The creature in the branches above me was unsettling, tall and gangly, with long twisted arms ending in clawed hands, bent legs that ended in splayed talons that gripped the tree branches and bright yellow eyes hidden within the darkness of a hood. The garb of the creature was made of rotting leathers and linen, with moss and bark making up a patchwork of repairs.

This all filtered in my head as I was already rolling out of the way of the descending creature. It hissed and sputtered, falling down and stabbing the earth where I had once been. Clutched in its twisted hands were a pair of short weapons, an axe and sickle, and falling from its garb were more bugs.

“Human!,” it hissed, its back bent forward as it hobbled towards me, weapons ready. “Surrender and-”

“Produce fire!” The sudden firelight spooked the creature, and my sword glowed with an Igni rune, my new talent already taking hold. The hastily flung flames missed, and I slashed wide, forcing the creature back. My glowing sword illuminated the forest around me, and past the nearest trees all I could see was darkness. “What the hell are you?”

The creature dropped down onto all fours and skittered out of sight, climbing back up a tree. In its wake was a centipede that was as big as me that rushed ahead, mandibles cracking the misty air. As it opened its maw and spat out a glob of gunk I stabbed ahead, piercing its head. The Igni rune delivered extra fire damage into my hit, igniting the gunk and bursting the body of the centipede.

I jumped back, dodging the flaming green fluid and covered my mouth as it steamed on the bark of a tree, acrid air wafting from it. “Guys, where are you? We have trouble here!”

I could see a flashing notification and called it up.

Knowledge Religion : Forest Stalkers are cursed hunters that once walked the many worlds hunting great beasts. They fell during hunt and through twisted pacts or rash choices curse themselves into a new form. They use a mixture of primal deceptive magic and poison coated weapons to incapacitate prey, taking them back so that Kalio’s chosen hunters can prove their worth. In exchange they gain favour with the hunter god, ending their own curse through service.

Forest Stalker, Level 6 Bounty Hunter

I didn’t have much else to go on, as the stats it listed for it were blank. Despite how quickly it could flee out of sight I didn’t think its dexterity stat was that high. I tossed the sword between my hands, switching my grip. A new grey box was in the very corner of my vision and when I brought it up I could see an icon of a stick man holding up a rock, and another figure running.

Martial Momentum

+1 Strength +1 Dexterity

“Good to see that’s working,” I said, twisting around to look for my missing allies and opponents. “Hello there.”

Perception Check : Success!

+1 XP gained.

Coiled up on a branch in my sight line was a big black beetle with green runes running up the sides of it. It was dead, and produced an aura of magic that was different to what I used to. I poked it with my sword, and it crumbled to dust. The darkness outside my immediate area vanished with it, letting me see further in the dusky forest, and hearing the sound of battle.

Scholar Livy

Student! These things are using bugs to stitch illusionary traps around the forest. You need to leave, this whole place is probably crawling with them.

“Oi, I’ll rip your beardless head off you freak!” The gruff voice of Sten shook the trees and I heard a crash. “You're a tough one, I’ll give you that!”

I followed the noise, pausing every few steps to check the trees above me. Everywhere I looked I could see trees with missing bits of bark, like an army of beavers had swept past, and dead insects on the cold earth. The ground suddenly gave way, dropping down, showing the signs of a recent mudslide. My hand shot out, grabbing a large branch catching me before I fell. Down below was a wide and deep path that went in either direction, with less dense vegetation. A dried out river bed, now a battlefield.

Another creature ran past my vantage point, but this one carried a bow made of horn and bone. It reached behind towards its back, and a sickly crunch came from it. A boney protrusion shot out inches from it’s hand, and it pulled, tearing it out. The length of bone or whatever it was, formed an arrow and the creature held up a runestone to it. Ice coated the end of it, forming a broadhead arrow and it took aim at something.

