The Burrows.

Goodie did not have a dictionary on him, but he was sure that it was technically a warren, a labyrinth of interconnecting tunnels populated primarily by rabbits. Though the definition of rabbit in this world had a bit too much leeway, he thought as he used his foot to raise the head of the creature that lay next to it.

Warped by life within the twisted dimension of a spirit’s realm, the creature was nearly the size of a full-grown man when stretched out, it’s skin, mostly bare, had random tufts of wiry hair sticking out of it at odd angles, with some even digging into the skin. Its lips were pulled back far enough to expose the nasal cavity, two long, yellowed buckteeth protruded from its upper jaw. The thing reminded him of something that you would find in a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

And the idiots were dragging him straight into a hole full of these things.

One square kilometre in size, but that was just the outside and by outside, Goodie meant the real world. Whatever subspace distortion or whatever it was that the Burrows occupied, had allowed it to stretch far beyond what the physical realm should have allowed and with its inner structure constantly shifting as new tunnels were dug or formed and old tunnels collapsed made the Burrows an ever-shifting, unmappable maze.

At least that was what had been written in the library, though knowing adventurers, all the important information had been glossed over or outright fabricated, such things being far too valuable to share.

The monster’s body was not the only one present, however, a number of them littered the entrance that ‘his’ party was heading towards, their corpses piled on top of each other in no particular order. Goodie noted the various wounds that covered their bodies, claw flesh and bite marks. The way they were lying, it looked as if they had been trying to force their back inside.

He assumed it was because of the meteor strike and the following storm, the creatures attacking each other in their mad scramble to find safety. He had seen similar things from videos of soccer matches, where fires had been started or the soccer hooligans had gotten out of control. He dreaded the thought that their rush to return below had been due to something else. A hollowed eyed something, specifically.

He briefly considered choosing one of them as his second summon, but from what he heard, they were only dangerous in groups, their only real advantage, besides numbers, was in being underground, with their ability to remain unhindered by the dark or the close quarters of the Burrow’s various tunnels, that and the near-constant state of rage of those few who had been forced out onto the surface.

Plus, they were damn ugly, not the type of summons you would call forth in a social situation without receiving an extremely negative reaction from the viewing crowd, social situations and the society within which they took place being the place he wanted to be in, as opposed to the place where he was now, which was in the wilderness, on his way to a death trap, while being surrounded by morons.

It was that last one that truly pissed him off at the moment, however.

He looked at said company, who were currently milling about around him, focused more on not stepping on the bodies underfoot than the area around them. A dense woodland spread along each side of the dirt path that they were walking along, something that, even now, could be providing cover to any number of dangers.

The woods, he had to keep reminding himself that they were no longer in the land of adventurers, the trees nearby almost feeling alien in how full of lush and green life they were and not like the dead and dying lot he had seen on his journey here. They were almost creepy.

He shook himself, then turned his attention back to his captors. He did not care to speak with them on the way here, nor they him, due to them all being just a little pissed off with him, mostly because he was not making them feel good about forcing him to do what they wanted him to, that and with him being too stupid to see how following their commands would do nothing but benefit him in the end and grateful he should be for the opportunity that they were giving him.

A bunch of complete idiots that were going to get themselves killed, he thought. Him too, probably.

That last bit was a possibility that he was feeling a bit too blasé about, admittedly. He did not want to die, but at the moment, he was also finding it harder and harder to find a reason to live, other than not wanting to die. He had checked his [MENU] earlier, and his WILLPOWER attribute was hovering around 2.3/7, a disturbingly low number according to Diane. Not that he had discussed his attributes with her, he was just basing his opinion off of what she had said about her own attribute one day when she had groused about her willpower being at around 3.2.

He studied the people around him as they stood there, scattered about, maintaining no formation or even keeping guard over their surroundings. He doubted any of them were even aware just how vulnerable they were right now, standing right in front of the monster’s den and everyone acting as if they were out on a nature walk.

