I could feel my nose wrinkling up and had to stretch my neck back as I sank into the mud until it tickled my chin. It wasn’t too deep, and my hands easily found the bottom, so there was no danger of staying stuck. There was even a lethargic current flowing past that made it... not easy, but possible to move around.

“Lower,” Amaryllis hissed right next to me. “Do you want to be found?”

I sank just a bit deeper in the mud until it was just short of my lips. Orange, who was tucked into the nape of my neck, walked around so that she was standing right next to my head in the shadow cast by my helmet. Standing on the air to avoid the mud was cheating!

The sound of loose-fitting boots clunking past had me freezing on the spot.

Amaryllis and I had picked the nearest spot to hide in. There were plenty of bushes and more mud than anyone could want. A great hiding spot, but not a place that I would want to fight in. Getting out would be tricky, which meant that I couldn’t afford to be spotted.

The feet thumped closer and soon the noise of footfalls was competing with the thudding of my heart to be the loudest noise around.

I saw a pair of boots move past, then another behind that one. They stopped.

My heart started beating faster.

The boots turned my way and I shut my eyes, almost expecting to feel an attack coming.

The renewed thumping of feet had me letting out a held breath. I slowly turned my head and looked in the direction the patrol had moved in. From farther away I could see more than just boots.

The group was made up of four grenoil skeletons, each in simplistic armour and carrying an ill-maintained spear and buckler. Glowing undead eyes scanned the marshes and occasionally stopped to stare at a marsh bird or a swaying tree.

“Let’s move,” Amaryllis said.

Amaryllis looked kind of silly, her white feathers plastered to her head by an entire layer of caked-on mud and her pale features tinted brown by brackish water. I couldn’t imagine it would be fun for her to clean her feathers later, some of them even stayed in the mud as we crawled out of it.

“Did you see another patrol?” I asked.

“No. It could just be the one,” she said. She didn’t sound so certain of that.

The fort was close. So close that I could actually make out the lights lit from within despite the full morning sun. There were people manning the walls, some of them walking around, others standing stock still.

I had the impression they weren’t living people.

“Did you see their level?” I asked. I had forgotten to use Insight while in the mud.

“Between six and eight,” she said. “Not too strong for a normal monster, but powerful for an undead.”

“Are undead common around here?” I asked. “I’ve seen some before, but it was in an abandoned town.”

Amaryllis eyed me for a moment before looking towards the fort. “No. No it isn’t normal. Let’s get closer to the fort. We might be able to see where they’re coming from. Most of the time undead spawn where there are plenty of bodies and certain types of... unfavourable mana.”

“Could it be an undead dungeon or something?” I asked.

“Let’s hope not,” she said before skulking forwards. She kept low to the ground, her task made easier by the lack of backpack or any gear. I still hadn’t gotten a straight answer out of her about that.

We kept as close to the few patches of dead trees as we could. Amaryllis even touched a few of them with a talon and frowned at them. We saw another patrol, just three grenoil skeletons this time, and they were heading away from us. We waited for them to get out of the area before moving on.

Soon we were before Fort Frogger, hiding near the lip of a hill with just the tops of our heads sticking out to take in the entrance of the fortress. The large wooden doors were open, one of them broken and ripped free of its huge metal hinges. The inner courtyard was filled with the undead, mostly grenoil skeletons, but a few that looked like strange horses with human upper bodies. Centaurs?

Two larger skeletons, both in plate armour and holding up Broccoli-sized swords were waiting at the gate.

A Skeleton Knight, level ?.

“I can’t even see their level,” I said.

Amaryllis sighed. “Ten. They’ve hit their evolution level, the undead can’t really go beyond that, not without some very unusual circumstances.”

“Evolution?” I asked.

She turned to me. “You really don’t know anything, do you?” she asked.

I shrugged before lowering myself down. The little hill we were on was surrounded by a good number of trees, so I wasn’t too afraid of getting spotted by a passing patrol. Still, I had yet to remove the layer of mud that covered me. It was good camouflage.

“I’m going to go say hi,” I said.

“What?” Amaryllis asked.

“Look, our mission is to scout the region, right? We’ve sort of done that. Now we just need to see inside the fort, but that can’t happen if we have to fight our way in. You’re very strong, I’m sure you could take the two skeleton knights at the door. But then there are a whole bunch more inside. So we try the nice way.”

“The nice way? Is that what they call suicide where you’re from?” Amaryllis asked.

I figured she was being rhetorical. And rude. Mostly rude. “Let me try? If it doesn’t work then we go back to Green Hold and tell Gabriel and that’s that.”

Amaryllis glared at me, looked over the hill at the fort again, then back at me. “Are your stats back up to full?”

Health 120/120
Stamina 79/125
Mana 115/115

“Most of them, yeah,” I said. “My stamina is a little low, but it’s not too bad.” I took Orange off my shoulder and handed the kitten over to Amaryllis.

