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  [colpse]

  “Um,” I said as I tried to deal with the question. How was I still alive? Was this pce really that dangerous? Sure the ghosts were scary, and there were bears and things, maybe, but nothing I had seen topped the evil ghosts or the monsters in the dungeon. “Well, mostly I just fought ghosts, some zombies and that was it, really. I’ve beeing berries and honey for the most part. Is that what you meant?”

  Arianne shook her head. “Ghosts aren’t too on, but zey are easily dispatched by most. It’s ze sombrals, ze pixies, and ze dryads zat are ze issues here.”

  I stared at her, then at the others around the fire. Donat had rejoihe circle, plopping himself dht on the ground without even a log to sit on. Emeric was still wearing a smile, but o him, Leonard the mean samurai was gring suspiciously. Valerie was the only one ign me as she focused oew. The ranger was... gone? I couldn’t see him, and I never noticed him leaving. !

  “Well,” I said. “I never saw any dryads, and I don’t know what sombrals are. I did meet a whole lot of pixies though. They were nice.”

  “Nice?” Arianne asked. “I have seen zem melt the flesh off of creatures an order of magnitude bigger zan zey are wiz zeir magic. Each pixie has a different and mostly u of spells zat zey will use to tear you apart.”

  “Uh.” I shrugged. “I offered them some hoo let me stay ierritory. Then I gave their leader a sed jar to ese around for a day.”

  “You--” Emeric started to croak with ughter. “Oh, zat’s priceless. Hear zat, Leo. o scare off ze pixies with y sword. Just give zem honey!”

  “She could be lying,” the samurai said.

  I nodded, which set him to blinking at me. “I could be. But that wouldn’t be very nie. I have some honey left over, if you want to try it for yourself. It would be a real shame if you hurt the pixies just because of a little misuanding.’

  Arianne looked like she wao pat me, but she didn’t which was good. People were always doing that and it was very rude.

  “ you tell me about the sombrals and the dryads?” I asked.

  “Are you going to offer zem some honey as well?” Emeric asked.

  “I might. But I don’t know what dryads or sombrals eat. Maybe they don’t like honey, or get some themselves.”

  “Sombrals,” Arianne began in a tohat sounded an awful lot like some of my teachers. “Are one of the monsters native to the Darkwoods. Dryads, oher hand, are on across ze whole world. Zey tend to be wherever zere are rge forests. Donat, tell Broccoli about sombrals.”

  The young grenoil jumped, looked around, then rubbed at his face where his nose would be as a human. “Ah, right, sombrals. Sed tier monsters. Scary, big, zey like ze taste of fresh grenoil meat. Do you know what a wolf is?” I nodded and he tinued. “Right. sombrals are like wolves if wolves were made of shadows and didn’t o sleep. Zey aren’t as big as some kinds of wolves, but zat only means zat zey are sneakier.”

  “And how do you fight zem?” Arianne asked Donat. She was leading him on, making him recite information that he robably already supposed to know.

  “Fire works. Zey don’t like it. Light magic is best. But we don’t have zat. Hitting zem on the head works too. Zey are not like ghosts who are immuo physical harm. But zey do resist it better.”

  “’t you just run away?” I asked. I didn’t want to go around booping any poor wolves on the head for doing what was in their nature.

  “No,” Donat said with a shake of his head. “Sombrals are blind. Zey ’t see. But zeir sense of smell is incredible and zey will hunt you for days if zey must. You run to find a better pce to fight. Or into a town with lots of people if it’s close, but zey ’t be outrun in zis forest. Zey hunt in packs and will try to encircle you if zey .”

  “Scary,” I said. “I guess I’m lucky I never ran into them.”

  “Zat’s the strange part,” Emeric said. “Zey would track you down by your st. How did you avoid zat?”

  I thought about it for a few moments, but the answer retty obvious. “I am very ,” I said. “I have the ing skill, so I shouldn’t have much of a smell at all.”

  Emeric blinked his big froggy eyes at me, then tilted bad ughed, his feet thumping on the ground as he croaked and gurgled with mirth.

  “Tch,” Leonard said. “I would call what you did clever if it was not so obvious that you merely mao avoid death through sheer dumb luck.”

  “Now now, Leonard,” Arianne said. “It’s good information to have. We might be able to use it ourselves.”

  “Stew’s ready!” Valerie decred. “Hey, tadpole, get ze bowls and such.”

  Donat grumbled, but he ran off to the tents in a hurry at the sight of Valerie’s gre and soourned with a stack of tin bowls and a handful of wooden spoons. He passed them around, then got shoved aside by Valerie when he reached for the dle. The frog girl started filling everyone’s bowls, and I got to go first for some reason. Maybe some sort of guest .

  I sat back down, tummy gurgling as I took in deep breaths of the vapours ing off of the stew. It smelled so good my eyes nearly rolled bato my head. Still, I noticed that the others were waiting before digging in.

  Pierre the sneaky ranger walked out of the woods as if he had just been standing in pin sight all along and took a bowl of his own. He was the st to sit down.

