Several green orbs of magical energy burst over the Radoch spellcaster as their staff destroyed the last of the sunflower zombies. As the air crackled due to the spent power, the roach then twisted around, bringing their weapon out to block Sally’s attack.

  She grinned as they contested strength. “Must be a powerful weapon to stop Skeleton Key.”

  “Yous should see the artifact collection on my ship,” the roach hissed back. “Although, yous be dead before yous get the chance.”

  “Undead,” she replied. Her eyes were pools of bright crimson, reflecting the bloody sunset.

  Green magic swirled around her opponent, forming the shape of a spear above his shoulder. Sally fired the crossbow in her left hand, putting a bolt through the spellcaster’s knee. They buckled, and the hovering spell fizzled slightly - almost vanishing completely.

  It was enough to give her an edge. Twisting away from the melee, she avoided the swipe of the long staff and ducked to the side. Magic burst around her. Skeleton Key tore through the flank of the large bug before they could hop back away. Now clutching their hip, the Radoch seethed as dark ichor ran from the wound.

  “Are there more like you?” she asked as she twirled the knife in her hand casually. “I’d hate to think this is the best on offer.”

  The alien didn’t respond, but growled as it pointed the staff toward her like a lance. Green energy swirled around the tip, forming a drill-like spiral. Sally went to pluck another skull from her belt before realizing that her left arm had been severed off by the magical spear. Losing that arm was becoming something of a bad habit.

  Her opponent burst out toward her, blowing wet mud into the air along the way. The spiral of magic extended and twisted with greater ferocity as it bore down on Sally. She looked back up at the lunging Radoch with a blank look. Their enraged eyes opened wide in confusion.

  In the blink of an eye, the spellcaster pivoted on the spot. A zombie hand emerging from the wet earth held onto their thin leg, causing them to slam themselves face down onto the ground. The magic lance burst against the empty riverbed, sending more thick globs of mud splattering around the area.

  Sally was already there, lashing down at the Radoch with her blade.

  Once again, the staff crossed in front of her target to block the attack. As the oversized bug sank into the ground slightly, it showed no sign of giving up against the pressure of her dagger.

  “Surprisingly weaks for a supposed god,” the spellcaster growled.

  “Just conserving my strength,” Sally replied. “But if you really want to learn the hard way…”

  Shadow darkened her face, silhouetted against the sinking sun. A bright silver thread of her Aspect powers snaked out around her right arm, down to her dagger. As the pair struggled to shift each other, the thread moved through the air past the staff and onto the Radoch.

  “What are yous…” the alien began, before the strain prevented him from continuing.

  An uncomfortable amount of calm spread across Sally’s face as her expression cooled. The thread wormed up the Radoch’s face beneath their hood and circled around their eye. Despite their best attempts to squirm and shift away from it, the thin line of silver found its way past the glowing orb and into the bug’s eye socket.

  The Radoch struggled and the magic staff lowered toward their body. Sally softened her push against them and stood up straight. The spellcaster shifted and twitched for a few seconds before exhaling and going inert. Life left their eyes, now staring up at the sky as the thread withdrew from inside their skull.

  “I haven’t leveled up my brain surgery skill past amateur level, apologies.” Sally gave the bug a dry smile as she stepped away. After sheathing her dagger, she picked her left arm up from the mud and set the thread to sew it back onto her shoulder.

  That wasn’t too bad. Most of the Radoch forces were an unknown, and she was tiring of chewing through the Initiates. Or not chewing through them, as the case may be. If there were more powerful enemies hiding around, then she wanted to find them out. Mostly for research purposes. Partially just in case some higher up the hierarchy chain might have edible brains.

  //Bully: First prototype sent in the mail.

  //Bully: Let me know how it works out.

  She closed the message. Ten minutes before it would arrive, but it wasn’t like she was short on things to do. Fighting raged on behind her, with Humphrey and Edward making a mess of the rest of the Radoch forces, accompanied by a miscellaneous number of zombies.

  While her arm finished reattaching, she kneeled down by the spellcaster to loot his body.

  [Radoch Fel Staff]

  [Can be infused with the wielder's spellcasting Affinity for increased damage]

  Not as useful as she had been expecting. She’d left her own necromancy staff back at home, as it didn’t seem to be as useful as Skeleton Key most of the time. Once Chuck could work out how to increase their available bandwidth again, she would be able to travel with a bigger Inventory of her Sanctuary stash.

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

  Still, this caster had a different badge on him, and…

  “Hello, are you Sally?”

  She continued to rifle through the Radoch’s gear. “Sure am. I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

  “I am lost and broken.”

  “That’s not much of a name.” She grinned as she stood up and turned to face the speaker.

  Much like she expected, this was the entity Jackie had mentioned. How could it not be? A shadowy figure in a roughly humanoid shape, nothing but cloud except for two bright white circles for eyes.

  “The one who fed me pancakes told me to see you.”

  Sally nodded, but raised an eyebrow. Hopefully they didn’t eat too many as she needed plenty for the trip back home. “Well, here I am.”

  The entity turned its eyes over to the side. “Is this hell?”

  “I can see why you might think that, but no.”

  “Oh.” A smoky tendril emerged from their main body and pointed out. “But there is a demon.”

