Goblin Gigs: Dungeon Dasher - Book 1 Preview Chapters (Patreon)

Goblin Gigs

Dungeon Dasher: Book One

A Portal/Harem Fantasy

By Daniel Kensington

(c) 2025 Kensington. All rights reserved.

Chapter

“Hey, thanks for riding and I hope you have a good —”

SLAM

“— night.”

I shook my head and put my Prius back into drive to clear the club’s loading zone.

Driving rideshare at night sucked, especially on weekend nights, but that’s where the money was — drunks. Saturday and Sunday mornings were good too, but I preferred the risk of drunk-vomit to the almost certain hangover-vomit. Plus, there was the guy who’d still been drunk at nine a.m. the next morning and insisted on telling me all about his exploits while rubbing my upper arm and mumbling, “She was so smooth, man. Smooth.”

“Assholes,” I muttered, wondering if I was going to have to adjust the car’s rear passenger door again.

I drove the half-block to my next pickup.

“Alex?” a guy asked through my passenger window.

“Yeah, hop in.”

I drove him and his date a few blocks to their next club.

SLAM

What the fuck kind of cars did these people usually drive that they thought they had to slam the door that hard?

At the next stoplight, I checked the three phones I had going with different rideshare and food delivery apps to make sure they were all ready and waiting for my next gig, then checked the time. Almost time to pick Heather up from work, but I had time for one more ride or delivery, so long as it wasn’t too far. Things had slowed down a bit, anyway, since we were now in the sort of relatively dead time between everyone going out to the clubs and trying to get home at the end of the night.

“Fuck it,” I said, turning off the apps and setting my GPS to the 24-hour diner where Heather worked. I was hungry anyway, and sick of eating fast-food out of a bag while waiting for the next call.

The diner was about thirty minutes away, but outside the club district, so there was less traffic on the way. I was able to cruise along easily until I pulled into the diner’s parking lot and parked around the building’s side.

The owner had been going for some sort of retro-‘50s theme, and inside it was brightly lit with lots of white tile and shiny chrome. The clinking of dishes and even the sizzle of the grill back behind the pass were the top sounds, not even a murmuring buzz of conversation, since the diner’s crowd at this hour was more interested in solitary sustenance than talking to anyone.

I found a seat at the counter with no one to either side and pulled a menu from behind the napkin holder.

“Well, hey there, stranger! What brings you in so late at night?”

I chuckled, eyeing the waitress.

She was a few inches above five feet tall and probably right at a hundred and ten pounds, with chestnut hair and brown eyes. One end of the red and black kerchief she had tied around her  neck dangled down to not quite cover the skin exposed by how many buttons of her white blouse were undone.

“You just saw me when I dropped you off a few hours ago.”

The waitress pouted her already bowed lips, set a coffee mug down in front of me with a dull clunk, then started pouring from the coffee pot she held in her right hand without bothering to ask me.

“You’re no fun,” Heather said. “Not even a little ‘mysterious stranger tries to pick up the cute diner waitress, setting the stage for a night of mayhem and mirth’ role play?”

“I have no mirth left in me tonight and the only mayhem I’m interested in would be tracking down asshole riders and slamming their dicks in my passenger door.”

Heather finished pouring my coffee and turned briefly to set the pot back on the warming plate behind her.

“Rough night?”

I shrugged. “No more than usual — I’m just more over it tonight.”

“Heard,” Heather said. “Food?”

I nodded. “Yes, please. I will have…” I perused the menu. “Cowboy Bob’s Super Gigantically Big Breakfast Platter, please. Double sausage.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m hungry.”

“That’s, like, five plates — between the pancakes, toast, hash browns, eggs and sausage, and the fruit cup nobody ever eats.”

“It’s right there,” Alex said, motioning to the pass behind Heather on her left. “You don’t even have to walk, just turn around.”

“Five times,” Heather said, turning to the pass and calling out: “Bob’s Obesity Starter Kit, double-pigs on white and wreck-‘em!” She turned back to me, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you stay that fit eating the way you do.”

“Start coming with me to training and you, too, could burn more calories.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed and I stifled a laugh for my own safety.

“Are you saying I need to burn more calories?” Heather asked slowly.

I held up a hand. “Nope! Not saying that at all.”

“Hmph. Good. And I don’t need a broken nose, either — it kind of looks good on you, but I don’t think I could pull it off.” She mimed shooting an arrow. “I’ll stay with sticking things at a distance.”

I felt at my nose, which had a little bump that signaled a change in direction.

“Hazards of MMA,” I said, “and you don’t have to fight to work out.”

“I think not.”

“How about kendo, then?”

It was an old argument between us. In my opinion, Heather certainly didn’t need to burn more calories. She’d grown up a lot in the years since she’d just been my best friend’s annoying little sister — more than made me comfortable, to tell the truth, because the visible skin and cleavage behind her kerchief was difficult to keep my eyes off of. Really, I just wanted to spend some more time with her, since she was now one of the few friends I had left in town. Everybody else had either gone off to college or finished it here at the local community school, then moved away — even my best friend growing up, Heather’s brother Mike, had moved away.

“I’ll stick with my bow,” Heather repeated, then brightened. “Hey, are you going to the LARP next weekend?”

I thought about it for a second, but had to decide I couldn’t. Rent was due in two weeks and the weekends were prime rideshare time. Food delivery was active all week as people got home from work too worn out to cook, but the weekend rides were nonstop, especially now that the weather was cooling enough to make some of the outdoor venues more tolerable.

“I can’t — need to make rent.”

“Roommate — problem solved.”

That was an old argument, too. Heather had been suggesting we share a place ever since she’d turned eighteen and graduated high school earlier in the year, but I thought that would be too weird. How would I explain it to Mike?

Hey, your little sister’s moving in with me. Nothing hinky — swear it.

Even though I didn’t have anything hinky in mind with Heather — not anything I couldn’t suppress with a little logical thought, at least — a brother wouldn’t be cool with it. Neither would Heather’s folks, I thought, who had always been cool with me, but I thought I’d noticed Heather’s dad giving me a little side-eye lately as I started spending more time with Heather after Mike left town.

It was one thing when I was hanging out with Mike and Heather just tagged along, but in the two years since Mike had left for his post-doc schooling, it was just me and Heather hanging out … a lot. Probably more than we should — I was pretty sure if I spent as much time looking for a girlfriend as I did just hanging out with Heather, then my social life would be a lot more active than it was.

On the other hand, I really liked hanging out with Heather.

We both liked LARPs, though in different ways — I was into the sword work, specifically kendo, while Heather was into archery — we had the same taste in movies, books, and music, and she was just fun to hang out with. If she hadn’t been my buddy’s little sister, if I’d met her at college, I would probably have asked her out by now.

“My place is a studio, remember? A two-bedroom’s more than twice the rent, so there’s no real savings.”

“Hmph.” Heather chewed on her lower lip, staring at him as though she had more to say, but then a bell rang as plates started landing in the pass. She turned and started passing them to the counter in front of me. “… four … and five,” she finished. “Enjoy — I’ve got tipping customers to take care of.”

I watched her walk away to fill a coffee cup at the far end of the counter, struggling to keep my eyes off the rolling of her butt beneath the short uniform skirt she wore.

Mike’s little sister, dude, I berated myself. You really need to get laid, for fuck’s sake.

I turned my attention to my meal, carving up the pancakes and pouring syrup so it would have time to really soak in, then slicing two of the sausages lengthwise. A couple sausage slices, some eggs, and hashbrowns went onto one slice of toast along with a jelly packet — another slice of toast on top of that and I had a sandwich. I grabbed it with both hands and raised it to take a bite.

“That is the grossest thing I’ve ever seen someone eat,” Heather said, returning from her rounds of the counter clientele. “And I’ve worked here for the three a.m. Doctor Demento shift.”

“You’ve seen me eat this since you were seven,” I said, shrugging.

“And it hasn’t gotten any less gross.”

I took another bite and chewed, only this time staring right at Heather and doing it with my mouth open.

“Ew!”

I grinned as Heather hurried off to check on customers again, rather than stick around for more of my eating, not returning until I’d prepared and eaten the rest of my sandwiches and started working on my pancakes.

“Are you done driving for the night?” Heather asked, returning now that it was safe.

“Maybe? I might go back out again after I drop you at home.”

That’d be a chore, though — Heather still lived with her folks about forty-five minutes from the diner, so it would take me almost two hours to get back downtown to the clubs. Sitting around in the suburbs this late at night wouldn’t get me much business, either.

“Oh.” Heather chewed on her lip again. “Do you want to, maybe, just head to your place and watch a movie or something? We’re kind of slow, so I think Ed would like it if I left early.”

I considered what I remembered of my apartment’s condition. I thought there were just a couple dishes in the sink from this morning, and I remembered putting my bed up because I’d just been hanging out until it was time to go driving — most of my “not quite dirty” clothing lived on one side of my sofa bed and got folded up with the mattress every day. One of the main reasons they didn’t get washed, because once they were folded away it was more work to get them out, even if I was doing a load.

I considered it for a second — yeah, I needed to make rent, but I was already irritated with the riders and didn’t really want to deal with the drunks on their way home, especially those who hadn’t managed to hook up with someone — men or women, those were the biggest problem riders and worst tippers.

“Yeah, that would be fun,” I said — I’d still have to drive Heather home later, and she wasn’t a paying ride, but she also wasn’t likely to vomit on me.

“Good — finish your fruit cup, it’s good for you.” She turned to the pass. “Ed! I’m clocking out — cool?”

A gruff sound that could be interpreted as agreement came from the pass.

I hurriedly finished my bowl of cantaloupe, grapes, and a solitary, rather sad, strawberry slice, and paid my tab — no tip. I’d tried to tip Heather when she first got the job here, but she argued that driving was my business and I didn’t charge her for the ride to work and back, so why should I tip her for her work?

Still, she gave me shit about other customers tipping when I didn’t — I think she just liked to tease me.

It was a short, fifteen-minute, drive to my apartment, and, once there, Heather started digging around in the dresser that doubled as my TV stand.

The apartment was, charitably, four rooms. A bathroom was the only one that had a separate door and the others were the main living area that doubled as a bedroom, the kitchen, and a sort of intermediate space between the two that could be called a dining room if you never had dinner with more than one other person. I was glad to see my memory had been good and the place wasn’t too bad — a glass and cereal bowl in the sink waiting to be washed was the worst of the visible mess.

Heather took a pair of her pajama shorts and a t-shirt from the drawer. It made me wonder why I bothered to tell her she couldn’t move in when it seemed she’d been doing just that over the last several months. Half that particular drawer held her clothes — with the excuse that she came over so often after work and didn’t want to hang out in a uniform that smelled of the diner’s signature sauerkraut Reuben — and my tiny shower had more bottles of her products than mine.

All of which she had perfectly logical arguments for that I’d never quite been able to counter.

If she was coming over after work, then she needed something to change into, right? If she was changing into something clean, then she should shower, right? If she was going to shower, then she certainly wasn’t going to use my disgusting guy-products, was she?

While Heather was in the shower, I got things ready to watch a movie, pulling the little, wheeled cart that acted as my coffee table away from the wall it was stored against when my bed was folded out and over to the sofa, then I microwaved a jar of nacho cheese and set it on a coffee cup warmer I had for just that purpose. The open bag of tortilla chips felt a little stale, so I opened a new bag, then grabbed a beer and settled myself on the couch.

A few minutes later, Heather came out of the bathroom, squeezing her wet hair with a towel.

“Nachos — good idea.” She went into the kitchen and came back with a beer of her own.

“Really?” I asked. “I could get in a lot of trouble for giving you a beer, you know.”

“You didn’t give it to me — I took it.” Heather sat on the couch and scooted the table closer so she could reach the cheese, then tucked the bag of chips between us and took one for herself.

“Still.”

“It’s stupid — I’m eighteen. I can have sex, but I can’t have a beer?”

My face went hot at that and I had to clear a suddenly tight throat at the thought of Heather having sex with someone.

“I think the beer-ban is supposed to help avoid the sex-part.”

Heather made a rude noise. “Believe me, of all the things keeping me from having sex, a lack of beer doesn’t even make the list.”

“Yeah, okay,” I muttered, clearing my throat again and grabbing at the remote to put off any more of that particular conversation. “What movie?”

Heather shrugged. “I picked last time.”

I scrolled through the options until I found something I thought we’d both like and settled back, kicking my shoes off and putting my feet up on the table.

“Hey!” Heather yelled, pulling the coffee warmer and jar of cheese sauce closer to her. “Don’t put your stinkies in the cheese!”

“They weren’t anywhere near the cheese, and if they do stink, it’s because, unlike somebody, I didn’t get to take a shower when I got home from work.”

Heather shrugged. “Too late now — I don’t have all night to wait around on you to start the movie. If you want to shower next time then you’ll have to join me. No time wasting!”

I shifted uncomfortably and clicked play.

I might have to have a talk with Heather about her … jokes. They seemed to be a lot more edgy now that she was eighteen, and that made it harder and harder for me to keep my thoughts in the friend-zone. On the other hand, talking to her might make her uncomfortable or self-conscious around me, which I didn’t want either.

Aside from a couple uncomfortable and, I thought, unnecessary sex scenes, the movie was pretty good and I enjoyed the evening.

“Alright, kiddo, time to get you home,” I announced as the credits started to roll.

Heather yawned and stretched while I hurriedly grabbed the bag of chips and the cheese jar to return them to the kitchen.

“Couldn’t I just stay here? I have the afternoon shift tomorrow, so you could drop me off on your way downtown rather than drive way up to my place to get me. I can text Mom I’m staying at Maria’s — she’ll cover for me.”

“And then your dad tracks me down and offs me like a rabid dog in the streets. No thanks.”

“Dad wouldn’t do that. He likes you.”

“Mike likes me, too, but I’d rather your dad got to me first. Come on, let’s get you home.”

Chapter

The next morning, I washed my cereal bowl and glass, had a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice while I caught up on some emails cluttering up my box, then I drove over to my old neighborhood to pick up Heather.

The house I’d grown up in had been painted, I saw — my parents had sold it and retired to Florida while I was away at college. They kept nagging me to come down and visit, but also so I could go through all the stuff of mine they’d packed up when they sold the house, and get the boxes out of their garage.

Heather came out in response to my text and almost threw herself into the passenger seat before slamming the door and huffing.

“Something?” I asked.

“Mom wanting to talk about college again. Ggrrr! I don’t know what I want to do yet — I just graduated a few months ago — and I don’t want to spend money on a degree I might not use. What if I decide to become, I don’t know, a plumber? What good is college going to do me then, huh?”

“You want to be a plumber?”

“Maybe! Plumbers make good money. I just don’t want to spend money on college if I don’t have to.”

I couldn’t really argue with her — I had a degree in Computer Science and I was driving drunks and delivering fast food for a living — so I let Heather whine about it some more as I started driving toward the diner.

About half way there, my phone rang — I didn’t recognize the number, so I shushed Heather and answered via the car’s audio.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Alexander Mercer?”

“Who’s calling?” I’ve always hated people who call you, then ask if you’re you before identifying themselves. Shouldn’t that be the first thing you do?

“Ah, yes, this is Jonathan Rawlin of Rawlin and Rawlin, attorneys. We represent your uncle’s estate — your uncle, Mr. Jack Mercer, that is.”

“Uncle Jack? Have you heard from him?”

That would be exciting news. Uncle Jack was the black sheep of our family and for years my younger self had listened eagerly for the next bit of news about him — usually prefaced by my dad getting a letter and yelling, “Olivia? You’ll never guess what that fucking moron Jack did this time!”

They even said I looked like a much younger Jack.

Those stories came to an end when I was sixteen and Uncle Jack disappeared without a single word to anyone.

“I’m afraid I can’t say anything about that except to Mr. Alexander Mercer — is that to whom I’m speaking?”

“What? Yeah, that’s me — so what’s the news? Is he okay?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have good news about your uncle, Mr. Mercer — no news, at all, in fact. Which, ironically, is the reason I’ve called you. It is, I’m sure you’re aware, a little over seven years since your uncle was last heard from?”

I nodded, disappointed there wasn’t news about Uncle Jack, then realized the lawyer couldn’t see me. “Um, yeah, I’m aware of that.”

“In accordance with Mr. Mercer’s instructions — Mr. Jack Mercer’s instructions, that is — a petition was filed once no one had heard from him for seven years. That petition was granted by the courts this morning, which triggered the next of Mr. Mercer’s instructions, those being to contact his nephew, Alexander Mercer.”

“Contact me? Why? What sort of petition?”

“The petition, Mr. Mercer, was to recognize your uncle’s seven-year absence as evidence of his death — you, because you are Jack Mercer’s only heir.”

Chapter

“Of course I’m coming with you!” Heather insisted.

“You’ve got work!” I argued.

“Pffft! I already texted Ed to call out today. I liked Uncle Jack’s stories, too, you know? I want to hear what he left you. Besides, you need moral support.”

