Without the tomato monsters from the spawn points, Pete didn’t know if they could find any of the plant anomalies in the forest. If there were no monsters, they wouldn’t be able to level up. Also, he remembered the warnings of Nick Warman about thieves. Plus, it was night. In the dark, without a light, he didn’t think he’d be able to see anything.
Still, Zoey pleaded for him to go. “After all,” She had said, “I’m a vampire. Night is my jam.” Then she went on to explain how seeing in the dark had become easy for her, assuring, “nothing can sneak up on us.”
In the end, she convinced him to go with her. As they left the store, he asked her, “Where did you get that peel and fork? Also, why did you choose a peel and fork as your weapons?”
“Well,” she began. “You know how you get proficiency bonuses for the pizza fork, peel, cutter, and slapping?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed, shoving his hands in his pockets as a cool breeze came up from the lake, causing him to shiver.
“Well, I realized the pizza peel looks like a shield. Then I thought, ‘what if it were a shield?’ Then I decided to see if the smith would make me a shield that could double as a pizza peel.” she held out the peel for him, and he took it.
As he turned it over in his hands, he realized it was thicker than the peel they had in the store. The smith made it from a heavier metal, too. Where the handle on the store peel was stuck in place, the grip on her peel had a small, round release button. It was on the side near where the handle met the flat surface of the peel.
When he pressed the button, the handle folded back behind the peel. This transformed the peel into a legitimate shield.
She explained. “This way, when I get peel proficiency bonuses for working in the store, I’ll also get bonuses toward using my shield…er…my peel that is a shield. For the same reason, I chose a pizza fork as a weapon.”
“That’s smart.” The ingenuity impressed him. Still, he wondered. “When did you have time to get these?”
“Between deliveries,” she confessed. “Toward the beginning of the shift, I went to the carpenter to have the handle for the fork made. On a delivery after that, I took the handle to the smith and had him finish creating the fork…and I had him make the peel. At the end of the shift, I picked them up on the way back to the store.
“It cost me every len I had, but now I have a weapon and shield. That’s something every paladin needs.”
“Why didn’t you use the store’s peel and fork?” He asked.
She wrinkled her nose with disgust. “That isn’t sanitary. Can you imagine getting the shield all dirty with tomato monster blood and then using it to pull actual pizzas from the oven?”
“Wouldn’t tomato monster blood be ketchup?” He inquired.
“Even so,” she said. “It’s blah and gross.”
“Fair enough,” he smiled, looking at her. At that point, he noticed something. “Zoey, I don’t mean to change the subject, but your eyes are glowing.”
“Glowing?” She asked. “Is this some weird pick up line?”
“No,” he assured. “I mean, your eyes, in a literal sense, are glowing in the dark. It is like how crocodile eyes glow at night. If I remember right, they do that because there is something in the eye that reflects light. It makes it easier for them to see at night.”
“Did you say I have crocodile eyes?” She flicked the bill of his hat, but after considering her words, she added. “I guess that would make sense. It is weird to be able to see at night. It seems clear as day. Last night, it was like this too, but I figured it was some magic light in the room thing. I didn’t realize it was me.”
“Well,” he readjusted the hat on his head. “As I see it, it’s cool. I wish I could see at night.”
At this point, the pair reached the outskirts of town and continued toward the mountain.
* * *
Ragoon the raider watched the city gate, hoping some helpless sap might venture into the countryside. Instead of one sap, he got two, a man and a woman. By the looks of them, they were human. Then he saw their names and levels: Pete LVL 7 and Zoey LVL 1.
He couldn’t believe it. The second he saw them, he ran back to the Trash Panda hideout. When he reached it, he hurried through the tunnels and arrived winded to Rumpke’s throne room.
Rumpke saw the raider and frowned, “Ragoon, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at the city gate, mugging anyone dumb enough to leave the safety of the town?”
