I offered the space between my soaked tunic and battered leather armor to Fergie, and not surprisingly after a quick sniff the ferret declined. Instead she settled in against my hip, remarkably close to where Igno had shanked me a few weeks ago. The ferret donned a serious demeanor while scanning the water all around us for other hidden surprises. Smirking tiredly to myself, I reached out to continue ranting to Night who had returned to her scouting duties.

“That was such a dick move. That guy is a total asshole. If his companion wasn’t so stellar I would rage stab him. Do you think I could make a dent?” I seethed to her.

“Sadly, no you couldn’t,” was her realistic response. “I don’t think he’s worth the expenditure, and I’m pretty sure his companion is reviewing the critical errors in judgment that recently occurred with him.”

“Fine. In good news, most of our rations are toast, and I won’t be able to assess what isn’t trashed until we get to for reals stop somewhere,” was my next pertinent update to Night. “Keep an eye out for edibles please and I’ll see if Reev can pair up with me to break it down quickly if it’s of the fauna persuasion. I’ll flit out for flora myself if it’s not too far from the group.”

“See if you can salvage any of the ingredients you already gathered and pass them off to Mavrich before you take another uninvited dunking. I dislike pointing it out, but the one person I don’t see going under is an eight-foot-tall draken with claws that could shred everything I’ve seen on this floor so far,” Night advised.

“You ok up there?” Reev asked as he swung by to check on Fergie. Unclear if he was talking to her or me, I looked down at the ferret. She weaved about like she was sending over an earful, and his well-timed grimace let me know that was most likely accurate. His eyes rolled up to mine, and I smirked and gave a floppy thumbs-up in response.

“Wanna hunt shit later?” I asked.

“Sure, and we could also do it now. None of that is going to really dry,” his hand gestured that ‘that’ meant my entire body, “and if Rakshasa is amenable you could attach what’s left of your extra gear to her harness.”

Engli cocked an ear back and cast another Verdant Spring on me. While I hadn’t been holding the pain incredibly long, it was a marked relief and I sent feels of gratitude to them.

As I hopped down, I thanked Engli for the ride and companionship. I stepped to the side to let the others pass until the bear arrived. She looked at me approvingly and turned to the side, which gave me access to the straps that I could secure my meager provisions to. “Thanks, Rakshasa. All set.”

Reev adjusted the axe on his back and slid free two blades from his sheaths and flitted forward and to the right of the group. Seeing Kiaralongh’s nod and some hand signs I didn’t know the codex for, I slipped off after him and activated Hunter’s Steps. I had replaced my broken bow string on Engli’s back, and I was satisfied with the result as I slid a blunt-headed arrow back into it. Before we moved out of range, I reapplied Ranger’s Stance and Hunter’s Sight to the party.

Seeing Reev blur from my sight, I made a mental note to ask him about his stealth skills later. Not two minutes later I nearly pissed myself when he reached out and touched my shoulder since I had unknowingly passed him.

“Easy there friend. Ok, we should be far enough to make plans without pulling any critters to the group. Watcha wanna hunt and what should I know about your skills? Depending on that I’ll let you know what ya need for mine.” He let his stealth skill fade as he addressed me and pulled a pipe from a pocket.

I raised an eyebrow and inquired, “What are you planning on pulling with your pipe scent?” Since he just laughed and kept packing the leaves into his pipe I addressed his questions instead of pursuing that line of inquiry.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“I need to restock food for Night and myself, and she eats a ton of animal proteins. I can veg for a while so I won’t need that much and have been gathering as we go to supplement. I also need to work on leveling my skills so I can keep up on floors 3 to 5 and rank up to Uncommon for my class skills.” I paused, saw his go on motion, and continued. “Right now I’m apprentice common there and novice common in the rest. I’ve had more time with daggers than my sword, and bow most of all, but none are above 2.”

He lit his pipe, thought for a few minutes - or just enjoyed the smoke, I couldn’t tell - and then knocked out the remains to fizzle into the swamp water.

“Sounds doable. I’ve been seeing some gators which should do for the food and the skills we can tackle while engaging the tribe of shamblers that are several glasses from here. I have a spate of stealth skills and can increase damage output on flanking moves. So we’ll want to have you primary the beasties and use the terrain for funneling. All of these are gen, so we don’t have to worry about friends and family coming after us for whose mom we offed. We will want to pull them one at a time when we can.”

He looked at me, and then he Analyzed me. I waited for him to be done messing with his interface, but felt a ping from mine. Sighing, I popped it open and saw a party invite. Huh, thought we had already done that. I accepted and sent him a friend request - might as well. I also took the moment since I was in there to place map markers for the notables and create a side-quest path to the tribe. I checked my meters and signed - yep still teeny tiny and not at all full. Ignoring the 25 unread notifications from the day so far, I shut down the interface and closed my eyes for a few seconds to readjust my sight.

Reopening them, I took a deep breath - a huge fucking mistake in this damn swamp - ack!

“Hahahahaha - did you just forget where you are Shad! That was amazing!!” Reev snorted and had tears in the corner of his eyes for a completely different reason than me.

Retching a bit, I grabbed my water bottle and swished some stale water around in a bid to knock loose some of the smell that had latched onto me with the precision of a leech. Taking pity on me, Reev handed me part of a trail biscuit.

“It has honey, should help. Not as good as milk, but it’s something.”

Shoving the bar into my mouth, I bit off a chunk and handed back the rest.

“No, really, please keep it and your slobber,” he laughed. “I knew I was going to like you. But get your shit together so we can go, ‘k?”

“Sounds good. Thanks for the save - and the save.” I smiled back and waved the gnawed bar at him before putting it in a hip pocket for later. “Let’s go terminate some swamp people and net us a gator.”

After the estimated three glasses had passed, mainly because I still needed those rest breaks, we came upon the village. Reev was out there scouting the area. I was holed up in a tree trying to do my own version of scouting. On the way over Reev had taught me some of the basic signals he thought we would most likely need. He also taught me some I think he just wanted me to know so he could constantly chat with me - which was fun once I caught on.

From my perch, there were 19 of the overly large humanoid creatures shambling about. Guess that's why they were called shamblers. I hadn’t seen any glints of steel on their persons, but they did seem enamored with a good thwonking log that in scale could be called a club I guess. I also wasn’t fooled by their shamble shuffle steps either - bet they were fast ones.

Their spacing put them in groups of 3 or 4, and they didn’t have a pattern to their movements that I found yet. They also had clear sightlines everywhere, and dry ground. I was really, really jealous of that dry ground. Leading up to the village was the same morass we had been dealing with, so there weren’t any great approaches. So great news for us all around.

I quietly ghosted back down the tree to await Reev and firm up a plan. Bet he would love mine.

After another jump-scare courtesy of Reev, he phased into view with a huge grin and then turned serious. “Whatcha got Shad?”

“I’m guessing based on your build you're faster than me, and you can stealth waltz your way into their village?” I asked to confirm.

“Of course, yeah. Why?” He was almost too eager in response, but that worked.

“K, so! You head on in and post up in the first house to the right of that mangrove tree stump. There’s a group of three by that one. I’m gonna shoot one and I need you to knife one after I get the first one down. That should confuse the third, and if not use the doorway to block him out til I can get there. Sound good?”

“Uhm. You heard when I said flank right? Not frontal assault? How fast are you?”

“Oh, I’m not fast at all, but I’m incredibly risk tolerant and absolutely hate getting stabbed so you’ll be ok. Promise.” My pinkie hung out there unmet as he looked at me considering. With a laugh and a wink he faded out of sight again which I took as agreement.

I mean, we both had tons of healing potions. It should be fine.