“Does it work with anything that was once alive, or only animals and people?”

I stood on top of a nonfunctional light post, my bow drawn and aimed at a standard croc down the street, but still, Nora’s voice carried up to me. I tried to ignore the constant stream of questions she was throwing at Miranda but honestly, I was kind of interested as well.

My arm began to tire as I held the draw, following the crocs pattern with the tip of my arrow. I could see my stamina draining but I wanted to see something. Finally, I released, leading my target by a few paces. The arrow shot forward and lodged itself in the croc's eye. The beast fell backward, its body already beginning to grow.

Critical hit!

So I was right. There was such a thing as a power attack in this game. It just took a lot of time and drained a lot of stamina to perform, which made sense, that’s how it normally worked, right? With a bow it was easy, just hold a full draw as long as you can. Now I just had to figure out how to do it with my blades.

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried,” Miranda answered Nora.

Nora rushed across the street and yanked a small plant from the ground before racing back to stand in front of Miranda.

“Here, this was alive but now it is dead. Do your magic.”

“I don’t think…”

“Please. Do it for me.”

“Fine, give it here.”

Miranda took the plant and held it in her hands as her pink fire flared up around her.

“Ah, Joe, shouldn’t you be up there keeping watch?” Jacob asked me, his head swiveling around like he was an owl. His eyes were even wide like saucers.

“There aren’t any crocs in the area, I just took out the last one. Stop being a scaredy cat,” I said.

Jacob paused for a moment, his eyes focused on the glowing corpse of the croc down the street. “Are you going to loot that?” he asked.

“It’s all yours.”

The kid rushed off to collect his meager spoils as I turned back to Miranda. Her magic died down as the plant continued to lay limp in her hands.

“I guess it only works for things that had a heartbeat,” she said.

“Damn. I mean, it’s still cool but an army of plants would have been something else.”

“Yeah, I guess you need earth elemental magic for something like that. Have you found a tailor or something yet?” Miranda asked, not so subtly changing the topic. “I’m sick of wearing this disgusting dress.”

“No, sorry,” Nora said. “We can go back to the smith but he didn’t really have anything tailored toward a mage.”

It took a moment for my mind to catch up to their dramatic shift but when it did, I remembered something. I dug my hand into my bum bag and pulled out the Robe of Transformation. It looked a lot like a potato sack with holes cut out for the head and arms but its effects were still pretty great.

“Here, try this,” I said, handing it to Miranda.

The girl screwed up her nose as she turned the thing in her hands. “Seriously Joe? I’d rather where my shitty dress than this thing.”

“Read the description and then say that.”

She stared off into space for a moment as she did just that, a big smile forming on her face. She placed the robe on a bench beside her and in a rush grabbed the hem of her dress and yanked it over her head. I quickly spun around giving her some semblance of privacy as she changed.

When she’d finished I turned back and frowned. Yep, it really did look like a potato sack.”So much for transformation.”

Miranda held up a finger and closed her eyes. The robe began to shimmer and morph until she stood in front of us wearing what looked like a sundress made of flickering pink fire.

“Wow,” I said.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Hmm, don’t you think you’ll be a little too easy to spot?” Nora asked.

Miranda stroked a hand down the skirt of the dress, the pink flames wrapping about her fingers before slipping through like wisps of fabric. “Maybe, but I think it's worth it.”

Nora chuckled. “You’re probably right. Let’s get moving.”

Jacob joined us as we headed into a new section of the town. We’d been systematically working our way through the streets for the last three days. Killing off the creatures we found, collecting loot, and gaining experience.

I was the only one with a quest left to complete but it was so far away and the others didn’t seem to want to tag along. For now, leveling ourselves seemed to be our best bet until something happened to lead us in the right direction.

We looted as much as we could, filling the smith’s inventory with things he wouldn’t normally sell and collecting his gold that seemed to replenish every day. It would have been better if we could find Red. Nora had mentioned the merchants gave better prices for items they specialized in. Red had been an excellent source of a general merchant rather than the smith whose good prices were limited to weapons and armor.

