The bear limped while keeping Bee side-on, wary and hurting. The hatred in its eyes told her that it wasn’t going to back down.

Bee was possibly in even worse shape, especially her arms and torso. The entire front of her tunic had gone red, weighed down with the sheer volume of blood that had soaked into it.

She spotted her sword in the grass and staggered over to it, falling twice in the process. Picking it up and wiping moss clumps off the flat of the blade, she squared off against the grizzly.

The animal huffed in warning when she got near. When that didn’t work, it lunged for her with a huge paw. Bee weaved right but still got tagged with the very end of its claws, another line of streaks atop the others. But the pain was a distant thing; unimportant. She stepped through to the bear’s side in one long stride and plunged her sword into its gut. There was an initial tug of resistance, then it slid in easily once she’d broken through skin and fur.

She buried the blade almost to the hilt and stepped back, letting the weapon stay inside the animal. With a rattling roar of pain, it rounded on her in retaliation. With all the strength she could still muster, Bee went for a low, sweeping kick that knocked the bear’s front legs out and sent it tumbling. She fell ass-first herself in the process.

But she got back up, and the bear didn’t. It lay there on its side, just breathing, blade hilt pointing straight into the air like some Sword in the Very Squishy Stone. One baleful black eye fixed on Bee.

“Don’t… give me that look,” Bee panted. “You chose this, asshole.”

All the fatigue hit her like a bag of bricks now that the adrenaline was rushing out of her. She supported herself on her thighs so she wouldn’t tip forward and flop on her face.

Bee stepped up to the grizzly, placed a foot on its ribs, and yanked her sword back out. The wound it left behind was barely visible through the matted fur, and didn’t bleed much. Considering the position of the animal, she assumed most of the bleeding was internal.

“Come on, stop being so dramatic. It’s bearly a scratch.”

The bear wasn’t laughing. Bee managed a weary chuckle, gritting her teeth as the movement awakened a hundred hurts across her torso.

Congratulations! You have reached Level 8!

Please sleep in order to allocate your rewards.

“Well, would you look at that? Way to help a girl out.”

The bear was probably dying.

Bee felt for the healing potion on her hip and found it missing, but spotted it nestled between two nearby rocks. She unstoppered it with her teeth and tipped it over to let the liquid dribble inside the bear's mouth. The animal licked weakly, swallowing maybe half and spilling the rest down its chin.

“You were strong,” Bee said. “For what it’s worth, I hope you live to maul another day.”

She turned to face in Will’s direction and dragged herself in a straight line towards him. It was only when she paid attention to their connection after being caught up with her that she realized he was hurt. Not badly, but his alarm was clear through their bond.

He was low on AP, too. She hadn’t realized she could sense that kind of thing.

Whatever the reason, he was clearly in trouble.

Somehow, Bee managed to push herself into a stiff, hobbled jog.

*****

Mongrel found out that Oatmeal had used Locate Object to find him. More accurately, he had used it on all of them, and Mongrel had been the closest.

“Who’s closest now?” Mongrel asked, poking a limp grumplet body to make sure it was dead.

“Uh…” Oatmeal held up the little pouch of tracer elements he had been given, which hung from his neck by a leather strap. “The troll, maybe? I don’t think he’s far from here. He’s stationary, too.”

Locate Object only lasted for ten minutes, so they were in a bit of a rush to regroup with the others since the clever young Explorer had used up all his AP.

They headed for Gug’s location without further deliberation. Since he had lost his sword, Oatmeal had to make do with a scavenged flint spear. It was awfully small in his hands, but it was better than nothing. In the worst case, he always had his belt knife.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Mongrel got to thinking while they walked. “Hey, kid. You still got the tracer Nix gave you?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. Why?”

“And it still works?”

Oatmeal shrugged, fiddling with his babies-first spear. “How am I supposed to know? The hair should have like five days left on it before it’s too old to be used with Locate Object, that’s all I know. Seriously, why though?”

“I’m just asking.”

Oatmeal paused, biting his lip. “You’re not thinking of tracking her down, are you? Because I really don’t wanna do that.”

“I said I was just asking. Now shut up.”

The Explorer did as he was told, and trudged alongside Mongrel in sullen silence. He proved to be of some use when his Orienteering passive allowed them to avoid two hidden pits covered with branches and leaves, presumably left by their charming fuzzy friends.

They heard the grumplets before they saw them, giving them time to ready their weapons. The sounds were coming from Gug’s direction.

A pile of large boulders broke up the forest. As they walked out from under the canopy they immediately saw a pack of grumplets scampering about on the ground and up the rock. They were like ants, the way they darted to and fro. A good number of them were cheering and dancing, pumping their fists to the sky, while a group clustered together near the feet of the boulders. They plunged their weapons in and out of a huge, sharply dressed, and completely still body.

Well, shit.

