“Are you… did you do something?” I asked Fridu as the guardsmen slowly approached. “You said your friend Gerik was in trouble with the law. How about you?”

  “Nothing that should make them take any real notice. Listen, when they get here, let me do all the talking, okay? You don’t know this world, and could fuck it up.”

  “I could fuck it up,” I agreed.

  We sat tight as the guardsmen approached. Fridu began murmuring something low while pretending to speak with me, like we were having a normal conversation. One of her fingers was, to my eyes, aimlessly trailing over our tabletop, but I noticed she was leaving a trail in the sand atop the table, which I found notable because there hadn’t been sand on our table before.

  Around us, unspoken words sent ripples all throughout the Leaky Centaur, and the patrons began giving ample room to the guardsmen, clearing space.

  “Shit shit shit,” I said. “I need to piss so bad.” I was still pretending I didn’t notice the oncoming guardsmen, which was ridiculous. Of course we saw them.

  “It’s just because you’re nervous,” Fridu said. “Which is normal before a fight.”

  “A fight? There’s going to be a fight?” I hadn’t considered the possibility of the guardsmen actually attacking us. I’d only been worried about being arrested.

  “You there,” Pig-Face said, stopping a few feet from our table, looking straight at me. His beady eyes bored into mine, and his hand was on the grip of his sword, as if he might need the weapon at any moment.

  “What’s your name?” he demanded.

  “Josh Hester,” I said. Beside me, Fridu hissed.

  “What’s your business in town, Josh Hester?” Pig-Faced asked, smirking. Before I could answer, though, there was another voice.

  “Josh?” I heard. “This is Fridu. I’m talking in your mind. You’re the only one who can hear me. Tap your fingers on the table if you understand.” I felt my eyes go wide as she spoke. I was looking right at her, and her lips weren’t moving. She wasn’t even looking at me. Her eyes were intent on Pig-Face and the guardsmen.

  Plus, her voice had been . . . alone. Just . . . alone. With no background noise, as if spoken in a giant, empty, silent warehouse. Her eyes flickered to me, and then to my hands, which I had flat on the table.

  I tapped my fingers.

  “Good,” I heard her say in my mind. “Now, first of all, you’re a complete fucking idiot. I told you to let me do all the talking, and the first thing you did was give them your name. This is a problem.”

  “Problem?” I asked her.

  “Yes, there’s a problem,” Pig-Face answered, thinking I was talking to him. “You’re the problem. I asked what you’re doing in Whitewater, and you sit there like you’ve got a log shoved up your ass and you’re waiting for someone to whittle it. Now answer my question.”

  He slid a couple inches of his sword free. His voice was guttural, with his tongue forming the words like a club. Now that he was closer, I could see that he didn’t just have a few pig-like features, it was more like he was a pig with a few human features.

  “He’s an orc,” I heard in my head. “Well, a half-orc. Listen, I think we can talk our way out of this. The important thing is to keep our heads. Let me do the talking. Don’t you say another word. We’ll deal with them knowing your name later. For now, I can smooth out whatever problem they have. The important thing is, do your very best to avoid any trouble whatsoever.”

  It was at that point, just as I was about to nod my head, that Molly rushed out from the crowd, jumped onto our table, ripped the leather bra from her chest to expose her breasts, yelled “Combat!” at the top of her lungs, and kicked Pig-Face in his frothing jowls.

  “What the hell, Molly?” Fridu gasped, even as Pig-Face tumbled over backward and the other guardsmen hurriedly drew their swords.

  “Who’s up for some DRUNK?” Molly yelled, leaping off the table onto another of the guardsmen. As for me, I checked to see if our table was big enough to hide under. It was not.

  Molly was nearly impaled by the second guardsman, who dealt with her incoming leap by thrusting his sword at her. But she knocked it aside with one hand and then crunched into his face with her knee, riding him down to the wooden floor with a resounding thump that sent the covering layer of straw bouncing about.

  I had a vision of the basement below us, with the oil lamps burning brighter whenever dust cascaded down, and my thoughts of the basement made me remember that I was now a true warrior. I was no longer a man who hid beneath tables, especially when they were too small. And so, with thoughts of somehow replicating my feat with the giant rat, I picked up our table and hurled it at the guard, who dodged it with ease and then punched me in the face. I went down.

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  “Fuck!” I mumbled, dazed and bloodied. The guardsman loomed over me, sword at the ready.

  “Here’s the easiest hundred gold pieces I’ve ever made,” he snickered. His sword flickered forward and he poked me in the chest. It was only an exploratory poke, as if he was checking to see if his sword was sharp enough to run me through. It was.

  “Don’t kill him!” Pig-Face shouted, instantly putting him on my “friend” list.

  “We’re only supposed to torture him!” he added. “Find out what he knows!” I instantly scratched him off my friend list.

  Kicking out, I hit the guardsman in his knee, making him stumble. While he was regaining his balance I rolled to my feet and grabbed a handful of the straw that’d been spread across the entire bar’s floor as a way of making the cleanup easier whenever anyone spilled ale, food, or blood. This particular clump was full of mystery substances. I tossed it in the guardsman’s face, giving me a chance to gain more distance from his sword. Even as I was scrambling away, his stats appeared above him in the floating neon letters, this time in red.

