1

After crossing the river, Harper telepathed Vlad and asked him to blast Fire Scorch into the sky so they could locate his group. A moment later, the red line of flames shot above the trees three hundred yards to the north. They followed the beacon and soon spotted the campfire. Damon and Armando were busy dragging the goblin carcasses away from the area, while Vlad had cornered Zahra, Rachel, and Keshon. He was flexing his muscles, trying to impress the women.

“Is he doing what I think he’s doing?” Harper asked Emma, who was strolling beside her.

The Grimalkin hunter giggled. “Yup. He’s hitting on them.”

Harper huffed. “Yeah, only in the creepiest way possible.”

They entered the camp. While Jordan walked to Emma and embraced her, Harper had a look around the camp. There were six huts arranged in a row. The fire was blazing, but she couldn’t tell what kind of animal was cooking. On the left, Silo and Lorenzo were chatting. On the right, Vlad was still performing his Russian Gigolo impersonation. He extended his arms and started thrusting his hips back and forth in a grinding motion. The team’s female healers looked extremely uncomfortable.

“Hey Arnold, give it a rest,” Harper shouted.

The bearded mage turned, his face brightening, and walked to the new group. “Harper, Sierra! How nice it is dat you are back,” he exclaimed with none of the surliness he usually displayed. “I have bravely secure dis camp just for you.” He gazed at the two mages, and his voice took on an instructive tone. “You both are beautiful but very, very lonely.”

Harper glanced at Sierra, and they burst out laughing. “I think you’re going to be out of luck tonight, Romeo,” Sierra quipped.

Vlad ran a hand through his thick brown hair. “Tonight, you say?” he teased. “So maybe some udder night? I like to see what udder tattoos you have on dat krasivaya body.” He raised his finger admonishingly. “You know, you should not waste such a beautiful gift.”

While Jackson started cackling behind them, the two mages pushed past the Russian, followed by the rest of their group.

2

“What in god’s name is that?” Rachel gasped.

No one answered. Having disposed of the goblins, the team had gathered in a circle around the campfire. Now they stared slack-jawed at the enormous hunk of flesh that was roasting. It seemed to be some kind of deformed mutation and they could see the numerous dead rabbits wedged into the mass of flesh. Thao shivered despite the heat emanating from the fire. “Did the goblins push those rabbits into the meat of another animal?”

Jordan squatted and picked up a thick branch. “I don’t think so.” He poked the wood at the misshapen form of one rabbit. A leg had grown out of its head. “Whatever this is, it’s an aberration.”

Damon grunted. “Well, let’s get that goddamn thing out of here.”

Silo burst forward in the group. “Wait a click, I’m starvin’!”

The orc general looked at him impatiently. “Yeah, you look like the kind of guy who would eat poisoned meat.” He shook his head. “The veterans have food in their inventories. We’ll eat that tonight and collect more food tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we should be eating that,” Thao said, and Silo glared at her.

Because they were fitted with steel gloves, Damon and Zack volunteered to grab the meat and haul it away. They dragged the carcass across the compacted earth, accumulating a mound of dirt on one side of the flesh. When they reached the midway point between the woods and the camp, the mass split into two halves. A murmur of discontent rose from the teammates.

“Oh, fuck,” Zack muttered as he stared at the center of both pieces, where a swirling glitch had infected the meat.

3

As the lights of the glitch shone black and white patterns on their faces, the veteran orcs decided they wouldn’t be touching the flesh again. “I’d still like it to be further from the camp,” Damon said.

Emma stepped forward. “I can use the Boulder spell to nudge that thing, at least to the woods.” She wielded the spell and the marble ball collided with one of the halves. The tainted meat slowly pushed along the dirt floor. Suddenly, the meat flipped over from the forward momentum and the stone ball careened into the suddenly exposed glitch, disappearing into its black-and-white void. “No!” Emma cried as she attempted to draw the stone ball back, but it wouldn’t come back from the glitch.

“See if you can cast another one,” Harper advised.

Emma tried, but the stone ball wouldn’t appear for her. “I’ve lost the spell,” she gasped, “and it’s still using up 1 mana point from my regen rate!” She cast Song of Distraction to see if her other spells were affected. The enchanting musical chorus began.

“Cool. What does that do?” Thao asked, impressed with the spell.

“It lulls enemies,” Emma replied dejectedly.

Harper handed Emma the spell gem to see if Boulder could be re-transferred to her, but it was to no avail.

“Maybe you need a reboot,” Silo joked, mostly for his own amusement. As expected, no one laughed.

“Great. So, I’m down a spell and 1 MPR,” Emma lamented.

Jordan walked to her and put his arm around her. “Let’s hope that’s all that it did.”

Emma looked up at him, and sudden realization washed over her face. “Oh my god, I… I might have been infected by the glitch,” she said, horrified. She stared back at the chunks of flesh laying on the outskirts of the camp. Although she hadn’t noticed it earlier, the flesh seemed to shift and vibrate in subtle ways that were barely perceptible. On the flipped piece of meat, the glitch’s light rays shone up at the trees like punctuations to her worst fears.