"So, in sum, Deirdre and I are dating; it's still new and challenging, and I don't know if we're off to a perfect start, but we probably have a lot to talk about soon. Liv is my teammate and also a woman both me and my girlfriend maybe sort of have a crush on, but I don't even know where to begin with that problem. I started a free public service in the form of a soup kitchen, which I should really be focusing on, but I can't for various reasons. My party mates and I are working ourselves half to death, and the current plan to fix that is by building a cooperative hunter's outpost out beyond town where a bunch of things might go wrong. And lastly, there is a guy in town running his own little fiefdom who might try to break my kneecaps if I don't go into business with him. What do you think?"

The moth resting against my apartment wall moves its wings slightly.

"Yeah, you're right," I reply with a deep, restless exhale.

At this point, my pillow and sheets are rumpled from endless tossing and turning. Proper sleep just was not happening tonight. Maybe I should have stayed over at Deirdre's, but my things are still here, and we haven't exactly worked out my maybe moving in. Following our meeting with Menlo Deirdre, Liv and I didn't really know what to do. Liv suggested a drink to 'wash away the bad taste of the meeting' but I don't think any of the three of us were really feeling that. Instead, we decided to split up and take care of ourselves for the evening. Frankly, the mounting problem feels like we are being pulled in too many directions at once. Like the old saying goes, if everything is a priority, nothing is.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will consult Liv and Deirdre, and we will figure out together what is most important.

***

No matter how many times Deirdre's spear comes down on the enemy or Liv's axe connects for an attack, the Monster's armor holds. The corrupted beast we've run into at the forest's edge is proving to be a challenge. Typically, it seems, Monsters find themselves manifesting parts to stab or slash with, but this particular beast ended up going down a different path. It looks like an oversized beetle despite whatever animal it started life as; its shimmering purple chitin makes for a superb defense, but the Monster lacked much of an ability to take down people as powerful as Deirdre or Liv.

It stands on six chunky legs, all plated in armor, and is at least as tall as Deirdre is. The Monster is still very much a threat, even being peculiar as it is. It's sharp pincers look powerful and eager to pull apart flesh bit by bit, but they are relatively small, and my companions are having no issues keeping themselves safe. What they weren't doing was breaking through its defenses. It was understandable that my companions might be prone to the slow and steady approach given just how valuable a resource Mana is to them, but at this rate, they'd spend an hour trying to hack it apart at the joints to be able to finish it off. Ability users still spent Mana while channeling, so this fight needed to end sooner rather than later.

Liv likely assumes Deirdre will manage to pierce its chitin eventually if she keeps it distracted long enough, and Deirdre either assumes the same or is hoping Liv will use her overwhelming strength to create a breach she can work with.

Mustering up as loud a voice as I can, I call out to my companions. "Deirdre, Mana Shroud on Liv's shield! Liv, bash the thing, crack it open."

Even in the heat of the moment, with my pulse pumping, adrenaline flooding my system, and my senses on high alert, I still have time to worry that I'll be rebuffed. It would be utter humiliation for my teammates to have encouraged me to call out the things I see out here that they might miss, only for them to ignore them and think my plan stupid.

Self-confidence, even in the heat of battle, doesn’t seem to care one bit about making itself known. To my relief, both Liv and Deirdre spring into action a moment after hearing my advice. The beetle's turning speed is nothing to write home about compared to Deirdre's blistering speed and Liv's athletic ability. Liv makes the extra effort to strafe around behind it towards where Deirdre had been making flanking strikes. Meanwhile, Deirdre runs a line directly toward Liv. Crossing paths just long enough for Deirdre to reach out and place her palm on Liv's shield.

As quickly as they meet, Deirdre is back circling again, becoming a threat to the Monster's side and rear to keep it off balance. As she sprints off, the wolven shield tank's heavy defensive burden begins to glow. Mana Shroud erupts like an incandescent bulb, covering its large wooden round shield target in a soft cyan shimmer.

The beetle, looking for an opening, presses forward with its attack against Liv, but its large jaws never make contact. A swipe from Liv's axe forces it back a step, and in the time it takes the creature to bend its leg for another lunge, Liv's shield is already swinging towards it like a wrecking ball. The Monster has what amounts to two sections: a short front section, basically just its head, and a large tube-like body. Liv's attack strikes the area between the two, dealing a concussive blast to the stubby front head but ultimately not forcing open a large part of its armor.

"The back. Hit its side or back." I shout, hoping Liv will score a blow that will crumble a large portion of the Monster's chitin.

Our halfling party mate isn't idle while the other two are engaged. Deirdre's spear all the while stabs at the rear of the Monster, glancing off its tough exoskeleton but nevertheless forcing the beast to reorient in an attempt to keep both its attackers in view. To give Liv every little extra bit of power for her next attack, I cast Empower, and I cross my fingers that the stupid beetle will reach its breaking point.

Like some sort of hero from antiquity, Liv's next attack is a leaping strike that involves not only her boots leaving the ground but her entire body spinning one hundred and eighty degrees to bring her shield down on the beetle's back. Reminiscent of an Olympian's hammer toss, Liv's shield bash is just as impressive. The thundering crack of contact reverberates like a deafening whip strike that ripples through the craggy stone and shrub land our battle takes place on.

The aftermath is as much as we could have hoped for. Not only has a large shard of chitin broken away, exposing softer Monster flesh, but a series of large, jagged lines reach out in every direction like a spiderweb.

