“That portal just appeared for your world too, right?”

Kyessy grunted.

“What used to be there?”

“Another human city. The third part of the Fellwroth Empire or Coalition or whatever they were calling themselves that day to avoid going to war with themselves.”

“Doesn’t it seem like a bad idea to be fighting one another when there’s something called a Gates of Terror just a few days’ ride to the north?”

She grunted.

“Surely you have an opinion on it, no?”

“Humans are barely capable of thinking with their little heads as it is,” she responded. “Yet somehow they keep trying to build civilization closer and closer to the Teeth.”

“Of Vethros?” he asked.

She stopped, grabbed him off her shoulder, and threw him. He flapped to a stop and stared up at her.

“Never speak that name aloud,” she warned, and glanced about in terror.

“Ah. A Voldy situation.”

“Not even close. A voldy is a cute little bird often found high in the highest mountains, never bothering anyone, simply getting on with its day, chirping innocently… not the defiled mountains up in the north, mind you, but the pristine, crisp southern mountains tieflings make their homes.”

“I’ll just call him Old Voldy then.”

“You will do no such thing.”

“I’ll call him Vigo the Carpathian.”

“A terrible name. Vigos are great beans the size of fetterers that grow into beanstalks and reach high into the realms of the cloud giants.”

More gobbledygook. “You’re not giving me a whole lot of options. You guys wouldn’t call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, would you? That would be copyright infringement. Hang on, let me peer about for a fourth wall a moment.”

“The great darkness in the north will not be mocked so easily, bird. You will do well to put it out of your mind. The less it is fought, the longer it will slumber.”

“Riiiiiiiight. I’m sure it’s sleeping comfortably up there with its evil tower and one ring to control everybody and its soul shards spread out over the realms so it can’t be killed, and its spooky breathing apparatus, its red laser sword, and its giant snake companion.”

“This is your last chance, bird. Every time you mock He Who Slumbers, He gets the urge to roll over in His sleep, and any time He does, He threatens earthquakes and the eruptions of all the mountains, and fiery death.”

“You ever seen a fiery volcano death?”

“My mother told of one when I was but a kid.”

This weirdness stopped him dead. Kid…

“Oh.”

Goat lady… kid… He laughed entirely too long. Far longer than he should’ve, because she didn’t have an ounce of fun in her, and certainly no capacity for jokes. The analogues with earth were as strange as they were frequent.

They ended up at the Denspire satellite town a few hours before sundown. This one hadn’t seen any combat, and sported a twelve foot reinforced stone wall, with guard towers at various places. Some bits of the town had grown up outside the walls, some huts and shacks, and in one case a warehouse, but even the squalor here seemed preferable to the haunted, pitted look of the Fellwroth town. And the Fellwroth soldiers were the ones doing the pillaging.

War, and more specifically medieval war, was so counterproductive.

They were met with a pair of guards at the gate, who demanded to search her inventory. When she produced only camping supply, a small pouch of coin, and an arrow-producing quiver, they let her through, but demanded she present herself before the town magistrate.

From the inside, this wasn’t so drastically different from the Fellwroth town, though larger by half and in better repair. He immediately noticed a card shop like the one over in Fellwroth, a place he definitely wanted to visit. Kyessy needed at least another one or two abilities he could pilfer off her, and she had a spell tome she could sell for a gajillion gold, assuming a gajillion wasn’t a type of lizard.

On second thought, she might just get it in her head his card was more trouble than it was worth in gold, and in an impulsive fit she’d sell him off.

She wouldn’t do that, he tried telling himself. She nursed him back to health–

–because if he died, his card might just disappear. He hadn’t died as a raven and didn’t know if he respawned at all. Or at least he couldn’t remember dying as a raven.

Ugh, turning circles in his head.

In this town, many of the buildings off the main street appeared to be large manors, complete with enclosed gardens, or at least orchards. He counted three different types of fruit he’d never seen before. Trees rose here and there, people of all shapes, sizes and species walked to and fro, chatting to one another and peering at the ranger with her Familiar on her shoulder. A pair of nellwynian children entirely too small to be running around the city alone were indeed doing just that. The whole picture was incongruous with the army they’d fought and mostly crushed just a few days earlier.

They’d reached the town hall, a large building directly across from the tavern. Both of these flanked the central temple. The two buildings looked a bit like twins, but one was full of frothy beer and the other was likely full of dusty old ownership deeds.

The town hall contained a pair of torches that appeared to be enchanted, first because the flames were blue, and second because they were burning in glass lanterns lined with magic runes.

It had a raised porch three steps up, with a pair of rocking chairs, and upon one of those chairs was a chubby fae, the first one of those he’d ever laid eyes on. The man’s shirt and vest strained against his gut, and… was that a mustache? Yes, he had wisps of upper lip fuzz. Perhaps he was a half human half fae, or more likely half nellwynian and half fae. There was no rule you had to be half fae and half human. Glimmering creamsicle colored hair threaded through with touches of silver framed his head in an elaborate but awful hairstyle he was obviously quite proud of. These accentuated the long, angled ears, which seemed to have hairdos all their own.

