“Are you related to L0le?” Jazz whispered to Le0n, as Luz mindlessly rambled on about how her deity guided her party through the woods. To find a crumbling castle.

“Yes I am, now don’t you dare say a peep about it. I don’t want any royal treatment from the others. It was hard enough growing up with it and I don’t want that to carry over here! So zip it.” Le0n muttered back. Glancing back to see Marlow and Luz’s men pushing the carts over the uneven terrain.

“Then Lux with her divine power said to me. Look the west there you shall find another encampment from your guild. Be hasty else the panthers will be upon them. And I said in return-”

“Okay I think that’s enough. I have a question for you: has the guild set up any sort of jobs yet or is everyone just sitting around?”

“Well once we get enough adventures then we can begin chopping down the forest for farmland and lumber. Speaking of which, I'm glad to see that you bought food for everyone.”

“You would be glad if it wasn’t poisoned. We intercepted the food from a third party who wanted to kill the city guards.”

“Do not worry Le0n, son of L0le. With Lux’s holy might I shall cleanse this food so it will be safe to eat.” Luz proclaimed stepping into the small clearing before the castle.

The castle could be barely called that. With crumbling walls and rioting drawbridge. Stepping into the court yard was a whole different deal. Everything in here looked like it was ripped from a painting. Flowing fountains, a flower garden, and trimmed bushes.

“We don’t know how the grounds of this prestigious place were so well kept, but I choose to believe that it was Lux who preserved this place for us.” Luz moved on not noticing that Le0n pulled Jazz off of the path.

“Alright I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to meet my mother yet, So I say we go do some quests. Then I’ll introduce her when we get back tonight. Cool?”

“I’ll never turn down any free experience.” Jazz winked back, waiting for the other to catch up. Le0n informed Marlow the plan, asking him to go wait by the stables over there.

The guild had set up a job board right by the entrance, give it a once over. Le0n snagged a loose piece of paper from it. Reading it over he shared it with Jazz. Nodding in agreement they went into the castle. Searching room after room until they found a door called ‘Enchanter’s Emporium’.

Knocking on the door revealed a medium sized man with a mustache so fluffy it looked like two caterpillars kissing.

“Hello, are you by chance Tracy?’ We heard that you’d like to go out on a quest with a party.” Le0n inquired, a greedy glint already coming into his eyes.

“No I am not, but I can get her for you though. TRACY, GET OUT HERE. YOU’VE GOT CUSTOMERS!” Clabbering and thumping could be heard as someone upstairs climbed through a mountain of mess to the stairs. Followed by someone tumbling down the spiral staircase and banging against the door. Whoever it was took a second before opening the door.

“So which one of you blockheads wants an enchantment?”

“Tracy, these fine folks are here to take you on a quest. You can’t spend forever reading and writing whatever you get up to in your room all day.”

“But, Daaaaaaaaaad. I don’t want to go.”

“Listen here young lady, so long as you are under my roof you will better yourself. I don’t want you wasting your time fluffing around with that magical nonsense you do up there all night!”

“But Dad.” The two of them argued each time getting louder and louder.

“So we’re giving a quest to… kidnap an introvert?”

“Yeah I think so.”

“But she’s a magic user, isn’t she gonna have trouble around you know who?”

“Oh…well I didn’t think of that. Guess we-“

“FINE!”

“FINE!” Tracy stormed out the front door taking both Jazz and Le0n with her.

“Tell me what where doing so we can this stupid thing over with!”

“Okay… we’ll we are, let's go check the quest board and see which ones we can do.” Le0n interjected while getting a death glare from their newest teammate.

Taking every twist and turn they could remember they eventually made it back to the courtyard. Taking a few seconds to catch their collective breaths they made their way over to the cluttered board.

The quest board in all honesty was a massive wooden plank with papers nailed to it. With each paper containing what the objective was, where to go, and who to talk to afterwards. with each section from easy to hard being divided by a different wooden plank.