Although the attack leaves the beast enraged, pushing even harder to tear into its enemies, all that remains for it now is the certain death to come. Deirdre, seeing her time to shine, is quick to take advantage. The Monster’s end occurs after a series of a few dozen cuts. Never able to avoid the halfling's attacks, each slash and stab ticks another moment off its rapidly shortening existence. Eventually, when Deirdre strikes true with her spear, piercing a hand's length or more into the Monster's guts, the creature falls and doesn't rise again.

Gathering around the carnage of the battle, it is clear to see just how many hits the beast took. The dead beetle's corpse is covered in scrapes and pits all along its exoskeleton where a spear or axe hit it. A cursory check ensures that neither of my companions are injured, so I return to my default of cycling through Recovery and Aegis to mend our general aches and pains and to keep our endurance up while out on the hunt.

"Do you think the shell is valuable?" Asks Deirdre, looking over a chunk of chitin in her hands.

Liv doesn’t bother inspecting a piece before replying. "Probably. There are not a lot of Monsters with shells like these. Was pretty big for being so weak. Must have survived a couple attacks from other Monsters,” she adds.

I’d still categorize it as small. Having seen a true medium-sized size Monster, and how scary and dangerous they really are, the dumb beetle only counts as a small Monster with a gimmick in my book. Or maybe it would be better to think about Monsters in terms of age rather than size, even if they had a correlation.

Stupid things, defying easy categorization.

“Probably would have ended up a flier eventually,” muses Liv, clearly entertained by the strange Monster.

Nervously, because of the implications, I inquire further. "Flier? That's a thing?”

I can’t even begin to imagine any of the beasts we’ve faced off against with wings. It would make them all the more dangerous. They’d be able to range far and wide and attack isolated groups of humans with impunity. They’d be true terrors.

Liv regales us with an explanation.

"Really old ones can sometimes have wings. Supposedly. I've never seen one. It's the kind of legend you'll pick up if you spend enough time around other hunters. Somebody always knows someone who knows someone who saw something massive with wings and lived to tell the tale."

Older means bigger, so if you give wings to a Monster, and make it bigger, you end up with something sounding a lot like a dragon. Though I suppose if the defeated beetle nearby was three times its size with a bunch of insect wings, it would be a frightful thing to behold too.

“Fliers aren’t real. Otherwise, they’d attack cities, which are full of people who would pass down the stories,” Deirdre interjects, accompanied by a distraught sigh.

Liv takes a moment to prop the dispatched beetle Monster onto its side and then heaves it over onto its back. The movement makes a wet, meaty slap as it comes to rest. With the underside exposed, Liv starts fishing for a knife to get to work, chopping it into pieces. This Monster alone will go a long way towards filling up our three backpacks.

“Maybe they know not to; even a super old monster would get killed by a hail of magic and arrows if it landed in a city."

Deirdre scoffs at that, sounding bothered by the line of thought. 

“Why would they do that? Instead of just mindlessly killing like all the rest.”

While Deirdre asks her question, she too readies her knife and heads for the dead beetle thing. I fiddle with the strap for my own serrated long blade and stalk over to join them both in the task of dismembering our kill.

“Not exactly mindless, are they? They try to wait in ambush. They fight tactically. The older they get, the better they become at it.“

“So you’re saying the oldest Monsters know better than to attack a major settlement? I don’t like the idea that they're that smart.”

Instead of a quick joke or some other remark like Liv often makes, our little group settles into silence as we begin working to pry away parts of chitin. I think maybe we’re all a little disturbed by the idea of Monsters having the possibility of becoming even more dangerous.

***

Finally, after a Cedar Street meat delivery is dropped off, the rest is sold for coins, and another round of Liv and Deirdre kicking my ass takes place, the late afternoon greets our party with some free time.

As soon as the grime and dust are washed away from our arms and faces, it’s time to get down to the real order of business today.

“Now then,” I say to my companions. “Let's go find us a friendly council member.”

Of course, we have had a lot of time to talk since this morning. The trek from town to the forest’s edge alone would have been enough time to come up with a game plan. The long and short of our brainstorming was that if a council member wanted to exploit us, then we needed a different council member on our side.

Our assumption, and it is only an assumption, is that the different power players in town keep their hands off each other's interests. Charles Menlo wants a piece of our hunting outpost, well, he can’t have it. The best way to protect ourselves from retribution is to make a deal with someone else on the council and, in that way, gain some protection.

It fits with our ultimate goal anyway, which was simply to improve life around here. Finding a half-decent existing person on the council who shares those goals would be ideal.

We had a short list of options. Menlo is out, obviously. Councilwoman Saladino was awful, so she was a no too. We didn’t want to get anywhere near Justin Timund or Conrad Haus, who jointly ran Waldonton’s infamous lumber operations, since they were known dirtbags.

That left us with Captain Calan Thornton, head of the town's guard. Dorian Mohsen of the Tack and Trade Company, who seemingly had a bunch of investments in caravans connecting Waldonton to the outside world. Lastly, there was Fenton Russ, whose title was ‘deputy provost’ on the council and, for all intents and purposes, acted like the mayor of town.

To make our decision a tiny bit harder, any one of those three might have an interest in our outpost. The guard captain might care, since we were essentially aiming to run an independent operation to help protect the town, even if it was a for-profit one. Mohsen could be interested. Just like Menlo, Mohsen is a trader, and if our outpost becomes a source of Monster parts, he may want to get in on that so he can sell them further afield. Of course, Russ should care about our endeavor too, if he were a decent mayor who cared about the town, that is.

Before we can pick a direction, Deirdre taps my shoulder.

“Huh?” I ask, glancing her way.

Instead of an answer, the halfling points down the street. In the distance, in an open section of town, I can just barely make out a pair of wagons. Wagons mean trade. Trade means someone from a city.

“Let's check those out first. They may be willing to buy some of our Monster parts.”