The sun beat down on my face as I stepped into the clearing. It felt invigorating after the cool shade of the trees. Still, I was on guard. The hairs along the back of my neck stood at attention as the feeling of being watched overtook me. It didn’t help that I received a bounty notice a heartbeat later.

>>

Bounty

Fairy Ring: You have uncovered a Fairy Ring—a thin point between the Material Realm and the Faewylds. Such places are fiercely protected and kept open by Fae magics. Eliminate the creatures that call the ring home and close the portal in so doing.

Reward: +250 Essence

>>

I closed the prompt and licked my lips, muscles tensing in anticipation as I surveyed the grassy clearing, searching for any sign of threat. I didn’t need the bounty notice to tell me there was something here.

I could feel it in my gut, and I’d come to trust that instinct thanks to my time in the Sandbox. There was a heaviness that often lingered in the air, as though the other shoe was about to drop at any second. I’d felt this same way right before I saw my first insurgent IED rip an Explosives Ordnance tech to pieces in a flash of light and fury and sound. I’d felt it again before an ambush just east of Ramadi that had cost us a fresh-faced lance corporal who’d been in-country all of three days. It was a primal instinct, tied to survival, and it had saved my ass more times than I could count on two hands.

“I don’t like this,” Cal said from beside me, turning in a slow circle as he scanned the area. “I can see shapes moving in the grass. Super faint, though. Almost like ghosts. Or shadows. Could be, they’re on the other side of the Etheric Divide.”

With rock-steady nerves, I pulled the Colt from my waistband and slipped the K-Bar into my off hand, reversing the grip so the blade ran down the outside of my forearm.

“Thanks for the heads-up. Keep your head on a swivel,” I said. “Watch my six.”

“Always,” he said.

The grass was high, up past my knees, and bursting with patches of vibrant wildflowers—a riot of blues and yellows and pinks and purples. Another brisk wind swept in from the east, sighing through the oak leaves, ruffling the grass, and bearing the sound of a faint giggle. Assuming giggles could be described as the malicious tinkle of bells. Or breaking glass. The noise set my teeth on edge and my paranoia ramped up from a ten to a twelve. I crouched, letting my eyes go slightly out of focus. A counterintuitive move, but by not focusing on anything in particular, it allowed me to be more aware of the movement all around me.

The grass was swaying more now, as though some unseen thing was moving through the knee-high blades of green. Arturo had said that as a Vigil I had access to more than the five senses I was accustomed to. That there was something more. Just as I’d let my eyes go slightly out of focus, I let my mind relax, my thoughts becoming hazy as I opened my senses further, pushing my awareness out and away from my body.

Seconds later, the flowers clamored and clanged like a thousand church bells from a thousand steeples, all of them pressing in on me at the same time. The daffodils rang out first, filling my mouth with copper and caramel and hope. Then came the bluebells, which tasted like pewter and lingonberries and faith. The cosmos, both pink and purple, danced in the wind and trilled in high voices, which were a mix of gold and trust and cotton candy. Beneath them all, the grasses struck chord after chord: danger, villainy, death. The sensations wove together into a tapestry of taste and sound and smell and meaning.

It made it hard to think, to see, to tell up from down and left from right.

Golden script, in the language of the divine, momentarily swam across my vision like a mirage.

[Cursed! You have been afflicted by the Glamor of the Grass. Potent magics work upon the mind, disorienting foes with sights, sounds, and scents not of this world. Suffer under the curse until the caster is slain or you leave the Area of Influence.]

The words barely registered, what with the barrage of sensory information relentlessly pummeling me like fists. I reeled under the onslaught, swaying drunkenly.

“What the hell have you gotten me into, asshole!” I yelled over one shoulder, hands tightening reflexively around my weapons.

Arturo took a swig from his flask. “If you took out a cave full of Crave Ghouls you should be fine. Probably.” He slipped a hand into his sleeve and pulled out a glossy apple. He took a huge bite as he reclined against a towering oak. “Grass Hounds aren’t much tougher than that lot—more plentiful, though. First time around, just try to survive. They’ll send a scout. To see if you’re edible. They like a tasty treat.”

