Ch: 9 Orphans Show No Mercy

Old Hannah was even better than they expected, a few hours soaking in Gary’s secret recipe, had her up and moving. Measurements were taken, options discussed and materials arranged with no nonsense, as expected of veteran crafts people. Suits of finely tailored leather armor for most of them were delivered over the following days. Tawny wore robes over padded cloth armor of her own, while Liam and Tallum had already been taken care of.

The Bathers had decided on Firstday after the feast of Order to approach Young Mikkel as a group. Otho had claimed to have it all arranged… It was hard to count on someone who had a nude sculpture garden on the kind of scale Otho possessed.

The only instructions Otho had relayed were to meet their new mentor in the plasterer’s yard in the crafts ward and come equipped in mundane gear, prepared to travel for a week.

Gary knew Old Mikkel the plasterer, he was a pillar of the crafters ward and as filled with joy as any man of one hundred and eighteen could expect to be.

The old guy’s title was plasterer, but he was a sculptor of truly impressive skill. Gary had never seen more impressive naturalistic sculpture, whether grand architecture in scale or miniatures as delicate as thistledown.

Gary had been trying to get an angle on some lessons in sculpture from the old guy, but all he wanted to talk about was his great unfinished work. Of course, it was Otho’s garden of wrinkly flesh.

When the Bathers arrived that morning, kitted out in well made leather armor from old Hannah’s legion of apprentices. Gary was carrying the luggage in his Pockets! Leaving his hands free for some picking, on a newly created mundane banjo. Shai was wearing her bells to the delight of everyone around, whirling to his bluegrass improvisations.

Ivy and Tawny immediately clustered with Shai cooing over the shiny jingling accessory. “Tis a birth day gift made by the foolish boy, he did imply twas fer meself…” They looked at the group of boys and as one, sighed with a deep disappointment.

Tawny patted Shai on the shoulder consolingly. “In his heart I'm sure he thought it was for you. Poor thing, give him a little credit.”

Gary was starting to look confused and a little hurt, until Shai wiggled over to him, bells singing merrily to kiss him fiercely. “I’ve seen the way ye watch me dance, and where ye be watchin… tis a fine gift to us both ye great fool!”

“A fine gift to all of us!” a passing tradesman remarked with a grin. Shai had never stopped swaying and wiggling, drawing some attention even in the early hours.

“That's my sister, Journeyman Kines!” Tallum barked, making the fellow scamper off with a rakish laugh,

“Dance with me at the temple next week end Shai!” he shouted while escaping.

She kept spinning and twirling throughout the short walk to the plasterers yard, gathering surprised and delighted greetings the entire way. Those musical sparkling hips made the journey an event.

When they asked for young Mikkel they were led to a ten year old in a clay spattered smock. “Ohh you mean old Mikkel, he’s supervising the kiln.” They found the old guy at the kiln, supervising a small keg of cider with a group of other senior tradesmen. “Ok boys, this is where I shove off.” He said, hopping onto his peg leg and waving at the gathered old timers.

Turning to the Bathers he grunted, “So these are the ducklings Otho wants me to foster?” He brightened when he spotted Shai. There was no one in the crafters and market quarters who didn't know her. Like Mikkel himself, her gregarious nature and unique visibility made her a pillar of the trades community across both wards. “Shai turning adventurer, can't say I saw that one coming.” He said with a grin.

She gave a half mocking curtsey with her tinkling bells. “Ye know I canna ever be just one thing… save that be unpredictable!” It was canon in the trade wards that an event which failed to draw either Mikkel or Shai was a failure indeed. While netting the attendance of both was the height of culture in the commons.

“Otho promised I would see things I had never seen before, that's why I agreed.” He sighed. “My wife has been pestering me to go to some bathhouse in the Adventurer's Guild. Frankly she has been exhausting for a couple weeks now. A man needs some rest at my age.”

He eyed the group when they all began to chuckle. Gary seized Liam and shoved him forward. “This is Liam, our fearless leader.” He chattered, before vanishing behind Tallum’s bulk.

Liam was armored in light steel plate over reinforced leather, sturdy, but mobility would remain critical. It was still light armor, no matter how finely made and it was a masterful display of craft. Together Shai and Tallum, under the influence of Gary’s strange magic, had exceeded their own considerable skills. He held a long spear and had a slender curved sword at his hip, both mundane but also made with great care and skill.

