The clop-clop of hooves became a rhythmic background noise. The Nest swayed gently, all of its branches absorbing the shock as the Red Daggers hurtled through the countryside. Jane lay down, in a bed of branches padded with blankets, and moved her fingers absentmindedly through the air. Traces of light flashed as spells half formed before dissipating again. Jints held a book open to Zig and Gutters, teaching them to read. Gretta was slowly etching her name, 'Gretta', into her shield. It wasn't the first time. The shield was covered with different etchings of 'Gretta' all over it. She enjoyed the hobby, and her engravings were getting pretty good.

  Hepp was eating an apple, sitting up on the little tower at the top of the Nest, his feet dangling over the edge. He was enjoying the sunshine on his face, and keeping an eye out for birds flying close enough for him to shoot down. Knob was at the bottom of the Nest, trying to figure out ways of replacing wheels on a moving wagon. They wore out pretty quick, and the gang could make new ones in a flash, but they needed to stop moving to do so. He'd only been run over once so far, and Jane welcomed the practice of her healing spell.

  Life was good.

  "Ho, stranger! Hello there!"

  Occasionally they passed other travelers on the road, and Hepp would call out to them. For the most part, they gave polite waves and hurried on. Other times they simply stopped and stared at the strange building being pulled across the countryside by a monster horse. Eventually they did come across someone that stopped to talk to them.

  "Ho, good fellow!" Hepp called down. It was a farmer, walking beside a cart laden with wooden boxes. Hepp squinted, his Eagle Eye ring allowing him to see details from far away.

  "Are those bees?"

  "Ho good sir!" The farmer replied. "You have a good eye! These are beehives."

  The farmer gave a friendly slap to one of the boxes. It buzzed, and a black cloud flew out of it. The farmer didn't seem fazed at all. In fact, nothing seemed to scare him. He gave a respectful nod toward Teeth, the sort of a greeting between equals. To Zig's amazement, she huffed and gave a quick dip of her head back to him.

  "Can I interest you folks in some honey?"

  "Honey?" Jane sat up. "I'd love some."

  Zig's eyes were fixed on the cart full of bees for a different reason.

  "Say," he said as casually as he could. "Would you have any beeswax to sell? I recently lost my goop collection to a fire, and..."

  He gave the farmer his best puppy eyes. It worked. The farmer chuckled and started opening lids on the boxes. Bees started pouring out, buzzing angrily into the air.

  "I have as much beeswax as you can afford, my son."

  "Oh, ho, ho!" Zig raced to get some empty jars and his stash of emergency funds. The farmer's face turned from pleasant, to confused, to naked greed when he realized Zig would buy every last scrap of wax the farmer was willing to part with.

  "Hey, um, Zig?"

  "Yes, Gretta?"

  "We lost most of our money, back in Liston, right?"

  "Yea, that was a true tragedy. We'll have to start again, from the ground up."

  "So... Is all this wax necessary?"

  "Ha! Aha. Oh, you're serious. Yes Gretta. My Goblin Crafting senses are tingling. Something about this wax is super valuable. Right Knob?"

  Knob, standing nearby, nodded in agreement.

  "It sounds crazy," the half-goblin said, "but he's right. This is some good quality wax."

  "I wouldn't sell anything less!" The farmer declared. "You can do all sorts with this wax. Got some sickleweed? You can mix it in to create a very sticky resin. Finleaf turns it into glue. In fact, my own cart is held together with beeswax! My bees aren't fond of nails, too much iron for their liking."

  He slapped the side of his cart, and another wave of bees poured out, milling about the man in a cloud. Zig barely noticed the sense of unease and danger from them. His eyes, like Knob's, were shining with excitement. The farmer finished gathering up all the wax, along with a pot of honey for Jane. None of the Red Daggers were particularly willing to walk into the cloud of bees, so the farmer placed them on the ground, and Zig threw him some coins from a distance.

  "My thanks, friends! Oh, and if you're heading north, stay away from Felmont woods, to the west. Nasty creatures living there."

  "Oh? What kind of creatures?" Gretta asked.

  "Things that don't care about the living," the farmer said with a dark expression on his face. "Things that are already dead, but keep coming at you. Ghouls, skeletons, probably worse, too. Poison means nothing to them, and I don't trust something I can't sting."

  "Cool, thanks, that sounds bad," Zig said, rapidly trying to adjust to the fact that undead existed in this world. It made sense. If trolls and goblins were here, why not skeletons and ghouls?

  "You lot aren't adventurers, are you?" The farmer said hopefully.

  "Actually we are," Gretta responded. "Lost the badge ages ago, but we're bronze rank."

  "Ah, just bronze?" The farmer said wistfully. "Never mind. Best to stay away from those woods then."

