The next morning was awkward. I woke up before Angelica. I stood up and stretched out of reflex. It took me a brief moment to realize I was not sore in any way. None of the old aches and pains from before were still a thing. I turned my head and nothing popped. I rolled my shoulders and nothing caught. I was in better physical shape than I had ever been.

I walked lightly to the bathroom. I had no need to use it. That bothered me for a moment, but then I realized I had not eaten or drunk anything…ever. That would mean I would have nothing to empty. It was also weird that I had no need to eat or drink. I wasn’t hungry, or thirsty.

To the right of the toilet was a plain sink. Above that was a mirror barely worth describing. I had to stoop to be able to look into it to see the reflection of my face. Huh, that was different. I looked nothing like I had in the past. Now, I was a great bear of a man. The muscled physique had also led to a rough blocky face. I would have probably looked like a dumb goon if it wasn’t for the eyes. I had crystal blue eyes, with a clear focus that added some soulfulness to my appearance. That said, I did have a pronounced case of resting bitch face. But when I forced a smile, my face crinkled with laugh lines. I had short black hair, and a thick black beard of similar length. The realization that I looked like a jacked interpretation of Bluto from Popeye the sailor man gave me a small chuckle.

That was a lot to process and I chose not to. Survival before self-actualization.

I was also completely covered in blood and gore. That did make me look terrible. I closed the door, and turned the sink on. The water was just above freezing. I scrubbed the gore on my hands.

Cleaning check… failed

Gore caked condition remains

I tried again. And failed. A third attempt had the same result.

Regardless of how hard I scrubbed or how much water I let pour over the dried blood it clung to my skin. All my attempts seemed to do was smear the gore around. I don’t know what it took to fix this but I apparently was missing something, likely soap.

Abandoning the effort, I turned the water off. I opened the door and found Angelica was awake. Once I was out of the way she ducked into the bathroom and closed the door. Fifteen minutes later she stepped out again back in her winter survival gear.

She looked at me for a moment. “You good to go?”

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “For what it is worth, I think whatever was outside wandered off after a while. The screaming sort of kept getting further away.”

Angelica nodded, “let’s keep on our toes anyways. Snow lions are bound to be out there, among other things.” She walked to the door. Before opening it, she turned to me and said, “Stay close, alright?”

She removed the bars, and had to wrench the door open. The metal screamed as the warped steel door fought attempts to move it. Now it needs to be said. Snow is not solid. Not really. It is mostly loose flakes of ice. Wind will cause drifts to form and flow like waves in the ocean. It had also not stopped snowing all night. So, the footprints we found on the stairs should not have been there. The prints looked like human feet and hands, but the toes and fingers had claws at the end. Whatever left those prints had been here recently.

When Angelica turned to close the door again, I saw that the concrete walls had cracked from whatever had hit it. Damn that was concerning.

We could see the prints leading both down and up the stairs as well as from the window slit to the stairs. Nothing before that. The path that led from the stairs out into the storm was also obvious, and it was heading in the same direction as the rough path we were apparently meant to follow.

“We heading that way?” I asked.

“Yep,” Angelica confirmed. She started walking down the path.

I fell into step behind her. We walked for hours. Several times I spotted snow lions walking away from the trail that we were following. It was like the thing that left these prints scared the snow lions, or they instinctively knew to avoid it. Or maybe Wilson was piloting the damned cats away from us for being good actors following the plot.

Eventually we found something.

First, we could smell the smoke. Something was burning. Then we saw the black ash mixed with the snow. Finally, we found the village. Shortly after that, the bodies.

The village was a small gathering of roughly 40 sod houses. They had been dug into the ground with slight bulges for the roof. In the rolling drifts of the wastes, they were all but invisible, except the ones that were burning. This included two larger sod structures that were likely barns or perhaps a town hall of some sort.

The worst part was the bodies. Well, the bones were all that remained. In the middle of the town were vast piles of bones. There was a pile of what looked to be fractured femurs, tibias and fibulas. All split open to have the marrow sucked out. A similar pile of humeri, radii, and ulnas, was close by in a similar state. There was also a mound of ribs and vertebras. The pile of skulls gave me pause. All of the other bones had clear signs of being gnawed on, eaten. The skulls were all bashed open, to get to the brains.

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“What the hell did this?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Angelica said.

I looked at the pile of skulls.

Willpower check… successful

Emotions remain in check.

Notice check… successful

At first I had been afraid that the skulls had been children skulls. They were so small. But then I saw the teeth. They were not human. They were sharper and pointed. The eyes were also a bit too large. These were not human skulls. I had to tell myself that more than once. I also knew from the skill check that there were 407 skulls. I still needed to keep telling myself, these were not human skulls.