He’d thrown so many names at me I had to race through my catalogue of new words to find the reference to Grass Hounds. I was a Vigil, aka superhero defender of the people type. He was an Arbitrator, which meant he was some kind of trainer priest, though he hadn’t done much actual training so far. I’d killed a bunch of Crave Ghouls in a cave, and there was an Elder Changeling on the loose, picking off the people of Ironmoor.

There had been no mention of Grass Hounds.

“And what exactly is a Grass Hound, huh? Seems like that might’ve been a good piece of info before you brought me in here to die. What should I be looking f—”

“On your right, Boyd,” Cal said, interrupting me.

The tinkling laughter came again, closer this time, like a hot breath brushing against my cheek. A trickle of energy rushed out of my chest and down my legs as my blue Arcana bar appeared in the corner of my eye. That energy spread into the ground and out in a ring with me at its center. In the blink of an eye, every one of my senses was immediately on high alert. Barely perceptible vibrations sprinted across the ground and back up into my body, carrying a whole slew of new information.

One enemy. Two o’clock position. Approximately eighty pounds and moving on all fours.

This had to be part of my newly unlocked Combat Sense Ability.

I wheeled around, Colt outstretched, searching the patch of grass. I knew there was something there, something waiting for me, but I couldn’t see a damned thing. Was it possible these Grass Hounds were invisible? I’d seen some weird shit since waking up in that Crave Ghoul Cave, so I couldn’t dismiss that as an option.

I paused, squinted.

Straight ahead was a patch of grass and flowers moving ever so subtly out of time with the rest of the swaying meadow. The grass parted a moment later, revealing a squat creature built like a bulldog straight from the pits of hell. Scaly green flesh ran over hulking muscles, and its ebony black talons were long enough to make me reconsider every life choice I’d ever made. Its face was squat and broad, like a toad, with beady black eyes and an impossibly wide mouth filled with rows and rows of jagged shark teeth. Jutting from its back was a veritable garden of grass and colorful flowers—the perfect camouflage for this terrain.

“Awwww, it’s kinda cute. It looks like a meth-head Bulbasaur,” Cal whispered, followed by a soft, “Gotta catch ’em all.”

“Not helping,” I growled.

The creature snarled and crouched, claws flexing, muscles bunching in preparation. It shot forward but I was ready.

My newly activated Combat Sense alerted me the second it lurched forward, and I sidestepped just out of its path and raised the Colt, finger squeezing the trigger. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, I repeated in my head. But the little horror show moved with uncanny speed and agility, bolting right, deftly avoiding my shots, which ploughed harmlessly into the ground, kicking up puffs of dirt.

“It was two feet away,” Cal said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “How do you miss from two feet away? I thought you qualified as a pistol expert?”

“I did qualify as an expert,” I muttered, “but I’ve never seen a terrorist move like that.” I tried tracking the hell beast, but it was just so damned fast.

Four feet away, the creature stopped on a dime and abruptly leapt toward me, a ropy tongue exploding from its mouth and wrapping around my neck before I could dodge the lightning-fast attack. Its tongue was barbed and coated in something that burned to the touch. The Grass Hound also hit like a sack of bricks; I went down hard, the mutated Bulbasaur riding me to the ground like an NFL linebacker. My right hand slammed against a rock on impact, and my Colt slipped from my grasp, disappearing in the tall grasses around me.

Well crap.

Instantly, the skin along my throat broke out in hives, which blew up into blisters the size of marbles.

[Poisoned! You have been afflicted by Grass Hound Venom. Grass Hound Venom causes painful boils, slowly dealing health damage over time. With every boil that bursts, one additional round of Grass Hound Venom is applied to the victim. Duration, 1 hour or until healed of Affliction.]

One of the boils popped and the Grass Hound feasted on my pain as more blisters appeared along my tender flesh. I bucked my hips, trying to throw the creature off, but it was heavier than it looked and barely budged an inch. Black crept in on the edges of my vision as the tongue continued to constrict tighter and tighter, stealing the air from my lungs.

