“Great. Another creepy grinning nutcase outside a strange town,” Van muttered and pulled everyone aside. “Like we haven’t seen that before. I wonder what kind of dark realm ailment he suffers from.”

“My bets are on otherworldly possession!” Cyrus said raising his hand.

Oga raised her claw. “I think he’s an evil elf from the underworld in disguise!”

“I think he’s just a happy guy,” Antonio said with a suave smile.

Everyone glared at him causing him to shrug his shoulders. “What? A guy like me likes to think positively.”

“Excuse me friends,” the man said in response. “But is something bothering yah? Today is a joyous occasion doncha know. That’s why I’m grinning.”

“You said something about a ‘Frostpole?’” Van asked with a skeptical expression.

“Yah. Let me show yah,” the man said skipping into town as the group followed him. “My name is Benny, by the way.”

As they approached the center of the town, everyone was chanting and circling the maypole. The winter storm blasted everyone but the villagers seemed unaffected. They were more focused on their words and twirling their silver wires around the pole.

“Yah Yah Yah!

Eternal Winter for all!

Yah Yah Yah!

Bury the world in endless snowfall!”

Cyrus and his friends all stared in horror as the blizzard winds blew harder with every cadence and the world grew darker too. “We are spreading the cold to all the world,” Benny said with an unflinching grin. “Soon everyone will know our intense grief over our failed harvest! Misery loves company so why not share the freeze!”

“How altruistic of you,” Van said. “But anyway, we need a place to eat and sleep. Do you have one?”

“Of course,” the man said, pumping his fist in time with the chant. “My wife Annie-Freize has the only lodge for miles. But promise me this, once you’ve rested you’ll join in the chant.”

“Uh of course,” Van said.

“Excellent friends,” Benny said, holding his hands together and grinning from behind his bushy beard.

Benny quickly turned away and started walking towards a two-story log cabin. As the four heroes passed the maypole, Cyrus could see an glazed look in the eye of all the villagers. They were all pale faced and clutched their silver wire tightly. Cyrus saw hints of drool on some of their grinning faces. A feeling of blood lust permeated from the crowd.

Benny’s snow boots made the wooden steps to the log cabins porch creek loudly. The four heroes shook the snow out of their shoes. Cyrus’ princely leather shoes and stockings were soaked from the snow seeping through them. In addition, they stunk like a rotting gator carcass. Cyrus knew they couldn’t relax, but he still looked forward to shedding these burdens on his feet.

A woman with white-blond braids that curled upwards and a purple dress stood on the deck. She was wearing yellow fluffy oven mitts and clutched a tray of steaming pastries. Her grin was just as wide as her husband and her perky accent annoyed Cyrus just as much. “Come on in travelers. Yah don’t want to catch your death in the cold…”--with a look of cruelty in her eyes she quickly muttered--”not yet anyways...”

“What did you say?” Cyrus asked.

”Uh, would you like a stroodle?” said Annie-Freize, shoving the plate in front of Cyrus’ face.

Cyrus sniffed the aroma of fresh apples and cinnamon and forgot for a brief second he was in a village of crazed cultists. “Mmm, I don’t mind if I do…”

He grabbed two pastries but Annie Freize smacked his hand, causing him to release the other one. “Save some for your friends, picnic boy. I want each and every one to have a nice, round belly full of stroodle, doncha know!”

Inside the lodge’s bedroom, Cyrus and his friends sat on the beds. A warm fireplace crackled loudly, warming their frozen bodies. Aside from a creepy wall-eyed bear head on the wall, the lodge gave off a feeling of comfort. Each held a plate in their hand. Cyrus could tell from the look of hunger on their faces that they didn’t mind eating the stroodles. Only Van was cautiously sifting through warm crushed apples and bread. “I respect your intuition, chica,” Antonio said. “But I think it’s just stroodle.”

“You can never be sure?” Van said. “They could have snuck a brainwashing potion in here to turn us all into drooling cultist like them.”

“I found something wrong with it,” Oga said, sitting at a tiny round table.

Everyone looked at her. Van with wide eyes exclaimed, “What’s wrong with them?”

“The crazy blond lady used fruits and grains!” the little elven girl snarled. “She coulda used bits of lizard gizzards and bone marrow!”

Both Cyrus and Van rolled their eyes at Oga.

“What?” She asked with her little fang barred. “I thought getting to live on the road would allow me to eat more of an orc diet! Boy was I wrong.”

“This is serious, Oga!” Van said. “But I suppose you’re right. Let’s just rest as much as we can, and hope we don’t end up in a wicker-snowman!”

