“Oh thank goodness you’re okay,” said Glory to Will as the latter arrived back at the estate. Magic and what Dio had called his “natural regenerative powers” had dulled much of his pain, but Will still felt like he’d run a marathon and then punched in the gut so hard he had to throw up.

Instantly Glory’s healing put Dio’s to shame, enveloping Will in energy that he could only describe as feeling the way snickerdoodle cookies tasted. It took a somewhat distressing amount of focus on Will’s part to not collapse into the warmth, but he managed to keep himself alert until Glory felt satisfied with his handiwork.

“What did you run into out there?” Glory asked, which Will realized was for the benefit of Virgil and Rex, who were only just catching up.

“Tainted,” said Will. “Just one though. It looked sort of like a chameleon crossed with a balloon. It was spying on us in the forest, then ambushed us.”

“Spying? Ambushed?” Glory asked. “No, that’s not right. That’s not right at all.”

“What do you mean?” asked Will, though he was worried he knew the answer.

“The tainted don’t employ ambush tactics.” Glory said. “They don’t deploy any tactics at all, really. They chase after people until they or their quarry drop dead. If they’re starting to make these kinds of moves, then either they’re getting smarter, or someone’s figured out how to control them. Both of these are potentially very, very bad.”

“What do we do, then?” asked Will.

“I think taking notes as you’re doing now is vital,” said Glory. “But past that, I’m not sure. If there’s a way to figure out where they’re getting direction from, it’d need to be found in the moment, and I don’t know if there’s a way to predict their next move. We need to be alert. Actually, that gives me an idea.”

Glory pulled a stack of papers from nowhere. “I’ve been working on these since you started keeping notes,” he said, as if Will hadn’t started keeping notes yesterday evening.

Will took one. It was some kind of form outlining a way to describe Tainted encounters, including appearance, location, and notable abilities one might possess. It also included a mailing address, which Will assumed would be where Glory picked them up from. “Not bad,” Will said, returning the page. “It’s like citizen science. Citizen monster-hunting.”

“Thank you. I was intending to start distributing these at a later date, but we could use the information as fast as possible,” said Glory. “We can drop these off at the post office on the way to the train station.”

Will managed to avoid asking “You guys have trains?” by instead asking “You guys have post offices?” which earned him a flat look from Glory.

“Yes. The fastest way to our quest is by train,” said Glory. “The Revel of Daphnis is a popular tourist destination.”

“What exactly is this quest?” said Will. “A revel is like a party, right?”

“The object we need to send you home is the seed of a warp flower. Daphnis’s gardens are the only place where they can be cultivated artificially,” explained Virgil, helpfully producing a small vial from his pocket, which contained some dirt and a tiny sliver of foliage. “We’ll be trading this Arcadian laurel sprout for the warp flower seed.”

“Arcadian laurel?” Will asked. “What’s it do that's worth that kind of trade?”

“Only a few seedlings are grown each year,” said Virgil. “Most are given as prizes in the Arcadian games, but every year one is sent to Daphnis by his lover Polybius.”

Will stifled a short laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Virgil asked, putting the sprout back away.

“It’s hard to explain,” said Will. “Uh, Polybius is the name of a fictional arcade game from the eighties.”

“That’s about forty years ago,” supplied Glory.

“Yes," Will said, prickling at the interruption. "It’s an old urban legend. People thought the game was the government spying on people, or scrambling their brains, or it was actually aliens, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a funny coincidence.”

“Arcadia is known for its games, actually,” said Virgil. “And Polybius is their patron. Perhaps it’s not as much a coincidence as it seems.”

“Right. Next time I’ll get isekai’d to a universe with less contrived puns,” said Will. “So: Laurel. Party. Warp flower. Home sweet home. Seems simple enough. What’s the catch?”

“Must there always be a catch?” said Glory. “The laurel is rare and valuable, but fairly hardy, and we’ll be taking the train most of the way there.”

“There’s always a catch,” said Will firmly. “Like the train’s going to be a giant millipede or we’ll get into a train robbery and I’ll have to fight someone on the roof while we’re passing through a tunnel, or something.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Glory. “The train is a giant centipede.”

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Two days later Will had to admit that the centipede train was actually pretty cool. The train was in reality pulled by a team of giant centipedes which regularly traded off. Unable to contain his curiosity, Will had asked to see the engine room immediately upon arrival, and spent an hour drawing and writing notes about the operation.

The “normal” size for the giant centipedes was about six feet long, and two were temporarily magically enlarged to pull the train. The five other centipedes who would pull the train later were resting in a long, winding pile. Their caretaker, an older, hirsute elf, had been more than willing to indulge Will’s curiosity.

With permission, Will pet one of the centipedes on the head, and it leaned into his touch like a lazy, affectionate dog. As he scratched its head he felt like he had taken a detailed X-ray of it, and summoned the strange, spiritual creature he shared with Virgil in the form of one. It skittered around him, rippling in pink-gold light, before vanishing again.