Tallum was in lobster plates of fine steel and a kilt of leather and steel. Over his shoulder was a terrifying club of the local red oak, studded with bronze knobs. Gary had made the damn thing and could barely lift it without both hands and a plan.

Shai was in light chain and leather, while Ivy and Tawny wore closely fitted leathers reinforced with steel rings over the vitals and steel at shins and forearms. Both Ivy and Tawny carried staves, Shai had a pair of swords, both curved, one shorter than the other by a hand.

Gary had taken a few days studying under Hanna, long enough to make his own armor. It was not as fine as the others, but he had made it himself, while helping the creation of the other’s with his loopy gift. Resplendent in cured leather breast and back plates and hammered bronze greaves with a kilt of bullhide and bronze straps guarding the important bits, Gary felt just a little silly. Hanna had declared his effort field worthy, while strongly suggesting he keep working at the craft. He had a bronze and bullhide buckler and short spear of his own making as well, with guidance from the actual smiths.

“Well you look like proper ducklings, let's go to the pond and see if you can swim.” He tucked a crutch under one arm and began walking off towards the orchard gardens. “I’m an old man, if I have to get my hands dirty this week, you all go into training for a month before we go out again. Understood?” The Bathers all barked a passable “Yes, Sir!” on the second try, while scrambling to keep up.

“Shai, time to put the pretties away. Minstrel, stow that noisebox.”

Gary tucked his banjo away while Shai carefully folded and boxed her treasure before handing it to Gary to stash. “We are going after a wallow bear, it’s been rooting up the vegetable patches on the northern edge. We hunt it, we kill it. Any questions?”

Gary had his field guide from Z’s house out and was looking up wallow bears when Mikkle coughed rudely. Looking at the group he asked, “This kid doesn’t know wallow bears? This kid reads? In the woods?”

Liam stepped up to defend his friend like a loyal chum. “He's just weird, ignore him. We keep him around for the music and to carry the bags.”

“Ahh, support monkey. Every group should have one. Leaves you short on combatants though.”

“Hey!” Gary complained. “Deal with it Gary,” Liam snapped, “you are going to be carrying your weight in camp for the next few months.” To Mikkel he said, “He only just figured out which end is pointy.”

“I kicked Bradens ass…” He grumbled as they marched through the groves and to the edge of the woodcutters forest.

Wallow bears, it turned out, were a common monster in low magic regions, an odd mixture of racoon and boar.

This one was as big as a mastiff with short spiky hairs on its body and a masked and furred face. The legs were short and powerful looking, with heavy curved claws for digging.

The only thing worse than the mostly naked skin of the creature was its tail, it was long, four feet at least and prehensile. The horrid writhing appendage was bristling with long quills most barbed, some hooked, but all disgusting and filthy.

The group pulled back from the edge of a low escarpment, overlooking a muddy and ragged berry patch. A few yards away they stopped. “First monster for some of you, so we are going to have Liam and Shai demonstrate. Liam, you are aggressor, Shai, backup. Fight smart, show them how orphans do the job.” They replied with a simultaneous cry of “Orphans Show No Mercy.'' and moved to their positions while the group crept back to the overlook.

Down below, the pair were lining up on the creature like stalking wolves. It dozed all at peace, being the largest and most dangerous thing in the region. When Shai jumped out and clashed the flats of her swords together shouting “Orphans Show No Mercy!” she immediately gained the monster’s attention.

She began sidling and clashing her swords, staying in motion while the beast pulled free of its bog. Keeping its focus, she slid to the left, lining it up.

Liam pounced from the brush, driving his spear in at the base of the awful tail and into the monster’s abdomen the hard way.

With the tail and rear legs virtually immobilized and four feet of spear lodged in its body, the two began harrying it. Slashing with swords and skittering, away leaving the thrashing, bleeding monster with no hope of escape. In less than two minutes it was done, as the combatants cleaned themselves up Gary and Ivy fell to the job of skinning and dressing the beast.

Gary’s brief lessons at the tannery made him the only member of the Bathers with any training in that area… it went about as well as one could hope. The tattered and bedraggled skin had any number of holes and cuts in it which he lamely tried to blame on the fighters rather than his inexperienced knife work.

Ivy had the thing quartered and hung up to drain in short order, leaving Gary to sort through the remains for anything valuable. A few bits like the kidneys and heart were marked as reagents or crafting resources, so he wrapped them in the hide and stowed the unwholesome bundle for later. When they were done all that was left was a blood spattered patch of ruined blueberry bushes and a small pile of offal. Otho dug a hole quickly and selected a few morsels for himself before pushing the rest in and burying it.

