We come upon a trio of large stones in a dirt clearing. In its center, the bodies of goats, sheep, and pigs, maybe a dozen in all, are strewn about. All have been dead perhaps a week, not a one picked away at by any birds or other animals.

"Why are these carcasses piled up like this?" Fenna says." Skeletons don't do stuff like this, right? They seem somewhat mindless, attacking anything. This is a premeditated slaughter." I pick up a nearby stick, flipping over a nearby goat, pointing. "Look. Whoever or whatever did this slit their throats. That means they either caught the animals and subdued them or had the animals' trust."

"Nothing has touched them. The bodies are intact." She walks around the pile. "And, uh…"

"What?" I frown.

"Well," Fenna leans over a set of big-footed heel prints that lead into the trees. "Something came through here."

"Maybe whatever left these tracks chased whoever did this away?"

"I suppose it could just be some creature coming through to investigate," Fenna says. "It could be totally unrelated."

"Or, whoever is sacrificing animals also has an enormous pet. Is there a level cap on the mobs we'll find out here? Maybe we should head back."

"Connolly." Fenna looks at me with her big doe eyes. "I took you for a braver man than this."

"I'm not afraid. I just want to avoid death. Yours and mine both. I'm practical."

"Come on," she says, taking my hand. "Let's keep going. If we follow the tracks, that takes us east from here. If we get separated, or you get lost in the jungle, just use the sun to track back west to the ship."

"Sounds like a plan," I say, not entirely sure how one uses the sun to navigate. I know it rises in the east and sets in the west, but you're also not supposed to look directly at the sun. Is it a trick with shadows? I have no idea.

Better to not get separated.

We keep going. The other thing that's bothering me about this is that we haven't seen any live animals on the island at this point or any other. I've seen some birds overhead, but since I started watching for it, none have landed here, except for on our ship's mast.

I picture Fenna's pouty face asking to eat some meat, but being able to find any to supplement our food stores seems unlikely. This place is cursed.

Unless she was trying to tell me something else with that comment that she wanted to eat some meat?

Then it hits me right in the face.

"Fenna," I call, holding up my hand. She whips around at me, stopping.

"What's that smell?"

"Smell?"

"Yes, smell."

She sniffs, her eyes wandering as she does. I'm unable to explain precisely what I'm smelling. It is musty and damp but not like the airy scent of fish and salt that permeates the island or the sea. It almost smells fermented.

By her expression, Fenna smells it too. "I don't know," she says.

It's there for a moment longer, but then the wind picks back up and takes the smell with it.

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I'm still concentrating on sniffing until the cracking of twigs behind me startles the absolute shit out of me. I spin, pistol at the ready when we finally see our first animal on the island.

It appears the world's most useless crewmate has decided to join our expedition.

"Rufus," I say. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought we had a deal."

Rufus grunts as he takes out a burlap sack and dumps its contents onto the ground. Out fall a half-dozen apple cores. He trots around them, pointing and squealing in apparent disdain.

"You ran out of food?"

He nods.

"Why did you save those? Look, they're going off. That's rotten."

He points at us, grunting.

"But Fenna here was critically injured earlier. She could have been one-shot. She had to eat. I've hardly had anything in two days. You're like three feet tall. Why are you so hungry all the time?"

He points at the apple cores again and squeals louder as if we could have committed no greater sin.

"Okay, okay. We'll find some more fruit if there is any on the island. But, this place is serious, and now nobody is watching the ship. We already got killed once, and I'd prefer to avoid dying a third time in this 48 hour period."

With Rufus in tow for the moment, we make our way forward towards an area where some trees appear mangled and broken. Fenna stops, and when I make eye contact with her, she's looking over my shoulder, totally still, trying to smile.

"What?"

"Nothing," she says. "Just…a monster."

I turn, raising my pistol as a figure roars in the brush a few hundred paces behind us.

"Some sort of large lizard, maybe," she says. "I didn't see it very well, but I saw it was level 4."

I can't see the monster much either. It's greenish-brown, but it's moving too fast for me to be sure what it is. It's large, and it looks like it's running on four legs, not two.

"It's probably just a Deaths-Clutches-Face-Eating-Lizard-Beast or something."

"Or an elephant-sized rat," I say.

Fenna lets out a sigh, her head dropping.

My words plague me. 'Elephant-sized rat.' What does that even mean? Didn't I take a point in smooth-talking? A more charming pirate would have said something like a Rodent Of Unusual Size, maybe even come up with a cool acronym.

Although why are rats gross, but face-eating lizards aren't gross? That also doesn't make sense. Clearly, eating someone's face is one of the most disgusting things you can do. But give a little fucker beady red eyes and a long hairless tail, and make it squeal in these awful noises—

"Do we run?" I say in an attempt to get my brain to shut the fuck up. I don't know if it's just me. "I think it might be what left those tracks back there."

"Let's shoot it."

"But the sound. What if it's a pack animal. There could be more?" I say.

"But, look at what it's doing. It's just rampaging through the forest. That's not exactly pack animal behavior."

I sigh, acquiescing to her opinion. "Okay, we kill it. Put it out of its misery. But be ready to back up and run if it's a trap."

"Sure, sure."

We circle to the monster's flank, watching trees rustle but still unable to get a clear look at it. I quietly put a slug in the chamber of my pistol, then put my free hand on Fenna's rifle.

"You shoot first when you think you have a shot. I won't be able to hit it until it's a lot closer, but I'll open up on it when it charges. You can do this."

Fenna stands up, the barrel of her long gun pointed at the dinosaur-whatever. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," she says, the level 4 indicator in clear view to both of us. It feels like she's saying it to herself, not to me. Fenna takes a deep breath. "Okay, Deaths-Clutches-Face-Eating-Lizard-Beast."

Bang.

The thing turns and starts barreling straight at us, but before I can even move, Fenna has already put another slug in the chamber. She's staring down the barrel, steady as can be. Rufus hasn't even found a hiding place before—bang.

The creature falls over, slamming its tail into the leaf-littered ground, then jumps back up and keeps running as if uninjured. Bang. This time, it collapses on its side and rolls, just inside the treeline. Fenna adjusts her weapon and squints at the monster through the sight, popping a final shot into its skull as it squirms.

The island goes quiet again.

"Oh my god," she hisses, still watching it through her sights.

"What?"

"It's actually a really big, really ugly… dog?"