I heard Sten shout again, in the direction it was aiming. I reached into the bandolier and threw my hand towards the bow wielding stalker. “Rope of binding!” The creature sputtered and shot hastily, its arrow firing into the side of the river bed. I ran down the slope, sliding most of the way in the mud and brought my sword towards it. “Get out of my woods!”

The creature hissed, tied up around its torso, locking the bow under its chin. It ducked my first strike, and rammed me with its side. I dug my feet into the muddy ground, and kicked its knee, dropping it down. I was too close to get another proper swing in, so I grasped the blade and brought up the crossguard, slamming it in the side of the head. My Martial Momentum talent pinged off, raising the bonus to two, and new found strength and speed filled my limbs.

The forest stalkers were strong, but they were light for their size, and I kept up the pace, slashing, stabbing and dodging any bites from it in turn. It hissed and bent its back, lowering the ropes. A pair of moth wings burst from its back and it jumped up, while biting the ropes, freeing itself. The spell ended, and my string fell to the earth, split in twain.

“Get down here!” I spat, following it from below, until the forest stalker’s wings started to fall apart. It shot an arrow towards me as it descended, hitting me square in the chest. “Shit.” I was wheezing, feeling like someone had slugged me in the chest with a bat. My armour was fine and I brushed it off, and gave chase again, leaping over a fallen trunk, and dashing through shrubs.

The forest stalker’s wings burnt away like flash paper and it hurtled to the ground, landing in moss. When it turned to let loose another frost arrow I dodged to the side, ducking behind a pine trunk. My hands felt colder all of a sudden, and ice collected down the fuller of the blade as if it was soaking it in.

The forest stalker sprinted around the corner, arrow primed, whereas I dove, flinging an orb of flames towards it. The arrow and magical fire hit mid air, bursting and cancelling the other out. It left the stalker and me in a close melee, and we surged at each other. It parried with its bow, splinters of bone flying into the air, forcing my sword tip into the muck. It snapped its maw towards me, pinching mandibles cracking the air, and I tore my sword out of the ground, thrusting the pommel up, cracking it off the thing's chin, dazing it. Green and black ichor flowed down its rotten garb, churning my stomach from the stench.

I felt sick being near this thing, and I shuffled back before I threw up. It moved unnaturally, smelled of rot, mould and stale air, and worst of all was the bugs that kept falling out of its sleeves. It looked up at me, showing a wooden mask of a rat covering its face except for its jaws. A spider crawled out from one of the eye sockets, showing the yellow of its eyes were pits of glowing hate instead of physical things.

“Whatever you are, get out of my woods, and leave my friends alone!” I strode towards it, my sword’s point raised, level with its chest.

“Oh, what a strange thing for another hunter's prey to find me.” It wheezed, letting out a laugh. It held up its hands as if to surrender, then pointed to the ground. “Mud pit.”

I furrowed my brow, realizing too late it was casting a spell. I sunk half a foot into the muck, my boots getting stuck and the earth around me turning into the spells namesake. The forest stalker cackled and tossed one of the big beetles into the air, with glowing sides, and I felt pain behind my eyes.

Intelligence Save : Success!

The illusionary spell effect put a small bubble of magic around my head, with a second one a dozen feet away or so. The outer bubble filtered the light, making the woods seem darker, more freighting and twisted. When I glared hard I was able to peel back the filter, seeing what was really there. The beetle was drying out, dying rapidly as it hovered in the air, making a second projection of itself to distract me.

I raised my hand to summon another fire orb and felt bile rise up my throat. “Ah! Got to cool it with the spells for a sec.” I sunk deeper into the pit, and tore into my bag taking out the crossbow. I lined up the shot and squeezed, the first bolt going wide. “Come on…”

The second shot hit true, and the beetle fell, ending the illusion. The mud pit was still here and I swore. I looked around for options, seeing a dead fallen tree a few paces behind me. I swallowed a Go Berry, and used another string. Using Rope of Binding on myself I aimed at the tree and felt my stomach fall to my feet. The end of the rope wrapped around the tree, and as soon as I was tied up, I went flying, slamming into the dead tree, smashing the weakened bark to bits.