  “May our wills be the will of the world,” they all i more or less the same time. Thearted digging in.

  “You don’t worship the world tree?” Valerie asked between two bites.

  I shook my head and hoped that wouldn’t cause any troubles. I fot all about that as I put the spoon in my mouth and the savoury taste of meaty juices and some sort of potato-like root filled my mouth with an explosion of fvour. “This is so good!” I said when I swallowed. I might have burnt my tongue and throat but it was worth it.

  Valerie made a gesture my way, a sort of thumbs up, but her thumb was webbed and it came out weird. Still, I uood what she meant and didn’t bme her if she didn’t want to stop eating for even a moment.

  I slurped down a few more bites then started scooping up some of the meat aables out of the juice. Some were chy, which was strange, but not too bad.

  “Needs more roach,” Donat said.

  “Hard to find out here,” Arianne said.

  I wondered what they meant. Then I looked into my bowl and saw that thumb-sized and very dead bug in my stew. Another floated up to the surfaext to it. “Ah,” I said. I debated losing my supper all over the campfire, but then held back. It had been really good until then. I picked up an on my spoon, the in my mouth and chewed.

  It ched and ched and I just couldn’t do it knowing what it was.

  “I, I’m full,” I lied as I pushed the bowl to Valerie. If there were tears in my eyes at losing such a delieal she didn’t ent.

  The girl smiled wide and took my bowl without protest to chug it all down. Emeric’s eyes were turned up as if to say he kly what had happened and thought it was hirious.

  “So, um, dryads?” I asked.

  “If you run into a dryad, you’ll know,” Leonard said. “They are immensely dangerous, usually past their sed tier, though you might find younger ones around. They kill aire squadron of ill-prepared troops. But, for the most part, they will not hurt or hunt you if you make an effort to avoid them and are careful about not cutting down trees in their presence.”

  “So they’re peaceful?” I asked.

  Arianne shook her head and swallowed. “No. Zey are merely not aggressive. Do not fuse ze two.”

  “The pixies weren’t aggressive at first and they became friends,” I said. “Maybe you’re just approag them the wrong way?” I wondered.

  “Oh, please do try to make friends with a dryad,” Leonard said. “As long as I am there to watch, of course.”

  I harrumphed and reached into my bao pull out e. The kitty had been sleeping all afternoon, but the motion of taking her out woke her up. She looked around at all the people around us and shook to fluff out her fur.

  “What’s zat?” Donat asked.

  “This is e,” I said. “She’s a spirit cat.”

  “Did you find it in ze wild?” Arianne asked as she stared at e with an intense look. Her eyes opened wider after a moment. “Ah, a summon.”

  “What a useless summon,” Leonard said.

  e gred at him.

  “Watch out Leo, it might scratch you,” Emeric said. “Where did you find a spirit cat? Attracted it with some honey?”

  “No, I got her from an item,” I said.

  “Cute,” he replied. “Not zat useful, but a handy panion. And perhaps it will grow inte and fearsome tabby cat in a decade or two.”

  “Well I like her,” I said as I pulled e in for a quiuggle. She, being a proper kitty, objected to the dispy of love and squirmed out of my grasp to run away. She didn’t go far and was soon distracted by some swaying leaves. “So,” I asked as I refocused. “What are you guys doing out here? Is there a vilge or something nearby?”

  “I was zinking of asking you ze same. What is a level four amon Bun, whatever zat may be, doing out in zese woods?” Arianne asked. She set her bowl aside then hugged her staff close, fingers running across the well-worn wood.

  “I’m a bit lost,” I admitted.

  Emeric chuckled. “A little, yes. You stay wiz us tonight. Tomorroill point you to Rockstack. It’s a small outpost run by a few guilds. If you’re as clever as you look you’ll be able to find work. Maybe one day you join the Exploration Guild.”

  “Is that who you are?” I asked. “Members of an exploration guild?” That sounded so cool! Like an adventurer’s guild, but with less killing rats in someone’s basement and more expl tombs and looking for cool pces.

  “Zat we are,” Emeric said. “Myself, Arianne, Pierre, and most retly Valerie are all members of ze same exploration team. Leo here is a senior member who joined our team for zis expedition because we’ll be expl a more dangerous pce, and Donat tagged along because we need someone close to reag zeir css evolution if we find a dungeon.”

  “So cool,” I said. I now had about a millioions to ask! “What are you guys looking for?”

  “She isn’t part of roup,” Leonard said. “Don’t spill fidential information.”

  “She might have e across what we’re looking for. At least she might save us some fruitless searg,” Emeric argued back.

  The samurai sidered this for a moment, then nodded. “Very well.”

  Emeric smiled triumphantly. “We are looking for a lost town zat was once occupied by humans. Zere is nearly no human presence left here, and it was a froow fell, so we don’t know where it is. But someone discovered something iing in zat town and we want to see it.”

  Frowning, I sidered what he’d said. A human town around here. The only one I had seen so far was... “Are you talking about Threewells?” I asked.

  In a blink there was a hand csped over eay shoulders.

  RavensDagger