I yank the daggers free from their sheathes and shadowstep behind the monster, swiping both blades across its back as fast as I can. I don’t think it’ll do much; it feels like it’ll have the same effect as scraping a pair of nail files against a grizzly bear. But I completely forgot about my “Saving Hit” bonus.

With the monster’s ire directed at Luci, my blades sing as they dig two deep gashes right down into the muscle. Crimson sprays, painting my face in warm, sticky blood. The otter chirps like a scared puppy before it smashes into Luci and collapses to the ground.

Blood continues to ooze from its wounds, but it isn’t down for a long. The monster wriggles onto its feet and spins toward me. Then, wrapping its webbed paws around my ankle, it pulls. Just before my ass hits the dirt, I reactivate my shadowstep. And then, because momentum is a bitch, my ass hits the dirt anyway.

When I look again, Elias is standing over the squirming beast and hacking into it with furious swings. The monster squeals as red mist flies. By the third swing, the man’s forehead is drenched in sweat. His metal joints whine under the strain.

But even cut down to the bone, the monster perseveres. It contorts its body into a misshapen lump; I can’t tell what’s a head and what’s a foot. Then it juts forward and chomps down on Elias’ leg - the fleshy one.

Elias falls to the ground. With a guttural yell, he tries to shake his leg loose, but the monster won’t let up.

I scramble to my feet, ready to dive in, when Ron raises his gittern and smacks it down hard, right on the bastard’s foot-wide muzzle. It’s way more effective than it has any right to be. The otter breaks his grip. Ron smashes its nose again for good measure, and it caves in with a sickening crunch. The butt of his poor instrument looks like a kid’s project from a horror movie: decorated with patches of blood-pasted fur and little macaroni chunks of cartilage.

Luci uses her retreat ability to gain some distance, then launches an arrow, but at this point it’s just overkill; the monster is getting absolutely brutalized.

Finally, the otter goes limp. Ron kicks it anyway. A notification appears.

Enemy Defeated:

Dobhar-Chú (Lv 12) [Shared with Luciana, Elias, Ron]

Exp: 15

Earned: 75g

Exp to next level: 32/90

Level 12, defeated. Feels good. Sure, maybe it’s a little uncouth. I mean, you got four perfectly civilized people just wailing on an animal like we’re expecting candy to pop out of it. But I guess this is just us now. Just a happy family, drenched in blood beside a stinking corpse already leaking out its final farts.

I glance at Luci who looks positively gleeful. That’s the spirit.

Ron helps Elias to his feet. Blood streams down his leg.

“Hey, potion,” I call.

“It will heal,” says Elias.

“Potion. Not a request.”

Elias casually wipes down the end of his axe with his flannel shirt. Then, after a pointed look my direction, his eyes shift as he rifles through his menu system. A second later, he shivers and blinks rapidly which I suppose must be the effect of the health draught. Then he raises an eyebrow with a “happy now?” expression.

Stubborn man.

“Woo!” cheers Luci. “Now what?”

We look to the river once more. The otter’s mate pokes its head above the water and whines, but that’s it. The dumb beast still refuses to get onto land where we can beat him. And, you know, to his credit, that makes sense. Apparently, we would kick his giant furry ass.

“Part two, man!” Ron cheers.

“Fighting him in the river isn’t happening,” I reply. “I can still barely feel my fingers.”

Elias nods. “The resistance of the water weakens every strike. The monster has the home advantage. We’re tired. It isn’t worth the risk.”

“Lame,” says Luci, “So if it won’t come on land, and we can’t fight it in the river, how do we get across?”

My gaze lingers on our defeated enemy.

I sigh. “Distraction.”

And thus I relay my horrible idea. A minute later, Ron and Elias get on either side of the female Dobhar-Chú’s corpse and, without too much effort, lift all 400+ pounds of it.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“On three,” says Elias. “One, two-”

“Wait, hold up,” says Ron. “One, two, three and then go or one, two, and then go?”

Elias shakes his head, flustered. “One, two, then go.”

“My one, two or your one, two?”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

And so, a minute after that, the monster’s body swings through the air and plops unceremoniously into the shallow end of the water. The current laps against the mangled corpse before it manages to lazily push it about twenty feet downriver. Soon, the body snags on a few jutting rocks. A bloody back paw flaps in the current. How’s that for uncouth.

We wait. A few seconds later, the tell-tale black shape of its mate slithers past us. Then his horrendously giant otter nose peeks above the surface. When he arrives at his dead lover, he nudges her corpse, then uses his teeth to tug at her paws.

Luci hoists her bow. “I can still totally shoot it from here.”

“Please don’t,” says Éogan. “I rather like the fingers I have left.”

