Ryan approached the town at a steady, ground eating pace. He had long since lost sight of Mags, who used her abilities to outstrip his meager level of endurance.

Calling it a town was generous. Arkol was a village that served the farming community in the surrounding lands, which held around 2000 people spread over the countryside. Despite that, the village was clean and well kept; the villagers taking pride not just in their ability to survive, but also their home and surroundings.

Ryan heard a commotion to the north of town, which differed from what the bell had signaled. What he didn’t hear were the sounds of fighting. The lack of battle noise piqued his curiosity, and he picked up his pace. He crossed the bridge over the small river on the south side of the village and made for the south gate.

Ryan jerked to a stop a few paces away from the gate, a flicker of movement in the shadows at the base of the wall catching his attention. He strained his eyes, searching the shadows for whatever had tipped him off. A sense of foreboding overcame him as he spotted a blotch of black deeper than the shadows itself, and he took a quick step toward the nearby gate.

A half-wail, half-snarl froze Ryan on the spot. The shadowy blotch exploded from the wall and rushed toward him. The creature ripped through the low weeds dotting the earth between them, its claws throwing up loose dirt in its wake. Ryan clenched the spear in his hands in a death grip as recent memories flooded his mind with images of a similar attack on Mags’ farm.

He threw himself toward the open gate centimeters before the beast’s leap would have taken him in the chest. Shaking from adrenaline, Ryan regained his feet and looked into the village, searching for anyone nearby. He didn’t see a single person. With a grim face, he clenched the spear in his hands in a death grip and turned to confront his attacker. The dog-sized creature, all bristling black fur, glinting fangs, and long claws, was turning back toward him for another charge.

Ryan looked at the spear in his hands and remembered its purpose. He brought the head of the spear between him and the beast, the iron tip catching the light from the Script lanterns hung around the gate. He held the spear in a waist high grip, hand spread along the haft, spear head tracking the beast’s approach.

Ryan took the first step forward to thrust the spear at the incoming storm of teeth and claws. Before he landed his decisive blow, he caught more movement from the same spot along the wall. Another creature, almost identical to the first, charged out of the shadows toward him.

Ryan’s heart clenched. Panicked, eyes wide in fear, he took a stumbling step back and to the side, all thoughts of offense or defense scattered from his mind as he tried to escape the intersecting charges of both beasts. An excruciating line of fire raced up his leg to his hip as the closest creature’s claw ripped a bloody trail through his trousers. He let out an involuntary scream, the sudden pain driving his fear to new heights.

The new arrival careened past, taking a small tumble through the empty space that Ryan’s stumble left behind. As the creature’s momentum carried it past him, Ryan turned toward it and rushed in. His movements were jerky and uncoordinated. With strength born of adrenaline and fear, Ryan drove the tip of the spear through the beast’s neck and into the ground behind it. Ryan lost control of the spear and tripped over the bucking body of the beast in front of him and sprawled chest first to the ground.

Ryan struggled to his hands and knees, desperately searching for the first assailant. He spotted it making a wide turn to come back at him, its claws ripping up chunks of dirt behind it. Managing to regain his feet, he tried to jerk the spear free, but it wouldn’t budge. It was further complicated by the thrashing of the creature it impaled, the jerky movements threatening to throw his grip from the spear altogether.

The first beast was working itself up to a full charge, claws scraping furrows into the ground as it gained speed. Ryan moved around so the spear and the beast it impaled were between him and the final opponent. The approaching beast slowed its charge and tried to circle around to get a better angle.

Ryan finally yanked out the spear. He turned toward the beast as it came around its partner’s body, holding the spear in a high overhand grip. Without technique or tactics, and thoughts of survival filling his mind, he clubbed the creature over the head with the haft of the spear. The beast collapsed to the ground, dazed, but Ryan didn’t give it a chance to regain its feet as he bludgeoned it repeatedly until it stopped moving. Ryan took a step back, clutching the spear like a tree branch, and examined the monster. Its skull was misshapen from the consecutive blows. There was no coming back from that.

He dropped the spear to the ground and his knees followed. Ryan heaved, his lungs trying to take in more air than his body allowed in his exhausted state. Tears streamed down his face from the slowly fading adrenaline and panic. He planted his hands on the ground to steady himself, his body trembling from the aftereffects of the battle. The gritty dirt of the road on his hands helped to ground him amidst the mixed scent of churned up earth and blood.

Ryan exploded into laughter, a hint of mania creeping into his voice. He laughed louder and louder until he once again struggled for breath. These creatures were the same as the one that attacked him on the farm so many months ago. The drugged up badgers. The Meth Badgers. They attacked like crazed junkies. He’d inadvertently taken revenge and now he sat in the dirt, unsatisfied by his narrow victory. He sat ruminating on the philosophy of vengeance until the sound of pounding footsteps knocked him out of his thoughts.