Ivy softly spoke, “The god of Beasts mourns the fallen, while rejoicing in our hunt, til next we meet.” After a quiet moment the group headed off, following Mikkel who was lecturing.

“Teamwork, we operate in pairs at minimum, solo monster hunts are a fool’s game even with small fry like this.” He cheerfully swatted the moist hauch of meat Gary was struggling to make disappear without getting himself all gross. “This guy wandered down river into our territory or we would never have gone after him. Most monsters are just exotic animals at the root of it, and unless we need something from them or they become a threat…” He shrugged eloquently. “Some are even useful or friendly. There's even a clan of giant otters down river a day or two that trades with the barge men regularly.” Now Gary was excited. “Intelligent otters? Can they speak?” The old man shrugged again.

On a grassy meadow they stopped for a late lunch, settling onto blankets around a wicker basket prepared by Ivy and Dannyl and carried by the ‘support monkey’. The old man lounged and smoked a short clay pipe while lunch was being set up, remarking to the open air. “I was told that you kids enjoy the finer things in life and would make this a comfortable job. So far so good.” When the whole group began to smile and chuckle he looked a bit unsure.

“Gary and Shai are going to set up camp while Ivy and Otho lookout, the rest of us should scout out our next target.” Liam announced after conferring with Mikkel over a fine meal of pork pies and a local grain and vegetable salad, dressed with olive oil and cubes of toasted bread.

Mikkel was still licking apple pie filling off his fingers as he and the others left to spy on their next prey. Ivy set her giant dog to patrolling and settled herself on a boulder to watch. “I’ve never seen you set this thing up, this should be interesting!” Gary shrugged and brought out a mundane ukulele and began the bouncy theme song from an eighties movie about a summer camp.

Are you ready for the summer?

Are you ready for the good times?...

As he played nothing visible happened, just a sense of something gathering just out of sight… Ivy watched him even more closely while Shai, of course, had clasped her new toy back on her waist and was dancing. The soft ringing fell into rhythm as her hips bounced along, swaying in a way that Ivy found distracting despite herself.

She glanced away from those sparkling, swaying chimes and saw a cluster of low domed tents around a cheerful cook fire, with a grill and spit standing by. At the edge of the meadow a stand of bamboo had grown and steam rose in a hazy column from the center of the patch. “Damn it Gary I missed it!”

She glared at Shai who smiled sweetly. “I hae never seen aught appear or disappear in the house, an I do watch close every time. Tis some trick o his magic methinks.” She nodded. “Aye , must be it, fer never did anything happen in view, tis always just o-er there out of sight.”

Ivy peered closely at her friend and sister. “Not just his. I smell you in this too, it was faint in town, just a hint of Shai, but now it's there for sure.” With an anxious look at Shai, Gary tossed Ivy a hoop drum and a tipper. “If you can talk, you can drum. Follow my beat.”

The scouting party heard the music long before they arrived back in the meadow.

…tell me quando,quando quandooo…

Pushing into the clearing they found Ivy, sitting in a camp chair with a drum, thumping out a surprisingly complex beat, while Shai whirled in her chimes while wielding a tambourine. Gary was sashaying about with Shai, strumming his twelve string and doing his best Englebert Humperdink to the delight of a large number of forest creatures.

“Sweet gods and spirits what is this foolishnes…” Mikkel blustered, as he approached, sputtering to a stop at the edge of the glade. The tidy and comfortable camp gave off an aura of comfort and welcome that was a physical force, while crossing the boundary into the camp required a touch of effort. “It's a vermin ward, keeps creepies and bloodsuckers out of the camp.” Ivy said calmly over the music, while continuing to drum. “They are just wrapping up the last number, dinner will be ready in an hour.”

The old timer’s experienced eye caught the steam from the bamboo stand immediately. “What is that?” He asked mildly, pointing to the steaming screen of tall grasses. “Uhh, there's a hot spring there…” Gary replied lamely. “That's lucky huh?” The old man scanned the rest of the camp. A cookfire crackling with a joint of wallow bear on the spit slowly turning on its own, low domed tents in single and double sizes.

A gods damned picnic table and camp chairs were scattered artfully about, while a rope hammock swung gently near the bamboo stand, strung from a a pair of fruit trees that had not been there an hour ago. While paper lanterns dangling from the trees gave the promise of a well lit evening.

