The conversation that followed between Corbin and Prissy was short, intense, and mostly involved Prissy being defensive for having done all the work. Except for a handful of arrows and a holy blast, every bit of the kill had been hers alone. Corbin, on the other hand, didn’t want them hunted by three idiots who didn’t know monster fighting, and though they probably weren’t particularly dangerous to the raven and rogue, it was better to only have enemies out in front of you.

She was a half mile away from Darryl and safe. The big paladin was still cradling Bob’s mostly-dead body and not nearly far enough away from a bunch of angry crocs, and Patrick, who was probably respawning and trying to get his wits in order to come back and hunt her down.

“We’ll make this deal right now,” he said. “Stop, okay?”

She did so, but under obvious protest. “Wot?” she demanded.

“You give me my card and we go our separate ways. You got almost four hundred out of one croc, you got new armor and weapons and ability cards, I got nothing.” Not entirely true, he’d just leveled up again.

That said, he was in all other ways no better off than he’d started. His quest to get his card, become a human again, figure out his connection to the Five, and maybe put a stop to them? He was laughably behind on every single portion. He was sort of coming around to having Priscilla with him, but only sort of, because she kept doing stuff like this. Her greedy streak was both unbecoming and dangerous.

His proposal to her was not, apparently, as easy a decision as he thought. The gears of greed turned in her mind, so he kept on. “Or, you go back and split the loot with those guys, because if I’m staying with you, we can’t have them on our six.”

She didn’t want to do that either. And this person used to be a kindergarten teacher.

“Wot if they attack?”

“Just throw coins and the shield at them, and one of the cards maybe, and bug out. We can run, they’ll stop to get the money.” And if they gave chase, well, she could leap thirty feet at a time and he could friggin fly. It wouldn't come to that. Darryl and his boys seemed to have a decent thing going in their little hamlet and ease made people lazy. Plus, the way all the women looked at Darryl, there was definitely no way he was going to hunt her down for days and days, and interrupt the parade of willing ladies he probably had showing up at his door every day.

Again this painful indecisiveness. It was getting on toward sundown, finally. This day had been as long as it was confusing as it was hellish, and he definitely needed a bit of sleep. A lot of sleep. What he needed was to wake up in his old body, and not have his card in the hands of the first nut job he came across here, but apparently that wasn’t an option.

“I don’t see why you’re so hell bent on not giving up my card as it is,” he said.

They started heading back toward the village… Darryl’s village, even though the people didn’t especially like him. That wasn’t exactly true; the women loved him, which made the men all hate him. To recap, they headed in the direction of Skeevy Darryl’s haremville.

She made her way into the town with all the people staring at her. Literally, work stopped when she walked in and murmuring went on for a few moments before they gave her some extra side eye and went back to their business. Corbin watched it all from a nearby rooftop, so he wouldn’t have to deal with them staring at him also.

Patrick burst out of one of the central (nice) houses, which was pretty bizarre to see. Corbin had just watched him get snapped up by the biggest crocagator he’d ever seen, which seemed even more immense given he was a one pound bird. Patrick drew an arrow and pointed it at her, but stopped short of firing when she produced the shield and dropped it on the street, along with a whole pile of silver and one of the cards.

“Yer mates need ya,” she said.

Patrick didn’t say anything, but instead sprinted off in the direction of the crocadillos.

The rest of her business in town went on in relative silence. This gave Prissy the time she needed to ruminate, or get up the guts to confess actual feelings, which was what came spilling out of her about the time she was done picking up her commissions from the local stores.

They exited the town in silence, with her breathing heavily, trying to stave off tears for a while, until she got herself under control. And another few minutes later, she started talking.

“Before today, it was awful. I was tryin’ to scrape up coin anywhere I could, but ever’ time I seen a monster… I couldn’... I was jes dyin’ all the bloody time. I got killed by a bunch a psycho gerbils once. Got swallowed up by a ‘uge bloody rattlesnake another time. Anywho it’s better like this, innit? Someone ta talk with, someone ta help out, plan battles n’ such. You feel better with some by yer side, eh?”

“Someone you need to listen to and not cheat at every opportunity. They teach listening in kindergarten, don’t they?”

She gave him some serious side eye, harumphed, then turned toward the village.

