Orion knew that even if they hadn’t waited for Arika’s cooldowns to return, they still would have been able to wipe out the enemy party.

No need to risk any deaths or unnecessary pain, though.

It didn’t take him long to come up with the plan, the healer Kauri being the obvious first target for execution, Arika being the obvious target of Brick if she was casting an ability, and Felsteg being the best target to hit with Honeypot’s stun.

Knowing all that, the plan basically formulated itself.

The two new members, who Honeypot had pseudo-inspected by getting close enough to see their invisible forms, were people they knew. Satisfyingly, Akano and Treyu were both from Shadow’s former party, and were the two that had confronted him in town. As a result, the party felt even better about having to take them out.

Orion and his friends had quite a leisurely afternoon, really. They rested in the cleared dungeon, letting the enemy party grow fatigued while they joked about various topics, such as how stupid Felsteg was, what his occupation must have been in their former world, and what upgrades they might get from their enemies’ bodies.

Once again, Felsteg had underestimated them, thinking Honeypot was unable to notice such weak stealth.

What no one had expected was for Honeypot to earn a title.

Combining his penchant for sausage-related mischief with combat had been enough for the System to recognize his efforts, granting him the title: the Silly Sausage. It gave him a baseline boost of five percent to Agility, doubled to ten percent for being the active title.

“It’s insulting, really,” said Honeypot, the Silly Sausage. “There were five sets of footprints that walked together to the center of the clearing, where they had a nice little rendezvous for a while before they all spread out and took their positions.” He rummaged through the inventory of the last body, seeing if there was anything of use he should salvage. “Hey, pretty sure this is all your old gear on this Mage, Arika. Fancy some upgrades?”

“Sure, I’ll have to wash it first, though. I don’t want any of Felsteg’s taint on me.”

“I should certainly hope you don’t want his taint on you,” Honeypot said, stifling a laugh and gesturing at Felsteg’s dead body. “He can hardly consent.”

“Don’t be disgusting, you know what I meant.” Arika blushed and glared at Honeypot.

“Hehe, taint.” Shadow laughed with childlike exuberance, but abruptly stopped when Arika leveled her glare at him. “I’ll, uhhh… I can carry the gear back to town for you.”

She scowled at him, then smiled sweetly. “Thank you, Shadow. That would be kind of you…”

“So, no upgrades other than Arika’s robe and the Amulet of Fire Protection?” Orion asked.

Arika grimaced.

“As much as it pains me to say, the gloves and boots I looted so far are better than what I had before.”

“A great shame indeed,” Honeypot said with a vulgar grin. “Guess you’ll have to keep rocking the green boots and mole paws.”

“At least we can sell the spare gear to Handelaar back in town.” Shadow shrugged. “And Felsteg had nineteen gold on him, too—he was feeling a little more sure of himself this time.”

“Who should hold on to the amulet?” Orion asked. “It will pair well with Arika’s Explosion…”

“You,” Honeypot answered definitively. “You’re the thinky-thinky guy—you are our best chance of making use of it.”

Orion nodded, adding it to his inventory.

“So, what do we do now…?” He looked at the red skulls that now hovered above them.

Despite Hand of God’s intended ambush, we were the first to attack with Honeypot’s stun…

They wouldn’t be able to return to town for twenty-four hours—a small price to pay for the absolute annihilation of Felsteg and his plans.

“Should we camp out in the dungeon?” Shadow suggested. “The spiders probably won’t respaw—”

“Nope!” Arika shook her head as she glared at the dungeon entrance. “I’m vetoing that. I don’t care how little the chance is of more spiders respawning—I’d sooner launch myself on Shadow’s sword than sleep inside that thing.”

“Fair,” Orion said with a laugh. “Pretty sure we’re strong enough to brave whatever the forest sends our way. Should we put some distance between ourselves and here in case Hand of God comes sniffing around, and head toward the mark Tallon gave us for Stim Leaf? We might find a dungeon on the way, and if not, I really want to collect some of that herb for Alchemy.”