Otho was agitated and sniffed at the returned party with heated interest, Ivy had to firmly call him back to her. Mikkel nodded, “Ivy, Tawny and Tallum stay here in camp, the rest of us are going after a trapdoor.” Shai groaned softly in despair. “An I’m nae sure tis fully ready here at camp, mayhap…”

Liam cut her off with a cruel grin. “At least you won't have to actually fight it, that's for Gary.”

Shai looked concerned. “Me foolish boy? Nae he canna yet, tis nae proper fer the first monster!”

Mikkel just laughed cruelly as well. “He will be fine. It's a good educational opportunity.”

She fixed the two men young and old with a withering stare. “An me boy gets ruined fer yer amusement, I shall nae dance wi either of ye for a month.”

Gary had enough. “Ruined you say? I think we should talk about that.”

They all ignored him entirely. “An Liam er meself is tae be his shield? Aye ye do have a mean streak. Tis because I would nae let yer wife fix me to her grandson’s wife's sister’s son?”

He just grinned.

“Tis a year agone since I told the woman nae and she do still have ye working her vengeance?”

Mikkel laughed again. “She forgave you when you collared this poor dumb animal,” He said, pointing a thumb at the animal. “now she just wants to know how it turns out.” He shook his great cotton tuft of a head in mirth.

“The women of this town are savage.” Gary complained. “Let's circle back to ruining the boy… that sounds important.” Still they ignored him.

“Aye, twil do him no real harm… though I swear an this be some prank, twil go poorly indeed.”

In a shady dell Gary saw faint glimmers of silver flashing among the brush and trees. In a hushed voice he whispered, “I see something, webs?” He ducked low into the undergrowth shield and spear ready.

“Aye, webs, tis what we seek fer sure.” Shai called out. “Stay back an we be ready foolish boy!” Stealth was apparently off the menu.

From the shady hollow he caught a faint smell, faint but disgustingly vile. “Ohh crap, what is that stench?” He asked as it assaulted his nose, even the faint trickle making its way upwind to the group was horrifying.

“Trapdoor spider.” Mikkel announced. “They prey on scavengers and mid level carnivores. Webs in the trees catch crows and vultures, while strands on the ground trigger an attack by the creature.”

“Potent venom in its bite, but that is on the safe end of the beastie, with all the legs, eyes and jaws. You will be attacking it from the dangerous side. It strikes from ambush, they kill more dogs and dog familiars than any other monster. If Otho got within a mile, this thing would eat him for sure. Dogs can't resist the spider's lure.” Mikkel was not helping Gary’s nerves.

The thought of a spider capable of eating that massive dog was terrifying enough, but the physical presence of that stank was a whole new level of nasty on top of that mess. “How do we kill it?” Gary asked, dreading the answer.

“You kill it my boy, with a spear. Though you should have brought a longer model…” He said with a nasty grin, “You are gonna have to get pretty close to it with that.” as he pointed at Gary's short spear.

Gary fumbled at his waist for a moment and produced two rods of stout yew with bronze fittings at the ends. With a few quick twists he had a spear ten feet long and his buckler was gone from view. “Ok, so I guess sneaking is out since you guys are being loud, what's next?”

Mikkel grinned again. “You will be sneaking up on it if you can, but it is completely deaf. No hearing. Just don’t touch a web or make vibrations in the ground and it will never see you coming. You will see why.”

He smiled at Shai. “A young lady should not have to see her young man face what he is about to challenge, so Liam will be your shield. If you are skilled enough you should not need his help though. Just your courage.”

“Well that isn’t ominous at all… what does it become my darkest fear or something?” They looked at him as though he was a lost puppy and sighed as a group. Gary pulled a camp chair from his backside with a rude flourish, flopped down with his field guide and looked the beast up.

Trapdoor spider, a voracious and crafty ambush predator, uses an aromatic lure to draw scavengers from a great distance. Magical, possessed, outsider, aberration. Highly venomous, extremely toxic to canines. Exercise caution in the creature’s ambush zone.

“Ok I guess, can I use a magic item that is not a weapon or armor?” He asked, holding up a small silver ring. Mikken shrugged. “Sure, go for it.” Gary slipped the ring on his pinky and felt a slight pinch as it tapped into his spiritual mana pool.