“So where shall we start?”

“I say we go after one of the harder quests, high risk high reward!” Jazz cheerfully said.

“No, I don’t want to be here any more than you, so let’s just go clear out the rats hiding in the forest or something.”

“Actually what can you do Tracy? I know you're a magic type but what are your limits?” Le0n spoke, grabbing Jazz’s shoulder before she got too far.

“Fine, I'll give you the bare bones of what I can do. I’m an enchanter. I can basically imbue objects with magical powers which makes them more powerful. So I’ll mainly be our damage dealer if that's alright with you lot. Now, let's clear out some overgrown rat’s nest so I can get back to working on some real important stuff. For our guild.”

“What exactly were you doing before your Dad? Kicked you out?”

“I was trying to make a baton that blast’s out fire when it hits something, now come on let’s go already.” Tracy pouted, stomping her foot.

“Well we should find our other party member, before we start. He said he’d be around here?” Le0n pointedly said, stopping Jazz from wandering off with a firm hand.

“How about you go look for him and Tracy and I can go look at the quest board!” Getting an agreement from the bowmen they took off. Each of them heading to opposites ends. Rolling his eye’s Le0n turned and came face to chest with his dear brother.

“What have you been up to bro! I haven’t seen you since we got that quest to go find a location for our guild, man!”

“Hey… Legi0n. I’ve been good. How’s mom?”

“Oh that’s awesome, mom’s up in the throne room already planning with the other guild leaders on how to turn this forest into farmland. Hey I don't know if you heard this or not but we just had three new magic types join our guild!”

“Oh really who?” Legi0n smiled and dropped his warhammer and began counting off on his fingers

“It’s amazing bro, we got a necromage, a summoner, and a full on mage, man! We are gonna be kicking somebody's teeth in when they try to mess with us now!”

“That’s great, now if you don’t mind me. I’m off to go find my teammate.”

“You got a private team! That's an amazing man. I’m still stuck with running strength and constitution training. You're such a lucky man.”

“Well it’s not official yet, but we do have an alright powerhouse and a decent healer.”

“Oh you're talking about our guild’s alchemist right? I’m sure glad mom picked her up. Those healing potions have saved my bacon time or two.”

“Yeah, now if you’ll please excuse me. I need to find my teammate before we head out for the day.”

“Alright man, I get it. Hey, why don’t you come over to the training course when you're done. You could use some muscles on your bones.” Weakly acknowledging it, Le0n slipped past his brother and began his search for the tamer. How hard would it be to find a guy with an army of rats, a six foot horse, and a chicken that could make people throw up.

Turns out to be very hard. Marlow was nowhere to be found, in fact he hadn’t even seen the horse Marlow had left by the stables. Rubbing his head le0n lamented and returned to the quest bored.

Talking to Jazz and Tracy they came up with a plan to go out and thin the monster population in the forest, then come back and drop off Tracy, and then Jazz and him would go search for Marlow. Taking the traveled road from the castle to the forest they began hunting, unsuccessfully.

“Where are they? I hate the outdoors. Can we pick a different quest?”

“Oh we could, but this one gets us the most coins. While also being the shortest and less intensive.”

“Fine.” Moud Tracy, punching a branch in front of her. Which was covered in ice and broke on her second hit.

“So what kind of ‘enchantments’ can you do?”

“I prefer elemental enchantments since they're mainly straight forward. When this happens do this. But I can also make semi complicated ones like; little stat changing, minor repair, or self cleaning.”

“Could you two keep it down! I think we're getting close.” Whispered Le0n standing up.

“Do you really think that camouflage is going to work? Or were you dressing up to go on a date with a bush?” Blushing, Le0n brushed himself off and continued forward. Leaving the giggling enchanter. A soft quick silenced Tracy as a rat with abnormally large claws fell on Le0n.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Get down!” Were the only words Le0n heard before getting punched in the back of the head by Tracy. Frost blumed from her knuckles and Le0n’s hair was incased by cold ice. The rat then jumped from Le0n’s shoulders onto a nearby branch before running off.