  Guardsman

  Class: Fighter  Level: 3  Health points: 16

  Race: Human  Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

  Special Abilities: None  Magic Items: None

  Damage: 1d6 (short sword)

  I didn’t have time to truly digest what I was seeing, other than noting his weapon was listed as a short sword, even though it seemed like a very long sword to me. He charged me, but I tipped another table into his path, causing him to stumble and sprawl on the floor.

  I tried for a kick to his face, but he blocked my incoming boot by rapping hard on my shin with the pommel of his sword, which Did Not Feel Good. I hopped back, cursing.

  “Fuck this,” the guard snarled. “So what if we’re not supposed to kill you? It’s going to be worth it.” The crowd around us was jeering or cheering, taking bets. I had tunnel vision, entirely focused on the guardsman and the way he was stalking me, and on how I couldn’t catch my breath or think of what to do.

  I was so absorbed that I didn’t see Molly until she broke into my tunnel vision by clocking the guard in his cheek with the most committed punch I’d ever witnessed. She put everything she had into that punch, shattering the man’s cheek to such a degree that I could actually see his face crumple. He went down. Unconscious.

  “Fucked him up!” Molly yelled, grabbing a clay pitcher of ale from a cheering man who’d strayed too close to the fight. She took a heroic swig from the pitcher, then spat its contents in Pig-Face’s eyes. I hadn’t even noticed him coming up on us.

  While he was trying to deal with the ale in his eyes, Molly cursed the ale as foul, poured the rest of the contents all over her breasts, slapped me across the face for some unknown reason, then shattered the pitcher by breaking it over Pig-Face’s skull.

  He went down to one knee, managing to stay somewhat upright, but with eyes that couldn’t focus. Molly kicked him over and then slapped my face again.

  “Why the fuck do you keep doing that?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she laughed. “Good question!” I was trying to figure out how to deal with her when I heard a terrifying scream from the last of the three guardsmen, who was turning into a tree. Leaves sprouted from his arms. Tiny branches, like living tendrils, slithered out of his nose and mouth, and they grew down from his legs as well, merging with the floor to anchor him in place.

  “I’ve got this one, Molly,” Fridu said, gesturing to the plant-man.

  “Are you killing him?” I shrieked. I didn’t want to kill anyone, and the way the man was screaming was going to haunt me forever.

  “Calm down,” Fridu said, this time directly into my mind. “It’s a temporary spell. It’ll last, eh, an hour at the most.” The man’s skin turned to bark. The surrounding crowd was laughing. Bets were being paid off. Molly led the crowd in a chant, in a language I couldn’t understand.

  “This isn’t right!” I told Fridu, gesturing to the guardsman and his pleading eyes. “Turn him back! I’m… I’m not leaving here until you fix this!”

  “More guardsmen coming!” a man called from the front door, looking back to us.

  “Let’s get out of here!” I screamed at Molly and Fridu, already heading toward the back, scooping up Molly’s discarded leather bra as I ran.

  “Give me a moment!” Fridu shouted in my mind. She was holding out her hand, with a miniature cloud floating an inch above her palm. The cloud expanded until the entire bar filled with a thick fog. I literally couldn’t see two feet in front of my face, and I let out a shrill screech when I felt a hand on my back.

  “It’s just me, o’ exalted warrior,” Fridu said in my mind. “Calm down. I’ll lead us out of here.”

  “How can you see?”

  “Because magic. Same way I’m in your mind. And, I have to say, Josh, it’s rather foggy in your mind, too. Lots of lust in here.”

  “There isn’t,” I said, defensive. But she was probably right.

  “I’m totally right,” she said. “Sorry about reading your mind. I know it isn’t fair. But the situation demanded it.” She guided me through a doorway, and soon we were out back of the Leaky Centaur, where I could finally see again. Molly was already outside, leaned against the building, laughing. Her breasts were still exposed. Stained with ale. Her nipples were dark and puckered. Every laugh made her breasts jiggle, like some sort of entirely uncoordinated but still fascinating dance.

  “Yeah,” Fridu said. “Lots of lust in your mind.”

  “I brought your bra-thingy?” I blurted, talking to Molly.

  “What a shame,” she said, taking it from me as if I’d offended her in some manner. She put on her leather bra in the manner that only women seem able to do, with her arms twisted behind her back in a manner that would snap my elbows if I tried. After her clothing was restored, Molly gave me a wink and said something that was too slurred to truly understand, then gave me a slap across my face that was only slightly above a companionable level.

  “You told that guy your name?” she said.

  “Uh, yes?”

  “You dunce-fuck,” she said. “Don’t tell people your name. Names have power. Let’s steal horses.”

  “Huh? What was that last part?”

  “Horses,” Molly said, holding my shoulders, looking deep into my eyes, stinking of ale. “Let’s steal some damn horses.”

  Twenty minutes later we’d stolen some horses, and we’d ridden out of Whitewater and made it back to the meadow, where Fridu cast a spell that made her fingers turned blue, and then when she touched my chest I was healed from my newest collector’s set of wounds. Afterward, she was easily able to find the doorway back to my world. I stepped through into my old bedroom and waited for Molly and Fridu to appear, but the seconds ticked by, and I was still alone. After a few minutes, I realized they weren’t coming. They’d left me.

  I took a shower and fell asleep.

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