It’s a Sentry? Hiro thought as he took in the faun’s weathered, bronze body. Its goat-like legs ended in cloven hooves that clicked against the pavement with an eerie, deliberate rhythm. Deep scratches marred its metallic skin, especially across its thighs, where old gouges crisscrossed like battle scars. Its lower half was nude, smooth bronze catching the dim light, yet no description appeared—no health bar. What the hell? he thought.

  “It’s giving… creepy,” Bianca said as she returned to Hiro, price scanner at the ready. “Want me to shoot it?”

  “Move along,” Ben told the faun. “Or I’ll move you along.”

  “In moments like these, a calming melody,” the faun murmured. It lifted its panpipes and played before Hiro or Ben could react.

  Time had skipped forward without their consent. The melody seeped into his skin, calling his arms to drop, his breath to slow. Hiro’s grip loosened on his katana before he could even think to draw it.

  A wave of drowsiness crushed him, thick and irresistible. His limbs felt heavy, his thoughts sluggish, and through the haze, he barely registered the dull thud of Ben hitting the pavement face-first, the slap of flesh against concrete sharp and unkind.

  Hiro knew they were under the faun’s spell—knew it, but could do nothing to stop it.

  His mind screamed at his body to move, to fight, but the music wove through him like vines, wrapping him in lethargy.

  Then, a streak of fuzzy pink shot forward as Bianca slammed into the faun with enough force to send it staggering, her tentacles prying the panpipes free.

  Sound collapsed in on itself, like a vortex swallowing a storm. The world returned in a violent purge, reality vomiting itself back into place with a pressure shift so sudden that Hiro’s ears popped.

  Hiro summoned his phantom cats as he stumbled forward. The spectral felines charged ahead, claws bared, while he cast {Thoughts and Prayers}—which failed—before drawing his katana.

  Bianca jumped away from the faun, her focus locked on the panpipes. She lunged for them, snagged the instrument midair, and hurled the panpipes further away from the fight.

  Snarling, Hachi leaped into the fray and clamped his jaws around the faun’s leg. Rather than stand its ground, the creature twisted free and took off toward the Manhattan Bridge, phantom cats and a demonic Shiba Inu hot on its heels.

  “What do you want me to do?” Bianca asked.

  “Um—” An idea hit Hiro so suddenly, he half-wondered if it was related to {Terminal Lucidity}. “Get the flute thing, or whatever. I’ll check on Ben.”

  Hiro crouched in front of the large southern man, who stirred with a low grunt. “Damn imp or whatever,” he sat up and rubbed his forehead. “No blood.”

  “Should we go after?”

  “Is it even a question?”

  “I figured.”

  “One less Sentry for another Survivor to deal with,” Ben said, shaking off the lingering effects of the spell.

  Hiro’s gaze snapped to Ben. “Did you get a description for it? Did your helmet tell you anything?”

  “Nah,” Ben grunted, already turning in the direction of Hiro’s pets. “I’m gonna move ahead. We’ll figured out.”

  “I’ll get to a rooftop.”

  “Good, let’s hit it from two sides.”

  Just as Ben took off, Bianca rushed back, practically vibrating with excitement. “I got its flute thing!” she shouted.

  “Put it in my backpack—we’ll deal with it later.”

  “But it’s heavy—”

  “It’ll be fine,” Hiro assured her she latched onto him and carefully opened the bag.

  “Mishka won’t—”

  “It’s fine. I’m going up.” Hiro triggered {Bounce} and launched himself onto a nearby rooftop.

  From his new vantage point, he spotted the faun skipping ahead—graceful, carefree, as if it hadn’t just tried to lull them into submission minutes ago. Then, as if sensing something ahead, it slowed. Not a moment later, the faun came to a stop before a huge bear, which stood upright on its hind legs. The bear’s body was sculpted from weathered bronze, towering at least ten feet tall, with thick, muscular limbs and a broad chest. Its head was slightly tilted forward, glowing yellow eyes locking onto the approaching faun.

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

  “We’re so cooked,” Bianca said.

  Hiro turned back toward Ben, ready to yell a warning—

  And then the faun was there with him.

  One moment it had been below, and the next, it stood mere feet away from Hiro on the rooftop, its unnatural grin stretching wide. “I believe you have something of mine.”

  Only then did the Doom System description appear.

  Hiro barely had time to process the words before the faun started humming. A tune—one Hiro was certain he had heard before.

  His knees wobbled.

  His vision blurred.

