He wasn't getting paid enough for this shit.

  Brom's chest heaved as he picked eggshells out of his hair. The advance party of these garbage golems had all been sent running by Heinous Blow, and he took advantage of the breathing space that had opened up. Judging by the sounds from behind the wall, though, this was a very temporary moment of peace.

  "Hey, Chase? We've definitely got a problem here. These things are like garbage golems."

  "Impossible, isn't Cold Bay a safe zone? How can there be monsters?" The dump was at the edge of city limits, halfway up a mountain and out of sight from the city proper and surrounded by undeveloped land. But still well within the stated boundaries of the city proper.

  "Yeah, I can't answer that one. You're going to have to dig into the Knowledge Base and find out." He shifted his weight, debating withdrawing. Brom didn't really feel like taking on a clearly prepared position full of an unknown number of these golems. He didn't know what kind of abilities they had. They were intelligent, like the siren had been, and clearly they preferred strategy to outright assault. Right now, they were holding a war council in there.

  "Found it! Safe zones can have Instanced Areas. These areas may contain monster nests, puzzles, or skill challenges. Did you get a notification that you'd entered an Instance?"

  Brom sighed heavily. "...I silenced my notifications." He looked at the little icon in the corner of his vision and poked it. Sure enough, there it was.

  [Entering Instanced Area!]

  [Clean up the nest!]

  [0/15 Refuse Amalgams]

  [0/1 Refuse Refuge]

  Well, at least Brom knew how many monsters there were. "Okay, so yeah, Section A is now an Instanced Area. It contains a monster nest, Refuse Amalgams. Got any further information for me? Can I just leave?" Because Brom really wanted to just leave. Mark it down on the duty log and let the higher-ups decide what to do with it.

  There was silence from the other end of the comm. Chase was either scrambling through the Knowledge Base in search of the answer, or he was making himself a coffee before he got around to looking. It could go either way, it just depended on whether or not Chase believed that the Instance would be a problem for him somehow.

  "Here we go... looks like now that you're in it, you've got to complete the challenge. 'Instances can be cleared, and their rewards claimed only once per Player. A failed Instance can be retried three times-"

  "Sounds cool, don't forget to start your walk, this is going to take me a moment." He wasn't going to be back to the control room in time to hand over for the next hourly walk. That meant they were technically breaching protocol, but he was certain that when he handed in the report later, they'd understand. Or maybe not, who knew how the NPCs that were now their bosses would act.

  Things had gone quiet inside the palisade. Whatever plan those things had been making seemed to be done. Brom took stock of what he had, which really wasn't much. He had a flashlight and his baton. He secured the flashlight through the velcro on his shoulder, hoping it would stay in place long enough for him to get what he needed done. Then he took a deep breath and charged across the uneven ground toward the palisade wall. He tried, as best as he could, to avoid the soft parts of the debris field where they'd tunnelled under it and disturbed it. He didn't want to fall into a cleverly hidden trash pit or something like that.

  He dodged two of the javelins, grabbing the chains and ripping them out of the pipes on his way past. Then he checked his angle and slammed his boot on the base of the wall, propelling himself up the face of the structure as the whole of it shuddered. It was only salvaged garbage after all, they had done good work, but the reinforcement wasn't at the level where it could handle an angry Brom. He grabbed hold of the sharpened points that jabbed out, hands slipping as he found them coated in leachate. Gross. Not enough to stop him from hauling himself up and over that wall.

  He paused at the top of it, swatting away another javelin that was launched at him, staring down into the inner pit. It was a horrible spiral down into the garbage, the structure of it impossible. The dump wasn't that deep, not over here in the relatively new Section A. Maybe over in the really old sections of the dump that were turfed over and allowing nature to slowly reclaim, but not here. Certainly not thirty or more feet down.

  A small cluster of Refuse Amalgams were looking up at him, their eyeless faces tipped to study him, frantic sludgy noises passing between them.

  "Hi, this is your eviction notice." With that, he landed on one of them, slamming both boots straight down into its filthy body.

  Hideous Blow is Activated!