She wasn’t wrong, I knew. I was still reeling a little from the news Uncle Jack had been declared dead — nothing had changed, really, they hadn’t heard from him, with or without that, but it was … somehow more final.

“Alright, you can come,” I said.

“Yay!”

I checked my mirrors and darted across two lanes to take the next off ramp and head more downtown. The address Mr. Rawlin had given me was there, but more in the business district than the club district I was used to driving in.

I followed the navigation app to the address, then a nearby parking garage. Heather followed me inside where we found the elevators guarded by a security desk.

“Name and destination?” one of the guards asked.

“Alex Mercer — I’m going to Rawlin and Rawlin?”

The guard pecked at his keyboard for a minute.

“Go right in, sir — Rawlin and Rawlin are on the fourteenth floor.”

“Thanks.”

I passed the security desk with Heather close behind me. The elevator doors were already open when we got there, so we went in and I hit fourteen.

“This is a nice elevator,” Heather said.

I nodded, looking around.

The walls were black glass with panels that looked like real wood, while the floor even looked like real marble.

The elevator stopped at fourteen and the doors opened, but I didn’t see what I expected to when we got out — instead of a corridor with a bunch of different offices, there was simply one reception desk with a huge Rawlin and Rawlin logo on the wall behind it.

Uncle Jack’s lawyers had the whole floor? He must have done better for himself than we’d thought.

There was another woman by the receptionist who smiled as we got off the elevator and said, “Mr. Mercer? Right this way, please.”

She led us through a door behind the reception desk and down a long, dimly lit hallway with thick, plush carpet and rich wood paneling, to a conference room.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Rawlin will be with you in a moment. May I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea, water, soda?”

Heather and I sat — the chairs were leather, with high backs, and padded so that I thought they might be softer than my couch.

“Ah … coffee? Please.”

“Of course — cream? Sugar?”

“Just black, please.”

“And you, miss?”

I expected Heather to ask for a soda, or some godawful concoction of a coffee, but she surprised me.

“Tea sounds wonderful,” Heather said.

“Of course, miss — do you have a preference?”

Heather’s face went blank. “Um, Earl Gray? If you have that?”

The receptionist … assistant? … I wasn’t sure what she was, nodded.

“I’ll be right back with those,” she said, leaving and shutting the door.

“Since when do you drink tea?” I asked.

Heather shrugged. “I don’t — but this looks like a great place to start. I bet they have fantastic tea.” She looked around at the wood paneling, then ran a fingertip over the conference table. “Was your Uncle Jack rich?”

I shrugged. “Maybe? Dad always said he had more money than sense, and he was always traveling someplace. The only times I saw him in person were when he came to our place for dinner once or twice a year.”

And not even that for a long seven years, I remembered.

In my memory, Jack Mercer had been a heroic figure. Tall and lean, as though a lifetime of adventure had scoured his frame of every spare ounce. His face and hands bore the subtle lines and scars of old injuries and missteps. Brown hair, darker than mine, but just as unruly, where my dad’s was always in place, but a well-groomed beard that framed a strong jawline.

He’d always worn a suit for those visits, but to my eye that had been out of place, as though Uncle Jack should have been in a leather jacket and hat, fighting the bad guys somewhere in the world. That was in sharp contrast to my father, who wore a suit to work every day, but not one as elegantly tailored as Uncle Jack’s.

“You okay?” Heather asked, putting a hand on my arm.

“What? Oh, yeah. I was just thinking about him, you know? It’s hard to believe he’s … well, could be dead.”

Even after seven years, I had just always assumed Uncle Jack could show up any day with a new set of stories.

Heather squeezed my arm as the assistant returned with coffee and tea, then left again.

“How’s the tea?” I asked, sipping my coffee and raising my eyebrows before taking another sip.

“How should I know?” Heather asked. “I don’t drink tea.” She took a couple sips of her drink. “I like it … but that could just mean I have lousy taste in tea.”

The conference room door opened and a man in a suit entered with a thick file folder in hand.

Unlike Uncle Jack, this was a man who looked like he was not only comfortable in an obviously expensive and custom-tailored suit, but might well have been born in one. Clean-shaven, with a mass of silvered-black hair that rose from his forehead in a wave before crashing down the back of his head in a perfectly formed fall. His dark eyes were sparkling and friendly, with just a hint of a crease at the corners that made me think the man was constantly performing some mental calculation.

“Ah, Mr. Mercer, so sorry for the delay.” He held out a hand. “Jonathan Rawlin — we spoke on the phone.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, half-rising to take the man’s hand and meeting a firm, but not challenging grip.

“And your companion?” Rawlin asked, nodding at Heather.

“This is an old friend, Heather Gray,” I answered. “She knew Uncle Jack, too.”

Rawlin held out his hand again. “Miss Gray — so good to meet you.”

After releasing Heather’s hand, Rawlin took a seat at the end of the table next to us and steepled his fingers on the table in front of him.

“Please allow me to start by saying how very sorry I am for your loss. Mr. Mercer was a valued client and more — I feel quite privileged to call him friend, in fact, and miss him dearly myself.”

I nodded, throat a little tight. “Thank you, but there’s a chance, right? He could still be alive somewhere?”

Rawlin smiled sadly. “I’m afraid your uncle rather anticipated this turn of events, Mr. Mercer. His exact instructions were, ah, ‘Seven years, then file the damn paperwork. If I’m not back by then I’m either dead or found something better to do with my time than futz around with humanity.’” The lawyer chuckled. “Not one to mince words, your uncle.”

I had to chuckle too. “No, he isn’t.”

Rawlin nodded. “He was equally succinct in his bequests, Mr. Mercer, so let’s get right to that. You are, in fact, Jack Mercer’s sole heir, to receive his entire estate — there’s a bit more to do in the way of paperwork and a hearing or two, but Rawlin and Rawlin is already retained to handle all of that. Mere formalities, really.”

I nodded again, feeling a little guilty about the slight thrill that went through me. “Sole heir” had a moneyed sound to it and I sure could use a sudden influx of cash. I’d give it up in a heartbeat to have Uncle Jack at dinner telling stories about his adventures the last seven years, but part of me had already accepted that the man was probably dead and not coming back.

“Now, I must tell you,” Rawlin went on, “that the estate is nowhere near what it once was. In fact, your uncle liquidated most of his holdings just prior to his disappearance.”

“Really?”

Rawlin nodded. “Indeed. In fact, the only things of value left are the manor house itself and its associated maintenance accounts. Everything else was sold at Mr. Mercer’s instructions and the proceeds withdrawn in cash just before his disappearance.”

“Cash? How much?”

Rawlin opened the folder he’d brought with him and flipped a couple pages. “Nearly one hundred million.”

“Dollars?” Heather asked before I could.

Rawlin nodded.

“In cash?” I asked. “What could he have needed a hundred million in cash for?”

“I’m afraid I have no idea,” Rawlin said. “I’m sure you know your uncle was an … eccentric man.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I agreed.

“Indeed — we, the firm, that is, assisted him with any number of odd purchases over the years. For a time your uncle was one of the largest purchasers of pre-World War II steel, until the regulations limiting recovery and sales to scientific institutions were put in place.”

“Pre-World War II steel?” I asked.

Rawlin nodded. “Steel produced before the end of World War II, before the atomic testing and bombing, apparently lacks some radioactivity brought about by the atmospheric testing — it’s sought after for several different scientific purposes.”

“Why would Uncle Jack want that?”

“I have no idea. He never said, but he purchased several tons of it over the years and there’s no sign at all of anything like that on the manor property. Nor of the rather large collection of antique weapons your uncle amassed over the years — several hundred pieces, yet no sign of them.”

“Antique weapons?” That was less a surprise to me than the steel — Uncle Jack had enjoyed any number of weapons, after all, and was one of the main reasons I’d started with Kendo and other martial arts.

Rawlin nodded again. “Yes, primarily firearms and, again, nothing produced after July, 1945 — that was the first test of a nuclear weapon.”

“Was he anti-nuclear or something?” Heather asked me.

“I don’t think so,” I answered. “In fact, I think I remember him saying we should be using more nuclear power instead of solar and wind once.”

“I’m afraid we have no more idea about your uncle’s motives than you do,” Rawlin said. “Should you ever find an explanation, please do let us know — I believe our staff still has a betting pool of some sort on it.” The lawyer took some papers from the folder in front of him. “In any case, I mention these things only to explain the state of your uncle’s estate, which, I’m afraid, is much reduced from what it once was.”

“How much reduced?” I asked. A hundred million was far more than I’d ever dreamed of, so even reduced a lot it was probably a life-changing amount for me.

Rawlin cleared his throat. “Yes, the amount.” He consulted his folder once again. “There is, of course, the manor itself, though it’s in a bit of disrepair, having been vacant so many years, as well as the maintenance accounts. It appears your uncle did some quite accurate calculations before his disappearance, however, and those accounts held only enough to pay for the property taxes and some general upkeep for the time since he’s been missing. Those funds are very nearly exhausted now and the accounts total no more than a few thousand dollars.”

“A few thousand?” That was way less than I’d been imagining — but there was this house, manor, and that was probably worth a lot.

“There are, of course, some conditions and restrictions on your inheritance.”

I sighed and nodded — that would be typical of Uncle Jack. “Of course there are.”

“First,” Rawlin said, “you may not sell, lease, mortgage, or otherwise encumber the property itself for a period of a year and a day from taking possession — that would be today.”

Great, so I can’t even sell the place for a year? I thought.

“Second,” the lawyer went on, “should you choose to sell the property, the manor house itself must be demolished as a condition of sale.”

“What? I have to wreck the house before I can sell it?”

Rawlin nodded. “Such is your uncle’s instruction — it’s written into the property’s deed, in fact, so a sale cannot be considered final until the condition is met. The manor itself must be demolished, the building’s cellars filled in, and the location restored to its natural condition before the property may be sold.”

“Figures,” I muttered. I shared a look with Heather, but she seemed more amused than anything else. “Is that it?”

Rawlin cleared his throat. “I’m afraid there is a third requirement.” The lawyer pursed his lips as though even he found what he had to disclose next distasteful. “The third requirement is that you, Mr. Mercer, must go to the property today and spend tonight, the first night of your possession, within the manor itself.”

I frowned. “What’s so wrong about that?”

He’d said there were “maintenance accounts” so the place must still be livable, right?

Rawlin had acted like that was the biggest condition and not the restriction on sale or having to demolish the house if I wanted to sell it. Spending the night in something described as a “manor” wouldn’t be that bad — hell, I probably would have decided to do it anyway. It wasn’t like I had anything else I needed to do.

The lawyer sighed and pulled a piece of paper from the folder, then looked down at it before speaking, “The manor, you see, is haunted.”

“What?” Heather exclaimed.

Rawlin nodded, continuing to stare at the paper. “A dark and malevolent spirit is said to haunt the grounds and home, eternally seeking vengeance for past wrongs. In order to inherit the property, you, Mr. Mercer, must spend the night in the manor and appease the spirit before dawn.”

“Seriously?” I asked.

Rawlin sighed. “No, actually, your uncle simply left instructions for me to say that. Something of a joke, I’m afraid.” He looked down at the paper he held, sighed, then looked at me again, wincing. “Or, is it?”

Chapter

“Of course I’m going with you,” Heather declared as we returned to my car.

The meeting with the lawyer had ended with a couple dozen of my signatures on papers, along with three times that in initials, and I had no idea what they were — for all I knew, I might have just signed away my soul or first-born child — but it got me a set of keys, an address, and printed directions.

“It’s four hours away,” I said, “and I’m going to be there overnight. No matter if Rawlin said the haunted part was just a joke of Uncle Jack’s, no way is your dad going to be okay with you overnighting with me.”

Mike and Heather’s dad was cool — I liked him a lot and thought he liked me, but that was as his son’s friend, not his daughter’s … nighttime companion.

“A joke.” Heather cocked her head to the side. “Or … is it?”

“That’s just Uncle Jack’s weird sense of humor — remember how some of his stories always had some kind of weird angle, like ghosts and elves and stuff?”

“Yeah, so what if some of them were real?” Heather buckled her seatbelt while I put the Prius in gear and navigated the parking garage. “Look, you just inherited a haunted mansion and you’re going to spend the night there — there is no way I’m letting you go alone. You’d probably come back possessed or get trapped by an incubus or something.”

I felt myself flush red. “I, ah, think it’s succubus … incubus is the guy.”

“Whatever,” Heather said. “And you haven’t had a date in, like, three years, so maybe you need to change things up and find some new options.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” I protested, though it felt like it had been. My last relationship hadn’t ended that great and I’d decided to concentrate on my studies — which got me excellent grades, but still left me delivering bad Chinese food, and worse, drunks, for a living.

“It doesn’t matter,” Heather said. She grabbed the folded paper with directions from the dash where I’d tossed it and quickly took a picture of it with her phone. “There — now either I come with you or I’ll call Maria and she’ll drive me up there. Then you’ll have to deal with both of us.”

I groaned. “Fine,” I agreed. Heather’s friend Maria was a stuck-up brat and I absolutely believed Heather would follow up on the threat. All I needed was for the two of them to show up on my doorstep too late for me to make them drive all the way home.

I drove Heather to her house and waited a surprisingly short period of time for her to return with a backpack, a small, rolling suitcase, and two of her archery cases.

“I texted Mom that I’m staying at Maria’s — she’ll cover for me,” Heather said, digging in her backpack. “And I got salt and sage — that’s what we’re supposed to burn to cast out spirits, right? Sage?”

I looked at the cardboard cylinder of salt and smaller, red-topped spice jar. “That’s poultry seasoning.”

“It’s got sage in it!” Heather turned the jar around to show me the ingredients. “Probably a lot of other good stuff to burn, too.”

“Why the bows?”

Heather shrugged. “It’s out in the boonies, right? Maybe I can get some forest shooting done in the morning. I need the practice with trees and shit.” She glanced toward the back of the car. “There’s not much room back there with my bows and all your stabby-gear … what do you do if a ride has luggage?”

I shrugged. “Drunks don’t usually come with suitcases, and I like to be able to stop at the dojo if I want to, without driving home to pick shit up.”

I drove back to my apartment to quickly pack a bag of my own — pajamas, change of clothes, and a few toiletries — then we got on the road.

It was a four-hour drive on the highway before we got to the right exit — one with not even a gas station or a fast-food joint near the off-ramp, just an exit onto a narrow, two-lane road surrounded by forest. Several miles along that brought us to the small town nearest Uncle Jack’s property — so small it didn’t even have a big box store close enough to drive the Main Street shops out of business. I noticed a butcher, general store, ice cream shop, and hardware store on the way through town, all looking like they’d been there since the buildings along Main Street had first been built.

Just as we were through the short stretch of businesses, I pulled a quick U-turn and went back to park in front of the general store.

“We’re going to need food for tonight and breakfast tomorrow, probably,” I explained at Heather’s questioning look. “I don’t even know if the place has power or water turned on, and I doubt there’s any delivery out there.”

I kicked myself a little for not asking the lawyer, Rawlin, about water and power, but I’d been expecting to just pick up a pizza and a sixpack, then chill with my phone until going to sleep — then getting up early and figuring out what to do next. Seeing the town, though, pizza didn’t seem to be an option — the only restaurant in sight was a diner that looked older than Heather’s pretended to be.

“Good idea,” Heather said, hopping out to enter the store with me. “I was thinking delivery, but there might not be internet or cell service in a haunted house.” She grinned. “Ectoplasm probably blocks the signal.”

I sighed and then a second thought about what we might need for the night sent me across the street to the hardware store to buy a couple flashlights, extra batteries, a cooler and a small camping stove, then I went into the general store and loaded up a basket with what I thought we might need for the night and morning — mostly canned stews, a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, and whatever snacks Heather kept tossing in. We certainly over-bought, but better to have too much than too little. I topped that off with two bags of ice, two twelve-packs of soda, and a case of bottled water. We wound up with three or four times what we needed for one night, but it would all keep, so we could leave it at the manor for the next visit.

I was pretty sure there’d be a lot of visits while I figured out what to do with the place, and, if it was habitable, I might even give up my apartment and move in. That would save me the rent and I’d probably be the only rideshare in town — a monopoly.

Being hours away from Heather would suck, though.

Heather approached the counter with a case of beer but pouted and reluctantly put it back when I pointed and shook my head.

“What if the spirits need to be appeased with alcohol?” Heather asked as we loaded the groceries in the back of the Prius. “What are you gonna do then, smart guy?”

“There are no spirits, and if there were, I don’t think a case of that swill would do much to appease them.”

“It’d go a long way to appeasing me,” Heather muttered. “Relaxing — I’ve got a lot of pent-up stuff to deal with these days.”

I laughed. “Like what?”

“I’ve got stuff!”

“Okay, okay!” I kept laughing as we drove out of town.

Seven miles past the town’s last house and we were back in a heavily forested area, starting to climb into the foothills of the nearby mountains.

“It should be along here on the right somewhere,” Heather said, reading from the directions. I’d tried putting the address in my GPS, but it kept telling me it wasn’t found. “There!”

