I slept through the night, and was impressed with the health regen thing when I woke up and wasn’t even sore. I took a drink from my waterskin and popped a chunk of smoked meat from the night before in my mouth before I got up to go take a piss. I stepped over sleeping people and into the light gray of dawn. Most of the campfires had gone out, and as I walked out into the woods I noticed folks hadn’t been too particular about where they’d done their business.

“That’s fucking disgusting.”

It wasn’t just gross I thought as I moved further from camp to find a likely looking tree. Lack of field sanitation was a good way to spread disease, and even if that weren’t an issue here, it would surely draw monsters. I finished what I had to do, and cussed myself a little for not being smart enough to buy toilet paper from the XP shop. That little incident decided me. I was going to go back to camp, round up some backup and go kill some shit so I could afford to go shopping.

Back at our rustic tenament, I still couldn’t get over the ridiculous name, it was kind of dark inside and I had trouble sorting out who was who. Eventually my eyes adjusted and I figured out Tim had already left. I looked for Debbie instead. Her dress had ridden up in the night and the sight of her butt was distracting enough I reconsidered and kicked Hunter’s foot instead. The last thing I needed was heading back into the bush with an attractive woman when I needed to be focused on the trail. Hunter was sleeping with his arm around Jeri, but woke up after I nudged him with my toe a couple of times.

“Wake up, man. I got coffee.”

“Really?”

“Shit no, but I got water. Help me finish it off and then we’ll go refill it, maybe kill some stuff.”

“Okay, give me a minute, Jack.”

He had a quick muttered conversation with Jeri when he got up to leave. I caught the words ‘that asshole Jack’ so apparently he was filling her in on our itinerary. I followed him outside and he staggered off to the treeline before coming back and accepting the piece of jerky I held out as a peace offering. He didn’t have much to say. I’m guessing he wasn’t a morning person. He did mention he wanted to spend some XP from yesterday and I followed him to the door.

“Don’t forget to buy TP.”

He gave me a funny look when I said that and I just shrugged at him. He came back out a few minutes later with a whole new look. Instead of just cargo shorts, now he was wearing a photographers jacket covered in pockets and canvas sneakers. It was a skater dude meets safari guide kind of look, but the 7 foot long spear he was carrying just put it over the top.

“You know how to use a spear?”

“Pointy end goes towards the monster, man. I can’t shoot a bow, and I don’t want anything close enough to use a knife. I figured a spear was the best bet.”

I just shook my head at him and warned, “I end up getting stuck with that thing, you better run far and fast.”

He laughed like he thought I was joking and I headed off into the woods towards the river. We went slow. There was enough light to travel safely, but there was still a gray kind of feel to the morning and neither of us really had much of a spring in our step. Before too long the soft click of crabadillo pulled us to the side of the trail, and Hunter tried out his spear. The point skidded off the thing’s armor on the initial stab, but he swung it to the side and cut into it’s leg before it could ball up. Once the crabadillo was in its ball I rolled it over and shoved my knife into the crack killing it.

“You pick yourself up a knife so you can field dress this one?”

“Actually, yeah I did.”

He pulled a swiss army knife out of his pocket and even though it didn’t seem too practical, he made short work of the critter. We got to talking and it turned out he’d taken a deer or two as a teenager and I was relieved there was somebody else in the group who had a clue when it came to nature. We continued on in better spirits, and eventually made it to the river in about the same spot we’d met the previous day.

Hunter stayed on the high ground keeping watch while I clampered down to the bank and filled my waterskin. It was a big bag, but between sharing it with the others for drinking and washing hands, I was guessing this was going to be a regular trip. Luckily it dropped right into my messenger bag once it was full so I didn’t have to hassle with humping it back to camp every time. I went ahead and gave myself a hobo bath there at the water. It probably didn’t make me much cleaner but I felt better afterward. I scrambled back up to Hunter and caught his attention.

“You want to look around a little or just head back?”

“Whatever this is, we’re gonna have to get through it as a team. I think we should go back and check in with everybody.”