He stood only five feet and a couple of inches high, and looped his thumbs in his suspenders. Yes, he was definitely wrongish.

The little guy rocked forward on the balls of his feet, like Corbin imagined old timey carnival barkers did. He was amazed the guy didn’t have a bowler hat cocked to a jaunty angle. “Welcome to Densmeer, traveler.”

Corbin suppressed another snort, and reminded himself that rugnegs might have stupid names, but were potentially lethal.

“And a feathered companion. Quite a unique specimen you have there.”

“You’re the magistrate?” she asked.

“You could’ve at least flipped your Strength and your Charm,” Corbin grumbled. But she had as much use for Charm as a butterfly did a sword, and told him so over their telepathic wavelength.

“You are correct. Magistrate Findell, that’s me.”

“We were told to speak with you before getting a room or seeking out someone versed in wizardry.”

“I say, wizardry!”

“No, I said wizardry. You say all kinds of things, I’d wager.”

Corbin was astonished and delighted to see a Who’s On First situation developing, but it faded away just as quickly as it began.

“As the town magistrate, I’m happy to say, it’s my job to muck about in other people’s business. Keeps life interesting, wouldn’t you know it.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I happen to know a magic-user. Whatever would you need one for?”

“I’m afraid my traveling companion was transformed into this hideous excuse for an avian,” she said. “He’d like to be himself again, and throw off the shackles of this disgusting form once and for all.”

“Hey!” Corbin cawed.

“Is that so?”

“It is,” she replied. “So if you’ll kindly point us in the direction of this sorcerer…”

“Let’s not be too hasty,” Findell said. “I’m afraid Densmeer–”

“What do you think they smeared the den with?” Corbin muttered.

“–has something of an issue that could use the assistance of someone with your skillset. A simple enough task, and when it’s complete, I think we could set you up with a letter of introduction to that caster I know.”

He should’ve known it would come to this.

Findell got in close, and put his hand up over one side of his face so nobody nearby could read his lips. Not that anyone was nearby, but he appeared to be a man full of affectations. “Just between you and me, there’s a bit of ruin that was marked with evil some time ago… a cemetery belonging to a well-to-do family. Unfortunately they went and turned evil one day, were hunted down and killed off, and wouldn’t you know it, but a gang of highwaymen has set up operations down that way. In a cursed underground barrow, of all things. I’ve no idea why anyone would even consider making such a place their base of operations…”

“To keep the authorities from seeking them out?” Corbin began. “To develop a fearful reputation? To keep the rain off their heads?”

Kyessy actually reached up and clamped a hand over his beak. Yeah, like that would stop him from filling her mind with telepathic nonsense.

“If you could clear them out–”

“We’ll do it,” Kyessy blurted. It seemed she was ready to be out from under this man’s mostly invisible mustache as Corbin was.

Quest received! – Scour the Cemetery

Enter a dark and cursed cemetery, and rid it of any lawbreakers you find there.

Reward: 1000 experience

Hidden objective: Unknown at this time

Bonus Reward: Unknown at this time

“Ahhh… certainly. Well, I can provide a map if you’d like.”

They took the map, and some of Findell’s food for good measure, but afterwards immediately departed. It would mean another night hike through unfamiliar territory, bu Kyessy wanted to be out of Densmeer as quick as possible. Corbin wasn’t entirely certain why. Sure the magistrate was a talkative goofball–

“The magistrate is indeed a talkative goofball, she said. “An interesting word, goofball. Is that a creature who appears non-threatening at first, perhaps adorable and folksy, only to reveal its hundreds of needle teeth just before it bites into your throat?”

“As a matter of fact, you guessed it in one,” he replied. “Really though, you can’t possibly believe that man is evil.”

“This quest window is something of a blessing in this case,” she replied. “Hidden objective. Bonus reward. There is quite a lot he’s not telling us. I spent three months swatting them away, praying they would disappear, cursing at them… now one is being helpful, for once.”

“You mean announcing that you’ll get a reward isn’t helpful?”

“Shut up.”

They tracked down this corrupted or accursed barrow using the map provided by Findell. The area surrounding Densmeer was lightly wooded where it wasn’t farms, and it was into this forest they trekked. A half hour found the forest thickening, but she located a trail (probably with a Knowhow (Tracking) check. He theoretically had a point in the skill but didn’t have the knowhow to use any knowhow skills yet. He chuckled at his own joke, then stopped at her mental admonishment, and started inspecting all over the place.

“This is the trail used by the thieves,” she told him. “Surely they’ve trapped it.”

As if on cue, they heard a strange moaning sound.

You have failed an Endurance (Grit) check! You are Frightened, like a wee schoolboy. All your checks will be at a penalty until you overcome the fear by passing a check, or locate the source of the fear.