I slowed and peered ahead, surprised Heather had been able to spot the small sign we were looking for, but there it was beside a narrow, gravel road barely wide enough for a single car. My Prius wouldn’t have any trouble with the width, but I began to wonder about the grade as I could see the road itself winding off into the trees and up a slope.

I brought the car to a stop halfway onto the shoulder and examined the sign.

Mercer Manor

Carved into a wooden board that might have once been quite nice, but was now faded and cracked with age. It hung from a slightly off-kilter iron post.

I laughed. “Watch it turn out to be a single-wide trailer Uncle Jack used as a hunting cabin or something.”

“Whatever it is, it’s yours now,” Heather said. “Let’s go see!”

I pulled the Prius onto the narrow, gravel track and quickly passed from the relative brightness of the main road into a gloomy tunnel overhung with trees. Only the occasional shaft of sunlight streamed through to light the ill-kept drive covered in frequent potholes and washouts where the bank on either side had eroded, either sending dirt down to cover part of the road or washing it away on the downhill side. Overgrown brush scraped the sides of the car and I started to worry that it would mess up the paint.

“This place is going to need ten grand worth of road work before I can even show it to someone,” I muttered, wondering just what kind of problems Uncle Jack had left me.

My concerns got even more intense when we arrived at the gate.

An old, brick wall stretched off beneath the trees in either direction, topped by iron spikes originally, but now with vines and fallen branches obscuring most of it. The gate itself was iron bars with fancy scrollwork at the top, but secured with a bright chain and padlock.

“Nice vibe,” Heather said, “very Gothic.”

“Yeah, sure,” I muttered.

I got out of the car and approached the gate, sorting through the ring of keys Rawlin had given me for one that looked like it might fit a padlock.

There were three possibilities on the keyring and the third one worked, unlocking the padlock with a sharp click that seemed to echo in the silent forest around us, followed by a series of clinks as I unwrapped the chain from the gate. The gates themselves opened surprisingly smoothly, turning easily and silently on their hinges as I pushed them fully off the road to let my Prius pass through.

The road past the gate was in better condition than that leading up to it, but only because the terrain was flatter. We seemed to be on some kind of plateau in the hills and the road simply curved through the forest for what seemed like forever, but my check of the odometer said less than a mile, before I could see light ahead.

Just past a sharp corner, the trees opened up into a rolling meadow — I would have said lawn, but it was so overgrown and had so many wildflowers that it seemed more like a meadow, reclaimed by nature from whatever state Uncle Jack had left it in seven years prior.

The road ran straight now, toward an imposing building a hundred yards away. It was built of grey stone, and despite its imposing height, three floors plus what was probably an attic, seemed to almost hunker down to hide in its own shadows from the bright, late-afternoon sunlight that bathed the overgrown lawn surrounding it.

“That’s … big,” Heather whispered as I let the car coast to a stop while I took in the sight. “I thought your uncle didn’t have any other family?”

“He didn’t.”

“All that house for one guy?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s weird.”

I nodded. That was the perfect way to describe my whole day.

I tapped the accelerator to get the car moving and the house only seemed to get larger and more ominous as we approached, until we pulled to a stop at the driveway’s end just at the bottom of a set of stairs that led up to the house’s porticoed entrance.

I parked the car and retrieved my backpack from the trunk while Heather lifted hers from the passenger footwell and closed her door behind her.

We went up the stairs to the front doors and I started fumbling with the keyring, looking for one that might fit.

“See if it’s open first,” Heather whispered.

“What?”

She nodded at the door. “Check if it’s open first.”

“What? Why?”

“Because that would be super-creepy. An old abandoned house where the door just swings open with a creak when you touch it?” She shivered.

“There’ve been people up here taking care of the place,” I said, reaching for knob. “There’s no way they would have left —”

The knob turned and the door slowly swung inward with a loud, laborious creak.

Heather grinned. “Awesome.”

I peered into the shadowy interior revealed by the open door, then frowned at Heather.

“You seem pretty enthusiastic about this maybe turning into some kind of psycho-murder night.”

Heather shrugged. “It’s been a boring summer.”

Chapter

The interior of the house was filled with shadows — not even light from the windows, since they appeared to all be covered with heavy drapes of some sort.

I flicked on my flashlight and shone the beam through the doorway, but there wasn’t much to see. The entryway was rather small, with stairs leading both up and down to the right and a set of double-doors on the left just opposite the stairs going up. Straight ahead there was an archway just beyond those doors and stairs, but I couldn’t see much past that due to the darkness.

“This is so creepy,” Heather whispered, turning her own flashlight on. She crept closer to me and wrapped an arm around mine. “You go first.”

I chuckled and patted her hand on my arm, trying not to show just how much I kind of liked her hanging on me like that and giving me the role of leader and protector, then stepped over the threshold to explore.

The double doors to the left opened into a library with bookcases reaching to the ceiling and a fireplace along one wall. The bookcases were covered in a heavy, canvas sheeting so we couldn’t see the books there. More sheets draped the furniture that filled the middle space with what looked like a long sofa and three large chairs around a central table.

One corner of the room was part of the rounder, tower-shape we’d noted on the front of the house, the outer walls of that were covered with windows, five of them, with benches below them. The windows were covered, but not with normal curtains — maybe there were curtains behind, but the outer covering was the same sort of canvas sheeting that covered the furniture and the front of the bookshelves.

I tugged at one of the sheets covering a bookcase and the fabric came loose easily to pile up on the floor, revealing shelf after shelf of books. Not paperbacks or something, either, these were old, cloth- and leather-bound, with faded and scuffed gilt lettering for the titles.

Heather stepped forward and shone her flashlight on the books.

“I’m never going home,” she muttered, running a finger along the titles, first one row and then another, before she gasped. “Oh, my God, these are all Churchills.”

“What?”

“Winston Churchill? He’s kind of famous?”

I shrugged, but bent to look at the books. “Didn’t know he was an author, too. What’d he write? Like, mysteries or something? That’s an English thing, right?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “Histories,” she said, “memoirs, political commentary. This one —” She carefully pulled a book from the shelf and randomly paged through it. “— The People’s Rights? This is from so early in his life, and it’s fascinating to see how his views shifted and changed as he got older, lived through two world wars, and —” She broke off, frowning and staring at the book for a moment before carefully turning to the title page. “Alex — this is a first edition.”

I chuckled. “I have no idea what that means, but I’m glad you like it.”

Heather, slowly and carefully, returned the book to its place.

“It means I just had, like, ten grand in the palm of my hand.” Heather ran a finger along the shelf of books, reading titles but being careful now not to touch the books themselves. “These can’t all be first editions, can they?”

I eyed the shelf, counting. “I certainly hope so — if they’re all worth ten grand then things are looking up.”

“You can’t sell them!” Heather looked down, embarrassed. “I mean, you can — they’re yours and stuff — but…” She trailed off and looked around the library. “Your uncle must have spent years, decades, maybe, tracking these down. Just these few shelves are so amazing.”

I walked over to the windowed seating area and tugged at one of the sheets covering a window.

“Amazing or not, I’m going to have to find the money to fix this place up somewhere.”

There were no curtains behind the canvas sheet — maybe they were all in storage or something?

I cleared the rest of the windows, letting some light into the shadowy room.

There was a sort of chandelier fixture hanging from the ceiling with what looked like bulbs in it. They weren’t candles, at least.

“Do you see a light switch anywhere?”

“No,” Heather muttered, pulling the sheet away from a second bookshelf and reading more titles.

I started checking the walls for a switch while Heather uncovered the rest of the bookcases. I found a switch, but nothing happened when I flipped it.

“No power,” I said, disappointed.

“Maybe the breaker?” Heather suggested, “we should check that before calling the power company.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but let’s uncover the rest of the windows first, while there’s still daylight.”

If the problem was more than a breaker, at least we’d have some light during the day and I didn’t want to waste any of it searching for the breaker panel.

“Okay,” Heather said, reluctantly following me from the library.

A door in the library’s back wall opened into an office space with a large desk, leather chair, and filing cabinets, but those were empty. Two large windows behind the desk revealed a small screened porch. Beyond that was a dining room at the rear of the house, with windows overlooking the back grounds that were in as much of a wild state as the front.

A short hallway brought us past another set of stairs, the back door along with attached mudroom, and eventually to the kitchen with some anitquated appliances. The refrigerator and freezer doors were propped open and there seemed to be no pilot light burning in the gas stove.

Past the kitchen was another round space, I figured there was a tower at the back of the house like there was at the front. The two spaces were on opposite corners, so that kind of made sense.

From there I could see the still open front door and between was a sort of sitting room with a large fireplace, covered sofa and chairs, along with some other covered furniture I couldn’t identify and didn’t want to take the time to uncover.

“Up or down?” Heather asked.

I thought for a moment. “Up — we can get the upstairs windows uncovered and take advantage of the daylight, then check the basement for a breaker box. That way, if there’s still no power, we’ll at least have seen the place in the light.”

“Sounds good,” Heather said and followed me back to the entryway, then up the stairs.

The second floor was bedrooms and bathrooms — four of each with the largest being at the front of the house and incorporating the tower space as a sort of sitting area. We didn’t bother to uncover the furniture, but did the windows. I was a little surprised that each bedroom had its own bath as well — the house seemed to be from a time where that wouldn’t have been the norm, but maybe Uncle Jack had renovated or something?

The third floor was a surprise — I’d assumed it would be more bedrooms, but the open space at the top of the stairs had four doors leading off it. One to yet another bathroom, another to an unfinished space with bare floors and walls, and two others on either side of the stairs that opened into a sort of merged workout space that ran behind the stairs. About thirty feet by forty feet, half the room was filled with exercise equipment — a treadmill, weight machine, and others — while the other half was open, the floor covered in mats with empty wooden racks attached to each wall.

“I think these are real tatami,” I said, kneeling to run a hand over the mats.

“As opposed to imaginary?”

“I mean not synthetic.” I stood up, nodding. “These are traditional — woven straw stuffed with rice straw. These have been used a lot, but they’re still in good shape.” I looked around at the walls. “I wonder why all the weapon racks are empty.”

“I wonder how your Uncle Jack got all that equipment up those stairs,” Heather said, looking back at the area used as a gym.

“Yeah,” I agreed. There were some big pieces there and I wouldn’t have wanted to be involved in moving them at all, much less up those stairs.

“Up or down?” Heather asked. “Basement or attic?”

I considered that — the attic was just above us, but I wanted to see if the lack of power was just something at the breaker box. I didn’t think the attic would have enough windows to light it.

“Basement,” I said finally, and led the way back down the stairs. “Let’s try and get the power on before we go up there.”

Past the first few steps, the basement stairs were like an inky well, hardly penetrated by our flashlights.

I led the way, shining my light this way and that to trace out the walls and look for a breaker box.

“Over there,” Heather said, shining her light on one of the walls.

The breaker box itself looked old — older than I expected — and when I opened it, I was surprised.

“Fuses? Really?”

Did they even sell fuses anymore? I examined the box closer, trying to figure out how I was supposed to even tell if one of the fuses needed to be replaced, then I noticed a fat, ceramic plug on a shelf nearby that seemed exactly the same size as a hole at the top of the box.

I took that in hand and examined it, then shrugged.

I set it against the hole and — eyes clenched shut and expecting to be blown across the room by some electrical arc — shoved it into place with an audible click.

The basement lights came on, bathing the space in a bright, electric glow.

“What the actual fuck?” Heather whispered.

Chapter

The door on the basement wall opposite the fuse box was massive.

Two doors, really, each made of what appeared to be a single piece of wood. They were framed in roughly squared off timber at least a foot on a side. I counted no fewer than four deadbolts locking the two doors in place, plus several barrel bolts along the top and bottom of each door — the top ones setting into the massive framing timbers and the bottom into holes drilled into the basement floor’s concrete. To top things off, two timbers, four inches square, were in place against the doors, held tight by brackets attached to the frames.

“Okay,” I said, “you have to admit that’s creepy.”

“Yeah,” Heather agreed, drawing it out.

We both walked over to the door and examined it carefully so as not to touch it.

“That’s a lot of hardware for a basement door,” Heather observed.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Do you … think he kept someone in there?”

“What? Like a person?” I regarded the door in a new light — you used that many locks to be sure you kept something out or in. We were in a basement … what could Uncle Jake have been trying to keep out of his own basement? Keeping something in, on the other hand … made just as little sense unless I thought my uncle might, indeed, have been keeping someone locked up in his basement.

“I don’t think Uncle Jack would do that?” I said, making it more of a question than I liked.

“Should we open it?” Heather whispered.

I looked around the basement — it was a lot less imposing with the lights on, showing just old wooden shelves and boxes, but none of that made the locked door seem any less freaky.

If the door was to keep something out, then we were ill-equipped to deal with it, while if it was to keep something in … well, it had been seven years since Uncle Jack disappeared and if there was something still in there, I didn’t want to know what it was.

“I think we’ll wait on that.”

Heather nodded agreement. “Good choice.”

Heather and I went back up the stairs — I won’t say we fled, but we walked with intent and purpose. As we got to the first landing, though, we heard a thud from above, followed by what sounded like footsteps running away.

“What the fuck?” Heather whispered.

I held up a hand to quiet her and tried to listen, but there were no more sounds.

“Stay here while I take a look,” I whispered.

“Are you kidding? No. No splitting up in the spooky house when we heard a mysterious noise.” She shook her head. “And fuck a bunch of staying alone in the basement with a locked door to what’s probably a hellmouth or something.”

I sighed. “Fine, but stay back a step, okay?”

Heather nodded and I continued up, peeking around the banister to see what I could of the library and parlor. No one was visible, so I climbed the rest of the stairs and stood in the entryway looking around. I couldn’t recall anything about the footsteps that would indicate a direction, so didn’t know what to do next.

“Is it safe?” Heather whispered.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Heather scrambled up the last few stairs while I peered into the library and parlor.

“It must have been an animal — squirrel or raccoon or something that got in? Mr. Rawlin said the maintenance accounts were running low, so maybe they cut back. There might be some holes or something one could get through.”

Nothing in the library and I could see all of the parlor and most of the kitchen from the entryway. There were far fewer shadowy places to hide, now that the windows were clear and some of the lights were on.

“Yeah, squirrel, maybe?” I prompted again, then turned toward Heather. “Heather?”

The girl was standing, mouth half open and covered by her hands, as she stared at the floor.

“Heather? What’s wrong?”

“My backpack,” she whispered, pointing to where we’d left our packs earlier.

Mine was upright against the wall where I’d left it, but Heather’s was lying flat, top zipper undone and cover pulled back with some of the contents spilled onto the floor.

“Someone opened my backpack. Alex, there’s someone in here with us.”

*

“Okay,” I whispered, turning so I could keep an eye on the doors to the library and parlor, then backing slowly toward Heather. “Let’s think about this logically —”

“No! That’s how you get killed! Some doofus says, ‘let’s think about this logically,’ and convinces everybody that it’s all in their heads and the weird shit doesn’t mean anything — and that’s when the killing starts!”

“It could still be a raccoon, right? They’re clever, they get into shit, maybe one managed to get your backpack’s zipper open. Or this house has been empty for seven years, maybe there’s some homeless guy squatting here — homeless doesn’t mean serial killer. He might just have been looking for money or food and we scared him off. Or maybe it’s somebody that Rawlin guy hired — like, Uncle Jack put it in his will to have someone fuck with me the first night I stay here. Or do you think a scary, murderous spirit is the more likely explanation?”

“I think the low-likelihood, high-consequence ratio of the murderous spirit possibility still warrants us getting the fuck out of here!”

I almost laughed because it was Heather who’d wanted to come with me when she heard the place was haunted, but at the first sign of weirdness she was ready to bail.

“I’m betting on it being someone Rawlin hired on Uncle Jack’s instructions,” I said, then checked outside through the door we’d left open. “And it’s almost dark — remember he said the ‘haunted’ part was just something Uncle Jack made him say, but I still have to spend the night here, dusk to dawn, if I want to keep it.”

“Fine,” Heather grumbled, then knelt down to start putting the things that had fallen out of her backpack back into it. A moment later, she was digging through the backpack before turning to me with wide eyes. “You think a squirrel took my body wash? Really?”

“Your what?”

“My body wash? The special one that’s only available at Christmas? The one you like to sniff whenever I use it?”

I flushed. I knew exactly the one she meant, I just hadn’t known she knew I liked it — and, yes, I admit I did some sniffing when she used it. I liked it a lot, and I even went so far as to buy a bottle of my own, but the scent was different on me, as though it was altered by contact with Heather.

“I don’t —”

“Your nose twitches like a fucking rabbit whenever I wear it, which is why I brought it, and now it’s gone! That was my last bottle, too — I can’t get more until December!”

“Why you brought it?”

“Never mind, just, no squirrel took it.”

“Could still be a raccoon, right? They’re bigger, and they have those little thumbs.”

“Fine.” She pointed back into the depths of the house. “Go produce me a peppermint raccoon and I’ll believe you.”

