As the dead body recoiled from Alka’s strike and began screaming, Vin wasn’t the slightest bit ashamed to admit he found himself screaming right alongside it.

  It certainly helped his pride when he realized Shia, Scule, and Reginald were all screaming just as loudly.

  “Undead! Kill it!” Scule shouted, diving into Vaghel’s still open pack as he waited for one of them to handle it. Vin hadn’t really thought about it until now, and he probably should have realized this during their battle with the stone golems, but he supposed the Rogue’s reaction made sense. Scule’s entire fighting style relied on poisons, meaning he was effectively worthless when it came to fighting anything without a functioning biology.

  Thankfully, Shia had no such limitations. Whipping her staff up to aim at the screaming corpse, she no doubt was about to grow a giant tree branch right through the undead’s chest when Alka shot in front of her, waving her arms.

  “For the love of the Gods, calm down!” She ordered, giving them an exasperated look. “It’s not an undead! It was never dead in the first place! Look!”

  Hesitating, Shia slowly lowered her staff, looking more carefully at the screaming being. Vin stared right alongside her, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Still sitting on the ground and still very much screaming, was the odd looking being. Upon waking up, the small antennae on its head had begun waving around erratically, like little satellite dishes searching for some sort of signal that they couldn’t find. As he looked closer, Vin realized with a start the being didn’t actually have teeth. Instead, two large chunks of what looked like solid bone filled its mouth, one on the top half of its jaw and one on the bottom.

  He had a particularly easy time of examining these seeing as the being had yet to shut its mouth.

  “If that thing’s not an undead, would someone please shut it up!” Scule shouted, poking his head out from inside the bag with his hands clamped over his ears.

  While Vin struggled to come up with some way of calming the creature down, he realized the scream was starting to sound weaker and weaker the longer it went on. After a few more seconds, it gradually fizzled out to nothing, and the being was finally silent.

  After sitting there for a moment with its mouth still hanging wide open, it twitched once. Then twice.

  And collapsed right back to the ground.

  Everyone stared at the unconscious being once more, completely at a loss for words. Alka was the first to speak, clearing her throat awkwardly.

  “Okay I’ll admit… That is not how I expected that to go.”

  “What the hell, Alka!” Vin demanded, gesturing to the strange being. “I thought that thing was dead! It definitely wasn’t breathing!”

  “I thought that first as well, but there weren’t any visible injuries on it,” Alka explained with a shrug. “I gave it a closer look, and it turns out it was breathing, just really, really slowly. I think it entered some sort of hibernation-like state when the group got attacked.”

  “That would explain why it doesn’t have any injuries at all,” Shia said, prodding the being with the end of her staff. “If it entered this weird state the moment the fighting started, the monsters would have prioritized taking down the dwarves before bothering to eat it. And if we triggered the spider swarm at just the right time…

  “The roaming swarm shifted gears to come after us, leaving this guy completely untouched,” Vin finished, staring at the being in awe. If this world had some sort of lottery set up, that guy definitely had to buy a ticket or something. “Hold up, that would mean he’s been like this for days!”

  “Some creatures can hibernate for months, or even years at a time,” Shia shrugged, continuing to poke it with her staff. “That’s not the weirdest part of all this.”

  “Why the hell did it go back to sleep?” Scule asked, still poking his head out of the bag. Reginald was now poking his head out right under him, also watching the unknown being in case it moved again.

  “I think… I think it screamed for so long it ran out of air,” Shia frowned, finally stopping with the prodding.

  The four of them stood silently for a moment, each of them staring at the unmoving creature. After a long, tense moment, Alka raised her sword once more.

  “Should I hit it again?”

  “No!” Vin cried, stepping between the ghost and the poor creature, raising his arms defensively. “Nobody’s hitting the thing again! Clearly, it’s freaked out, and for good reason! Last it knew it was being attacked by a giant swarm of monster spiders, and the next thing it sees is the two corpses of the dwarves it was travelling with and a grinning ghost leering over its head with a glowing sword. I’m not surprised it passed out again!”

  “Still, the whole ‘being unconscious’ does make talking to the thing rather difficult,” Scule pointed out unhelpfully.

  Vin rolled his eyes, not bothering to dignify that with a response.

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  “I have an idea… I don’t know if it will work, but it’s better than smacking it on the head again and hoping for a different reaction. For starters, this thing looks weird, but it does still have a nose. Shia, do you have any of those weird smelling herbs you guys used back in the Sacred Forest? The ones that elf used to wake you up after the Trunkback knocked you unconscious?”

  “Rancidweed?” The elf blinked, slowly nodding. “Yeah, it's pretty standard issue. That’ll definitely wake the being up again, but I don’t think that will help calm it down.”

  “Let me handle that,” Vin said, taking the small wooden vial filled with the foul-smelling herb from the Druid. “Now, if you guys wouldn’t mind dragging the two dead dwarves somewhere else and hiding for a few minutes, I have an idea I want to try.”

