Josie listened for another roar. She looked around. Everyone was doing the same as she was. Did the thing invade the town? Should these people be standing out in the open?

How big was the thing?

She decided to walk to the edge of town to let her watch recharge. She probably should have waited to kill the two swampers, but anger had decided her course.

She needed to work on that. It was causing more trouble for her than she liked. She hated to admit it, but Jack thought way better under pressure than she did. She was better at motivation.

Jack tended to drift if he didn’t have something to do. She half expected him to just vanish for years and then show up out of the blue with a new scar and a raft of stories that didn’t seem right no matter how much he tended to downplay what happened.

His army years had been like that for sure.

Jack’s stories tended to be something like ‘The guys and I were setting up camp, and the television went on the fritz,’ when the television went on the fritz because someone had shot at the camp with rockets and scored a direct hit.

Josie heard another roar. She seemed to be walking in the right direction. She wondered what she could do about this. The quest didn’t seem to want the hound hurt. She just had to tame it, whatever that meant.

Maybe there was something about the town that was bringing the monster close. If she could change that, the thing would go back deeper into the waters around Kernly.

It might be semi-aquatic. It might be intelligent, or more intelligent than normal. Dogs were bright. Maybe she could make a deal with it.

At least PETA wasn’t around to screw things up.

She saw a mound of dirt moving beyond the walls that kept the water back from the town. Something like sniffing cut through the air. The townspeople had gathered at the edge to look at the mound move. No one tried to get closer, or raise weapons.

She wondered what would happen if someone tried to do something. She imagined the wall wouldn’t keep out the giant thing she was watching if it wanted to go to town. The wooden buildings probably wouldn’t hold the thing back if it got angry enough.

The hound worked its way up and down the wall. It seemed to be looking for

something. Whatever it was looking for had to be on this side of the fence.

Josie dialed through the heroes on her watch. Bwana Beast, or Animal Man, might give her a grasp of the Hound’s abilities. They might change her into animals. They might give her random abilities that weren’t useful in this situation.

Did she want to fight a living avalanche?

She decided the best thing she could do was try Animal Man. Maybe it would give her something. Then she could try to use that to lever the Hound away from the town, and the swampers.

Another option were to move the town no matter what the people thought about that.

She pushed down for Animal Man and dressed in hides as she looked out over the water. Striped camouflage covered her face.

She felt the Hound moving around on the other side of the levee. It was distressed by something. It needed its eggs. She blinked. The town had built the levee around the Hound’s spawning grounds.

She hoped this could be a simple fix.

She touched the Hound with her mind. She offered to move the eggs. All they needed was another spot to let the little hounds grow into something mobile.

The Hound didn’t know of any other spot that would be as good as the spot the town was on. She could see that it was feeling exasperated and wanted to bust down the wall.

If it decided to attack, she would have to switch to Zatanna and hope for the best. How much of Kernly could it destroy before she got her act together?

She told the Hound to hold on. She would find a place to move the eggs where they would be safe, where there was plenty of prey to eat, and where the water was still in the center and moved at the edges.

The Hound sniffed in disbelief.

Josie told it to hold its water and give her a second to do the job.

The first thing she needed to do was find such a great spawning area away from Kernly.

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She switched to Zatanna. She didn’t have a lot of time on her watch. She needed to take care of things as fast as possible.

The first thing she did was send out a bird to locate the place where the Hound’s spawn could grow in peace. She followed it through the air until it landed on a tree sticking out of the water. She marked the place so she could find it later.

She checked her watch. She still had time to do the rest of the plan without stopping for a recharge.

She went back to Kernly, changed just long enough to inform the Hound of her plan. She changed to Aquaman and became one with the swamp water. She found egg shaped rocks at the bottom of the shallow pond. She changed back into Zatanna and sent the eggs to their new spawning grounds. She changed back to Aquawoman long enough to get back on the pier, and then to normal.

Josie looked down at her hands. Changing into Aquawoman meant that when she changed back she was completely dry. And the blue and silver hero was water. She could do anything with a big enough source of water, and she was almost invulnerable to normal weaknesses.

She let the watch regain power before she moved to the next step. She needed to get the Hound to its eggs without problems for the town.

She didn’t know if she wanted to save the town, but the quest had to be solved so she could go home.