  The thing thrashed and struggled, looking like it was going to burrow into the trash. Brom smashed his boot down on what looked like its head. It wriggled and then collapsed into a pile of inanimate garbage. At least he didn't feel bad about the garbage monster 'dying'. It wasn't like the goblins or the skeletons. It really wasn't like the serving ghouls or Earl. This thing might be person-shaped, but it didn't have expressions on its face, blood to bleed, and it wasn't an obvious human remnant. It was just a dummy. He didn't feel bad about smashing a dummy.

  +5 XP

  [1/15 Refuse Amalgams]

  Gripping his baton, he made short work of the other two, clubbing first one and then the other viciously. The head, aim for the head. That seemed to be the weak point of these things. He didn't know if it mattered, but in pop culture, you could only destroy shit like this by nailing it in the core, and Brom was operating under that theory. He'd never seen the movie where trash monsters were trying to kill a small town security guard, but he was sure it was out there. The security guard never fared well in a horror film.

  +5 XP

  +5 XP

  [3/15 Refuse Amalgams]

  "I never wanted to live in a horror movie." People were stupid in horror films. They were also incredibly resilient. They'd fall from incredible heights or get stabbed or burned or break a limb, and they'd just power through it on sheer power of plot right up until the script said it was time to die. Huh, that sounded a lot like what he'd been through over the past few days, which led Brom to a very strange thought. "Wait... am I a final girl?"

  "What the fuck, Jones?" Chase's voice cut through his musings.

  "Oh, hi, Chase, don't mind me. I'm just saying shit to help me deal with the fact I'm currently crouching through trash tunnels and ripping apart humanoids made from baby diapers, water bottles, and plenty of organic matter. Man, people throw away a lot of food." He put his fist through the head of another one that had popped up in front of him. "They don't seem dangerous, though. Only level three, go down in a couple of hits. Which means they're pretty tanky, honestly, if you consider how hard I hit."

  +5 XP

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  [4/15 Refuse Amalgams]

  "L-Level Three? Fucking hell, Jones. I'm only Level Two. And you say there are multiples?!"

  Brom paused, once again reminded that he was the exception, not the rule. Most people would be like Chase, carrying only the experience they got out of the tutorial. "Are instances adjusted based on the level of the person who entered? If so, maybe they'll be weaker for you."

  "Uh, no. Instances are all set the moment they're generated, and what do you mean by me? I'm not going anywhere near that!"

  "You gotta patrol Section A eventually, Chase." Two more sprang out at him, one swiping the flashlight from his shoulder and knocking it to the squishy tunnel floor. Luckily, it bounced, the beam sawing through the darkness wildly, and then rolled to a stop intact. Brom was forced to take a couple of hits as he retreated to reclaim the flashlight, unable to see to strike them in the head without it. Just as he grabbed hold of it, a hand shot out of the tunnel floor, seizing his. An amalgam that had been trying to burrow under the tunnel to seize the light. Sneaky.

  HP: 682/700

  He ripped the flashlight up, dragging the arm of the amalgam with him. The two he'd been fighting had melded into the tunnel wall, and the one in the floor let go, blending away. "These things have fucking wall hacks on too. They're harder than hell to run down. I wonder if this is how my uncle felt in Vietnam."

  It was proving to be a very long night for Brom. These things were more intelligent than anything he'd fought so far. They figured out they couldn't face him head-on and started swiping and stabbing at him from the walls, roof, and floor of the tunnel. They discovered he needed light and air, doing their best to attack from his blind spots, to knock the flashlight away. To collapse the tunnels on him and try to bury him. Exhausted and filthy, he hauled himself back up to the surface to get a lungful of fresh air, bringing up a hand to run it through his hair. Fuck those tunnels, he'd rather be back in the belly of Yacht Sothoth.

  The whistle glinted in the dimming beam of the flashlight, still pristine despite everything else being coated in grime.

  No, he couldn't.

  He shouldn't.