“Today’s lesson is sharing!” he declared, and was swatted for 2 points of damage for his cheekiness.

They didn’t stay. Instead she picked up the armored clothing, which was done, dropped Darryl’s share of the loot with the innkeeper and made him promise to give it to the three village ‘protectors,’ and they bugged out. No other villages came or went, and the sun got real low. With the portal in the northwest and the sun directly west, for a short moment it was like they had a double alien sunset.

The card she’d kept was another rare, and their second spell, but their first illusion spell. It was called Shadow Clone, and while she’d probably kept it for the name, it was definitely an excellent addition to her growing list of abilities.

The spell created three clones of her nearby, and instantly teleported her to where one of those clones now stood, so it was a shell game for opponents to figure out where the real Prissy was. The shadows weren’t immediately killed off, either, but could take 10% of her health in damage before poofing out of existence. It cost a lot of mana, which meant she needed a way to refresh faster. The Evoker’s Fiery Blade enchantment and Spectral Blade also took mana, something she did not have in infinite supply.

“We’ll look for mana potions at the next village,” he said.

They didn’t make it to the next village, but instead chose a good lone tree at the top of a hill. Prissy was a good climber, and found a place where she could fit comfortably for a few of her winks. Being forced to be a street urchin had apparently turned her into an opportunistic sleeper, a definite plus over a whiny, demanding, spoiled child, or a psychopathic nellwynian rage bard.

Corbin faced some interesting choices with his level up: he could continue to become the strongest raven in the known universe, which sounded good, or he could put his first point into Agility, Perception, or… Luck.

Corbin knew one thing: he hated the Luck stat. It was a cop out in games to get you to spend your points, with no real effect. It did nothing… or it had never done anything before in games he’d played. Here it had two bizarrely synonymous skills attached, one for success and one for failure.

No. Not yet. He had used his teensy bird body for feats of strength, sure. He’d absorbed a bit of damage, though he was thinking Endurance wasn’t as important given that Prissy could take damage on his behalf. Perception seemed the obvious go-to, since he was the eyes and brains of the operation.

He threw one point into Strength, and the other into Perception, then settled in on a high branch to get a few hours of sleep before his turn on watch.

It was strange looking up into that sky because the stars were still the same. The world had changed, but all the stars sparkled and glimmered, a spark flashed through the atmosphere, really the only thing that might be different was that they were all the easier to see without street lamps and headlights all over the place.

In the rising tide of purple on black signifying real and true twilight, his eyes got heavier and heavier until he was sucked back into the world of dreams.

***

Corbin dreamed of a flurry of blades. Or teleportation magic. Or both.

He dreamed of gouts of blood and being surrounded. The swords rose and fell. He would start awake and see sneering faces, and all the pain would begin again. And then again.

It was bad enough that he—raven Corbin—startled himself awake, knowing that he would be in that bed, in that room, with axes and swords and knives all poised to get at him again.

No… he was in a tree. The crazy people repeatedly stabbing him were… oh, who was he kidding? They were the remaining four of The Five. They couldn’t be anyone else. They ran this place; they owned and operated the castle, the same castle where he’d snagged the elf and teleported her spawn point miles southeast of the castle, to where the authorities apprehended her and ripped her out of this fantasyland area, back into earth as he couldn’t remember it any longer. The fae was one of the Five, and the ones who had killed him over and over were the leftovers.

That psycho bard was part of the Five, Jamal and Stephie were two of them, and Rico, who had gone through the portal to an unknown world, he was the fifth of Five.

The three other faces he couldn’t remember were swimming into view, but he shut them out, and tried to remember the girl with the black hair and the splash of freckles. And in straining to do just that, he instead fell back to sleep.

A thankfully dreamless sleep this time.

“Oi, Bird!” A pebble plinked off the branch, followed by a smattering of them. Corbin squealed and flapped, giving the woman a glare. It took a bit, but he realized her words had been in a throaty high whisper. There might be danger lurking about. Her eyes on him, she put a finger up in front of her mouth and pointed into the far darkness. The half-moon glimmer of her feline night vision sparked once as she turned her head, spooking the hell out of him,

“What is it?” he softly cawed. He was trembling and he wasn’t sure if it was from the mystery of the horizon or her eyes. Something about them at this time really freaked the bird of him out.

