Josh gathered that the village didn’t get many guests, and his arrival had been seized on as an excuse for a party. He didn’t think it had even been planned. A handful of people turned up after dinner, chattering away with Goodwife Benton’s family. Josh smiled sleepily at them, and tried to keep his eyes open while giving vague but coherent replies about the state of affairs down south whenever they quizzed him. Luckily they seemed to know as much about that area of the world as Josh did himself.

He tried to explain about the broodmother, since presumably that was a danger they ought to know about, just in case, but he was just told, ee, lad, those are frae the swamp, ye dinnae get them in these parts.

Then one of the guests abruptly started singing, right in the middle of all the chatter. Someone else turned up with a stringed instrument like a stripped-down violin, with a funny shaped bow. Another person arrived with a small harp, followed by a man with a keg of ale, who shared it round. And then suddenly there was a riotous celebration going on.

Josh found himself squeezed between two ancient, weather-beaten men who smelled of lanolin and woodsmoke. In between musical sets, he tried to ask more about the scourge, and received vague and contradictory replies. Shapeshifters, one of his aged neighbours told him. Demons, said the one on the other side. Creatures crazed and mindless with bloodlust, opined a third, standing a few feet away and speaking with the careful diction of the very drunk.

All three seemed to agree that it was a plague, and that the scourge couldn’t be vanquished by ordinary means. However, none of his conversational partners could come to a consensus on the means by which the scourge could be killed. One maintained you had to cut off the head, another stated firmly that no, it was cutting out the heart what did it, and a third stuck to it that you had to burn the bodies to ash. It made Josh think of vampires, although there hadn’t been any vampires in Spiralia Online.

One thing he did learn was that the Storm King was the leader of the scourge. Josh couldn't help thinking of it as a vampire-themed game expansion. That would fit with the circle of storm clouds swirling over Celespire.

By the time the party petered out it was well into the night. Josh was given space by the fire to sleep, on a pile of sheepskins again, and awoke the next day to a notification that his Endurance and Strength attributes had increased by 1.

Haven had no concept of sleeping in. The villagers rose at dawn, and that was that. There was livestock to herd, eggs to collect, fields to hoe and weed, corn to thresh and grind, water to carry, and all the myriad responsibilities smallholders had to undertake in order to keep their lives going.

Josh was immediately asked his trade—they seemed bemused by the idea of a plumassier—and set to work. They didn’t even consider the fact that he might not want to pitch in and help. Clearly guest rights didn’t include loafing around, not that Josh would have done so. These people had given him a meal and a bed for the night and, aside from Elder Tharn, had been friendly and hospitable. The least he could do was put in a bit of work in exchange.

No-one had much use for a plumassier, however. He made the mistake of asking Goodwife Benton’s eldest son, Meikel, for feathers, and was offered a live chicken, with the expectation that he could wring its neck, and Goodwife Benton would make it into a chicken stew. It was fortunate that Meikel, once he had got over his amusement at Josh’s panicky request for assistance, was happy to demonstrate how it was done. Josh resolved to be more careful about how he asked for feathers in future.

Once he had a pile of feathers, he spent a bit of time turning the larger feathers into plumes for hats, which he gave away to anyone who asked, and couldn’t help feeling weirdly gratified when he later saw several men walking around with chicken feathers in their hatbands.

While he worked, Josh considered the village and the world it was set in. He’d been thinking in terms of player characters and non-player characters, but this was a real world with real people. Where had they come from? Had they also been snatched from Earth? Or had they been specially created for this world? Moreover, he couldn't continue to think of them as non-player characters. It would be better to refer to outworlders and locals respectively, even if that would only happen in the privacy of his own head.

There was a noticeable division of gender roles in Haven, which was something fantasy games often skipped over, understandably enough, but it made the world more genuinely medieval than Josh would have liked. It might resemble an idyllic version of a lost rural England, but he didn’t want to get a close up look at sexism or feudalism or any of the other cultural plagues that had afflicted the medieval period, thank you very much. Maybe the defined gender roles had come about as a result of Haven being a separatist colony, and the rest of the world would be different.

And beyond all this were the shadowy entities who had put Josh here in the first place.

One step at a time, he thought. Figure out the world first.

Josh managed to enchant five feathers again before feeling faint, although they were larger than the ones he’d done the previous day, which was progress.

The rest of the day consisted of following Meikel about and helping him with his chores—carrying lumber to a house that was being built for a newly married couple, herding the cows from one pasture to another, rescuing a sheep that had got itself caught in some briars, and carrying rocks for one of the wizened, leathery old men—there were many of them and they were all indistinguishable from each other—who was building a drystone wall.

