“I am not a monster!” Shrubley cried out as he sprinted, growing more and more out of breath, his speech picking up without pause. “Well, in fact, I am a monster. However, I am an awakened monster, yet I fear that the distinction would be lost on you in your present mental state and that you would take a rather reductive view of the entire premise!”

  For the briefest of moments, his pursuers paused to consider the confusing and breathless jumble of words.

  “I heard ‘monster’,” one said.

  “Me too.”

  “I will defend myself!” the ambulatory shrub shouted, bounding down the scree-ridden mountainside at a remarkable clip.

  The sun was getting low, making the plant-like creature easy to make out, for the center of its bushy body was glowing.

  “We don’t care about any of that!” the fellow shouted, confirming Shrubley’s suspicions. “We want those branches!”

  A volley of burning arrows arced down the mountainside, peppering the sparse grass and loose rocks all around Shrubley.

  Shrubley yelped, the sap pumping hard through his branches and leaves as his small four-foot frame struggled to outpace the longer legged humans after him.

  “You are making him mad!” Shrubley warned, looking back at them as he ran.

  His hunters didn’t understand the warning, much to their eventual dismay.

  Scree and rocks bounced alongside the group of five bandits after Shrubley. They didn’t think much of it until the sound of metal grinding against rock was too loud to ignore.

  One looked behind himself just in time to see the odd creature bearing down on them.

  Riding a kite shield down the scree-ridden slope, a man in full plate armor was swiftly gaining on the bandits with a longsword out in his hand.

  Aspect Skill: [Shield Surf]

  It took the bandits several precious seconds to choose their course. They could have stopped to fight the knight, but they were bandits and picking on people who looked prepared wasn’t a tactic they were fond of.

  Instead, they continued after the shrub. They gained on the small creature that shrieked and cried out. It only became obvious that the little guy was laughing and enjoying himself when it was already too late.

  Aspect Skill: [First Rite of the Pyre]

  The mountain surfer’s sword flared with red oily flames as he crashed into the bandits’ back line. His movements were swift, sure, and above all deadly. He wasted no time cleaving heads from necks. Those he couldn’t reach, he rammed into, causing them to stumble.

  Those who lost their heads were spared the agonizing pain of tumbling hundreds of feet down a rocky hillside.

  The flames winked out as the man came alongside Shrubley who squealed like a broken desk fan. He crouched down and scooped him up with one strong arm.

  “Jacob!” Shrubley cried. “You’re such a Chat!”

  “I think you mean, ‘Chad’,” a fiery oppa said, poking out of Jacob’s armor. “You know, you don’t have to bait the bandits if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s fun!” Shrubley said enthusiastically. “I give them plenty of time to repent their wicked ways, and they never do.”

  “Most people who are just trying to survive are already hunkered down somewhere they consider safe,” Jacob Windsor said. He turned to scan the sides of the forest that lined the edge of the mountainside through the slit in his angular helm. “Where is that woman?”

  “Miranda said she was hungry,” Shrubley explained. “Remember? She and Cal went off with Hal and Sylvie.”

  “Not her,” Jacob said, shifting his weight and carving through the dense scree toward the tree line. Once the ground shifted from loose stone to soil, he scooped up Shrubley again and hopped off his shield.

  Without looking, he stomped down and popped the shield up to his waiting arm.

  “So cool…” Shrubley whispered in awe as Jacob set him down with an affectionate pat on his leafy head.

  “Jacob, a little help!” came a woman’s voice.

  “Come on, Shrubley!” Jacob called to his protégé as he sprinted through the darkening forest. He found Camilla easily thanks to the flames of Darkness she was casting at her adversary.

  It took him a moment to realize the difficulty. The golem was resistant to magic. Each impact of [Dark Flame] hardly made a mark on its stony, angular skin.

  Jacob surged in, [Bull Rush] lending him greater speed. Fenris slipped back into his armor. He collided with a sweeping arm of the golem just as it would have crushed Camilla flat.

  He knocked the creature’s aim off, smashing a tree to flinders instead.

  On he came, his sword jabbing and poking at every seam and weak point that Jacob could find. The golem was hardly fazed by the attacks. Its counterattack nearly took Jacob’s head from his shoulders. He ducked, getting his helm torn painfully from his head.

  Shrubley raised his oddly pink-hued sword and cried out. The vines and roots all around them burst through the soil like the tentacles of a dread beast.

  Aspect Skill: [Seismic Grasp]

  The golem’s limbs ripped through the first few questing roots, but its initial momentum was robbed. Shrubley’s skill continued to grasp and weave its way into the tiniest cracks in the golem’s body.

  Cracks that were slowly widened by the patience of the earth and roots.

  “For leaf and branch!” Shrubley called out.

  Camilla held an arm that was hanging lower than it should have. He wanted to go to her, but she shook her head. “Don’t worry about me! Shrubley won’t be able to hold that golem for long!”

  Grim determination forged on his features, Jacob rushed the golem. He slipped his shield onto his back and switched to a two-handed grip. With his sword raised high, Jacob summoned a power few were able to control, let alone endure.

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  His sword didn’t change physically in any way that was perceivable to the eye of man or beast, but suddenly it grew very, very heavy. It took all of his considerable strength just to bear it.

  Aspect Skill: [Guilty Blade]

  Jacob’s longsword, four feet of solid steel, looked like a toothpick compared to the towering creature of ensorcelled stone.

  It struck with the force of a 10-ton wrecking ball.

  The sword didn’t so much shear through the creature’s hardened hide as crush and pulverize everything in its way. The golem’s emerald eyes glittered with pain and fear.