Mister Warner had answers that needed to be said for her questions. She wanted to know why he had set them up for his bosses whomever they really were.

She wanted to know why he had allowed things to blossom when he should have weeded those things out.

She frowned. Why had they called on Mister Warner to do things? And how many quests had he undertaken for little reward?

What was the point of this?

“What’s going on?,” asked one of the townies, watching the mound watching the empty pool.

“The town rests next to a bog hound spawning ground,” said Josie. She checked her watch. “It laid eggs, and doesn’t like the wall you put up. So I was asked to move the hound on, and that means moving the eggs too.”

“Who asked you to do something like that?,” asked the townie. He frowned at Josie.

“The Robert Reed Appreciation Society,” said Josie. “Now I’m going to try to move the hound, and then head home.”

“There are other things out there,” said the man. “The hound keeps them away.”

“You’re going to have to defend yourselves without it,” said Josie. “I’ll put up some barriers to help you out. Then you’re going to have to start building up adventurers to keep the monsters at bay.”

“No adventurer is going to come here and help us,” said the townie.

“Sure, they will if there is money in it,” said Josie. “I’ll even post a reward up

to have adventurers come here and set up.”

“How many do you think that will net?,” asked the townie.

“I don’t know, but I do know what that bog hound was going to do to your town if it couldn’t get to its eggs,” said Josie. “And that wouldn’t have been pretty.”

“I guess I can see that,” said the townie.

“Let me see what I can do about the hound and then I’ll work on the defenses I promised,” said Josie. “What’s your name?”

“Albert Deen,” said the townie.

“When I post up for adventurers, I’ll send them to you,” said Josie.

“Why would you do that?,” asked Deen. She could see the gears turning in his head.

“So you can tell them about the fabulous treasure buried in the swamp to the east,” said Josie. “I’ll put together a treasure map for you.”

“So I just point them to a false treasure and let them know where it’s supposed to be?,” said Deen. He scratched his head in disbelief.

“Yep,” said Josie. “They might even clean out your local monsters looking for it.”

“Really?,” said Deen. “I just don’t see it.”

“At the very least, the town will make money from visitors,” said Josie. She checked her watch. “Now I have to herd this hound to its babies, and get your gold for your treasure, and get a map. I’ll post up a job at the Hawk Ridge Adventurer Board. If adventurers start showing up, it’ll be worth your time to trade with them and take their money while they’re looking around.”

“I guess we can make it work out,” said Deen. “I don’t know how Lord Conn will take this.”

“If you make more money, that’s more taxes for him,” said Josie. “He’ll love it.”

“Adventurers will want proof there’s a treasure,” said Deen.

“There will be,” said Josie. She smiled for the first time. Deen stepped back. “But I have to finish this job first.”

Josie turned into Animal Woman to let the Hound know she was ready to take it to the eggs. The monster agreed with a snuffling. She told it to follow the bird and changed into Hawkgirl and took flight. She sailed through the marsh, aiming for the indicator she had set up. The living heap followed her, a small island pushing the water to the sides as it ran.

Josie circled around the spawning ground. The Bog Hound almost barked when it reached the nest she had carved out of the shallow water. It settled in place, inspecting its new surroundings. The hawk became a woman, nodding at a job where she didn’t have to kill something to get done.

Josie stood on her branch and looked the bog over as the ding of a completed quest filled her head. She smiled. One more down. She had to set up her fake treasure hunt and post a notice. That should be a snap compared to some of the things she had already done.

Was she doing the right thing? She had no idea. There were monsters on the loose. The town needed something since she took away their best protection. And adventurers handled monsters as part of their job if they ventured far away from safe areas.

The watch dinged to let her know it was at full charge. She made a face. Time to get back to work.

Josie created an orb of gold. She placed it on a platform that resembled a toy boat. She made sure that the platform would not circle back to the Bog Hound’s spawning ground, but instead would go close to the biggest concentration of monsters in the swamp, and run away from anything chasing it. She put on a mana collector so the natural energy in the air would power the thing and keep it moving.

She created a map of the area around Kernly. It marked where the boat happened to be. She smiled. Let them chase after the boat all they wanted. If they caught up with it, then they were entitled to the gold egg she had created.

She waited for the watch to recharge. Once she had installed the map and put up walls for the town, she could go back to Hawk Ridge and work on her other quests.