I put together all of my stuff in the big bag that I carried on my back. I carry my stuff, the pots and food, some books that belong to Kilgore, our tents, pillows, any special rocks I find, and our treasure chest. Kilgore and Melissa carry some stuff too, cause they say that's fair. I could carry all the stuff, but then they might not feel like they're helping. It always feels nice to be a helper.

We did a big walk up some hills, letting Melissa lead the way. She’s got the best sense of direction, I get lost really easily, so does Kilgore. The sun was starting to go down though, and it was getting colder.

We got to the top of a hill, and Melissa started to check the map. I was looking around at the mountains that were all around us. I like mountains, they remind me of the view from home. On a close by mountain, I saw a little white dot jumping around.

“Melissa! Kilgore! Look, it’s a goat!”

“That’s very good, Pignob,” said Melissa, but she didn’t look up from her map.

“HEEEEEEEY!!! HEY GOOOOOOOOOOOOAT!” I yelled at the goat as loud as I could. I can yell super loud. Most orcs can yell loud, but I can yell so loud that sometimes people just run away, even if they don’t know what I’m yelling about.

“GOOOOOOAAAAAAAT!!! GOOOOOAAAAAAT!!!” I yelled again. This time I saw the goat stop, and it looked at me.

“BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!” I yelled at the goat.

I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Then the goat went, “BAAA!” back at me.

“Melissa, Kilgore! The goat said ‘Baa” back! Did you hear it?” I asked.

Kilgore had his hands over his ears. “I did!”

Melissa was sitting on the ground, breathing really hard. I think I scared her. “Yes, very good,” she said.

Then there was a loud bleat sound, like the goat got hurt. When I looked the goat was gone.

Melissa and Kilgore looked at each other, they didn’t like that sound either.

“Did you see what happened?” Melissa asked Kilgore and I.

“No,” said Kilgore, “I didn’t see anything. Still don’t, no mountain lions or anything.”

“I didn’t see anything,” I said. I felt a little mad, I had just spoken with that goat. I had decided he was my goat friend, but it sounded like he was dead. I like animals, and I don’t like it when bad things happen to them.

“That’s not far, and it’s roughly in the right direction. Let’s keep moving while there’s still daylight,” said Melissa.

Kilgore looked like he wanted to say something, and he looked at the sun, but he didn’t. I don’t mind nighttime, I can see in the dark pretty well. But I know humans get really scared of the dark, cause they can’t see. That does sound pretty scary.

We walked to the mountain. I stayed close to Kilgore, he trips a lot when it gets dark and when Kilgore falls down, he doesn’t just roll around and stand back up really fast like Melissa.

Melissa said we had arrived where the goat had been. I looked around, but couldn’t find my friend, but Melissa found a little bit of blood. Kilgore made a big light, and Melissa was able to follow the little bit of blood.

“Is Goat okay?” I asked. I was worried.

“Sorry Pignob, but I don’t think so,” said Melissa. That made me sad and angry.

She found a little crack in the rocks. There was blood and other red stuff mushed up on the sides of the crack.

“I think they went through here, there’s got to be another entrance,” said Melissa.

“But a goat wouldn’t fit through there,” I said. They didn’t answer.

Melissa found another hole, but there were a lot of big rocks around it.

“How do we get in? It’s barely big enough for a halfling to squeeze through,” said Kilgore. He pointed his hand in the hole, and made light come out of it. I could see shapes inside.

“Pignob, can you move some of these rocks?” asked Melissa.

I looked at the rocks. They were very big, but some of them weren’t as big as the others. So, I decided to try and move the rocks I could move. It’s not often I get to lift really big things, it’s fun! I tossed one down the mountain and watched as it bounced and rolled and blew apart into smaller rocks. That’s a lot of fun too. I threw one of the big rocks into my shield, and it disappeared. That wasn’t as fun.

“Yeah, this is the place,” said Melissa peeking in. We all went inside, Melissa and Kilgore started looking at little squiggles on the walls and talking about them.

