A Bored Lich

"Do you think we should drop out of initiation?" Frey asked.

"Frey, what are you talking about?" Thomas stepped forward. "We have been doing great so far. We have food, we killed four Bullfrogs with no serious injuries, we found a good shelter, and now you just want to quit? Why?" Elero stepped closer with a rant bubbling up behind her neutral façade.

"We got lucky," Frey continued. "Even though we all lived through the encounter with the Bullfrogs, we got pretty close to death. Coming out of a fight like that without injuries is the exception, not the rule. There are dozens if not hundreds of other groups which probably fared far better than us. Why should we risk our lives here when it is so unlikely that we are going to win?"

Elero's hands clenched. A vein bulged on her forehead. Her eyes drilled into Frey but when she opened her mouth, Doevm stepped in front of her and grabbed Frey by his collar. The sudden movement scared off the fireflies, which zoomed off into the night. "Do you want to forfeit?" Doevm asked with hardly suppressed hostility. Frey shook his head. "Did that Bullfrog slam you too hard to continue?" Frey shook his head. "Did you forget why you are here, why all of us are here? Because if you haven't forgotten, this question would have never left your head. Did you forget?"

Frey shook his head and Doevm let him go. "Then we will continue forward. Win or lose we grow from this experience. To grow one's life essence, one has to fight against another force. No matter what you do or how you train, you will carry the risk of dying. That is a given of getting stronger. You wanted to get stronger, right? For Gwen?" Doevm narrowed his eyes. "Or is there another excuse you would like to try to feed me?"

"I-I," Frey stuttered before turning his gaze away from everyone. "I'll continue to fight. I guess I just got a little nervous is all." He gave a broad smile before walking back to his little area at the very edge of the camp, which was covered in tangled roots. He sat down and pulled his knees inwards. His eyes stared off into space. There were no walls, no doors, nor even much of a roof in the camp. Thomas couldn't help but think that Frey had just set up those things around himself and shut them out.

"Like grandfather like grandson," Doevm muttered under his breath. "That damned smile is always there whether I want it to be or not." He turned back to the meat and activated the Burnsticks. He kept moving them around and biting his lip. Thomas alternated his gaze between them;thoughts he could not translate to words caught in his throat.

'Should I say anything in a situation like this?' he thought. 'I don't know with them. I never know.' He stood there, caught up in his own world of thoughts until Elero walked back to her Amphiboard and sat down on it. He absently followed behind and sat on his own. His gaze wasn't drawn to the meat anymore, not even with the delicious smell emanating from it. Rather, his eyes went to the stick which Doevm had driven into the ground, which slightly waved back and forth.

Doevm seemed to notice his gaze: "Don't worry, it isn't anything but the wind." He brought out a light crystal and placed it on the ground to replace the light of the vanished Fireflies. "That's why I didn't put any bells on the string. The wind would make them jingle and cause us to panic when there is nothing there."

After half-an-hour, the massive plate of meat was finally done. Doevm cut through the brown, slightly charred meat with only a few strokes of his dagger. The bulk of the meal was split up and stored in each member of the group's respective spatial rings for the days ahead. Four significantly smaller portions were cut off. Everyone grouped up in a circle with food in their dirty hands. Doevm left a Burnstick activated at the center, which gave off enough heat to substitute a campfire. However, it was a little strange to Thomas for the group to huddle up around a black stick in a dark, quiet swamp.

Thomas's drooling mouth dug into the meat, but he retracted soon after and nearly spat it back out. "The smell of all of this meat was great when I followed it back to the camp, but the taste doesn't match at all. It is like chicken without any seasoning. Doevm, can you do anything about this?" Immediately after, a firefly landed on his meat. He grimaced, however, his frown deepened when another firefly flying around landed on top of the first. Their lights flickered in sync.

Elero let out a hollow chuckle as Thomas cut that piece off and tossed it aside. He glanced up, finding that all the fireflies had returned to their little camp. They huddled close together, zooming around faster than before. Their lights were dimmer, but it was enough for them to see, so Doevm put his light crystal back into his spatial ring. Frey took small bites out of his meal, slowly chewing. Thomas could tell that he wasn't savoring the taste by his blank expression.

'This doesn't feel right,' Thomas thought. 'Not at all.' He glanced at everyone else, finding them to be eating in peace. 'I just can't put my finger on it.' He scanned around the camp, finding it to be the same as ever. The quiet was only disrupted by the buzzing and eating. He looked down at his piece of meat, which he had thrown to the floor. It was gone.

Then the string which Doevm had warned about, moved. It was slight, the same as every other movement. If not for the string going taut, he wouldn't have paid any mind to it. He found that his body could do nothing more than stare at the stick, which slowly slid out of the soil. Doevm and Elero noticed his stares. Then their gazes went to the stick. The light from the many fireflies vanished as they dispersed and flew into the dark swamp. The group stood up and drew their weapons. A light bloomed just outside of the camp, getting brighter by the second.

"Friend or foe?" Doevm asked as the string tore. The stick tapped against the floor, limp as a corpse. A long, narrow shadow hovered over the soil, heading straight towards them. The four got closer together. Frey held his shield in one hand, and his spear in the other. Elero reached down to her braces and got ready to unhook them. Thomas and Doevm held out their weapons as well.

"That depends," a deep voice rang out as a bright light illuminated the camp so much that it caused many to squint. "Some call me friend, most call me foe, but for people such as yourselves, I request you call me Mr. Quinn." The boat turned, revealing its full length of a dozen or so feet, yet just barely thinner than Frey's shield. The boat was made of solid Darkwood, glistening with oil. It lifted off the ground like an Amphiboard or paddle. Runes on the sides which blew out air, stabilizing it. The man in the center paddled only to the outline of the camp.

Out of the center hopped out a short man with uncombed hair and dark, sharp eyes. His bow and arrows hung over his dark clothes. He didn't draw them as he looked at the group. He simply walked forward as if meeting a friend on the road. As he sauntered over to the group, his eyes darted to the side of them.

It was then Thomas felt it, warm, rhythmic breaths brush against the back of this neck. He glanced at the others, finding their eyes to be as wide as his. There wasn't just one set of breathing either, but three. Loud crunching set his hairs on end, the shrill sounds of many sharp objects grinding against bone.

Mr. Quinn stepped forward with a deep frown. He raised a single finger and pointed it at the group: "Fang no! bad!"

Something whimpered behind him before a white wolf, as high as his chest, trotted from behind them. Around the wolf's neck was a little black ribbon. In its mouth was a giant bone of one of the Bullfrog's, or the pieces of one at least. The light from the massive light crystal hanging over Mr. Quinn's boat illuminated more of the wolf's details.

"I apologize for my companion," Mr. Quinn said as he stroked Fang's fur. The wolf's tail waged. It dropped the bone, turned around, and licked Mr. Quinn's neck.

The group looked at the wolf and backed away, all but Doevm, who said, "Is that an ice Cerberus?"

"Correct," Mr. Quinn responded as he pushed Fang back, his neck covered in slobber. "Quite knowledgeable, aren't you? How did you figure him out so quickly?"

"The patches of fur on both sides of his head are a little off, but the illusion is pretty good and well hidden behind his collar. It is shaped weirdly though, draping over the two invisible heads. Also the sound isn't muffled. I can hear the other two heads breathing."

"Color me impressed," Mr. Quinn said. "Whenever he smells a meal, he runs off. It's a bad habit he's had ever since I found him as a puppy. Now," he glanced one more time at the bones. "Would you people be interested in a deal?"