[DAY NINE…]

  Wesley

  How did I end up here?

  Those six words had been something of a personal mantra over the last several days, floating around in the back of his mind almost constantly.

  His life had become an insane, confusing procession of near-death experiences, and at this point he had lost hope that that would change anytime soon. Not that it stopped him lamenting the fact.

  He had no business whatsoever being in the middle of this uncharted, monster-infested, bug-ridden, god-forsaken, fucking terrifying forest, surrounded by people who were equally terrifying.

  It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense anymore.

  Sure, they'd taken the collar off his neck, but at this point he wasn't so sure he wouldn't go back to being a slave if given the choice. Instead they'd stuck a sword in his hands, like that was supposed to make him feel better. He didn't know how to fight! What was he supposed to do if a monster came his way?

  Not that he wasn't already sharing a camp with a few of them. A talking troll. A girl who could outmuscle a bear. A pack of sentient chimps. And, of course, the one who scared him the most—an alcoholic with seemingly endless power.

  All this was totally normal, of course. Perfectly so.

  He felt like he was living a nightmare he could not wake up from.

  Then again, at present he was having somewhat the opposite problem. Curled up on his thin bedroll and trying to ignore the sharp lumps of the uneven ground as they dug into his already sore body, he found himself staring off into the dark past their camp, unable to fall asleep. Could not stop wondering what might be out there.

  The fact that Mongrel, Sam, and the troll were all big snorers did not help one bit.

  Sometime during the night, exhaustion must have gotten the better of him, because he suddenly found himself in the great library that served as the Concord Ghost's favorite haunt. He assigned his reward for Level 4, picking Detect the way he had been instructed.

  What seemed like the very next instant, he was rudely and abruptly awakened by a kick to the ribs, and opened his eyes to the less-than-inspiring sight of an extremely ugly, leather-faced old man staring down at him.

  "Quit lazing about, grinner bait," Mongrel said, a smoking cigarette hanging from his lips, "and start helping out instead."

  He couldn't have slept more than an hour or two. Somehow, he felt more tired than he had before falling asleep.

  Dawn's first light had barely broken through into their little clearing, the sky above a bruised purple.

  Mongrel looked like he was about ready to dole out another kick, so Wesley rolled over and clambered to his feet double-quick. Sam and the chimps were at breaking camp, gathering supplies and loading them into saddlebags to be carried either by the mule or the troll. The cook fire had been lightly rekindled, and Price was cooking up breakfast, some sort of meat crackling in its own fat.

  Wesley was ordered to go help with the food, and Mongrel had stomped off before he even had time to confirm that he understood.

  The mercenary woman was the only other somewhat normal person in the group. Four and six wasn't so far apart in terms of a level difference, and she was all right-looking, in a harsh sort of way. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to about all this madness, but the mercenary made it clear with every look his way that she wanted nothing to do with him.

  They moved around each other in tense silence as Wesley helped out with breakfast. Price just pointed or grunted to let him know what she wanted, and he obliged, embarrassed at his own meekness.

  He prepared some vegetables, cut up bread. It was rabbit Price was cooking. He was about to ask where it came from when he saw Magpie wander into camp, another pair of rabbits dangling from one hand, the other brought up to her mouth as she drank greedily from a flask of alcohol.

  She must have returned at some point during the night. That probably should have brought him relief, but the sight of her only inspired in him a cold, smothering dread. He quickly turned his eyes away before she saw him looking. The last thing he needed was for her to take an interest in him.

  They ate, and turned out the fire, and not ten minutes after they were on the move again. Wesley trudged along near the end of the group with his eyes fixed on his feet.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  How did I end up here? the familiar refrain echoed in him.

  At first he had felt a bit good about the fact that he had leveled up and gotten himself a new ability, but he quickly came to realize that he had only managed to make things harder for himself through this. Now that he knew Detect, Mongrel had him using it as often as possible. Partially, Mongrel claimed, to train him in its use, and partially to keep a close eye on their surroundings, as he did not trust Magpie's guidance very far.

  Detect was a finicky ability to get the hang of, and Wesley did not like working with it. Mongrel mainly had him casting the Detect [Life] variant, which blew out his vision with confusing trails of light that he couldn't glean much from, and mostly made it harder to see where he was going.

  Whenever Mongrel asked what he spied, Wesley just said whatever he thought the old man wanted to hear.

  By the time he had run out of AP, he was thumping all over with skill fatigue, just the latest of many layers of exhaustion. Before ending up with this group, he had never known that there were so many different flavors of tired. Tired from walking. Tired from skill use. Tired from lack of sleep. Tired from being bossed around all the time. And, oh yeah, tired from the recovery of the parasitic fungus that had been trying to gnaw its way through his fucking lungs.