“Sold!” Arika said, already heading off.

After an hour of travel, they came across a perfect clearing to spend the night.

It was roughly circular, around a hundred meters from side to side, leaving enough room for even the fastest of attackers to be seen by whoever was keeping watch.

The trees surrounding the clearing were large and looming, the wind at their canopies causing them to dance against the star-filled sky. The night was calm at ground level, only a soft breeze tickling Orion’s skin as it periodically came in and out of existence.

He took a moment to appreciate the view and sensations on his skin, an odd moment of déjà vu making itself known. He breathed in deeply, not giving the feeling much credence. Turning, he joined his friends again.

Shadow had removed an impressive setup from his inventory, with tents for everyone and a portable camp oven. He began dicing ingredients as the rest of the party set up the camp, chatting and laughing about the look on Felsteg’s face during the whole encounter.

“I actually feel a little bad for his party. They’re probably going to cop it when that psychopath respawns,” Arika said.

“No kidding!” Honeypot laughed. “You should have seen how mad he was when I made him kill you. I can’t imagine how pissed he’ll be after a failed ambush like that. His team did kind of freeze up, but that’s to be expected when a bear-sized man wrapped in metal armor starts the fight by teleporting behind the healer and cleaving him almost in half. And you mocked me for saying the karate artery was a real thing, Arika.” Honeypot shook his head. “I bet you feel a fool now.”

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Arika’s eye twitched as she did her best to hold her composure.

Unaware of Arika’s struggle, Shadow smiled as he replayed the encounter in his head.

“The rush of appearing behind an enemy and striking from the shadows, the thrill of ending them in a single hit… I’m so happy I found you guys.”

“Glad we found you too, big guy. You’re a monster.” Orion said as he finished tying down the last rope to secure his tent.

He sat down by the fire, soon joined by Arika and Honeypot, who had similarly finished their efforts.

Shadow prepared dinner while everyone else stared at the fire, content to look into the dancing flames and reflect on their own thoughts.

The spitting of burning wood and the hiss of Shadow’s cooking were the only sounds to break the silence of the night—along with a series of comments about how good the food smelled, of course.

Finally, Shadow handed everyone a bowl. Orion looked down into the vessel of deliciousness; he saw stir-fried vegetables served with red meat and a thick, red-brown colored sauce. He blew on a forkful and took a bite. The flavors exploded in his mouth; he could taste onion, garlic, ginger, and a handful of other flavors that he couldn’t place. The sauce was hot, and the red meat was tender and juicy.

“This is delicious, Shadow,” Orion said.

“Mmmmhmmmm,” Arika got out through a mouthful of food.

“Just what we needed after today.” Honeypot leaned back in his chair. “What is this meat? One of the domesticated cows?”

“Oh, this? I looted it from the spiders earlier,” Shadow said.

The contents of Arika’s mouth were violently ejected, spraying the fire with half chewed chunks of food. She looked up at Shadow slowly, disgust and anger fighting for dominance on her face.

Shadow burst out laughing, pointing at Arika and trying to speak. Every time he opened his mouth, he fell back into laughter again, doubling over and falling onto the ground.

Eventually, he squeezed out somewhat-comprehensible words.

“It—It’s from the… vendors in town…” Shadow stopped for another round of laughter before continuing. “It was in the pack of food I bought from Handelaar. It’s just a cooking ingredient. I don’t even know if it comes from an animal or is just created.”

“That was cruel.” Arika blushed furiously and wiped her mouth.

“I’m sorry, Arika. I couldn’t help myself.”

“Personally,” Honeypot said, “I couldn’t be prouder. I feel like a dad whose son just took his first steps.”

“Was it believable, Honeypot?” Shadow asked, seeking genuine approval.

“Even I, the master of deception, fell victim to your ruse.”