“That works, I guess,” I coughed. I shook my head and felt suddenly weak, or more precisely, more normal. “Damn, it doesn’t last terribly long, does it Livy?”

Scholar Livy

A worthwhile talent still. I summarize these creatures might be about the same as you in terms of physical might, but they lack weight to really push it. It makes sense, these things are recorded as ambush creatures, as when they are outside the sacred hunting lands of Kalio they are slightly weakened.

Their illusions will have trouble sticking to you for a while, as you succeeded on your check. At least for a day or so it will have very little effect on you until your natural magics return to normal.

I grabbed my sword and crossbow off the ground, and kept low. I didn’t see any signs of where my opponent went, and the sounds of my allies fighting was getting away from me. Livy had primed up a few interesting pages about how charms and illusions had a sort of cooldown timer on any given creature it was used on.

“Listen I appreciate it, but I’m fighting for my life here right now,” I whispered.

Scholar Terrive

Sorry! Being ghosts and all we kind of forget the fear of dying. Good job so far, I only detect internal bleeding!

I tugged on my dragon scale mail, and looked down my shirt. I summoned a fire orb over my shoulder and saw my sternum and ribs were purple, and the adrenaline waned. The sudden sore feeling of pain made it harder to breathe and I downed a potion, watching the bruised, purple flesh turn a healthy shade once more. A very, very uncomfortable pop came from my chest as the ribs settled back into place.

I shuddered, and squinted my eyes. I didn’t know what was worse, all the creepy bugs or that sound.

I kept low, moving between tree cover and reloaded the crossbow with a few magical bolts for a more exciting effect downrange. More trees had fallen into the river bed, and were stripped of bark, branches and vegetation. Within the hollow of one oak was a terrified squirrel, looking up at me as it clutched its acorns to its chest. A line of black beetles was moving away from the tree holding onto a few nuts, stolen from the animal.

I reached down, scooping up a handful of the nuts, and stomped on the insects. I sprinkled them into the hollow of the tree and hushed the squirrel before it started to chirp. I made my way further, seeing far ahead a sort of dam, with barricaded tree bits, mounds of bark, a few tents, and remnants of fire. A camp, and outside it, rolling in the mud were my three allies fighting each other.

“Why won’t you die, you monster!” Sten yelled from Bent’s shoulders, coated in ichor, blood and mud. He held onto a rope around the ogre’s neck, pulling back with all his might. “I won’t die to no fairy nonsens!”

Bent growled, a dozen darts, and thorns peppering his sides. He swatted behind him, unable to twist far enough to reach the dwarf. “Come ‘er you gnat!”

Tennu stood beside a forest stalker with the sickle and axe, taking aim with a shortbow. The young wolf-kin looked nervous, the bow shaking in his grasp. “Hold still Bent, I can’t hit them when you're moving like that!” He turned to the stalker, and I could see a pinkish magic around his eyes. “Come on Sten, give me a hand!”

The scholars pointed out he was under a charm. They were probably all under one at the moment.

Bent roared, pointing at Tennu. “I’m not falling for any magic tricks, evil fairy!”

I saw black, and pink mist form bubbles around their heads, and hovering in the air by the forest stalker were three of the beetles with glowing runes on their sides. The hurt stalker with the bow was running towards his ally, weaving between bare shrubs and I pointed my crossbow at him, waiting to line up my shot, ready to put one between his shoulders.

Bent managed to swivel hard, sending Sten away from him and faster that I could blink the ogre’s hand shot out, grabbing Sten by the leg. He turned, and hurled the dwarf at Tennu like a fast ball. Tennu ducked, and Sten slammed into a surprised forest stalker, sending the two of them crashing back into the camp.