“Pete the Pizzaman and Zoey…the level one human girl…” Ragoon panted. “…I saw them leave town.”
“They left town?” Rumpke smiled. “Which means they will have to go back to town?”
“Right,” Ragoon told him. “I know we’d planned to wait until we caught her alone, but with all of us, we can ambush them on the outskirts of town. While some of the raiders keep Pete busy, the others can kidnap the girl.”
Rumpke nodded. “Then we can trade her to get back Cedric.”
“Exactly,” Ragoon agreed.
After some thought, Rumpke began. “I want you to gather everyone on duty, everyone in the tunnels, any able-bodied raccoon you can find.”
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“As you command,” Ragoon saluted.
“Move fast and get the raccoons to the city gate,” Rumpke ordered. “We don’t know how long Pete and Zoey will be out of town for. If we want to ambush them, we need to be at the gate before they return.”
“What about you, my lord?” Ragoon asked.
Rumpke smiled, looking to where he had mounted swords and axes on the wall. “I need to prepare for the confrontation. After I am armed, I will meet you at the gate.”
* * *
As they reached the boundaries of the town, Zoey pointed into the darkness. “I see someone; it looks like one of those raccoons like the one that tried to rob us the other night.”
Pete looked in the direction, but his vision couldn’t pierce the darkness. He asked, “what is it doing?”
“It looks like it's running away.” She told him, “going toward the forest.”
“Chances are that it saw us,” Pete told her. “Are you sure you have to do this tonight? I wouldn’t want to run into it and its friends.”
“I can see it easy enough,” Zoey assured. “Nothing will sneak up on us. I promise.”
“I trust you,” Pete told her, and they continued until they reached the forest. As they began up the mountain path, Pete advised. “We should stay quiet from here. If you have to talk, whisper. We don’t want to draw any attention.”
“Understood,” she told him, asking. “Anything I should look for?”
“Let me know if you see anything. To clarify, I mean things that drop things we can use on pizza. The tomato plant monsters would be perfect. They’re called nightshade terrors.”
“How did you find them before?” She questioned.
“Before,” he told her. “I had Nick the guard and waypoint arrows. It was part of some quests. Since the plants I hunted won’t respawn for another four days or so, we’re on our own.”
“That’s lame,” she sighed. “But we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. Let’s go.”
They pushed beyond the tree line and up the mountainside. Pete found the forest-covered mountains to be different at night. Instead of a breeze warming his face, the cold night wind rattled the branches and rustled leaves.
As he tried to listen for sounds, all he could hear was, woosh, woosh, woosh, wooooosh. If a nearby animal moved a bush, he wouldn’t be able to tell it apart from the wind. This coupled with the fact that he couldn’t see, making him feel defenseless.
The last time he felt that way was as a seven-year-old child. He’d watched a scary movie before bed, and a nightmare woke him. It was midnight, and he was alone in a dark room. All he could do was call for his mom and dad to save him.
This time, there was no one to save him. After all, Zoey was only level one. If worse came to worst, Pete would be the one who had to defend them. To prepare for that, he kept his senses on edge, ready to react at the first sign of danger.
“Don’t be so jumpy.” She reprimanded with a whisper. “I promise I can see fine. Trust me. I’ll tell you if anything is around.”
“Do you think Wanda has any items for night vision?” He whispered back. “If she does, night leveling will be so much easier.”
“Yeah,” she let the first word hang before continuing. “But that wouldn’t be near as fun for me.”
“You’re evil.” He told her.
She thought about what he said and replied. “My status page says I’m chaotic good. That makes you wrong on an objective level.”
“The status page is wrong.” He teased. “It hasn’t known you for as long as I have.”
In response, she stuck her tongue out at him. Of course, he didn’t see it, not with how dark it had gotten.
A branch cracked under his foot, and she laughed. “This is so fun and creepy. It's like that haunted house downtown that they put on every year for Halloween. I love it.”
“You’re a vampire,” he replied. “You would love it.”