Don’t say ‘what is that?’ Don’t–

“What in the nine hells is that?” she grumped, probably reading his mind. Which might just make this the first ever joke she’d told in her life. Still, his heartbeat did speed up and his wings felt sweaty? That wasn’t right at all.

“You passed the check, didn’t you?”

She snorted. “What kind of Ranger would fall victim to every strange noise of the forest?”

He soon inspected around and found flutes that channeled any existing wind and magnified it into horrific, tortured groaning. The prompt informed him that he was no longer Frightened and wouldn’t suffer the penalty.

Having him run aerial surveillance was next to useless in this stretch of the woods, given how dense the vegetation was. They had basically one road in, and then walls of flora to either side. The trees weren’t the same as his world, not that he was a naturalist. It sounded more like he was a harbinger of business armageddon. He couldn’t recall whether he’d done a stint with the Boy Scouts, but he didn’t think so.

Still, Kyessy ducked to the side as soon as a deer run opened up in the shrubbery, which took her in a wide arc around the objective.

“You… want me to follow you?”

“No. Keep going.”

“Just… alone.”

“Please grow a spine,” she said, and disappeared into the foliage.

After a certain range, though, the Unerring Aim and Versatility both vanished after a short while. He hadn’t realized how much he would miss Prissy until the row of icons disappeared off his periphery. She, at least, had bumbled around enough to need him. Now Kyessy didn’t need him and he wasn’t really in the best of condition to handle this on his own.

“Well,” he said to himself, “This quest isn’t going to complete itself.”

“You realize I can still hear you, right?”

He shut up and launched himself off the ground, and headed deeper north into where the bandits were supposed to reside. He passed another set of wind-driven ‘stay out’ mechanisms. These ones clapped against the trees and made strange scratchy sounds that Frightened him again for a short time.

After a good five more minutes of flying, a break in the vegetation revealed a clearing about fifty feet around, perhaps. He perched on one of the branches and gave the place a quick Survey.

Nothing.

Afterwards, he went on to Inspect a few more things: the tombstones that were blank with age and weathering, some of them overrun with lichen, the trees, and oddly the lack of autumn leaves. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. A gardener here?

In the center of the whole thing was a twenty foot square mausoleum, which was really nothing more than a macabre stone house. It was shaped precisely like a suburban house back home, with three stone steps leading up to a doorway, and this one also had a row of stained glass windows up top, but there wasn’t any light this time of night, and they just showed up as blobs of indistinct color atop the featureless gray of the stone. A tapering roof with gargoyles at the corners completed the look. He was pretty certain the great slab of stone that made up the roof had been carved to appear like shingles.

“I’m here,” he said.

Nothing.

He hung out there for a while, listening to the keening and the chirps of alien insects of another world. He had enough time to view some weird worm or snake light up like a reverse of those Christmas lights that drip down. This one was neon yellow-green and lit itself upwards. It couldn’t have been more than a foot long.

It was also the first of what turned out to be dozens of the things. They hung from the thinner tree branches and attracted some tasty-looking bugs.

“They’re not tasty,” he told himself.

Kyessy still didn’t respond, and he began to get a bit annoyed. She couldn’t keep pulling this lone wolf nonsense, now that she’d made a promise to help him out. He couldn’t just go around finishing quests to take on a whole bandit camp by himself.

Hang on… he didn’t see many tracks here. His tracking skill buff from Kyessy was gone, but he wasn’t an unintelligent character to begin with, and he only noticed a few footprints. Maybe one person, definitely not a group.

“Kyessy?” he tried. “There’s something weird here. Maybe you were right. Can you hear me?”

A whole lot more nothing. Those bugs did look delicious.

“Come on. We should be in this together. Stop ignoring me.”

He inspected one, and found it was called a Glowtin. Weird name. The flavor text talked about how it used its bioluminescence to lure in bugs, and snared them with sticky secretions. Most of the bug was attached to the tree limb, while most of the glowing stuff was just its conductive snot. Which, gross. And amazing. It dangled there by its own snot, and sent bursts of light up through that to get prey, which were stuck in there. Meaning it had to detach its food from its own nasal discharge… wait.

Was that Kyessy disappearing into the mausoleum? Crap, he’d been so fixated on the Glowtins and the bugs he’d forgotten the dumb quest.

“Is that you?” he asked.

More nothing.

“Okay look, I’m not helping you. It seems like it’s just one person, and that changes the whole deal. This magistrate guy…”

This magistrate guy was seeming shadier by the second.

The figure disappeared into the mausoleum, and Corbin gritted his mental teeth. See how she liked it, just going it alone, without his clearly superior assistance. He had a holo foil card that was mythic; did that mean nothing to her?

Yeesh.

Minutes passed while he was just angry with her. The mausoleum wasn’t that big…

“Kyessy?” he asked again. His icons were back, meaning she was close. Surely she was just being a butt face and trying to prove she didn’t want or need his help.