The bow stalker helped Tennu up, and pointed to the camp, then spoke, mimicking Sten’s voice, “I’ll be right behind you!” then letting him run ahead on his own. Bent barrelled into the camp. I glared as the stalkers dropped down again, obscuring my vision. The enchanted beetles were descending, weakening, their spells about to run out.

Striding swiftly towards them was a third, bulkier forest stalker, this one carrying a heavy two handed spear, with a yellow metal spearhead, and glossy white wings on the side for a crossguard. He held a wand made of bone and waved it around them, rejuvenating the beetles.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” I said, pulling a ring out of my pocket. The black snake on it moved, eagerly awaiting what was to come. I slipped it on my finger, and pointed my hand towards the new stalker, and the beetles. “Fireball.”

The air was sucked from my lungs, as the winds gathered at my finger tip, condensing into a highly pressurised sphere. It lit with brilliant flames, then streaked ahead, right to where I was pointing. The big forest stalker dropped his spear, grew locust wings and jumped, but it was all in vain. The fistsized ball of fire exploded, creating a shockwave that rippled the bushes and echoed down the riverbed. In an instant the vegetation was gone, and in the blackened zone were a few piles of ash for the bugs.

The forest stalkers were again missing, and I took the chance, running headlong into the camp to help my friends. As I ran I wiped my brow coated in sweat as the continued use of magic was reaching my limit. I jumped over the lower barricades, my boots propelling me higher, and I landed on one of the mounds. The campsite was covered in rubbish, wood shavings and the few tents made of furs.

“You guys alive?” I asked, summoning flames into my hand to see better.

Bent came out from a collapsed tent, clutched his head, and Sten pushed over the remains of a wagon, most of the wood stripped away. The dwarf gave me a shaky thumbs up, and looked at his pickaxe, seeing my magical mark illuminate the spike. “Neat.”

Hidden between two mounds with his shield wedged between them to protect them was Tennu, his ears poking over the rim. “Is this another trick?” He looked up, clutching his chipped battle axe that was also buffed from my spell talent. “Did we win?”

“I hope so, all this magic makes my head spin,” Bent mumbled, leaning against a mound for support. A muffled cry for help came from within. The ogre knocked on the side, with his head pressed against it. “Hello?”

The world turned green as a cloud of foul gas appeared around me. My companions shouted and I hopped down, hitting the ground and rolling on my shoulders. Tennu appeared over me, shield raised, catching an arrow that would have pierced my leg.

Constitution Save : Success!

The poison cloud rolled down into the camp and we scrambled back. The cloud dissipated and walking through was the three stalkers, with weapons drawn. They looked haggard, wheezing, and clutching their weapons as black and green gunk pooled around their twisted legs.

“You fight well, for prey,” the one with the spear hissed, his mandibles crackling. “Revel in your victory, for we were at the edge of our strength when you began to trail us.”

My allies lined up with me, shoulder to shoulder, facing off against the three monsters. They blocked off the exit to the camp, and the sheer sides of the river bed here would make it tricky to climb out. The mounds blocked off the exit behind us, leaving us in a battle arena to face our foes.

The bow stalker pulled back his string, and the Produce Fire I had been holding streaked towards him. His shot went wide, and the frost tip of his arrow cracked one of the mounds. I saw the spear head towards Sten, and I swung wide, trapping my crossguard against his. The creature snarled and I kicked his leg, feeling solid wood behind his skin. The attack granted me my Martial Momentum buff again, and I shoved into him, the slight edge of strength letting me drive him back.

“Hold him steady!” Sten yelled, running past me to slam his pick right into the heart of the creature. It roared in pain, and fled back, with a Sten crawling up his hide armour, earwigs falling all around them. He grabbed the mask on the stalker, and twisted its head back. “Punch them!”

Bent ran in, and I knocked the spear aside, and moved out of the way. The big man delivered a haymaker right into the forest stalker's jaw, breaking its mask in two, and launching a cloud of insects into the air.

