Retrieving the spear, Renalia gripped the shaft around the head and pushed her hand toward the butt, removing as much of the mud as possible. By this point, Boogie had stopped circling and sniffing around. Instead, he growled at one spot in the sludge.

So it was both expected and surprising to see five one-inch claws shoot up from the ground. The fingers moved independently of each other, anchored by what resembled a cross between a rat paw and a human hand. The grotesque similarity to a newborn baby’s hand caused a wave of revulsion in Renalia.

Boogie didn’t seem to like it either, as he barked at it. Renalia ran at the paw with the spear held high overhead. A similar eruption around Boogie’s feet interrupted his barking. But before she could shout a warning, he side-stepped and clamped down at the small paw that attacked him in one motion.

At the same time, she brought the spear down with enough force that it pinned the palm of wriggling claws into the dirt. The sudden impact caused her hands to slide down the slippery pole, and she pitched forward. Even as she fell, she focused all her strength on keeping the clawed hand trapped.

The potential havoc five nimble claws could wreak on Boogie’s face scared her.

A quick restraint of panic kept her own hands on the spear instead of trying to break her fall. And as she hit the ground, she followed up with a burst of dulling emotions. Even so, the impact knocked the wind out of her and multiple scabs split open.

As the acidic mud seeped into her wounds, not even her numbed nerves completely masked the pain. Disinfecting the wounds didn’t help much either, as mud still covered them.

But she had done what she wanted. Both claws were immobilized. Now they only needed to worry about whatever fangs this creature had.

“Careful,” she gasped as Boogie started shaking the bogling.

“Wait!” she yelled, feeling the spear loosen from the dirt by the dog’s pulling. But Boogie stopped his attack before she could finish her sentence. He let go of his prey and sat back on his hunches.

That’s it?

“Is it dead?” she asked as she firmly thrust the spear back into the ground again and stood up. Boogie looked at her with his tongue sticking out. “Are you sure? Maybe it’s just playing dead?” Boogie retracted his tongue and scooted forward on his hunches a little.

“Well, I don’t know if that’s a ‘yes’, but I guess it’s not a ‘no’.” Carefully, she pried the spear loose, ready to push down again at the slightest hint of movement. To her relief, it didn’t shoot forward like some undead beast.

“Um, can you dig it out?” She pantomimed digging around the bogling. Boogie looked at the bogling and back to her, whining. “Yes, yes, I know. We both want the same things.” Running through the list of commands Shim had given her, she said, “Fetch?”

Released, Boogie jumped forward and started digging the corpse out. “That’s exactly what I said,” she said, showing how her gestures were similar to his digging motions. But he neither heard nor glanced at her.

Shaking her head, she moved to recover the buried knife from where she had dropped it close by. “I’m going to wash up really fast and we should get out of this bloody area as quickly as possible.” Turning back to the waterline, she froze in mid-step.

Right below her raised foot was a snake brilliantly striped in black, red, and yellow. Not a bogling, but just as dangerous.

It lifted its head and flicked its tongue in and out as if taking her measure. It probably didn’t receive a firm answer, since she, herself, didn’t know what to do. Both her spear and knife were muddy enough to impact her handling. And she didn’t want Boogie to fight it, in case the snake’s venom was poisonous.

Caution dictated that they retreat. But she didn’t want Boogie to manage future bogling encounters by himself. Even in the recent fight, if she had not pinned one of the paws, it may have done damage to Boogie. Her cards were not good enough by themselves; she needed usable weapons.

So she stepped to the side, her foot trampling on some flowers. Thorns advertised themselves by pricking through her mud-caked feet. Still watching the snake, she continued her wide berth around it. The snake, in turn, also tracked her with its unblinking and emotionless gaze. Reaching the water, she submerged the knife first and sheathed it, keeping an eye on the snake all the while.

This allowed her to see Boogie snatch the bogling from the ground and start making his way to her. Holding her palm out, she quickly signaled that he should stay put. She breathed a sigh of relief as the serpent kept its focus on her. Retracing her steps after washing the spear, she returned to Boogie’s side.

The snake still had not blinked nor stopped studying her. “We mean no harm,” she said. Renalia didn’t think it looked like a magical snake, but Chief Cian’s fairy tales had taught her that fantastical creatures could take many forms. More importantly, that they repay kindness with kindness and disrespect with terror.

