At the sound of a nearby snapping branch, the Rot Wight groaned and turned its face towards the noise. The wight was nearly all skeleton, with rotted animals skins and tufts of rancid hair hung over its gaunt shoulders. Tendrils of green magic animated and kept its body held together, as well as forming the pale flames now glowing in the hollow eye sockets of its skull. Though it saw no enemy between the many trees that made up this small copse, the Rot Wight still felt compelled to drag itself forward to investigate. In one bony hard, it drug an old and rusted sword along the muddy forest ground.

  A mess of pig guts and bloodied sheep wool were strewn about the entrance to its uncovered barrow, brought there by the wight itself, though it knew not why it had done so. One day, the creature had found itself awakened from a long slumber and as if directed by a power beyond itself—perhaps an impulse from its former life as a warrior—set about the surrounding lands, killing and dragging back to its burrow any living thing that couldn’t escape its shambling walk. Despite the violence, still the Rot Wight felt… incomplete, as if there was a purpose which had not yet been fulfilled.

  When the source of the noise revealed itself from behind a tree, something in the Rot Wight clicked—this was the kind of enemy it had been brought back to destroy. With a creak and protest of its ossified tendons, the monster started towards the hooded figure 30 paces away. The wight seemed to smile in anticipation, picking up momentum as one step forward became another.

  THRUNGGG!

  Before the Wight had time to react, an arrow found one of its green-flame eyes. The force of impact snapped its head back, nearly off its shoulders—but the wight was able to catch its balance. It had been a warrior once, after all, and its instincts apparently had not rotted with its body. The wight chomped its teeth in frustration and used its one free hand to yank the arrow from its skull. It started forward again, this time swinging its sword in wide arcs to increase its chances of deflecting another fletched missile.

  So intent was the Rot Wight on its target, however, that it didn’t notice the second enemy on its flank until it was too late. The hammer end of a warpick smashed into the side of its skull, sending bits of bone flying. The blow was so forceful and unexpected that the wight stumbled sideways, and would’ve fallen over if not for the sword it used to catch itself. With a quickness and reaction time that betrayed its lack of muscle and fragile appearance, the wight retaliated, swinging its sword in another large arc, causing its newest assailant to jump back and curse. The enemy brought up a shield in anticipation for another attack.

  Half the Rot Wight’s head was missing now, caved in from the blow. In the remaining eye socket, the green-flame burned more intensely, the light growing in size. The wight lurched forward with its sword, unleashing a three-strike combo—all reckless slashes, no thrusts—horizontal, vertical, than diagonal. Each one glanced off the attacker’s shield, but pushed him back a little each swing.

  As the wight began to charge for a second combo, another arrow struck its back, lodging itself in the rotting leather skins that hung off its body. Though the arrow hardly did any damage, it was enough to catch the wight’s attention. The monster spun around. Out of its one remaining green-flame eye, it saw the hooded hunter pull another arrow from their quiver. The Rot Wight screeched and began to rush the bowman’s position—it wasn’t smart enough to have tactics for multiple enemies, so it merely aggroed its most recent attacker. As the wight lumbered forward, a third arrow whizzed into its decaying chestpiece but did little to slow its building momentum.

  WHAM!

  The second attacker’s shield rammed into the Rot Wight’s back. The monster lurched forward from the powerful attack, falling to its knees. Though the wight quickly collected itself and began rising to its feet with the help of its sword, the knockdown had left it vulnerable.

  “Watch out!” came the hunter's voice, high and feminine. She had moved closer and now lobbed a glass vial at the temporarily immobile wight. Filled with an orange liquid, as soon as the vial broke against the wight’s hard bones it burst into flames, engulfing the monster.

  The Rot Wight roared. Still on its knees, it lashed out aimlessly with its sword, striking nothing but air—the shield and warpick wielder had already jumped back, avoiding both the raging flames and the wight’s frenzied final stand. As the fire continued to ravage the animated corpse, its attacks slowed, until it was capable of no more actions. With a last otherworldly gasp, the green tendrils of magic dissipated into the air, and the Rot Wight fell forward, nothing more than blacked bones and an empty skull.

  Both the hunter and the warrior came to stand over the smoking corpse. “I guess that’s that—” the hunter began to say, but was interrupted by her partner’s warpick crashing into the wight’s skull one last time, strewing bits of bone and teeth across the ground.

  “Was that really necessary?” said the hunter.

  “Probably not... I just don’t trust undead.”

  “You know, it’d be nice if the freeholders did their own dirty work for a change.” The hunter stepped over the Rot Wight’s corpse and held her nose upon closer inspection of the torn remains of several pigs, sheep, and fowl. “Ugh, look at this mess. No wonder they were pissed.”

  The warrior peered into the dark opening of the underground barrow. A stone had been rolled off to the side. “Wonder how this happened.”

  “Maybe it’s part of the spawn,” said the hunter, shrugging.