By late afternoon, Josh was deeply grateful that he had never been born and raised in a subsistence farming community. He and Meikel, who were of the same age and fast becoming as good friends as their differing life experiences would allow, were walking back up the hill to Haven, where Josh was pleasurably anticipating finding out whatever Goodwife Benton had done to the chicken.

When they got to the village, however, a crowd had gathered in the main square. When Josh saw it was due to visitors, he was immediately worried that these were outworlders chasing him for the theft of the eggs, but when he heard their voices they were speaking in the same thick dialect as the Havenites, which implied more locals. They were also wearing the local-style clothes—baggy leggings over hose, tunics, belts and the same wide-brimmed hats. They were all men, and carried bows and wood-cutting axes. They had tense, serious expressions.

Josh and Meikel joined the crowd around the newcomers, trying to overhear the conversation.

“Tracked them up into the old ruins,” one of the newcomers was saying. He was the tallest, a wide-shouldered specimen with light blue eyes and a strong jaw. Beside him was a shorter fellow with dark curly hair, whose lips were pressed tight together with a combination of distress and impatience. He shifted regularly from foot to foot, as if keen to be on his way. There was a third with them, a slender youth standing back a little. They were all about Josh’s age.

Josh could see a quest in the making, although the moment he had the thought he gave himself a mental slap. These were real people, with real problems. Surely the world wouldn’t deliberately arrange emergencies simply for his benefit. He felt a worm of guilt swelling in his stomach at the thought, but consoled himself that it was unlikely, given that he was only a crafting class.

Elder Tharn was standing opposite the three strangers, his hands clasped on his walking stick, and a frown on his face. It was a thoughtful frown, however, not like the unwelcoming one he had directed at Josh the day before.

“And when did ye say this happened?” he asked.

“They took her this morning,” the curly-haired fellow burst out. “Right by the river.”

“They weren’t travelling fast,” the blue-eyed man said. “We’re no more’n two hours behind them.”

“And where did they go?” Elder Tharn asked, his manner non-committal. Josh could tell that he was working up towards being unhelpful, and felt a pulse of sympathy for the strangers.

“To the old ruins,” the blue-eyed man said, jerking his head to the north-west.

There was a pause, but then Elder Tharn stirred and yes, there it was. He was going to brush them off. Sure enough, he said, heavily, “I am sorry for yer loss, good sir.”

The blue-eyed man and the curly haired man glanced at each other.

“Elder, ye have not taken my meaning aright.” The blue-eyed man clenched his jaw. “I mean to go after them and take her back, as the Paragon is my witness, else I will die trying!”

Elder Tharn raised his eyebrows.

“And dying is what ye will do, my lad, an’ you take on the scourge. Forgive me for being blunt in your time of grief, but no doubt the lass herself is dead already.”

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“She was alive two hours past!” the blue-eyed man cried. “Tell him, Aston!”

Aston turned out to be the slender youth standing behind the others, for he nodded.

“Tracks, ay,” he said, but apparently decided this was all that was needed from him by way of corroboration.

“But three of ye against the scourge,” Elder Tharn protested. “Yer throwing yer lives away!”

“She is my betrothed,” the blue-eyed man said flatly.

“She is my sister!” the curly-haired man added, at the same time.

“Besides,” the blue-eyed man said, eying Elder Tharn narrowly. “We will not be alone.” He swung to the crowd that had gathered to watch the drama, and raised his voice. “My name is Reiner! We will make these devils that plague our land pay!” His voice rang with powerful conviction. “Is there any able-bodied men amongst ye who will stand with me against this evil?”

There was a general shuffling amongst the gathering. Several women grabbed the elbows of their menfolk and muttered in their ears, perhaps promising dire consequences if they took Reiner up on his offer.

“What, are ye cowards?” Reiner called.

This time the mutter was darker, angrier. Someone should help, Josh thought, and then realised that the person who ought to be volunteering first was him. He was the only one who was likely to survive an encounter with the scourge, because even if they did kill him, presumably he would be able resurrect afterwards. He didn’t think any of the villagers had that option. Of course, that was assuming that the scourge weren’t the cause of outworlders permanently dying.

It wasn’t Josh’s responsibility to save anyone. He was a crafting class.

“The village of Haven stands strong against the wilderness,” Reiner continued. “Every day we push back the darkness with our own hands and the sweat of our labour. Are ye going to cower in your homes, and let this infestation run rampant, doing as it will, taking whosoever it pleases?”

