Liston was finished. There was no way they could stay. Their temporary home—Red Mine—had collapsed upon itself, utterly destroyed by the now Extreme half goblin Knob. Their income from the mine was also destroyed. Their other income stream was shady deals with incoming trade ships. This income, too, was destroyed, when the Red Daggers killed all the captains in the port.

  Finally there was the small matter of every noble in the surrounding region wanting Gutters' head on a platter. It was thoroughly deserved, he had killed all their sons. "They started it" wasn't a valid defense in this world.

  Information about Gutters' associates, the Red Daggers, spread throughout the town. Within a couple of days, not only was Gutters' portrait posted in every town square, but the rest of the Red Daggers started to get their own wanted posters too.

  "Ha! No way. Even Teeth got a poster of her own." Zig grabbed the paper down from the wall it was nailed to. It was a childlike drawing of a horse with very large pointy teeth coming out of her mouth. The body was a rectangle, with sticks for legs.

  "Wanted. Dead, not alive. 500 gold reward. Repeat, not alive." Hepp read over Zig's shoulder.

  "Oh cool," Zig said, studying the script, "so that word is dead, and that word is alive? They look so similar."

  "You're getting the hang of it," Hepp patted Zig's back, "we'll have you reading in no time. Here, try this."

  Hepp held up another wanted poster. It was a stick figure drawing of Zig. The only way he could tell was that the stick figure was holding a club that had glowing lines coming out of it.

  "This is stupid, it's basically anyone holding a glowing club." Zig frowned, wondering whether to go incognito by just not holding a club, or to put a club in someone else's hands and frame them for mass murder. Maybe the first option.

  "Wanted," he read, "alive, not dead. Ooh so that's the 'not' character. These pages are great for learning. 500 gold reward. Aha! I'm tied with Teeth!"

  Behind them, Teeth snorted in derision. It was clear to her which of the Red Daggers was the most dangerous, most powerful, and therefore most valuable. Hepp handed Zig another paper.

  "How about this one?"

  Zig looked at one of the most detailed sketches he'd ever seen. It was Gutters, every curve of his face perfectly captured. Only, in the sketch he had a far-off, heroic look in his eyes, like he was about to storm a castle and rescue the princess inside. He was wearing his cape, and the artist had captured the wind lifting the cape up in a dramatic pose.

  "What—what? What's this? Why am I a stick figure? Why is Gutters so heroic in this?"

  Zig was bamboozled. Jints cleared his throat.

  "I presume that the artist is one of the noble ladies from the ball, mister Zig. She probably had a great look at our friend mister Gutters, and was able to reproduce such details."

  "He looks good," Gretta said unashamedly.

  "Gretta!"

  "What? He does."

  Zig was put out. It was cool, beyond cool, to have his face on a wanted poster. Except, his face was two dots for eyes and a curved line drawing a smile. Gutters' poster was the kind of thing you'd hang up in your bedroom.

  Gutters himself was still in the forest, with Jane and Knob. Zig read on and found out why the boy was hesitant to come back into the city.

  "Wanted. Dead or alive. 10... what's this symbol Hepp?"

  "That's a thousand, Zig."

  "Ten thousand gold? That can't be right."

  "He killed like half the noble kids in Liston."

  The Red Daggers stood there, processing the sudden value placed upon Gutters' head. Ten thousand gold coins. You'd never need to work another day in your life.

  "But we'd never..." Zig said slowly.

  "No, we wouldn't," Gretta said with a frown.

  "But it does cross the mind..." Hepp chipped in, stroking his chin. "And it's not like we'd actually—"

  "Gentlemen," Jints chided tactfully.

  "Kidding, Jints! We're just kidding." Zig looked wistfully at the poster again, sighed, and put it in his pocket.

  "Do you think we can find the lady that drew this one? Get a better profile for the rest of us?"

  They were chased out of Liston shortly after that. Unbelievably, Zig thought to himself, someone actually recognized them from the wanted posters and called the guards. The Red Daggers didn't want to do any more killing, so they ran. Now that the weakest among them was Advanced, and they all had Endurance, they were near uncatchable. The very few guards that had any kind of speed or endurance skill to keep up met a shield to the face from Gretta. So it was midday when the Red Daggers gathered together out in their forest, one last time.

  "I think we gotta go." Zig announced, saying aloud what everyone had been thinking for several days.

  "I'm not really sure why we were staying," Gutters said with a puzzled expression.

  "Because! We had to get, you know, supplies and stuff."