We came to a large noticeboard on the side of the road. I paused there and wiped the dust and grime from the worn glass window protecting the collection of papers inside. I was hoping to see one of them glowing but none seemed to be. Instead, there was a notice to not litter in the streets, a lost poster for a black and white cat named Jess, and a large partially faded map of Stanthorpe and its neighboring towns and places of interest.

One of the places near the topmost edge of the map caught my attention. It was a place just outside the town of Warwick beside the Condamine River. The little tag beside the blue marker read ‘Oliver’s Rest’.

I frowned, focusing on the name harder. I knew it somehow, even though I’d never been anywhere near the place.

“Joe, what are you doing?” Nora asked stomping back to stand beside me.

I tapped the glass with a finger. “There’s something about that place, something important.”

Nora lifted a brow at me. “Warwick is nice and all but I’m not sure it’s going to help us find Nigel the Sentinel.”

“No, this one. It’s…” The memory hit me like a ton of bricks. I grabbed Nora’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. “We have to go there, now. Oliver’s Rest. Come on, we have to go.”

Nora pushed me away. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re doing so well clearing this place.”

I grabbed my hair and tugged at the strands. “No, you don’t understand. Back in the Glow Worm Cave, I ran into a pair of idiots, they said there was a gathering of people there.”

“And you believe them? Joe, it’ll take us a day or three of walking to get there. The carriage doesn’t go there.”

“Miranda,” I said rushing over to her. “When you were back in the caves, did you ever hear people mention Oliver’s Rest?”

“No, I don’t think…”

I yelped and stumbled away from her as her face went slack and her eyes clouded over until they were pure white orbs looking back at me. She stood perfectly still, staring sightlessly at nothing.

“What’s happening?” Nora asked rushing past me and attempting to place a hand on Mirana’s shoulder.

The pink flames of her dress flared and burned Nora’s hand, forcing her back.

“Should… should I shoot her?”

“What the hell,” I bellowed, rounding on Jacob. “No!”

“But she looks possessed.”

“She’s part of our crew now, we don’t shoot our crew members.”

The boy’s eyes dropped as he shuffled his feet on the road. I turned back around, approaching Miranda and Nora. Miranda jolted and the clouding of her eyes vanished. She shook her head and blinked.

“We have to go there, now,” she said.

“That’s what I said!”

“Joe, be quiet for a minute,” Nora said. “What happened Miranda, are you alright?”

Miranda smiled broadly and grabbed Nora’s hands. “Yes, I’m fine. The spirits spoke to me. We have to go there. There are hundreds of people still alive and free. We can join them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! I saw it and it's beautiful. They’ve built a fortress. Quick, we have to hurry.”

I ran back to the notice board and broke the glass with the hilt of my sword, snatching the map and folding it up. Without GPS we were going to have to find the place the old-school way. We returned to the inn and collected as many supplies as we could carry before leaving Stanthorpe. The walk would take us a couple of days if we walked from sun up to sun down.

I thanked my lucky stars I’d gone back to see Kendrick two nights ago. He’d been very happy that I had completed the first quest the Shadow Walkers had given me, even if he was less impressed by how long I had taken. He’d told me to keep practicing my craft and keep an eye out for the guild's messengers. They would find me wherever I happened to be and give me opportunities to climb through the ranks of the guild.

I still didn’t know what the man meant by ‘messengers’ but it was good enough for now.

We raced around selling unnecessary goods and collecting supplies for the trek ahead before saying goodbye to Phlegm and Taki. We marched through the streets toward the north, not much caring if we ran into monsters or not. We weren’t as weak as we’d once been.

Just as we reached the edge of town a thunderous roar broke the silence of the day. We spun around to meet the charging group of crocs. It was the biggest we’d come across by far. A group of small and large crocs with a leader that looked different.

It was taller again than the largest croc I’d ever seen and its scales were green near its head but changed color to red at the tip of its tail. I took out my bow and fired an arrow at the monster, reading the name that appeared above its health bar.

Master Combustion Croc.

The monster roared again letting loose a ball of fire from its maw that came shooting toward us.