“We’re sorry for coming into your home. We did not see it for what it was. Please forgive us.” She continued backing away, pulling a confused dog with her. After they had gone far enough, the colorful snake slinked into the undergrowth of flowers. She let out the breath she had been unconsciously holding.

With the threat gone, she had the chance to examine the strange bogling the dog held in its teeth. It was reminiscent of the shape and size of a swaddled baby. But instead of a round head at the very top, it narrowed to a point, like the baby was wearing a conical hat. The pointy tip appeared to be the snout. Shockingly, it didn’t seem to have eyes.

And instead of arms and legs, it looked like someone had done a poor job of swaddling, allowing the hands and feet to stick out. She noticed how one foot hung onto the body by a thin strip of hide. The hole explained how the bogling had died without much effort on their part.

It must have originally perished from the severed leg. And while the bog’s necromancy reanimated it, the primitive magic could not repair a missing leg. Boogie’s violent shaking of the bogling had probably dislodged a lot of the cursed magic.

“Let’s get our stuff and go home,” Renalia said, as she grabbed the last piece of her jerky from the ground and stuffed it into her mouth. “Did you want yours, or–never mind, I see you already got it.”

She unfurled the two lengths of rope clipped to Boogie’s harness and tied the ends to the bogling corpses, making sure to balance the load. And in preparation for any ambush, she practiced unclipping the rope several times.

Wounded, but victorious, the two of them left their first battlefield together. One dragged the trophies behind him, the other carried them in her core.

 

As they walked home, Renalia remained hypervigilant. The sharp pangs from her wounds precluded her usual daydreaming. She called a stop when they crested a small mound next to a patch of water. This should be far enough from the bloody battle site, and her wounds were getting harder to ignore without relying on her cards.

Unclipping the corpses from Boogie, she told him, “Stay and guard, okay? Get some rest while I go to wash up.” She quieted her nerves and waded into the cold water.

She had given a lot of thought to her Deck while waiting for [Bogling Skin] to become active for the third time. Combining it with [Disinfect Self Wounds] allowed her to seal her wounds and heal quite a bit faster than usual. While she appreciated this, she needed to hide this fact from the villagers.

No one would ask her directly if she had healing skills. However, card gossip is a prevalent conversation topic among the villagers. She, herself, often participated in the Deck rumor mills.

If the Baron heard whispers about her healing ability, he may wonder how the ten cards she materialized for the Deck Day Ceremony could spark such rumors. None of the lies she came up with sounded plausible in her own ears.

No, he would make the logical conclusion that she had other cards beyond the Starting Ten that she displayed. So she had to prevent any suspicions that she possessed restorative cards. This meant either not healing existing wounds or not showing injuries in the first place. She much preferred the second way.

So while submerged, she stripped and scrubbed her clothes, getting as much of the blood off as possible. Lacking soap and relying on dirty bog water, her clothes’ condition stopped improving fairly quickly. But at least it appeared just dirty now, not bloody. She wrapped her wet clothes around her neck to free her hands.

Now for the second reason for stopping at the small pond.

She grabbed their latest kill and immersed it in the water, too. Suppressing her revulsion, she pushed her left hand through the gaping hole at the corpse’s hip. Actively distracting herself with the cards in her mind’s eye, she scooped the slimy innards out. She shivered, both from the cool air on her wet skin and the squirmy squishiness that her hand pushed through.

After she extracted as much of the viscera as possible, she walked back to Boogie’s side. She dropped the carcass and laid her clothes on his harness. The black leather was warm from the sun's rays and should help dry her clothes faster.

“Stay still, okay?” she told Boogie, petting his head gently. “I’m going to use my cards. Don’t worry, okay? It’s just me.” 

Focusing on her wounds, including the new ones at her feet, she disinfected and called upon the overlay of bogling skin. Boogie perked up, but did not seem overly agitated. Did her bogling skin still smell like her? And where does it come from?

She ran her fingers across a patch of the black hide over her chest, noticing the roughness of it. Just like bogling hide. Curious, she poked at it. A smile tugged at her lips as the wound did not react to her jab through the thick hide. She remained smiling as the armor disappeared, revealing the newly covered scabs underneath.

Reaching for the cleaned bogling, she hoped the string of good news would continue. She held her breath and flipped the creature over, peering into its cavity from the missing leg.

