It was around midday when Gwyn paused at the edge of the search grid they had determined for this part of the forest. They hadn’t found any puppies so far but were still determined to complete the quest. System-determined rewards were often unique and, therefore, highly sought after. And, after all of this, Gwyn wanted to know what a puppy was.

  Open quest: A puppy for Mirabelle

  Find a puppy for Mirabelle.

  Reward: System determined

  It only took a few moments for Tony and Micheal to reach her, flanking in from the respective lines they were walking. Tony’s steps were sure-footed and strong, but Micheal’s had slowed considerably from when they had started this morning. But he wasn’t complaining and kept up with her and Tony by sheer force of will, even though this was far removed from the terrain he used to patrol as a town guard.

  ‘How about we take a break and have some lunch?’ Gwyn suggested.

  ‘Lunch sounds great,’ Micheal huffed, leaning against a tree trunk to rest.

  ‘Yep, I could sure do with some.’ Even after discarding his idea that a wolf pup might do for a puppy, Tony was still cheerful. Gwyn shook open her carry bag to reach in for their lunch supplies. Just then, Micheal looked away, cocking his head.

  ‘Wait, do you hear that?’ They all fell silent as Gwyn and Tony also listened. There was a noise in the distance, like a high-pitched whine on the edge of hearing.

  ‘What kind of animal would that be?’ Gwyn asked Tony.

  He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure; could be anything. It does sound small, though.’

  ‘Small, like it might be a puppy?’ Micheal asked. They looked at each other, lunch temporarily forgotten.

  ‘This way,’ Tony said.

  The race through the forest went by in a blur. Gwyn kept up as best she could, with Micheal not far behind, but Tony was the undisputed master of the terrain. He was like a forest spirit, sliding through vegetation that caught on Gwyn’s clothing and tripped up Micheal; the whines became ever louder as they got closer to the source. Finally, they stopped at the edge of a depression in the forest floor, where the whines sounded clearly from the bottom. It looked like a cave-in had occurred, creating the impression of a giant funnel in the forest floor with jagged boulders sticking haphazardly out the sides, surrounded by loose gravel and partially overgrown with vegetation.

  Are those boulders man-made? Gwyn wondered. It looked like it since they had uniform edging, although the elements quite weathered them. She didn’t have time to study them further, focusing instead on the desperate whines. At the bottom were three medium-sized grey rat-like creatures snuffling, biting, and clawing at a section of the depression wall.

  ‘Dire rats,’ Tony said, spitting on the forest floor in disgust, but that didn’t stop him from confronting the problem. He hefted his axe and charged forward. Gwyn followed, sliding her dagger from its sheath, and Micheal, adrenaline overriding his exhaustion, propelled himself forward while brandishing his gladius. Having the element of surprise, it took almost no effort to dispatch the three dire rats. Tony easily lopped the head off the first, Gwyn dispatched the second with a dagger through its eye, and Micheal easily impaled the last one with his gladius, it giving a discordant screech before going into its death throes.

  ‘Wait.’ Tony raised his hand just as they were about to investigate the obscured hollow where the whines came from. ‘Why is the ground vibrating?’ Gwyn had a bad feeling as they turned to where the vibration was coming from. There was a black hole leading into the ground.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  ‘Oh no,’ Micheal said, backing away, but it was too late as a hoard of dire rats began pouring out of the opening. Their red eyes were filled with evil madness, and their long, yellow incisors were poised to bite as they charged at the puppy-quest group. There was no way to outrun them up the sides of the depression.

  ‘Fight!’ screamed Gwyn as the flood of dire rats overran their position.

  ‘This. Puppy. Had. Better. Be. Worth. It.!’ Tony roared, punctuating every word with a swing of his axe.

  Micheal said nothing, focusing on staying on his feet and swinging his sword despite his exhaustion.

  <>

  Further away, on their way to the suspected underground storage location, Goliath stopped. ‘Battle cries,’ he said at the same time as Fred said, ‘monster trouble.’ They both charged in the direction of the sounds.