Stink ring, magical, spiritual enchantment, absorbs hydrocarbon and sulfide compounds from the area of effect, neutralizing and storing offensive odors for later discharge. Very low mana cost.

In an instant the odor was gone, Gary smiled at his bit of craft. He had been skunked out of his camp a few times on earth and had caught the tell tale whif while traveling. He had no desire to repeat the experience and had avoided skunk territory ever since. The tanner's magic stink tree had been the impetus for this invention though.

Carefully, the pair slipped through the trees, as a web it was not much, mostly just trigger strands on the ground and a tangle of silk in the upper boughs to catch birds. Passing through just required caution and a strong stomach, Liam was having trouble keeping lunch under control since he was outside Gary’s ring aura. In the thickest part of the webs, a silken funnel led to the beast itself.

Even without the stench it was a nightmare to make Gary’s already impressive nightmares weep. A silken funnel of gleaming silver webs, intricate and random, yet elegant, led to a tunnel into a shallow mound. The late afternoon sun sparked golden shimmers across the fine gossamer strands. Blocking the tunnel was the flattened puckered abdomen of the monster.

All that was visible was the “Door” it was known for. The festering bloated anus of some long dead behemoth had somehow grown an even more wretched and vile second butthole. It fizzed and foamed in a disturbing way, sputtering feculent slime in a short radius around with a visible aura of wavering foulness. The thing was in no way a natural creature, nor was it even slightly aware of the presence of its two assailants.

Liam signaled he was in position, on the side of the entrance, spear ready to stab any monstrosity that might appear. While Gary stared into that foaming abyss of filth. With a wordless battle cry he stabbed into that morass with what had once been a very nice spear. He leaned in and held fast, pinning the monster inside its own lair with the length of his weapon. It thrashed and chittered horribly but he kept hold, until it stopped twitching, then he twisted and jabbed a few more times just to be sure.

Pulling his weapon back the beast came with, a slowly deflating abscess of purplish skin, with a black carapaced spider attached in the worst of all possible ways. Gagging at the sight, he tried to shake the nightmare off his spear before giving up. The way it jiggled at the back and wobbled around at the front was too horrible. He dragged the thing off a bit and dropped it.

Liam had a forked stick in hand and was using it to somehow unravel the funnel of web under Mikkel’s instruction, from a discreet upwind distance. When he was done the stick looked like a giant ball of silvery cotton candy.

Gary shoved the sagging horror back into its own hole and quickly filled it in with a shovel that appeared from nowhere. “Poison sack on that thing is worth a little to the college, enough to buy some new clothes and a bath.” Gary rolled a boulder of some size onto the entrance to the terrible burrow and said only “Nope.” The old man was relentless. “you left your spear in that thing kid…” Gary made a short spear flicker in and out of his Pockets! “Yup. not worth it. I have another.”

The one legged adventurer gave a full throated laugh and came closer to clap Gary on the shoulder. “Kid you have guts, Grown adventurers puke when they face those things. You took it like a cham-...” Once he was in swatting range he stopped and sniffed. “I don't smell it kid… what did you do?”

Liam heard and moved closer too, breathing deeply for the first time in a while. ‘Its gone, like it never was!” he said in wonder. Stepping a few feet away he wrinkled his nose and gagged. “Nope, still there.”

They both stopped and cornered him against a tree. “Tell boy, if you tell, I might forgive you for making me endure that!”

He sighed. “It's a magic stink ring, like at the tannery, only instead of absorbing the aromatic compounds and feeding them to a tree, mine stores it in a bottle.” He held up a small flask, mostly filled with a swirling murky haze. “I made it as an experiment.”

Together both men said “I’ll take one.” Gary laughed and said “I only made the prototype, when we get back I’ll make a few.” They both looked seriously at him. “We have two more of these this week.” Mikkel said calmly. “Maybe that no solo jobs rule is more of a guideline…”

Shai emerged onto the trail, holding a fist full of wild roses and mint. “Ye will nae be sending me boy into face those beasts alone, Mikkel ye spineless wretch!” She barked, inhaling deeply in the fresh air around Gary, “An he be makin me a ring afore ye, great children and layabouts, frightened o a bad smell.”

“Where were you when he was facing that thing Shai?” Mikkel asked, admiring her bouquet of aromatic plants. “Gathering flowers upwind while holding your nose?” He mocked.