  Hiro tried to focus on the description, tried to make sense of what he was up against. But he only caught the first part…

  Description: Gluschdich, a Pennsylvania Dutch word meaning I’m not hungry, but I feel like eating, perfectly encapsulates both modern consumer habits and the instinctual state of a bear before hibernation. Bob Marley captured this paradox in his song Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)—a track that, according to legend, was inspired by a Buddhist preta, or hungry ghost, that traveled to Jamaica seeking an audience with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, only to be devoured by a pack of roving island bears.

  Their message? Ouroboric, certainly—but also hazy as hell after consuming a metric ton of pot brownies.

  What? Hiro thought as Bianca pushed forward, grabbed the faun, and slammed it into the roof. Another part of the description came to him, his mind racing to find a key within the insane text.

  It was through the preta’s remains that the faun was born, who quickly befriended one of the more sensible Jamaican bears and left for the United States to form a better life by using student visas. Failing to register in time with NYU, their I-20s were revoked and their visas canceled, which put them on a list subjugating them to immediate deportation and torture at Guantanamo Bay.

  At first, the bear and faun kept their heads down, paid their taxes, and tried to blend in. But as the authorities closed in, they realized survival required something more drastic. A plan was hatched—one that would render them untouchable. They immortalized themselves in bronze, making it impossible for ICE agents in unmarked SUVs (who, due to budget constraints, wore body armor hastily purchased from TEMU) to haul them away.

  Dammit! Hiro tried to draw his katana as the faun began humming again, the eerie tune winding through his skull like a thick fog, clouding his thoughts and throwing his balance off. His vision blurred, his muscles slackened, and for a terrifying second, he felt like he was sinking into the rooftop itself.

  “Shut up, you!” Bianca lashed out, her tentacles wrapping around the faun’s head before slamming it into the rooftop with a sickening thud. She coiled tighter, constricting around its neck, cutting off the melody.

  The moment the sound ceased, Hiro’s mind flashed back into focus—but that clarity came at a cost. The rest of the description crashed into him with all the force of a collapsing building, burying him under its sheer weight.

  “Are we not the same?” the now bronze faun shouted as the agents surrounded the two statues, weapons drawn. “Do we not share the same oppressors? You there, short man, you have goat hooves as well!” He called to a particular agent, who was stout and shaped more like a brick than human. “And you there such, fair lady, you are ursine in a good way!” He pleaded with a thicc latina who wore dark Oakley sunglasses and a balaclava.

  The faun knew he could call upon the bear to devour them, but he hadn’t immigrated to New York to become a notorious cannibal. Leaving Jamaica hadn’t even been his idea—it was the bear’s. The heat had grown unbearable, and the bear had become obsessed with all the riches they could make in a country that gave more worth to networth than it did to actual expertise and merit.

  “We just want to be free!” the faun shouted, but his cries were drowned out by the synchronized click of safeties being disengaged as the agents opened fire.

  The bullets didn’t hurt—not in the way they were meant to. Each plink off their hardened bronze bodies was a sharper wound, a reminder of who they were, how little they were worth, and the lengths to which others would go to erase them.

  Magazine after magazine emptied, the gunfire echoing against steel and concrete, until finally, one of the agents lifted a clenched fist. “We’ll be back,” he said, voice flat with bureaucratic certainty. “And this time, we’re bringing explosives.”

  Explosives, Hiro thought as he got control over himself. Explosives! He glanced down to see Hachi, his demon cats, and Ben desperately trying to fight the bear. But how?

  The faun wrenched free from Bianca’s grasp, its bronze form twisting unnaturally as it hurled itself toward the edge of the rooftop. Without hesitation, it slammed against the ledge and vaulted over, landing effortlessly on the ground below.

  Hiro barely had time to process the maneuver before the faun sprang onto the bear’s gargantuan frame. In one violent motion, the faun gripped the beast’s head and tore it clean off.

  The bear’s body crumpled with a hollow, metallic clang, dust kicking up from the impact. The faun landed beside it, hunched over like a predator savoring a fresh kill.

  Then, to Hiro’s shock, the faun punched its arm straight into the bear’s severed head.

  A surge of magic crackled through the air, warping the faun’s body as its bronze arm began to bubble and swell. The metal twisted and stretched, veins of molten energy running through it as muscle piled on unnaturally fast.

  The faun’s fist, now grotesquely enlarged, morphed into a monstrous gauntlet—formed from the bear’s very jaw. Rows of jagged teeth lined its knuckles, its surface slick with boiling blood and saliva that dripped onto the pavement. A health bar finally appeared over the faun’s head, followed by the red glow of a Zone of Influence, trapping Ben and Hachi inside.