Heather groaned and looked around as though she thought a ghost was going to come out of the walls or something, but I was determined. I certainly wasn’t going to give up my inheritance, weird as it was, over some bumps and thumps that were probably a trick of Uncle Jack’s. For all I knew, it was Uncle Jack himself who’d made the sounds.

Fake his own disappearance, hide for seven years, and hire a lawyer, all to play a practical joke on his nephew? Maybe? It was a non-zero chance, at least, and seemed more plausible than a murderous spirit deciding to go through Heather’s toiletries.

“I’m not leaving,” I said. “If you’re really scared, you can take my car and find the nearest hotel — pick me up in the morning?”

“A hotel? Did you see the drive up here? The best I’d find would be a crappy motel with doors that open right on the parking lot and a kid named Norman manning the front desk. I bet his mom’s nice. No, thank you.”

“Looks like you’re staying then.”

I ignored Heather’s shifty looks and tried to exude some sort of confidence as I started unpacking the car. She eventually joined in, but I could tell she was still scared.

We didn’t bother putting things in the fridge, since it was propped open and not cold — the cooler would do well enough for our sodas and water overnight, and I was as determined to go home at dawn as I was to stay in the manor house overnight. I couldn’t find the gas valve for the stove — well, I found a couple possibilities, but I’d never worked with a gas stove before and decided not to risk messing something up, so I set up the camp stove out on the veranda. The bag of food came into the kitchen though.

Heather started looking through the bag and unpacking food.

“Did you … bring a can opener?” she asked after staring at a can of beef stew for a few seconds.

I froze — I had, in fact, neither bought nor brought a can opener, but if we couldn’t open the food and had to rely on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich fixings as our only meals, I knew Heather would never let me live it down. Ten years from now I’d be hearing about the time I tried to starve her. A couple of the cans had pull-tabs, but not the two Heather was holding.

“One second,” I said hurrying back out to the car where I was happy to find I still had my small toolbox in the back. I hurried back in with a hammer and screwdriver. “Hah!”

Heather raised an eyebrow. “Bowls, plates?”

I thought frantically about what else might be in my car, but … the damn thing didn’t even have hubcaps that might work as a bowl.

Heather rolled her eyes while I pondered how easy it was to forget the little things when you were in a hurry, and kicked myself for letting her come along. I did, in fact, have a can-opener in my camping gear, but I hadn’t brought my camping gear, because we were going to be staying in a house.

I shrugged. “Let it cool and drink it out of the can, I guess.”

We’d mostly picked up stews, after all, and it wasn’t like dining etiquette was an issue — I’d seen Heather go elbows-deep into a plate of nachos with both hands.

“Men,” she muttered, stalking out to my car.

I took the time to open all the kitchen cabinets and drawers in the hope there’d be some dishes or cutlery, but they were all empty. The water was on, at least, so we could shower — or, maybe, I didn’t know if the water heater was electric or gas or even if it had come on when we got the power working.

“Here,” Heather declared, returning and slapping something down on the counter next to me.

It was a plastic knife covered in dirt and hair.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Under your car seat — you should really clean more often.”

“It’s kind of nasty.”

Heather nodded. “That’s why it’s yours. This is mine.” She held up a plastic spoon still in a sealed package.

“Hey!”

My objection didn’t seem to matter as Heather slid the packaged spoon into her pocket.

Sticking me with a dirty knife to eat my food with seemed to have settled Heather down and she was no longer looking around like she thought something was going to jump out of the walls at her. Giving me shit usually relaxed her.

We went out and sat on the veranda in the growing darkness while I heated up a can of beef stew and another of ravioli on the camp stove. The screwdriver, after I held the tip in the stove’s flame for a minute to, maybe, sterilize it, and hammer did a fine, if somewhat messy, job of getting the lids off and I had to go back to my toolbox for a pair of pliers to move the cans on and off the camp stove. Once I declared them heated, Heather went to get us sodas from the cooler and we moved to sit on the veranda steps and look out over the meadow.

“This is actually kind of nice,” Heather said. “No one around for miles. No car sounds, just the birds.”

“Those are bugs.”

“What? Ew!”

“You say that every time we’re outside somewhere.”

“Because every time you try to convince me it’s icky-bugs and not pretty birds.”

I chuckled.

After dinner we cleaned up our mess and stored the garbage bag in the back of my car to pack out the next morning, then went upstairs to look more at the bedrooms and bathrooms. We started with the master bedroom, as I figured I’d let Heather have that for the night, and found some bedding stored in vacuum bags in the dresser drawers. The rest of the drawers were empty.

“Did he take the dishes and all his clothes?” I wondered.

It really looked like Uncle Jack had cleaned the place out of most things portable, leaving only the large furniture and a few pillows, towels, and sheets.

“Alright,” I said, as I fluffed the last pillow and tossed it on the bed. “Let’s go pick one for me.”

“What?”

“The bedroom I’m going to sleep in?”

“Oh, no.” Heather’s eyes were getting wide again as she looked around the room. “We are not separating in the scary-house. That’s exactly what the killer ghosts want us to do.”

“Seriously? You spent the whole drive up here mocking the killer ghosts.”

“Ssshh! They might hear you!”

I sighed and looked around the room — there were chairs and small sofas, but none big enough for me to stretch out on, and the flooring was hardwood with a couple rugs, none of which offered the sort of padding I wanted to spend the night on.

“And, yes, seriously.” She shook her head. “Are you seriously objecting? What, do you think I’m going to take advantage of you in the night?”

I wasn’t really concerned about that — yeah, Heather had been getting flirtier and flirtier with me, but I figured that was just her, I don’t know, practicing on someone safe, maybe? Was that a thing?

What I was concerned about is having some sort of physical reaction to being that close and in bed with a truly beautiful young woman and weirding her out. Even if I thought of her as a little sister, there were apparently some parts of me that weren’t convinced.

Heather sighed, then gestured for me to follow her. I did, as she went across the hall to another bedroom. At first, I thought she’d seen my point and was picking a room for me, but she just opened dresser drawers in that room until she found more vacuum-packed bedding, then led me back to the master bedroom.

“Here,” she said, tossing the vacuum bag on the bed. “You can have your own blanky and tuck it under you so you don’t accidentally touch me in the night and get girl-cooties.”

Chapter

There wasn’t much to do in the house after dark — it didn’t even have a TV apparently — so we got ready for bed early and sat around messing with our phones. The signal wasn’t great, but it was there, surprisingly.

The showers did have water, but none hot — the heater was probably gas and not something I wanted to mess with tonight.

The long drive up had left me feeling grungy, so I went ahead and showered anyway, using a bar of soap Heather fished out of her backpack, then she decided to shower as well. While I was in the shower, she found another vacuum bag of towels in a closet and tossed one into the bathroom for me.

Then she made me help her move one of the short sofas to put behind the bedroom door so it couldn’t open, which was probably a fire code violation, at least.

“Do you really think a closed door will stop a killer ghost?” I asked as we set the sofa in place. “Maybe all this does it make it harder for us to get out when we’re running.”

Heather glared at me, then stomped off to take her shower.

I watched a couple more videos, yawning. It was still early, all things considered, but the day seemed to have taken more out of me than it should. The state of the property weighed on my mind — as it was, I couldn’t afford to fix the place up or tear down the house so I could sell the land, so what could I do? Just let it sit until the State foreclosed on it for the property taxes I also couldn’t pay?

Maybe there were enough first editions or whatever in the library to pay for what needed to be done … but I had a suspicion Heather might strangle me if I suggested selling those again.

At which point, I realized the water had turned off quite a while ago and Heather had been in the bathroom about three times as long as I had. I had time to hope I’d sterilized the screwdriver enough and not driven some kind of stomach bug into her stew.

I nearly strangled myself by swallowing my tongue as Heather came out of the bathroom.

Her hair was damp at the edges, darker from the water, and pulled straight back to fall down her back, exposing her shoulders, bare except for the thin straps that held up her top. That clung to her skin in the places she hadn’t fully dried off and the material was so thin the damp material seemed to disappear and show exactly what was under it, including the side of one breast. Her nipples poked prominently at the thin fabric, making it clear exactly how cold the shower, and the room itself, was.

“What?” she asked, crossing to where her backpack lay on the large dresser, then coming back to the bed with a hairbrush.

“Nothing!” I said — then cleared my throat to get rid of the high-pitched squeak and tried again. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

I stared intently at my phone, trying to ignore what I could see out of the corner of my eye.

Heather’s pajama bottoms were worse than the top — not that they were revealing, they covered things, it was just that they were loose shorts with leg holes that flared out a bit and were cut pretty high on the sides, so as she sat cross-legged on the bed and started brushing her hair, the openings in her shorts gaped wide, making it impossible not to wonder just how much they might expose given just a tiny shift in how she was sitting.

I tried to pay attention to the guy narrating a bunch of video clips of skate-boarders face-planting, but Heather’s hair-brushing seemed designed to distract me, as she raised both arms, elbows back, in a way that seemed to shove thinly-covered nipples directly at my eyes.

Did I mention there was no water heater and the water was cold?

“See anything good?”

“What?” I jumped, guiltily. “See what? Where?”

She waved her hairbrush at my phone. “Anything good we could watch together before we go to sleep?”

“Oh … no, nothing good. Just whatever the algorithm thinks I should watch next, you know?”

“Oh, okay.”

She went back to brushing her hair. When she was done, she stretched and pulled her blankets back to, much to my relief, slide underneath and cover herself.

“I’m going to sleep then.”

“I’ll turn off the light,” I said, since I was closest to the door and the switch there.

“No!”

I looked to find her with wide eyes, blanket pulled up under her chin and just the fingers of both hands visible, grasping it.

“Are we scared of the dark?” I asked, smirking a little.

“I’m not scared!” She paused. “I’d just be more not-scared if the light was on. At least until I’m asleep. Could you stay awake, too? Just until I’m asleep?”

The snark I was going to give her for that died in my throat, because she actually did look scared — or at least very nervous — so I just nodded and traded my smirk for a look of reassurance.

“Yeah, I’ll stay awake for a while.”

*

I switched from the video app on my phone to catch up on some reading, figuring the noise of videos might keep Heather awake, but wound up reading the same page several dozen times — Heather was laying with her back to me, hair spread out on the pillow and the bare skin of her shoulders and upper back exposed. My hand seemed to keep wanting to reach over and rub her back — or even pull her closer to cuddle against me.

I was going to have to get those thoughts out of my head before Mike came home and caught me looking at his little sister in ways that would get me ass-kicked. Luckily Heather hadn’t noticed how much of an effect she was having on me today.

After a while I thought she’d managed to get to sleep. I’d given up on reading and found myself just watching her as the blanket went up and down with her slow, even breathing.

Oh, this is bad, I thought.

I don’t know why she was having this much of an effect on me today — we hung out all the time, nearly every day, even alone at my apartment, but everything about her was hitting harder now. I could even still smell the soapy freshness she had after her shower and found myself inhaling a lot deeper than I normally would — and wishing it was her body wash I was smelling instead of just soap. Or maybe not — that could put me in a really bad way.

“Get a grip on yourself, dude,” I muttered, rolling out of bed to hit the lights and get some sleep myself.

I lay in the dark for a while, trying not to think about Heather laying right next to me, and finally dozed off, only to be awakened later by a thump.

I sat up and listened carefully, but the sound didn’t repeat, so I closed my eyes again.

Thump

Okay, that was actually something out in the hallway — I got up and quietly went to the door, pressing my ear to it.

Thump

I froze. It wasn’t something that hit the door, it was duller and sounded farther away, but then there was a sort of pitter-patter, like of tiny feet drumming on the manor’s hardwood floors.

I frowned, listening.

Neither sound seemed to be from something as large as a person, making me more certain our mysterious “spirit” was some sort of animal that’d gotten inside somehow.

“Heather — hey, Heather,” I whispered.

Thump thump

I returned to the bed and shook Heather’s shoulder gently.

“Heather.”

“Donwannagoschool!”

“Heather, it’s Alex,” I whispered, shaking her again. “There’s something —”

“Mmmhh, yeah.”

“Yeah, there’s something outside the —”

“Inside … need you inside …”

She squirmed the next time I shook her, so might have been waking up. She’d always been a heavy sleeper.

“I’m inside the room, but there’s something outside in the hall and —”

“Not outside,” Heather whined. “Inside … need you inside … inside me …”

I jerked my hand back as though it was on fire, eyes going wider as I realized the nature of the squirming she was doing.

Thumpthump

Shit.

I certainly didn’t want to try waking Heather during a dream like that — whoever she was dreaming about, she wouldn’t want a picture of me in her head in the middle of it. And I certainly didn’t want her to know I knew.

I returned to the door and listened.

Thump

Whatever it was, it didn’t sound big.

I glanced back at Heather, still asleep, and gave in to the urge to go out and trap this thing somewhere so I could show her I was right … so I could show her there was nothing to be afraid of.

I softly crept back to the bed so I could grab my phone. If I couldn’t catch the thing, then a picture of a raccoon or whatever running around the hallway might do it.

Carefully lifting one end of the sofa we’d blocked the door with, I pivoted it enough that I could open the door slightly and slip through.

“Hello?” I whispered into the dark hallway.

I’m talking to a fucking raccoon?

I didn’t want to be too loud or turn on the lights in case it woke Heather. She was busy.

There was more pitter-pattering toward the stairs, so I started carefully walking that way. Without a door between us, the sound was a lot clearer and I became more convinced that it was a raccoon or some other small animal. The sound was too light and the pattern too rapid for it to be a person.

“Crap,” I muttered as a small shadow darted for the stairs, along with more of the pattering feet I’d been following. At least I could conclusively say it was some sort of animal now, because the shadow had been tiny, maybe two feet tall, if that. I tried to put images of killer dolls out of my head.

“Come on, Rocky,” I whispered making my way down the dark stairs. That was what you called raccoons, right? “Come here … let me show that brat what she was so afraid of.”

I followed the sound to the first floor and thought I’d lost whatever it was, because there was no sign of where it’d gone, but then the pattering came from the stairs to the basement.

“Gotcha,” I whispered.

The basement was one large, open space. Yeah, there were shelves and boxes, but anything climbing on those would still be obvious. If I could block off the stairs somehow, then the thing would be trapped in the basement, and I could show it to Heather when she woke up.

I switched on the basement lights, but didn’t see any animal, so I started down the steps, keeping my eyes on the space near the stairs so whatever it was couldn’t surprise me and dash back upstairs.

Then I stopped and stared at the far wall.

The door was open.

Chapter

The space beyond the door was all shadows, but the door was definitely open.

The timbers that had crossed it were set to the side and the door-halves themselves were folded back against the wall on either side of the opening.

Had whatever I was chasing gone through the door? And how had it even opened the door when the sounds had been so like a small creature of some sort?

Now I was getting pissed, because the door had to be opened by a person, which meant one of the not innocent-animal explanations was on the table — a person either hired by Rawlin or Uncle Jack himself, or some homeless guy, but I thought homeless-guy wasn’t likely, because some of the locks that had been on that door required keys. 

I crept to the doorway and peered through, but the light from the main basement only penetrated a few feet into the other room, showing nothing but a cobbled stone floor, unlike the concrete of my side.

I considered going back upstairs and getting one of my swords out of my car — just in case — but that would just make things worse. If it was a homeless guy, what would I do? Slice his head off? Or beat him with my practice blade? I was pretty sure either of those things would wind up with me in jail.

Same with someone hired by Rawlin to scare me — neither killing him or beating him up would be a bright idea.

Maybe I could just shut the door and trap whoever it was inside to deal with later — a night locked in the basement would probably teach any trickster a lesson — but I was pissed.

A raccoon would be funny — this was just bullshit.

“Hey!” I called into the darkness. “Hey, come out! I know what’s going on.” I hesitated — if it wasn’t a trick and was a homeless guy, I didn’t want to startle or scare him into taking a swing at me or something. “Hey, look, let’s not take this somewhere bad, okay? Come on out — I’ll fix you … I don’t know, some corned beef hash or something.”

I turned on my phone’s flashlight and pointed it into the darkness, but it wasn’t very strong and only illuminated a few feet. It was as though the other room was completely empty and the only thing I could see was a bit of the floor and ceiling. At the threshold the flooring changed from smooth concrete to rounded stones mortared together. Even the ceiling beams looked rougher and somehow older than the main basement, as though the other room had been built a century or more earlier.

I took one step closer, then another, trying to make my light catch anything but emptiness on the other side — all the while preparing myself to endure a jump-scare … or straight-arm some trickster to the jaw if he got too close.

Heather’s talk of bad horror-movie decisions ran through my mind, but I shook my head and scowled.

The unlocked door was a tell — some of those locks required keys, even on this side, and Rawlin had told me to be careful with the keys he gave me, because the only other set was with the maintenance company. So either some malevolent spirit or homeless guy had keys even Uncle Jack’s lawyer didn’t know about, or this whole thing was a setup.

“This isn’t a movie,” I assured myself. “House isn’t haunted, no such thing as ghosts, and nothing in there is waiting to eat me. It’s some dude Rawlin hired to scare us.” I squared my shoulders. “All right, asshole, feel free to jump-scare me — but if you touch me, whatever you’re getting paid isn’t going to be enough.”

