“I think it’s backed off for the moment,” Reeve said. She lowered her bow and sank back down behind the partially destroyed stone wall that was providing their cover.

“Or it’s circling to strike from our flank or rear,” Dusk said. She dropped to a squat, slid Leaf from her shoulders, and propped the paralyzed fallen elf against the wall.

“What is it? It’s like a wolf-moose. Moose-wolf? I don’t know, but that thing is not right, and I’ve seen some pretty freaky creatures in this ga...world.” Reeve looked at her mother. ”How’s Thomanji'yheri?”

The fighter raised her gaze from the dwarf’s still body. “Who?”

“Thomanji'yheri.”

Wanda looked at Reeve blankly.

“Tom.”

“Oh. He hasn’t spoken in the last half hour, but the bleeding seems to have stopped after Dusk…”

“Cauterized it,” Reeve said, looking at Dusk and raising her eyebrows, “using a disturbing amount of fire magic. The fact that he stopped talking to us after we decided to do that may not be a coincidence.“

“I’m not sure he’s awake at all, Mija.”

“Probably for the best.” Reeve’s voice dropped to be nearly inaudible. “I wish I was unconscious for large parts of the last few weeks.” She slowly rose to take another look at the plain across which they’d fled the beast that had met them at the riverbank. She sank back down and stared at the piles of rubble before them that marked the edge of the town. “Wolf-moose. Woose?” She continued speaking quietly to herself. “Molf? Moolf? That just sounds stupid. I wish we’d gotten a hit in so that I could check my logs for details on it.”

“Reeve, we need a healer,” Dusk said. “Leaf’s condition may soon worsen, and the dwarf may not have long either, his lifeblood runs shallow.”

“I know, I know. Give me a sec to try to figure out where we are and where we might try to go.” She pulled up her UI. “We…wait, wait. My Companion Log is empty?”

“It’s in your UI, Honey,” Walter said. “I think it’s part of the Stats panel.”

“No, it’s not, and I know where it is, and I’m already in my UI and—ow!” Reeve slapped a calloused hand to her mouth to belatedly muffle the cry of pain caused by something small, hard, and sharp striking her forehead. She looked at the party. “What was that?”

“What’s what what?” Walter said. Reeve could barely see him, so obscured was he as Bunce practically sat on his lap.

“Something—ow!” Reeve rocked forward onto the balls of her feet and looked more closely at the rubble. “Something keeps hitting me in the head.”

“This way, half-orc.” The whisper was so high and quiet that Reeve almost missed it.

“What?” She whispered back.

Almost invisible in the near darkness, a repeated flash of motion caught Reeve’s eye from below a huge stone perched on smaller rubble. “Follow me, if you want to escape the Duskhound. It closes on you as we speak.”

Reeve stared under the boulder for a few seconds. “Seriously?” She turned to Dusk. “It’s funny, right?”

The half-elf returned her gaze, expression blank.

“Because you’re Dusk. And that thing’s been…never mind. Let’s go. I don’t have a better plan.” She looked toward her parents. “Everybody, under the talking rock. Halflings and poorly built fighters first. I’ll keep watch for the…apparently for the Duskhound. Let’s move.”

Leaning forward onto her hands, Dusk lowered herself and looked along the ground into the gap below the huge stone. She pushed herself back up into a squat. “I can see nothing.”

“Sounds bad,” Reeve said. “But not as bad as the Duskhound flanking us.”

Dusk rocked her head a few times. “Very well.” Staying low, she moved to the stone and then lowered herself once again onto her hands, from which she lay on her stomach and worked herself slowly into the space beneath, her trailing braid the last thing to disappear. After a few seconds, there was a sound of feet landing lightly on a hard surface and then Dusk’s hand extended from beneath the stone, waving Reeve under.

Reeve turned and hooked Leaf under the arm and dragged her to the stone, lay her on the ground, and extended Leaf’s arm out from her body until Dusk could grip it. Together, they slid Leaf under the stone until she disappeared into the darkness. A moment later, there was a sound like a bag of potatoes being dropped from height.

“Everything OK?” Reeve whispered.

“She was already a fallen elf,” Dusk’s voice echoed slightly. “Let us not speak of it, and perhaps she will not remember once revived.”

Reeve retrieved Thomanji'yheri and repeated the delivery to Dusk, his disappearance followed by the sound of a larger bag of potatoes being dropped from height.

“Fallen dwarf?” Reeve whispered.

“He weighs at least twice Leaf.”

Reeve waved her parents under the rock, then spent more than two minutes explaining to her father what she wanted him to do and why, which she found extremely frustrating, but not as frustrating as having to repeat the conversation with her mother, who somehow had missed the key points of the conversation that had just taken place right in front of her.

Wanda disappeared under the stone without incident, and then Walter slid under with the subsequent sound of a tiny but very surprised and hurt bag of potatoes being dropped from height.

Reeve scratched one eyebrow and looked at Bunce, who helpfully disappeared under the stone without instruction and without subsequent injury from whatever lay beyond.

Reeve sat back on her ankles and stared at the ground, enjoying the quiet. She looked around the darkness and considered whether she should walk, alone and unencumbered by her parents, into the darkness to face the Duskhound and whatever else might befall her. It would be so much simpler that way.

With a sigh, she lowered herself to her chest and, bow and naginata each in a hand, inched sideways into the darkness.