“I got this one!” Tracy yelled, stomping through the undergrowth chasing the rat.

“What did the quest say exactly, Jazz?”

“It said ‘A personal trainer has spotted rats swarming into and out of the forest. Find and slay any rats you find before some nefarious plot can be taken against us. Talk to Legi0n, can be found at the training ground. Reward: 1 gold per rat and possibly a bonus on training.’ Oh shoot.” Sharing a grimmed expression they took off.

Spotting the path Tracy took they followed it. Not expecting the enchant to be so nimble. They heard rats and Tracy screaming long before they saw them.

Rounding the corner Tracy had already successfully got the attention of two of the rat mounts and four rat rouges. Smiling Tracy yelled at them, ice already coating her in the shape of a boxing glove. Throwing a punch she hit a mount in its nose, followed by igniting her other hand with an electrical charge and upper cutting the mount.

The rouge rats attempted to fade from view, but were stopped when Tracy ignited her hand and hucked a bruning branch at them.

Muscle bound rats ran between Jazz’s and Le0n’s legs and began nipping at Tracy. Only to be stopped by some invisible force. As She noticed them she lifted her boot and stomped several times, on the fifth try her boots glowed and sent out a ring of force sending into the ground. Sending the rats flying away.

Turning Le0n saw the undergrowth shaking as more and more rats came to aid their brothers and sisters. “Tracy, stop, we gotta get out of here!”

“Oh come on we totally got this! Just filter them to me.”

“No Tracy you don’t understand-”

“LE0N!” Looking to the side Marlow was tromping through the forest riding his massive horse.

“Marlow, great we found you! Call off you rats, I can explain.” Pausing for a second Marlow fumbled with his flute, then played a high note that sent the rats back into hiding.

“Eeee-yah! Yeah! You better run!”

“So who’s the new girl?”

“That’s Tracy, we're thinking about adding her to our team. But…” Turning they watched as Tracy continued to beat the dead rats.

“...We're sorry. I um… Yeah I don’t really know what to say.” Le0n grumbled twiddling his thumbs, how were you supposed to apologize after accidentally leading a selfish, snarky, battle manic, person who then killed your friend’s pet rats.

Frowning Marlow nodded a small tear forming a streaking across his dirty face. Hefting his spear he held it over his head in the motion of throwing, but went limp as he did. Bowing his head, he got off of Buttercup and walked over to them.

“So what were you doing out here then I thought you said you’d stay in the courtyard?”

“Oh you remember that map Mr Black gave up, turns out it’s not too far from the castle so I went to go check it out. Of course I didn’t want to go alone or have my rats be stepped on or Opal to get kidnapped again so I brought them with me! Then I got a notification saying that one of my rats died so I ran back here and found you guys.”

“Who in mid guard are you? And do you think you can bring those rats back I kind of want to get back to my room some time today please.”

“Ha, yeah no. Tracy this is Marlow, our other team member. Marlow this is Tracy, our guild’s enchanter. He is our tamer. He’s the reason why these rats are so well behaved.”

“Not ‘well’ behaved enough, they were pretty easy to kill. Now come on, let's get to it, bring out your rats so I can get back to making some real cash.”

“I don’t really like her.” Marlow said turning back to Jazz and Le0n.

Intelligence +1, sometimes realizing who is and isn’t a good person is good enough.

Talking It over they took the deceased rats with them and went to go talk to Legi0n. And told him that the guild had a tamer with an entire rat's worth of rats, and that the rats were neutral unless you attacked them. This was followed by a dropping of Tracy and an ashamed Father paying a little bit extra.

“Marlow, do you think it would be better if we helped you ‘tame’ the forest critters? Cause I don’t know about you but I kind of liked sleeping out in the open and if we were able to help… Why are you nodding your head?”

