The fence alleviated some of the fears in traversing the treacherous mountainside road, but it didn’t make it easy by any means. Nikk and Max worked together in a beautiful, harmonic display. Max scribbled white designs on his blue parchment, and Nikk laid the wood and worked quickly with his small hammer. The fence was up in no time. The pets rested on their haunches at the head of the group while their masters built, showing more patience than Manalolz.

The healer hadn’t stopped complaining about how much effort and time we were wasting on crossing a simple road, all for a cowardly bard. I held my tongue. I wanted nothing more than to pummel him. I even thought about challenging him to a duel but remembered Wolfgang’s cautionary tale.

Max carefully moved to the rear of the party and asked Manalolz to join him there. Said he needed help with something. “What could you possibly need help with?” Manalolz spat off the side of the mountain, making sure his moustache was clear of the projectile. “I swear, there’s a new form of incompetence that reveals itself around every corner with this group. It’s impressive, really.”

Once the healer joined the elf at the rear, Max strode back toward the front without speaking a single word.

“What was that all about?” I asked, standing beside Hendrix, who’d regained his courage thanks to the presence of the fence.

“I simply could not stand to hear his aimless bickering,” Max said. “I thought he was much more well-suited bringing up the rear.”

I chuckled. “Good move.”

“Is the bard alright?

“I’m fine,” Hendrix said. There’d been a hint of resentment in Max’s voice, likely due to wasting his gathered wood. Hendrix must’ve sensed it, too, based on the snap in his response.

Nikk hopped to the front of the party and built fencing alongside the road quick enough to stay ahead of the party’s pace. The walk across the treacherous road had resumed. Max was second in line, followed by Wolfgang. Hendrix and I came next, and Manalolz lagged, mumbling more incoherent words. The only clear words were curses.

The pets — who’d often run so far ahead that they were long out of sight — returned using a different route. Instead of the slender road carved into the side of the mountain, the white tiger and green wolf trodded a path on the mountain itself above us. Buttons zoomed past us in near-silence. Scallion panted and thudded his way by.

They headed back towards the canopy but stopped before Manalolz. They hopped down from the mountain path onto the road and sat on their haunches before the healer.

Manalolz stared at them, silent and unsure. His face was blank, but his breathing had increased. He was forced to stop, for there was no room to step around them, and he dared not attempt to step over them. “Good boy. Good girl.” He watched them closely, his body frozen.

I looked ahead to their masters. Nikk continued building ahead while Max stopped to enjoy the show. The elf stood with a crooked smile, watching as his loyal tiger and her companion intimidated the impatient, complaining healer.

“Do you mind calling your pets?” Manalolz said.

“There’s no need to fear,” Max said, still carrying the crooked smile. “They simply want you to pat their heads. Or perhaps you can scratch them behind the ears.”

“Scratch them…” Manalolz’s voice trailed off. His face continued to be blank as he watched the pets.

“They’re just saying hello,” Wolfgang said.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” Wolfgang said. “They’ve done the same thing to me three times already now. Just pat them, say hello, and they’ll be on their way.”

I couldn’t recall any instance of this happening to the tank. I joined them in smirking once I knew what was going on.

“Alright,” Manalolz said. He leaned toward the pets, forced a smile, and stretched out a palm. He pushed the palm toward Scallion.

The green wolf barked a sound like that of a hell-hound. Manalolz recoiled, nearly going over the fence before catching himself against the wall again. The pets jumped back onto the mountain path and trotted back toward the head of the group and their masters.

We all laughed. If it had happened to anyone else, I might have discouraged it for the possible danger it might’ve caused, but since it was Manalolz, I allowed it. I enjoyed it. We continued onward after the short break, and Manalolz resumed his mumbling.

The sun rolled a good way to the west, yet the road continued. “How far does this go?” I asked.

“Not sure,” Hendrix said. “But I hope we reach the end soon. I’m getting numb.”

I nodded. My extremities felt it the most. It didn’t help that my fingers and toes had been bearing the brunt of my weight for the last few hours. I couldn’t wait to get to the other side, collapse onto the ground, and lie on my back with my arms and legs stretched out like a star.

The ground shook. The entire mountain shook. It was the last thing I wanted to hear. The small road at my feet, barely wide enough for me to stand on, shook as well. Just our weight had been enough to shed precious pebbles from the edge of the road. I didn’t even want to think of what this shaking would do. We couldn’t reach the end in time, nor could we go back. We were stuck in the middle of the road, at the mercy of whatever was causing the trembling.

The tremors increased. The mountainside shook violently for a flash, almost as if it were trying to punch us off. “Hug the wall!” I shouted to anyone who could hear me over the shaking.

It was terrible advice. The rock before my face cracked and pulsated. Something pushed its way out like a hatching chick. A small worm with no face but a round maw crowned by razor-sharp teeth stared into my eyes despite having none of its own.

“Get away from that thing!” Wolfgang’s voice reeked of urgency.

