JohnWillStab, Bonifacius, Crown, Foxly, Bromy, Alex, Revenberry and the Thief sat on Pedecree’s cart.

He invested in soft, pillow-like seats for his cart as well as a foldable wagon-like roof to help protect his passangers from the rain.

“Ah, the lost coat, what a nostalgic sight!” Bromy exclaimed.

Revenberry shrugged.

“Yeah, I bet you look back fondly to that time you lost a leg…” she remarked sarcastically.

“Pfft, what’s more valuable, a leg or adventure!?” Bromy asked.

“An adventure could cost you a leg, so you’d end up with no legs!” Revenberry retorted.

Bromy crossed his arms.

“Don’t discriminate, having no legs is no reason you can’t go on an adventure!” he replied.

“Oh, yeah, sure unless you roll up to some fucking stairs!” she replied.

Bonifacius crossed his arms.

“An adventure to one is not necessarily the same for another! Thou need to enjoy the little adventures throughout thy day!” he advised.

Bromy and Revenberry looked at him blankly.

“No, that’s not what I mean… I’m talking about exploring abandoned buildings and stuff…” Bromy replied.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Alex asked.

Bromy shrugged.

“If it’s a derelict building, the only reason you can’t go inside is so the owner won’t get sued, I doubt many of them really care…” he explained.

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette before lighting it.

JohnWillStab was playing with his dagger like a pencil in class only partially paying attention to the conversation.

“Wait, how would going into old buildings be dangerous?” Revenberry asked.

“I mean, aside from running into some crack addicts…” she added.

“I mean, mould… unstable ground… wildlife… giant crocodiles…” John replied.

Bromy squinted.

“I doubt giant crocodiles live in abandoned buildings…”

“What?! What about the four turtles that trained under the supervision of a rat?” Bonifacius asked.

Bromy breathed a sigh.

“Bony… the ninja turtles were mutants… and also fictional…”

Foxly crossed his arms.

“What?!”

Bromy and Bonifacius turned to face Foxly.

“I mean… they don’t exist…”

“No way! They’re real! I saw a documentary about it on MeinTube!” Foxly argued.

The Thief shrugged.

“I mean, in theory, there could be turtle people living in the sewers!” she argued.

Foxly’s face lit up.

“EXACTLY!”

“Yeah, sorry to ruin your dreams, but any humanoid would die from methane poisoning in the sewers, not to mention the diseases…” Bromy replied.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“But what if they evolved to resist the disease and breathe the gas!” the Thief offered.

Bromy felt his brain matter committing ritual suicide.

“Look… that’s not how evolution works… it takes countless generations to get even the slightest difference, not to mention the turtles wouldn’t get a chance to pass on their genes, since the first generation would die!“ Bromy was looking visibly frustrated.

“But what if they did!” argued the Thief.

“Bu- b- but… BUT THEY WOULDN’T!”

“Unless they divide asexually and really quickly!”

“Not to mention, I have no clue where they’d find enough food to be able to pop out turtle-clones like there’s no tomorrow!”

“Well, you see… they eat pizza, it’s full of calories…” Foxly explained.

Bromy had to be restrained for the rest of the journey for fear he would continue to strangle Foxly.

“Anyway…” the Thief began.

“What do you guys think caused the fog?” she asked.

“It’s probably just regular fog…” Alex shrugged.

“I bet it’s some op monster we’ll have to kill…” John speculated.

“Fog-people…” Revenberry and Bromy said in unison.

“Perhaps it has something to do with the dungeon located in the zone, the basin of mist…” Bonifacius speculated.

Everyone turned to face Bonifacius.

“…”

“…”

“I think I’m going to place my bet on Bony’s idea…” Foxly replied.

“Same…” the Thief nodded.

“Oh yeah… I forgot about the dungeon!” Bromy exclaimed.

The group sat in awkward silence for a bit, the cart was moving up the hill towards the concrete-covered slope down into the lost coat.

The massive cloud of fog lingered around the zone as the distant sound of waves finally reached the group.

“So… we’re doing a dungeon?” John asked.

“Guess so,” Bromy replied.

The group continued their journey down into the small zone.

JohnWillStab was on edge the entire time.

“I’ll be able to collect you by sunset at the earliest,” Pedecree explained as he dropped them off before quickly returning to his side job as a taxi driver.

“Alright! Let’s make haste to the dungeon!” Bonifacius exclaimed taking a step into the fog.

The group descended into the milk-coloured mist.

They carefully scaled the concrete walls going down into the zone, the tall building and the think, skeletal trees came into view.

“Why must this place always look so gloomy…?” Bonifacius thought looking at the piles of rubble and cracked concrete tiles.

“This place really does look like a scene from a horror movie…” the Thief remarked causing a shiver to run down John’s spine.

“Don’t remind me…” John pleaded.

