“Holy crap,” Hans wheezed like he was breaking the surface of a lake, desperate for air. He focused on his breathing, counting slow inhales and slower exhales. “Psionics?”

Becky nodded, a finger twirling her braided beard. “You looked like you broke your favorite toy.”

Wiping the streams of tears from his cheeks, he looked at Becky’s face. “Did you cry?”

“Of course not. A grubby little squonk isn’t going to get to Becky.”

“Squonk?”

“The gray pigs. At least, I think they’re squonks. My granddaddy talked about how he had seen one as a kid. It became a little bit of a joke in the family, but he swore he had seen it. Some trappers came through one time, and they told him it was a squonk. I always thought they were just twisting him up for the fun of it.”

Squonks were new to Hans, and he prided himself on his monster knowledge. He always preached the importance of studying to his students, arguing that even if you didn’t expect to encounter a certain creature, you should still understand its strengths and weaknesses. Nature didn’t follow the borders drawn on maps, and a monster could wander pretty far from their home hunting grounds.

Knowing that they had the ability to manipulate emotions, however, unlocked the mystery. The squonks showed no indication of sensing the presence of the two adventurers, suggesting that their psionic ability wasn’t a targeted attack. It appeared to affect an area around the squonks and may even be persistent, an ability that was always on rather than needing to be consciously activated.

Dragons had a similar ability. Hans didn’t understand why they needed it because they were scary enough already. Had that been a dragon, Hans would have felt the emotional distortion 50 yards away.

The squonks must use their ability to hunt, and then drain the tears from their prey to feed, he thought. Hans wasn’t entirely sure of the mechanics, but the habits fit. Spiders had a similar survival strategy, capturing and saving food for a later meal. Instead of a web, the squonks had their auras.

If he was right about all of that, the mix-matched group of creatures would make sense. Well, some sense. Where did the orcs come from? Could the squonks have herded them from their homes or were orcs in the region for some reason?

Important questions, to be sure, but questions for another time.

“You fight something like this in Hoseki, ever?” Becky asked.

“With the psionic effect? Yeah. I’ve encountered a few. I’d rather they just stab me in the thigh. My brain is like soup.”

“It’s my first time. How do we do this?”

The best strategy was to roll into the battle hard and fast with enchanted armor and a White Mage to provide protective spells. The only upside to fighting a creature with those kinds of abilities was that they commonly had no other form of attack. Why would they? If they could brainwash any of their enemies, anything else was superfluous.

Becky and Hans had neither enchanted armor or a skilled White Mage. Furthermore, Hans worried that Becky would overestimate herself. Resistant did not mean immune. Becky could potentially succumb to the effect with long enough exposure to it, and overconfidence would put all of them in danger.

“Your hawk. Sacred animal spirits would be immune, right?”

“Definitely. They don’t actually have brains. Just spirit… meat.”

Hans broke down the plan: Becky would summon the hawk, its sole job being to “attack” one of the adventurers if they began to bend to the squonk’s hopelessness spell. Sharp pain or a sudden sensation was known to disturb psionic effects, if the enemy was weak enough that is.

In addition to the hawk’s reminders, Hans poured gravel into his boots and put them back on. He did the same to Becky’s, though she hesitated to follow along. If they began to succumb, they could count on the squonks moving them. The rocks guaranteed sharp pains without conscious effort, unlike pricking yourself with a needle or slapping yourself in the face.

While Becky fired her bow from a distance, Hans would charge the squonks, taking them down as quickly as he could. Keeping Becky away from the aura was a failsafe. That way, one of them would be aware enough to retreat to get reinforcements. Adventurers weren’t shy about heroics, but the Guild advocated for adventurers to fall back and escape if their party couldn’t be saved.

That sounds cruel, but whatever bested those adventures would eventually find more victims. If everyone fell in battle, no one else would know about the seriousness of the threat until more people died.

“Let me stop you there,” Becky said. “I’m the best one to send in. I know it. You know it.”

Hans opened his mouth to protest.

“Save your chivalry or Guild Master honor or whatever hullabaloo has you putting yourself up front. My brain lasts longer than yours. It makes more sense for you to keep the distance.”