  He brought it to his lips and blew, the whistle letting out a sharp and lively note that seemed to carry out into the still night air. For a moment, Brom was tensed, a slow fear at the thought of seeing that thing again coiling in his belly. But nothing happened. "Oh, right. There's no wat-" The ground under his feet began to vibrate, and the wind began to stir, bringing with it that unique scent of salt and rust. Abruptly, part of the palisade blew apart as the bow of the eldritch ship-shark erupted from below the ground, flinging debris everywhere as it rose like a gargantuan impossibility. Brom stood there, dwarfed by the prow, staring at one of those porthole eyes and noticing how expressive it seemed.

  Yacht Sothoth had arrived.

  He could feel it, an emotional weight in his mind. With the whistle in his possession, a connection had been forged between him, a bridge of communication. He braced for an onslaught of anger or the crushing weight of the unknowable. Instead he got a warmly excited sense of... thanks?

  "You're not angry?"

  Yacht Sothoth was, in fact, not angry. Only curious why he had been summoned to a landlocked garbage dump. It wasn't a problem, but it wasn't his preferred arena of combat.

  "Ah, I need you to smash this palisade and kill the creepy garbage monsters living in this hole. Can you do that?"

  It was the work of a few moments. The big freighter crunched awkwardly through the garbage, how Brom wasn't even going to bother fucking questioning, smashing through everything in its path. The Refuse Refuge and the remaining amalgams didn't stand a chance against the might of the eldritch entity.

  [15/15 Refuse Amalgams]

  [1/1 Refuse Refuge]

  [Instance cleared! Rewards will be sent to your inbox!]

  Yacht Sothoth looked rather pleased as he looped back toward Brom, fixing him once again with that porthole eye as if to ask if that was all.

  "Uh, can I ask a few questions?" When the dark behemoth continued to wait, Brom took it as the go-ahead to continue. "So, why are you helping me? I fought with you and ruined your cult. Is it all because of this thing?" He held up the whistle that was bound to his wrist.

  Images flooded his mind. The catwalks. The rusty ladders. The core. Of Brom pulling and tugging it, knocking things around. Of what happened when everything eventually resettled. The pattern was obvious even to Brom's untrained eye, how the sections of warped space had resettled into an obvious reflection of the golden ratio.

  "Are you telling me you have a heart of gold now?"

  If a ship could preen, Yacht Sothoth was preening. He was very, very proud of himself.

  "Alright, well, congrats on starting your journey of self-improvement. I support you." Brom did. He'd support anyone who wanted to turn their life around and be a better person. Even if said individual was an eldritch abomination of a boat-eating ship-shark. "Anyway, thanks for the assist tonight. I think you can head back to whatever you were doing."

  Yacht Sothoth had been pondering the next steps to take in his life that would further him toward its goal of being better. With the cult gone and their influence over him broken, he was free to be what he chose. Already he was thinking clearer, his higher functions slowly coming back to him. Still, it wasn't enough improvement, and he seemed to be hopeful that Brom might have a suggestion or two.

  Brom scratched his head, giving it a moment of thought. "Well, maybe work on your appearance? I'm sure the cult wanted you to look terrifying, and what they were feeding you didn't seem healthy." But what would be healthy for something like this beast? "I've got it. First, some image rehab. Go clear out all the sirens from Aria Beach. Then, try going for the wrecks on the ocean floor and using what's down there to clean yourself up."

  The idea was met with warm approval from the eldritch entity. Given the proper materials and guidance, he could reform himself. He'd already purged the parasitic innards that the cult had 'bestowed' on him. Really, that cult had been a huge pain. He didn't even like eating organic matter! Give him good-quality steel.

  "Uh, you can try the old warships down there then. I remember watching something about pre-war steel on some documentary. There's going to be bodies and oil and stuff in that, though. But if you can reshape yourself, there's tons of that stuff down there for you to work with." He reached out and patted the rusty hull. "If you're serious, people will forgive you. You go, take care of business, and come back looking bright and shiny. Knock all the rust and rot off, eh?"

  Yacht Sothoth blamed the cult. They'd twisted his heart with their dark summoning and made him their monster. Now he would try to be better.

  "That's the spirit, buddy! Good luck!"

  Chase's voice softly cut in. "Jones, who are you talking to?"

  Brom waved, smiling as the eldritch monster vanished back into the trash. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."