She was on all fours now, a position that seemed somehow strange and natural simultaneously. She crept forward to the edge of the hill and he followed her motions, suddenly realizing that there stood something large in the darkness. It was the size of a small building, and its skin was a lumpy pitch black. Some sort of cage hung from its back. The more he focused on it, the more it swam into view.

You have inspected the monster:

Hill Behemoth: Todd

Level 30 Titan

6600/6600 HP

T’will take more than a sling to master this giant.

Prissy gazed back over her shoulder, her nightmare vision flashing again in the light of the moon but he was already too afraid of that giant boss monster lumbering around the place to feel even an ember of ancestral fear at the cat lady’s gaze.

“There’s a village not far from here,” Corbin said. She looked back out at the monster, then looked back at him. Her face was drawn rigid, her hackles raised and fur risen up to create a poof of fuzz every place that was exposed.

“We can warn them?” Corbin asked. Even if some of them were dicks it was the right thing to do. What he would do, he assured himself, if he were his own master again.

“It’s too tuff, mate. If’n it sees us, we’ll be paste, sure as shit.” She shook and shivered, and Corbin wondered if she might not be hyperbolizing a little. After all, it wasn’t like death was permanent. He wandered their spirit connection to try and ascertain her real feelings and was surprised to find her scared shitless. He fluttered down off of his branch, alighting upon her shoulder.

“It’s okay. They’ll all respawn. It will be a hell of a nightmarish experience for them all, but they’ll respawn. What’s the problem? What’s wrong?”

Prissy made her way to the tree trunk and sat against it, her back propped up ramrod despite the feline curvature of her spine. Finally she answered him. “It’s me husband, oy kin tell. Me ex.” Corbin looked closely and saw that the fur on her face was wet, her eyes wide. “Ee’s lookin’ fer me, wantin’ to put me back in me place. Ee never did sign those papers, did he?”

Corbin opened his beak to speak, but some instinct inside him and him turn around and check on the beast. It stood there, far yet so large that it might well be next to them, snorting and sniffing at the air.

“Where you go?” The monster bellowed. “Me smell you!”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Corbin cawed. “How is your ex a monster? Aren’t we all players?”

Prissy shook her head and sobbed. “He was always a monster. He ain’t never been human, not really.”

Corbin nodded and considered. What if it was something inside of them, their very natures, that made them into what they were here in this world? It kind of made sense considering Prissy’s roguish and independent nature. She certainly fit the feline mold. But if that was the case, then why was he a fricking bird?

Also, the monsters had levels. This world and all of its horrible novelties had his mind racing a mile a minute. Did people who turned monster respawn? Did they die permanently?

He shut it all down. It wasn’t worth thinking about right now, not with the monster turning and sniffing, not with him apparently zeroing in directly upon their position.

“I’m sorry, Prissy. I understand that this is frightening.”

“Bloody right it is! He beat me right good when we was human, he did. Over every lil thing.” Her body shook and despite her unwillingness to release him from his bondage, Corbin’s heart wept for her. He felt that something about the whole situation meshed with his own forgotten bit of history. He shook his head.

“Prissy, we have to go.” His voice was soft and tender under the clacking of his beak. She sobbed. “Now!” he added, spiraling as much urgency into the word as he could. Finally she looked up at him, riding on her shoulder, then out to where his side-eye pointed her. The Hill Behemoth, her ex-husband, he who didn’t sign the papers, was lengthening his strides, feeling surer that he had found her. And given how this damn place worked with all of it, with all of the powers and cards and such, he was positive that this monster ex was going to find them over and over again. He cast his eye down to her pathetic visage and grimaced as well as a raven could. He wasn’t going to ask for his card back until after that monster was done and gone. However that could happen.

She wasn’t moving. She was stuck staring at the monster, her wotchers and innits lost in the widened terror of her eyes. He pecked her cheek, dealing 2 points of damage.

“Hey!” she shot at him.

“Monster-ex wants to find you and I have no doubt that he wants to put you in that cage on his back. Let’s. Get. Moving!” She nodded and rose, loping off into the night with Corbin flapping into the sky to play lookout to the whole wide world beyond them.