  Sally glanced over at Edward, who was too busy poking holes in Initiates to notice he was being singled out. “He’s on our side. We are a small group trying our best to fend off an alien attack on this world.”

  The eyes swiveled back to her before looking down at the dead Radochs in the mud. “I see.”

  “We don’t have much time to yap, as we need to keep moving. Follow along and stay out of trouble.” She rolled her left shoulder and flexed her fingers. “Keep talking.”

  There was already another group of Initiates moving up to the riverbank from the direction of the spaceship. Based on the information Jackie was currently feeding into her System, there would be fewer of these weaker bugs in the coming battles. More of their exotic and powerful creatures were on the way. She pulled a face, remembering the enormous radioactive snail they’d needed to escape previously.

  “I would like to remember who I am.”

  She gave the entity a nod and gestured for it to follow her so she could regroup with the rest of the Outsiders. “You’re not from a System world, are you?”

  “I’m not sure what that is. Uncertain.”

  Where was Archie when she needed him? She scoured the darkening riverbed, thick with dead Radochs and fallen zombies sinking into the mud. It had been a long time since the cat had actively involved himself in a battle, so hopefully the mysterious item on this world could make him more useful.

  “Sally.” The Death Knight turned to greet her as he cut down the last of the Radoch group attacking him. Wielding his greatsword one-handed was slow and clumsy, but it had made him no less effective. Humphrey’s empty eye sockets turned from the zombie to the shadowy figure following behind her.

  “New pal,” she explained. “They’re going to tag along for a little bit.”

  He shrugged in response. “It is imperative we leave this current position and make it to the other side of the river.”

  Sally couldn’t agree more. Both of them were caked with mud up to their knees, and the Death Knight was having an even tougher time of wading through it with how heavy his armored body was.

  She turned to collar Edward so they could get out of her, only to see the shadow entity hovering low to the ground, as if it was inspecting one of the roach corpses.

  “Any familiarity?” she asked. “They’re called Radochs. Big cockroach aliens that collect and destroy other worlds.”

  “No.” The entity rose back to a standing position and turned to face Edward as he stepped over to them.

  While he didn’t look as muddy as the other two, he was twice as annoyed as them with his suit being ruined. His eyes darted between the Outsiders and the new entity. “Who’s this?”

  “No idea.” Sally grinned. “Maybe another oddball to add to our extended found family? If we die in this mud pit, we might never find out, though.”

  “Hello, demon.”

  Edward grimaced before nodding toward the Radochs lining up along the bank edge. “I’m too focused on what might happen on the spaceship to worry about anything else. Let’s go.”

  While the river wasn’t exceptionally wide, the wet mud made progressing across it that much more of a slog. The aliens waiting for them had brought ranged weapons, and defending against the rain of bolts increased the time to travel further. Humphrey took the lead and deflected most of the projectiles with no issue. He raised his arm and fired off a cannonball toward the grouped enemies, scattering a handful.

  Once close enough, Sally used Meat Hook. Her feet left the muddy ground with a quick sucking sound as the skill took her up the river bank and among the remaining roaches. Skeleton Key spun in her grip as she lashed out, carving thick wounds through their chitinous armor. Mortis Bomb exploded and set one of the Radochs aflame as several zombies crawled from the grass to join her in the melee.

  As she turned, she caught sight of the shadowy entity. It had followed her up onto the side of the riverbank, not held back by the terrain. Her eyebrows raised as she watched tendrils snake out of their body, wrapping around a Radoch who was still trying to pelt the slower Death Knight.

  The large roach twitched and turned to face the shadow as the dark mist wrapped around its body. There was a brief second of shock on their face before they bent over, shriveling up as if extremely dehydrated.

  Any further observations would have to wait, as the leader of this group of aliens was pushing their underlings out of the way to get a shot in at Sally.

  She grinned as the tall bug approached her. Wielding a large greataxe in both of its left hands, while the right held a tower shield. The bug stood over her and raised the weapon high into the air - before pausing.

  It turned its head to face the Death Knight, who had used Compelled Duel to force it into fighting him one-on-one.

  Sally sunk away into the shadow of more zombies, as the horde grew around her.

  Theo woke with a jolt, immediately hitting his head on the inside of his metal coffin. He swore under his breath, sinking into the shadowed pillows, as a pain grew around the inside of his skull.

  The coffin was usually quite padded back at Sanctuary. Something about the reduced bandwidth made such luxury unimportant when traveling, apparently. Maybe there was something else he could give up in return. He’d send Chuck a message once the headache went away.

  It wasn’t even nighttime, so the need for a nap was briefly confusing. Was he fine? Surely.

  As to why he had awoken so suddenly… now that the throb of his heartbeat softened in his ears, he could hear the muffled sound of voices.

  Ah, of course. He had fallen asleep in the middle of nowhere. It made sense that any adventurers who had come across him would be suspicious or curious. They might see his casket as a loot box or a monster to fight.

  If they popped him open looking for battle, they’d get a definite surprise.

  Theo licked his lips. Not that he’d complain about drinking some real Player blood. It might just put a strain on his relationship with the heroes he was supposed to meet if he started killing the local populace. Even in self-defense.

  That said, it was rather rude to disturb his nap. Often dangerous.

  His grin exposed his fangs as he popped the lid of his coffin to see what the fuss was all about.