  “We going to clear it?”

  “We getting paid to?”

  The two Taskers looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing. One of the first lessons they’d both learned as recruits was to never do more than the contract demanded, for it often went unpaid and under-appreciated. Besides, they were already risking more than usual coming this far outside of the city walls.

  “C’mon, help me roll this back into place,” said the warrior. “Then we’ll go wring some coin out of that miser of a manorlord...”

***

Once outside the small grove of trees, the sky opened up, still covered by an blanket of gray clouds which had been dumping rain for the past few days. As Max made his way across the wide pasture of this fief’s common land, he produced a rag from his inventory and began wiping off the slime and bits of skull from his warpick. The weapon wasn’t anything fancy—a simple thing he’d found amongst the guild’s community stock—but he was no savage. Barbarian classes might not care a whit for bloodied arms, but it did not befit a representative of the Taskers.

  Not far behind followed his only current party member, a hunter from the guild who went by the name of Anti. Though she and Max were dressed differently—he in a brown tunic and padded armor, she in simple leathers—both had the Taskers Guild emblem pinned to their chests: a circular design enclosing a crossed sword and mallet, symbolizing the dual nature of the guild. It had been a little over two months since Max had joined the Taskers Guild and he’d learned that dealing with pests wasn’t the only duties of its members. They also filled in as extra labor for any other guilds or private interests that needed them.

  Tiann’s great walls rose off in the distance. The fief that Max and Anti had been called out to was almost a full day’s ride from the city gates, nearly reaching the eastern edge of the Valterre Woods. After Meteor Day, spawn rates everywhere had increased, and in the months since they were still uncharacteristically high. Complicating the matter was the Countess’ decision to pull back all the city’s guards within Tiann’s walls, fearing a surprise attack from the increasingly aggressive and belligerent Northern Alliance. This left all the freeholders and NPCs in the surrounding countryside vulnerable to the many random events that popped up throughout the region’s hexes.

Stolen novel; please report.

  “You know, I think this as far as I’ve been outside the city,” said Anti. In the month since they’d been partnered, Max had grown used to this chitchat between missions. Sometimes he would’ve preferred silence, but for the most part he didn’t mind Anti’s talkative nature. “It’s kind of nice, actually.”

  “I could do without the sogginess,” said Max, as his boots squelched across the saturated ground. “I wouldn’t mind some cobblestones under my feet right about now.”

  “We could always walk down to the road.”

  “Nah, this is faster.” Max pointed ahead to the manorhouse. It was set atop a small hill overlooking the rest of the fief, which contained the common land and about 20 plots of differing sizes. Nearby, several sheep had been let out to graze, with a freeholder keeping a watchful eye over his flock. Normally the pasture would be more full of hungry livestock, but due to the Rot Wight most were still kept safe in their pens. With Max and Anti’s latest work, hopefully that would soon change.

  For a time, at least.

  “D’you suppose these are all barrows?” asked Anti, pointing to yet another large stone half-buried in the ground. Both the field and grove of trees had more than a few of the monoliths.

  “Could be. I’m sure we’ll find out next time some pigs go missing.”

  “Heh, true… Guess we’ll stay busy until the Countess lets the guards out again.”

Half an hour later, Max and Anti stood in the drawing room of the manor on the hill, which belonged to a Manorlord named Odemus. Nobs like Odemus were petty nobility, lesser landowners who managed a small estate of freeholds. While all the freeholds were independent and owned independently, nobs enjoyed a small residual of each freehold’s production, in exchange for managing the affairs and disputes of their constituents as well as having a vote on the Baroness’s decrees for each new season. It was also the responsibility of the Manorlord to keep the common land free and clear of threats.

  Despite his relatively low noble status, Odemus seemed to think himself a Lord, dressing himself in silks and surrounding himself with bodyguards who rarely, if ever, left his sight. The man was prim and proper, who kept pencil-thin eyebrows and an aristocratic lift to his chin. The middle aged nob’s face was clean shaven, giving him a somewhat boyish appearance. Upon their first meeting, Max had immediately taken a strong dislike to the man.

  “The barrow has been cleared, then?” asked Odemus, who sat in a plush chair in front of the fireplace. The drawing room was covered in large woven carpets and a few fur rugs. Though there were other similarly cushioned seats in the room, Odemus never bothered to offer one to Max or Anti who stood awkwardly to the side of fireplace. In one nearby chair, however, sat Odemus’ steward, a black cane resting across his lap. The nob’s bodyguards stood by the door, with shiny breastplates and swords hanging from their belts.

  “Not exactly,” said Max. “There was one Rot Wight hiding in the treegrove on your land, but we took care of it and sealed up the barrow again.”

  “Just one? Are you sure? The number of missing livestock… it couldn’t possibly be due to just one of the monsters! Unless it was an elite, of course.”

  “No elite. Thankfully.” Max shot a glance at Anti, who nodded emphatically.

