The pitmaster rushed toward the elves, flames of anger spreading through his thoughts like wildfires across dry plains. Bo had never asked for any of this mess. All he’d ever wanted to do was smoke good meat for people. If given the chance, he’d go back to that life in a heartbeat.

Wish in one hand…

Bo knew Barbie was right, but he didn’t hate the truth any less. He wasn’t a hero, not a leader, and still he’d been thrust into that role. And now these pieces of elfin garbage had come into his territory to steal a weapon and use it against him. The pitmaster’s soul needed them to pay for what they’d done, and what they planned to do.

He needed justice. And he planned to get it in the simplest way possible: Chop two of the elves into chunks of Meat and capture the third.

Then he’d let Lydia interrogate the prisoner to gather information about the grunge elf champions and their defenses.

“Shouldn’t have come into my house,” Bo whispered as he rushed to the attack.

Bo’s opening hand was solid—Hog’s Hop, Danger Spice, Carnivore’s Cleaver, Severance, and Hungry Hungry Devil—but far from perfect. He’d have much preferred Hackstorm over Danger Spice, and most anything was better than Hungry Hungry Devil when he had no injuries to heal at the moment. Bo considered using his Discard Draw ability to chuck the spicy card, but he still had Juiceboxer and Webspinner in his deck along with Hackstorm. That did not put the odds of drawing the card he wanted in his favor. Rather than risk wasting his ability, he activated the cards in the order they were drawn and went to work.

The grunge elves didn’t see the deadly danger soaring into their midst until it was far too late to react. Bo landed in the center of their group and the unexpected damage from Hog’s Hop shocked the intruders into immobility. That gave the pitmaster time to toss a handful of Danger Spice into the nearest elf’s eyes. The disoriented combatant never saw the cleaver that slammed through his armor and into his chest. While that elf stumbled away, struggling to breathe through the pain of his shattered ribs, Bo hit the elf to his left with a Severance attack. Blood flew into the air as a chunk of meat vanished from the elf’s body and appeared in Bo’s personal storage. The pitmaster decided to save it for after he’d taken a hit or two, and let Hungry Hungry Devil go.

The third elf recovered from the shock of Bo’s surprise attack far more quickly than Bo would have liked. She danced back from the bloodied pitmaster, drew a scimitar in her right hand and a parrying dagger in her left, then dropped into a defensive stance.

“Surrender now, and I’ll let you live,” the grunge elf said. Her purple lips twisted into a smug sneer. Although two of her companions were bleeding and struggling to breathe, the elf seemed confident this fight would end in her favor.

“I’m no quitter,” Bo said, and drew the last cards in his deck.

Unfortunately, the elf was faster than the pitmaster. Her cards activated in a brutal flurry that shocked Bo with their speed and strength. Sticky strands of webbing sprayed from the grunge elf’s mouth, the silk dripping with green venom, and fell over the pitmaster.

Enemy Cards Affect you!

Webspinner hits! STR check failed! You are immobilized!

Envenom modifies Webspinner!

Barbed Embrace modifies Webspinner! You suffer two wounds!

Envenom adds two Poison cards to your deck!

Enemy Cards discarded!

Bo cursed under his breath. Two of the cards in his hand—Hackstorm and Juiceboxer—were now worthless because he was immobilized and couldn’t reach the grunge elves. That left him with just one card to activate.

“Hey,” Bo said, forcing himself to sound a lot more confident than he felt, “I can do that trick, too.”

Webs burst from his outstretched hand, coating the female grunge elf in a layer of sticky strands. Bo grinned at the elf’s shocked face as he glued her to the ground like a rat in a trap.

“Where did you learn to do that?” the webbed elf asked in disbelief.

“The last scout you sent this way never made it home,” Bo said. “Because he ran into me.”

Which was not precisely true, but Bo didn’t care. Rattling his enemies was worth a little fib here and there.

The look on the female elf’s face told him his words had hit the mark.

“You will pay for raising a hand against your betters, cow,” she spat. “I will tear you limb from limb. I will set spiders to laying eggs in your ears. I will flay your manhood from your—”

Kill her.

“With pleasure,” Bo replied. He had a new hand of cards, most of which were melee attacks. He’d need to add some ranged attack to his arsenal now that he knew most of the elves could spin webs. It’d be awfully embarrassing to spend the big grunge elf battle glued to the ground by poisoned strands of silk.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Bo activated his cards and hoped everything went according to plan.

Hog’s Hop activated but is opposed by Webspinner and Barbed Embrace!

STR check successful! You have torn free of the barbed webs.

Barbed Embrace inflicts three wounds!

Envenom adds three Poison cards to your deck!

You are seriously wounded.

You leap to the attack!

Well, that wasn’t your finest moment.

“Could have warned me that would happen,” Bo snarled through gritted teeth. He cursed himself for not thinking about how the barbed webs would react when he tore loose from them, but it was too late to cry over spilled blood now. He’d just have to deal with the pain and the negative status cards in his deck until the fight was over.

Which he didn’t think would be very long. The impact from his landing added more injuries to the female grunge elf, whose defenses were no match for Bo’s strength. Then the rest of the cards in Bo’s hand went off and the real carnage began.