  ‘What?’ Alan said, looking around in surprise as Samuel ran past him, drawing his blade. Alan patted his clothes and pulled out his own small blade, which was more of a utility knife than anything else, but it was still better than nothing. Then he ran after the others.

  Goliath was unprepared for what he found when they arrived at the site of the disturbance. Gwyn and her group were surrounded by a tide of dire rats, standing back-to-back and frantically fighting them off. He rushed toward them, only vaguely aware of Fred and Samuel at his back, and waded in, hacking into the mischief of rats. It was like the battles he wished he had forgotten. After a while you stop thinking and just keep stabbing and slashing until it almost surprised him that there were no more dire rats to kill. Looking up, he saw Fred decapitating the final one in a sea of rat bodies which were piled up to knee height all around them.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, wading through the carcasses to the little group at the center of the fight.

  ‘Better now you’re here,’ Gwyn replied. ‘You saved our buts.’

  ‘For sure,’ Tony added, leaning weakly on his axe. ‘This beats the hell out of a day of logging. At least with logging you can take a break without dying!’

  Micheal just doubled over, letting his gladius slide out of his grasp and resting his hands on his knees. ‘I’m dead and done,’ he gasped.

  ‘You’re all right,’ Samuel said, patting Micheal on the shoulder. Goliath looked at Samuel appraisingly. He seemed surprisingly hale after the fight they had just been through. There was more to the old guard than he had thought, after all.

  ‘How are you still standing?’ Micheal gasped incredulously at Samuel.

  ‘Oh, I’ve been through worse.’

  The whole party fell silent, staring at him.

  ‘What? You’ve never handled a rat infestation in a widow’s cellar? You’d be surprised how these things can breed down there in the dark.’

  ‘Those were real? I thought that was just your excuse for some private time with the old dames.’ Micheal looked at him in amazement.

  ‘Private time? Why on earth would you think that?’

  ‘Well, you were always away so long on each call, and when you got back, you were all tired and dishevelled. Which, I guess, makes sense after today,’ Michael concluded sheepishly.

  Samuel’s mouth opened and closed as he sought a suitable reply. Fred made a noise, choking on his suppressed laughter before bellowing it out loud. It didn’t take long for the others to follow. Even Samuel joined in after a moment. Gwyn collapsed against Goliath in her mirth, and he caught her, leaning against her as they laughed along with everyone else. After a while, she remembered their original mission, saying. ‘Wait, the puppy.’

  ‘The puppy? You found it?’ Goliath asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Tony, Micheal, where was it?’

  ‘Over there, burrowed into the hollow, I think,’ Tony replied, moving over. Gwyn joined him at the burrow. It was silent as they carefully pulled the roots apart and dug the soil out around the opening. ‘I think I see it, but I can’t get in there to reach the creature.’ Tony said.

  ‘Hang on a moment.’ Gwyn bent down and pulled more debris away to peer into the dark hole, noting the soft, miserable shape whimpering inside. ‘Hey little creature, we’re not going to hurt you. Do you want to come out?’ It crouched further back against the back end of the burrow.

  ‘Michael, why don’t you try.’ Goliath prodded the exhausted guard forward. If that was indeed the elusive puppy, they needed someone from the quest group to retrieve it so Gwyn’s group could claim the reward.

  Micheal knelt at the opening and said, ‘All right, puppy, I’m going to grab you, okay?’ Reaching in, he slowly pulled the shivering creature out. A more bedraggled being Goliath had never seen. It was coated in mud and shivered while whining piteously. Gwyn was right there to take it from Micheal, and she studied it as she lifted it.

  ‘Do you see it, Tony? Micheal? I think this is it!’

  ‘Yes, I think so too!’ Tony replied, looking at it in awe.

  Frankly, it looked like a slightly elongated little mud rat monster to Goliath, but the puppy-quest crew seemed to think that was it. Well, Mirabelle, I sure hope this is your puppy, he thought to himself.

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