I raised my palm and felt my veins burn when I tried to call on my magic. I quickly bit down on another Go Berry, my last for now, and summoned another simple fire orb. My companions weapons lit up with flames, and Tennu appeared in the fire light, dancing around the dual wielding stalker.

The wolf-kin was quick on his feet, shuffling side to side, and keeping the stalker's weapons at bay with his large round shield. I checked and saw Bent and Sten had the other two covered, and moved in to help the wolf-kin. The stalker was off-guard as we flanked from either side, testing his reach and skills as we swiped at his legs, and arms.

“Cowards!” the creature sputtered, twisting to parry my sword with his sickle, and delivering a glancing blow to my forearm.

I blocked the next swipe and bashed the flat of my sword into him, forcing him away and leaving him open. “You're the guy who jumped me and used illusions!”

Tennu roared and brought his battleaxe down as the buff was sputtering out. The blade bit into the stalker’s shoulder, flames burnt the hide armour and the wolf-kin’s cut separated the arm from the stalker's body. “You're a cursed coward who gave up their soul for a false life!”

The stalker shrieked and dashed away, wildly swiping the air with his sickle, keeping us away. Black and green goo flowed from the wound and its gaze went to its fallen axe, then us. “You know nothing, the great hunter will set his sights on you soon, and we will be avenged!”

Tennu beat on his shield and opened his arms wide, taunting the stalker. “Yeah, I’m a follower of Kalio. I know how this works. But seeing what has become of you makes me sick. I'll be a Heinekia follower from now on. Rather have a-”

The stalker sputtered, foam rolling from its jaws as it burst ahead at the wolf-kin in a blind rage. I pushed my hand towards Tennu and tapped my cloak. The gust of wind separated us and the stalker went past me, and my outstretched leg.

Athletics Check : Critical Success!

The stalker tripped over my foot, and tried to twist mid air. They fell into the remains of the wagon, and rusty bits of metal pierced its body. It continued to froth at the mouth, and thrashed.

“Allow me,” Tennu said, walking up to it. “I just hope your service ends soon, and you return to the great mother’s oak.” He buried the axe into the neck area and the stalker grew still. Centipedes fell out from the hide armour and twitched, dying on the ground. Tennu wrinkled his nose and spat. “Gross.”

We turned our sights back to Sten and Bent. Sten had the bowstring around the neck of a stalker from atop a mound, waiting for it to bleed out, while Bent had the neck of the bigger one in his hand. He used his fist to smash the mask into the forest stalker’s skull, sending all manner of creepy crawlies out the back of its head. The stalker had a vicious knife and it kept stabbing blindly at Bent’s chest, each time getting harmlessly deflected by Bent’s new armour.

“Die already!” Bent roared, thrashing the body of the stalker against a mound, chipping it apart and splitting it open. From within crawled out one of the hyena people. “Oh hi there, can you hold this?”

The hyena person blinked and did as asked, holding the struggling stalker by the arms as Bent reared back and headbutted it. The mask and skull of the stalker was driven down into its chest, and it bulged out around its torso. The big forest stalker stumbled back and forth, knife outstretched, and fell flat against the ground and grew still. The one Sten had strangled was finally dead, and in a pool of bug bits.

The hyena person looked bewildered, and nervously tapped his paws together. He was the one I had seen in the dream vision, the one with the shield that set himself ablaze with a fire aura. “Thanks for saving me?

The party has won an encounter!

+750 XP to Tennu

+400 XP to Josh

…

Tennu looked in awe at his battered shield and weapon, a large smile then broke out on his face. He pumped his fists into the sky and his tail wagged rapidly. “Yes, yes, yes! Finally I’m level three!”

The hyena guy joined in, and the two of them danced in a circle. Sten scratched at his head, and Bent looked into the mound, seeing bits of food and an empty waterskin. They looked at me and I shrugged. We took turns with Sten’s pick, cracking into the next mound and when it started to open we heard shouts inside.