“Aye, an I should be a great fool to enjoy that stench? Fie!” She pranced up gleefully and kissed his cheek… unmindful of the tiny fleck of noisome filth that transferred from his cheek to those suddenly less delightful lips.

Retching in horror, she staggered away, tasting the hell broth of a thousand boiled sphincters. She staggered and left the zone of Gary’s ring, once more subject to the full tangy zip that only festering garbage under a noonday sun can create, she collapsed. Gary slipped his ring onto her finger and carried her back to camp on his back, while she chewed morosely on a fistfull of mint and rose petals.

“Ah did nae think twould be me sucking on the plants.” She grumbled, green juice staining her lips.

Gary whispered “I'll conjure you a toothbrush when we hit camp.”

She kissed his ear, leaving a fragrant green stain, whispering; “Good boy.” before she drifted off to sleep.

Back at camp Dinner was ready as the sun set, roast wallow bear and vegetables with biscuits and honey. The fruit trees that the meadow now unexplainably possessed, were in fruit. Herbs for tea and cooking were just by chance growing nearby.

That was just too much for Mikkel and he started huffing about getting some answers from Otho back in town… from a comfortable camp chair, over an empty plate, with a wooden mug of tea in hand.

“I should turn this whole manic caravan right back to town and see what that old monkey set me on about.” He grumbled as the group headed to the bamboo stand. He stood there for a long moment before giving up and pulling off his peg leg.

“One of you kids help an old man into the pool. Don't want my leg getting rotten.” From then on he just seemed to expect that everything in camp would be taken care of. “That old monkey said I would have a comfortable trip and that you were serious about the Adventuring life. So far so good kids. Keep it up.” He spent the rest of the evening in the bath smoking.

In the morning when the little band was ready to move out, Mikkel took Liam’s promise that camp would be “taken care of by Gary” at face value. Their first quarry was a mundane boar, a commuter, coming in from the hills to rummage in garden beds at night.

Any ordinary hunter might have taken it but since they were going that way, Mikkel picked it up. There was a job board that any journeyman or any accredited team of apprentices could claim jobs from. Local nuisances to be hunted or odd jobs of an adventuring sort, like gathering herbs and minerals from the wilds. More serious threats like true monsters or bandits were taken to the temples of War or Order respectively.

Otho flushed the boar onto Liam’s spear and it wrapped up quickly, leading to a haul of pork and a much more intact boar skin.

After that it was a small arboreal creature. A coconut crab on four goat hooves with a scorpion tail and huge pincers, it was hideous but after the trapdoor, Gary was only mildly terrified.

Tallum teed off on the aggressive scuttling nasty with his club and reduced it to a crumpled pile. A reeking mess which Otho ate with delight. Ivy seemed less enthusiastic about the flavor. “Can you make a ring for smell and taste?” She asked, while Otho was grooming his tender, hard to reach areas. “Noted sister of mine.” Gary replied, while a still exhausted Shai curled up on him after lunch.

“Ye slept poorly last night again boy o mine” she said, softly so that only he heard. “I didnae sleep at all fer the aftertaste. Ye did nae much better.” Into her hair he mumbled.

“Just bad dreams, I can't even remember it.” He shook his head sadly. “Its like I'm forgetting something important.”

He thought for a while as they marched heading higher into the hills. “I landed out this way” He whispered to Shai. “A Few miles east of here. Maybe that’s it, I never made a marker for Z, I did promise.” That seemed to settle his mind.

That afternoon they stopped in a little dip in the landscape, not quite a dell. “Do whatever it is you do kid.” Mikkel said, plopping down on a rock to smoke. Ivy settled like a vulture watching closely to his every move.

Her stare made him self conscious so he closed his eyes and began to clap, a rock solid four four beat. Shai’s bells started, then her tambourine. Ivy joined in on her drum, low thudding beat picking up Gary’s rhythm. She was still watching though. When he materialized his new mandolin and started in on ‘I’m A Believer’ she got caught up and missed the point where the tents and trees appeared, again. They were always where she was just looking a moment before.

Mikkel grinned and got off his rock. “Ok, we have two zero threat jobs. A death's head locust and spore wasps.” They all groaned except Gary. “What's up Shai?” she shook her head.

”It be the wasps, they be troublesome for a thing so harmless. The spores do flutter and drift, mindless save staying aloft near the hive. An someone damage the hive, they do all rush back blindly and sting the fool tae the edge of madness.” She shook her head, “The sting do burn and itch fer some hours but does nae real harm. The night of the sting ye be plagued with nightmares born of the wasp venom, they be odd and uncomfortable but do nae harm.”