  How did I end up here?

  The forest got dense and hilly, making them work hard up inclines, then flattened out, opened up a bit, leaf trees mostly replaced by tall pines that stood old and hoary, creaking under their own weight in the still air.

  It even smelled old. Wesley had never much liked the woods. Why had he even chosen Explorer as his Profession in the first place? He'd picked it because it had sounded cool—that was the only reason. And the demon in that tower sure had done his best to talk him into it, that rotten bastard.

  "We're making pretty good time," Magpie announced from the front of the pack. "Should make it to Freetown around noon, I think."

  Almost no sooner than she said this, she stopped cold in the middle of a flat clearing, making the group come to a confused halt.

  "What's going on?" Mongrel asked.

  Magpie squinted up at the sky, shading her eyes. "There's just… something…" She nodded to herself, letting her hand drop. "Yeah. Definitely."

  "Definitely what?" the old man demanded as he stomped over to her.

  She ignored him, raising her voice to address someone else entirely. "You know, I was kind of hoping you'd try something like this."

  Something flickered in the air above them. Something big. A sliding veil of invisibility fell away, revealing… Wesley wasn't quite sure what he was looking at, to begin with. It appeared to be a big circle of floating, vertical poles, encompassing everyone except some of the treebound chimps within its perimeter. The poles were connected up with a complex weave of sticky threads; the web of a giant spider.

  Wesley was still blinking in confusion when the whole crazy assemblage started plummeting toward them at great speed.

  He didn't even think to run. He just crouched low, hands over his head, and clamped his eyes shut. There was no time to pray.

  "Bang."

  There was a loud noise like a hundred hands clapping together, and a hard shove knocked Wesley off his feet; sent tumbling until he landed on his side. Eyes opened on reflex, he looked around, dazed.

  The remains of whatever had been falling on top of them was soaring through the sky, scattering in every direction. He felt at himself, but found no wounds. He started flailing when something clamped down on his shirtsleeve, but he was more or less powerless to resist as that same something pulled him to his feet.

  He was suddenly staring into Sam Darling's lightly freckled face, a thick new scar running from the edge of her right eyebrow, down along her jaw, and terminating almost at her chin.

  She said something, but the words slid right past him. It wasn't like he couldn't hear her, he just couldn't focus on what she was saying.

  "Ambush!" she repeated. When he did not move, she pushed him back to arm's length, fished his sword out of its scabbard, and brought his hand up to hold onto it, squeezing his fingers shut around the handle. "Stay behind me."

  "Okay," Wesley found himself saying in a lame, awestruck voice.

  Everyone was scrambling, going for weapons. Gug had sat back on his behind, knees drawn up tight, and had his hands clapped over his ears while screaming in fear. He looked like an overgrown baby. Was that what Wesley had looked like just a second ago?

  Before the remains of the strange construct had even reached the ground, something sprang out of the foliage on three sides. Big, bipedal raptors with colorful neck crests and feathered arms in white and green and red, as high at the hips as a man was tall. Dinosaurs. Or at least they really looked like dinosaurs.

  Those claws… Those teeth…

  They were closing in really fast.

  Magpie, standing proud as a rooster, made finger guns pointing left and right. "Bang, bang." Two of the raptors were eviscerated, torn to chunks. She snaked one arm around to point over her shoulder. "Bang."

  Wesley was knocked forward by the explosion that happened behind and to his right. A panicked glance confirmed that the third dinosaur was now nothing but a messy scattering of blood and guts and bits of limbs.

  "Really?" Magpie asked. "You're supposed to be a paragon? The Frontier used to have standards, man."

  Something fast streaked out of the foliage, stopped cold in the air short of Magpie, who stood with hands on hips, foot tapping impatiently. An arrow. A big one. She blew on it, and it spun around, flew right back to sender. Wesley couldn't tell if it hit anything. Despite the fact that his Detect [Life] was still active, he hadn't been able to sense either the raptors or the bowman attacker.

  "Missed me!" a gruff voice called from the bushes. "We will meet again, Crow. For now, you can have your way."

  "Bold of you to assume I'll let you walk away after a shitty performance like that," Magpie shouted back. She raised her hand. "Here. Let's see what this does to you."

  "No thanks." When the hidden attacker spoke again, his words reverberated like a physical force.

  "Semblance Art: Monster Mansion."

  Everywhere, the ground burst and split with a great rumbling.

  How did I end up here? Wesley thought miserably.