Once upon a time, Goodie was good at noticing things, the only skill he had really, even if he was not the best at it. Ever since his encounter with that thing, even that had been taken from him. As evidenced by what had only just hit him now, but from the way they had been acting on the way here, giving him space, but also maintaining a circle around him at all times, to the looks they were trying not to give him now; They thought he was the most dangerous element in this situation. Fucking idiots.

The ‘very small’ exception being those two at the front, the Alpha-moron and the…well, he did not want to refer to him as ‘old man’, that reminded too much of Jeremy, and that man was far too good to be lumped in with the old guy up front. Stupid-Geezer, then. Alpha and Geezer were chatting up a storm. He could not hear them clearly from where he stood, but the look in their eyes spoke of hope, of an almost certainty that they were going to come out on top no matter what happened. Fuck, he would have given anything to feel that optimistic, even just once, but with things being as they were, he was pretty sure that they were all screwed.

His arm twitched as his muscles strained from the weight he carried; he switched his spear to his other hand.

They had had him go back for his equipment, probably so they could put him on the front-line despite their promises to the contrary. He had seen Diane there, told her that he would be out till tomorrow. Part of him hoped that she would notice that something was off, that she would set her bugs on these arsetards and that would be the end of it. Since leaving the city, he had never spent a night outside of the protective walls and saying that he would be staying out, should have been an immediate warning sign.

But Diane had barely responded to him, the trauma from when they had encountered that thing in the dust storm had scarred her deeply, forcing the woman to withdraw into herself, her descent into isolation growing by the day. He had tried to help, she was the closest thing that he had to a friend in this world, but as usual, he was a useless turd. He did not know how to talk to her or help with whatever she was going through, there were no therapists within the waggon train, and he did not have the resources or political pull to force Eric and the others to give a shit. So the only thing he could do was do nothing, nothing but watch she continued to decline and his willpower continued to drop.

Of course, if she had intervened, it would have most likely only resulted in his head going pop as the alpha bitch activated the runes on his neck.

His spear and gator-dog skin armour were, of course, a must, along with a backpack, a canteen and some supplies, and one of his spare knives. He was thankful that they had no clue as to the few magical items within his possession, most of which were currently hidden around the upstairs cupboards of his truck-waggon. The Alpha-bitch did have him bring the two silver lanterns that housed wisp essence, however, them being out in the open.

They made no overtures towards his arms and armour, but with those fake smiles of theirs, they commented on how it was a bit silly to carry both of his little lanterns and suggested that he let them carry one. With the promise of giving it back immediately once they had returned victorious, of course.

Realistically, he had little choice in the matter, but he handed both of them over more than willingly. While the lantern’s presence would have helped ward off the weakening effect of darkness upon his shadow stuff and summons, he had been warned multiple times that those same lanterns would make him a target to most creatures and what he remembered from reading about the Burrows, in particular, was that the creatures within were especially aggressive to light, sometimes being driven berserk by its presence.

Goodie made a slight groan as Alpha-Idiot made his way over, his ever-present backup, Beta-Idiot, soon followed.

Both were dirty blonds, but whereas Alpha had grey-eyes, Beta had a pair of baby-blues. They, along with everyone else, were wearing leather armour. He did not know what type of creature the leather had come from, but the hide was thick and rough and he imagined it would provide them with decent protection if not on the same level as his gator-dog armour.

They had all opted for cheap short swords and small shields, decent starting equipment and would have been a good combination if they were facing humans, and if they were in the hands of experienced fighters, but they were not facing humans and he had yet to see any of them unsheathe their weapons, let alone practice with them.

The duo came to a halt in front of him.

“Well?” the moron asked.

“Well, what?”

“We’re about to start the first stage of the plan,” he told Goodie; the excitement in his voice seeming to energise the others as he spoke, “you ready for this?”

“In order to follow a plan, one first has to know what that plan is.”

