We didn’t stop hustling, collecting everything we could and killing anything in our path. Which was really the same thing as we’d been doing, but now we were doing it faster.

  I saw the reality of this situation now. This place did nothing but give hints at what it wanted us to learn, and one of those hints was to level up our various skills. As we went on, in addition to the plethora of pantry items, we started seeing more cauldrons and pans and ways to cook meals. Plant monsters dropped healing potions more often.

  Increasingly, it also seemed obvious that we were supposed to team up. How else would we get through this place? Tyler knew things I never would’ve—and still didn’t, because when he tried to explain, it went in one ear, sounded like a collection of consonants and vowels with no way to string them together, and went right out the other side. I’d never understand what all the stats meant, what items could be used to create crafting things (whatever that situation was), or how to fold any of that into some sort of strategy.

  What I brought to the table was my joy in (what Tyler thought was) extreme violence, my unwavering courage (easy when you couldn’t die), and my all-around defensive abilities against creepy or suspicious people.

  We were meeting more people on the road now. Many of them had a bit of blood and some were completely free of it. I saw scratches, gashes, and one sword strike to match mine, but it was on the upper arm. No one appeared to have taken sustained damage on a larger scale.

  I suspected those people were farther up ahead, bashing into each obstacle with a manic cackle before knocking out the enemy and moving on. It was those people I kept thinking about as I tried faster and faster ways to kill the enemy. As I fought without weapons and let the plant monster chomp my arm to see what sort of damage it did. I let enemies rush me so that it wasn’t shocking, batter me so that I knew how to defend against it properly, and then chomp or slice at me so I had blood everywhere. Sometimes the image was scarier than the reality.

  Tyler understood all this about as well as I understood his strategy or lessons on stats. He didn’t protest, though. We’d unconsciously chosen our roles—or maybe consciously and I just didn’t remember—and he clearly trusted me to hold up my end of the bargain.

  Sprint, walk, sprint.

  People we passed started when they saw us and quickly backed off the path or hunched and did the standing equivalent of playing dead. A few raised weapons, but backed off as we ran by. No one would talk to us. The closest we got was one guy lifting his thumb in a salute, or maybe support. I told him my name and asked if he wanted to join our team.

  “Not really,” he replied. “You freak me out.”

  Fair enough.

  A couple days down the road, as we were walking, accordion music started up in the distance. Tyler lightly touched my arm before reaching up toward the hilt peeking out from behind his shoulder. His hand stopped at about neck level and his eyes pointed straight ahead—his asking if he should arm himself.

  I flicked my hand. No.

  Somewhere along the way, we’d developed silent communication. It was hard to talk when you were sprinting all over the place.

  Before we got there, the music faded away. Around a bend, we saw another clearing. It was set up in a similar way as the first obstacles I’d faced alone, but this one had two fires, each with a pot over it. In the corner was something like a pizza oven, a big clay thing with a shelf and fire glowing from within. Six Mr. Bow Ties wandered around the logs, one always sitting down, but never the same one at a time. The rest roamed in patterns, intersecting and crisscrossing, snorting and huffing and scratching. Two held gleaming swords, two held big, gnarly spiked clubs with motorcycle flames painted on them, and two had iron fire pokers. We needed those weapons.

  I crouched, and Tyler stopped in his tracks.

  I half turned and showed my teeth a different way than I did to the weapons toters. Come on!

  He returned a similar expression. No way! You’re out of your mind!

  I added a shaking fist. You better come on, or else.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. No way.

  He’d done this one other time, refusing to let me bully him into acting. We’d discovered a “nest” of plant monsters, which was apparently where they spawned in large quantities. There’d been a dozen, all coming out of the ground at the same time.

  Tyler had taken a step back and refused to budge. He would not go any closer, even when I said we could run in shame if things got out of hand.

  He opted to run in shame right then.

  “Come on,” I said quietly, moving closer. We were far enough away that they shouldn’t be able to hear us, but you never knew. I didn’t need six Mr. Bow Ties chasing me. “This is the big time. This is the next obstacle we need to face. One Mr. Bow Tie—”

  “Comb-Ogre.”

  I paused. “What?”

  “They’re called Comb-Ogres.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  I huffed out a laugh. “Okay, that’s funny. Anyway, the first obstacle was one, right? Next it was two. No, wait. Next it was one with a weapon. Whatever, it was harder. Then three. Now six. It’s the next progression.”

