unlocking eight different locks. “She’s got a chain and slide also once you’re in to sleep, but the rest of these keys you’ll tap on the windows, one per sigil. You wait outside.”

Corbin was confused just a second before he remembered Darryl and the silent goons had followed them up to the second floor. Darryl gave a military salute and stood way too close to the door when it was shut in their faces.

“Go clockwise… see the whitish abjuration sigils here?”

This felt familiar also… for some reason it didn’t seem as strange as it should’ve, having security on all the windows.

Innkeeper pulled the first window up and immediately slid it down, before tapping the next key on the first of three magical sigils. Next key next sigil, and after the third was tapped, the whole window glowed with a blue white radiance. “You’ll know she’s locked when it hums. You’ll get used to it.” He pulled the window again, but the hum intensified for just a moment and it refused to open.

Prissy just nodded.

“I’m sure it’ll lull me right off ta sleep.”

The innkeeper grunted, and tapped the last three keys against the sill on the third window. “The last three here are silvery so you don’t get confused an’ go in the wrong direction. Start with the one that looks gold.”

She nodded again.

“If ya need anything, come down.” Mr. Innkeeper headed to the door, opened it, and shooed Darryl and his goons out of the way.

“A hot bath would be splendid,” she said, eyeing the clawed tub on the other side of her cramped but well-appointed room. “Perhaps in about four hours. I’ll leave Corbin in the common room if it’s all the same.”

All eyes turned on him. He squawked a decidedly raucous sound, and hopped off her shoulder, then nearly got the innkeeper and Darryl in the face.

“Mr. Darryl?” she called, peeling off the cloak and tossing it aside. She had on filthy breeches and a vest that left her arms free, along with a long ginger tail. “Could you speak with Corbin about what’s goin’ on ‘round these parts? He’ll relay all the important details ta me. I could use me a few winks, and I aim to get ‘em as soon as possible.”

Darryl initially seemed giddy with anticipation to see a felinian beginning to disrobe, and being called on… but then his face fell.

“Understood,” he said, and headed out. Prissy was already engaging the first of a ridiculous amount of locks.

For his part, Corbin had stayed nearby, but now flapped down the hall, down the stairs and took up residence on one of the central tables. The other patrons (the three jackal-looking fellows drinking in the corners) stared at him for a few seconds before going back to their grog.

Darryl and his buddies found him and took a seat a few moments later, eyeing one another.

“What’s the chances this thing really can understand us?”

“Too good. We don’t want any trouble off Cilla.”

“Prissy,” Corbin croaked.

“Yeah, good chance,” Darryl said. He waved over the innkeeper. “Three pints of mead, if you will.”

The innkeeper huffed and disappeared.

“Well, bird… your girl’s going to want to buy some new clothes. Looked like the two of you got tangled up in a gelatinous cube, then rolled in pig shit. Leatherworker here is all right, but nothing’s even remotely enchanted. You’ll want some of that self-repairing clothing out of the city. Much as I like this place, there isn’t too much here.”

“Ya think she’s got any decent cards?” Bob the dwarf asked.

Darryl immediately slapped him upside the head. “Not with the bird listening in. You got phrasing problems.” He turned to Corbin. “If she’s interested, we can look over some of her cards, for trade in kind or in coin, of course.”

The little guy, the nellwynian, peered at the staircase. “Shadow Walker… she might be sneakin’ up on us right now.”

“She won’t be doing any of that,” Darryl said. “She took the oath.”

Corbin listened to them blather for a while, which was equal parts speculation about Prissy, and them directly telling him how things worked around here on the off chance it would get back to Prissy and make her like them. They gave him the impression, as time went on, that they couldn’t have been much older than twenty-five, if that. Bob and Darryl were utterly fixated on Prissy and trying to make a good impression, while Patrick kept up a paranoid tirade about all the ways she could screw them over.

“Anyway, most of the armor and weapons here’s decent. You could take it to get it enchanted, I guess. They won’t have much coin to part with, but the smith’s a decent fellow.”

“You hate the smith!” Patrick the nellwynian said.

Darryl seemed offended. “We’ve had our differences, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do business with him. And that’s all that needs to be said on that topic, thank you very much.” Darryl certainly had history with this town and its people, and Corbin had no interest in that history, except what it said about Darryl’s character. Nothing good so far.

He turned back to Corbin. “Anyhow, we built up these towers and put some ballistas at the top. The Five mostly leave us alone. We had a bit of a tussle with ‘em once upon a time, back at the beginning, but they realized we were too much trouble.”

“I can’t believe we’re talkin’ to a bird,” Bob harumphed.