I shrugged away the sudden chill that ran through me and stepped over the threshold.

As soon as I did, my phone’s light went out, other lights from within the room came on, blinding me, and I heard the sharp clicks and clatters of multiple locks being set on a suddenly slammed door.

*

I tried to spin around and leap for the door, but I couldn’t move.

I strained my muscles, but couldn’t twist to see behind me, couldn’t turn my head, couldn’t even blink, and I realized the light in my eyes wasn’t lights, it was letters, glowing in my vision.

Giving up on trying to move, I paused to read.

Welcome to Arctara

“What the fuck?”

The letters spun apart into little dots of light, then reformed.

Syncing inherent skills

Please wait…

I tried again to turn my head, wanting to scan the darkness for anything that might be coming for me. My heart started racing at thoughts of the many things that could be lurking in the darkness. I could see, I could breathe, I could feel my body, but I couldn’t move — no matter how much I tensed my muscles, my body stayed frozen in place like a statue.

Then more words started scrolling in my vision, floating in space like some kind of video game.

Initial Skill Cap Exceeded…

Selecting most relevant skills…

Randomizing bottom quintile…

Entity transfer complete…

Body

Health

90

Fortitude

35

Endurance

30

Agility

35

Perception

28

Understanding

29

Charm

15

Martial

Tahlén Blade

55

Unarmed Combat

45

Swordsmanship (General)

30

Longbow

5

Dodge/Evasion

20

Weapon Maintenance

25

Life Skills

Cooking

10

Item Repair

20

Foraging

12

Fishing

8

Hunting

18

Survival Skills

22

Navigation

25

Specialized

Crafting (General)

10

Tinkering (Mechanical/Technical)

45

Alchemy

12

Lockpicking

7

Perception

28

Skills synced, please select a general starting class for bonuses:

Fighter

Rogue

Artificer

Monk

I struggled again to move, but I couldn’t — not even to blink — and the line about selecting a class started to flash insistently.

Taking a deep breath I tried to calm myself and figure this out.

I’d walked through a mysterious door, found myself unable to move, my phone light went out, and there was some sort of video game interface in my eyes … a psychotic break was definitely on the table here, clearly influenced by how much of my life I’d wasted playing video games.

Given the incessantly flashing “choose your class” message, I was willing to bet that my psychosis wouldn’t let me move until I did that.

I considered the options.

Monk was right out — my psychosis would probably make a vow of celibacy come along with that and, while I’d never gotten what you’d call a lot of action, I’d still like to have the option. Artificer was out, too, since the whole skills thing seemed to be focused on a lot of martial stuff. If I was going to spend the rest of my life in a loony bin thinking I was living in a game, then I’d at least like it to be interesting — Artificer sounded like I’d be spending my crazy-time making bracelets out of beads and string or something.

So Rogue or Fighter?

I actually gave Rogue some thought, since it would probably be safer, and get me let out sooner, if I spent my time in the psych ward sneaking around rather than picking fights.

In the end, I decided on Fighter, because … I like to fight and I’m good at it.

Maybe not competitive-level good, but I enjoyed my MMA sparring and sword sessions, and I could hold my own pretty well.

I still couldn’t speak, so I focused on Fighter and tried to project the thought to my crazy-part. Yeah, that one.

Fighter Base Class selected.

Applying bonuses…

Fortitude +5

Endurance +3 (Health 99)

New Skill! Armor Proficiency - movement penalties for medium/heavy armor reduced 12%.

New Skill! Enhanced Regeneration - health regenerates 13% faster.

Unarmed Combat +5

Weapons Maintenance +5

New Skill! Power Strike - +4% damage with melee weapons or unarmed combat.

New Skill! Shield Defense - -4% damage when using a shield.

New Skill! Battle Awareness - Perception during combat +3.

New Skill! Weapon Mastery (sword) - +5 to all sword skills.

New Skill! Taunt - +10 to Charm-based negative interactions.

New Skill! Second Wind - when Health is reduced to 10% or below, it is reset to 25% and +10 to Endurance for 30 minutes.

Evaluating…

Class Skills Exceeding 50

Please select a class specialization:

Swordmaster

Brawler

Great — more to pick. Really, I just wanted to be able to move because my nose was itching.

Swordmaster! I thought, trying to project it forcefully.

Swordmaster specialization selected.

Applying bonuses…

Tahlén Blade +10

Swordsmanship (General) +5

New Skill! Blade Dance - Attack speed +7%.

New Skill! Master’s Strike - Triple damage once per combat.

Skills Sync Complete.

Welcome to Arctara!

Enjoy your stay.

Alexander Thomas Mercer

Class: Fighter/Swordmaster

‍

‍

Body

Health

99

Fortitude

40

Endurance

33

Agility

35

Perception

28

Understanding

29

Charm

15

‍

Martial

Tahlén Blade

70

Unarmed Combat

50

Swordsmanship (General)

40

Longbow

5

Dodge/Evasion

20

Weapon Maintenance

30

‍

Life Skills

Cooking

10

Item Repair

20

Foraging

12

Fishing

8

Hunting

18

Survival Skills

22

Navigation

25

‍

Specialized

Crafting (General)

10

Tinkering (Mechanical/Technical)

45

Alchemy

12

Lockpicking

7

Perception

28

‍

Class Skills

Armor Proficiency

12%

Reduced movement penalty in medium/heavy armor.

Enhanced Regeneration

13%

Increases Health Regeneration.

Power Strike

4%

Increases damage done by melee weapons and unarmed combat.

Shield Defense (-damage %)

4%

Reduces damage taken when using a shield.

Battle Awareness

3

Increases Perception during combat.

Weapon Mastery (sword)

5

Increases Sword skills.

Taunt (negative charm)

10

Increases Charm when initiating negative interactions.

Second Wind ()

When Health reaches 10% it is increased to 25% and +10 Endurance for 30 minutes (24 hour cooldown).

Blade Dance

7%

Increases attack speed.

Master's Strike

Triple damage once per combat. Requires Invocation.

Suddenly I could move again and I immediately spun to face the door, which was closed, and rushed back to it. The knob was solidly set and shoving on either half of the door had no more effect than if I was shoving on the surrounding rock walls.

“Fuck!”

I kicked the door, which worked no better than trying to turn the knob or shoving on it, then stepped back and scratched and scrubbed at my nose because the itch was driving me nuts … nuttier than I already appeared to be.

I threw my shoulder into the door a few more times, then gave up — the doors were solid wood, with multiple locks, most of which didn’t have even a keyhole on my side, and if the thunks I’d heard were those wooden beams being put back in place, there was no way I was getting back through those without chopping through them.

The welcome message and — I guess, my stat sheet — stayed floating in my vision. Since nothing seemed to be attacking me out of the shadows, I gave it a look over to try and understand better what was going on.

Could I have wound up in some new VR game?

While in a derelict mansion in the middle of nowhere?

Yeah.

Could I have wound up in Uncle Jack’s new VR game?

Cash out a hundred million dollars, hide away in a secret room in your basement for seven years developing new hardware, then use that to fuck with your nephew?

Plausible.

The problem was, for this to be a VR game, it would have to have graphics and haptics decades ahead of anything else — and someone would have had to dress me in a haptic suit without waking me up.

Cash out a hundred million dollars, hide away in a secret room in your basement for seven years developing new hardware, then … gas your nephew in his sleep so he won’t wake up while you strip him and put a haptic suit and VR setup twenty years more advanced than anything on the market?

Psychoses was far more plausible.

So what was my psychoses trying to tell me with the glowing text?

My name and class were clear. The “body” part seemed to be the same as a typical RPG’s attributes — strength, constitution, dexterity, etc., just with different names. Health was pretty clear, as well, but had it gone up from the first time? Ninety-nine seemed like it was probably a multiple of Endurance and I’d gotten +3 in that from picking a class — I guess it was 3x Endurance?

The Class Skills looked like they were all passive, they just worked, except for Taunt and Master’s Strike.

The Martial stuff seemed straightforward as well. Tahlén Blade was probably this game’s version of a katana? At least that was the type of sword I was most skilled with back home.

“This game’s” … that didn’t seem right, since I was actually in whatever the fuck this was, not playing it. This world’s? Was I in a different world? Was the locked door in Uncle Jack’s basement some kind of portal to another world? Universe? Dimension? What the fuck ever?

Yeah, whatever, if it looked like a game and talked like a game, then it could be gamified. I might not have played a lot of RPGs lately, but I’d been pretty good at them in high school — although this didn’t seem like something I’d be playing with a keyboard and mouse, so I should probably take it a lot more seriously.

Save game? I thought. Save!

Arctara has no save function.

Okay, so the System, whatever it was, responded to thoughts like that.

Help! I tried.

Arctara has no general help function.

Limited Introductory Support Activated…

Please make a specific request.

A specific request?

Exit! Quit! Send me the fuck home!

Arctara portal, Mercer Manor, is behind you.

It’s locked!

There was no response.

The exit’s locked — how do I unlock it?

Arctara portal, Mercer Manor, is open and functional.

System working as designed — no trouble found.

I thought about that, leaning my weight on the door again.

Was the exit maybe the threshold and Uncle Jack had put the door in place? But why not have a way to open it from this side?

It made sense to block off his house from whatever was in this … fine, we’ll go with world. Yeah, if there was stuff in this world that made things like Blade Dance and Master’s Strike a necessity, then I’d probably lock it off from my house, too, but he had to have wanted a way to get back through from this side.

I started feeling around the door’s frame and surrounding walls, looking for anything that could be poked, prodded, or turned, but after several minutes of searching I found nothing. Even if I had found something, I thought about all those locks and bars on the other side of the door — even the knob was locked — if any of them had been set, then some latch on this side wasn’t going to help anyway.

But who was back on the Earth side of the door to do that? Whatever I’d been following had sounded way too small, but maybe that had been a trick? Had I been led down here and trapped on the Arctara side deliberately?

My blood ran cold.

What was back on the other side alone in the house with Heather?

Are there other exits? I thought, desperately.

There are 7,284 portals to Arctara.

Where’s the nearest one?

Behind you.

I fought the urge to scream in frustration.

Other than the one behind me!

You have not discovered any other Arctaran portals.

Limited Introductory Support limit reached.

For future assistance, please submit a support ticket.

Fuck me.

Look — I still need some help?

Thank you for contacting Arctaran Support

Support Ticket # b482b495-3fa3-47c1-b33c-a5a93dce0121

Ticket received, please wait for assistance…

You are #27,824 in the support queue … but we have lots of reps, hang on!

(Estimated wait time … 06:47…)

I sighed. Well, seven minutes wasn’t so bad, was it?

Support Ticket # b482b495-3fa3-47c1-b33c-a5a93dce0121 updated.

Estimated wait times are presented in the format hh:mm.

Thank you for contacting Arctaran Support, ticket #b482b495-3fa3-47c1-b33c-a5a93dce0121 closed.

What the fuck? Closed?

“Hey! What the fuck? I still have a question!”

Thank you for contacting Arctaran Support

Support Ticket # d44d66b9-ff24-4e32-997a-bda6a438b788

Ticket received, please wait for assistance…

You are #31,278 in the support queue … but we have lots of reps, hang on!

(Estimated wait time … 08:18…)

“Mother —”

It was going to be like that, was it?

Fine, I’d break the fucking door down with … yeah, I had nothing.

Which meant I was going to have to find something to break the door down and that meant getting out of this fucking basement to somewhere there was light and, hopefully, a big fucking ax.

Chapter

Okay, so trapped in a locked basement.

Well, maybe locked — if this was a basement and not just an extension of the Earth-basement. If it was just an extension, then I was fucked. But that didn’t make sense — there had to be a way out.

I tapped my phone and tried to hold the power button to reset it, but it was dark and nothing I did had any effect.

So, exploring in the dark?

I set my back firmly against the door to my world, stretched my arms out in front of me to avoid walking face first into something, and tried to take deliberate straight steps in one direction.

Shuffling my feet across the uneven stones of the floor to avoid stubbing a toe too, I slowly made my way into the darkness. I was just about to give up and return to the door to keep my bearings straight when I thought I could see just a bit of dim light straight ahead, so I kept going.

The light was very faint, but it was something, and as I got closer, I could make out shapes ahead that looked like stairs.

I stopped and frowned, thinking of how far I’d come from the door. If my estimates were right, then I’d come just about three quarters of the length of the basement back on Earth — where the portal and stairs were directly opposite each other.

I kept going and found that there were, indeed, stairs leading up and the light was dim because the top of the stairs were covered in debris. I climbed up and tried to carefully move the debris — wood, cloth, dead leaves, and such — aside, constantly wary for whatever might be up there to be disturbed by my actions.

Once enough space was cleared, I stuck my head above the upper floor’s level and looked around.

“Fuck me,” I muttered.

I was in the entryway to Uncle Jack’s house.

Well, a copy of that, at least, because this one was a mirror image with the bulk of the house stretching back over the space I’d just crossed below. It was as though the two structures were identical, but one was reversed and they were connected by the wall the portal was on.

Here the front door had a large crack running across its bottom half and it hung from only one hinge, leaving an opening for the leaves and weather to be blown in. The view down the hall into the parlor, kitchen, and back wall was lit by the uncovered windows there — uncovered and mostly missing, as the glass and frames lay scattered on the floor.

I climbed the rest of the stairs and looked around more, sticking my head into the parlor.

The library doors here were tightly closed and a quick check showed they were locked as well, so I entered the parlor and got a better look at the kitchen area — not great, since everything was dark — which was very different as well. There was a large fireplace with an open hearth and a large cabinet where the refrigerator should have been. There was an old-style hand pump at the sink.

None of the furniture had been covered here, so the sofas and tables were beat up, as well, with water stains, grime, and torn cushions leaking stuffing.

A quick look out the back windows showed that the grounds here were even more overgrown than back on Earth.

I returned to the entryway and tried to ease the door open without it falling down completely. The bottom scraped against the floor and it wiggled in my grasp, but I managed to move it far enough to open a space to pass through and go out.

The time seemed to be the same here, as I could see the sun just appearing over the distant mountains … at least, unless the sun’s direction was reversed here too and that was the sunset.

I stood on the veranda for a while, watching, and the sun was rising, so dawn, and I started to see more differences.

Uncle Jack’s house was surrounded by a broad lawn, turned meadow, then a wall of trees in the distance. Here, the way to the main road was still forested, but the hills looking toward the town were bare — in fact, the rising sun revealed that the view was open all the way down to the town in the valley several miles distant. The rolling hills were covered with fields and farmhouses — what looked like animals grazing on the hills and crops closer to the town where the land was flatter.

As the sun rose higher and I could see the town better I realized it was absolutely not the same town — this one had a medieval feel to it — I couldn’t think of any better way to describe it. Even though I couldn’t make out details, the roads, streets, and buildings all had colors and textures that screamed ancient-stuff instead of concrete and glass.

Well, that made sense if I was in a world where swordsmanship was a serious thing.

I did a quick calculation — almost two miles back to the main road, down what should have been the driveway, but was more of an overgrown forest track here, then seven more to town. Average walking speed was three miles an hour, but I knew I could push that, even jog if I wanted to, so call it five miles an hour on average. That was a two-hour trip into town and two hours back.

Maybe a little longer, since I was barefoot and still in my pajamas. The t-shirt and flannel pants were comfortable, but barefoot running on rough or rocky ground wouldn’t be wise — a turned ankle would only make things worse.

At least it wasn’t winter. Did they have winter here?

I tried to decide what would be quickest — search the manor and grounds for something that would get me through that door or immediately head for town, hoping to find a farm or something before I got there. Farmers would have an ax, right?

I decided to spend up to an hour searching the grounds for anything I could use to get through the door, then head for the town and seek help there if I found nothing.

It only took about twenty minutes of searching to realize there wasn’t anything that would take the door down. The upper floors of the manor here were in as rough shape as the first — there wasn’t even a pair of boots or something in the bedrooms. I even checked the third floor, thinking if the weapons racks back on the other side were empty, maybe they’d been moved here, but the entire third floor was empty.

Outside I located a wood pile by the side of the house just around the corner from the kitchen door.

The logs were piled in a tidy pyramid, elevated off the ground and with a roofed structure covering them. I found the ax next to a large stump that looked like it had been used for the chopping.

The ax lay on the ground beside the stump, covered in heavy grass and vines. The head was rusty and pitted and the handle bowed alarmingly as I picked it up. There was no way it could handle even a single swing.

The logs themselves were in better shape, and I hefted a couple, but they were only a couple feet long. Nothing I could use as a battering ram, and even if they were heavier, the thought of those thick beams barring the door on the other side made me certain they’d be useless.

I sighed —town, it was, then, and hope I met a farmer I could borrow an ax from. Assuming meeting a farmer didn’t cause me even more trouble, because I had no idea what the people here would be like. For all I knew traveling strangers were sacrificed to the Corn God every new moon.