  “That’s not—” He shook his head, annoyed. I’d probably said something wrong, but he’d know I didn’t care. “I feel like we might’ve missed an…obstacle or two. Maybe those side paths went around something we should’ve faced.”

  I hesitated. We probably should’ve thought to backtrack to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

  “We can’t go back,” I said. “We need to knock this out. We can do it.”

  “How do you figure?”

  I had no idea.

  I held up a finger. “How about this? Let’s crouch-walk closer, hide in a bush, and watch for a while, okay? We’ve hurried to get here. Let’s see if there’s a way we can do this.”

  Finally, he agreed, allowing me to lead him to a nice, leafy bush at the side of the dirt clearing, close to the outdoor pizza-oven thing.

  If this place had actual pizza, I would forgive a great deal.

  I watched the movements and the Comb-Ogres weaving around each other. I picked one and followed its loop from beginning to end, then another. Then a third. We hunkered down in that bush for half a day, just sitting and watching. Analyzing. Tyler didn’t pressure me to leave. I hoped that meant he had faith that we could do this instead of just wanting to rest for a bit.

  It wasn’t until I had the sixth down, and I was looking at where and when they intersected, that I noticed the woman across the clearing, staring at me. My focus shifted to her.

  A Latina in her…sixties, possibly, hunkered in a bush like we were doing. Her close-cropped, short gray hair had a couple splotches of blood in it. I couldn’t tell about her body. It was hidden by the bush, but she’d at least seen a little action. Her gaze relayed interest and patience, no fear to speak of. That was good, although she couldn’t see the amount of blood I now had on my person. Maybe that would change things. I basically looked like a child’s finger-painting experiment.

  “Tyler,” I whispered, nudging him with my elbow.

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s a woman over there.” I continued to stare at her. The crow’s-feet around her eyes deepened. I could barely see her smile within the bush, the leaves blocking most of her face. “Do you see her?”

  “Yeah. She was here when we got here.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Really?”

  “You didn’t notice?”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Would I share my brand-new, startling discovery with you if I did?”

  He squinted at me. “Sometimes your sarcasm is off-putting.”

  I huffed with a grin. “With your types of questions, is it any wonder?”

  I glanced at the Comb-Ogres to make sure they hadn’t heard us. Nope. The crouch hid all, including whispering.

  “Has she been watching us the whole time?” I asked.

  “No. She’s been watching the Comb-Ogres, mostly. She glances over every so often.”

  “Have you been staring at her the whole time?”

  “No, I am not a creep.”

  “Had to be asked.”

  “Did it, though?” he asked dryly.

  “Should we go over to her?” I chewed my lip. “I think we should go over to her. I’m pretty sure she smiled at me.”

  “She waved earlier, and it wasn’t a ‘You’ll probably die and I’m a little sad about it, but not sad enough to help you’ sort of wave. More of a ‘hello.’ You seriously didn’t notice? She’s basically right across from us.”

  “I was focusing.” I pulled my lips to the side. “Let’s go over. You first. I don’t want to scare her away. Having three people to handle this would be better than two.”

  “Even with three, this is a terrible idea. There’s no way I’m doing it.”

  I ignored him. He was definitely doing it. He had to. We needed those weapons.

  The woman had a few splotches of blood, one on her back and one across her thigh. She turned to face us as we neared, a welcoming smile in place. She didn’t balk at my appearance. It was hard to know if that was a good sign, or if she habitually made poor life choices.

  I wasn’t really one to judge.

  “Hi,” Tyler said, squatting in the bush beside her.

  “Hello.” Her brown eyes were warm and welcoming. “Terrible situation we’ve gotten into.”

  “It certainly seems that way.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Tyler. This is Quinn.”

  She shook Tyler’s hand and then extended her hand my way. “I’m Margo.” She looked back at the collection of monsters. “I’ve been watching these. I hoped to get one of the swords. I think we need to get good weapons in here. But the moment you step into sight, they swarm. There’s no way for one person to handle it. I’ve been trying to get someone to help me, but everyone that has looked has quickly left again. No one wants to.”

  “We want to.” I nudged Tyler, who had started to shake his head. “We want to.” I nodded exaggeratedly at him.