A gleaming white rectangle hovered within.

She almost yelped as, in her haste to grab it, her hand scraped against the edges of the rough hide. The card resembled the previous one, but instead of a black patch, it displayed a picture of five white claws intersecting another five at a forty-five-degree angle.

She mentally calmed herself to prepare for incorporating it into her core. Expecting great spiritual resistance, she yelped in surprise as her core eagerly sucked in the new card without conscious effort on her part. It instantaneously appeared next to the [Bogling Skin] card. Huh, I guess saving my life means bogling cards are good cards.

Renalia debated activating the card but concluded leveling it quickly trumped saving its usage in case of an ambush. It would require five activations to level up its duration from one second to ten seconds. She doubted that one second of claws, at the current level, could turn the tide of battle.

She also wanted to test a theory.

Granny had taught her that one way of testing a truth is to gather as much data around when it may fail. So she concentrated on a single forefinger and activated [Bogling Claws]. The nail there shot forward into a slightly curved claw between two and three inches long. 

She explored it with her other hand, satisfied with the solidity of it. It also had a sharp point, nearly catching on her skin when she brushed against it lightly. Any more pressure, she guessed, and it would pierce the thin skin on her fingertips.

Best of all, it lasted a full ten seconds.

 

They resumed their journey back to the Ongocks’ residence. As they left the vicinity of the bog, Renalia played her cards whenever possible. She practiced activations while moving, especially with the bogling cards.

And she experimented with the amount of focus required to activate the cards. To her pleasant surprise, the more she used the skills, the easier it became.

[Resist Hunger], her most frequent activation, barely required any conscious effort on her part nowadays. Since she had no intention of banking any of the activations, it had become a reflex to use it whenever it became available. Sometimes, she only became aware she resisted hunger after the activation timed out, as it hit her with a sudden resumption of hunger.

Could she also use the cards while asleep? That would be awesome. The time she spent sleeping was such a waste.

While her wounds had sealed, a dull ache served as a constant reminder of unhealed injuries just beneath the skin. Without the unpleasantness, they could have had an enjoyable walk back to the village, just like after a tutoring session with Granny.

Thinking of Granny, she made some quick detours, as directed by the [Find Herb] card. Might as well get some real use out of the card, instead of just activating it to increase its level. Granny had shown her some of the rarer herbs only available deeper into the bog. She harvested them to give to Myfanwy.

This sense of usefulness and exploration was what she had always wanted from skill cards. She didn’t know how to feel about the fact that none of these fun cards came from her own core.

Before reaching the village, [Bogling Skin] leveled, allowing her to cover her wounds for almost two minutes. The smaller scabs started peeling, and she picked at one till it fell off. The patch of new skin felt tender but healthy.

It appeared darker than the skin surrounding it, though. She shrugged–uneven skin color being a small price to pay for saving her life. Almost dying had also given her a new perspective. She couldn’t care less what the kids thought or the names they called her; she had fought boglings and survived.

Getting rid of as many of the scabs as possible, she put on her damp and shredded clothes. Maybe she could trade the herbs with Myfanwy for some new clothes. Luckily, the deeper wounds higher on her chest remained hidden. And she could pretend they were small scratches inflicted when she fell from the peat stack the day before.

Arriving at the kennel, she hid Shim’s spear underneath some hay. She briefly considered unhooking the carcasses and letting the dog rest. The leather workshop was on the other side of the house though, and she did not think she could carry the hare there by herself.

And, being honest with herself, she knew the real reason for the hesitation: to delay showing Shim and his dad the injury that the wolfhound received.

She hugged Boogie. “I’m sorry,” she said for the umpteenth time. The muddy dog wagged its tail at the attention, but it did not lessen her guilt. “It was my fault. I should have kept the bogling distracted.”

Renalia’s heart quickened at the prospect of meeting Shim’s dad, Malchim, again. Most adults had treated her with either pity or kindness. Some, like Granny and Myfanwy, she’d even call friends. But Malchim … scared her. And she wasn’t the only one. His own kids were scared of him.

She had thought he meant to punish her with his order to fetch a bogling. And the first encounter with the hare had confirmed this, almost killing Boogie and her both. But the second one with the strange beast had been so easy. Now she didn’t know what to think.

Which version of boglings did he intend for her to get?

Leaning on the dog for courage, she walked towards the other side of the house, towards judgment.