Mjuulborn led Doc down the dark stone hallway which exited the antechamber—the room where Doc had discovered and repaired his new dwarven comrade. Mjuulborn, with crossbow at the ready, moved cautiously down the hall, occasionally giving Doc a “hold” command with a clenched and raised left fist. Doc noted that this gesture was offered in much the same manner that he had been trained. Mjuulborn turned his head to point an ear towards their destination and then slowly proceed on. After a few steps, Doc tapped Mjuulborn’s shoulder from behind, who paused. Doc whispered to him, ”Wait, I can see something on my map. It just appeared, a friendly. Outside and off beside the hostile—the wolf—I mean.”

“Big wolf. Ylgr.” Mjuulborn hissed. A prompt on Doc’s UI was initiated:

“Ylgr”. Language: Old Norse. Meaning: wolf, female wolf, she-wolf, dominant member of a matriarchal wolf-pack.

“Big momma wolf. Got it.” Doc replied.

“Today I die with a fool.” Mjuulborn replied curtly. “So be it.” Then he considered Doc’s mention of the map and paused in his step to ask, “Do you have a friend nearby? An ally?”

Doc was tweaking the different display options on his UI. He pulled up ‘chat handles’ and saw that the new icon appeared in blue for ‘team member’, which now displayed the moniker ’Shakewell’.

“Holy shit, oh thank freaking God.” Doc stammered. Mjuulborn now turned to him with a pleading look of anticipation. Doc continued, “The guy is a total badass, this changes everything.” Mjuulborn smiled and nodded, he knew the general type. But he didn’t know Marine Corporal James “Shakewell” Wells, Squad Durnir’s scout sniper. To begin with, the guy taught other special forces operators the complexities of high-caliber sniper rifles. Shakewell had a confirmed kill from over 1500 meters, a shot he had taken with his Barrett Mk22 7.62mm precision sniper rifle. But then Doc considered the current state of his own kit and his heart went cold.

Doc used the UI to open a text chat link with Shakewell, narrating sub-vocal commands into the blinking prompt. “Shakewell can you read me? It’s Doc, over”. The last part was unnecessary in a text exchange, Doc realized. He was still getting used to the narration UI.

“It’s me bro. I can see you’re inside some sort of tomb-like structure built into the side of a mountain. I’m as close to the entrance as I can get. There is a problem outside. But you need to close your butt-cheeks, Shakewell is here and I’ve been busy.”

Doc was instantly relieved. “Ok, you have your rifle you mean? Tell me you have your rifle.”

There was a pause before Shakewell replied. “No Doc. No rifle.”

“Well what the fuck then Shakewell?”.

“Get a grip man. I told you, I’ve been busy and I got a plan, sort of.”

“Ok,” Doc tried to calm himself, looking at his stats for heart rate and blood pressure, “so what do you see out there.”

“Yeah that’s the bad part, man this Dotnar thing is not normal. I knew this shit would go sideways as soon as they took the project off-base. I totally don’t trust these BitStriker geeks, this is messed up.”

Mjuulborn, with no visibility to comms between Doc and Shakewell, looked concernedly at Doc as be became visibly more agitated.

“Shakewell what do you freaking see out there man?”

“Ok,” Shakewell replied, “its like this. Big monster thing. It’s about the size of a big horse, like a mother-fucking Clydesdale, but it’s like a wolf with black glowing eyes and smoke flying out of it’s mouth. It looks pissed. Keeps peeking in that tomb you’re in then walking away, pacing around a bit. Big-ass teeth and claws. Do wolf’s normally have claws. Shit I do not know. It can sorta stand up on its hind legs like a raccoon and that is creepy as all hell man. Sometimes it will just sit and chill like that and you can see it’s gut.”

“Ok that’s just great,” Doc replied. “Describe the terrain.”

“There is a clearing outside the entrance to the tomb and there are small rock formations out here, like little stone monuments and pillars. I’ve been sneaking around between these things hiding and moving when the wolf-thing aint looking. And I’ve been finding these big bugs and grinding them up.”

“Please confirm that last part?”

“Yeah,” Shakewell continued “bro I’m using these bugs to make poison. I told you I’ve been busy. No idea what your ass has been up to in that cave all freaking day.”

“You made poison from bugs?” Doc quickly texted back.

“Well, that’s the messed up part and don’t tell Janissary about this.” Shakewell referenced Marine Lance Corporal Janice “Janissary” Ozdemir, Squad Durnir’s machine gunner. “But I’ve been basically grinding up these weird blue bugs and then mixing them with the shit of your pet dog out here. For some reason, I know how to do this.”

“Confirm mixing bugs with wolf shit and now you got poison?” Doc asked.

“Yeah, big time and I think it’s good to go. There was like a chemical reaction just now. Pretty nasty. Oh and by the way thanks to my helpful database here I’d like to inform you that this is technically a venom as it needs to be introduced to the bloodstream of it’s intended victim, i.e. this freakish wolf-thing. I’m hoping that some day I can also fabricate contact and ingested poisons and I feel like I’m on the right track in that respect.”

“Ok James, long story but that helps. So do you have a weapon that we can use to introduce the venom into the wolf?”

“Negative.”

Amazing, a one-word answer, Doc thought. He considered Mjuulborn. “We have a crossbow.”

