The heavy wooden club, studded with sharp stones, scythed toward Benedict. He ducked the blow and felt the displaced air where his head had been a moment before. A quick, decisive push off the soggy ground sent him shoulder-first into the standing lizard-man. They fell together to the ground, where Benedict shoved his sword into the monster’s chest. It threw him off, but as he rolled, Benedict cut hard, opening its chest up further.

  As the monster died, a thunderbolt cracked behind Benedict. Celica stood across from a stumbling lizard-man. She moved again, slashing her staff through the air as if it were a sword. Runes on the head glowed, and five glowing projectiles flashed forward like stones from a sling, slamming into the lizard-man hard enough that it collapsed to the ground. The last lizard-man fell shortly after to Shiyo’s sword slicing through its neck.

  Benedict wiped the blood from his sword. “We seem to be getting better at this.”

  Celica bent over, letting her arm with her staff hang limp. She didn’t release the weapon, though. She panted while speaking. “At least… the smaller… ones… are easier.”

  “As long as we’re careful, we won’t have to deal with another tree.”

  “We may have to deal with worse if we dawdle and remain here after nightfall,” Shiyo said.

  “Then, close to nightfall, we leave and wait for tomorrow to try again.”

  Celica shivered. Encounters with two different groups of lizard-men didn’t seem to give her the confidence to brave the swamp again. Benedict and Shiyo might have to take her back to Lorvath before then.

  Through the mass of vegetation, the swamp opened up a little. Benedict could see the river through the trees. Several openings in the tree line were more than large enough for a boat to slip through. That might explain the boat that sat on the island across the water from them.

  “That’s a merchant ship,” Shiyo said. “Good call, Benedict.”

  “How did you see it from where we were?” Celica asked.

  “I didn’t know what I was looking at,” Benedict lied.

  “Well, either way, the treasure is likely here, right?”

  “Potentially.”

  Between them and their boat, there was nothing but water. When Benedict checked with his sword, the blade didn’t touch the bottom, no matter where he put it. Too many monsters hid in the water to risk a swim. There had to be a different way across, but not from their strip of land. If they were to go back and take another path, they would have to fight a tree beast. Benedict would have preferred swimming.

  “Hey, could we make a raft?” Celica asked.

  “If we can find some logs not attached to monsters, maybe,” Shiyo said.

  “We just need some that have fallen, right?”

  They went to work. Unfortunately, with the lack of land, most of the wood they found was waterlogged. It would have to do. Shiyo grabbed some vines—taking great care not to grab ones that were part of a monster—and lashed them together, with Benedict placing a pair of outriggers for stability. What resulted was crude, barely seaworthy, and might well only hold one person at a time.

  Benedict stared at it for a while before snapping his fingers. “I’ve got it. Shiyo, get your grapple ready.”

  Puzzled, Shiyo did so. “Why?”

  With a silent prayer, Benedict stepped onto the raft. It dipped further into the water. His boots touched water, but nothing broke underneath.

  “I’ll grapple myself to our broken boat. When I’m on the other side, you can grapple the boat back.”

  “Should I go first?”

  “If it can take me, it can take both of you. I’ve got this.”

  He stepped onto the stern and shifted his weight. The bow rose out of the water slightly as the stern slid further underwater. It would have to do. He aimed his grapple at the boat, said another prayer, and fired. The grapple latched onto the wooden hull and held. Benedict held his breath as he reeled himself in.

  Celica either hadn’t thought of putting a speed control on the reel or had decided against it. Either way, Benedict needed it. The initial jolt brought the bow under the water again, and he had to kick farther back to get it planing again; as much as a set of irregular logs can plane. A few yards from the boat, he released the grapple and finished reeling it in. Sudden braking jolted him forward as the bow went under the water again. His stumble took him off the bow and onto the land that he had aimed for.

  “Easy!” he called to the girls when he had recovered.

  Shiyo gave him a look that could kill as she grappled the boat back to the bank. Instead of going solo, the girls got on together. Shiyo’s grapple latched onto the boat, and they came.

  Celica latched onto Shiyo almost the moment they started moving. They had watched Benedict well enough as they kept to the stern. Shiyo didn’t stop soon enough, however, and their makeshift raft slammed into the island. Both girls stumbled forward. Benedict darted toward them. Celica landed in his arms. Shiyo did not.

  “Good job, Benedict,” Shiyo complained as she stood and brushed herself off.

  “Hey, I only have two hands,” Benedict snapped back.