I found some mushrooms further in the cave, and I picked them. If they were the kind that were okay to eat, then I could share them with Melissa and Kilgore. If not, I could eat them. Orcs can eat any kind of mushroom there is.

“Pignob, hon, this might be a dangerous place. Please stay near us, okay?” said Melissa.

“Can I keep looking if I take out my sticker?” I asked. Dangerous places weren’t very scary, not like bees.

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Melissa and Kilgore looked at each other for a second, and Kilgore nodded. “Yeah, that’s okay,” said Melissa.

I opened the bag and pulled out my sticker. It was a really short, wide sword. Kilgore called it a ‘gladius’. Most orcs use great big heavy weapons like axes, and great swords, and mauls. They’d hold them in two hands and do great big swings in circles. They’d yell a lot too, and get really angry. I don’t get very angry. I mean, I do get angry, Melissa says everyone gets angry sometimes, but those other orcs get really angry. Every time I get that angry, I just get sad that I’m so angry.

I kept looking for mushrooms, but instead I found a bad guy.

It came off of the wall, and it was all dusty and people shaped. I didn’t see it at first, but then it said, “I will suck the marrow from your bones!” or something like that. It startled me, so I bonked it to pieces with my sticker. I’m supposed to use the sharp part, or the pointy part, but Kilgore says it’s probably fine no matter what I do.

I went back and told Melissa and Kilgore. Melissa pulled out her little knives, and Kilgore made his hands glow red, and they came to see.

“A viserax,” said Kilgore, “Cannibals, infused with devil energy from worship of dark powers.”

“Cultists? Out here? We’re not exactly in the savage lands, Kilgore, how was a cult operating out here?” asked Melissa.

“Beats me, but there’s no such thing as a one-member cult. Let’s be ready,” said Kilgore.

We put all of our stuff in a pile just outside the cave. Kilgore and Melissa helped me put on my armor, which is really thick pieces of leather with some metal pieces stuck to the outside Kilgore says giving me a full suit of metal armor would mean we could just retire instead. That might be a joke, I sometimes have a hard time telling.

“Battle plan?” Melissa asked Kilgore.

“Viserax are strong, and damn quick. Their bite causes pain so intense it can knock you out, so don’t get bitten.” Then Kilgore looked at me, “don’t let us get bitten either, okay?” That was a silly thing to say, I always want to protect my friends.

“So, I go first?” I asked. I wanted to make sure I understood.

“You go first,” said Kilgore. “Reins off?” he asked Melissa.

“Oh yeah, boss. I don’t want to chat with anything we find in here,” said Melissa. She had black clothes and two swords. She put a black mask over her face too. I can see in the dark and she was still pretty hard to see.

“Okay. Pignob, if it moves, and it isn’t us, you kill it,” said Kilgore.

I was relieved, sometimes Kilgore and Melissa want to do “plans”. Those are always confusing and frustrating for me. “Okay, Kilgore,”

I kept my shield in front of me and my sticker behind the shield. I learned it’s best to let the shield go first, that way anything bad has to hit the shield first. Melissa was behind me, and Kilgore was behind her making light. We walked past the thing I killed, and Melissa cut its head off, I don’t know why.

We didn’t walk much more when I saw two more of those viser things on the wall ahead of us. They were really still, so I wasn’t sure if they were alive.

“I see two things,” I whispered to Kilgore and Melissa.

“Two…what? Viserax?” asked Kilgore.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Tell us more Pignob,” said Melissa, “where are they, what are they doing?”

“They’re over there, and they’re not doing anything,” when they ask me questions is when things get hard.

“We can’t see what you’re pointing at buddy,” said Kilgore. I guess he was right, I took up a lot of the hallway.

I moved my shield out of the way and pointed, “There’s two of those things right there,” I said. But I forgot that I was supposed to be whispering. The two things made a crunching sound and jumped off the wall really fast. They looked like really skinny people, so skinny I could see their bones. But they were also really dry with wet looking stains around their mouths.