The elven caretaker had raised an eyebrow at the sight, but didn’t visibly express surprise. “That’s unusual,” he said diplomatically. “Only summoners are normally able to hold together such a solid incarnation like that.”

“I’m sharing it,” Will said sheepishly. “I think. I’m not actually sure how it works.”

“How much do you know about such entities?”

“Not very,” said Will. “I only started working with them recently.”

“It’s a piece of a much, much larger concept,” said the elf. “It’s both a reflection of the concept in miniature, and a small part of it. The Hunter embodies the act of consumption, of taking. Most obviously, through literal predation, but also the hunt for knowledge. I’m unsurprised it connects so easily with you.”

Will turned away to hide his mild embarrassment. “Uh, thank you. I think. I should probably head back to the passenger section.”

“If you wish,” the elf said. “But I think the engines wouldn’t mind another visit. Most people are not so gentle with them.”

Because of the width required to keep a pair of centipedes pulling the train, the cars were boxy and almost as wide as they were long. Glory was hiding within Virgil, who was sitting next to a window at a table, watching the countryside roll by. Rex and Dio were playing some kind of card game at another table, so Will sat across from Virgil.

“Does Glory have any maps of the area?” Will asked. “I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me to ask for one sooner.”

Virgil looked away, as if receiving a call, which wasn’t necessarily inaccurate. “Geological or political?”

“Geological,” said Will. Virgil nodded and a rolled-up atlas appeared from the table as if shot out of a tube and landed with a bounce.

Will unfurled the map and spread it across the table. Virgil held up a finger, which glowed lavender along with a point on the map. “We’re here,” he said, and then lit another point to the northeast. “And our destination is here.”

“There’s a little symbol of a hand and an eye there,” said Will. “And there are others on the map, too. What are those?”

“Each of those is the domain of one of the Seven Scribes, and is a sacred place infused with their essence.” Virgil said. “Many, like the Revel, are also popular destinations.”

“I’ve heard them mentioned before,” said Will. “The scribes, that is. What are they? Like, gods? Demigods?”

Virgil looked as though he’d been slapped. “Oh, no no no no no. They are not gods. Just the opposite: the scribes are slayers of gods; iconoclasts who upended the rule of the gods.”

“Huh,” said Will, who didn’t know what to say to that. “Okay. Good to know. I… won’t make that mistake again.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” said Virgil. “I’d assume the gods of your homeworld are nicer and undeserving of being butchered like feral beasts.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Will. “For sure.”

“Oh yes, that reminds me,” said Virgil, his eyes lighting up. “We were on… what was it, Paras, right? I love the drawing you showed me of it, it’s so cute! If anything bad were to happen to it I’d never recover. What did you say it evolved into, again?”

“Uh,” said Will. There was a sound like an explosion somewhere further down the train, then an ominous buzzing somewhere between a swarm of locusts and several motorcycles. “Oh thank fucking god,” Will whispered to himself as the back door of the traincar was blasted open.

A snake-headed man in a western vest stepped through the smoke. His long neck curled as he scanned the room, making eye contact with Virgil. “You!” he said, pointing a finger at the halfling.

His right hand was engulfed in circling runes and started glowing hot white like molten metal. “Have something I want.”

Virgil ducked as a bolt of flame burst from the snake-man’s finger and ricocheted through a window, leaving a melted hole through it.

Two more thugs emerged from behind the snake-man; one with an octopoid hand and one with a face like a star-nosed mole. Each of them wore the same faintly silly western vest.

“Don’t make this difficult,” said the octopus. “Give us the laurel and we’ll leave you be.”

“That’s not what we said at the warmup,” said the mole-man, holding a hand as if to muffle his voice.

“Well, don’t tell them that!” the octopus whispered back.

The snake fired another blast through the roof of the car. “Shut up!” he said, turning to glare at each of them in succession. “Hand over the—”

His voice was cut off by a table to the face, courtesy of Dio. The table had been previously bolted to the wall, which made its sudden eviction all the more surprising.

“You’ll have to take it,” said Dio proudly, assuming a defensive position. “Off my dead body.”

“That can be arranged,” said the snake-man, who was quite dazed but still able to get to his feet.

From the window next to Dio burst another vested animal-man, this time a shiny black wasp, which kicked him back and stung him between the shoulderblades. Dio grabbed his assailant by the waist and smashed him to the ground, but fell limp on top of him, twitching.

“A tarantula hawk,” Will realized. “He’s not gonna be able to move for a while,” he said, to which Dio groaned in agreement.

The wasp-man was now pinned and so equally immobilized, but he didn’t bother struggling. He even looked a bit smug. Will got the feeling the wasp had already done all he needed to.

“Hah,” said the snake. He pointed a finger at Dio’s head and appeared to charge a shot. “When you get to hell, tell ‘em Phoenix Firebrat sent ya.”