  Celica looked up at him, a blush on her face. “I swear I’m not doing this on purpose.”

  “I know. Let’s search this wreck.”

  Getting inside the ship proved little challenge. Someone had already torn the rotten planks away and made a convenient entrance. Moss and lichen clung to the interior walls, and splinters covered the floor. Conspicuously absent were any coffers for transporting goods.

  The three split up to continue searching. Up one deck, Benedict found a pile of canvas pieces, each one with ropes tied on opposite ends. With the studs on the nearby posts, he assumed it mist have been sleeping quarters for the crew. Examining the pile revealed nothing but large swamp bugs that had been using the dark for their home.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Further down, Benedict found a skeleton with some sinews and muscle still clinging to the bones. Near one hand lay a short sword, and near the other a small round shield. Out of an abundance of caution, he jabbed his sword into its skull. The blade went through, crushing and snapping bone, and the skull split open. There was nothing inside.

  Further examination led to Benedict finding a coffer in a corner, well camouflaged against the wood decking. All that was inside was a single bag of twenty-five coins, all of them one aur. A blast sounded in the room above him, shaking the ceiling. He darted up to the main deck and into the captain’s cabin, from where the sound came.

  Celica stood on one side, frozen with her staff aimed at a skeleton laying in the corner. Its left shoulder and head were missing, and black goo ran down its bones. The wall past it had several brand new windows blown into it.

  Benedict placed a hand on the staff and lowered it. “Calm. It’s dead. Again.”

  “Is it?” Celica asked.

  “Yes. Is there anything else in here?”

  “I found this.” She held up a compass. “Then the skeleton attacked me.”

  “Is there anything special about it?”

  “Nothing! It has no embedded magic, nor is it made out of anything special. Did you find anything?”

  “Twenty-five aur in an otherwise empty coffer.”

  They searched the captain’s cabin further and found nothing except a few trim pieces that had a small bit of gold on them. Mostly empty-handed, they walked out together and spotted Shiyo on the other half of the ship. She met their gazes, sighed, and shrugged. No luck for her either, except in finding an abandoned boat on the shore. It still floated, at least.

  Benedict drew the location on the map, finishing with a large X over the boat. Though slow, he could see the light fading in the late afternoon, and he still didn’t want to be stuck in that swamp past nightfall.

  Celica looked around the swamp. “Where do we go now?”

  “Back to Lorvath,” Benedict said.

  “I agree,” Shiyo said.

  “We’re not camping near the swamp?” Celica asked.

  “We could use some more supplies if we want to tackle this properly,” Shiyo explained.

  She neglected to mention leaving Celica back home, but Benedict suspected that’s what she wanted.

  “We have this map, so next time we can look elsewhere,” Benedict said.

  Celica hung her head. “I was really hoping for treasure.”

  “Sometimes an adventure doesn’t turn out the way you like the first time. When that happens, you just take it and move on. That’s the way things are.”

  “We’ll take that boat out of here,” Shiyo said. “Better than risking the monsters back there again.”

  Benedict nodded. “I agree.”

  “To the boat, then!” Celica said, turning to march where Shiyo told her to go.

  Three steps away from them, Celica found a piece of ground that had turned to complete sludge. One foot slipped deep into it, and she tumbled forward, right into the water. She popped up again, coughing and complaining about the slime that covered her.

  Benedict’s attention wandered a few yards into the water. A large, semi-transparent ball floated there, barely visible. Another rose out of the water near it, then a third and a fourth. Soon, there were over a dozen, and they started undulating their way toward Celica. Her scream pierced all the way through the swamp and possibly to Lorvath.

  Downriver, half a mile away from the swamp’s border, Benedict dragged the boat onto the shore. Shiyo hopped out easily. Celica was less enthusiastic as she climbed out, almost slipping on the wet, slimy jelly that covered her almost from head to toe. She hugged herself tight and stared at the ground as she walked onto the shore.

  “You didn’t happen to bring a change of clothes, did you?” Shiyo asked.

  Celica nodded but otherwise remained silent.

  “Then, here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll get your tent set up so that Benedict can be somewhere he will, under no circumstances, see one inch of your body while you bathe the jelly off in the river.” The glare Shiyo shot him could kill an ox. “What say you?”

  “That sounds good, actually,” Celica murmured.

  Thus, after Benedict had set up Celica’s tent, Shiyo shoved him inside and escorted Celica to the river. She wasn’t gone long. If Benedict had tried to peek, he would have had a few seconds at most between the time Shiyo left and came back and stood in front of the tent flap. She was determined.