Alpha Snorted, “You were all ‘I know exactly what you idiots are planning’ earlier, don’t you know?” he quipped.

Goodie noticed the beta smirk as he did so.

“My comprehension of stupidity only goes so far, care to enlighten me to what it is you want, exactly?”

“Well, as we said, we need you and your pet be our eyes and ears down there in the dark.”

Goodie wondered if they knew that his class did not give him night-vision, that Her Majesty could only do so because of her maxed attributes. He considered telling them, but the thought of what they would do when they found out he was of little use to them made him think otherwise. Of course, to keep their little bomb ability a secret they might just kill him anyway.

“Well,” Alpha continued, “do your thing.”

“And how do you expect her to get past the barrier?” Goodie asked while rubbing his brow.

“The what?”

“The membrane of spiritual energy that forms the border between our reality and wherever it is that the spiritual realms are kept.”

“Huh?” he responded while the others visibly turned their attention to their conversation.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…There’s a small disassociation between our reality and the realm that the burrows are in and the spiritual membrane helps to connect the two. Without a strong enough spiritual force of your own to shield you, it warps you. Or in the case of my ‘pet’, destroys you.”

Goodie did not know if that was true or not, but it was what he had read in the library and he was not willing to test it with his summons.

“Where?”

“Exactly at the entrance,” Goodie said, pointing at their destination ahead.

“No, where does it warp you?”

“What? No, it twists you, mutates you into something uglier than these fucks.” He emphasised his words by using his foot to lift the rabbit’s head again.

The others visibly paled at what he told them, but not the alpha. Alpha’s gotta alpha, Goodie guessed.

“So, this membrane, we’re immune to it, we won’t get warped ourselves?”

“Not immediately, but eventually.”

“What do you mean eventually?”

“Eventually. Our spiritual energies’ll hold it off for a while, but eventually, we’ll mutate like everything else in there.”

Alpha paused, the beta and the geezer held their attention on him, but the others took a step away from the Burrows entrance. What he had said had been the truth, but the library mentioned that those mutations only to the few adventurers who had gotten lost and had been stuck within the Burrows for months before escaping.

A small ruse on his part to try and get them to rethink their plans, but that was not to mean that they were safe as Goodie realised that those changes recorded in the library were big, noticeable things and that for all he knew, their very D.N.A was being twisted as he and the moron stood there, jabbering away.

“By mutate you mean?” Alpha asked.

“From what I’ve read, bunny ears, buck teeth, animal instincts, and that’s just if we’re lucky.”

“Bullshit,” Beta exclaimed from behind his alpha. “He’s just trying to screw with us.”

“If I was trying to screw with you, I’d come up with something much worse than turning into a furry.” Goodie countered.

Beta pulled Alpha back to just beyond his range to hear them clearly, not that he cared to listen. The geezer and Alpha-Bitch soon joined them in what might have been a heated debate for them, but to him, it sounded like whining, that nasally, high-pitched kind.

First checking that it was not something with teeth and very good camouflage, Goodie sat down on a large rock and waited. The ‘leaders’ would occasionally throw glances his way as they discussed what were no doubt important matters, he just enjoyed the cool of the shade from the tree branches above.

A moment later, Goodie opened his eyes as he heard Alpha-Male scream, “Fine!”

He watched as their dashing douche in ratty armour stride forward, his form dithering as he crossed the threshold of the Burrow’s entrance. Goodie winced as the strange properties of the place caused him to see Alpha-Male both walk through normally, but also stretch over an impossible distance as the laws of physics took a back seat to whatever the hell was going on inside.

Alpha eventually stopped, then, turning to face them ever so slowly, he puffed up his chest and extended his arms while saying something in what looked like a smug manner.

“I’m guessing that thing also blocks sound?” beta asked.

“Think I should have mentioned it?”

“Nah, I’m sure he’ll notice.”

So, Goodie and the morons watched as they awaited the return of their valiant leader.