Number Three and Number Five had been killed, but no one else was too badly hurt. Oatmeal was probably the worst off, even though he hadn’t suffered a scratch. He was having some sort of panic attack, eyes wide and hyperventilating, refusing to move from his Safety Tree.

Bee was all right. None of her organs had been damaged by the arrow that pierced her side, its penetration impeded by Stoneflesh and Iron Wall. The one that caught her temple would scar, and probably lessen her chances of winning any Nifalan beauty pageants, but other than that she would be fine. He cleaned the wounds, wrapped them in gauze, and left it at that.

While he was trying to calm Oatmeal down, Mongrel came and crouched next to him. In a low voice, the Builder said: “We’ve gotta talk about Gug.” He glanced back at the troll, who was nudging Blind Tam’s corpse with a look of disgust.

“That’s Nug,” Will pointed out.

“Whatever.”

“He kill any bandits?”

“Only one. But it’s how he did it. Guy went crazy, screaming and crying until he started hitting his head off a rock and finally carved out his own throat.”

Will looked up from his charge at that. “Power Word?”

Mongrel shook his head. “All I heard him say was ‘Telepathy’. But that’s never been an offensive skill, has it? He didn’t amp it or anything, either.”

“Huh.”

“I’m telling you brother, it was fucked up. Don’t turn your back to that thing.”

“Careful, your green hate is showing.”

“It’s not about that. It’s about his build. Clearly, it’s just as fucking weird as he is.”

“I’ve got it. I’ll be careful.”

Mongrel nodded and walked off, letting Will return his attention to Oatmeal. The Explorer clearly hadn’t benefitted from hearing about the guy who went mad and killed himself, staring up at him with big eyes.

“You’re all right, Oatmeal.” Will said, giving him a rough clap on the cheek. “You lived, so savor it. Not everyone gets that luxury.”

“Are you gonna make me fight next time?” Oatmeal asked, face pale with a mix of panic and nausea.

Will smiled. “I don’t think there would be any point in that, champ. Just take it easy.”

Once everyone was back on their feet, they searched the bandits. A caravan came through while they were in the act, and knew better than to stop and ask questions. For all they knew, Will’s group were the bandits. They were likely just happy to come across a pack of wolves who already had full bellies.

They didn’t come up with much. Some petty cash—not even enough to be worth splitting—a bit of gaudy jewelry that they kept just for the sake of it, and a decent dark-green cloak with only a few spots of blood on it. That went to Oatmeal to give him a bit of extra camouflage in the wild.

Will was pleased to find that three of the bandits had packs of happy puffs on them. Admittedly he’d left that life behind, but there was still a satisfaction to seeing his mark out there in the world. The two remaining chimps were happy to receive the smokes, and even happier that they didn’t have to share with their brothers.

Just to be safe, Will fetched the bounty roster booklet from the saddlebags and checked it over. Wouldn’t you know it, Blind Tam was on there. 2 500 graces, dead preferable.

They’d cash him in at Timbryhall.

Their desecration of the dead concluded, they went off the road and headed for the spot Blind Tam had pointed out on the map. They wrapped Tam up in the clothes of his friends so he wasn’t leaking everywhere, and Bee was awarded the privilege of carrying him, lumped over her shoulders like a sack of grain.

Now that they were headed into rough country, they could finally put Oatmeal to use by utilizing one of the Explorer starter skills—Orienteering.

It allowed Oatmeal not only to sense the cardinal directions at all times, but also to vaguely feel out the shape of the landscape around them, allowing them to avoid obstacles and hard terrain. With a few more points, it would become a splendid utility skill. It was one of the main abilities that made Explorers useful.

Day teetered towards evening by the time they spotted human occupation, the sky a blazing orange.

The bandits had built their homes up in a stand of enormous redwoods, a cluster of tree houses on platforms maybe ten meters up, radiating from the trunks and connected by rope bridges.

Building in this way had been fairly common practice for smaller settlements since the Fall to get out of reach of most monsters and render ambushes by other lifers impractical. The only method of entry was a set of retracted rope ladders.

Luckily, they had some real good climbers on their side.

Detect Life revealed that there were only a few people up there. He counted six total, and at least two appeared to be non-combatants. The bandits had brought all their best men to work the robberies. With them dead, Will’s group had already done most of the hard work.

Mongrel sent Number Two and Number Four up there, the chimps deftly scaling the nearest trunk until they could swing onto a platform. They kicked down the rope ladders, and Bee immediately threw down her gear so she could begin climbing up. Will went after, although at a significantly slower pace. His damned foot didn’t help matters much. The ropes swung around wildly with each step, wooden rungs creaking.

He focused on not looking down. Looking up at Bee’s toned ass instead helped a little, but the sensation it gave rise to was a strange one, since he was still angry with her. He couldn’t recall ever being pissed off and horny at the same time before.

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She disappeared over the top, and it took Will another sweaty minute before he crawled onto the platform, having gained a whole new dislike for heights.

He’d expected to see another bloodbath, but no one had been killed. Bee and the chimps had gathered four subdued men against the wall of one ramshackle hut, standing grim vigil over the seated bandits.

Evidently, they had put up no fight whatsoever. Two of them were pale and feverish, the third missing a leg from the hip down, and the fourth a Level 2 freshie with a very Oatmeal-esque look of mute terror.

“I assumed you’d want them alive,” Bee said with only a hint of snark, hand resting on the pommel of her sheathed sword.

“Really liking the energy,” Will panted, hands on his thighs, “but it’s a little late for mercy now.”

