I didn’t get any loot from the snake and cat, but I did pack up the bhat had been on the hill. It was nid thid smelled like freshly cut grass, and no one knew when they might need a towel.

  I checked my status while rolling up the b.

  Health 101/110Stamina 115/115Mana 22/105

  My health and mana both went up by about one a mihat didn’t mean that I could survive being dropped to oh. When I’d been cut before I was aware of my health dropping by a point or two befoing back up. That probably meant that the number was an indicator of health, not some ephemeral... thing tied to me.

  Still, I was healing faster in this world than bae, and I didn’t have any skills associated with it, so that robably normal.

  The door to the exit hadn’t unlocked, whily left one way to go.

  Before running off though, I took a moment to find a detly ft rod a sheet of paper from my backpad some coal with a sharp tip.

  Soon enough I had a somewhat rough map of the dungeon so far. Now I couldn’t get lost! Or if I did get lost I could ask someone how to get to the exit and use the map for reference. I just hoped that zombie animals couldn’t read, the st thing the world needed was an invasion of zombie critters.

  I rolled up my map and stuffed it in my sack. Out came a jar of honey and I had lunch while enjoying the surreal triple suns above for a few minutes.

  Health 107/110Stamina 115/115Mana 28/105

  “It’ll have to do,” I said as I got up. This time I faced the door equipped for battle. Fil in one hand, free hand on the knife I moved to my bandoleer, and eyes narrowed like t Eastwood just before he called someone a bad word.

  I pushed open the door in the hedges and peeked in. There was another corridor, this one surrounded by hedges on both sides and with a cobblestoh down the tre.

  No signs of the meaon with the hats, or of any zombie critters.

  I stepped in and looked around. There didn’t seem to be any traps, but the hedges could hide anything and the cobbles looked too much like pressure ptes for my liking. I stuck to walking on the grass for now.

  The path veered off to the right after a little bit then took a sharp turn. I stopped and stared. The hedges shrunk. They went from t walls of green to being no higher than my hip in the space of three steps.

  That was iing, but what was far more arresting was what I could see in the distance. Water. Aire o of water as far as the eye could see.

  I was on an isnd, with not too distant shores where the sea was smag against stones and there was a small cottage-like home a few hundred meters away. Or maybe it was closer? It looked... off.

  The hedges around me formed a short wall around a garden with flowers and ponds and rge, decorative rocks. But everything was tiny. The biggest flower was no bigger than my pihe trees along the edges were only a bit taller than I was and the pond could be walked over.

  In the tre of it all was Maddy, sitting at a white, wrought-iron table that barely reached his shins. The skeleton held a minuscule teacup by its mouth as it sat on a chair that looked like it had been made for dolls, not people.

  There were three uests at the table. A rge hedgehog, a big ol’ tortoise and a shetnd pony. Eabie had a small teacup before them.

  “Hello,” I said. “Or, ah, maybe I should say ‘rarr?’ That’s iht?”

  I might have said something offensive because Maddy stood up and flipped the tiny table right over the tortoise’s head, the ti crag and breaking across the gss with a tihat filled the sudden, awkward silence. He reached up into his hat and pulled out three more bits of headwear.

  “Oh no,” I said as he pced one on eabie animal’s head.

  The hedgehog got a chef’s hat, the pony a bright yellow stru helmet and the tortoise had its head ed in ninja bandages with a forehead protector at the front, ohat had a sideways chess pie it.

  “I didn’t e here to fight!” I said.

  Maddy the skeleton didn’t seem to care. He got up and stomped off towards the home, arriving at it soohan he should have. He reached , grabbed the handle and opehe door. A mome smmed shut.

  The zombie animals all turned around until I could see the milky white of their eyes.

  Zombie Chef hedgehog, level 2

  Zombie stru pony, level 2

  Zombie Ninja tortoise, level 2

  “Oh no,” I said as they started to move. The pony clip-clopped away from me before it disappeared behind a row of hedges. The hedgehog began to move towards me with a slow, waddling gait and the tortoise...

  Something grabbed me by the back of the ahen squeezed.

  I screamed and kicked out my foot, sending the tortoise flying across the garden. It had snuck up ohen again, it was a ninja. I was going to have to keep a for sneak attacks.

  My backpack fell with a k and I began to backpedal away from the advang hedgehog. It was only about the size of a smaller dog, but that still brought it up to my shin, and with everything else in the garden looking so tiny it looked formidable indeed.

  Kig it seemed like a bad idea. It was missing plenty of its quills, but I was sure it wouldn’t feel good to try and punt it away.

  I started spinning my fil around and around until I felt it brushing against the hedge wall behind me. “Mister hedgehog, I’m warning you,” I said. “I’m going to smack you if you don’t stop moving close to me.”

  The hedgehog kept shuffling forwards.

  My fil swung around and thunked unto the hedgehog with a yucky g sound.

