Have you ever been so close to death that you were literally staring him in the face? Well, I was. Death had hollow cheeks and dark rings around his sunken eyes. There was a mole with two short black hairs growing out of it a fingers width from his left ear. You’d think his breath would smell like something rotten but oddly it was sickly sweet instead.

“Death looks good on you,” the Lord said.

“Not a fan,” I managed, painting the man's face with flecks of blood.

The Lord grinned. I can’t tell you how fucking terrifying a man smiling with blood all over his face is. Almost terrifying enough to make me forget the burning agony of the blade in my chest. Almost but not quite.

I let my eyes flicker to my health bar, watching it rush down at an alarming rate. The Lord bellowed drawing my eyes back to him as his fingers dropped from the dagger.

Two skeletons had wrapped their bony arms around the man, dragging him away from me. Miranda was standing now, fury radiating from her eyes as her pink fire roared to frightening heights.

“Leave him alone!” She screamed lifting her scepter as high as she could.

The Lord rushed around the chamber, dodging the undead monsters the girl sent after him. His daggers flew from his fingers with brilliant flashes but they didn’t do a great deal of damage to the dead monsters. The man glowered as he avoided the attacks, jumping up onto the benches and rushing around the room, his robe flapping behind him.

I yanked the dagger from my chest and pressed a hand against the wound. I guess I should be grateful the thing hadn’t hit my heart. Or my lungs judging by the fact I could breathe. How shit of an aim was the Lord? There’s a lot of sensitive crap in the chest. Did he hit a rib?

I stumbled over to Miranda as my head whirled. “Thank you.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

Sweat beaded on her forehead as she continued to pump her magic into her horrid pets. Stella barked and charged again, hitting the Lord squarely in the chest. The Lord tumbled back off the bench but did some awkward gymnastics to avoid landing on his head. The bastard had to be some sort of martial artist.

Stella growled and moved to attack again. The Lord roared and dug a ball of something out of his pocket, tossing the thing at Stella. It hit her and exploded in a puff of red smoke. Stella whimpered as she flew across the room. She wiggled on the ground, thick metal bands holding her in place. The trap was unlike anything I’d ever laid eyes on before.

“Stella!” I cried.

“Enough,” the Lord roared flinging his arms out in a wild flash.

The odd little balls scattered around the room. Miranda yelped and jumped up on a bench to avoid them. I did the same but in a far more painful and awkward motion. Miranda was panting now, two blooms of bright red coloring her cheeks.

“Joe, we’re in trouble.”

“What… What’s wrong?”

Three of the skeletons stumbled on the traps. Two were wrapped up like Stella and another simply blew to pieces. A different trap struck the still-crawling dead man letting free a plumb of green mist. A wheezing scream left the man's lips as his flesh began to melt like a heated candle.

“I’m almost out of magicka,” Miranda said.

Crap.

I hobbled over to Stella and picked her up, hissing past my teeth at the pain of it. I managed to make it back to Miranda, keeping a close eye on my feet so I didn’t hit the scattered trap ball things.

“We have to get out of here,” I said, grabbing Miranda’s arm.

“Run all you want,” the Lord snarled as he began walking toward us, daggers decorating his fingers once more. “It will do you no good.”

Miranda’s fire went out as she fell back. I steadied her and dragged her toward the exit. The Lord laughed and rushed past us, swinging around to face with that same deadly grin splitting his face. His robe swung about his legs.

“There is a price to leave the Glow Worm Cave. A price that must be paid in blood.”

I snorted as we halted in front of him. “You have a lot to say for someone whose followers have abandoned you.”

The Lord's face contorted into one of anger. “They know better than to encroach on my fun.”

I laughed and started hacking up globs of blood. “More like they hoped we’d make your head roll across the floor.”

“Enough!”

He tossed a pair of daggers from his seemingly endless supply. I cried out, covering Stella and Miranda’s bodies with my broad back. The blades sunk in deep, driving me to my knees. I tried to breathe through the agony but it didn’t help much.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Joe, are you alright?” Miranda cried, dropping down with me.

“Peachy,” I murmured, my head dropping uselessly on the girl's shoulder.

I could feel her body shaking as she cried. I groaned, her movements were sending wave after wave of pain all over my body.

The Lord cackled like a stereotypical villain as he approached. Did all his past ramblings count as a monologue or did I still have that to endure before my health bar flashed and disappeared?

A loud whistle filled the air followed by a wet thwack and a scream cut short. My eyes shot open. I watched in horror as the Lord’s head rolled across the ground, coming to a stop right beside my knee.

Miranda screamed and threw me off her, running away to hide behind the giant fire urn. I groaned as the daggers were driven further into my back. I tilted my head, looking to see what the hell had just happened.

A short, curly-haired ball of pure rage stepped up to me, her axe still dripping blood as she planted the butt of the thing beside my head.