I started across the meadow — the only trace of the drive there was somewhat less vegetation and the feel of some remaining gravel or just small stones underfoot. It was better after I crossed the tree line, but there were still saplings and vines growing in the middle of the path along with a thick layer of leaves, making it hard to even tell where the path was.

About halfway to the road I spotted a small, fallen tree and had an idea. The trunk was fairly straight — it looked like it had been knocked over by a larger, fallen branch. I went and got it to test its strength. It was about ten feet tall, but the upper portion was too thin for my purposes. That broke off with a little applied leverage against the trunk of a larger tree and after I stripped the remaining branches, I had a six-foot staff.

It wasn’t as strong as I’d like and would probably snap if I hit anything too close to the middle, but it would work for walking and defending myself if it came to that. Better than bare hands if the others in this world were typically armed.

I made it to the main road, which was not in the best shape either. It wasn’t paved at all and consisted mostly of grass and dirt worn away by travelers. I tried jogging, hoping to cut down on the time, but the ruts from wagon wheels and roots from the surrounding trees made the footing treacherous. After the third time I nearly broke an ankle, I moved to the road’s shoulder, but the high grass concealed the sharp stubs of branches, so I was limited to a walk instead of jogging — the last thing I needed was to turn an ankle or stab myself in the foot all alone out here.

Based on what I’d seen from the front porch, I thought the trees here would likely end in a couple miles and be replaced by farmland, so the road would probably be better maintained there. Farmers had to get their wagons to market, right?

I pushed on, but after a few hundred yards I heard sounds coming from behind me.

I quickly moved off the road into the tree line, wanting to see who or what it was before deciding whether to try speaking to them.

After a few minutes of the sounds growing closer, identifiable now as creaking wood, jangling metal, and the light thump of hooves on the dirt, a tall wagon pulled by two horses came into view. The sides were wood and it had a flat wood roof, with a door behind the driver. A man sat in the wagon’s seat holding the reins — he had dark hair and a full beard, well-trimmed, and was dressed in a dark red shirt and brown pants. The clothes looked as medieval as I’d thought the town looked.

The wagon had tall wood sides and a top, not the type of open bed I’d associate with farm work, so this was something else — still, he was alone and didn’t appear armed. He might even have an ax in the wagon I could borrow.

I stepped out of the trees when he was about thirty yards away and rested the butt of my staff on the ground, waving to him with my other hand and trying to smile in an entirely harmless way.

The man abruptly pulled his team of horses to a halt and stood up, replacing the reins he held with a loaded crossbow he had on the driver’s bench beside him. He looked around before returning his eyes to me.

“Who are you?”

Well, that was curt — on the other hand, maybe people standing by the road in the middle of a forest was something suspicious here. I tried to figure out how to best phrase my request, while wondering how the guy spoke English — I’d been expecting to have to mime something.

“Ah, my home is back a ways and off the trail. I need an ax or someone with an ax to assist with something. Do you happen to have one?”

“I’ve a hatchet for firewood, but I’ll not be giving such away nor follow a stranger off into the wilds.” He paused looking me over. “I’ll sell it, if you have the coin —” He paused and looked around again, brow furrowed. “Eight and six for you, as it’s seen some use.”

I didn’t bother to ask eight and six what, since if they were coins, I didn’t have any.

“I’m a little short on cash right now,” I admitted. “I was hoping I could just borrow one for a couple minutes?”

“What is cash?”

“Ah, coin — I’m afraid I don’t have any coins on me at the moment.”

The man snorted. “Waste my time? Stop a merchant with no coin at all to spend?” He took up the reins again with one hand, keeping the crossbow in his other, and twitched them to get his horses started forward again. “Out of the way, boy, and ask at a temple if it’s charity you’re seeking.”

Well, fuck you, too, I thought, but didn’t say because there wasn’t much point in antagonizing the first guy I meet in this world.

I stepped farther off the road and let him pass. The man glanced at me and shook his head in disgust as he went by, but didn’t say anything else.

After he was a few yards away I moved back onto the road and started walking again, watching the back of the wagon get farther and farther away.

“Maybe a ride?” I belatedly called out, thinking at least that would be an easier, faster way to get to one of the farms or into town.

The man, merchant, I guess, didn’t answer except to raise one hand over the top of the wagon, fingers in a fist except for an extended pinkie.

There are some gestures that make their meaning clear even if you don’t know the culture and that was clearly a fuck you.

“Asshole,” I muttered, walking on.

The road here was mostly straight, so I was able to watch the wagon’s ass-end for some time as it pulled away from me, then it disappeared around a curve.

I was kind of hoping there’d be enough curves to hide the jerk from me for the rest of my walk, but when I made the turn, I could still see him a couple hundred yards ahead of me.

Hopefully not everyone in this world would be like that and I’d be able to get some actual help. I glared at the back of the wagon as we both traveled on, when suddenly the wagon slowed to a stop and I watched as a red and brown clothed figure toppled silently off the wagon’s left side to land crumpled in the road.

I blinked. Had the dude had an assholery-induced heart attack?

Then I dove for the tree line as four little green men came out of the trees, bows trained on the wagon and the merchant’s body.

Chapter

The things that attacked the merchant were little, no taller than the wagon’s wheels, so about four feet, and I could tell they were green because there was a lot of skin exposed, except for a sort of loincloth they each wore.

Okay, maybe not men.

As I took a closer look from the safety of the trees, I could see they had long dark hair pulled back in ponytails, and pointed ears that extended several inches away from their heads — some straight up, some to the side.

As I watched, the four tossed their bows aside and two started rummaging through the merchant’s clothes while the other two disappeared into the wagon.

Well, shit, I thought. What do I do now?

The merchant was clearly dead — when I looked closer, I could see the four arrows, two in his torso and two in his head, that had killed him. I was just glad I wasn’t close enough to hear the sounds as the two … whatevers pulled the arrows from him and examined them closely, probably to see if they were damaged or could be used again.

I could probably stay where I was until they were done looting the wagon and moved on — unless they planned to move the wagon off the road and wait for the next traveler. If they did leave the road with the wagon I wouldn’t know if they were leaving the area or just hiding it, though, so I’d be vulnerable to a possible ambush if I waited.

Going past them in the forest seemed like the best choice.

I moved farther back into the trees by a few dozen yards, then made my way parallel to the road, moving slowly and carefully to make as little noise as possible, and keeping an eye toward the road in case the things finished before I was past them and they came off the road.

The closer I got to where the wagon and the creatures were, the more attention I paid to looking toward the road, and that’s why I almost tripped over the fifth creature.

I came around the trunk of a large tree, caught a glimpse of green that wasn’t plant life out of the corner of my eye, and jumped away, bringing my staff up in preparation to swing — then what I was seeing registered and I froze.

This one was female.

Very, very obviously female, with large, bare breasts. She might have only been four feet tall, but those tits wouldn’t look out of place on a full-grown woman. A human woman, since this was obviously a woman, just not human. They didn’t look comically large, just … big — and they fit well with the woman’s narrow waist and wider hips.

She was barefoot and wearing only a brownish loincloth like the four who’d attacked the merchant. Her black hair was bound in a ponytail so long it reached the ground.

I relaxed a bit as I saw that she was gagged and wouldn’t be screaming for the other creatures, but she was also bound. Her hands were tied behind her back with rope and a second rope was tied around her neck with the other end tossed over a high tree branch and secured to another tree some distance away.

It was a setup where she couldn’t sit without the rope around her neck choking her and couldn’t raise her hands to free herself.

It kind of pissed me off more than the other four creatures killing the merchant, because that obviously had a purpose in getting the guy’s stuff. This … well, there was only one reason I could think of to tie up a girl like that — a pretty girl, I realized, taking in her face.

The green hue of her skin wasn’t at all unattractive — I think a certain captain normalized that decades ago. Her eyes were red with something of a glow to them — which was disconcerting, but not unattractive. Her nose was a little pointed and she had full, red lips where the gag didn’t hide them.

Okay, the sharp, pointed teeth showing around the gag were a little more than disconcerting, but the overall effect — including the large, pointed ears that extended from the sides of her head and had a delicate, pink hue to the inside — was both pretty and exotic in some weird way.

So … do you leave the pretty green girl tied up and at the mercy of four creatures you just saw kill a guy in cold blood? Even if she’s the same sort of creature?

“I should’ve gone past on the other side of the road,” I muttered, then knelt down in front of the girl — which put me even closer to those magnificent breasts. Her areolas and nipples were a much darker green than the rest of her skin, standing out and drawing the eye.

I put a finger to my lips, hoping she’d understand that and keep quiet.

Closer now, I could see her eyes were darting around fearfully.

“I don’t know if you can speak English,” I whispered, “but I’m going to take that gag out and get you loose. Be quiet, do you understand?”

The girl nodded quickly, some of the fear leaving her face.

“Okay.” First, I tried to just pull the gag from her mouth and slide it down her chin, but it was tied too tight and when I went behind her to try undoing the knot, I found that was also pulled too tight to easily untie it.

“I wish I had a knife or something,” I muttered.

“Mmph!” the girl made a noise and jerked her head to the side.

There were four large sacks there, two tied to the ends of each of two, inch-thick poles, as well as a belt with a sheathed knife.

“Excellent,” I whispered, retrieving the knife and sliding it between the back of her head and the gag.

The knife was a little dull, but I managed to get the gag free, and before I could move on to her bound hands the girl spat out the gag.

“Hurry,” she whispered. “Soon return — are four. Warriors of Black Mountain Tribe — well-armed.”

I nodded. “I saw them,” I whispered back, working on the rope binding her hands. I managed to cut that loose and decided to cut the noose where it stretched above her head instead of trying to slide the knife between the rope and her neck.

“Hurry, please,” she whispered again.

“Almost got it,” I said.

The last of the rope parted and the girl immediately started pulling at the loop around her neck.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I whispered, but it was too late as the sound of crunching leaves and snapping branches sounded from the direction of the road, and one of the creatures came around a tree trunk to stand staring at us with wide, red eyes.

He was nowhere near as attractive as the girl, with a scowl around his eyes, abnormally large cheek bones, and a bulbous nose.

I saw he had the same sharp teeth, though, as he snarled, shouted something, and rushed at us, drawing a knife from his belt.

I quickly dropped my own knife and grabbed my staff — I wanted to be able to attack from farther away and there was no way I was getting involved in a knife fight. Those were too vicious and dangerous for my taste.

The creature ran straight for me, knife raised above his head.

As he neared, I swung the staff, catching his forearm with a satisfying crack that sent the knife flying, and I followed that up with a shin-strike to the side of his head.

That knocked him off his course toward me and into range of the girl, who shoved the knife she’d picked up deep into his lower belly, then sawed it up and around to spill the creature’s blood and insides out onto the forest floor.

My gorge rose at that — it was one thing to break another guy’s nose in a fight or gut an animal you’d just hunted, but this was something that could speak and act like a person. I was almost more affected by it than the merchant’s death, which had been more distant and abstract.

There was no time to think about that, though, as the other three creatures were in sight, rushing through the forest toward us. One had another knife, a second some sort of short sword, but the third was the one that worried me as he tried to nock an arrow to his bow as he ran. That was going to be a problem and probably get me killed.

The one with a bow was behind the other two and stopped at the edge of the clearing while they rushed forward.

I was just about to try and slip by the two attackers and go for the bowman when the girl threw the knife she held. She didn’t even bother to watch its path, just threw it and dove for the other knife dropped by the one we’d already killed.

Her throw caught the bowman in the left eye and he collapsed to the forest floor.

I didn’t have time to be impressed, because the other two were nearly on us.

The one with the sword came at me while the knife-guy went at the girl.

I caught his first blow with my staff, turning it aside, then swung one end for his head. He dodged back from that and lunged forward again as the end of my staff passed him, causing me to twist to the side. The twist put me on his sword side and I brought the lower end of my staff up into his elbow, then followed through as his arm went up and shoved the side of the staff into his face. There wasn’t enough force to the shove to really hurt him, but it got me inside the reach of his sword.

My mind assessed opportunities in a second and I realized this wasn’t a fight with rules, so I brought a foot up right into the little bastard’s groin, lifting him several inches off the ground.

The creature fell onto his back, dropping the sword and clutching at his balls, which gave me a clear shot to bring my staff down on his face with a sickeningly satisfying crunch.

I spun around, looking for the last one that had gone after the girl, but the clearing was empty, then I heard crunching leaves and caught sight of a flash of green. I dashed that way and saw the girl running as the other one chased her. She had a knife in her hand, but was apparently smart enough to not get into a knife fight — no matter who won one of those, the result was nearly always bad.

“Back this way!” I yelled and the girl glanced at me before turning her next dodge into an all-out run toward me.

I readied my staff, but as soon as the girl passed me and spun to face her attacker by my side the thing skidded to a stop. He looked at the two of us, then around the forest as though searching for his buddies, and finally turned and took off running.

The girl laughed and shouted something after him in a language I didn’t even recognize.

I set one end of my staff on the ground and leaned on it as glowing text sprang into my vision.

New Skill! Quarterstaff — +5

“Fuck you, System,” I muttered then turned to the girl to see if I could get some questions answered, but before I could say anything she looked at me, swallowed hard, and threw herself to her knees. She leaned forward until her face touched the forest floor and extended her arms toward me with the knife laying on her open palms.

“Thank you for life, Master.”

Chapter

Well … fuck.

What is the exact protocol when a pretty green girl throws herself at your feet and calls you “Master?”

Maybe I’d write Miss Manners about it when I got home, but for the moment all I wanted to do was breathe for a minute and process the fact that I’d just killed three things that could talk.

I guess I’d killed one of them, but the girl had actually killed two. Yeah, I’d injured the one, but she ended him.

So … if you’re alone in a forest with a pretty green girl who just gutted one dude and stuck a knife in another’s eye, there are probably worse things that could happen than her calling you “Master.”

I blinked a couple times and sighed. Yeah, this was going to be a conversation, I bet.

“Maybe hold off on that for a minute and explain to me…” I sighed again. “Everything?”

“What would Master know?” she said into the dirt.

“Look, how about you sit up and we talk for a minute? I have a lot of questions and you’re the first … person I’ve met here who wasn’t an utter asshole.”

I counted the four green guys as assholes, since they’d tried to kill me. She got up to sit with her butt on her heels, arms now outstretched toward me.

“Go ahead and put your arms down, too,” I said.

The girl looked at me quizzically. “Master will trust this slave with a blade?”

“Yes,” I said, more and more creeped out by the “Master” thing. “We fought together — I see no reason not to trust you.”

The girl frowned as though she didn’t believe me, but carefully set the knife on the ground beside her and rested her hands on her thighs.

“Thank you for blade, Master.”

“Great. Fine. You’re welcome. First thing, could you stop calling me that?”

The girl’s frown deepened and her eyes grew wide. “Master does not want me?”

“Where I’m from doesn’t really do the whole master/slave thing anymore,” I said. “My name’s Alex, can you call me that?”

“Ah-rex, Ar-rex,” she tried, still frowning as though she didn’t believe me.

“Right, good.” I licked my lips and realized my mouth was dry. I hadn’t had anything to drink since early last night and the walk and fight had left me needing one. “Let’s see if those guys had any water. Or an ax — did they have an ax?

Before I could even make it two steps toward the wagon, the girl was on her feet and scurrying toward the four bags that had been near her when she was tied up.

“Master have water,” she said.

Damn, she could move fast. I hadn’t even taken another three steps before she was heading back toward me with a leather wineskin.

Again she threw herself to the ground in front of me, face in the dry leaves and hands outstretched with the wineskin across her palms.

“Ah … thanks,” I said, taking the skin. “You can sit up again, please?” While she did that, I examined the wineskin. “And let’s not do the whole face in the dirt thing anymore?”

“It fresh, Master.” She pointed off into the forest. “Drawn from spring just there this morning.”

“Thanks.” I uncapped the skin, raised it, and squired a stream of water into my mouth.

It tasted fine — good, actually. Cool and refreshing with just a hint of the leather it was contained in. It might even be safe if it came from a spring and had filtered through enough sand or soil, though I fully expected to come down with the shits from some parasite within the next twenty-four hours or so. Hopefully I’d be back home with a functioning toilet before that happened.

“Any chance those guys have an ax in their packs?” I asked.

The goblin shook her head. “Sword?” she suggested, pointing to the one the male goblin had dropped.

Would a sword work? I picked up the short sword and weighed it in my hand, thinking about how thick those basement doors were.

“Thank you,” I said again, offering her the wineskin and standing. “So what’s your name?”

“Master give name.”

Of course, even getting a name couldn’t be easy.

I examined the goblin’s short sword and wondered if anyone in this world actually took care of their shit, because the blade didn’t look like it had ever been sharpened and the metal was rough and pitted, with spots of rust and what looked like hammer marks along its length. I had a suspicion it wasn’t even steel, maybe just iron, and a test swing against a nearby tree yielded some pretty pathetic results.

The blade sort of bounced off the tree, making a dent in the bark, but not penetrating.

I held the blade up to my eye. “I think it bent,” I muttered.