I had no time to act. A pungent stream of green spewed from the creature’s mouth, drenching my face. It didn’t take long for the burning to tell me what had transpired. “Acid!” I clawed at my face and recoiled. I would’ve fallen back if not for the fence. “Heal it!” I didn’t give Manalolz much time to react before yelling again, spurred by searing pain. “Heal me, you bastard! We just talked about this!”

“I’ve got to mix an antidote.” His voice was as frantic as mine. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this. Cut me some slack, will you?”

“Sorry,” I tried to calm my voice. “It’s just that my face is burning.”

“Your HP’s fine,” Hendrix said. “It’s going down, but slowly.”

Footsteps approached me. A cork popped near my ears. The burning ceased soon after, nearly as miraculous as the feeling of leveling up. I focused on myself. My HP was still at its maximum. “I took no damage?”

Manalolz smirked. “I made an antidote that also healed a bit, so it made up for the time it took me to make it.”

“Good.” I got up, looked to Wolfgang, and pointed to the wriggling worm in the wall. “What do we do about this?”

“Just wait,” Wolfgang said. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. The mountain continued to shake. The worm retracted into the wall, leaving a hole surrounded by spider web cracks on an otherwise flawless wall of rock. More cracks appeared elsewhere on the wall—another worm. This time, it emerged in front of Max. The elf stared it down, seemingly unconcerned about the acid attack he’d just seen.

Buttons pounced on the worm from above. She caught it before it could retract and pulled the whole thing out with her claws. It wriggled as she dropped it at her master’s feet. Max signaled, and Buttons finished it off with a frightening crunch of her jaw.

Another popped out near Manalolz, and another closer to Wolfgang. “They’re going to keep coming,” the tank said. “They’ll retract pretty fast, so you have to hit them before they can. They won’t stop until we’ve killed a good amount.”

“Then, we’d better get started.” I drew my wrench. One of the nasty creatures popped its head out right before me. I did not hesitate. My wrench crashed upon it, turning it to green mist. “Is this stuff as poisonous as what it spat at me?”

“No,” Wolfgang said. “That mist is just its blood. Same color, none of the danger.”

Without anyone giving the order, or any spoken planning, the party stood abreast, facing the mountainside—each of us patrolling our own small portion of the wall. Hendrix plucked his song at the rear of the party, and Manalolz mixed healing potions and antidotes.

Max’s aim was impeccable. The elf stood as far back as he could and even leaned back over the fence. He kept one eye closed and always had an arrow knocked and ready to release. The moment one of the worms made the poor decision of showing themselves in his portion of the wall, their tiny maws were filled with an immediate arrow.

Nikk had more trouble than his friend. His spear was difficult to wield in such tight quarters. He missed more worms than he hit but managed to skewer a few.

Wolfgang fought in his human form while dual-wielding daggers.

“Why haven’t you transformed?” I asked just as I bludgeoned another worm to death.

“No tanking in this fight,” Wolfgang said. “They pop out of random holes. No way to control the aggro.” He lurched to his right, blades crossed, and uncrossed them over a protruding worm, severing its tooth-horned head from its wriggling corpse. The mountain returned to its slumber. Wolfgang had seemingly killed the last worm.

Manalolz looked over the party, healing dust in hand. “Oh. You’re all unharmed.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Hendrix laughed.

We continued onward at a much better pace thanks to the safety of Nikk and Max’s fence. The mountain shook again, and we encountered another event similar to the last. The worms were dispatched with ease, and we proceeded down the slender road.

Nikk gurgled something from the head of the party. I couldn’t tell if he were screaming for joy or if he’d just been slammed in the gut with a battering ram. Once I saw Buttons and Scallion sitting side by side on a wide, flat plateau, I knew it was the former. The winding road had ended. Hendrix stepped onto the plateau and fell to his back, ecstatic to be done with the treacherous path finally.

The entrance to the Singing Cave loomed before us. The pets had been staring into the darkness of the cave, calm on their haunches but alert. The rest of the party chatted in celebration, making light of the hardships they’d faced on the slender road. I left the group and approached the mouth of the cave.

I stopped between the pets. They both gave me a glance and returned their eyes to the cave. A cool wind crept up from the darkness. It gave me chills. The wind on the sun-beaten road had been warm as if we were in a desert. Something about the air in the cave didn’t sit well with me. The pets must’ve felt it, too. Their fur stood on end. Scallion whimpered, but both stayed still.

“Billington, get back over here,” Wolfgang said. “Nikk, Max, call your pets.”

His orders were followed, and the party gathered near the end of the slender road. We watched the cave in silence, wondering what Wolfgang had called us over for. Nikk ripped the spear from his back and held it tight, aimed at the cave. I wanted to do the same with my wrench but waited until there was a valid reason.

“Why are we just standing here?” Manalolz asked in the same voice he’d been using to complain with all day.

“There’s one more thing we have to take care of before entering the cave,” Wolfgang said.

Before anyone could ask him to elaborate, the ground began to shake. Whatever it was this time made the shaking of the worms seem like the rustling of leaves. The land between us and the mouth of the cave heaved like an overexerted chest. Up and down, until the surface cracked and something horrible emerged.