"Alright, everyone," Lorio yelled, flanked by Riggs and the other man--Roderick, while Mitch, Anabelle, and Pitter stood off to the side. "We've got a Community Goal, and it involves all you newcomers."

He pulled out a red card and opened it.

"Community Goals are active the moment they arrive. Leaving it closed doesn't help us. In this case, here's what the Goal is..."

 

[The ill-fated passengers must divest themselves of what they hold in common and deposit, before they are welcomed.]

 

"Weird language aside, it looks like..." Lorio stood aside and showed us the large box with a wide horizontal slit in its face. "We've got an item collection Goal. The clue is that the item or items in question must be ones you all have."

Paulie raised a hand. "Hold on, when you say 'all' do you mean Kaz too? He was an ill-fated passenger too."

Lorio looked impressed. "Fast thinker. Yeah, we're pretty sure Kaz is included in this."

The others started mumbling while I groaned inwardly. I put a hand on Haunting's shoulder to pre-empt any startled reaction she was about to wear.

"Kaz is the reason this will be easier. For those that don't know, we burned Kaz's body. That means that what you all hold in common wasn't on Kaz's person."

"So, where is it?" Paulie asked.

Lorio looked over at Haunting and me. "Haunting, you lost the bag while running through the woods, right?"

I felt her try to jump. "I did!" she exclaimed.

He showed her a thumbs-up. "In our expert opinion, the item is in that bag. The bastard organizers came up with a Goal where the trick is the dead man's belongings."

"Hey, how are we going to know we've got the right item?" Ryza asked.

Lorio showed the card. "A progress report will probably show up here. That's how it works for other Goals of this nature. Anyway, the size of the slot also tells us what it definitely can't be. It has to be something that fits in our box here. So, here's what we're going to do. This Goal can be done today if we put in the effort. One team will go out to find the missing bag. Everyone else--try to collect your things. Worst-case scenario--we start slotting in the belongings of the person with the least belongings."

Hari tugged on Ryza's sleeve, and Ryza asked a question--

"Is there any penalty to feeding the box the wrong item?"

"For these types of things, the penalty is that you don't get the item back." Lorio said with a groan. "Think of it as the Goal Givers laughing at your efforts."

"That's annoying," Ryza said, crossing her arms.

"We're on the same page. Anyway, Haunting, Mari. You two were in the woods. We have to take you with us to find that bag. You two might be able to cut down on how much searching we might have to do."

"Sure," I said, speaking for the nervous Haunting.

"Great. Get ready, and we'll leave in an hour. Everyone else, keep thinking about what you all have in common. Throw all your stuff out here in this field if you have to... If anyone gets a confirmation on what item we need, let everyone else know."

"Hey!" Kia said, pointing away from all of us. "Someone turned on the scoreboard."

We all looked in that direction.

"Did someone turn on the electricity?" Roderick asked, his brow furrowed.

"No. The generators aren't on..." Lorio replied. "They shouldn't be... Was this thing on the whole time?"

Haunting hopped in place. "No, it wasn't! It wasn't on at all!"

Everyone turned their gaze to the now, really excited Haunting.

"I studied that board the moment we got here--it was not on. I guarantee it wasn't on."

"Why did you study the scoreboard, Miss Haunting?" Tolk asked, asking the question on everyone's mind.

Haunting turned deadly serious. It was hard to think that she was fretting moments earlier.

"Ominous messages on scoreboards is pretty textbook. It'd be irresponsible of me to not make a note of the content of a scoreboard and miss any subsequent ghostly messages."

Ryza nudged me. "What textbooks is she reading?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if she published them herself."

Ryza chuckled. "Oof, you're bad, Mari."

"I'm just kidding... That said, she's probably written and circulated some kind of guide."

"What are you two whispering about?" Haunting asked.

"Nothing, Haunting," we both replied.

"Hey, everyone," Paulie said. "Something's off with a number there."

I studied the board at Paulie's observation.

The board in question had fields for balls, strikes, outs, and innings, but all of those were lit up completely, blotting out the fields. Then there were the fields, "Home," and "Away." Beneath Home was a 0, and beneath "Away" was--

"Twenty-one," Paulie said. "If that's a scoreboard, then it's tracking our progress, right, Lorio?"

Lorio looked pale. "I--I guess so. Home is probably our progress--how many items have come home, so to say, and then Away is the maximum..."

"Yeah, but there were only twenty passengers," Paulie said, looking over at Mykos. 

Mykos jumped and stammered. "That's right... There were twenty passengers counting our driver."

"Does this mean there's another 'passenger' or that there's a copy of the item in question?"

Lorio's eyes opened wider as he realized the problem.

Roderick scoffed and shook his head. "And here we thought we caught on to all their tricks. Now they throw off the numbers. We were only expecting the people on the bus."

"Hold on," Riggs said. "Mari showed up on the same day. Might she be a 'Passenger' too?"

I shrugged as everyone looked my way. "I only came here with the clothes on my back."

