“The quiet village may be best,” Lily continued. “If someone still lives there, they may be helpful.”

“And…?” Gwen crossed her arms with a smirk.

“...yes, if it’s empty, we can get supplies and a place to rest if it comes to that,” replied Lily with gritted teeth. “But pardon me for not hoping the first place we find is abandoned or dead, Gwendoyln.”

The trio set off through the forest towards where Gwen had seen the village. The first thing the trio had noticed is that some of the trees weren’t trees at all. There were stalagmites with sharp edges jutting from the ground like a subterranean revolt.This worried and intrigued the trio in equal measure. Was this a natural feature of this forest for years? A result of an ancient battle? Or the result of a recent battle?

“I wonder if there are any monsters out here. You know - like an RPG,” wondered Gwen aloud.

“Monsters? You mean just really wild animals?” wondered Sora in contrast.

“No, I mean…” Gwen paused. “Have you not ever played an RPG before? Or read those books Lily reads?”

“No, I...no.” This answer from Sora surprised Lily enough to not immediately call out Gwen for her familiarity.

“But your name is Sora,” said Gwen in disbelief. “How has no one brought up...”

“Can’t you even finish a sentence, Gwendolyn?” Lily asked, annoyed at her being distracted. As she turned back around to keep walking, Gwen stopped her by holding onto her shoulder. “What!?”

Gwen hushed the aggravated brunette. “I wondered about monsters and one may be on us right now, so maybe keep it down.”

This caused Sora and Lily to tense. Gwen unzipped her case and pulled out her guitar. It was an electric guitar - no surprise to Lily - colored black and red on its front. A purple eye-like symbol was near where the strap met the guitar. But Gwen wasn’t wearing her guitar; she was holding it by the fretboard like it was a battle axe.

Lily’s eyes darted around the area, but she couldn’t keep her focus off of Gwen for long. The thought of her using her guitar as a weapon, while she had to reluctantly admit was quite inspired, seemed unlikely to work.

Soon it got close enough for all three to hear the footsteps of something. But there were so many impacts upon the ground that they started to be concerned it was more than one thing approaching. Around the side of one of the spires was the culprit; it was some kind of giant insect. Whether it was closer to an ant or a termite wasn’t something immediately clear, but that was far from the more important fact. It was at least six feet tall with some kind of liquid dripping from its mandibles and many legs that seemed incredibly sharp looking. It had no eyes; its furiously moving antenna seemed to make up for that as it drew closer to the recently christened adults from another world. Its exoskeleton looked charred on the outside, giving this creature the impression that it had walked through fire and that couldn’t kill it.

But this didn’t stop Gwen from suddenly charging it.

WHAM! The guitar collided with the insect’s head, making its legs buckle and its body crashing to the ground.

“Wow, she just took it down!” exclaimed Sora.

“How did the guitar not break doing that!?” asked a shocked Lilian.

“We aren’t done yet,” said Gwen, who ignored both their questions. “Looks like I just surprised it.”

True to her word, the insect was starting to rise once again - though with a new crack in its exoskeleton. Gwen swung again, but this time was caught unaware as her wrists were caught by its mandibles. Gwen didn’t think it was going to be able to move that fast and she paid the price for her miscalculation by being tossed away. At least the tree she crashed into was actually a tree and not one of the sharpened spires around them. Lilian gritted her teeth; such a powerful monster suddenly showing up where they first started reeked of the handiwork of someone who spoke of Chaos. Her conscience battled against her pragmatism as the creature turned towards Gwen as she started to stand up, cursing in her pained state.

“Sora....I’ll draw it away and keep it busy. Just go help Gwendolyn.”

“But...what about you? At least Gwen had a weapon of sorts.”

“Gwendolyn is not smarter than me, Sora. Now give me some space.”

Lilian picked up a nearby rock as she urged Sora to sidestep away. She threw it at the giant insect. The first one...didn’t fly as far as she hoped and the monster didn’t notice.