  The truth was, Zig was nervous to get on the road again. Despite all the craziness that had passed inside of Liston, the closest the Red Daggers had come to death was when they'd met three trolls while traveling. One had hit Hepp and collapsed his ribcage. He'd barely made it out alive. Zig looked around at his new family. They had all grown. They were tough, skilled fighters, each one. He took a deep breath.

  "You're right, Gutters. Let's get on the road. But first..."

  "What is it, Zig?"

  There was a glint in Zig's eye.

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  "We need to build a new Nest."

  The first Nest was built atop an existing wagon's platform. The new Nest was built from the ground up. Gutters and Zig felled trees within a few minutes, stripping the bark and shaping the wood into boards and planks. Knob put together some giant wooden wheels and connected them to a solid wooden base. Upon the base, Knob and Zig combined their Goblin Crafting skills to make a huge structure out of woven branches. It was a bird nest the size of a small building.

  "To think you need a Legendary and an Extreme skill to make..." Gretta gestured at the pile of branches towering over them. "...this."

  "Thank you, Gretta," Zig replied, choosing to ignore the sarcasm entirely. "She might not look fancy, but this wagon will take the whole gang. And, it has a tower on top for Hepp."

  "A tower? For me?" Hepp squeaked, a little too high-pitched, before scrambling up the side of the Nest at the speed of Extreme Tree Climbing. He jumped up and down at the top, feeling the spring of the branches under his feet. He looked around, appreciating the view from the top. He strung his bow, took out an arrow and fired. It split mid-air, and five arrows soared down to hammer into five nearby trees.

  "This is great!" Hepp called down from the top. "I can see Liston from here! Even the little guards storming out of the gates, coming this way!"

  "Uhh, say that again Hepp?"

  "Yea they look like little ants. Tiny little things. Getting bigger though. I guess that's perspective for you."

  Zig looked around to confirm the others were just as concerned as he was.

  "So we're being chased?" Gretta called up to Hepp. "We should get moving?"

  "Oh yea, we should definitely get moving."

  The Red Daggers scrambled up into the Nest, finding spots to sit. Teeth trotted over to the harness at the front, slipped her head into the collar , and braced against the weight of the contraption. With a jolt, the Nest started moving, Teeth taking on the weight of the thick wooden platform, plus the Red Daggers, plus all their belongings with no problem.

  "Is there actually a limit to her strength?" Gretta asked.

  "I have no idea," Zig replied. "What confuses me is that the three of us pulled her out of the forest, right at the beginning, just holding onto ropes. Three of us."

  The seven members of the Red Daggers all looked at Teeth happily trotting along, pulling the massive weight without a problem.

  "Yea I have no idea how we did that," Hepp said. "Did she get a Strength skill after joining us? Or was she always...?"

  Teeth looked up at Hepp and winked.

  "She winked at me!" Hepp stood up in shock and pointed an accusing finger at the horse. "She just winked at me!"

  "Ha. That would be funny."

  "I'm serious, Gretta, she winked!"

  They all looked at Teeth, who kept trotting, not paying any attention to them.

  "She's pretty smart for a horse, Hepp, but winking? That's a bit much." Jane laughed uncertainly.

  "Did nobody else see that? Jints? Knob?"

  "I'm afraid not, mister Hepp."

  "I saw it, Hepp." Knob said, winking at Hepp.

  "Yes! Thank you Knob—wait, why are you winking at me."

  "I saw it too, Hepp, you're not crazy." Gutters said reassuringly, slowly winking with alternating eyes while he spoke.

  "She winked at me too, Hepp." Zig climbed up to pat Hepp on the shoulder.

  "See, Zig, that would be reassuring except you're winking an awful lot right now. I saw what I saw! That horse is far too intelligent."

  The Daggers kept bickering until Zig realized the problem.

  "Ah, guys..."

  There was only one road in the forest. The Nest was huge, there was no way they'd be navigating through the trees. So there was only one direction they could go, which was the road headed straight toward Liston. Exactly where the army of guards were heading toward them. The guards had already entered the forest, and it became quite clear to both parties that the Nest wasn't leaving without going through them.

  "Ok team, what are our options?" Zig called out.

  "Abandon the Nest?" Jane suggested.

  "Never, we just built her!"

  "It's like an afternoon's amount of work."

  "It's the principle of the thing! What else can we do?"

  "Kill everybody?" Knob suggested.

  "Uh, Knob, we might need to have a talk about that. Excellent job with the sailors though, you really saved the day on that occasion."

  "This is a different occasion?"