“You're almost through! A little to the left!’ The voice was gruff, with my gut telling me it was a dwarf. And in short order we cracked it open, and sure enough a dwarf in a dusty shirt wearing a pair of overalls with a few tools in his belt crawled into the fading light. He had a huge brown beard that obscured most of his face. “Sten, is that you?”

“Cousin!” Sten tossed his pick to the side and embraced the new dwarf. He clapped him on the back and gestured to us. “Josh, Bent, this fine dwarf is Agante. He’s like my fourth cousin I think.”

“Third actually,” Agante mused, brushing wood chips out of his beard. He leaned back, cracking his back. “By the smith's great beard I need one of those crazy demon masseuses that beat you back into shape with a hammer. I thought I was going to be food for a magic beast.”

“What happened? Why were these things here?” I asked. I looked at the many mounds around the camp. “Why are there so many of you?”

The dwarf nervously looked around, breathing a sigh of relief as he counted the three corpses. “It’s a bit of a story. May I borrow your pickaxe Sten? You lot did the hard part, take a rest, and let me get a bit of work to stretch.”

“There should be a few more picks in one of those tents. I landed on them when Bent threw me halfway across Ewyernar,” Sten said, pointing at a collapsed one he had crawled out of.

Our big armoured ogre picked up an armful of tools and set them down. He sheepishly tapped his fingers together and looked at the ground. “Sorry.”

“Aye, nothing to be ashamed of,” Sten said, patting the ogre on the lower back. “That was a throw of a champion! Maybe the three of us meatheads running ahead was a bad plan. I assume that it was you that freed us Josh?”

I stuck the ring into my pocket, and nodded. “They had these bugs they put spell runes on. It's creepy and kind of gross, but it works. I should ask Burn if he might have potions for the future.”

Agante dug into the next mound, talking over his shoulder as he worked. “It’s partly our fault if I’m honest. Our mine site was near a lumber camp with some beastkin and humans. We needed good timber for the mineshafts and asked about cutting some trees. They were a bit weird about it, but agreed to so many per month. Well, we needed a few more and cut too many…” He shivered and turned back to his work.

Sten put up a hand to give Agante some space and checked the tools. I found a broom and Sten offered to sweep while Bent helped me clear a spot to light a fire for light. After removing the corpses we set them on fire in a muddy pit, less they rise as undead. I looked at the many dead bugs, but none of them rose from the grave to attack us. Thank the gods in this world there was some level of mercy.

I opened up my pack and got our rations out, and handed out water. Tennu parched his thirst and gave the rest of his to the hyena who thanked him a dozen times before gulping down the water. Agante managed to crack open two more mounds, freeing more dwarves who joined in on the effort.

They told Agante to take a break and he joined us around the fire. I passed him a drink and some rations and they vanished into his beard. The dwarf tapped his legs a few more times and sighed.

“What is it cousin?” Sten asked, reaching over to pat Agante on the side. “It wouldn’t be the first time in history a dwarf angered a tree hugging type by working too hard.”

“No no, it was a few extra trees yes, but we also sold subpar tools to the work camp.” Agante shook his head in shame. “Those tools would probably last them a few decades at the most before the steel failed.”

I raised an eyebrow, and thought back to home. How I wished that my store sold tools could last that long. It would have saved me a lot of headache.

Sten gasped. “But you told them they were second rate, right?”

Agante sank lower. “No…we told them they were blessed-”

“Cousin!” Sten hissed between his teeth. The other dwarves working on the mounds didn’t hear our conversation, they were too engrossed by the bewildered hyena woman towering over them. “That’s a high crime in the clan.”