“No shit! Let me give you a voice call and I’ll tell you what you need to do.”

Doc discussed recent events with Shakewell, explaining the encounter with the medieval dwarf Mjuulborn. Doc then described the weapon (recurve crossbow composed of unknown composite material, lever-type trigger) and its ammunition (four bolts with metal blades on head). The two discussed Shakewell’s plan, which unfortunately for Doc included some math. Now Doc had to have a tough talk with Mjuulborn.

“Make sure you’re little friend doesn’t fuck up or we’re demon bitch dog bait.” Shakewell had ended the call.

“Mjuulborn, um.” Doc hesitated. “Look, my friend outside and I—he’s like a great warrior by the way—we have a plan, but we need your help to pull it off.”

“We will kill the wolf, in your plan?” Mjuulborn asked suspiciously.

“Oh definitely, that’s a must.” Doc added, “but we need to borrow your crossbow.” This met with some hesitation initially, but once Doc had explained the plan, the poison, the angle of attack, Shakewell’s marksmanship skill, and Mjuulborn stubbornly agreed.

“Now remember,” Doc recapped, “my friend outside, the um archer, is behind the tall flat rock with the carvings on it…”

Mjuulborn interrupted, “Fenja’s plinth.”

“Yeah Fenja’s plinth, right, you sprint there, drop the crossbow but don’t turn around, just keep running towards that big mountain with the two peaks…”

“Mount Billingr.”

Doc nodded, “Yeah that one, just keep running and my friend the archer will take care of the rest.”

Once Doc was satisfied that Mjuulborn understood the plan, the two moved closer to the entranceway. Doc could glimpse his external surroundings for the first time. A night sky with angular mountains shaping the background. A light snow, on a ground of black strips of shale, billows of snow stirring like dust devils.

And of course the beast. On cue, Shakewell had drawn it’s attention by casting rocks. Doc and Mjuulborn had a view of the creature from it’s right side. Doc noticed that it’s patchy black fur was perforated with some sort of ulcerated mange, with oozing sores exposed in some areas about the thigh and abdomen. Then Doc noticed it’s eyes, which were radiant, but black and pupilless. Huge size overall, bigger than the average horse for certain. Upper canines protruded notably, giving a distinct fanged appearance. Where paws should be were elongated badger-like claws. Doc thought about Mjuulborn’s wounds. It was amazing that the dwarf had survived the attack and he felt rather impressed by his own effort.

But Doc wasn’t moved so deeply as to dwell on Mjuulborn’s fate. “Run for it,” Doc announced and run that dwarf did, if you could call it that. More of a rapid waddle across open gravel, towards the plinth and Shakewell’s hiding spot. Doc noted that, although the dwarf did not run quickly, he moved with surprising grace and efficiency, creating little noise as he dashed past the plinth, casually dropping the crossbow at Doc’s position. Light on his feet, this guy. As instructed, Mjuulborn kept running in essentially the same direction, towards Mount Billingr, a distant and daunting mountain with twin snowcapped triangular peaks.

Distracted by the rocks that Shakewell had tossed in the opposite the direction, it was a moment before the ylgr had caught site of Mjuulborn. It made a clumsy about-face, then charged after the dwarf, emitting a deep noise somewhere between a hiss and a growl.

Crouching behind the stone plinth, Shakewell scooped up the crossbow, just as Mjuulborn dropped it without breaking his pace. Shakewell removed the bolt and dipped its tip in the venomous mixture of beetle glands and demon-wolf dung, which he had spread on a small platform of stratified rock. In a second, he had replaced the now poison-coated bolt on the rail, even before the ylgr had passed his position on her chase after Mjuulborn.

Shakewell could smell the stink of the beast as it ran past his position—it was that close. As it gained quickly on Mjuulborn, the ylgr’s trajectory formed into a vector moving almost directly away from his position, with only a slight and predictable lateral motion. An easy shot. Shakewell fired the crossbow directly into the rear of the ylgr, accounting for drop of the projectile. The ylgr immediately crashed to the ground, thrashing and howling.

Doc emerged from the cave and the three of them observed the violent death throes of the ylgr. It spasmed, howled and vomited black bile. “Right in it’s ass!” Shakewell shouted triumphantly. Doc noted that it was a bulls-eye shot indeed, with the bolt penetrating at or very near the anus of the beast. Mjuulborn panted and howled with delight, laughing and grasping Shakewell with joy.

“You’re pretty fast their little guy! You did the job right, didn’t even look back. I like this guy, Doc.” Shakewell said loudly, grinning at Doc.

After returning Mjuulborn’s embrace with a slap on the back, Marine sniper James “Shakewell” Wells made to pass the crossbow back to Mjuulborn, who steadfastly refused the gesture.

“Oh no no lad,” Mjuulborn chided, “the weapon is yours now and from now on it will be called…” (Mjuulborn paused for effect) “…Asspiercer! What do you think of that lads!”

Shakewell doubled over in laughter, then shouted to Mjuulborn: “Who pierced a monstrous ass today? Was it you?”

“No you!” Mjuulborn shouted back in glee. “It was you who pierced the ass!”

Doc rubbed his head and said, “You and Asspiercer were meant for each other, James.”