Lorio shook his head. "I think Mari might be a red herring. There's no way to interpret her as a passenger. You were on your feet when you wandered in here, right Mari?"

"Yeah, and I was dumped in the forest by a bitter person and forced to walk. But if I'm not the person, what are we going to do about the '21' if it's correct?"

"We work on what we have. Let's identify the item in question. We might be able to make sense of the '21' after the item. That's something this place does, too--sometimes, it overwhelms you with info in an effort to get you wasting time. That's why we're breaking things down in terms of tasks. We're sticking to the plan. We've got five days to deal with this problem. Lastly, the scoreboard's on. Stay cautious. If you see anything in this field or around the scoreboard, run. We'll keep other experienced people here too to help maintain some level of safety." Lorio nodded at his people, and they nodded back.

"This cursed pressure cooker is going to keep us on our feet. Let's all be careful and clear this Goal. Excursion team, we're meeting at the town entrance in an hour."

With that, the meeting was over and people were coming together to talk.

"It's money, right?" Mei said. "Everyone has money."

"Oh my gosh! Yeah!" Kia said. She pulled a bill from her shirt and ran over to the box. I heard Haunting audibly gulp, but I heavily doubted "money" was what we all had in common.

"Relax, Haunting," I said. Being cognizant of the fact that people were listening, I added another statement. "Don't be scared of the forest."

Kia inserted her bill, but there was no change.

"Aww... I guess money wasn't the answer," Kia said with a sigh.

"It was a good idea," Lorio said, walking up to us with Pitter, Mitch, and Roderick. "We knew there were some people who came here with no money. That's why we disqualified it as an option."

"Yeah, fair," Ryza said. "I didn't bring much either. I'll check my stuff. I might be the 'lightest' person here..." She eyed Tolk's group. "Or maybe the bus driver... We have got to find out his name at some point."

"We asked," Lorio said with a roll of the eyes. "Told us to just call him the driver... Anyway, sorry, Mari and Haunting, but we're sure you can appreciate why--hold up, Mari, what happened to your hand?"

"Yeah, I got injured over at Beverly's."

"Beverly was injured too," Pitter followed.

"Huh... Are you going to be okay to go with us, Mari?" Lorio asked.

"I'm fine, I'm fine."

Mei bumped shoulders with me and giggled. "Guess we're in the bandaged club."

I chuckled back at her. "You're the much more impressive member, surely."

"We all have socks," Kia suggested before running off.

"Better hope Kaz had socks in his bag" Lorio quickly said.

Kia came back, dejected. "It wasn't socks."

"It was another good thought," Lorio said. "Thing is, these kinds of Goals target items that are either so mundane you don't think of them, or so peculiar you might forget you own them... So, let's just make sure we go through everything everyone owns."

"Lorio, is there a reward to this Goal?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said with a groan. He showed us the card and pointed at the reward line:

 

[Excellent Reward Box]

[Good Provisions: 3 Days]

 

"It's good stuff. The Goal Givers love being coy though."

"How annoying," I said as my eyes drifted. "No penalties?"

"This is them being coy," Lorio groaned. "They're not going to reveal the penalty until we're halfway through the allotted time. It's rare, but sometimes we get Goals like this. I think this place just wants to see us panic when something nasty is revealed."

"Oh... Very annoying."

"But hey, at least we're getting something for this bout of chaos."

Lorio started talking to others as they came up. Meanwhile, Roderick came up to Ryza and me.

"Hey, I haven't gotten to introduce myself to you two. I'm Roderick. Villager for three years. Heard of you two," he said, extending a hand.

"Nice to meet you," Ryza replied, exchanging a firm handshake. 

He shook hands with me too. And gave a polite, "Hello" to Haunting and Hari, and the others nearby.

"Mari, did you know we have an old store stocked with clothing?" he asked.

"I think Bessie mentioned something about it."

"Great. It's just that if you only have what you came with, feel free to grab whatever you want from there. And don't worry--the clothing isn't jinxed or anything. I had to get a whole bunch of stuff when I first got here."

"Hmm... Thanks for the heads up."

"And Ryza, I think you'll have the same problem I had on account of all the muscle."

Ryza raised a brow. "How so?"

"This place has stuff for standard body types mostly. You might have a hard time finding stuff that fits."

"Fair. I only brought two other outfits..."

"If you find something you like, you can bring it to me. I learned how to sew, fit, and modify the clothing here. If you want to look good, I'm your guy."

Ryza nodded. "Got it. We appreciate that."

"That offer's extended to everyone here. If you need anything repaired, I can give it a try too."

"That's very kind of you, thank you," I said before holding Haunting's shoulder. "Come along, Haunting. We should get ready for our little excursion."

"Yup, yup," she said, anxious as ever.

Ahh, there was one more matter to address--Anabelle. She had kept her distance this time, pretending she had other people to attend to. Since Susy had been so kind as to tell me that this woman was a problem, I decided to produce a second tiny butterfly and set it to follow her. If things went my way, I would have this entire place under my surveillance. Susy and Anabelle were just the start.