Otho startled a grasshopper the size of a small deer out of a tree, Ivy swatted it with her staff, sending it spinning onto Shai’s shorter sword. The bug was quite fragile, being mostly hollow to allow it to make short flights. It was the death's head locust, they ate the inner bark of fruit trees and laid eggs in the holes, the eggs didn't hatch because monsters don't reproduce, they would just rot into a poisonous slime that would kill the tree.

The sun was still high when they stopped at a low hill less than a quarter mile from their camp. Fluttering gray green somethings flitted about, drifting sporadically. They made a loose net on the hilltop around a tree infected with a bloated greenish mass.

They gathered around, outside the range of the farthest drifting mote. “Normally we would burn the tree, but it's too dry up here, so someone has to go in and get it.” Liam said, looking unhappy.

“Surely meself and Gary will do the thing. An ye shall cover for our sleepless night on the morrow.” Shai offered. “I hae been stung before an it does nae frighten me. Gary is nay so frail as to fear a silly mushroom monster. We shall be sleepless together he and I.”

Liam started to protest, but she halted him. “Tis a common monster among hill folk and tis our tradition that smiths do be the ones tae do for them. As we learn early tae nae fear burns nor pain. Tis the law o my people an Gary be under me tutelage, smith wise.”

Tallum was nodding and limbering up. “Yup.”

Shai waved him off. “Two be enough and more, brother. Ye can dig us a hole tae drop the thing in.”

The plan was to slip in close, Shai would slash the thing off the tree and Gary would wrap it in the wallow bear hide to avoid touching it directly. They would run out dodging the flying drones as best they could, drop the thing in a hole and bury it.

Apparently the monster would latch onto a tree, feed on it until it died and then a mote would attach to a new tree and grow a new monster as the old one died with the tree. Burying it in a hole would break the cycle as it would die before being able to reestablish itself.

It worked in theory, but Gary’s hide had too many holes and he immediately touched it with his left hand while wrapping it up.

Shai caught one right on the nose as they were making their escape with their oddly light and spongy prize. It was literally a mushroom, only its odd travel ability made it a monster.

Once free of the field of flying spores they were no match in speed for the fleeing adventurers, loudly cursing in pain. The fluttering things began to gather over their own grave as the adventurers headed for camp.

When grilled, death's head locust tasted like lobster. “Where can we get more of these?” Gary asked. “That was delicious!” while admiring the Iridescent blue green carapace with a black grinning skull on the widest part near the head. It would make a beautiful inlay material. “Anybody mind if I keep the shells?” Nobody minded at all.

“He's very odd..” Mikkel remarked, handing his short clay pipe to Liam while dinner was cleared away.

“He is odd. But Shai likes him.”

Mikkel grunted. “So do you kid. You were just a trembling ball of rage when Otho took you in. You've grown into a fine young man, but that kid is pushing you to try harder and reach farther. You need that. He needs guidance, I swear he fights like he got his first spear six months ago.” Liam laughed at that for some reason.

“It’ll be nice to have young blood in the guild, it's been nothing but old farts for years.” He said, floating with his pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth.

“Are ye nae the oldest living member in Wheatford?” Shai asked sarcastically.

“I’m young at heart, kid.” He grumbled.

“Hey, there's a song about that!” He subjected them to a nude acapella golden oldies retrospective that wrapped up on, ‘I Go Out Walking After Midnight’. “Always end on Patsy Cline if you can.” He opined sagely, enlightening no one.

After only a few minutes in the bath, the burning sting of the mushroom toxin was gone, leaving unblemished skin.

Gary and Shai retired from the bath early and crawled into their magically sound proof tent to sleep. They curled together as though they could not get close enough together and slept.

She was early to the party, terribly early.

Things were set out for a garden party and it looked mostly ready, the least she could do was help set up. The sky was filled with transparent bubbles, strung together on strands of gossamer in a network that defied logic. Beyond the bubbles, galaxies and nebulae whirled in their eternal dance.

A person who was not Gary but almost could have been, stood on a raised platform watching two wheels mounted to his table top spin. He stared as though the fate of nations rode on the outcome of his spinning wheels. He paid her no mind, fixated on his wheels.

From somewhere music was thrumming, bass heavy and repetitive. It had a phrase repeated over and over again but she did not recognize the language. It was right on the edge of being too much to deal with.