“Two days Joe, I gave your sorry ass two days. It’s been three!”

“Sorry Nora,” I coughed past the blood still pooling in my mouth.

“Come on, Sob’s waiting outside,” she said, roughly grabbing me by the scruff and yanking me to my wobbly feet. She noticed Stella still tangled in the trap in my arms. “Oh, you poor thing. What has this idiot done to you?”

“It wasn’t me. Miranda, come out. Nora is harmless.”

Nora snorted but held her tongue as she glanced around me at the girl peeking out from behind the urn. She lifted a singular dark brow before she turned and tugged me along beside her. Miranda rushed out and followed us up the passage and out of the caves. It was dark outside but the light of the everlasting torch lit Jacob and Sob standing off to the side.

Nora yanked the daggers from my back and shoved me toward the horse. With a brilliant flash of blue and an odd tingling sensation a small chunk of my health returned.

“Thank you,” I said to the towering beast who only snorted in return, coating me in a disgusting mist of snot.

“So, how’d it go?” Jacob asked.

“Oh, easy as pie, you know.”

The boy snorted and looked past me. Miranda wasn’t cowering anymore. Instead, she was looking up at the blanket of stars above our heads.

“I forgot how pretty it is out here,” she murmured to no one in particular.

Nora elbowed me and jabbed her head in the girl’s direction.

“Oh, right. Nora, this is Miranda. Miranda, this is Nora, Jacob, and Sob.”

Miranda's eyes flicked back down to us. She clutched her scepter to her chest as she carefully eyed the bunch of new people in front of her.

“Hello.”

Nora beamed. “Good to have you with us. We needed another girl in the crew.”

Miranda gave a small smile in return but remained quiet.

“Come on,” I said. “We have to get out of here before the Lord’s friends find us.”

“The ‘Lord’?” Nora asked.

“I’ll explain everything, but first let’s move.”

We traipsed across the dusty landscape heading back to the smith in Stanthorpe. As we walked I told them all what had happened.

“That’s just stupid. All I had to do was buy the goods back,” Jacob said.

“Lucky you,” I grumbled.

Nora pranced beside me, a big smile on her face. “I got to kill some orcs. It was fun.”

“There is something very wrong with you.”

She elbowed me hard enough to leave a bruise. “I just saved your ass, you should be supplicating at my feet right now.”

“Maybe I would be if I had any idea what that meant.”

“Geez read a book man.”

“Sure thing, let me just kick my feet up with a cold beer and I’ll get right on that.”

“Are they always like this?” Miranda asked quietly behind us.

“Always. You get used to it,” the boy said back a little less quietly.

I ignored them all, still trying to yank the stupid cables off of Stella. It was hard to do while we were walking but the Lord’s followers coming after us was a real danger.

Nora sighed and tried to help. “I could hit them with my axe, that might help.”

“What, and take Stella’s head off like you did back in the cave? I don’t think so.”

“It was just a suggestion.”

“A bad one.”

I found a little hole on the side of the ball and pressed my finger into it, willing the thing to open. It was probably a stupid thing to do but I was getting a little desperate. The cables released and whipped away from her body, smacking me on the chin and across my arm. I yelped and almost dropped the dog. Stella let out a triumphant bark and started trying to lick my face as her clawed paws dug into my chest.

“Easy,” I said just barely keeping the dog's tongue out of my mouth.

I bent and placed her on the ground, rubbing at the places the spikes on her coat had dug into me. I was going to be a big ball of bruises before morning came. Nora let out a string of sweet words as she stroked the dog’s head. I rolled my eyes. Where were the sweet words for me? So rude.

“Are we almost there?” Jacob whined behind us.

“Shut up or I’ll turn this party around,” I muttered.

It took a long time but finally, we made it back. One by one we approached the smith and completed our quests.

Quest complete: An Eye for an Eye

Reward: Merchants now like you a little bit more.

New Skill Unlocked: Golden Tongue (I)

Merchants now offer you better pricing on goods based on the player's charisma skill so long as you don’t piss them off. Be warned Golden Tongue is a temperamental skill and can be lost as easily as it was given.

I read the notification with a lifted brow. I didn’t know about the others but my charisma was a solid seven. I opened the bartering window with the smith and eyed some of the prices trying to figure out just how good it was. The only problem was, I couldn’t remember what he had been charging before. If I ever ran into Red again I might figure it out. The fact the man-spider was selling a candle for seventy-five gold coins was lodged squarely in my brain for some reason.

“So,” Nora said. “Back to the inn or on to another quest?”

“The inn,” all three of us said together.

Nora pouted like she was a child and I’d just taken away her favorite toy. I swear, the woman would never make sense to me. Beer, food, and a warm bath were better than a quest any day of the week.