“Can I borrow your bow?”

“You break it, you bought it.”

After Hans agreed to switching positions with Becky, they had one more piece of the plan to hash out.

“What are we going to do when the bear and orcs wake up?” Hans asked.

“They wouldn’t break out of it until the last squonk is down, right? When we get to the last one, we’ll know if I’m good enough to finish off the orcs while they boohoo. Then whack, last squonk goes down too.”

That sounded like a good plan to Hans. If keeping him at a distance worked as they hoped, he could intervene with an arrow if Becky began to struggle, eliminating the final squonk and then moving in to address the bear and orcs as they came to.

“I’m fine killing the orcs, but doing in the bear feels dirty,” Hans muttered, knowing it was necessary.

“Wait a minute, Boss. Give me a chance to calm the bear. She didn’t ask for this.”

“If it comes after you, we’re bringing it down.”

“Deal. Don’t feel bad about those orcs. We can’t capture ‘em, and there’s no talking them into not skinning us. They got hands and feet, but they’re still monsters, if you get my meaning.”

“Trust me. I don’t feel bad about the orcs. Roland is the priority.”

“Hell yeah.”

Wanting to keep Becki safe, the dwarf told her warthog to wait where she was for the duration of the battle. Putting Becki in danger had too little upside, especially against an enemy she couldn’t gore or headbutt before becoming its next meal. Becky and Hans would come back for her when it was done.

They slowly sneaked toward the squonk herd, every step driving small sharp rocks into their feat. The two stayed together for the first three quarters of the approach. Behind cover, they pointed out where each planned to go. Hans, armed with Becky’s bow and arrows, would circle uphill while the dwarf went to the opposite side, slightly downhill from the monsters but not by much.

On his way to his position, Hans counted to 120. At 64, he settled behind a fallen log propped against a boulder, giving him a clear view of every creature below. The way the squonks had settled into their ruts put six of the nine much closer to where Becky would emerge. That helped him decide his attack.

Not that he doubted his archery skills, but Hans selected a squonk pressed between two other squonks on Becky’s side of the battlefield. On the very slight, miniscule chance that a stray breeze blew his arrow off course–and not because of his own shortcomings, of course–he could reasonably hope to hit something.

At 5, he stood and drew back on the bowstring.

…2 …1.

Thwack. The arrow hit the intended squonk. It pierced lower on the ribs than he liked–he had been aiming for just behind the shoulder–but the beast immediately unleashed a pig-like squeal mixed with the throaty rasp of a cat hiss. Becky and her axe descended on another squonk in an instant. Her blade buried into the shoulders of a squonk, the beast unleashing a short shriek before collapsing.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Then the plan changed.

Instead of the squonk ability persisting until the final squonk was eliminated, which was what Becky and Hans predicted, the ability cut off the moment the arrow found its mark. Later, Hans would reflect on this shift in the battle, pondering if the squonk’s stopping their ability when threatened was part of their survival strategy. They were dragging around several dangerous monsters that might be handy in a fight, after all. If he was being pursued and could leave three orcs behind to fight for him while fled, he’d feel good about his odds. Were he a squonk.

Just as likely, however, was that the squonks were easily spooked and not very resilient, dropping the hopelessness field simply because they weren’t capable of being scared and maintaining the ability.

But, those thoughts came much later. When Hans saw three orc heads look up from their hands, blinking, the only thing he thought in that moment was a dozen curse words all announcing themselves at once.

His hands, however, knew to attack. No point in hiding anymore, he stood and began nocking the next arrow, loosing it a second later.

If the ability is down, we don’t need to wipe them quickly.

“Get Roland!” Hans yelled. The frail looking hunter sat far too close to an increasingly alert grizzly bear. He was coming to, but escaping the mental manipulation didn’t undo the damage of thirst and hunger. He would need help.

Becky didn’t hesitate or protest. She wrenched her axe from the skull of a squonk and grabbed the hunter, tucking him under her arm before running back the way she had come. The dwarf was out of sight as quickly as she had appeared, Roland gone with her.