At the refreshment tables there was food laid out and it all looked good, but it was sealed behind some transparent barrier she could not figure out. The only thing open was a tiered fountain of some rich sweet smelling semi liquid. It smelled divine, but the only available utensil was a tray of skewered fruits, bright red and stacked in ranks ready to go.

They were chili peppers of the most virulent sort, they radiated a physical heat in this place, shimmering dangerously.

A person, also almost but Notgary, was standing beside her without moving. Notgary smiled benignly. “A little early, but I don’t mind. Ooo! Don’t mind if I do!”

He took up a shimmering pepper and plunged it into the fountain taking a huge bite. “That's a little spicy!” He said as red blisters formed on his lips, and spread down his throat. To her horror, he began to blow away in dusty puffs until nothing was left.

She stumbled away, to the beverage table, everything was sealed up in strange crates and boxes labeled in three or twenty different languages, she was unsure.

Under the table a shining steel keg was tapped and ready, it was sputtering and fizzing dangerously. With a cautious finger she tasted it. Beer, good beer too. But it was ready to pop.

Notgary calmly strode up with a huge maul and a wooden tap. He placed the new tap and drove it into the old one, which somehow worked, reducing it to a quiet fizz. “That's not gonna hold.” The beer soaked man said.

She heard a sound behind her, a soft wet sound. Looking back, she had left a trail of terrible wet and dirty footprints everywhere she had wandered. Notgary had a wheeled bucket and a mop, diligently trying to clean up.

In horror she took off her filth caked boots and threw them over the garden wall into the void beyond. Her bare feet left equally vile tracks behind her, but Notgary smiled and kept mopping up.

In the garden wall, there were a number of crumbled, broken or leaning sections, each one roped off with a thick green velvet cord on shining brass stanchions. At the gate stood Notgary, dressed in strange, dark clothes that suited him very well. He was holding a wooden board with a steel clip riveted to it. Under the clip was a tiny piece of paper.

On the other side of the rope, stretching off into the distance was a line of eldritch horrors. Each one more mind-bendingly strange and unnatural than the last. Notgary was telling a shockingly beautiful nude woman, composed entirely of plump white wriggling maggots, that she was “not on the list.”.

As she stepped away a goat with three human eyes, porcupine quills and oozing sores stepped up. “Sorry, you are not on the list.”. It was followed by a starfish with gently waving tentacles in the thousands and a maw filled with independent teeth that never stopped gnashing and biting at themselves. “Sorry, you are not on the list.”.

Shai snuck closer and peeked at the list.

???

Shai (soon)

Notgary in the dark suit turned and whispered, “You are early Shai.” before telling an entity comprised of smoke, flame and tormented souls, “Sorry, you are not on the list.”. A tentacled monstrosity two horrors back burbled and squealed, emitting a series of foul smells.

“She is on the list asshole, get lost before I tie a knot in you and shove the whole mess into the Devourer of Souls. He's pretty sick of your shit.” Notgary jerked a thumb at a nebula drifting prettily in the near distance, which flashed an angry red and somehow looked hungry. “Sorry, you are not on the list.”.

Among the trees and arbors, Notgary was hanging decorations for some kind of celebration of pumpkins and whimsical skeletons, each one unique. Notgary had a seeping head wound. It was crudely bandaged smearing blood all over the decorations he was hanging with such care. As he moved on, the blood spots spread and decayed until the paper cutouts and bunting crumbled to drifting ash. He returned to hang new ones, each still unique, with the same result.

She still couldn’t find Gary, and someone was still knocking on the door. Knocking, knocking, knocking… She went inside and looked through the peephole in the door.

She awoke with a shattering scream; hers, but also Gary’s. Hers died out quickly, but he slowly modulated into a hideous burbling chant, repeated again and again, diminishing as he vanished, naked into the night.

Companions and their equipment fell to the grassy dell, as the camp dissolved around them, vanishing into wherever it came from.

In the moonlight they heard Shai call out, “Me boy is gripped in some mushroom dream! Move ye sluggards, Im Fer chasin nae waitin, catch us an ye can.” As she dashed out into the night wearing swords, boots and not much else.

Pursuing that horrid chant into the darkened hills, lashed by brush and slipping over unseen hazards in the moonlight, she chased that awful sound. Soon his voice was lost, leaving only the sound of distant, headlong flight through the sparse woods to guide her.