There was another murmur, this one rising on a swelling note, as if Reiner’s words had struck a chord.

Josh had successfully escaped from a voracian broodmother. He wasn’t completely incapable. This was a rescue mission, and he had a duty to help.

One of the Havenites stepped forward, raising his fist in the air. Josh recognised him as the guy who, last night, had sworn he could drink three pints of ale back-to-back, and had proceeded to demonstrate this feat to raucous cheering. Josh didn’t remember his name, but mentally dubbed him Hold My Beer, because he seemed the type.

“I’ll go!” he cried.

Reiner immediately seized his upraised hand, and yelled loudly.

“Well met, friend! Ye have the courage of a lion! Who else is with me?”

Josh was strongly of the opinion that, when it came to disposing of monsters that were reportedly very hard to kill, what you needed was mob. A large mob, preferably, not one that could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Reiner needed a village elder on his side, or at least someone to talk some sense into everyone. Where was Goodwife Benton?

Josh saw the goose boy trying to peer through the crowd, and grabbed hold of his shoulder.

“Run and tell Goodwife Benton to come,” he hissed under his breath. The boy gave him a sulky look, but did as he was asked. In the time that had taken, another Havenite had stepped forward. Josh thought he was either a brother or close friend of Hold My Beer, because the two had staggered out of the party together last night.

Josh dithered. He should volunteer, but this was an operation against what was likely a superior enemy. They would need numbers and strategy on their side, not a bunch of farmhands with more courage than brains.

And then Meikel raised his hand.

“I’ll go! I’ll go!” he cried and, before Josh could stop him, was admitted into the group of men standing with Reiner. The three Havenites all slapped each others’ backs and boasted loudly about the number of scourge they would put down. That made six men, ordinary village men, and Josh didn’t even know how many scourge there were. Meikel could die, permanently.

Josh also couldn’t help feeling wretchedly sorry for Reiner. He imagined what it would be like if Rachel, Timothy’s sister, had been kidnapped. Would Josh have wanted people standing on the sidelines? He took in a deep breath, and pushed his way to the front of the crowd.

“Take me too,” he said. Reiner gave him an assessing glance, then nodded, short and sharp.

“This is madness, sir,” Elder Tharn said. “Would ye have seven good men dead, and for what? Ye won’t bring yer betrothed back!”

Renier ignored him. He called for volunteers again, but when it was clear that no more would be forthcoming in the face of Elder Tharn’s resistance, he ended his recruiting pitch.

“We move out in half a bell,” he told the seven of them, just as Goodwife Benton hurried up, wiping her hands on her apron, her face flushed from standing over the cookpot.

In the top right-hand corner of Josh’s vision was a small glowing exclamation mark. He hastily checked his quest log.

A Nest of the Scourge. Clear the scourge from the ruins of Aileth-Mair. Reward: 10,891 xp (party).

A Fair Maiden’s Fate. Retrieve Reiner’s fiancée alive from the clutches of the scourge. Reward: 1,252 xp (party).

While the arguments went on around him, Josh stared at the reward amounts in a state of mind not far off gibbering panic. If levels and experience rewards continued to scale the way they had so far, there must be an army of scourge. If there was only a small group of them, each one would be mind-bogglingly strong. Even a seventh of ten thousand experience would push Josh … he tried to do mental calculations while the others shouted at each other … perhaps nearly all the way to level 7.

They should focus on rescuing the girl, not killing the scourge, Josh realised abruptly. It was a lesser amount of experience, which implied an easier task. Of course, he was assuming the experience allocation was fair, and a reasonable indicator of the difficulty of the quest. Josh tuned back in to the argument, which was still ongoing.

Goodwife Benton, in rare agreement with Elder Tharn, was giving the three Havenites and Josh her opinion in no uncertain terms, and when that seemed to have little effect, she counselled them to wait another hour or two until they could hold a village meet, and seek counsel of the Paragon.

Reiner objected that he had already sought such counsel, but when asked where or what his own village had had to say on the matter, he was evasive in his reply, which gave Josh a bad feeling. He could see that Meikel was shifting his feet and looking uncertain, and Hold My Beer’s friend was tugging Hold My Beer’s sleeve as if he, too, was having second thoughts. Goodwife Benton might have succeeded in persuading them to rethink joining such a hastily planned mission, had not Elder Tharn said, in a manner he probably thought was kindly, “There’ll be no shame on ye if ye turn aside, lads. None will think the less of ye.”