Four squonks, three orcs, and one grizzly bear remained. The remaining squonks bolted in different directions, fleeing into the brush. His first instinct was to pursue, but the orcs were standing now, and they were unhappy.

Hans aimed at the closest orc, a greenish-yellow humanoid standing seven feet tall. Its body was wide, packed with scarred muscle. Its face was gnarled with fangs and tusks, like a sabertooth and a wild boar mashed together.

The arrow flew at the monster.

It grazed the top of its shoulder, faintly nicking the orc’s monstrous traps before clattering to the ground somewhere beyond the battle. Oops. Enraged, the orc charged at Hans, its powerful legs and long stride covering distance in a flash even as it moved uphill.

Hans put the next arrow in its chest. In the blink where the orc glanced down to see its wound and then return its full attention to Hans, the Guild Master closed the distance and attacked with an overhead slash, the same no-frills attack the kids had been drilling for the last week. His blade bit into the orc’s neck, stopping when it buried itself in the monster’s spinal cord. He pulled the sword free with smooth, expert finesse and continued to barrel down the hill.

The remaining two orcs, one gray, the other a gunky green, squared up like wrestlers about to launch at their enemy, their knees bent, their oversized hands ready to twist limbs from their sockets.

The gray orc suddenly cried out, thrown forward by a long swipe of the grizzly bear’s claws. With one orc distracted by the bear, Hans moved to meet the charge of the other. Instead of continuing with his momentum as he did to his previous foe, Hans abruptly twisted into his stance, sliding to a stop several feet short of the orc. The orc hesitated at the sudden tempo change. Hans capitalized, shooting forward with a crisp thrust to the orc’s stomach.

The orc narrowly dodged, but it was off balance. It threw a looping strike, part overhand right, part attempt to scratch with its bent and chipped brown fingernails. Hans parried the punch as if it was a sword, slicing the orc’s forearm and redirecting the blow. The wound was minor, hardly enough to win the fight, but it kept the orc on its heels.

That was a strange feeling for an orc. Their kind were accustomed to controlling a fight with sheer ferocity, but this orc realized it was falling farther and farther behind. The adventurer had the advantage, and that advantage was growing.

The orc raised its arm to block the next slash of the sword, but it was a feint. Hans front kicked the orc in the knee instead, hitting the orc’s knee cap with the sole of his foot. If the orc was in its proper stance, it may have paused to laugh at the attempt, but it certainly wouldn’t have been hurt. This orc, however, was out of position, his weight favoring one leg a little too much.

The blow forced the orc’s leg to straighten abruptly, bowing the leg backward against the joint. Staggering away in surprise and in pain, the orc found its footing. Hans slid forward, closing the distance in one smooth motion. At the very end of the slide, he thrust his sword forward, the tip punching through the orc’s throat.

Like most fights, all of this action played out over seconds. Though the time was brief, Hans, at one point, had the awareness of significant violence occurring nearby as well as the spraying of blood. As he pulled his sword free to take on his next foe, he found that the third orc had faired poorly against the bear. Most of the orc lay in a mangled heap on the ground. Most of it.

The grizzly bear stalked closer to Hans, orc blood staining its paws and dripping from its snarling teeth. A Gold-ranked adventurer was perfectly capable of defeating a grizzly bear, such was the extent of their training, but it would probably hurt.

Hans squared his stance and readied his attack.

A brown blur slid between Hans and the grizzly. In a dusty blink, his view of the raging bear was replaced by the butt of a very tall, very large warthog. Becky jumped from her mount’s back, landing directly in front of the grizzly bear.

“Hey! Mama Bear!” Becky yelled with her hands up. Her axe was strapped to Becki’s back, not in her hand, Hans noticed. “Stop. You’re safe now.”

The bear stepped forward as if to snap at the dwarf.

“No you don’t!“ The dwarf actually leaned toward the bear to bring her glare closer to the grizzly’s eyes. “Step back, and put your claws away.”

The stare continued with no movement on either side. Then the grizzly bear turned away.

“Thank you, Mama Bear. Are you thirsty? Are you hurt? Let me help.”