Angelica walked toward the pile of skulls. She picked up one of the smallest skulls., “Oh shit, this is a goblin child’s skull.”

Willpower check… successful

Emotions remain in check

“A dead kid?” I asked.

Angelica looked at me a moment. “Goblins don’t let their kids get caught in combat. They will sacrifice some of their warriors to get the next generation to safety. It helps them launch continued attacks against… well everyone really. They are one of the smartest mobs out there. Whatever did this was able to corral the whole village. That means it is fast and deadly. It killed hundreds of them.”

“What does that mean for us?” I asked.

Angelica shrugged. “One less goblin encounter. These things are just mobs that exist to attack players like us. Let’s see if there is any loot."

We didn’t find anything of use in any of the small sod houses. The goblins had all sorts of mushrooms in a pantry-like room in each house. We ignored those. They also had chairs, tables, cookware, small knives, and tools. One house had a tiny piano. In the last place, I found a small drawing that looked to be a child’s artwork. It showed twelve goblins standing in a row, and from left to right the goblins grew taller. Each had a basic smiley face. It was tacked to the pantry door.

I wasn’t convinced Angelica was right that goblins only existed to attack us. Unless the narrators were sticklers for detail, this felt like a small pioneer town.

I needed to say something. As we stepped back into the storm I was struck with a massive fist, and sent flying.

Attack from Bigfoot Brawler successful.

You take 9 points of damage

HP 111/120

Titanic Regeneration plus 8 hit points

HP: 119/120

You have been knocked back twenty yards.

I bounced on the snow and rolled. Then bounced again as I hit a drift.

Acrobatics check … successful

I managed to roll to my feet. A tremendous wall of fur was charging at me, bellowing with rage.

Attack from Bigfoot Brawler blocked

Counter attack successful

Bigfoot Brawler takes 6 points of damage

I redirected the thing's engine block sized fist. The punch shook the ground. I had struck back without thinking. A snap kick hit the thing in one of its massive legs. It was like kicking a tree. I ended up taking a step back since I couldn’t budge the thing.

Attack from Bigfoot Brawler blocked

Counter attack successful

Bigfoot Brawler takes 9 points of damage.

It swung at me again. I managed to duck below the impact and push the punch off balance. Then I reflexively punched up to put a fist into the thing’s gut. It was like punching sand.

That was when Angelica hit the Bigfoot. Her spear impaled the thing’s arm and then with an explosion of thunder took the limb entirely. The Bigfoot howled in pain. It kicked at me, and I blocked the attack again. This caused the massive brute to fall over with a crash. Angelica hit it again, this time in the head. Things got messy when its skull went pop.

Okay, pop is an understatement. Honestly it was a gore-splosion. I was also standing in the exact wrong place. I was hit with a firehouse of bigfoot blood and pelted with a hail of bigfoot brains. Angelica somehow had it even worse. When she opened her eyes, they were two white points in a solid layer of red.

She spat out a mouthful of debris, “Blegh! Okay, that was my bad.”

I laughed. She looked so ridiculous. She chuckled too.

“Do you think this is what killed all the goblins?” I asked.

Angelica was still trying to spit all the gore out of her mouth. Eventually, she grabbed a fist full of snow and scrubbed the mess away from her face. “Nah, it’s not right. The thing from last night had been the size of a smaller-than-average person. That bigfoot is huge. If it tried to crush a goblin skull it would have squished them flat. Plus it wasn’t fast enough.”

“So we’re not alone out here?” I asked.

Angelica looked at me like I was the dumbest man alive, “Are you seriously going to just hand the universe a line like that? Let’s get to the safe haven before your words catch up to us."

Before I could answer, I was attacked from behind by a snow lion. After dealing with that we made our way toward the safe haven, which was apparently different than a safe zone. Occasionally the prints would cross our paths, but as we walked, they became much less frequent. We even started getting attacked by snow lions again. Well, I was attacked by snow lions and Angelica murdered them.

The sun set about twenty minutes before the path led us to the safe haven. It looked to be some sort of small settlement with two buildings, one barn, and a house. The place was enclosed by a wall, etched in runes, that I could not read. A sign by the gate I could read said. “No violence will be tolerated. Rest well here in this safe haven. Adora, Goddess of Love.”

“Mother fucker!” Angelica said, reading the sign. “We should just skip past this one.”

The storm hit us like a wave. The wind flung us into the safe haven.

Event boss summoned. Wendigo the Hungering Cold will wander this area for twenty-four hours.

Warning this is a Demigod Scale boss. You are vastly under-leveled for this encounter.

The soul-chilling roar that sounded outside the walls was something that nearly broke me. It was something screaming in suffering that would not end.

“I guess we are stuck here for the night,” I said.

Angelica just sat there looking at me for a long moment, “I hope you liked getting jerked around. You’re on the hook now too.”