“Can you kill it in one shot?” I ask.

“Who cares? We’re four Level 9s against a single Level 12.”

“If you want to stand here and pick it off, that’s fine. But he might just slink into the water again, in which case we’re kinda fucked for the night. I promise there will be more battles to come.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighs.

I tie my hoodie around the top of my head like a turban. Then, squatting on the lip of the bank, I slide down the muddy slope and back into the ice-cold river. Luci springs in after me, agile as a dancer, her bow and quiver held aloft. Elias gestures for Éogan to go next, then follows. And finally, with a tremendous splash, Ron bounds in, blasting us all with a frigid spray.

Our eyes stay peeled downriver. I have no idea what the monster will do with its lover: mourn it, eat it, bury it, fuck it. The monster’s description said they won’t part, and we’re all relying on that to be true. If not, I’ve instructed Elias to start chucking the NPC again, and we can all shadowstep, retreat, and charge our way across.. Except for Ron. But he’s tough.

Luckily, it doesn’t come to that. We successfully ford the freezing waters and drag ourselves up onto the opposite bank. Ron turns over his gittern, upending a few cupfuls of filthy water onto the grass. Shivering, I slip back into my hoodie.

By the end, we stand together, sopping wet, freezing, and stinking like a fucking swamp. And there, before us, is the field that the fisherman’s wife described.

If the town doesn’t appear when we tell it to, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.

Aside from a solitary oak tree in the middle, the field is wide and empty. Too empty. And too quiet. Even if I didn’t know that there was an invisible town lurking outside of view, I would think there was something unnatural about this place.

There’s a feeling in the air, like static electricity in a storm. It tickles my skin, making my hair stand on end. Honestly, if a nefarious sorcerer were searching for a hidden village, I feel like a tingly magic-infested field would be a pretty big indicator of where to look. Of course, if he’s holed up in a tower like they say, then maybe he hasn’t been touring the countryside in search of an itchy magic-y feeling.

That or this is all just bad game design developed by Neanderthals and primates, and nothing really matters.

Nearby, a single slate of rock juts from the earth, glinting in the fading light.

“This is it, right?” says Luci as she bounds onto the outcrop. The charms on her ridiculous chainmail bikini jangle as she climbs. How is she not freezing? “What am I supposed to say?”

“Perhaps one of us should do it,” Elias offers.

“Oh wait, I remember!” she says, blatantly ignoring him. “Ron, background music, please!”

Ron grins as he positions his blood-stained gittern. He strums a chord.

“Okay. Here it goes. The-”

Our resident quest-giver, Éogan, clears his throat. “Aren’t you forgettin’ a thing or two?” He looks at Elias. “Don’t know if a blacksmith made your leg or you forged it with hellfire, but I know the folks of Glasbaile. They won’t ask.”

Elias glances down at his gleaming prosthetic. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” the boy repeats.

“Dude, I got you covered!” shouts Ron. Slinging his gittern onto his back, he begins to shimmy out of his pants.

“Uh, Ron?” I say.

“No, no no no,” Elias barks with a suddenly crisp accent.

“No man, it’s cool. I got boxers on. Promise the balls are a no-show.”

Luci laughs. “I don’t think your pants are gonna fit Tío Elias.”

“You cannot go into town wearing only your… that,” says Elias.

I shrug. “It’s better than the whole town thinking we’re magic heretics or changelings.”

“What’s a changeling?” asks Luci.

“Um, like when a… what do they call them here? Fair folk? When they switch out a person for one of their own, and they look the same almost, except they’re evil. I think. I don’t actually remember.”

Ron slaps his pants into Elias’s arms. Saying nothing, Elias carries the pants as he edges around the opposite side of the outcrop. A moment later (and after several audible, angry groans), he reemerges, the pants rolled up a thousand times over at the ankles and cinched tightly with a belt.

I give him an appraising look. “Stylish.”

Again, Elias says nothing, but his glare says the Spanish equivalent of ‘bite me.’

Luci returns to the top of the outcrop. “Okay, we good now?”

Éogan slinks behind Ron as if trying to hide in his shadow.

“Ron, music!”

Clad now in boxers, no shirt, and a leather vest, Ron resets his gittern. He plucks out some quick fanfare that I recognize as a familiar guitar riff, but it’s difficult to pin the exact tune. Then Luci proudly shouts, “The world greets you!”

Without warning, the outcrop deflates like a popped balloon. Luci falls and lands on her ass.

“Luci!” Her uncle runs to her side. Batting him away, she stands, no worse for wear.

At first, nothing else happens. A subtle gust of wind ripples across the field. The grass shivers. The tree rustles. And then, it begins.