Unlike with Buck, Will could see no benefit from letting these men live—only potential risk.

Bee nodded. “Understood.”

Their pleas for mercy soon turned to wet gurgles as Bee slit their throats one by one, then sent them over the edge of the platform, hitting the ground far below with dull thuds.

“There were a couple women in one of the huts,” Bee noted idly, wiping her sword down with a rag before sheathing it again. “Tied up, like. I guess those men were keeping them around as entertainment.”

“Show me.”

Bee took him to the farthest hut in the zig-zag line of makeshift buildings. The squat doorway was only partitioned by a sheet. They ducked inside, and sure enough, there were two women on the floor—the non-combatants he’d detected before.

They were ragged and dirty, wrists bound with one end each of a thick rope threaded through an iron ring in the floor. One of them was a Level 7 Entertainer, the other a Level 3 Explorer. Their eyes were dull and apathetic, and they didn’t even look up when Will and Bee entered. Evidently, they held no hope that their new captors would be any better than the previous ones.

He preferred not to think about the fact that the Entertainer had likely gained most of those seven levels against her will.

“Set them free,” Will said.

Bee cut away their bonds. The women looked up at them, but did not move at all.

“The men who kept you are all dead,” Will explained. “My people will be staying here for the night, at least. We’ll feed you. After that, you can decide what you want to do with yourselves.”

One of the women gave a barely perceptible nod.

*****

The bandits had a rope pulley system that Will and the others used to hoist their equipment from the ground, followed by Blind Tam’s body. Once Zero had been unburdened, Mongrel recalled her so that she could rest and be safe.

Bee carried the bodies they’d dropped to the ground some distance from the encampment, so that they wouldn’t attract predators or monsters right to them.

As it turned out, the bandits had collected a fair bit of ill-gotten loot through their enterprise. They hadn’t gone through any effort of hiding it, either—evidently, they had never expected anyone to reach this place.

There was a strongbox that contained nearly 5 000 graces in notes and old coins. Then there was a chest with rolls of expensive fabrics, pots of rare spices, and various assorted jewelry. Most of it was fairly ordinary, but Will did find one enchanted ring in there, of Jeweler-make. He couldn’t identify it, but they’d learn what it was once they reached Timbryhall.

It was decided that they would sell off the trade goods at the first opportunity. They’d pool the proceeds from that with the money they just found and split it all evenly between everyone. They’d gamble for the ring.

One of the huts had a stone slab set into the floor with a black iron hood around it, meant to accommodate fire. They set one up to use for cooking. The encampment was safe enough that Will allowed them to drink alcohol, and they chased their dinner with healthy sips of vodka.

The women were named Cheeky Min and Lauren Lowdown. They sat with them at dinner at the edge of the hut, wrapped in blankets, but hardly spoke a word.

No one used the women’s bastard names when addressing them. They’d been dehumanized enough.

After dinner, the gang smoked and told stories and played cards and drank some more. The distant howling cackles of monsters could not dampen their spirits.

Oatmeal, who was evidently a proficient cheater, nearly got his hands on the ring, but it was Nix who won in the end. Affecting an air of utter indifference, she said that she didn’t care about the trinket one way or another, and decided that Mongrel might as well take it off her hands.

Smooth.

They got the troll to try vodka, and he nearly ended up vomiting. “It burns!” he cried, desperately patting his throat. “It burns real bad! I’m dying! What do I do? I’m dying!”

Gug did not die.

The troll did some reading to calm himself down, and ended up finishing his book. He snapped it shut with a thump of finality.

“What a journey,” he said with a happy little hum. His expression immediately darkened, however, once he realized that he didn’t have anything to read anymore. “Boss? Do you have any more books?”

Will shook his head. “Afraid not, my friend. But you can buy more with your earnings once we get to the next town.”

“Lots?”

“Sure.”

“Lots and lots?”

“Only lots, I think. We have the rest of our packing to consider.”

“Oh. That’s okay, I guess.”

“Gug,” Bee cut in, cheeks rosy with inebriation. “You read that whole porno, but do you actually know what sex is?”

“Of course I do!” Gug said indignantly, clutching the book to his breast like a newborn. “I’m a genius, after all.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yup.”

“Have you ever… had sex?”

That got him pouting. “No.”

“How old are you, anyway?”

“Uh… thirty-two.”

“Fuck me, that’s even worse than Will. A whole world full of virgins.”

Gug gave a sheepish shrug.

“What’s your type, then? You into human women or troll women?”

He thought about it. “I like women who are very nice.”

“Wow wow wow, what a gentleman. Take notes, sourpuss.” Bee bumped Will with her shoulder—a little too hard—and nearly knocked him over.

“We’ve got to get you laid,” Mongrel said, leaned back on his elbows. “You and me, pal. Once we get to Timbryhall, we’ll tear up the town.”

“Someone sure changed his tune,” Will pointed out. “I thought it was ‘no trolls on the team’?”

Mongrel shrugged. “I’m a saintly drunk.”

While the team kept workshopping ideas to kickstart Gug’s sex life, Will began to tune them out, instead closely observing the troll’s open, innocent face.

He’d been doing some thinking about how the Telepathy skill could be used offensively. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be possible. It was only meant to facilitate mental communication between two people.

But Will had a theory.

Maybe you really are a genius, Gug.

A genius above geniuses.

The only way Will could see Telepathy being weaponized was if a user could think with such speed that the sheer volume of information they sent to their opponent would be enough to completely overwhelm their mind.

A frightening ability.

That excited him.