  “I do hope you know what you’re doing. Though the barrow really should’ve been cleared, ahem. Otherwise, how long until another wight runs amok over my pastures?”

  “Sorry, but that wasn't part of our contract.”

  “Hmpf.” Odemus pursed his lips in obvious displeasure. “Well, considering all that, I’m afraid I’ll have to reduce the payment a little. You understand.”

  “That’s not what we agreed, or what’s on the official contract with the Taskers Guild.”

  “A sham! That was before I knew it was one lowly wight. You take advantage of me, surely!”

  Max clenched his jaw, but managed to keep most of his face impassive. This wasn’t the first nob to try to weasel their way out of fair payment. Truth be told, it seemed to the normal order of business outside the city walls. Early on, the Guildmaster had warned them about this. Manorlords usually relied on the city guards to take care of these kinds of issues, and they never had to pay. So anything more than nothing was too much, according to their thinking.

  “Look, if you have a problem, take it up with the scribes. We just do the job and take the payment. The agreed upon payment. Otherwise… you know what happens.” Max let the threat hang in the air. Breach Penalty. It would have to be taken up with a city judge, of course, but this was a clear case. Since the contract was drafted and signed, if Odemus didn’t pay, he’d get a Breach Penalty which would’ve been far, far more expensive than the paltry sum he was trying to squirm out of this very moment. “Perhaps you should’ve scouted the area better... sir.”

  “Oh fine. You Taskers are going to bleed me dry.” Odemus gestured towards his steward. “Limp?”

  With a sour face, the steward produced a coinpurse from his robes and threw it carelessly in Max’s direction—he had to lean forward just to catch it. Limp gave Max the shivers. In Starsword, permanent cripples were rare and only high-level mobs could deal them. Whatever Limp did before his current position, apparently he had risen far but gotten unlucky along the way. Max didn’t know for sure if that was the reason for Limp’s fixed scowl, but he had a pretty good guess.

  “Cheers,” said Max, after confirming the coinpurse’s amount. “If something comes up, send us a sparrow. Or, you know, don’t.” This was the first job he and Anti had done for Odemus and hopefully it would be the last. Even among a series of unpleasant nobs, Odemus and his steward were by far the worse. “Up to you.”

  The manorlord grunted and dismissed them with a wave of his hand. A servant in the corner of the room came over and bowed, motioning for the two Taskers to follow him out of the manor. Odemus had shifted his focus to a long, thin pipe with a purple herb stuff in the end. Gaze… one of Aletheia’s potent drugs, frequently dropped by a particular family of sentient, carnivorous plant mobs. Max couldn’t stand the sickly sweet smell and was more than happy when he was outside the extravagant manor’s doors. Gaze had a powerful sedative effect, and even just breathing some of the secondhand smoke had made him feel a little woozy.

  After leaving the manor, Max and Anti stopped to retrieve their ostrich mounts from the stables nearby. When Entrails had left, the big warrior unsurprisingly hadn’t taken the Crownbeak ostrich with him. When Max had been partnered up with Anti, he decided to gift the feathered mount to her instead. The large bird had taken to the hunter immediately. That, too, was unsurprising—the girl probably weighed less than half of Entrails. Max had decided to keep his mount as well, even come to enjoy the bird’s soft body and agile movement. Though horses were far faster in a dead run, the ostriches ability to maneuvre in tight spaces was unparalleled.

  And hey, at least it wasn’t a donkey.

  “Back to Tiann, eh?” said the old stablehand, who handed over the reins. “That mean you already figure out who did it?”

  “Just a Rot Wight. Livestock should be safe again, at least for awhile,” said Max.

  The stablehand looked at him quizzically. “Livestock? Some of them gone missin’ too?”

  Max paused. “Sorry, what do you mean, ‘too’? Was there some other problem?”

  “Well…” the stablehand hesitated. “Maybe it ain’t my place ter say, but—”

  “Max, we really should get going,” interrupted Anti. She looked up towards the darkening sky. “Still a long way to Tiann and we don’t want to be on the road when night falls.”

  “Just a second,” said Max. He turned back to the stablehand. “What were you about to say? Go ahead.”

  “Bah, nevermind, I don’t want ter keep ya. Probably nothin’ anyways,” said the stablehand, who shooed them away. “Y’all have a safe journey now.”

  Max hung around for a few moments later to see if the stablehand would offer more, but the man had started closing up the stable doors for the evening. At another prompt from his partner, Max turned his ostrich around and spurred it forward, joining Anti in riding out of the village-like collection of freeholds and onto the main road.

  Judging by the distance, if he and Anti kept up their pace, they’d easily make Tiann’s walls by nightfall. Though Max was curious about what the stablehand had been about to say, apparently it wasn’t important enough to mention. As he fell into the repetitive up and down cadence of his mount with the wet spring wind in his face, Max left his curiosity about the incident behind...

  Along with his unpleasant impression of the manorlord and his steward.