Even Josh gritted his teeth at Elder Tharn’s patronising tone. Hardly surprising that this only stiffened the resolve of the three other volunteers, and if they were sticking it out, Josh couldn’t do any less.

And then it was somehow decided, and everything seemed to be happening at once.

A knife grinder turned up and sharpened all the axes. Josh was offered an axe and a bow, but declined both, since he didn’t know how to use either. He decided to stick with his knife, which the knife grinder sharpened until you could have shaved with it.

Josh did accept the loan of a walking stick from one of Goodwife Benton’s son-in-laws. He promised the son-in-law and Goodwife Benton that he would do his best to see Meikel safe, and the son-in-law tied the knife securely to the end of the stick, making it into a homemade spear.

Hold My Beer had brought a scythe, and Hold My Beer’s friend was brandishing a pitchfork.

We’re assaulting the forces of darkness with farming implements, Josh thought incredulously.

And then in no time at all they were marching out of the gate, without Josh even getting a chance to taste the chicken stew that Goodwife Benton had been labouring over all afternoon.

Reiner wasted no time in calling the order of march. He put Aston in the lead, and his fiancée’s brother, whose name was Gerill, at the back, possibly to ensure that his new recruits didn’t have second thoughts and drag their feet. He told them it would be a hard march to the ruins, and ignored Josh’s plea to explain his plans for invading the scourge camp. Instead, he set a punishing pace north. There was no breath to spare for conversation, and it was all Josh could do to keep up.

By the time they got to the ruins it was already dusk, and the six tiny moons were scattered across the sky like coins. Josh had a stitch in his side, and was too tired to do more than slump on a nearby stone.

He knew the ruins from Spiralia. It was an ancient city, from a long-ago civilisation, called the Atalian Empire or something like that. He wondered tiredly if it had been an actual civilisation that had really existed thousands of years ago, or whether the ruins had been created merely to give outworlders somewhere to explore and monsters to kill. In Spiralia, ruins like these had thronged with undead, and there had been a lich boss at the centre. From the way the others were talking, though, it sounded like the undead had been cleared out a long time ago.

Reiner’s plan wouldn’t have been bad if they had been up against a mundane enemy who wasn’t expecting an attack. They were to move quietly through the ruins until they found the scourge nest, and would position themselves around it in a circle. At Reiner’s signal they would let fly with their arrows. At the second signal they would rush into the camp and slaughter any scourge still alive.

Josh had to restrain himself from clutching at his head and screaming Aaaaargh! in response to this brilliant idea.

“We can’t do this,” he said, instead. “The scourge are too strong. How many are there?”

“Afraid?” Reiner taunted him. Josh was liking him less and less. Missing fiancée, he reminded himself.

“I’m not scared!” he said, aware that he had sounded defensive. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Reiner smiled slowly.

“There are five,” he said, and looked around. “We outnumber them. They are mindless killers. We are here to rescue my woman, and protect our families and our homes. We have strength and right on our side.”

He had the kind of deep, strong voice that people instinctively trusted, and it was going to get them all killed.

“We should at least watch the camp before we attack,” Josh said desperately. “We can look at who is coming and going, or maybe there will be a chance to sneak in and rescue Ophala.” That was Reiner’s fiancée.

Looking at the others, Josh could see his own words were having no effect. Gerill, Ophala’s brother, was resolute, and the Havenites’ blood was up, the excitement evident in their faces. Reiner gave an easy, superior laugh in reply to Josh’s idea.

“Fear not,” Reiner told him, putting a hand on Josh’s shoulder that was clearly intended to be comforting. “Thou art not of the hill folk, and I will not ask thee to stand with us. Thou shalt guard our backs, my friend, and mark my words, thou shalt see true valour this day.”

Josh pulled away. There were all going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. Maybe he could convince them once they got closer and could see the scourge for themselves.

There was one other thing he could help with, however.

“I have some venom,” he said “We should rub it on the edges of our weapons. Or dip our arrow heads in it.”

It might give them an edge.

Reiner eyed him, but from this angle Josh couldn’t see his expression in the low light.

“And how came such a thing into thy possession?”

“Further south. I took some eggs from a voracian broodmother,” Josh said. From the little snort that Gerill gave, it was evident they thought this a tall tale. “It can’t hurt,” Josh insisted, and so they carefully dribbled the liquid from the jar onto rags, and rubbed it on the edges of their blades, and dipped their arrow heads in it.

Once this was accomplished, it was time to enter the ruins.