I began the path again. This time I swiftly outmatched the dogs with a great deal of dodge-button sommersaulting and a flurry of light attack chains. In a moment of carelessness, one managed to strike me with a quick bite for -102 damage, but I easily dispatched the rest of them nonetheless.

+ 190 Blood Drops Gained

As I came up upon the first scarecrow sentry who had betrayed my trust, I thrust my cane straight into its drooping center for -118 damage. The scarecrow writhed and struggled to wrench itself up from its perch and launch its secondary attack, but I had already had time to wind up another strike, and the moment the deceitful spirit had made it onto its feet, ready to pounce upon me, I struck it with another heavy attack, drawing down another -125 damage and followed with a quick strike for -98 that beat down the lurker in wait.

I knew the other two would be trickier. There was no way I could creep up on them and eliminate them before they went aggro, but at least I had evened the odds slightly as I sallied forth to face their inevitable ambush.

I stepped out into the field slowly, focusing my attention on the two scarecrow stakes. Once I had made it halfway through the field I clearly watched as both figures hopped down from their posts, disappearing into the high foliage.

I rushed out towards the thatch-and-flax attacker coming from my left and managed to lunge upon it from the side as it charged towards me, smacking it with a light attack for -91 damage. It reeled and hobbled back on its feet only to be bashed flat into the field by my critical -135 hard attack.

Then I turned back to meet the rightward attacker and blocked his frontward stab easily with my buckler shield. The attacker knocked off balance from my parry, I drove my staff straight into the enchanted straw menace, slamming him with a riposte attack for a critical hit of -420 damage.

+ 225 Blood Drops Gained

+ Item Gained - Skull Fragment

The lore description read: 'Just some old bones. You can hardly cast a stone across the sands of this country without turning up a burial.'

+ Item Gained - Scarecrow's Sack

LVL 1 PHYS-PROT: 23 STRK-PROT: 25 SLSH-PROT: 25 THRS-PROT: 23 MAG-PROT: 8 FIR-PROT: 5 LIG-PROT: 6 POIS-RES: 0 TOX-RES: 9 BLD-RES: 7 CUR-RES: 9

+Item Gained - Scarecrow's Hat

LVL 1 PHYS-PROT: 6 STRK-PROT: 8 SLSH-PROT: 6 THRS-PROT: 6 MAG-PROT: 8 FIR-PROT: 5 LIG-PROT: 6 POIS-RES: 0 TOX-RES: 9 BLD-RES: 7 CUR-RES: 9

The lore for both ratty accoutrements said: "This flax effigy's rags were enchanted by a sorceror using a dark kind of sympathetic magic. By embedding the remains of defeated warriors in these bundles of fabric, their souls were ritually bound beyond death to serve as unwilling guards and scare off all sorts of nosy crows."

The wide-brimmed black straw hat was pretty swanky, but I didn't feel like going back to messing with my look again just yet.

After I passed across the edge of the first corn field, I came upon a dusty clearing with a pair of tall, bulbous clay-molded structures that looked like kilns or a termite nests. On the ground, next to a dormant campfire set out between these two maize storage silos, sat a man.

He was a single warrior, dressed in dim brass metal armor, his helm covered in the fur of some dead animal, and his breastplate decorated with the motif of a bushy-tailed and angular snouted orange fox. He held a long wooden mace with a smooth tapered handle and a thin spiked bottom which stretched underneath a bulbous UFO-saucer-shaped macehead. In his left hand he held a buckler, the same kind as mine, which was painted with the face of a grinning, snaggle-toothed, wild-eyed fox.

At my approach he rose to his feet and lunged at me with the war-club, smashing into my exposed side for a whopping -313 damage. It took me by surprise when he went aggro since he looked more like a dialogue NPC than an enemy. He lunged at me again, but this time I managed to bat off his attack with my shield.

I wound up for a quick attack with my staff, but I had miscalculated the tempo of his assault, and again the man in armor struck me in my side for -110 damage. My HP bar plunged a hair away from death.

Fuck!

And it got worse! Too late, my counterstrike thrust out towards the attacking fox-knight, only for the Puku-man's staff to split in half, flying off into the thick of the cornstalks, the edge of the cane shattering on impact with the surface of his shield!

'WEAPON BROKEN' strobed on the screen.

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

In a frantic jostle of janky steps and changed directions I managed to maneuver around the assailing knight with my shield drawn up to fend off his blows. I decided, with the tips of a waqa's branches just in view beyond the next field, to turn tail and make a break for it past the rest of the area and any of the further enemies awaiting me. I cautiously walked backwards into the maize stalks, retreating from my advancing opponent, and with enough distance I spun around and tried to run past through the crops.

I managed to limp out about halfway out through the cornfield, the crunch of the pursuing warrior's steps following along behind me.

Then the ground beneath me gave way.

I fell into a sinkhole, at the bottom of which lay a great swampy puddle that bubbled beneath the rows of crops. Even as I sunk into the waist-deep muck, I still struggled to escape my pursuer. My feet became stuck in the mud, and my movement had slowed to a crawl as I waded through the inky morass.

From beside me came a shrill hissing sound. I stopped in my tracks.

Just beside me, to my horror, was an enormous crocodile laying a stone's throw away from me in the sinkhole. It was as big as a school-bus with a needle-nosed snout and an open maw of seemingly endless, gleaming barbed teeth.

There was no time to dodge, or even more pitifully, to raise my shield, before the beastly reptile snapped down on me, grasping my torso in its jaws and bearing down to slice my legs from my waist and pop off my head. I was utterly eviscerated for a cruel joke of -622 damage.

'All is Lost' again bellowed the screen in a jeer of crimson mockery.

I grit my teeth and hissed a sigh of frustrated awe.