Mags and two armed villagers charged through the gate and came to an abrupt stop at the sight of Ryan kneeling in the dirt among the dead meth badgers. She gave a cursory glance at the dead creatures, but her attention was caught by the laceration on his upper leg that leaked blood.

She turned to one of the villagers and said, “Go and fetch Lila.”

The villager, a young man with a truncheon, sprinted back into the village.

“I didn’t remember anything. Nothing.” Ryan said, a hitch in his voice from leftover emotions. Ryan got to his feet. He favored his injured leg as he tried not to jostle it too much. “All that training we did, the technique, it all just flew out of my head and I panicked like an idiot.”

Mags nodded and gave him a once-over. Satisfied with whatever she saw, she clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Do you think everybody just strides calmly into their first battle and everything goes exactly as planned? You’re alive. They’re dead. Mission accomplished. The rest is just a matter of exposure and practice.”

She looked at the remaining villager and asked for his belt knife. He took out a belt knife, flipped it in his hand, and held it out to Ryan hilt first. Ryan looked at it in confusion for a second before taking it. It was an average belt knife, nothing special about it he could see.

“What do I do with this?” he asked.

“You’ve been frothing at the mouth to get out there to slay monsters, and you can’t even remember why?” Mags asked, her face a mask of exaggerated confusion. The expression melted away to reveal her typical stern features. She pointed at the corpses. “Go check for Keys you dullard.”

Stunned at his own idiocy, Ryan surged to his feet and threw a sheepish look at Mags. He limped over to the corpses to get the grisly task over with. He cut open the chest cavity of the first and thrust his hand into the area around the heart. He gagged. The body was warm and his hand was encased in viscera. Powering through his disgust, he searched.

Nothing. Disappointed, he conducted the same grisly ritual on the second body, with the same result. Disheartened, Ryan stood up and stretched his back. He looked at Mags and shook his head.

Looking past Mags through the gate, he saw the villager return with a middle aged woman with black hair and plump features. She was wearing a comfortable looking robe the color of tree moss. He could see long strips of stiff material along the seams covered in Rune Script, no doubt something to protect against wear and tear or the elements.

“This is Lila. She’s going to speed the initial healing of your leg to stop the bleeding,” said Mags.

Lila nodded a polite greeting to everybody and looked down at Ryan’s leg. After a second, she reached down and moved the shredded cloth out of the way for a better look.

“This ain’t too bad. It could’ve been much worse. Those critters have claws just like a barber’s razor.”

Ryan yelped and half-jumped in surprise. Before he could pull his leg away, the muscles and the skin around the wound writhed and squirmed. The movement in his leg calmed and instead started to itch. The itch grew swiftly and to such an extent that he tried to reach into the wound itself to try to scratch it. Lila swatted his arm with her unoccupied hand, and he did his best to control himself.

As abruptly as the itch started, it faded. Ryan sighed in relief, looking at a wound that appeared like it had gone through days of healing. It wasn’t perfectly healed by any means, but it would do for enabling his day-to-day activities. He looked at Lila and gave her a dazzling smile.

“Thank you! That was intense.”

She smiled in return and said, “It weren’t no thing. You best be thinkin’ about gettin’ yerself some food soon though. Healing ain’t free. Yer body is gonna be lookin’ to get some energy quick-like.”

Lila turned to Mags and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder and made her way into the village, followed by the two villagers that had accompanied Mags.

Ryan looked at the corpses and said, “I’ve been calling these things meth badgers in my head. What are they really called?”

“What’s meth?”

Ryan snorted at his obvious oversight. He took a second to explain a few things from his old life.

Mags laughed, showing a rare and genuine smile.

“That’s apt. They’re called Onslaught Badgers and they attack pretty much everything they see. Onslaught Badgers only come from Breaches because they’re so irrationally aggressive that everything in this world just eliminates them on sight, and they can’t establish a foothold here.”

She started walking through the gate toward the north of the village and beckoned Ryan to follow. Ryan hurriedly picked up his fallen spear and followed after her.

“The village elder corralled the pack of badgers that were approaching the village, attacking some of the animals kept close to the walls. The two you fought were some that he missed.” She stopped and looked back at him with a serious expression. “It’s my fault you found yourself in this situation. I shouldn’t have left you behind. I apologize.”

Caught off guard, Ryan couldn’t respond. Mags turned and continued walking, matching his pace. He continued in silence for a few minutes, considering the events of the night. Finally, he turned to her.

“If I want to survive here, I can’t depend on you forever. I have to learn how to take care of myself. I can’t blame you for my own failings. That being said, all I can do is work to get better and rely on you to let me know when you think I’m capable.”

Mags nodded and said, “You’re mostly there. Tonight proved it, whether you believe it or not. You have some things to work on, that’s all.”

