The boat rocked as Barry pulled in the heavy net that contained at least a dozen good-sized fish. Shamus and I looked at each other flatly as the boat slowly came to a rest. Barry was surveying his haul like a miner who had just struck gold.

"Looks like I just took a commanding lead," said Barry as he handed me the fish to put in my inventory for safekeeping.

"How do you seem to know exactly where to cast your net?" I asked.

"I don't know. I just trust my gut. I've been fishing like this for a long time," Barry answered.

As we spoke, Shamus reeled in his first catch of the morning. I was falling behind in our little competition.

"Dang it," I whispered under my breath. I was going to lose this one. Why would I agree to a fishing contest with a man who hunts and fishes for a living and another who spent most of his life on the open sea? He had told me more about his time in the North Sea as we traveled South. He didn't describe himself as a pirate, but it sounded an awful lot like he was doing pirate activities. I didn't fight him over the differences. I let it go because he was a different person now.

We fished silently for about ten minutes before Barry hauled in another net full. Shamus broke the tension between Barry and the sore loser with a question that didn't have to do with fishing.

"So, do you have a plan for dealing with the pirates?" Asked Shamus. He put a fresh worm on his hook and recast as he spoke.

"Not quite," I answered. I was still pondering how to go about completing that particular quest but hadn't gotten any amazing ideas yet. "What about getting the trade route with Bettyford up and running?"

"We don't really have enough people to safely do that yet. We really need a bigger town to initiate it and send some people here with the first caravans," said Shamus. I understood his point. It would be hard to send out a trading caravan with only a few dozen residents and almost all of your supplies destroyed.

I nodded and added, "Looks like I really need to figure out my pirate problem before we can figure out the trade route problem."

We fished in silence for a while longer until Barry got hungry. He was expending the most energy out of the three of us so it made sense that he would be the one to call it a day on the fishing.

Barry had won the fishing competition by a wide margin and I had a couple hundred small to medium-sized fish in my inventory. Shamus and I rowed the boat back to shore as Barry sat back in victory.

"You need to help me out with one of those fishing nets, Barry. That is definitely a good way to fish and I have an idea for how to modify the task to make it even easier," I said. I wasn't going to tell him my secret, but I'd have it ready for next time if he was able to provide the net. I would provide the throwing ax that always returns.

I was able to pick up the rowboat and carried it in my dimensional space on the way back just as I did on the way to the small lake. Shamus looked in amazement at the feat as if he hadn't seen it a few hours ago.

"I will never get over how crazy that inventory of yours is, Theodore," said shamus with a little smile on his face. He was also happy to not have to drag or carry the boat. It wasn't too heavy for me to pick up, but it was heavy enough to make the process of carrying it over the uneven ground a real bummer.

Not too far from shore, we found the wolves, Honey, Mr. Snuggles, and Pips who rejoined our traveling party. The pack leader ran over to Shamus and sat in front of him with one of his front paws lifted slightly off of the ground.

"Is he injured?" I asked Shamus who had the closest set of eyes to the wolf.

"No, he is telling us that the wolf pack found something. Something that we need to check out," said Shamus still looking at the wolf. The wolf looked off to the South and then back at Shamus.

"That is amazing. He knows how to scout things out and report back to you?" I asked. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised. Shamus and that wolf leader are almost always together now. The wolves even sleep in his living room by his fireplace on colder evenings from what I understood.

"We've figured out a few things in our time together. I think they like me for whatever reason," he said. "Do you guys want to do a quick side quest?"

"Sure," I answered. Barry nodded his head and pulled his greataxe off of his back. A notification popped up that was both confusing and carried a disappointing amount of experience. I didn't care. I planned on completing it either way.

New Quest!

Investigate the strange happenings that the wolves have reported to Shamus.

Reward: 100 XP

I looked at the lead wolf who had obviously taken a liking to Shamus and told him to lead the way. He took off like a shot running South and a little East. We kept up with him fairly well. The couple of times we fell back slightly the wolves almost intuitively slowed down for us to catch up with them.

We ran for a couple of miles which would have been quite an ordeal during my alive days. I never was in that great of shape back in my living days. Not terrible shape, but I was not winning any races anytime soon. It was a little weird to me that I was in better shape after I died. The wolves stopped suddenly and we slowly walked up behind them. Trying to figure out what they were looking at. There was a fairly straight line of trees going out from where we stood on either side of a clear field of what looked like tree stumps as if something had clear cut about an acre of land. In the distance, I saw a small building of some sort. There was an odd fog that looked to have settled over the area with the tree stumps.

I realized that what I had at first thought were trees around us weren't trees at all, but stone pillars that were covered with moss. The wolves rumbled with a low, steady growl but we didn't see anything that should elicit such a response. The three humans in the group stepped forward to get a better look but the animals refused to enter between the pillars. I tried asking for Mae to come over to me from wherever she was, but she didn't come swooping in like she usually did. I must've been somewhere where she couldn't help which meant that there could be enemies around.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable as we took our first, tentative steps into the danger zone. "There may be enemies nearby. Stay sharp," I said to Barry and Shamus.

I didn't see any enemies but as we got closer to the first tree stump I realized that it was actually a gravestone. All of the gravestones were also moss-covered just like the pillars were. I started to notice some skeletons laying up against some of the tombstones half-covered by moss and dirt themselves. Other graves looked like they had been dug up and recovered with loose earth at some point and others still were just a hole with a pile of dirt beside them. I couldn't tell how old this place was but it had to be ancient based on the mounting evidence of the fact.

I had a bad case of the heebee jeebies that made my skin crawl, but I still couldn't see any enemies. I pulled out a common long sword and small shield to help me feel less vulnerable but it didn't seem to help all that much. As we continued to walk slowly into the ancient cemetery the feeling of unease grew. I didn't ask the others how they were feeling but the looks on their faces that I caught out of my peripheral vision told me that they were creeped out as well.

We were only about twenty feet from what I could now see was the gate to a mausoleum. It stood there in front of us like an invitation. The gate was slightly open and this place looked to be untouched.

I looked back and the animals still stood outside of the pillars as if they were unable to cross the threshold into the cemetery. Or maybe they were just smarter than us and we should have also stayed out. I was leaning towards the latter being the case as we took the last few steps toward the lone building.

"Are we really doing this?" I asked Barry and Shamus. I asked myself if I even wanted the hundred XP.

"We're with you," said Shamus as he steeled his resolve. Barry nodded and also seemed to straighten up with an influx of courage. I followed their lead, smiled, and reached out to grab the gate to the mausoleum with a mind to open it and descend into darkness.

The gate slammed with a loud crash. My eyes shot towards it reflexively and I saw a boney hand sliding back into the darkness. I deep guttural belly laugh came from the depths and I felt a frantic pat on my shoulder. I looked and Barry was tapping me while staring back towards the gravestones we had just walked through. I started to turn in that direction and saw movement in every direction my eyes turned. A notification popped.

Quest Completed!

Investigate the strange happenings that the wolves have reported to Shamus.

Reward: 100 XP

New Quest!

Destroy or otherwise put to rest the skeleton army that currently surrounds you and your party.

Reward: 1,000 XP

The disturbing laughter continued from behind the metal gate behind me.

"Kill them all!" The voice came from the darkness behind us as we watched dozens of skeletons get up and stand facing our direction. More were still pulling themselves from the holes in the ground.

"How do you kill something that is already dead?" Shamus asked with more than a hint of worry in his voice.

The irony wasn't lost on me since I had already died three times recently.

"Just kill them until they die from it," I answered.