“Hold on,” she grabbed him by the shoulder, holding him in place. “There is something up ahead. Nightshade terror mutant. It’s level six.”
“Huh,” he’d never heard of a mutant monster before. He wondered what made it different from a normal one. If it made it stronger than usual, it could give him a hard time. “How big is it? Are there any other monsters with it?”
“A little taller than you, and no,” she shook her head. “I only see the one.”
He realized the growth from level three to level six didn’t increase their size as much as it had at lower levels. “Okay, point me in its direction. I’m level seven. I know you’re the paladin, but let me tank this one. When you get a few more levels, and when you’re level is more even with the monster, you can tank.”
“Deal,” she said: stepping behind him, taking him by the shoulders, and pointing him in the direction of the monster. “If you go straight, you’ll walk right into it.”
“I can’t see anything,” he explained. “So I’m going to raise my hand. Yell slap when I need to slap. Let’s hope that I can kill it in one shot.”
“Good luck,” she told him.
As soon as he began walking, the battle display appeared in his vision. It showed Zoey’s name under his to indicate she was a party member.
He moved slow, careful to feel for branches with his hands and feet. One hit against his shin, but he was moving with enough caution that it would only leave a small bruise. His right foot stepped over it, then his left. And he continued in the same direction, arm raised and ready to strike.
He activated steel hands. Two steps later, he heard his friend’s voice, “Slap!”
The palm of his right hand swung at around where he guessed the head would be. Instead, he hit across the shoulder. He could feel the monster resist the blow. But only at first. Then he swung through with ease, lifting it.
He heard leaves rustle as it fell; then came a dull thump. Had it hit a tree stump? That was his best guess. Yet, he had a more important question. Was it dead? If not, he wouldn’t be able to fight one of these things in the dark. A prompt appeared, putting his mind at ease:
You defeated the nightshade terror mutant. You gained 79 experience points.
You received 4 mutant tomatoes
You gained 2 slapping proficiency.
Each shift gave him considerable slapping proficiency, too. He was proud of how much the skill had grown. Even so, he was sad that the monster only offered 79 experience. It wouldn’t be enough for Zoey to gain a level.
He returned to her, and they continued to search the forest. After four hours without seeing anything else, they realized the effort was futile.
“I don’t get it,” he told his friend.
“Don’t get what?” She asked.
“What does Max expect us to do? Aside from some plants that respawn weekly, there is no way for us to level up. He wants us to get stronger, but I don’t see any way we can do it.” He hung his head. “How can we be the heroes of this world?”
“To be honest, this is kinda cool.” She told him.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she flicked his hat’s bill. “To have fun, we used to immerse ourselves in fake worlds. Now we get to live in one of those worlds. But now it is real. Don’t be so hard on yourself. In time, we’ll figure out how to get stronger. And one of these days, I’ll gain a level.”
“One of these days.” He agreed, fixing his hat.
“But it won’t be today.” She patted his shoulder. “We should head back and get some sleep.”
They made their way back down the mountain path, to the field outside of town. Then they began toward Greenlake’s entrance. They hadn’t moved more than four paces from the tree line when she stopped him. “Wait, I see some people down there. It looks like the raccoons. Do you think they are waiting for us?”
A strange, deep voice spoke from behind them, “They are waiting for you.” At the same time, Pete felt something poke in his back. “My friends down there want to have a chat with you.”
In the moonlight, Pete tried to turn his head and locate the source of the voice, but there was no one there. Then he looked at Zoey. Her eyes were wide, her back arched like she also had someone holding a point to it. Pete couldn’t see the person behind her, either. Confusion grew on his face.
“What? Ain’t you ever seen an invisible raccoon before?” The voice asked.
See an invisible raccoon? Pete knew it was impossible to see an invisible anything. Yet, he didn’t want to tell that to someone with a knife pointed at his back. Instead, Pete said. “Okay, let’s go talk to your friends.”