  "Yes! Phew, glad we cleared that up so quickly. Give me ideas, people!"

  "Hide?" Hepp suggested.

  "Set Teeth loose?" Gutters hesitantly offered.

  "Just plow right through them, sir. In a game of chicken, the horse wins every time."

  Zig thought about it.

  "Jints, I think you're right. If I was a guard, there's no way I'd stay in the way of Teeth. Hold on to something, everyone. Here we go..."

  The guards kept piling into the forest. There might have been a hundred of them. When they saw the Red Daggers coming toward them they slowed to a stop and spread out, filling the road. They set spears into the ground, pointing them forward, and tried to look as menacing as possible.

  Teeth starting running a little faster.

  The guards started looking at each other, gesturing at the horse that was clearly not slowing down. The ground started to tremble slightly under Teeth's hooves. One guard dropped his spear and ran off into the trees. Then another. Zig allowed a small hope to blossom in his heart. Then the captain shouted something, and the rest stiffened their resolve.

  "Uh oh," said Zig, "is that some kind of morale skill? They're going to move out of the way, right?"

  The guards braced themselves. Teeth sped up. They braced even harder. Teeth started galloping. The guards shut their eyes, shaking, some of them peeking out of one eye. The sharp spears were starting to look more and more like little toothpicks. Teeth neighed. The guards started screaming. Hepp started screaming. Everyone started screaming.

  Just as Teeth was about to slam into the guards, ending the life of dozens of men in an instant, Zig felt the most uncomfortable lurching sensation in his life. He grabbed his stomach, trying not to throw up. Down at the front, Teeth herself staggered, almost falling down. She recovered, and kept going at a mild trot, much slower than before. Zig looked for the guards, but couldn't see them anywhere.

  "Huh?"

  He heard shouting, and turned to look behind him. It was the guards. Alive, whole, unbroken, and... behind them.

  "What just happened?" Gretta turned to look at the guards. Hepp threw up over the side. Chunks of breakfast fell down with a splat, narrowly avoiding the other Red Daggers.

  "Ew. Hepp!"

  "Sorry! That was awful and I never want to do that again!"

  "What was it?" Zig called up.

  "No idea. Wasn't me."

  Zig looked around. Each person shook their head, or looked as confused as he felt. He turned to look at his horse.

  "Teeth?"

  Teeth gave a tired whinny.

  "You can teleport now? Is that how you've been sneaking up on us lately?"

  She definitely had picked up the hobby of terrifying Hepp and Zig, somehow always getting behind them.

  "Buckle my shoes and call me your long-lost nephew," Hepp said in wonder. "She didn't just teleport, she took the entire Nest with her."

  Teeth slowed down to a walk. Zig looked behind at the group of guards. They were following, but hesitantly, arguing among themselves.

  "Teeth," Zig called out, "you ok there buddy?"

  Teeth sneezed, stopped walking, unhooked herself, and lay down on the road to rest. Deep snores came almost immediately.

  "Uh oh."

  The guards, however slow, did manage to catch up to the party as the Red Daggers waited for Teeth to recover.

  "Ho, uh, criminals!" The lead guard said, alternating between hesitant and threatening. "We, ah, you're under arrest! Please?" The guard was trying not to show his legs shaking.

  "Not so loud," Jane spoke up with a soft yet firm voice. "You'll wake the horse. Nobody wants to wake the horse."

  "Y-yes ma'am," the captain agreed. "We don't want to wake the horse. Can, can we still arrest you though? The reward money is ridiculous, even split across all the guards."

  There were several nodding heads among the guards.

  "I'm afraid not," Jane replied, "but I'll tell you what. You let Teeth here rest for a bit, and when she wakes up we'll leave Liston and never come back. Deal?"

  The guard thought about it. They'd lose all the reward money, but they would also stay alive.

  "We'd be losing out on a lot of money..." The captain said, trying to negotiate. It would have sounded better if his voice wasn't cracking at the end of each sentence. Jane sighed and reached into her bag. She grabbed a scroll and tossed it out to the captain.

  "That's Icebolt, a tier 3 spell from the Academy. Worth 300 gold. Does that help?"

  The guard thought about it for about half a second. He tucked the scroll into his pocket.

  "That helps a lot, my Lady. Thank you."

  The captain signaled to the guards, and there was a collective sigh of relief, with a few whimpers sprinkled in. The lot of them tiptoed past the sleeping horse. Once they were out of earshot they started walking quickly, breaking into a run. They didn't slow down until they were back in town with the gates firmly shut.

  That night, the Red Daggers left Liston for good.