“Nope. I am not going to get eaten by a friggin’ Pokémon!” I grunted, red faced, fighting for consciousness.

With a roar, I twisted my body and brought my arm up, slashing through the tongue with the reverse edge of my K-Bar.

The steel was sharper than I remembered, severing the appendage with ease. The creature reared back, squealing like a piglet, spraying me with rancid blood that raised more welts when it touched bare skin. I focused my will, honing it to a razor’s edge, and drew from the Arcana Pool within me, shaping the energy into a lance of raw force. I slammed my palm against the creature’s momentarily exposed chest and unleashed a wave of power that exploded outward.

My Arcana bar appeared with a flash and drained just as fast, but I didn’t care.

The Kinetic Blast swatted away the Grass Hound like an annoying fly. It flipped through the air and landed in a heap five feet away, dazed but not dead. With a groan, I scrambled to my feet and dropped low as the creature flipped onto its belly and reoriented itself.

The little shithead was as tough as old boot leather.

It charged again, pouncing at the last moment, but my Combat Sense flared, alerting me before the Grass Hound sacked me for a second time. I pivoted, twisted, and slammed my elbow down onto its skull with a thunderous crunch, pile driving its gross, slimy ass into the ground, before shish-kabobbing it through the head with my K-Bar. It let out a final groaning croak then fell still, a golden mist wafting up, just like the Crave Ghouls from the cave.

[You have killed a Grass Hound! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 63 Essence!]

I bent over and sucked in the mist, feeling the raw skin around my neck heal, knitting itself back together. I watched in mute fascination as new skin crawled across the blistered acid burns the Hound’s slime had driven into the back of my hands. In less time than it took me to wipe my blade in the tall grass, I was whole again.

Being a Vigil might not have been all fun and games, but it sure as hell had its perks.

“What the shit, douchebag?” I called over to Arturo. “That thing coulda killed me.”

He perked up and rolled his eyes. “Let me remind you, honored Vigil, that you were the one who was so excited to get training. Besides, you are a Vigil. If you died battling a mostly harmless Grass Hound, I’m doing you a mercy. The Elder Changeling will break you like a twig and savor every moment of it. Now, if I were in your boots, I’d focus less on the friendly Arbitrator who so helpfully brought you here and more on the other Grass Hounds that are no doubt inbound.” He cocked an eyebrow and shrugged. “Like I said, that was a scout and you just fought the first skirmish. You invaded their fairy ring”—he nodded to the circle of trees—“and they won’t be well pleased that you’re still here.”

“Don’t listen to him, Boyd,” Cal said. “You’re doing awesome. That Energy Blast thing? Badass squared. You got this, dude.” He gave me a thumbs-up like a doofus.

“Thanks for the encouraging words,” I said, turning slowly, “but what I really need is help. Don’t suppose you have any special skills you’ve been waiting to show off?”

“Sorry, broham. Still too weak to do anything really useful, other than offer moral support. Give me some more of those Hunger Scales, though, and it might be a different story.”

“Yeah, I don’t think now is the time or place for that,” I replied. “I already have enough monsters to deal with—I don’t want to risk feeding you a bunch of those things, only to have you try to eat me too. This is a baby steps sort of process, I’m thinking.”

“You asked,” Cal said. “Now get your head back in the game. We’ve got more targets incoming.”

I heard the tinkling laughter of breaking glass. Lots of it. I still had my knife in hand, and the burst of juice from the last kill had replenished my Arcana Pool, but at my current level Kinetic Blast was a one-shot ability and it didn’t pack enough punch to kill these things. What I needed was my pistol. Head shots. Lots of head shots.

Except my Colt was nowhere to be seen.

The second frog-faced monster launched itself at me out of nowhere.

I braced myself for impact. No way it was going to take me out at the knees like the last one had. The Grass Hound used its tongue like a kind of spring; it licked the ground in front of me then catapulted over my head.

It was trying to get behind me. Not gonna happen.