  “Even with three, we can’t do it,” he said. “If they swarm, we wouldn’t be able to—”

  “We need the weapons.” I put a hand on his arm. “You know we do. I took on three and won. So did you.”

  Margo raised her hand. “It took me four tries, but I did it.”

  “There, see?” I nodded exaggeratedly again. “Nothing to it.”

  He sagged. “You make it impossible to be a coward.”

  “Dude, we can’t die. What’s a little pain?” I patted his arm now. “What doesn’t kill us—”

  “Still hurts like hell.” He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Hurts less than childbirth.” Margo shrugged. “I did that three times. I didn’t have a miracle cure to fix all the stuff that went wrong from it, either. This is just a game.”

  It wouldn’t be a game the second we’d die for real. I hoped that day never came.

  Tyler issued a long, drawn-out sigh. “Fine. Here’s the best way to defeat them.”

  “There he is.” I leaned around him and gave Margo a thumbs-up. “This guy is smart. Ace in the hole.” I rubbed my hands together.

  “Your joy of violence is as off-putting as your sarcasm.”

  “Which is probably why I’m single so often. I’ve made peace with it. Let’s get to it. Lickety split.”

  With another world-weary sigh, he mapped out a strategy. He’d been paying attention after all, and clearly needed a fraction of the time I had. We divided up, each standing in a precise location that worked within the monsters’ movement pattern. We would make ourselves known at the same time, preventing the swarm, and each handling two monsters. He was sure that was how they’d separate.

  I waited in my designated location, my Tetanus Tickler out, the rusty sword with the debuff, watching for the signal. The monsters wove through the space in their patterns. The first loop ended and they started again, the signal not coming. Tyler was wrangling his nerve.

  Margo waited patiently, smiling pleasantly at him, giving him encouragement. If she had any fear, she didn’t show it. She seemed like a rock.

  Finally, halfway through the loop, Tyler jerked his head in a nod.

  I burst out from behind the tree. The two nearest monsters startled in that way they did, giving me an opening to run my sword through the closest one’s middle. The accordion started up with gusto as the damage gauge ticked down to half. I pivoted and hacked at the other close one before jogging for position behind the first. The log prevented the one behind from getting around and accosting me.

  Tyler ran out of the bushes, yelling as he rammed his sword into the Comb-Ogre closest him, and Margo had already hacked into hers and was working on the second. The woman seemed fearless. That was good news. It made me seriously question my desire to have kids.

  The Comb-Ogre in front of me readied to club me. Its health meter trickled away slowly, the debuff doing its job but not nearly fast enough to matter. I hacked at its side. Where we hit these things didn’t matter to the kill-ability. A hit was a hit. I could kick it in the leg and, if I did it hard enough, it would inflict the same damage.

  It poofed out. I lunged forward and stabbed the one behind it. The second flailed backward, the damage a tiny slice of its meter. I rammed it with the hilt of my sword as I ran by. The clearing erupted in fart noises. Seriously, who the hell had designed this place, and why did they choose that as the battle-ending victory sound?

  Tyler killed the first of his and then braced for the hit of the second. The sword crashed into him, opening up a gash.

  “Damn it,” he swore, pushing through the pain to get an attack off.

  I ran in from behind as Margo was finishing up and turning our way. I stabbed the creature in the back once, yanked the sword free, and did it again.

  The monster puffed out as Tyler was readying to swing.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I stuck out my hand as I jogged backward. “It’s done. It’s over.”

  “Good plan.” Margo laughed, coming up to Tyler and patting him on the back. “That was easy compared to the other ones.”

  “Yeah, that was a good plan.” I put up my hand for a high five.

  He stowed his sword before giving me a high five and nodding to Margo. Then he twisted to look at his arm.

  “This throbs.” He reached forward, and a food pellet appeared in his hand. I couldn’t see his screen from this side. I hadn’t known that was a thing.

  “How should we divide up the weapons?” Margo collected the loot from the two she’d downed before looking at the dropped weapons. It was nice of her to ask rather than just grabbing what she wanted. She seemed like a team player.

  “Give her a sword and a club.” Tyler pointed at me. “She’s the primary offense. I’ll take a club, and Margo, you can take the other sword, if you want. We’ll then take a poker each.”

  She didn’t argue, and so I didn’t either.