  The farmer closed up the lids on his beehive boxes, nodded to Teeth again, and went on his way. The Red Daggers watched him go, then Gretta turned to Zig.

  "So we're going to check out the woods, right?"

  "Absolutely. Hey, Knob?"

  "Yea?"

  "Be on the lookout for sickleweed and finleaf. Did you hear what that guy said? We can actually create our own goop. Knob, this is big. Really big." Zig started rubbing his hands together. "We are going to get into goop creation. Goopification. Goop station. Goop—"

  "Got it Zig. What do sickleweed and finleaf look like?"

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "—plication. Goop—oh you don't know? Damn. Me neither."

  "I know 'em, Knob," Hepp chimed in. "I can teach you what they look like."

  The Daggers continued north, Hepp stopping the wagon occasionally to point out some plants to Knob and Zig. Zig harvested them, and Legendary Harvest kicked in to give them a mountain of the plants they needed. Knob got to work grinding the plant matter into a paste, extracting the juice to mix into the wax.

  As the day started drawing to a close, they saw a village up ahead. They decided to stop just outside the village. Hepp brought out two shovels, and handed one to Knob.

  "Since you have Construction, Knob, it's high time you also learned Dig."

  The two of them started digging out another instance of Hepp's Hollow. Despite not having Dig, Knob did have Construction, Strength, and Endurance, all now at Extreme. The two plowed through the ground at a frightening speed, a constant stream of dirt flying up and landing in piles around the perimeter of the Hollow. In order to make a pit where they could all sit comfortably around a fire, quite a bit of dirt needed to go up to the surface. Knob took it all and packed it into walls forming a square that surrounded the hollow, complete with little towers on each of the four corners of the walls.

  The inside of the Hollow become an inverse pyramid, with steps going down to the bottom. It was going to be a clear night, so they didn't make a roof, preferring the open sky. Hepp ran along after Knob's molding work, applying his Smooth Wall skill to make everything a dry clay surface instead of loose dirt. To Zig, it looked like a giant sandcastle made out of clay, springing into existence within an hour.

  Gutters went to gather some dead wood for a fire, and Jints arranged a pot over top of it. Jane summoned a ball of water, which fell into the pot. It wasn't entirely accurate, and half the fire got doused, but soon they had a nice boil going.

  "Is it safe to drink summoned water?" Zig asked.

  "A lot safer than anything near towns," Jane replied. "It's as pure as water can get."

  "Awesome, I guess now we just need—AH TEETH STOP DOING THAT PLEASE STOP DOING THAT."

  Teeth had vanished from the group, and nobody had noticed. Now, equally unnoticed, she had returned, stepping out of Zig's own shadow, holding half a giant boar in her mouth. Blood was dripping everywhere. Teeth dropped the carcass, which landed with a heavy squelch onto Zig's boots. She nickered in a very pleased manner.

  "Oh, I see—just give me a minute, my heart should slow back down soon. Thanks—phew—thanks Teeth that's actually really nice of you. Maybe you can deliver it to Hepp next time? He's in charge of cooking."

  Teeth whinnied.

  "Well, yea, Jints is in charge of cooking, but we don't want him to have a heart attack, or nobody will cook anything. Hepp's the one for meat deliveries, especially from behind and without warning, ok? Good girl."

  Zig went to their vegetable cart. It was hitched to the back of the Nest as part of their supply train. They figured that the best way to pack a lot was actually potted vegetables. Zig picked three at random and pulled them out of the dirt. He stared at the two dozen vegetables hanging from the plants in his hands. Legendary Harvesting would never cease to amaze him.

  Jints set about making a vegetable curry in a large pot, and Gutters cut the boar meat into thick chunks, spearing them with sticks and mounting them over the fire to roast. Gutters, growing up in the actual gutters of Liston, had never roasted meat over a fire before, but he was quickly growing to love it.

  "Are you sure it should be this thick, mister Jints?"

  "Absolutely, mister Gutters. Roast it thick, then we'll cut slices crossways. The meat will come out tender and juicy each time."

  "This is amazing. I tried to roast some rats once, but I didn't skin them, and the smell of burnt fur stayed on me for a week."

  Knob nodded along, remembering the event.

  "Old man Lobben said we won the prize for worst smelling trash pile." The half-goblin added.

  "What was the prize?" Zig asked.

  "He left us alone to go bother a better smelling pack of street kids. That's how we never joined a gang. We had a reputation for smelling like burnt rats and looking like... well, us."

  "Huh, that's good, I guess."

  The team settled down for a nice meal of roast boar, and laid out blankets in the Hollow to sleep under the stars.

  The first attack came that night.