“Sorry Jazz I would rather limit my tamed creatures right now. I do like having a bunch of rats, but I’d rather make sure that the rats I do have are stronger alone rather than with each other. Sure a hundred rats can take down a person, but that person could just as easily take down at least two hundred of my rats.”

Not wanting to argue the fact that rats were fairly weak. She then received a look from Le0n, so she changed the topic.

“Well I think Le0n’s pretty close to getting his first advanced class. So what can we do to help with that?”

“I’m just about three thousand away from that. You know since we got a crap ton of experience from fighting the hardcores.”

“Great, let's hope that we find a few monsters on our way to that weird skull house.” Greeting a weak reply, they took off. With the forest being so dense it was a miracle that they didn’t find a single monster at all. Kicking the final shrub they stumbled into a clearing.

Righting themselves they immediately felt off, as if some presents were watching over them. Checking with one another they confirmed their suspicions and slowly moved forward.

Cresting the hill they spotted the oddity, it was a ghost town. With a long withered tree, with it’s few remaining leaves being blown away in the soft breeze. On opposite sides of the town were two unique features: a slightly worn manor and a three story tall mossy tower.

Checking their surroundings one last time they descended the hill. Walking past the empty houses felt off. There wasn’t even a cobweb to be seen. In fact there wasn’t even a speck of dust away on the aged houses. It was almost as if the residents had just left that morning. Which added even more to the creepiness.

A hand was gently placed on Marlow’s shoulder. Clamping his jaw shut he turned fearing the worst. The hand was thankfully attached to Le0n’s arm. Who they pointed in the direction of the mossy tower. Grabbing Jazz’s attention by bouncing a pebble off of her shoe the scuttled to the tower.

This building or whatever it was seemed out of place in the oddly preserved town. Knocking on the door was the only sound made, other than the door collapsing inward with a loud crunch.

Inwardly cringing, the three of them shared a look of horror as nothing happened for a long second. As the dust in the moss tower settled they each took their time to set carefully over the decrepit door.

Inside was an old set of armery, rustic swords, crusted shields, suits of armor that would be more lethal to put on, rotin bows and arrows, and equally old doors. Taking the left door they headed up the tower finding themselves at the top with no floor between, or at least none obvious.

Backtracking they headed into the basement with a jail cell, with not even a skeleton for extra spooky effect. They did however find an old set of keys that could be used to give tetanus rather than opening any doors. Gently pocketing those keys, they headed outside.

Nothing happened as they crossed the streets, nothing happened as they passed by the withered tree, nothing happened as they stepped onto the porch of the manor. Not a word was said as the three of them entered the manor.

“So are we going to say something or what?”

“JAZZ! You gave me a heart attack.”

“Well someone had to. This place is giving me the creeps.”

“Hey where did Le0n go?”

“I’m in the living room.” Echod a voice from there left.

“Hey where are your rats? I thought you brought them with you?”

“Oh I did Opal, Buttercup are with Gwaner scouting out the rest of the town. They just wandering around.”

“Oh that’s good. I wonder what’s up stairs”

As if her words were the last straw the floor bored beneath them snapped. Sending them tumbling down into the dark. Which was followed by Le0n sticking his head over the pit, followed by a shrug and hopping in after them.

You have entered a haunted manor dungeon! As a guest you may fight any inhabitants in any room to claim it. After claiming a room you may set it to be your new respawn point! Know that you are welcome to leave at any time. The more rooms you claim the more loot at the end, that is if you survive fighting the lord of the manor. Hope you don’t get caught!

“Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah” responded Jazz and Marlow from their crumpled positions.

“Great now. I don’t know about you but I sure would like to claim a room and get started on this fun dungeon!”

“Are you sure about that Le0n? I mean *coughs* we just fell down, could we take a break real quick?”