She took the kitty in both taloned hands with surprising care. Orange didn’t even protest at the contact.

Then I shucked off my backpack and searched within. I found a potion and refilled the pocket that had held the trifecta potion I had given Amaryllis. “Okay. Can you watch over my bag? It’s not too heavy.”

“I can,” she said. “If this goes south and you die, I’m keeping the cat.”

I grinned at her, then scritched Orange behind the ear where she liked it best. “She likes you, so it’s okay. You can have my stuff too, I guess.”

“Idiot. Do try not to die. I might be stuck with an even bigger fool next time.”

I grinned so hard my cheeks hurt. She did care!

I fired a cleaning spell at myself and felt all the mud and gunk rolling off me like water off a hot pan, then I poked Amaryllis and did the same for her. She shivered as my magic washed over her, and even let out a little ‘oh’ when it was past. “See you soon!”

The knights spotted me before I was even halfway to them, but other than shifting so that their swords were in a sort of guard position, they didn’t really react. I stopped a dozen meters away from them and waved. “Um, hello! My name is Broccoli Bunch, I’m with the Exploration Guild. I was hoping to talk to your leader. Or your boss, I guess. Um... rarr?”

The skeleton knights paused, then as one they turned and stepped to the side, leaving the path into the fort’s courtyard open.

“Is that an invitation to go in?” I asked.

I didn’t even get a ‘rarr’ in response.

“Can I go get my friend?” I asked.

The skeletons didn’t seem to mind. Or if they did, I couldn’t tell from their complete lack of motion. I waved at the hill, and soon enough a very cautious Amaryllis stepped out from over the edge and walked over to me, eyeing the skeletons the entire time. “What did they say?” she asked when she came closer.

“I don’t know. I can’t speak skeleton.”

“Skeleton isn’t a language,” she said.

The skeletons shifted and one of them let out a low ‘rraarrg.’ I pointed at it, my point obviously made.

I wanted to grab Amaryllis’ hand to pull her in—it wouldn’t do to leave the leader of the skeleton’s waiting—but didn’t know if it was okay to touch her feathery arms, and her taloned hand looked hard to hold. So instead I just pouted at her and gestured inside.

She sighed, but followed after me as I moved in.

There were skeletons in the courtyard, both grenoil and the strange four-legged ones. They were too slight to be actual half-horse half-humans, though maybe centaurs were just small-boned. I made a note to ask Amaryllis about them later.

No one stopped us as we reached the entrance of the fort proper. It was a large, squarish building, made of big stones that looked like they had been fused together, probably by some sort of fancy earth-magic. The tower we had been seeing for a while stuck out of the middle; small slit-like windows all around probably gave anyone within a spectacular view of the area.

I paused before the door and checked myself out as best I could, running fingers through my hair, dusting off my gambeson a bit and making sure that my skirt was on straight.

“What are you doing?” Amaryllis asked. She was switching between looking at me, and at the listless skeletons around us.

“I’m making sure that I make a good first impression. People judge you a lot based on how they meet you for the first time, even though judging people like that is wrong. But if I want to make lots of friends then I need to put my best foot forwards.”

She stared at me for a moment, then raked her talons through her own hair-feathers, and plucked a few crooked feathers out of her arms.

I was grinning as I knocked. Five quick taps of shave and a haircut boomed out.

We waited, both of us shifting uncomfortably while my knock echoed within the building. Footsteps sounded out, low and heavy as if something big was approaching. As it came closer I could just barely make out the clatter of something like nails scratching against wood in a frenzy.

The door opened with a whoosh.

I stared at the rather plain man within. Sure, he was a ghoulish-looking man with glowing blue eyes behind a pair of spectacles, but he was wearing a cardigan over a sweater-vest and had big fluffy loafers on. Next to him was a dog.

Most of a dog.

A dog skeleton. One the size of a small car.

It stared at us, tail helicoptering through the air so fast I could feel the wind from where I stood. When the tip hit the ground it cut thin grooves into the stone floor.

“Yes?” the man asked.

“Ah, hi!” I said. “My name is Broccoli Bunch! Let’s be friends!”

Amaryllis smacked me behind the head.

“Are you the... lord of this estate?” she asked, voice far haughtier than it had been just a few minutes ago.

“And if I am?” the man asked. He stood taller, and his big puppy stopped shaking with repressed happiness. I fired off two quick Insights while he stared down Amaryllis.

An Undead Human Bone Setter, level ??.

A Bone Hound of the Long Slumber, level ???.

I wasn’t sure what to do, the tension was rising and I could literally feel the danger in the air. I didn’t know if it was mana leaking out of the two near me or just bad vibes, either way it had to stop, and I knew just the thing!

“Do you like tea?” I asked.