Is gravity different here? Or magic did something? I felt like I threw it with enough force but it just… Something felt off about that and I don’t like it.

Lilian tried it again, this time nearly taking out of its legs as it almost toppled all over again. That wasn’t exactly the plan, but at least she got the bug to turn and “look” at her.

“Come on, you damn drone!” she taunted, only moving once the insect started to advance towards her. She did get slightly surprised by the speed of the beast, but snaking between the trees and spires, she kept ahead of the beast.

“Gwen, are you alright?” Sora was supporting Gwen to help her up.

“Please, I’ve felt worse in the mosh pit,” said Gwen. “Better question is why did you leave Lily to that thing!?”

“She insisted I help you!” pleaded Sora.

Gwen immediately started running in pursuit of the insect, her adrenaline urging her speed to increase. Meanwhile, Lilian was only barely keeping ahead of the giant insect as she kept tight turns. Behind her, she heard a loud thud. Against her better judgement, she turned around. To Lilian’s surprise, it had stumbled into a spire that she hadn’t been cutting around.

It’s like the thing lost balance...how hard did Gwendoyln hit the thing? I didn’t know insects like this could even get concussed!

She picked up a larger, heavy rock to start bashing the insect in the head. She saw cracks in the exoskeleton; she grinned at her effort before she was flung back by one wild move of the monster’s head.

Thud. Now it was Lilian’s turn to collide with a tree. She wasn’t as much as physically active as Gwen, so this rattled her more than it did the guitar-slinging punk.

It got up and advanced towards her, but Lilian rolled away and got behind the tree. Its next attack clipped the tree and missed Lilian, giving her time to pick up her rock once again, nailing three big hits before being sent flying again, this time into one of the smaller spires. She cried out as it cut into her back; she felt like it drew blood, but she couldn’t be sure. The insect drew close enough that she could hear the liquid dripping from the mandibles hiss as it hit the ground.

Damn it...may not have a choice but t--

WHAM! A sudden crunching sound made Lilian look up. There was Gwen with her guitar hitting the insect right between the antennae. It crumpled, but Gwen kept bashing it, finally breaking one of the feelers in the process. It finally stopped moving. Before even uttering a word, she helped Lilian up. Lilian bit her lip, conflicted about this.

“Are you alright!?” said Gwen. “To think you tried to fight that thing on your own!”

A mild bit of stammering finally gave way to Lilian’s words. “I should be the one saying that! How did you just do that!? And with your guitar barely damaged on top of that!?”

Gwen glanced at the guitar as it was indeed barely scratched. “Of course you had to be all sharp-eyed and shit.”

“You mean eagle-eyed.” Those same eyes spotted what appeared to be slight burns on Gwen’s wrists.

A groan from Gwen. “Look, I’ll explain later where there are no more monsters. Maybe let’s get going towards that village?”

From the unwavering gait, Lilian could tell Gwen still knew what direction the village was and wasn’t as affected by the hit she took as she herself was. Sora kept Lilian steady as he approached.

“...why do you hate her so much?” Sora finally asked quietly. “She doesn’t seem to be as mad at you as you are at her.”

“That’s the almost funny part,” she said with a hiss born of pain and frustration. “She doesn’t see how much she’s making things worse for me.”

She then started walking ahead of Sora, keeping her distance from both him and Gwen. Sora could only watch her from behind with red lines trailing down the skin of her now slightly exposed back.

Soon enough, the little village was in sight. A short fence went around the houses and fields that marked more of a boundary than for security with a banner above the entrance - if one could call the space unfenced in front of them an entrance. It was idyllic and sweet to the senses. Gwen reached out with her right hand like she was expecting something to reject or block her, but nothing happened. She didn’t feel any different.

All she and Lilian noticed was the sound of revelry from the other village across a large field of flowers - despite looking like it was miles away - and the faint sound of bells deeper in the village. Everything else near where they were was dead silent.