“Think about it this way, John, there’s plenty of salt in the sea!” Crown said sarcastically.

“The forbidden broth…” John mumbled.

“…What?” Crown asked.

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream could be heard from inside the fog putting the rest of the group on high alert.

In an instant, JohnWillStab went from practically shaking in his boots to being battle-ready, the same could be said about the others, though the difference was less striking.

“Stay the fuck back!” the voice demanded.

A deep, heavy hiss could be heard in reply.

Immediately Bonifacius charged forward, shield in hand, after a second of running he could see the creature as well as the victim, a messy-haired man with the beginning of a beard and a lab coat.

The beast was a sea prince, the torso shaped like a human and the tail of a snake in place of its legs, it had white scales and blood-red eyes.

“You’ve been sssssnooping around here for too long, human!” it cried, in its hand as a massive cleaver.

Bonifacius’ shield crashed into the sea prince, the impact pushed it backwards, its tail burying into the dirt below.

“More humansss?!” it hissed.

The sea prince swung his cleaver at Bonifacius only for it to be caught mid-air by Bromy’s vines and Crown’s geese.

“What’ssss thissss?” the sea prince demanded looking at its immobilized blade.

JohnWillStab tossed daggers at the creature, stabbing its flesh from within the mist, the Thief did the same aside from occasionally summoning a rabbit and throwing it for extra damage.

The rabbits usually scratched the sea prince before disappearing into a puff of smoke.

“Hang in there!” Alex exclaimed.

He ran up to support Bonifacius with Thal in hand.

Foxly and Revenberry stood around being useless in the fight.

“…”

“I’m more of an AOE and support person so… y’know…”

“Yeah, I doubt using water magic against something called a sea-prince would be very useful…”

The sea prince opened its dragon-like jaws and unleased a pressurised stream of water that pushed Bonifacius and Alex back.

From the corners of its mouth water dripped down onto the floor as it shut its mouth and retreated into the fog before anybody could catch it.

“Thisss isssn’t the end, ssssurface dwellersssss….” It hissed in the distance.

“Twas a strange creature…” Bonifacius remarked wiping the water from his face.

“I bet we could have taken it out!” Alex replied confidently.

They turned to look at the person who narrowly evaded being killed by the sea prince.

“Greetings! My name is Bonifacius, are thou alright?”

Kevin stood up, patting his clothes clean.

“Yeah, I’m good, thought I was dead there for a second…” he remarked before cracking his neck.

“Oh no… it’s him…” Bromy remarked.

Meanwhile…

XPhaxX stood in a large snowy hill in the middle of what must have been a very strong snowstorm.

Before him, amidst the snow dyed red lay the corpse of his victim.

Both of them were wearing large coats to protect them from the cold.

“Four hell-souls down…” he said glancing down to his notepad and crossing out a third name.

In his hand was a compass the pointed towards his next target.

“Eight to go!”

XPhaxX cleared his throat loudly.

“I want to cash in my fourth wish!” he exclaimed.

Lorb’s head popped out from the snow before the rest of him climbed out.

“Alright!” he replied sitting cross-legged on the snow.

“So, a house salesman who happens to be a horse leads a potential buyer to a very long tunnel the buyer wanted to buy a small tunnel, the buyer happened to be a barkeeper, he turned to the horse and said ‘Why the long place?’” XPhaxX recited his joke and looked to Lorb uncertainly.

“Mm… nope…” Lorb shook his head.

“Seriously?! I worked really hard on that one!” XPhaxX exclaimed.

“The plot was too forced, plus who goes out to buy a tunnel?” Lorb explained.

XPhaxX sighed.

“Alright, I’ll have an even better one ready next!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, about that… shouldn’t you like… wish for something other than a critique of your jokes?” Lorb asked uncomfortably.

XPhaxX shrugged.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Immortality always sucks…”

“You either get depressed or tortured for ages…”

“If I choose to resurrect one person I like, others will demand the same treatment, so I’d have to either wish everyone that died up until now to life or wish for an ability to resurrect people whenever I want,”

“If I resurrect everyone, that’ll include all the bandits and stuff,”

“If I give myself the power to resurrect people, I’ll always be a target!”

He shook his head.

“I’m strong enough as it is and I have a max-level profession that makes me a load of money!”

“Being max level might make me feel obligated to help lower levels, so I think it’s best I just take the hell-souls out and get some joke-reviews,” he explained.

“Huh…” Lorb scratched his head.

“You could wish for a really cool hat or something,”

“Or an ability to make people always find your jokes funny!” Lorb offered.

“Nah, that’d be cheating… I want people to like my jokes and my masterful trolling skills!” he explained.

“…”

“…”

“I could go for a cool hat though…” he replied.

“Nobody can resist cool hats!” Lorb grinned.

“Tell you what, for your next wish I’ll throw the hat in for free!” Lorb offered.

XPhaxX smiled.

“DEAL!”