  Then it caught on fire. I pulled my fil bad looked away from the mess it had made of mister hedgehog. Zombies were not very tough, not even zombie hedgehogs

  Ding! gratutions, you have cooked Zombie Chef hedgehog, level 2!

  That was nid good, but now I had to deal with a fil that was on fire. Swinging it around only seemed to make it worse, the cord that made up the of it burning more and more. Soon it was going to burn up pletely and I’d be left onless. The pond! I just had to--

  That’s when a spinning green disk flew out of a hedge and cracked against the bay knees.

  I fell onto my back with an ‘oomph’ and saw the tortoise crawling away at a tortoise-y pace to go hide under a hedge.

  “Not, nice,” I coughed as I got bay feet. That had hurt, but it hadn’t injured me, at least.

  A go the side showed that my fil wasn’t much of a fil anymore. The showerhead was ed a bit, the stohin cracked and the rope was still burning, what was left of it, at least. I had taken out one of the three zombies, but at an incredible cost.

  There was a distant k-k sound that had me getting up a whole lot faster. Just in time too, as a rock the size of my head nded where I had been ying.

  I started looking around, trying to trace the source of the sound. It robably why I caught the tortoise slowly sneaking up behih a gardening trowel in its mouth. A very sharp-looking trowel.

  “Oh no you don’t!” I said as I rao the ninja tortoise and jumped.

  Both feet crashed into the tortoise’s back, squishing it ft before I bounced off. A quick spin around and I got ready to do the same thing again when, with a poof, three more tortoises appeared.

  “es,” I growled. I was getting very very miffed about all this running around and trying to kill me stuff. It had stopped being funny. I took a running leap and stomped first one e, then the , then the , boung from one shell to the like an Italian plumber.

  Three of the es poofed away, then the final tortoise began to fade into motes.

  Ding! gratutions, you have assassinated Zombie Ninja tortoise, level 2!

  Two down.

  It wasn’t a nice feeling, knowing that killing these poor zombies was being so routine. Well, not routine, but on. The ghosts were different, less tangible and more obviously evil. These critters were kind of cute if I ighe smell of rotti around them and the more zombie-ish parts of their anatomy. Cute animals missing an ear were still cute. Cute animals with hangirails... not so much.

  Somethi ‘k-k’ again and I dove to the side. A moment ter a rock flew past where I had been standing, impacted the ground with a dull thud, then bounced into the pond with a spsh.

  I looked in the dire the rock had e from and saw a wooden pole swinging back down behind a hedge.

  “I saw you!” I said as I ran over. I had my k, but really, really hoped that I could talk to the pony because stabbing a cute little zombie pony would be like stabbing my childhood and that just wasn’t cool.

  I rounded a hedge and skid to a stop.

  The pony, yellow hat and all, was standio a trebuchet, and before it, pointing right at me, was a ballista.

  I never backpedaled so fast in my life.

  The ballista fired with a ‘twang’ and a blur shot past me and into the distance. “Look, mister pony, I don’t want to hurt you, but you’re not giving me any choice here,” I said.

  The sounds of what I suspect was a ballista being reloaded filtered over to me. No good.

  I wasn’t about to run back around the hedge, which left up and over the only option. With a running start, I charged towards the hedge a into the air. My skill must have helped, either making my legs supernaturally strong or telling gravity to mind its own business for a moment, because I moved as if I had just bounced off a springboard.

  A wide-eyed pony looked up a moment before I crashed into it feet first. By the time I had recovered from my jump the pony was only a memory.

  Ding! gratutions, you have demolished Zombie stru pony, level 2!

  Part of me wao cheer, to jump and skip and be super happy that I had won anht. I tamped down on that little voice, stood back up and bowed towards where the zombie pony had been. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Being happy over the death of something, even something already mostly dead, wasn’t cool.

  I looked around the garden once I was done paying my respects and found that my efforts had been rewarded. Where the zombie ninja tortoise had faded away was a hat. It looked like an old British soldier’s helmet, with a dome in the middle, a rge ft brim and a turtle-pattern all across its surface. A pair of leather straps u showed how it was meant to hang on to the wearer’s head, and the inside added with more leather.

  “Thank you,” I said to the zombie tortoise, even if it couldn’t hear me.

  Shelled kettle hat, new.

  My new hat was quite fortable o was strapped down nid tight. I’m sure I made for a dashing figure. I wiggled my head a little to make sure everything was and fit right, then hopped on the spot a few times to make sure it wouldn’t just fly off my head. It seemed nice.

  Which meant it was time for me to tinue on my adventure.

  A bit of exploration around the garden revealed that the entrance had locked behind me already. There wasn’t anything else on the isnd except for the massively oversized house in its middle.

  Health 110/110Stamina 115/115Mana 39/105

  Not nearly as good as I wanted, but it would have to do.

  I picked up my backpack, holding it by the straps, then reached up and turhe door handle.