“Flesh for Lagula Rah!” one of them yelled. Then a third one fell off the ceiling, I didn’t see that one. They all ran at us and screamed, and they were really fast!

I dropped my shield on the ground, that makes it harder to move, and pushed my shoulder against it. One of the bad guys hit the left side, and one hit the right side, and I didn’t feel the third one hit. I didn’t think they could squeeze by me, but they were really skinny. I had to choose which one to try and stop, or they’d both get past my shield. I thought maybe the left one, cause it seemed closer, but maybe the right one was closer? It was hard to tell, they were really fast.

“Left one!” Melissa shouted.

That made it easier. I squished that one against the wall with the edge of my shield, he was stuck now. The other one got past me though, and got past Melissa too. It jumped on Kilgore and bit the hand making light. It must have hurt just like Kilgore said, cause he screamed almost as loud as me.

I had to kill this one fast to save Kilgore. So, I did the thing I usually do. I push people till they get stuck against walls, then I hold them there, then I slide my sticker into them. It’s great, cause they can’t do anything about it, and even if they’re wearing armor I just push the sticker harder till it goes in. I reached my sticker around the shield and pushed. The felt the thing try to stop me, but he wasn’t as strong as me. I pushed till I heard something go crack, then it stopped moving.

I turned around to save Kilgore, but Melissa was already saving him. She was hacking at the bad guy’s neck from behind while Kilgore wrestled it and tried not to get bit again. I couldn’t hit the bad guy with my shield, or my sticker, cause Melissa was in the way. So, I grabbed Kilgore’s foot and pulled him away. Then Melissa was free to hit it, without worrying about hitting Kilgore. Its head came off really fast after that.

“You okay Kilgore?” I asked.

Kilgore punched the ground and jumped up really fast, “No!” he yelled at me, “You can’t just stand there Pignob! You have to act! When you don’t fucking move you-“

“Hey! Hey hey hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” said Melissa. She moved in front of Kilgore and held onto his shoulders. “It was my fault, I gave the call and wasn’t ready for it to just blow past me. They’re stronger than they look.”

I felt terrible. I always feel terrible when Kilgore yells at me. He doesn’t yell at me very often, but that just makes it worse when he does. He got bit, and it was my fault, and it was the thing he told me not to let happen.

Melissa squeezed Kilgore’s shoulders and he still seemed mad, but not as mad.

“Pignob,” he said. I was scared he was going to yell at me again, and I hid behind my shield a little. “Hey, come on buddy. I’m sorry. It’s just…” Kilgore stopped talking. He looked at Melissa who nodded at him. “It’s just that I was right. Those bites hurt, and when I got hurt, I got mad. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“So, I got mad at you. Because you were in front, and you couldn’t tell us what was happening. Then when they attacked us you took too long figuring out what to do, and-“

“Slow! Slow down, Kilgore,” said Melissa. Kilgore had started getting mad again.

Kilgore took a deep breath. “Are you hurt?” he asked me.

I shook my head.

“Okay, good. I’m glad. I’m a little hurt, but I’m okay. I’m sorry I got mad. I ‘m sorry I yelled at you, that didn’t help.” He looked at Melissa, and she nodded at him.

“I’m sorry too,” I said, really quietly. I only had to do one thing, and I didn’t do it. Even though Kilgore said it was okay, I didn’t feel okay.

“It’s okay buddy, you did your best,” said Kilgore.

But if I did my best, bad things wouldn’t happen, I thought.

“Hey, where’s the third one?” Melissa asked. We looked, but couldn’t find it. “Oh, did he…uh…hit your shield?” Melissa asked.

I shrugged. I didn’t feel like talking.

Kilgore laughed a little, “Heh, that’s a pretty handy mirror,” he said.

“It’s a shield,” I mumbled, but I don’t think he heard me.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” said Kilgore. He gave me a little pat on the arm, like Melissa does, but it didn’t make me feel as nice as when Melissa does it.

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