“Oh yeah… I’ll scout out then.” Taking their sweet time they each down a potion and dusted themselves off, surprisingly finding nothing broken. Not even a scratch on one of the glass bottles Jazz had.

“Alright guys there are only three rooms down here, I think there is a supplies closet, a washroom, and the heater. Now from our past experience I think each room is going to have a mini boss related to that aspect of that room.”

“Sort of like Luigi's mansion?”

“Bingo!” Le0n touched his nose and pointed at Marlow.

“So Which should we take first?”

“Well I think we should take the supplies closet first just so that we can get an idea of what we're up against?” Jazz implied getting a nod from the two of them.

“Alright On the count of three, one, two, three!” Jazz whispered before yanking open the door was a small room mostly filled with bed sheets, towels, and a surprised transparent figure.

Ghostly Butler, Health: 20/100

The arrow had logged itself directly in the apparition's head. Charging into the room Marlow thrusted his spear into the ghost’s chest finishing it off. Getting an interesting message.

Rooms claimed: 1/???, Difficulty increased, Lord of the Manor still contained, reward will be waiting at the front desk.

“Did you guys also-”

“Yes, guys want to press forward?”

“Sure it’s now like we have to take them down in any particular order or anything? Right?” Shrugging, the three of them regrouped outside of the washroom. This time Marlow would open the door and hopefully kill the apparition before it could react.

“One, two, three!” Pulling the door open glass and arrow flew into the bubbly room getting death and another notification. Similar tactics continued to play out for the remaining room in the basement. With each member of the team rotating on who opened the door.

Eventually finding and taking the stairs they made it back to the first floor and scouted it out. Guessing that there were two more supplies closets, a kitchen, a lounge, and probably nine other rooms for something else. Guessing that the kitchen phantom would get harder and harder with it most likely to regenerate its health they moved to that one.

“One, two, three!” Jazz whispered before slamming the door inward. A thin figure stopped chopping something before turning to meet them. An arrow flew only to be sliced in two, as a knife was thrown counter to it.

“AUGH!” Le0n screamed as the knife dug into him. Jazz was already moving to help him, as Marlow sprung into action spinning his spear to deflect the second knife.

“Finally I can actually cook something solid.” The chief chuckled, this time throwing himself into action. Grabbing his chopping board and a pan he flew at Marlow. Slashing with his spear he caused the ghost to stop in his tracks. Just as a bottle flew into his face unleashing a sticky green goo.

“What is this, gak?” The chief pawed at his face which only tied him up more. Making a good target for a few arrows.

Rooms claimed: 4/???, Difficulty increased, Lord of the Manor unleashed, reward will be waiting at the front desk.

“Well that’s not good?”

“Hey, it says that experience has been delayed!”

“Oh yeah, some dungeons do that so that the challenges don’t spike in difficulty for everyone. Also Marlow why haven’t you called in the cavalry?”

“I’ll try that now.” Picking up his flute he played a low smooth note. Which was followed by the house suddenly coming alive with action. As each of the outside rooms instantly became overwhelmed with waves of fur.

Rooms claimed: 84/120, Difficulty DRASTICALLY increasing! Lord of the Manor Found! Your reward will be waiting at the front desk. Please be wary of your surroundings. :)

Title Upgraded: TrailBlazer II. For suddenly and rudely overwhelming new locations from many different angles, your mini map can now be viewed in 3d. Please don’t do that again, happying being hunted.

“Oooh that was a bad idea.” A loud thud could be heard and a new wave of notifications rolled in telling him of sudden deaths his rats just faced. Dashing out of the kitchen he took off to go fight that Manor lord.

Turning the corner he saw an abomination to mankind. A zombie. Not just any zombie, it was like if the incredible hulk died and was brought back to life by a guy who was really into giving people extra limbs. But not only limbs, but with extra mouths too.

“YOU, YOU DID THIS. NOW, NOW YOU’LL PAY!” The Manor lord shouted for his many mouths all overlapping.