One grumplet had already cut a hole in Gug’s slacks around the thigh and carved itself a strip of bloody, glistening flesh. It was clearly not to the creature’s liking, because it grimaced and spat it back out almost immediately, then chattered something to its friends.

As soon as the creatures looked up and saw Mongrel, Oatmeal, and the boys, they bolted. There was a frenetic storm of red-brown fur, several tumbling off the rocks as they attempted to flee. They slunk into the woods in every direction, leaving a handful of dead grumplets behind that Gug had presumably taken out himself.

Oatmeal stood uncertain at the edge of the rocky glade, but Mongrel sighed and walked over to the fallen troll, stowing away his sword.

Gug was dead, all right. He lay on his back; throat carved open, both his eyes poked out. His suit was slashed and punctured to shreds, dark blood oozing from a messy lattice of wounds.

Mongrel wasted no time searching Gug’s person. He found a wallet and stuffed it in his pocket, then stood back up with a sigh.

“All right, let’s get out of here,” he said, turning to Oatmeal. “You got any time left on Locate Object?”

Oatmeal took a few hesitant steps towards the corpse. “I think maybe a minute or so. But shouldn’t we… do something? Or say something?”

Mongrel shrugged and swallowed a hard lump. “Not much to say, is there? You lose people. It happens. Most people are just… faces you see for a while. Until you don’t. Eventually you learn not to care so much.”

Despite his words, he kept his gaze firmly off of the troll’s savaged remains.

“Are we just leaving him here, then?”

“Well, we’re not fucking carrying him anywhere, are we? If you want to dig a grave, go right ahead. Might take you a minute, though.”

Oatmeal slowly nodded. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

But he knelt beside Gug anyway. Closed his one eye and murmured a few words over him. Then, he plucked the troll’s notebook out of his breast pocket. The cover had been cut diagonally down the middle, and a corner had soaked up some blood, but it was otherwise intact.

He took the notebook with him when they left. Locate Object had run out, so they walked in the direction where Oatmeal had last sensed Will—him being the closest as far as Oatmeal could remember.

“What did you say to him?” Mongrel asked while they wound their way through the landscape.

Oatmeal looked up. “Hmm?” His expression turned sheepish. “Oh. Nothing that deep, really. It’s not like I knew him well or anything.”

“Yeah, yeah. What did you say?”

“I promised that I would remember him.”

Mongrel scoffed at that. That kind of flowery sentiment would get beaten out of him nice and quick in the Frontier.

It’s better to forget.

*****

Will knocked back the featherlight potion as the critters closed in. He immediately felt a surge of energy. There was a shift in his perception as everything snapped into perfect focus, the world around him and his place in it.

One of the grumplings came in from the right, its presence echoing through detect life. He shot twice into the fog, finding his mark, and ducked away as two more jumped for him.

His body moved effortlessly, almost autonomously, and he didn’t have to think about how and when to move. He just reacted, jumping over one grumpling, sidestepping another, kicking a third to the ground, blowing the brains out of a fourth.

The illusion continued to thicken, billowing right in front of his eyes, and he couldn’t see the creatures even when they were right on top of him. He was forced to re-up Detect Life as soon as it got close to expiring, bringing him down to 4 AP.

Maybe he could do it. It was possible. The featherlight potion would last him about five minutes. If he could finish the fight before it ran out…

While Will was backing out of a spear thrust from the front, another of the vermin slashed at his ankle. Not too deep, but enough to break him out of his flow state. More of them piled on top of him. One sunk razor teeth into his shoulder and clung on. Another clambered up his side, holding onto his tunic with one hand and angling a knife with the other.

Will kept moving to avoid taking on even more of them. He shot the one clinging to his side, causing it to fall away with a shriek, but when he went to take care of the other his pistol clicked empty.

Fuck.

Backing up and avoiding a host of slashing implements, he ejected the magazine and went for another strapped to the outside of his potion satchel. He was about to insert it when the ground gave way underfoot, and he went tumbling backwards.

Down into the earth.

Something sharp went through his gut, and he slid to a halt as a sharpened stake poked out his front. He looked up at sky and leaves and dirt, on his back inside a shallow pit.

Will’s breath hitched. He couldn’t think. Even with the featherlight potion he was paralyzed, unable to reconcile the stake impaling him with reality. It was no glancing injury, either—it had gone straight through his abdomen. Probably perforated his intestine.

Not good.

It didn’t hurt. He was too shocked to be in pain.

Through Detect Life, he sensed the grumplings rushing in around the pitfall trap, eager to finish the job.

Will only had a second to act. He forced his useless brain to think, to do anything.

“Amp: Three,” he croaked. “Construct.”

A shimmering hardlight disk phased into existence above him, covering the opening of the pit like a lid. Keeping them out.

The savage runts leapt on top of the barrier, some jumping up and down, others hitting it with their tiny fists, and yet others chipping at the hardlight with their weapons. Already, hairline cracks were forming.

He had bought himself seconds. A minute if he was lucky.

And he was at 0 AP.

I’m fucked.