Orion couldn’t help but smile as Honeypot and Shadow seemed to experience a moment of mutual respect, uncountable sentiments exchanged through the looks they shot each other.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Arika said. “This food tastes terrible. Too much salt and not enough flavor. Also, the meat is dry.”

Despite her words, she took another spoonful of the food, slowly putting it into her mouth and refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

A blur of movement in the trees surrounding the camp caught Orion’s attention, and he focused on the edge of the clearing where he thought he’d seen it. The trees were swaying in the breeze, making him think it had just been his imagination—until he saw it again.

Something as tall as a man but much, much wider had moved, dashing from the shade of one tree to another. Even with Orion’s Dark Vision, he was unable to identify what was moving; the trees were almost forty meters away, and the entity moved with great speed. He did see, however, a pair of glowing green eyes.

He stood up calmly, not wanting to alert the thing that he’d noticed it.

“Don’t look. There’s something in the trees behind Shadow.” He walked lazily over to the bench attached to Shadow’s camp stove and put down his bowl. “Honeypot, can you go look? Pretend to go into your tent, then stealth over.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Honeypot said.

He slowly got to his feet and put his bowl down next to Orion’s, making a show of yawning and disappearing into his tent. He left one tent flap open so he could easily slip out into the night once he activated his Stealth ability.

“What do you think it is?” Shadow asked, cleaning everyone’s bowls as Orion sat back down by the fire.

“No idea. It’s big. As tall as you, but much wider. Green-glowing eyes.”

Shadow’s body stiffened for a moment at the last comment, but he quickly remembered himself and slipped back into casually cleaning up. Arika was sitting across from the fire, looking at her hands with nonchalance.

Orion began taking mental note of their situation.

They had already burned two of the healing effects provided by their tentacle hats, Shadow’s and his own. Arika didn’t have her Invoke available yet, so it would be hard to use her in a fight with something so mobile. They were all at full-health and only had around one potion available for each of them. Orion once again felt the pressure of not having a healer in their party.

He cut his own thoughts off. Now wasn’t the time to focus on their lack of a healer or tank—he couldn’t change that right now.

This is exactly the type of thing that shows how inexperienced I am as a leader. I need to focus on what I can actually change—the outcome of the impending fight.

He looked around the clearing, trying to spot any terrain that could be used to their advantage.

The clearing was bare except for the equipment that Shadow had removed from his inventory. They could use the tents as visual cover, but their canvas sides wouldn’t stand up against even a dagger. Shadow’s camp stove was a heavy contraption—could they use it as an obstacle? It would still be scorchingly hot from the radiating heat of the fire.

Could this be the wandering boss they had heard mention of? The green eyes were certainly an indicator that it may be under the influence of Doc the Destroyer’s corruption. The thought of it made an involuntary shiver run down Orion’s spine.

Just then, Orion received a notification. It was a message from Honeypot.

Honeypot: It’s a giant fox. Very slime-green looking eyes, if you catch my meaning. It’s watching you intently, slowly making its way closer to the camp.

“What do we do?” Arika looked up, eyes fierce, clearly having received the same message from Honeypot. “Can we just kill this thing and get some sleep? I’m so over today.”

“We’ll let it come to us. Let it think it has the element of surprise. Then, we’ll punish it.” Orion stretched, hoping to lure the fox into a false sense of security. “If we attack, it might just retreat, then we’d have to worry about an impending attack all night.”

Orion sent a message back to Honeypot.

Orion: Honeypot, we are going to lure it out. When it attacks, stun it and yell to get our attention.

Honeypot: Yes, boss.

They continued to sit around the fire and talk of small things while Honeypot kept watch on the fox. Orion squeezed his legs with tight hands as he tried not to let tension into his body—the knowledge that it could attack them at any moment was agonizing. He could only trust in his team, and that if it attacked from behind, Honeypot would stun it before it could reach them.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long.

“Humans—” a feminine voice said before being cut off.

“Ayyyyyyaaah!” a yell that had to be Honeypot’s interrupted, sounding like a soundbite from an overdramatic kung foo movie.