The goblin shrugged.

“Fuck,” I muttered, then I started making my way through the trees to the road. The dead merchant had said he had a hatchet.

“Have you ever had a name?” I asked. “I mean, you weren’t always a slave, were you?”

The goblin shook her head as she followed me. “Master is first Master. I started as clandaughter of Southern Ocean tribe, then wife to chieftain of the Red Mountain tribe, then captive of Black Mountain tribe,” she said, gesturing at the dead things. “Now slave of Ah-Rex.”

I shook my head. “Not…” I trailed off. Fuck it, it didn’t matter anyway. I was going to get some help, open up that fucking door, go home, and never deal with this shit again. If some green chick got left behind in my delusion calling me “Master” — yeah, fuck it.

I sighed — no, it wasn’t going to be that simple. If this shit was real, I couldn’t just leave her here with nothing and no where to go.

I took a deep breath, trying to fight off the thought that this was just some psychotic hallucination anyway, so there wouldn’t be anything really wrong about taking advantage of it.

The problem was … all this was way too real and I was more and more convinced that it wasn’t a hallucination.

And, if it was, then I was probably still in bed next to Heather and didn’t want her waking up to find me humping my pillow or something.

“What was your name then?”

“Grimelia,” the girl said with a sigh.

“Great, so I’m going to call you Grimelia and you’re going to call me Alex,” I said, then decided it couldn’t hurt. “Let’s call that an order, okay?”

“Yes, Ah-Rex,” the girl said with an expression that said it clearly wasn’t.

“Great.” I tried to think of what to ask her first, since I knew absolutely nothing about this place. I could at least get some information while I looked for the hatchet dead-asshole had tried to sell me. “I guess, first … I’m not sure how to ask this without offending you, but you’re not human, right?”

Grimelia looked at me like I was crazy. “Ahr-ex does not know goblins?”

Short, green, kind of vicious … of course, goblin.

“Okay,” I said, deciding I’d have to figure out what I was going to do with the girl if she was real. It wasn’t like I could just leave her out here in the middle of the forest alone. Maybe I could get her to town and have someone take her back to wherever she belonged. “So why do you think I’m your master now?”

There was nothing resembling a hatchet around the wagon’s bench seat and the door behind that was locked.

More are-you-crazy looks. She gestured at the forest and the dead goblins there. “You defeat Black Mountain warriors — all they had is yours now.”

I nodded. Sure.

“If they captured you,” I tried, rattling the wagon door and shoving my shoulder against it, to see if it could be forced, “and I freed you, can’t you just go back to the, what was it, Red Mountain tribe?”

Grimelia shook her head. “Red Mountain tribe all dead. Black Mountain kill them.”

“What? These four dudes killed an entire tribe?” I found that a little hard to believe, given how easily we’d killed them.

“These not whole. Many, many Black Mountain goblins come. Kill Red Mountain tribe. All gone but those captive. These —” She gestured at the dead goblins. “These want more. Leave Black Mountain to raid more.”

I hopped down from the wagon and, swallowing to keep my stomach settled at the sight of the four, oozing arrow holes in him, quickly searched the merchant’s body. He had a set of keys in his belt pouch, which I took and started trying on the lock keeping the wagon door shut.

I glanced at the goblin, who was watching me intently, and had to ask, even though I knew deep in my soul that there was going to be some reason it wouldn’t work either. “What about your original tribe? Southern Ocean?”

Grimelia shook her head again. “I no more Southern Ocean when join Red Mountain. No more Red Mountain when tribe dead. Now? Nothing to be now but slave of Ah-rex.”

“How far away is the Southern Ocean tribe?” I asked, on the off chance there was an ocean somewhere up in these mountains. “How long did it take you to get to Red Mountain from there?”

The pretty goblin’s brow furrowed. “More than four, less than five.”

“Days?”

“Moons.”

I groaned, wondering if this place might have a moon that went through its phases in, like, twenty minutes?

Oh, this was a mess now. It didn’t feel right to just abandon the girl here, even if I did want to get home as quick as I could. Maybe I could help her find a job in the town after making sure Heather was okay. Get merchant-dude’s hatchet, get through that fucking door and make sure Heather’s safe, then come back here and find Grimelia a place to work and stay — were goblins even allowed in towns?

I guess I was going to find out.

Chapter

“I don’t care what ‘eight and six’ that asshole was talking about,” I said, hefting the hatchet the dead merchant tried to sell me. “This shit isn’t worth it.”

The metal head was as rusted and pitted as the ax I’d found back at the manor and it looked to have been sharpened so many times that the blade was less than half the length I thought it must have been originally.

I took a tentative swing and the head fell off to thunk against the wagon’s seat, then tumble to the ground. I could probably fashion a shim to fix that, but I didn’t think the hatchet would put any more of a dent in the basement door than the flimsy short sword would.

Using either of them would be like trying to cut through the basement door with a butter knife. Or maybe the butter.

“Fuck!” I screamed, throwing the hatchet’s handle into the woods. I started going through the wagon’s interior, looking for anything that might be helpful, but it seemed like the guy had been some kind of cloth merchant and the wagon was filled with multicolored bolts of fabric.

Could I set fire to a pile of cloth and burn the door down?

Could I run a rope down to the basement and use the horses to pull the door down?

No, burning down the mansion on this side wouldn’t get me home any sooner, and the fucking door opened toward the Earth-side — there wasn’t even much of a handle to tie a rope to.

“All I want is a fucking ax,” I muttered.

“Master want ax?”

I scrambled out of the wagon’s interior to find Grimelia looking up at me. “Yes, I want an ax — did those other goblins have one?”

Grimelia shook her head and pointed down the road. “Human town sell ax,” she said, like she was explaining to a particularly dumb goblin. “Master buy.”

I sighed. Back to Plan A.

The question was, now, how to get there?

Walk the remaining miles? Take the wagon? Was the merchant’s wagon known to this town, so showing up with it would make them suspicious I’d killed him?

The best I could come up with was to bring the bodies, merchant and goblin, with me to explain. Even with the time necessary to load them up, the wagon would still be quicker than walking.

I briefly considered unhitching the horses and trying to ride one, but I’d seen someone try that with a cart horse at a LARP once and it hadn’t ended well.

While I loaded the bodies onto the top of the wagon and lashed them down, Grimelia concentrated on looting whatever body I wasn’t actively carrying, then she went back to the goblin camp and returned with their belongings.

 That included the four bags that were the goblins’ travel packs. Apparently, they were tied to the ends of sticks so Grimelia could carry them across her shoulders while the group traveled.

She came to me with a single bag of what she thought was actually valuable, instead of useless crap her captors made her carry for no apparent reason. I got a look at the stuff she tossed — broken pottery jars, tangled balls of string, things like that.

I gave her a stern look when she approached the merchant’s body, but she just hmphed at me and set about wrapping him up in a sheet of canvas I’d found inside the wagon.

“Why give away?” she asked, staring at a locked chest the merchant had bolted to the floor of the wagon. “Goblins take from him. You take from goblins. Is yours.”

“He might have a family or something that needs the money. I’m going to see if anyone in town knows him or knows how to contact his family.”

I was also hoping that appearing honest enough to bring all the merchant’s stuff back would get both me and Grimelia some goodwill in the town — maybe enough to be loaned an ax and a horse to get back to the manor faster.

“If family want, family should protect better.”

She frowned even more when I handed her a shirt I’d found in the merchant’s belongings and told her to put it on.

“Most humans aren’t as … open about that sort of thing as I guess you goblins are — at least where I’m from,” I explained. I didn’t really know that for a fact in this world, but figured being wrong with her covered up would be better than being wrong the other way.

“Hmph. Humans not like tits?” She grinned, showing her sharp teeth and grasped her breasts from underneath to push them up and together so the dark green nipples seemed to be staring at me. “I see stare. Ah-rek like tits. Touch?”

“No!” I said, quickly.

“Ah-rek want.” Grimelia grinned wider and nodded at my crotch.

Yep, I was tenting, and the loose fabric of my flannel pajama bottoms did absolutely nothing to hide it.

“You’re very pretty, but it wouldn’t be right — and I’m in a hurry.”

“Hmph. Tits belong to Ah-rek now, should do what want.” She grinned again. “Other thing belong to Ahr-ek too … want?”

I was starting to think she might be changing up how she pronounced my name just so I’d let her call me “Master” instead.

“Put the shirt on,” I said, trying for a stern tone that was a little spoiled by my voice cracking and my inability to look away from those nipples, which seemed to be growing longer and harder the more the conversation went on.

Grimelia grumbled, but did as she was told, including wrapping a bit of rope around her waist to hold the baggy shirt in place. All that really did for me was accentuate what I knew was under there, something not helped by the way the wide neck hole would slide down one of Grimelia’s shoulders, baring more smooth, green skin.

I managed to strap the four bodies to the roof of the wagon, then I dug through the pile of goblin weapons we’d collected to get the unbent short sword and its belt and scabbard. I buckled that around my waist. The goblins must have stolen those from a human, too, because the belt fit me.

I still had my staff and it was in pretty good shape, all things considered, but it had taken a beating and my skills said I should be better with a sword, even a shitty one, at a 40 than the staff at a 5. I thought I’d done pretty good with the staff against the goblins, so I wondered what fighting with a sword would be like — mostly if it’d feel any different than fighting back on Earth.

The short sword was quite a bit different than the katanas I was used to, made more for stabbing or hacking where a katana was made primarily to strike and pull, slicing through its target rather than piercing or hacking.

Neither Grimelia nor I had any idea how to drive a wagon, but how hard could it be?

I found a lever next to the seat that led down to the front wheels and could probably brake or set some sort of parking state so they wouldn’t roll, but it wasn’t set, so I settled onto the wagon bench next to the scantily clad goblin and took up the reins.

“Hiyah!” I called out, slapping the reins like I’d seen in movies.

Surprisingly, it worked — the horses started moving and followed the road with little intervention from me. It wasn’t like there was anywhere else they could take the wagon with the trees on either side, and the most I had to do for some time was hiyah them again when they slowed or stopped to bend down and eat whatever happened to be growing near the roadway.

It was still an easy ride when we came out of the trees into the area with farms.

Drainage ditches lined the road on either side now and the fields all had fences of some sort, whether wooden poles or rock, as we got closer to the town.

We passed a few farmers, but they got wide eyes and headed away from us as soon as they saw Grimelia — or maybe it was the four bodies we had strapped to the top of the wagon. I did notice a green leg and head were now hanging over the side of the wagon. One of the farmers even had an ax, but he kept it with him as he ran away across his field.

I was starting to feel like I was being herded toward the town and if my psychoses really was running this world as a game, that really could be it.

The town had a stone wall that went around most of it and there was a gate where the road went through that had four men in armor standing around.

I got ready to try and stop the wagon, something I realized I probably should have practiced on the way here so I wouldn’t look stupid, but the horses seemed to know the drill. As we approached the gate, they slowed without any instruction from me and came to a stop right where the men were standing.

The guards looked us over, especially Grimelia, and two of them had their hands on their sword hilts.

“That’s Seraphines’ wagon,” one of them said before I had a chance to start the explanation I’d prepared. “What are you doing with it, lad? And why the goblin?”

“Bodies!” a voice called from the other side of the wagon and I saw a fifth guard there, staring up at the top. All the guards now drew their swords.

“Wait! Wait!” I cried. “There’s three goblin bodies up there, too! The merchant guy, Seraphines, was attacked by them and killed. I just wanted to bring his wagon and body here in case someone knew if he had a family or something.”

“By goblins, you say?” the guard who’d done all the talking so far asked, staring at Grimelia — who wasn’t helping anything by grinning back with her needle-like teeth.

“Not her,” I said quickly. “There were four goblins, males. They had her captive and ambushed Seraphines. I was on the road behind him and couldn’t stop it, but I found Grimelia tied to a tree and together we killed those three — the fourth one ran off.”

The guard narrowed his eyes, then nodded.

“Very well, I suppose one who killed Seraphines wouldn’t be so daft as to drive his wagon in here with the man himself barely cold atop it. I’m Jeffault, guard captain. What’s your name and where will you be staying, should we have more questions?”

“My name’s Alex — Alexander. I’m not sure where we’ll stay — I’m new here. What I really need is to buy an ax and rent a horse so I can get back … to where I came from.”

I could actually buy an ax now, because Grimelia had given me a pouch full of coin the goblins had taken during their raids.

Jeffault shook his head. “No, I think you’ll be staying in town for a day or two, lad. The mayor’s like to have words with you over Seraphine’s death.”

I ground my teeth in frustration — everything was two steps forward, one back around here. I should have expected “don’t leave town” from a cop.

“Okay,” I said, trying to sound agreeable. I’d make it look like I was staying, buy an ax, then sneak out of town and run like fuck.

Buy an ax and a pair of shoes, then sneak out of town and run like hell. Even in daylight, the rutted road would tear up my feet if I tried running it barefoot.

 “Can you recommend someplace to stay?” I asked, trying to give the impression of someone fully intending to follow law enforcement’s instructions.

Jeffault thought for a moment. “Not many places will let a goblin stay, even a slave.”

“See?” Grimelia whispered. “You Master.”

I shushed her as Jeffault went on. “Try The Sleepy Bull.” He pointed into town. “Two streets straight along, then right and you’ll see the sign right enough.”

“Thank you.” I gestured at the wagon. “Should I take the wagon somewhere first, or could you?”

Jeffault nodded again. “Kest, take the wagon to the temple and have the Oakfather accompany you to Seraphines’ home to inform his family.”

One of the other guards stepped toward the wagon and I motioned Grimelia to get down, then followed her, grabbing the single sack of belongings we’d looted from the goblins.

“I trust none of that’s Seraphines’?” Jeffault asked, nodding at the sack.

I shook my head. “Only what the goblins had. I don’t think there’d be any way to track down who it actually belonged to.”

The guardsman nodded agreement. “Nor likely they’d be alive for the returning.”

“Oh,” I added, gesturing at Grimelia. “I did take just one of Seraphines’ shirts, for … you know.”

“Ha! Got sick of looking at green tits? I don’t blame you.” Jeffault was sneering at Grimelia now, and her lip was curled back in turn. “They’re useful enough if nothing else’s available, I suppose, so long as the room’s dark.”

I set a hand on Grimelia’s shoulder, squeezing gently, and fixed my own face in a smile. What I really wanted to do was stuff the guardsman’s head up one of the dead goblin’s asses, but that wouldn’t do us any good. I could understand the humans here not liking goblins — they’d just killed a citizen of the town, after all, and probably did worse all the time — but that was the sort of comment that was uncalled for and disgusting. He was talking about using someone like Grimelia for his own pleasure at the same time he insulted her.

“The Sleepy Bull, you said?” I asked. “Two streets up and to the right?”

Jeffault nodded. “And remember, the mayor may have questions for you later. Stay in town.” He pursed his lips. “Welcome to Dunbarrow, Alexander — I trust the rest of your stay will be uneventful.”

I was really starting to get irritated at the delay, but tried not to show it.

We probably should get some food, I hadn’t even had breakfast and it was now after noon — and if I rented a room at this Sleepy Bull, it might convince the guards I was staying and we could leave town for a walk or something. Worst case I might be able to sneak out of town after dark and get home, even if it meant risking whatever might be out and about in the forest for the night.

We.

I grumbled at myself, but I’d already decided I wouldn’t leave Grimelia here in town— not with the attitude the town guard captain seemed to have about goblins What I was going to do with her now, I hadn’t figured out yet, but we could address it once we were back at the manor and through that fucking door.

I nodded my understanding to Jeffault and turned Grimelia away with the hand I had on her shoulder.

I waited until we’d gone a hundred feet or so before looking down at her, ignoring the somewhat hostile stares we were getting.

“Sorry about that.”

The little goblin frowned. “What sorry?”

“About what he said back there.”

Her frown deepened. “You not say — why sorry? You think?”

I slowed and steered us to one side of the street. There were no sidewalks, just the dirt street itself where everyone traveled whether on foot, mounted, or with a wagon. There was a fenced yard with some grass near the street that seemed to not see much traffic and I paused us there. The town buildings here were smaller and more broadly spaced than those farther into town, so there was more room.

I knelt down so I could look her in the eye. She didn’t really seem hurt, just confused, which made me sad at the thought she might simply expect all humans to view her that way.

“I do not think that,” I told her, staring into her glowing red eyes. “I think you’re very pretty.”

Grimelia’s eyes narrowed. “Prove.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

The corners of the goblin girl’s mouth quirked up. “We fuck. Not in dark.”

I took a deep breath and stood. “Come on. I don’t want to discuss that on the street.”

We walked in silence, following Jeffault’s directions, until I saw a sign with a bull’s head, eyes closed, hanging from a post. The building was two floors and not very big, but the door was open and a couple people came and went as we neared it.

“Master?” Grimelia said quietly.

“Yeah?” It was probably a bad idea not to protest her calling me “Master” again, but I was tired, hungry, and my feet hurt. I wanted to rent a room to make the cops think I was staying in town, grab a sandwich or something, then find a fucking ax. How could it be this hard to find an ax in a fucking fantasy world?