I raised my right hand and let loose with another Kinetic Blast, draining my Arcana Pool as the energy bitch-slapped the ever-living shit out of the monster. It yelped as it flipped and fell, slamming into the ground like a falling star. The hair on the back of my neck shot up, and I spun just in time to intercept a third Grass Hound. It charged from behind me, its spiked tongue wrapping around one of my legs, the poisoned barbs cutting through the fabric of my pants and applying a new instance of Grass Hound Venom.

I didn’t have a health bar to look at, but I could feel the toxin working through my veins, slowing down my reaction speeds and making me weak in the knees. The world swam in and out of focus and the taste of pewter assaulted me—another attack, this one meant to overwhelm my mind while the creature overwhelmed my body. Thankfully, all the Essence I’d siphoned off the first Grass Hound had given me the strength of an enraged drill instructor hopped up on Red Bull and a kilo of cocaine.

I gritted my teeth and drove my foot straight back in a brutal mule kick, bootheel catching the creature in its underbelly. It recoiled with a reptilian hiss, its flower petals shaking in agitation. While it was distracted, I slammed my K-bar into the tongue coiled around my waist, though I had to pull back before I shanked myself in the kidney by accident.

Thinking fast, I grabbed the first Grass Hound I’d killed and snapped off one of its spikes using my enhanced Brawn. It was shorter than my blade but no less sharp—a weapon of opportunity if I’d ever seen one. I hacked at the tongue around my waist until I’d sawn right through it, then, while the creature was still coughing and spluttering and choking on its own blood, I yanked it off me, hurled it to the ground, and beat it to a pulp with the spiked back of its dead comrade.

[You have killed a Grass Hound! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 63 Essence!]

More golden mist filled my lungs with power and life, healing my wounds and restoring my Arcana, but the second Grass Hound was back on its clawed feet and Cal was waving his arms like an idiot—screaming at the top of his lungs about two more of the creatures entering the ring. If I was going to survive, I needed my Colt. Needed it more than I’d ever needed anything else in the world. Something wispy tugged at the back of my mind, driven by my bone-deep desire to survive. It felt like walking through a strand of spider silk—but this strand of spider silk led away from me.

Off to the right and into the grass.

I tugged at the strand like an intangible fishing line and an instant later the reliable 1911 appeared in my hand.

Interestingly, the action didn’t even cause my Arcana gauge to dip. Not so much as a hair. It seemed summoning my weapons was a free action—likely part of the boon granted to me by Raguel. The pistol grip felt reassuring in my palm. Not in the old way, which was some mix of familiarity and confidence, but more like I was utilizing a well-trained set of muscles. That Colt 1911 didn’t simply belong in my hand, it was part of my hand. I was the weapon. One with the mystic bullets waiting to be sent downrange.

Another attack came fast, but I was oil gliding over water. I leveled my Colt in a smooth motion as the grass parted and another one of the creatures hurled itself at me, shark teeth flashing. Time slowed minutely, giving me just enough time to breathe, to aim. I pulled the trigger and activated Maximum Penetration with an effort of will. A green gauge appeared in the corner of my eye this time. Power rolled out of me, not from the center of my chest where my Arcana Pool resided, but from every fiber in every muscle all at once.

My body constricted and the gun kicked in my hand, the recoil enough to knock me back a step. The green Stamina gauge dipped by a third as a trio of rounds tore into the lumpy shit’s face in quick succession. The creature’s head vanished, transformed by the passing rounds into a cloud of rancid mist. The Colt 1911 is a big ol’ handgun with some serious stopping power, but not that kind of stopping power. Maximum Penetration was my new best friend. Hell, who am I kidding? Maximum Penetration was always my best friend, though those words had never been quite so literal.

[You have killed a Grass Hound! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 63 Essence!]

It wasn’t just the power of the kill filling me up, though; the Hungry Scales that powered my rounds also siphoned off a bit of life, funneling it through the Colt and into my hand, helping to heal my wounds. The raw edge of ravenous hunger invaded my stomach and the desire to kill intensified, though the impulse wasn’t as powerful as when I’d consumed the Affinity Scale directly. This was a pale shadow compared against the real thing, but it still felt mighty good.

“Alright,” I said, turning toward another patch of rustling grass. “I’ve got your number now. Let’s dance, you miserably, ugly sons of bitches…”