“Aye, and they worked for some rich bastard too with connections to a few druid circles. Sanvolo I think was his name,” Agante said. He bit into his jerky and shook his head. “Someone fibbed, and when he learned we crossed him he said we could run, it would be good practice for his bounty hunters. We thought we gave them the slip, headed for the river lord’s lands, and came across a camp. We came to find shelter and found those monsters sticking those folk into the mounds.”

The hyena guy nodded. “Sanvolo had us hunt for old trinkets, but he was trying to underpay us. Our pack leader was going to have us ditch his contacts and try to fence the items ourselves, but they found us and gave chase through a portal. When the dwarves drew near I heard one use magic, and a man from far away ordered the creatures to capture them.”

My blood chilled, and not from the dropping temperature. Could Sanvolo be keeper Salvo, the one Icharn had tried to tip me off about? I sipped at a drink and looked at the flames of the fire. The stalkers said I was another hunter’s prey, and that one piece of information brought to mind my days of running the store.

Old hunters were always trying to get us to order extra bags of this salt lick so they could pour it on stumps near their property. They fed the deer bags of carrots and apples, and showed us pictures from their trail cams. Some of the old timers just liked seeing nature, but a few told me why they did. They were fattening them up at the bait pile for a great harvest when hunting season came.

The gnomes, the undead, the spread out attacks. I had the feeling for a while that this enemy keeper had just been testing the waters, throwing bodies at me to try to gauge my abilities, plan around it. The factions clearly didn’t get along and things got away from them, I got allies, I got stronger than they thought and managed to scrape by the skin of my teeth.

But what if it was all a ploy to ‘fatten’ me up? I brought up the logs from what people had said, even Yara had once said some people became keepers, fed their crystal and smashed them for the magical shards and ran. What if Keeper Slavo was a hunter, one that hunted keepers?

Then again, I had a hint of hope. Some of those hunters, when the time finally came, the only thing they hung up on the wall was a picture of their prized buck. The rifle left home, and instead the camera had taken its place. It was always, ‘maybe i’ll get them next year’ from them.

The more rational part of me told me I might not be so lucky.

“Are you their leader?” Entering my field of view was a hyena woman that reached up to Bent’s shoulder. She was built with speed, power and stamina in mind. Her athletic form pressed out on her hide armour vest, with her muscled body covered in scars shown to the world. Her big magical axe was being used as an armrest, and she tilted her head to the side, looking past her furry muzzle to look at me.

I got up and held out a hand, shaking the woman’s paws, paws I had felt like were once mine for a moment. “Josh, and you're never going to believe this…”

She tugged my arm, pulling me against her as she grappled my shoulders. My companions and all of the dwarves shouted, rising to their feet ready to fight. She sniffed my hair and gasped. “Dream walker! You heard me!”

I walked back out of her grip and put up a hand. “Whoa guys it’s alright.” I furrowed my brow and looked up at the hyena woman. “You did that?”

She puffed out her chest, and grinned. “My newest talent I got a while ago as the pack shaman. I can use places of a god’s power to contact their followers. That one was really hard to use and I didn’t think it worked.” She pulled me back again, with an arm around my shoulder to show me off to the rest of the hyena pack. “But it did, now thank the human.”

The group of exhausted and battered hyena people shyly waved at me, and showed their toothy smiles. I gave them a nervous wave back, feeling the might of the fluffy bipedal hyena beside me bear down on my shoulders. If I recall correctly hyenas back on earth had one of the strongest bites ever, and seeing so many teeth filled maws didn’t help.

Sten shook his empty cup, stood up and clapped his hands. “Josh, we are out of beer. Can we just take everyone home and call it a night?”

I looked at the sore and tired people that had been trapped. “Sure, let's head home.” A few cheers came from the crowd and we gathered up to leave. Behind me I heard something worrisome.

Sten chuckled. “Don’t worry cousin, there’s enough beer to last us at least a week.”

What would happen if we ran out? Livy called up a few first hand accounts of what happened if the cellars in any dwarven outpost ran dry. I readied the minions orders for the moment we got back in range.