The Dwarf stepped toward the bear, moving more like a gentle caretaker than the force of nature that just shouted down a grizzly bear. She pulled a waterskin from Becki’s saddlebags and let the bear drink from her hands, refilling them several times to quench the beast’s thirst.

Hans looked around. “Becky…”

“Hmm?”

“Where is Roland?”

“I left him where we left Becki.”

“You left him?!”

“What? You wanted me to bring him back to the fight? Pssshhh.”

The dwarf had a point. Hans and the Becks went back for Roland, and the grizzly bear came along. Having a grizzly bear follow him was both novel and unpleasant. The memory of the partial orc was still fresh in his mind. Each time he thought of the bear, he felt phantom claws raking down his back. The Becks, meanwhile, were as comfortable with the bear as they were with Hans.

The bear stayed perfectly peaceful while Becky and Hans tended to the hunter. They tipped a health potion down his throat and encouraged him to sip at their water. After a few minutes, Roland seemed to be vaguely aware of himself again, but he didn’t speak. Days in the hopelessness aura left damage that a healing potion couldn’t reverse, yet another reason psionic monsters were especially heinous. He was alive at least.

“I saw five squonks back there,” Becky said to Hans.

“Yeah, four took off. I couldn’t put them down fast enough.”

Becky sucked on her mustache before saying, “We should take care of the rest before they get too far.”

“We’d have to split up if we did that. That’s a big risk.”

“They didn’t get to me at all. I’ll be fine. We’re wasting time.”

Gold outranked Bronze, but this was a Druid’s domain. If Becky was concerned, she had reason to be. The squonks were deceptively powerful. Since they and the orcs weren’t known in this area, eliminating the first nine could keep the squonks from breeding and burrowing near Gomi. If they were especially lucky, those would be the only nine members of a rare monster species, eliminating it completely.

No way of ever knowing that for sure, but there was a chance. If that chance paid off, many lives would be saved from the fate that almost befell Roland.

“Okay, but do me a favor,” Hans said. “Can you summon your hawk and tell it to come get me if something happens to you?”

“He’s still out from before. He’s tracking squonks, but ya. I can do that for you, boss. Let’s get you and Roland farther from the battle scene. Wolves and gnolls don’t pass up an easy meal.”

When Becky was satisfied with their new campsite, she scratched the bear’s head and hopped on Becki’s back, and the pair barreled out of camp back toward where they fought the squonks. The warthog’s legs looked too small for its body, but the beast could compete with a horse in speed. In a few moments, Becky was out of sight.

Hans started a fire and helped Roland into a bedroll while the grizzly bear snored softly. There was no sign of the hunter’s equipment or supplies, but that was fine. He was alive. He still hadn’t spoken, and he soon fell asleep. He seemed to be breathing normally when he did. That was a good sign.

I wonder if he slept at all when the squonks took him. Has he been awake, crying all this time?

With Roland safe and a fire to warm them both, Hans unlaced his boots and shook out the gravel. He hadn’t needed the prickly pain after all, but he didn’t regret being careful. He sat next to Roland, and the adrenaline dump caught up to him. Gods, he was tired, and Becky was still on the move.

That’s a tough Druid.

He took a deep breath, enjoying the peace.

Quest Update: Return Roland to Gomi Safely.

New Quest: Eliminate the remaining four squonks.

New Quest: Research squonks.

New Quest: Investigate the presence of orcs near Gomi.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Pick up the guild provisions from the caravan after next.

Pick up training equipment from the smith when it is completed.

Wait for Olza to deliver the rest of the potion order.

Reestablish job-completion and monster-hunting recordkeeping.

Identify the unknown purple flower from Olza.

Keep the guild hall clean.

Prepare a booklist for Mayor Charlie.

Write a letter to Mazo for help with Olza’s flower.

Grow the Gomi chapter without attracting outside attention.

Prepare for winter, and don’t forget the beer.

Design and build simulated dungeon corridors for training.

Design drills to practice specific dungeon corridor skills.

Brainstorm ideas for safe approaches to training on uneven terrain.

Return Roland to Gomi Safely.

Eliminate the remaining four squonks.

Research squonks.

Investigate the presence of orcs near Gomi.