  Thankfully, nobody argued with him, and it wasn’t long before he found himself alone with the unconscious being. Cross his fingers for good luck, Vin cast the most useless spell he knew.

  “Familiar Pheromones,” he muttered, feeling the magic gently layer itself over him.

  He knew it was a little bit racist, but he couldn’t help but notice how much the being resembled an insect. Worst case scenario his spell wouldn’t do a damn thing, but on the off chance it would in fact calm him down a bit and stop him from screaming again, it couldn’t hurt to try.

  Taking a deep breath half in preparation and half to make sure he didn’t inhale any of the herb, Vin uncorked the vial and waved it in front of the being’s nose. He may as well have jabbed it with a tazer based on how it reacted.

  Letting out a sound that was half choke and half retch, the being jerked awake once more, coughing as it tried to get in fresh air. Immediately, Vin corked the vial and squatted in front of the gagging creature, doing his best to look friendly and unthreatening.

  “Hi there,” he said softly, offering a small smile. Seeing as the being didn’t have teeth of its own, he had no idea if it would interpret a smile as some sort of threat. Making a mental note to check before introducing it to Shia, Vin continued. “My name is Vin. I found you on the ground. Are you okay?”

  The strange being coughed for a few more seconds, its weird antennae still twitching and searching around relentlessly, but it didn’t scream. After a few seconds it finally seemed to get the rancidweed out of its system, turning to stare at Vin.

  Neither of them said anything for a few seconds as they locked eyes. Just as Vin was going to try asking it another question, the being’s antennae finally stopped twitching around, swiveling until they pointed directly at him. The hundreds of tiny little feelers running all along the antennae waved in some strange pattern, and Vin heard an unmistakable voice inside his head as the creature pointed a shaky finger at him.

  “The One That Smells...”

  Vin could only blink, returning the being’s wide-eyed stare as he tried to make sense of what that meant. Its eyes were exceptionally large, nearly twice that of a regular human and taking up a significant portion of its face.

  “The one that smells?” Vin repeated, suddenly realizing the meaning behind the words. “Oh, you mean me? I smell good?”

  “Yes. That one is The One That Smells,” it repeated, still pointing at him. Then it shifted its finger, pointing at itself instead. “This one is The One That Paints In Red.”

  “Okay...” Vin nodded slowly, realizing he may be in over his head here. “It’s good to meet you… Red.”

  Before Vin could say anything else, the being suddenly began freaking out, flinging its arms about and rolling around on the ground like a toddler.

  “No!” Vin heard far more powerfully in his head, the shout sending a light throb of pain through his skull as the being continued its tantrum. “This one is not ‘Red.’ This one is The One That Paints In Red!”

  Resistance increased to Lvl 14! 1,400 exp gained.

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! You’re The One That Paints In Red!” Vin repeated, rubbing the side of his head. It wasn’t much, barely a headache at all if he were being honest, but the fact that this random being could still do that much with just its mind was more than a little scary. He briefly thought back to some of the old school horror movies he’d watched when he was little where people with powers could make someone’s head explode just by staring at them, and he gulped.

  Hopefully this was the extent of the strange being’s abilities.

  Once he’d repeated the being’s name, it stopped freaking out just as quickly as it had started. Slowly getting to its feet, it looked around, taking in its surroundings.

  “Where are The One That Laughs and The One That Follows Angrily?” It finally asked, as if only just then realizing it was alone.

  Oh boy, this is going to get old fast, isn’t it? Sighing, Vin shook his head, wondering how much to tell it. Not wanting to start his negotiations with a lie, he answered truthfully.

  “They both died fighting against the swarm of monsters that attacked you... I’m sorry,” he added as an afterthought. He had no idea how the seemingly unstable being was going to react to their deaths, but he hoped it wouldn’t last too long.

  To his surprise, the being took it rather well.

  “This one understands,” it said, fixing him with its large eyes. Vin couldn’t really pick up any sort of emotion from the mental voice, but the being didn’t seem upset in the slightest at the news of its comrades’ deaths. “If that is the case… will The One That Smells take me to ‘the flowing red?’”

  Vin could only stare at the being, slowly coming to the realization that it seemed to have a rather limited intelligence. Putting the pieces together, he realized what must have happened.

  Vaghel must have offered to bring this guy back to the Crater. It clearly has a thing for red stuff based on its name, so after hearing about the lava, it must have jumped at the opportunity.

  “We can help you get to the flowing red,” Vin said slowly, making sure it understood him. “…but you will have to wait a little bit somewhere else first. Is that okay?”

  “This one will wait for the flowing red,” it said, still staring at him. After a moment, Vin realized why the large eyes seemed to freak him out so much.

  The being only seemed to blink once a minute or so.

  “Okay… Here’s what’s going to happen then,” Vin said, pulling out his journal to take notes. “I’m going to have a friend take you somewhere to wait while we prepare to bring you to the flowing red.”

  “In exchange, I’m going to need some directions.”

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