Ryan nodded, even though he found it hard to accept in his heart. They continued walking, approaching the north gate. It was lit up by a combination of Script lanterns and torches held by the villagers. They came within sight of a crowd of villagers milling about around a pen made from thin interlaced vines outside the gate, which contained the group of bad tempered badgers.

Mags turned and said, “You were supposed to be given a chance here. The village head is giving them to the young ones to kill for training and an opportunity for Keys. It’s too late for that though, you’ve already had your own opportunity and your body needs to recuperate. You should find a spot and watch these young ones in their battles.”

Ryan settled down onto the ground at the edge of the crowd, with an unobstructed view of the space cleared next to the wall where a few Onslaught Badger corpses were already laid out. A short distance away, a young man of 15 or 16 years, with close-cropped brown hair and sharp features, was hopping up and down trying to warm up his muscles. He carried a flat sided wooden club, with a forward facing curved edge lined with thin iron blades embedded lengthwise into the wood. It looked deceptively harmless, but Ryan had seen men in the training field wreak utter devastation with the thing.

The youth looked up at Jensum, the village head who was standing at the enclosure maintaining the barrier, and gave a curt nod showing he was ready for his first badger. Jensum looked back into the pack of badgers and selected a candidate. With a casual wave of his hand, a vine as thick as his wrist quickly sprouted and wrapped its victim into immobility. Jensum directed the vine over to the waiting youth and dumped the badger like a pile of dirty laundry a dozen spans in front of him.

The crazed badger wasted no time and sprang like a coiled snake straight for the boy. He stood frozen, shocked by the unexpected speed of the beast. It approached like it was fired from a slingshot, clawed feet churning up the dirt, wicked teeth glinting in the lights held by the villagers. Right before the beast sprang for his throat, his training and instincts kicked in.

As the beast sprang up toward him, the boy lifted his flat-bladed cudgel in an underhanded swing containing all the strength he could muster. The blades along the curved edge caught the beast mid-chest and carved a path of devastation through fur, muscle, and bone. The boy followed through with all of his gathered momentum, standing on the tips of his toes on one booted foot, his arm and club extended up toward the stars. Droplets of blood flew into the air as the beast was forced back and up from the power of the swing, to land in a bloody heap.

The teenager settled onto both feet, bent over with hands on his hip, lungs heaving and trying to regain his composure. He looked over to the dead Onslaught Badger lying a short distance away and appeared to regain his lost confidence.

Ryan looked around at the crowd and didn’t see any surprise on their faces at the result of the brief fight. A few of them let out calls of encouragement as the boy arrived at the corpse. Ryan didn’t call out, but he tried to send silent encouragement his way.

The youth bent down to and applied himself to the same task that Ryan had experienced minutes before. He looked up at the village head with a look of disappointment. There was a low murmur from the crowd, all of them feeling disappointment on his behalf.

He had another opportunity, though. He stood up, assumed a ready position and signaled the village head for the next beast. The second fight was smoother. Fully ready, the youth ended the fight with a well timed overhand chop to the beast’s neck as he let its charge blow past him. He once again dug in the badger’s chest cavity. The youth stood up, despondent, and shook his head. He shuffled toward the crowd, head hanging, and took a seat along the edge.

The next fights proceeded the same way. A wiry teenage girl with braided long black hair appeared to be the de facto leader of the group of teenagers. She pointed out the next participants. Disappointing to everyone, none of them found a key among the remains of the beasts.

Last to go was the girl herself. She held a dagger in each hand. Ryan tried to get a close look at her weapons as she walked into the cleared space. These weren’t fancy bladed weapons. They were made for punching through armor. Ryan couldn’t help but be impressed.

She made quick work of the first beast. It was a masterclass of precision and timing. The beast laid at her feet, a puncture wound penetrating through its throat into the brain. She took out another knife and got to work exploring for a Key, coming up empty. The second fight was almost an exact duplicate of the first. As she was digging around in the second beast’s chest, she tensed up and made a small sound of excitement.

She stood up, holding her bloody hand up in the air. In it she held a shiny orb the size of a golf ball, reflecting the low light and glinting in hues of deep yellow and gold. A Body Key. She thrust her clenched fist into the air and the crowd responded with excited hoots and shouts of congratulations. A single Key wouldn’t make her instantly powerful, but it would benefit her and the village a great deal.

The excitement died down until the villagers, giving her their congratulations, dispersed one by one to their homes. After a while, Mags came and gathered up Ryan on her way through the gate.

Ryan remained silent the whole way to the farm. It was apparent from watching the teenagers fight how much they outmatched him in experience, even without any Keys. He thought about what he needed to do, how he needed to train harder. As much as he enjoyed living with Mags and how grateful he was for her patience, he couldn’t stay in the village. He needed to make his own way.