  “Thanks.” I held up my hand for her. She slapped me five. “That was so much easier with you helping than it would’ve been with just Tyler and me.”

  She nodded, grabbing her weapons. “Yes! I was lucky you guys came when you did. I’ve seen a couple others fight the ogre things, and they weren’t nearly as good. Were you in the army?”

  I laughed. “No. Just a rough-and-tumble childhood.”

  “And a love of violence,” Tyler mumbled, wiping away the blood on his arm. It smeared against his pale skin, looking ghastly. That would only help our image. “Does anyone need to make meals?” He gestured at the fires while walking to the pizza-oven-looking thing.

  Margo didn’t seem to, and I didn’t, so we wandered over to join him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m not quite sure.” He peered in before sticking his hand close. “It’s warm.”

  “Well, yeah. It’s fire in there.” I pushed a little closer. “Don’t touch it. It’ll take part of a glob.”

  “A glob?” Margo asked.

  “She means a heart.” He glanced at me. “Why did you stick your hand into the fire?”

  “First to see if it was hot, and then because a chest fell in there.”

  “Here.” Margo brought over her poker. “That is a fire, and this is a fire poker. See if it does anything.”

  Tyler got out of the way so Margo could stick the poker into the fire. Immediately, it disappeared before a metallic liquid dribbled onto the tray thing. Her screen popped up.

  “Oh.” She scratched her chin. “It opened to the satchel tab. I don’t have much in that.”

  “Ah.” Tyler nodded. “It’s probably a forge. It’s crafting specifically for weapons.” He stepped next to Margo, peering at her screen. He pointed. “Try a bushling sap droplet and see what it does. Sometimes forges only want specific metals or leather or things that might directly make a weapon, but sometimes they’ll interact with organic matter found in the world.”

  She did as he said. I’d say she had great trust, but in reality, she probably realized she had very little to lose.

  She dropped the item onto the molten metal. A little button glowed at the side, and he pushed it. A door slid shut over the opening, the contraption made a whirring sound, and then the door snapped back open. Margo and I both jumped.

  The fire still glowed, but the liquid metal was gone from the tray. In its place was a miniature poker with a gleaming end. Margo took it out and it increased to its previous size. A description came up on the screen.

  Tyler bent to it, his eyes tracking across the words.

  “Yeah.” He leaned back, nodding. “There are a couple of additions here. A slow self-repair and an occasional bonus of vines growing on impact and dealing additional damage. Margo, put it in again and see if it’ll let you change it or revert it to its original stats.”

  She did as she was instructed but nothing happened. The poker didn’t reduce in size or turn to molten metal.

  “Okay, so you get one chance to craft the modifier.” He stepped back, and she put her poker away. “We’re only rolling low-tier modifiers right now. We don’t have anything to really boost a weapon’s effectiveness in a tangible way. Ordinarily, for our best weapons, we’d want to wait until we had more to work with. On the flipside, these weapons probably won’t last until then anyway. We might as well try to add on a few boosts while we’re here.”

  Tyler picked through our items, looked at the stats, and chose modifiers that would work the best for each weapon. By the time we were through, my eyes had glazed over, and I had lost track of time, hopelessly bored. I didn’t even know what boost my items had; I’d stopped paying attention. I was fine for it to be a surprise when I used them.

  “Thank you,” Margo said, chewing a nail as she looked through the slightly upgraded weapons. Unlike me, she was trying to learn.

  “Margo, you’re welcome to stick with us, if you want.” I had my Tetanus Tickler on my back, reserving the better weapons for when we were confronted with harder obstacles. “We don’t amble, though, that’s the only thing.”

  I explained about our haste to progress in this game and why, startling her with the knowledge that people could loot other people, and what that ultimately meant.

  She nodded. “I’ll go with you. It’s been a long time since I could run, let alone sprint. I don’t even get tired!” She beamed.

  “We also kill any monsters we see.” I shrugged. “I figure you should know what you’re getting into with us.”

  She nodded again. “So do I. That’s how you get the stuff.”

  Indeed.

  It turned out, there hadn’t been anything along the main path that we’d missed. It had gone from three enemies that we had to conquer alone, to six enemies that could only be done with additional people. The game was steering us toward working together, and I had a feeling we’d need more people than three.

  We had to find Kym, and a few other people besides.