  Jacob followed through the motion, pivoting his hips and bringing the blade up and over into a powerful vertical chop reminiscent of Executioner’s Lament . This world lacked sword forms that he knew of, but Jacob couldn’t rid himself of the habit.

  The training was deeply ingrained in him, despite that it may as well have been from another life.

  The golem’s body burst open like it had been hit by a train. The only thing that held it together was Shrubley’s skill. The roots dug into the cracks of the monster, pulling it apart and into the ground where it would rest for eternity.

  “Sleep well,” Shrubley said to the monster. “May you find enlightenment in your next life.”

  Breathing hard, sweat slicking his hair to his forehead, Jacob let go of his Guilt aspect. He nearly sagged from the relief, but kept himself upright. He didn’t want Shrubley worrying about him, not when the shrub’s healing was needed elsewhere.

  Camilla limped up to them, holding a clearly dislocated shoulder. “How is it that I find the one golem in all the plateau?”

  Shrubley eagerly stepped up to Camilla, reaching out his twiggy hand with a golden glow to the limb. Golden light spread up from his twiggy fingers to Camilla’s pale skin.

  She let out a grunt of pain as the shoulder was pulled back into the socket. Though her face was red from exertion, she sighed with relief.

  Aspect Skill: [Light of Recovery]

  “Thank you, Shrubley,” Camilla said, using her newly healed arm to pat his leafy head. The look she gave Jacob was infinitely more tender, yet oddly guarded. “And you, Jacob.” She poked his armored chest. “You know, you don’t have to act like a literal knight in shining armor.”

  “He’s doing his best!” Fenris barked from inside Jacob’s armor. It was obvious where he was, since his fur often glowed like the embers of a great Pyre.

  Jacob tapped a fragment of the golem’s body with the tip of his sword, looting it. He watched with childlike wonder as the streamers of light bearing the monster’s loot streaked out to each of them.

  So much better than Lormar.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit!” a high-pitched voice called out through the trees.

  Fenris scuttled out of Jacob’s armor to rest on his shoulder. Shrubley bent down and retrieved Jacob’s helm, passing it back to him.

  They were at the tree line just in time to see a black-clad young man racing down the mountainside with what looked like an entire tribe of cannibals on his tail.

  “Should we help him?” Shrubley asked, confused. “He is very fast.”

  “What an unfortunate fellow,” Camilla said, watching the trailing crowd.

  “If they don’t catch him, they’ll catch somebody else,” Jacob said, fitting the helm onto his head. “Let’s help the poor bastard out.”

  Heath’s luck had gone from bad to worse. He stumbled from one murderous group to the next, always managing to stay just ahead of their deadly grasp.

  This latest group was the worst mistake he had made since trusting that old woman who had literally stabbed him in the back. All he wanted at that moment was a glass of milk to quench his parched throat.

  Apparently staggering half-dead into a large tribe of people wearing human skulls and asking for a glass of milk was somehow offensive. Most people just found it weird.

  It was hardly “kill him on the spot” worthy.

  He shook his head. You’re delirious, Heath!

  Yeah, but full-fat creamy milk ice cold from the fridge would really hit the spot.

  Rest and sleep were a distant memory. Heath had begun to lose his grasp on his goal. And yet, the same mantra would bubble inevitably to the surface, shocking him out of his haziness.

  WWMD! What would Mel do?

  She wouldn’t keep running, but she also wasn’t dumb enough to turn around and face 30 angry cannibals. In retrospect, he should have noticed all the skulls and corpses strewn around the area.

  It was a pretty obvious warning. They clearly weren’t very good cannibals. He chuckled to himself deliriously. Good Cannibals sounds like a really awesome heavy metal band.

  A group of adventurers burst out of the tree line to Heath’s right. He knew he was hallucinating when he saw the same little shrub raising a pink sword and screaming, “For leaf and branch!” as they charged at him.

  “No fries for me!” Heath screamed nonsensically.

  His body was moving entirely on its own accord. There was nothing he could do to stop this group from slamming into him. His mana was shot, his stamina was a thin vertical green bar that was about to go out at any moment, and his health…well, the less said about that, the better.

  He had more wound markers than he could count. Granted, at the moment, he would have struggled to count to 10.

  Instead of finishing him off, they collided with the cannibals chasing him. Heath looked over his shoulder as the knight, the witch, and the talking shrub barreled into the cannibals. They didn’t know what hit them.

  They were prepared to take on one skinny guy wearing all black from Ohio, not some literal walking heroes from DND.

  Heh. The Knight, the Witch, and the Shrub sounds like a good book title.

  Heath hit something very hard and rebounded off it, lights flashing in his eyes. Something hot and coppery flooded his mouth as he fell onto his back.

  Despite the pain, he was happy to finally stop. He stayed there, the world slowly revolving around him until, after an unknown amount of time, Heath heard voices.

  “Sir? Are you okay?” said a small voice.

  “Shrubley, stay back.”

  “Oh, I know this one! Hello, sir! I saved you, remember? It’s me, Shrubley!”

  “Shrubley, get back!”

  WWMD, Heath! What would Mel do?

  Heath thought about that. At least, as well as he could, considering the present circumstances. Mel wouldn’t take no shit from anyone. She would go down swinging.

  Snarling with bestial, instinctive rage, Heath lashed out and swung for the deeper voice that he heard last.

  His fist was caught in an iron grip.

  “On second thought, I would love some fries,” Heath declared, feeling as if this made perfect sense, even though it absolutely did not.