I shrugged and headed out. Enough of us had come back and forth to this closest source of water that it was beating the foliage down into an actual trail so I figured it was pretty safe. High traffic areas will get permeated with that man smell and it tends to drive away wildlife, at least that’s how it works in the real world. I’d forgotten we were trapped in some kind of game and these weren’t animals, but monsters.

It turns out that was a good thing. Real wolves are ambush predators. They’ll come out of the high grass and separate an animal from the herd. The old or the lame will be moping around, chewing some cud and wham, it’s a race to the death. These half green wolf beasts howled first. I think they would have had us if they’d come in silent, but at the sound that was supposed to freeze us in our tracks Hunter spun around and leveled that spear and I charged right at them. The pack scattered when I took it to them, but I caught one in the haunches with the hammer end of my maul as it ran away. I would have preferred the axe blade, but didn’t have time to reorient when it went left instead of right. The blow still crippled it and I immediately switched up. The one that had circled around me saw me turned and ready for it and turned its lunge into a feint. I heard Hunter yelling behind me, and when I spun around I saw one with the haft of his spear in its teeth. Hunter didn’t quite have the leverage or the strength to take it back, but the wolf was pretty stationary while they fought it out and three quick steps over there and I planted my axe in its spine. He freed his spear then, and I thought he was trying to stab me until I heard the yelp and realized he was making a play for one coming up behind me.

I jogged forward past him and missed an overhand blow at another that dodged away just a little too quick for me. Hunter and I were back to back now, and it made things simpler. The wolves were keeping their distance, and while I heard Hunter lunge and yell a couple times,I think he’d reached the same kind of detente on his side too.

“Gotta break the stalemate or they’ll wear us down. On three we charge the ones on your side, kill a couple and then go back to back again.”

“You saying one two three go, or one two and go on three?”

“Fuck it, just go.”

On the last word I spun and sprinted past him. He had the reach but I’d started first. The wolves on his side had been watching that spear point and I got close enough to smash one into the ground with my axe. Another was just out of range and in what was probably a stupid move I threw my axe and watched the handle club it in the skull. At roughly the same time Hunter pinned a third to the ground with his spear, I had my knife out and had turned to the wolves behind us. They’d charged in behind us and I caught one that was leaping in the air by its paw. I pulled with its jump, not trying to stop but redirect it like a judo throw and I launched the son of a bitch into a tree on the side of the path. When I got turned around Hunter was standing there panting, and the only wolves left alive were the crippled ones whining piteously on the ground. The rest had just disappeared back into the forest.

I walked around cutting throats while Hunter tried to catch his breath.

“That was probably a shit ton of XP huh?”

“Are you fucking crazy, Jack? Those things almost killed us. I know it said monsters would get increasingly stronger but this is only day two. This is ridiculous.”

“Cheer up, Hunter. It said monsters would get stronger, but a couple guys got killed by the wolves yesterday. I figure we still ain’t seen any of the day two versions yet. Now quit whining and start butchering wolves.”

We’d processed three of the bodies by the time a couple more people from the camp came by. An asian fellow with a bow name Kim, a small mousey woman named Haley, and some dude who would not shut up named Evan. It was hard to get a word in edgewise around Evan, but I learned that he had been a John Deere rep at P & K equipment, sales and service over 7 years. Kim had been an eagle scout and Haley was unemployed but made awesome cookies. I also learned Kim was going to teach them to use a bow and hunt and other outdoorsy stuff. Oh and about 10 minutes in, I also learned that Kim and Haley could talk too when they got around to telling Evan to shut the hell up.

Hunter and I ended up trading all but one of the wolf corpses to their little group for a roll of TP, a dress of some sort for Jeri, and another water skin. All of which they would buy and deliver to our hut the next time they were back in camp. Kim was going into business tanning wolf skins that Haley would sew into moccasins and blankets and whatnot. I’m not sure what role Evan had in their budding little company, but I was sincerely hoping they were planning on using him for bait when they went hunting in the future.

I threw the single wolf corpse we were keeping up on my shoulder as it was kind of awkward to fit in my messenger bag, and we headed back towards camp.