“We follow,” Grimelia whispered.

“Follow what?”

The goblin made a brief motion with her head to indicate behind us. “Follow we.”

I didn’t look back right away, but I might as well have — the guardsman following us wasn’t exactly being subtle about it.

So we were being watched, which was more irritating than surprising, and made getting out of town more complicated.

The building and the clientele looked a little rougher than I’d like. Mostly men in dirty clothes, like they’d just finished work and stopped in for a drink, but it was midday.

We entered and I blinked my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting while taking in the bar … pub? Inn? I don’t know what the hell it was — there was alcohol, I smelled food and some of the patrons had plates in front of them, and, according to Jeffault, they had rooms for rent, so whatever that was.

I crossed to the bar itself where a rather portly man was polishing mugs with a dirty towel.

“Drink?” he asked, setting the mug he’d just wiped crud all over down in front of me.

“Ah, yeah,” I said, wondering again if I’d make it home to a flush toilet before this world did bad things to me, but a beer would be safer than water. “And some food and a room?”

The man nodded. “Have all of that.” He nodded at Grimelia. “No trade here.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

“You can have a room,” he said, “but just the two of you. If you plan to rent out the goblin, you’ll have to find someplace else. I run a respectable inn here.”

I looked around while I calmed myself and wondered if everyone in this world was an asshole. If this place was respectable, I’d hate to see seedy.

“None of that,” I assured him. “We just want some food and a place to rest.”

He nodded. “One night, one meal, one ale — two stars. Each.”

I nodded as though I knew whether or not that was a reasonable price.

Back at the ambush site, Grimelia had collected all the coins from the goblins’ bodies — and, I suspected, Seraphines’ when I wasn’t looking — and given them to me in a pouch. On the way to town I’d had her explain what she knew of the coins to me and I’d separated them, taking some of the smaller ones to keep in the pouch I tied to my belt and hiding the others away in the sack with our other belongings.

I’d asked her to explain after I’d held a couple of the gold coins up while yelling at a fleeing farmer to come back and I’d pay him for an ax and wanted to figure out if I wasn’t offering enough.

There were three basic types, plus a few others, but the main ones were copper pennies, silver stars, and gold crowns — all about the same size and weight. I was particularly interested in the gold ones and wanted to see how much they might be worth back on Earth. She’d also explained what the merchant meant with the price for a hatchet, at eight and six. That was eight stars and six pennies.

So this guy wanted almost half that for one night’s stay and a meal. One of them was trying to rip me off — maybe both.

“That seems high,” I ventured.

The man shrugged. “Find another inn that’ll take your goblin, then.”

I grumbled, but dug four of the silver coins from my pouch and handed them over.

“Upstairs — second room on the right I’ll send up your meal and drink shortly.”

Chapter

The room was small, with a single bed, a little bigger than a twin, that seemed to have straw sticking out of the mattress, and nothing much else. There was a small table with a large bowl, a pitcher of water, and two or three small, mostly-clean towels. The towels were stained, but looked like they’d at least been laundered recently.

I was glad I wasn’t planning to actually spend the night here, because I really didn’t want to deal with Grimelia sleeping that close to me. There’s only so much self-control that can be expected of a guy, and the way she kept throwing herself at me was going to have an effect on that eventually.

I took a quick look out the window and caught sight of the guard who’d been following us. He’d set up shop, pretty obviously, right across the street from The Sleepy Bull’s front door.

So either he was just that dumb and obvious, or he was the obvious one, standing around so we’d see him and sneak out the back — where there’d be another guard to catch us clearly trying sneak around.

Or maybe I was just suspicious.

I figured I’d give it just enough time for him to think we were settling in, then go out the front door and try to pick up if there was more than one following us.

While waiting for our food to be delivered, I sat down on the bed to rest and pulled the other money pouch from our bag — Grimelia took the bag from me and sat on the floor to sort through its other contents. I think we were both trying to figure out how much a dent the four stars had put in our resources.

In total, after paying for the room and our meals, we had twenty gold crowns, forty-four silver stars, and one hundred twenty-six copper pennies. That was the equivalent of twenty-two crowns. Grimelia told me there were twenty stars in a crown and sixteen pennies in a star — which seemed like a pretty fucked up monetary system, if you asked me. Especially when she told me there were also two- and three-penny coins, as well as half-pennies and half half-pennies, plus some others I quickly forgot about, because I was almost certain she had to be making that shit up.

Grimelia told me the total was a handsome sum — the whole take from months of the goblin band raiding settlements and ambushing travelers.

I was concentrating on the gold, though, as I had a feeling it would be worth far more back on Earth. How much was gold now? I thought it was something like a couple thousand an ounce and — I jiggled the gold coins in my hand and frowned — these were probably a couple ounces total, maybe three, it was hard to tell.

Were they pure gold or an alloy? If pure, or close, then I was holding several thousand dollars in my hand — all for taking out some pretty weak goblins.

That was a lot of rideshare drives.

I watched Grimelia sort through the other objects. There was a lot of silver there, too — cups, mirrors, other little trinkets, a few rings that looked cheap to me, but probably had value here.

Maybe I could leave most of the treasure with Grimelia to finance her getting a fresh start somewhere, but my mind kept coming back to the gold coins and how much money I’d need to even get Uncle Jack’s property to a point where I could sell it.

If I still wanted to sell it, because that thought had been sneaking into my brain, too.

Uncle Jack must have come here often — this was the source of his stories and his wealth. He’d definitely been wealthy; he’d just taken it all with him when he disappeared. Hell maybe he was still in this world somewhere, living it up as a retired adventurer or something.

There was a knock at the door and I quickly scooped up the coins and put them in my pouch, as Grimelia did with the things she was looking through, then I went to the door and opened it. There was a woman there with a large tray of food — two bowls of some kind of stew, a loaf of bread, and a pitcher of what I assumed was ale.

The scents from the tray as she passed me set my mouth to watering — the rich, savory scent of the stew, the mouth-watering smell of the hunk of fresh butter sitting beside the loaf of bread … yeah, the bread. My stomach rumbled.

After she set that on the room’s only table, I gave her a silver star, hoping that would be enough of a tip, and it seemed like it was way more than enough, because she grinned widely and actually curtsied as she left the room.

“Ask for Alaina if you want aught else, sir,” she said.

*

We dug into our food, me slurping down spoonfuls of the savory stew and Grimelia holding the bowl to her mouth and shoveling stew in with her fingers, despite the stew’s heat that had me blowing three times on every spoonful I managed.

“This is good,” I said.

I was trying to eat it as fast as I could, though, because we needed to get out into the town and find an ax, then figure out how to get out of town without being stopped to answer questions for the mayor. Grimelia nodded, scooping up a handful of butter. I started to say something, but the little goblin already had half the loaf of bread in her mouth, so might as well mix them there.

[1] I finished my stew while Grimelia licked her bowl clean. Her tongue was pink, glistening in contrast to the [2] green of her face … and somehow wider. It definitely seemed wider than the typical tongue — maybe longer, too.

The goblin stood and began looking around the room while I finished eating. She picked things up, looked at the bottom, peered inside, and sniffed nearly everything portable in the room, then stood in front of me, watching me eat.

I chewed quickly and swallowed. “Something?”

“I wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Master finish eating.”

“We talked about the ‘Master’ thing.”

The goblin shrugged.

“Okay,” I said, setting my bowl back on the tray. I was still hungry, but not enough to put off whatever the goblin was staring at me about. “What do you need?”

Grimelia stripped off her shirt, letting it dangle from one hand, then turned around, knelt, dropped her elbows to the floor, and thrust her ass toward me.

“Master fuck?”

The goblin’s loincloth wasn’t that long, so I now found myself staring at a line of pink drawn between green lips and a tiny pink asshole.

I hung my head and sighed.

“No, no we’re not going to fuck.” I looked up to meet her eyes and tried to explain — I figured she was stressed from her captivity and her tribe being killed, overly grateful to me for rescuing her, and probably trying to figure out what she was going to do now. It was likely natural for her to think offering herself to me that way would get her some safety, even with me being new to the whole Arctara thing, she was in a much more vulnerable place than I was.

I got about three sentences into explaining all that when Grimelia stood up, clenched her fists, stomped one little green foot, and cut me off.

“Master stop!”

Grimelia dropped the shirt to the floor, glared at me, and the insides of her ears gradually got redder and redder until they seemed to glow like a pair of red-hot pokers just pulled from a fire.

If you’ve never been glared at by a four-foot, naked, green goblin, I don’t recommend it.

“You think dumb,” Grimelia said finally.

“What?”

She tapped the side of her head. “You think me, I, dumb.”

“No! No, I don’t think that.”

“Do.”

The little goblin paced around the room muttering, then stopped and glared at me again.

“Talk human bad,” she said, then launched into a torrent of what I assumed was the goblin language.

She stomped around the room, gesturing wildly, waving a hand at me and glaring periodically, then she stalked over to where I was sitting and stood pressing her chest against my knees while she continued to gesture and shout before ending by shaking her finger in my face and winding up to a finish I was almost afraid of.

She stopped and there was silence for a minute before she went on.

“Talk human bad — talk goblin good.” She poked a finger in my chest. “Talk human good — talk goblin?”

I shook my head.

“Hah! Who dumb now?”

Okay, she had a point and I’d clearly hurt her by underestimating her.

“I get it,” I said. “You think I’ve been letting how you talk influence how smart I think you are.”

She nodded.

I nodded back. “Maybe — and I’m sorry…”

Grimelia’s hands tightened on my thighs, digging sharp nails in even through my pajama bottoms, distressingly close to something that had made itself a much bigger target due to the pair of green breasts resting on my thighs.

“Master dare say ‘but.’”

I cleared my throat, swallowing the “but” I was about to utter.

“Grimelia, I think you’re beautiful, and sexy, and … a little scary.”

“Fear good,” she said, nodding. “Make blood pump.” She glanced at my crotch. “Fast blood make big.”

I glanced down too and, sure enough, my dick was sticking straight up, straining at the fabric of my pajama bottoms. I didn’t even try to make it stop — that ship sailed when I turned around and saw the goblin’s ass in the air waiting for me.

“I’m not someone who jumps into this sort of thing, though.” No matter what my dick thought about it. “I like to get to know someone … really well first.” The little goblin took a deep breath, but I cut her off before she could start another tirade. “And I’m worried about why you want this — I mean, you’ve been through a lot. First your whole tribe was killed and then you’re captured by those four assholes who drag you around with them — God knows what they did to you, and all of that’s pretty traumatic, so —”

In that moment, I was not expecting to be laughed at, but that’s what I got.

Grimelia backed away from me, laughing, pointing at me with one hand and the other clutching at her belly as though the laughter was causing her physical pain. She backed up farther, then sank down to the floor and the little brat actually started rolling around, laughing and clutching her stomach.

Naked. Boobs rocking back and forth and jiggling. Legs lifted up to expose herself to me again, and my first glimpse of what was between her legs had been absolutely correct. The inside of the goblin’s pussy was bright pink, like a target painted on her green skin.

“You … Master think…” she laughed, then dissolved into another fit of laugher.

Finally the laughter faded, but Grimelia wasn’t done with me.

She spun herself on the floor so that her legs pointed right at me, then spread them wide and used her fingers to spread her lower lips even wider, showing me a deep, pink, dripping tunnel that, if it hadn’t been for the need to get back to Heather, I might have given in and taken a dive at.

“You think those…” She growled something in goblin. “You think they touch this? Ha! No one touch this — ever! Master be first.” She stroked the sides of her pussy slowly and smiled at me with heavily lidded eyes. “Master want now?”

Fuck, yes, I did, but I fought that down.

“I thought you said you were a clan chief’s wife?”

She snorted while continuing to stroke the edges of her pussy. “Clan chief old. Have … three and four wives? Never get to me. Good. Other wives say he small and quick. Pump, pump, done.”

“The chief had seven wives?” That sounded like a lot more work than it would be worth, honestly.

Grimelia shook her head and held up fingers. “Three and four.”

“Seven,” I said.

“Three.” She held her hands next to each other. “And four.”

I blinked. “Thirty-four?”

Grimelia shrugged “Three tens and four.”

Yep, too much work.

“And even though those four other goblins had you captive, they never, you know…”

“Ha! Them. They know they try that, I work hard get loose, catch in sleep, bite off cock and spit in fire.”

I cringed, making a mental note never to piss the little goblin off.

I also started to wonder if all the reasons in my head for not just bending the green brat over something and showing her I wasn’t pump-pump-done were probably moot. She wasn’t stupid or a child who didn’t know her own mind; she didn’t seem to be offering it as some sort of reward for me saving her; she clearly wasn’t traumatized or something by what she’d gone through; and I didn’t even think the whole “Master” thing had much to do with it, especially since I’d given her more than enough outs to stop calling me that and realize I was serious. Maybe later.

Right now, I thought I’d had enough to eat, had rested enough for the walk back to the manor, and it was time to find a fucking ax. Then lose the cop I was sure was still watching and skip town.

“[3] I can’t right now. Someone I care about might be in danger — we needed to eat and rest, and put the guards off, but now I have to get some tools and get back to … where I came from to make sure she’s alright.”

Grimelia sat up, sobering quickly. “Tribe in danger?”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking about it, “she’s my tribe, I guess.”

[4] The goblin scrambled to her feet, suddenly all business. She quickly pulled on her shirt and tied the rope tight around her waist to keep it in place, then scooped the rest of the silver trinkets she’d laid out into our sack and gave me an irritated look.

“Why dumb Master not say? Master tribe my tribe. Save tribe first, fuck later.”

Chapter

As we went down the stairs, I explained to Grimelia that I needed to buy a couple axes and then hurry back up toward the mountains to chop down a door.

I don’t think she believed me.

“Why? If tribe on other side door, they open?”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “I’ll explain on the way, once we get out of town.”

The goblin nodded and we were halfway across the inn’s common room before I felt someone approach. I started to turn, but a guy still got between me and Grimelia, leaving me staring at a very broad back, because the dude had to be at least seven feet tall.

“Hey, now,” he said, looking down at the goblin. “Haven’t had a green piece in a while — ready for another?”

I edged around him, putting myself between him and Grimelia.

“She’s with me, buddy,” I said.

“You had your turn,” he said, not bothering to look at me. “How much green-piece? Ten, fifteen pennies?”

Grimelia snarled and I wasn’t sure if it was at the notion she’d sell herself, or at the ridiculously low price.

I wanted to snarl, too, but fixed a smile on my face because we didn’t need any trouble — I just wanted to find someone who sold axes.

“I said, she’s with me,” I repeated, holding up a hand. “We’re just on our way out.”

Charm Attempt

Base — 15

Drunken Resistance — -5

Saving Throw Successful, Attempt Fails

Fucking Charm score.

“Piss off,” the guy said, giving off a wave of ale-breath knocking my hand away with one of his and shoving my shoulder with the other.

I let him push me away, ready to jump back in if he tried to touch Grimelia, and gave it one last shot, as overly polite as I could manage to pierce his drunken haze.

“Sir, she’s not working,” I said, “we’re just passing through — how about I buy you a drink?”

Charm Attempt

Base — 15

Second Attempt — -5

Drunken Resistance — -5

Target Irritation — -5

Alcohol Induced Misunderstanding — -25

Critical Failure

What the fuck?

The big guy’s face slowly turned to look at me at the same time his brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed, and his lip curled up in a snarl.

Oh … fuck.

“You want to buy me a drink? What are you saying?” He poked me in the chest. “You think you’re my type? Huh? Do you?”

“What? No!”

“Oh, so now you’re too good for me, you little shit!”

His arm came up in a wide sweep to shove me away.

I pivoted with the shove, letting the momentum turn me, then side-stepped and rotated to put myself behind him where I could drive a shin into the back of his knees. I circled back to stand in front of Grimelia as the guy went down.

“Let’s just go our separate ways,” I suggested, knowing it wasn’t going to happen but I had to try to deescalate anyway.

Okay, knocking him down wasn’t really deescalating, but I was getting pretty sick of assholes.

As expected, the guy just snarled at me and started to get up, getting one foot under him and putting his hands on his knee to help, which is exactly what I wanted — in fact, it was so perfect, I couldn’t have positioned him better if I’d tried.

As he started to stand, I made a quick strike from both sides, catching his elbows where they were flexed outward and hitting his ulnar nerves.

The guy let out sharp cry of pain and pitched forward as the arms he was using to push himself up suddenly went numb and slipped off his leg. I grabbed one of his useless arms and changed to a position behind him, pulling and twisting the arm to come with me and establish pressure on his shoulder to force him further to the floor until he was face down.

The guy was so big I had a moment’s worry he might be able to just shake me off, but it turned out I did have enough leverage to keep him down.

“Look,” I said, really just wanting to get Grimelia and myself out of there so we could get on with our own business. “Let’s take a step back and —”

Someone tackled me from behind and by the time I rolled and regained my feet, the place had devolved into a full-on bar fight.