  Benedict resorted to his usual boredom ritual in Phynel: drawing; with Celica being his first subject. Her eyes stood out well in the colorless medium. As he continued mimicking the gentle curves of her face and, well, lower, he thought back to the tree beast. How long did it keep her aloft? In the chaos of the fight, it could have been a few seconds or a few minutes. If he could have attacked faster.

  Benedict didn’t know how to use a bow. He could learn, of course, but that would take longer. A crossbow would be good, and Celica’s shop had an excellent modified version. Could she—or her guild—make something rather anachronistic? A rifle would certainly shoot faster if he could put rounds directly into the firing chamber using a coffer.

  Next page. Firearms, being fantastically simple machines, perhaps harnessing a little bit of magic wouldn’t be too far away for Phynel’s technology level. His pen flew across the page, sketching out barrels, bullets, and grips until he had fashioned a fantasy assault rifle. He smacked his forehead at the ridiculousness of the design, then ripped out the page. If he was going to advance their weaponry so far, he could at least make it more believable.

  “Thank you!” Celica said from outside. “I needed a bath.”

  “And Benedict didn’t even try to peek,” Shiyo said.

  “Are you going to have one?”

  “If you’ll guard me from Benedict’s leering eyes, certainly.”

  Benedict rolled his “leering” eyes. He might have had the typical male urges, but he was smarter than that. Doubts emerged when Celica walked into the tent moments later. She wore a simple tunic that came down to her thighs, and her shorts barely showed underneath it.

  “This is all the extra I brought,” she said with a bright blush. “My normal clothes are drying right now.”

  “You might need to take them to a proper cleaner when we get back to Lorvath,” Benedict said, memories of his own jelly-covered escapade still fresh in mind.

  Celica sat next to him and sighed. “I’ll never be an adventurer.”

  “It was your first time. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  “I got caught by a tree, missed with almost every spell I cast, very nearly destroyed the boat we stood on, got coated in jelly, and we never even found anything valuable!”

  “Sometimes adventures go wrong, especially when you’re just chasing after a rumor. There may not even be a treasure here.”

  Celica curled her legs up and pushed her face into her knees. “I just wanted to get out of Lorvath.”

  Benedict watched her rock back and forth for a minute before speaking up. “There’s something everyone must do before they’re considered real adventurers; an initiation, so to speak. We go out into the wilderness and attack a horde of slimes. Getting covered in jelly means you were brave and unyielding in the face of so many monsters.”

  A slight giggle escaped Celica’s lips. “I remember my performance; it wasn’t exactly brave. But thank you anyway.”

  When his eyes settled on Celica’s shapely legs, Benedict cleared his throat. “Shiyo can take a while when she’s bathing. You can walk out in the fresh air if you want.”

  “I’m all right in here. It’s cozy.” She made a puzzled noise when she saw Benedict’s drawing of a rifle on the floor. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, that—” He tried to get a story in his head. How could he not have thrown it away before she got in?

  “Is it a weapon?”

  “I was just thinking about how long it took us to free you from the tree monster and thought an easy to use ranged weapon could cover that need better than a sword.”

  “But we have crossbows for that. This is… different. How did you come up with this idea?”

  Benedict stammered out multiple lies about blowguns and slings and how he thought to combine them using a crossbow stock. He thought it a decent attempt to divert her away from the truth.

  Celica glared at him, disbelief obvious in her expression. “If you don’t want to say it, that’s fine! Regardless…” Her voice trailed off as she stared at the diagram. “The guild might be able to make this. It won’t be hard to build the stock; the trigger mechanism is easy enough. All that might give us trouble are this barrel and… bullet?”

  “It’s just a stone. If it’s shaped, though, maybe it will hit more consistently? Made of metal—something easy to shape like lead—it might be even better. I was thinking a wind spell could propel it from the barrel fast enough to make a good weapon.”

  “Good thinking, but wind and fire combined might be better. I’ve experimented with that combination before, and it’s potent.”

  “If the bullet were to spin, that might make it more accurate. That works for arrows and bolts.”

  “But how can we do that? Fletching won’t work in this barrel…”

  They continued to talk over the design. With each new idea and clarification, Celica made additional notes on the page. Benedict imagined walking around a medieval world with a straight-up gun. Maybe their little adventure through the swamp wouldn’t end up useless after all.