Corbin didn’t let this get to him. He tipped over the plate of nuts and arranged them into the letter C, then A, then R, and finally D. He was getting around to the S when Darryl brightened up.

“Wanna see what we’ve got, eh?”

They took out a handful of cards. Darryl had some cards with the holy aspect (from the writing in the middle that said ‘Spell – Holy’) which dealt damage (double damage to undead and evil targets), and another one that gave them holy protection in an aura to a distance of 20 feet. This boosted their defense, temporary HP, and gave them increased resistance to inflicted debuffs like poisons, curses, and enchantments. Both great uncommons.

Their drinks came not long after, and they each had a sip before Darryl’s buddies pulled their cards and splayed them out on the table.

The nelwynian pulled up a handful of commons and uncommons, twelve in total. Plenty of these were similar to what he’d seen before with Prissy: a couple of items (gloves and a utility belt), a spell similar to magic missile, a manifest (a bow that shot at a ridiculous range, but no damage bonus), and a summon. This one summoned a grizzled bear for 5-10 minutes, which could be commanded to attack or used as a mount. The old, weathered bear dealt some pretty nice damage, compared to Corbin’s pathetic strength of 4, but it didn’t seem amazing compared to the Spectral Blade. The last one though was a spell for multiplying arrows into a rain of death, one arrow per MP, up to 25 at level 2.

This was the first time he’d gotten a look at a level 2 card. It had a rosette situated at the bottom of the text box with a 2 in it, with a couple of leaves extending out along the text box’s border. The rosette was a bronze medallion that appeared like a flower. It didn’t trigger any clear memories, except that he’d had at least one card with bronze leaves climbing all the way across to the text box’s corners, so at least tenth level.

The dwarf didn’t pull out anything revolutionary, except for a shielding spell that combo’d together with a shield golem summon. The text on each one read out a bonus to the other, if the player equipped both. Past that, everything was as he’d seen it: the title at the very top of the card, top half a picture of the spell, middle border between the top and bottom halves explaining the type of card and the rarity, and the text box sometimes crammed with so much text he wondered if constantly reading it all was going to kill off his True Sight ability.

As if thinking about it triggered the effect, his card suddenly appeared before him. Darryl and the boys definitely could see it, because they let out a collective gasp. When Darryl went to snatch it up, though, his hand passed right through where it sat on the table.

“What the devil?”

They peered at it and almost conked heads together.

“Hyper rare,” Patrick the nellwynian muttered in awe.

“Masterpiece,” Bob said, and wiped some mead out of his luxurious brown beard.

“True Sight,” Darryl said, in the sort of voice you reserved for winning the lottery or finally going on a date with your dream girl.

That was interesting. True Sight was useful, sure, but he hadn’t ever gotten an indication of what it was good for besides seeing in the dark and passing Perception checks.

“You see the foil on it?” the nelwynian asked.

“Of course I do.”

“You ever seen anything like that?”

“We ended up with a rare foil after we killed a sewer rat king,” the dwarf said. “But the leader of the party claimed it first. And it wasn’t even all rainbow holo like this. Just the picture.”

“Sympathetic HP loss… telepathic command… share ab… SHARE ABILITIES!” the nelwynian shouted. “Holy shitballs, there’s nothing bad about this card.”

Corbin made the card disappear, sort of proud of having excited them so much, sort of worried about whether or not they were going to be idiots about it. Patrick already worried him.

They all sat back in silence and stared at one another. It was a strange silence, one full of glances toward Darryl, between the two goons, then back at Darryl.

“No. We’re not. She has a bed here.”

“We know where she’ll respawn.”

Darryl slapped the table with his big scaly paw. “No. She’s clearly dangerous, and I have holy powers. You know what happens to them if we break the code?”

No one spoke. Darryl took an angry swig of mead, slopped some on himself, and cursed, then angrily called for a bar towel to ‘mop this swill off him.’

“What happens to your powers if we break the code?” Bob ventured.

“I DON’T KNOW!” Darryl roared. “We never betrayed and backstabbed anyone before. In D&D, you lose all your powers. You want that? We have to go grab a whole new set of cards?”

“This ain’t D&D though, boss.”

“We’re not doing it. She’s traveling alone–”

“And is tactically easier to ambush and surround.”

“She declared that she wouldn’t cause any trouble–”

“Which means she can’t hit us back when we strike.”

“And her bloody familiar, who can communicate with her telepathically, HAS BEEN LISTENING TO US THE ENTIRE TIME, YOU DOLT. You want a rap on the head and spend the night in the village lockup?”

The nellwynian deflated. “Nah.”

“Then cut it with that talk. We’re not doin’ it.”