  Zig woke up from some weird dreams. He was relaxing with Hepp and Gretta in a hot pool, surrounded by his usual cloud of bubbles, when they both started groaning like zombies. His eyes snapped open, and he looked over to the other side of the Hollow, where Gretta and Hepp were both snoring quite loudly. His heart slowly calmed. He looked up at the night sky above them. Zig had grown up in the city, but he'd always heard people talk about seeing the stars in the countryside, away from any light pollution. It was beautiful. A million stars, lighting up the night. Some of them formed a streak, a bit like the Milky Way back at home, only purple. Occasionally there was a shooting star, leaving a slightly green trail as it raced across the sky.

  "Merrrrrgh."

  Zig blinked a few times. Was he still dreaming? That sounded just like the weird groaning in his dream. He lifted his head a bit, looking around. Everything seemed real enough. The night air felt real. The snoring sounded very real. He tried pinching himself.

  "YEOOOWOWWWWWWWWW"

  Everybody jolted awake with yells at the sudden commotion. Gretta picked up her shield, Gutters his sword, and Hepp grabbed his bow and started climbing up the nearest wall.

  "What's going on?" Gretta asked.

  "Is everyone ok?" Gutters asked.

  "I think I need a bit of healing," Zig said with a wince. "Sorry. I thought I was dreaming and tried pinching myself."

  There was blood all over his arm, coming from a small wound where Legendary Strength had torn the flesh clean off. Jane rushed over to heal him, and Gretta put a hand to her face.

  "So Legendary Strength is... super dangerous? Can't you control it?"

  "Normally! I was half-asleep ok?"

  "Hey, guys?"

  Hepp called down from the wall.

  "What is it, Hepp?"

  "You should probably come see this."

  "Merrrrgh."

  That last sound didn't come from Hepp. The Red Daggers all made their way out from the bottom of the Hollow onto the top of the dirt walls that lined the perimeter.

  "That's a ghoul." Gretta said.

  There was an animated corpse of a man, standing next to the wall, looking up at Hepp. The ghoul was heavily decomposed, with big chunks of flesh missing. Its skin was a pale grey color, with eyes that glowed a dim white like they were enchanted. It was currently reaching up, trying to grab at Hepp's boots. The wall was a smooth, vertical surface, and the ghoul had no way of getting up. It was surreal, watching the thing just continue reaching toward Hepp, giving the occasional groan. The ghoul's arms scrambled over the surface of the wall, trying to climb up, but the wall was smooth and the ghoul had no way up.

  "I think he likes you, Hepp."

  "He's not my type, Zig. What do we do with it?"

  "Merrrrgh."

  "He's kinda cute," Jane said, "maybe we can keep him as a pet?"

  "Cleanse."

  The ghoul suddenly looked far better. All the dirt and grime disappeared, and the undead creature looked as respectable as it could, for an animated corpse. Everybody looked at Jints.

  "What?" The man shuffled uncomfortably. "It looked like an opportunity to train the skill."

  The ghoul looked down at its immaculate clothing and clean skin. A dim understanding passed across its eyes.

  "Merrrrgh."

  It went back to reaching toward Hepp.

  "It's not the brightest, is it?" Zig asked. "Is it even dangerous?"

  "About as dangerous as a single goblin," Gretta answered. "Skeletons are faster, I think they're the same monster, really, just without the extra weight to carry around."

  She jumped off the wall and landed on the ghoul, shield-first. The creature crumpled into a heap underneath her, much to the disappointment of the others. When she got up, the white glow had disappeared from the creature's eyes.

  "Come on, Gretta, it was just hanging out!"

  "It would tear you apart if it could, Zig. Come on, there might be more."

  They searched the nearby woods and found another ghoul. It was drifting around aimlessly, but as soon as it spotted the Red Daggers it turned and ran with a stumbling half-shuffle toward them. Hepp put an arrow in its head, but the arrow just passed through a decaying eye and got stuck in the skull. The ghoul barely noticed, and kept running until Zig threw a rock at its chest. The creature blew apart into several pieces. The Red Daggers watched carefully, but none of the pieces moved.

  "So we need blunt force for these things. Stab wounds and arrows won't hurt them." Gretta concluded.

  "How come we're seeing these now," Zig asked, "but we didn't see anything like undead on the way up from Lancre?"

  "Undeath is like a disease," Jane said with a frown. "It needs to spread from somewhere, and the kingdom is usually pretty good at dealing with this. That bee farmer mentioned seeing undead too. It must be related to Felmont Woods, that place he warned us not to go to."

  They continued searching the surrounding area, but when they didn't find any more undead, the Red Daggers retreated back to their dirt fort. Hepp offered to keep watch, but nobody slept much for the rest of the night.