Cyrus and his friends turned in for the night, but the young prince couldn’t shake the sense of blood lust creeping around, even in spite of the warm cabin and even warmer bed. He could feel it linger outside the door.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, allowing a sliver of yellow light to hit his face. He squinted to make it look like he was sleeping but saw half of Annie-Freize’s face in the door. A singular eye and half of a grin peeking through the doorway was enough to know she wasn’t offering room service. Her psychotic expression observed Cyrus and his friends before she closed the door again.

Cyrus quickly gathered Archibald’s briefcase and put it on top of his stomach; he then pulled the covers over it. The young prince wanted to run away, but knew he deep down, he couldn’t. He would have to remain in his bed if he wanted to gain the element of surprise against his adversaries. Cyrus thought of how Archibald always had a trick up his sleeve and how he would use it to gain the upper hand. He hoped to emulate that surprise to the best of his abilities.

Cyrus stared at the wooden bars in the ceiling, breathing in and out in order to calm himself. He hoped the spirit of Archibald would smile upon him and allow him to make it out of this situation alive.

Cyrus heard the door creak open and again; his eyes quickly darted over to it. This time the door was completely open but there was no one there. Cyrus heard the sound of creaking wood beams and he looked up. Annie-Freize and Benny both hung from the ceiling with several glowing red eyes clustered on their faces and fangs spread. “Look at how plump the fat boy has gotten!” Annie Freid hissed to Benny. ‘I told you adding extra sugar to those stroodles would pay off.”

“Yah, I see,” the man hissed as his red eyes swiveled with pleasure. “I call dibs on him!”

The man’s body cracked as hairy snow-white legs emerged and shattered his human shell, his body transforming into an enormous white and black furred arachnid. His wife followed suit but hissed at her husband when she finished, “I fattened him up. I get him!”

“Why the heck do all you supernatural monsters want to eat me?” Cyrus exclaimed. “Well I have news for you! I’m not on the Dark Realm’s menu but you are!”

Cyrus snorted the dragon powder he had removed from the briefcase and bright orange flames shot through the darkness and blasted the spiders, searing their bodies. When the wooden ceiling quickly caught ablaze, and Cyrus knew the dragon powder’s magical fire caused it to spread quicker than usual. He called to his friends, “Everyone wake up! The people of this village aren’t people, they’re really frostulas!”

“You really think we could sleep through an exchange between you and a spider-man and spider-woman?” Van asked deadpan.

She quickly gathered her belongings as Oga quickly hopped up yanking Antonio up by the scruff of his neck. The four grabbed as much as they could as the wooden rafters along with some ash and splinters fell from the ceiling. Cyrus choked in the heat as the lovely lodge began to burn down. “Why do I keep burning things as the first plan of action?” Cyrus asked as they ran down the steps into the cold.

“Puberty?” Antonio asked.

”No time for your jokes, prettyboy,” Van said. “Looks like we woke up the whole community.”

An army of people crawled to the front of the burning building. Each had hundreds of red eyes and the same hungry look plastered on their faces. Quickly, each body exploded as limbs extended out of their bodies, leaving nothing but broken fragments of human bodies laying in the snow.

“Yah got nowhere to go,” hissed the spider in front. “May as well give us your delectable bodies.”

Cyrus realized he had to think on his feet. He reached through Archibald’s briefcase. It was a total randomizer but sometimes it had things that helped him out massively. He pulled out a plastic flute.

“How’s this going to help?!” Cyrus exclaimed.

”Are you going to play an elegy of death,” the spider asked.

Cyrus looked closer at the recorder. “Wait a minute,” he said, as he noticed a small insignia of a beast with a human head.

He put his lips around the recorder and blew hard. Loud, shrill notes echoed through the air.

“Music time’s over. Now it’s feeding time!” The head spider exclaimed.

“Uh spiders?!’ Cyrus exclaimed Look at the sky! It’s a bird, no it’s a glider, no it’s a Multi-Beast!”

“Like we’re going to fall for that,” the spider responded drolly. “Delaying our feeding time only makes us more ravenous doncha know!”

“No, I mean literally,” Cyrus said as Teela flew to the earth and smashed the spider into the crowd with a mighty charge.

“Hop on,” Teela shouted. “You’re lucky I’ve got the hearing of a dog. Perhaps I’m more of a chimera than even I know!” The four heroes quickly piled on the Multi-Beast with Cyrus sitting in front. She soared into the sky, leaving the cabal of hungry spiders to scream over their missed dinner.

As she flew through the snowy night sky, Teela spoke to Cyrus and his friends. “I should have known those townspeople were really frostulas. They never gave me gift baskets anymore or invited me to bingo.”

“What happened to the actual villagers?” Cyrus asked.

“The frostulas might have eaten them,” the Multi-Beast said. “Though I’ve never seen frostulas with the ability to disguise themselves before. That must be the magic of the Bloodstone.

Cyrus felt bad over the dead villagers, but another thought lingered on his mind. Van cut him off by asking the exact question he was thinking. “Uh Teela? Where are we going?”