The grunge elf screamed as Severance ripped a hunk of meat from her thigh. The screaming stopped when Carnivore’s Cleaver slashed down through her right shoulder and ripped a massive wound across the elf’s body to her left hip. The grunge elf’s eyes rolled back into her head as the top half of her body flopped onto the ground. Her legs buckled a split second later but were held upright by the webs that had immobilized her.

Bo used Hungry Hungry Devil to heal some of his wounds, then spent a point of CON mana to activate the Poison card he’d drawn and remove it from his deck. The mana drain made the pitmaster sick to his stomach, but he held the Meat in his belly until his body converted it to energy. He was far from fully healed, but that was alright. It was time to finish these bastards.

They’re trying to escape. One of them has a healing potion.

“It’s always something,” Bo grumbled.

He tromped after the nearest grunge elf. The intruder held his wounded ribs with one hand while raising a phial filled with glowing liquid to his lips with the other. The elf was so fixated on healing his wounds that he never saw Bo coming.

“Give me that,” the pitmaster snapped and yanked the healing potion out of the elf’s slender hand.

“We will kill you,” the grunge elf promised, shaking his bruised fingers.

“Doubt it,” Bo replied, and slammed one hoof into the elf’s wounded ribs with a sound like crushing a fistful of saltine crackers. The invader flew back a yard and landed on his back, his blue ponytail flopping onto the grass. “And stay down.”

The elf did as he was told, because Bo’s kick had driven spears of broken bone through the creature’s lungs and heart, ending his life in one last blast of agony.

Two down, one to go.

Bo guzzled the healing potion as he chased after the surviving grunge elf. That one had also chugged a potion and left the faintly glowing bottle lying on the ground. The elf was now back at the peak of health and had obviously decided to run away to fight another day. His long legs carried him back toward the border of Bo’s hex with surprising speed.

Don’t let him get away. He’ll tell his boss everything he knows about you.

“I’m aware,” Bo said.

The pitmaster knew almost nothing about the grunge elf leader, and didn’t want that bastard to have an information edge for their showdown. Without the thunder bison, this fight was too close to call. Even the slightest bit of an advantage could tip the odds and secure victory.

Bo had to capture the elf to gain that advantage.

The elf was so fast, though.

Bo’s legs were longer, but he was heavier and had to make more detours to get around rough terrain compared to the elf. The skinny little bastard seemed to fly across the plains. The distance between them was growing wider by the second. If Bo didn’t do something, he’d lose his prey.

“This way!” Jenny called out from where she’d emerged from the shadows just ahead of Bo. She pointed at the ground, and a glowing pathway formed.

[[You have received the Pathfinding buff! Movement speed increased by 50% for the next ten seconds!]]

The sudden acceleration caught Bo off guard, but he recovered quickly and put it to good use. His long legs propelled him far faster than he’d imagined possible, with the bonus that the ground underfoot felt as smooth and stable as a running track. The gap between the pitmaster and the elf narrowed by the second. Halfway through the buff’s duration, Bo was only a few strides behind the grunge elf.

Bo was moving so fast he scarcely noted the glowing blue wall ahead of him until it was too late. He barrelled across the border from his domain into the land the grunge elves had stolen from humanity. The pitmaster tried to stop and turn around, but he had a full head of steam going and a lot of mass to turn around. His hooves churned the earth in a desperate bid to change course. Bo lost his balance and tumbled head over heels into the dirt.

Scout Domain Magic terminated! Enemy hex Defense upgrades inflict Weakness.

“Damnit,” Bo snarled and sprang back to his feet. Or, rather, he tried to spring. The Weakness effect made it more of a stagger that left his head swimming.

The elf had widened the gap to a few yards again. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him toward a sizable squad of his fellows, who all raised their hunting bows and took aim at the pitmaster. A quick estimate made Bo’s heart skip a bit. There had to be at least fifty of the bastards over there.

This will hurt.

“Down!” Jenny shouted.

The scout had stopped on the right side of the hex’s perimeter with her bow raised. The pitmaster’s first instinct was to tell his friend not to shoot, that he needed the prisoner for information.

But he knew that was pointless. In a few seconds, the grunge elf would be back with his people, and Bo would be full of arrows. And not long after that, the filthy elf would tell his commander everything he knew about the Red River Hex. The pitmaster didn’t know how much the running elf had seen, but anything was too much.

The pitmaster threw himself back onto the ground and watched as the scout loosed her shot.

Bo could only hold his breath and pray the missile found its mark. It seemed to fly in slow motion, giving the elf time to juke to the side. The arrow would miss. The pitmaster felt it in his heart, and the elf would report all about Bo to his commander.

At least they didn’t have the bison spawn point.

But the running elf hadn’t been quite evasive enough. Jenny’s arrow caught his shoulder, then ricocheted in toward his neck. The shot pierced the elf’s slender throat, through and through, unleashing a jet of blood. The elf went down, body ragdolling across the ground in a boneless tumble.

“Yes!” Bo and Jenny cheered together.

“Fire!” the grunge elf commander shouted in response.

As one, the elf scouts loosed their shots with deadly accuracy.

All of them were aimed directly at Bo.