"We're doomed," Damon said.

  His nose was no longer shining, and his face was stamped with utter horror. For, in front of him, was the most frightening band he had ever seen. Every member of the group was wearing cowboy hats, cowboy shirts and leather chaps.

  "It's like a band made up of clones of Billy Ray Cyrus." His next lines were spoken with absolute dread. "Except he has three heads—all with the same face. They are backed by banjos. Banjos! And there isn't even a cross-genre, country icon like Dolly Parton. The worst thing is they are doing a country cover of 'Pour Some Sugar on Me.'" The classic by Def Leppard was being butchered. He would never hear it the same way.

  "You're imagining things." Kim pointed. "It's old people at a metal concert."

  "I won't tell you what I'm seeing," Fiora said. "But it involves my mother burning to death in a dazzling manner." She lifted a hand and pointed a claw at the bands. "Since we're all seeing something different, it means we are being forced to hallucinate. So, this room is filled with mutt mindslayers. It will be best if we retreat, block the door and—"

  Before she could finish her sentence, the floor jerked forward as if the ground had suddenly become one of those people movers in an airport, except instead of getting Damon closer to his luggage he was now halfway across the floor to the three-headed and six-armed country music monster. He could now see the numbers floating above the monster:

  Metal Health: 127

  Monster Type: Triple Headed Music of the Country Troll, male

  Attack: Twang Metal

  Mana: 3500

  Proclivity: Norwegian

  Special Ability: Breaking down wagons or relationships

  "Keep the banjos away from me!" Damon shouted.

  Gurgling familiar laughter erupted in the distance—Blayre's. The wizard was watching. What would be the point of this torture otherwise?

  "We must rock our way through this room," Fiora said. "Up the irons, one and all."

  Damon continued to stare at the assembled band. "What are mutt mindslayers?"

  "Mutt mindslayers are horrid creatures with great song hooks that feed off your innermost fears and thoughts." Fiora hadn't taken her gaze off the unpleasant scene confronting her.

  The six-eyed troll turned towards Damon. He did not like the lean, hungry look in its eyes, as if this creature's Ford pickup truck had broken down in the desert weeks earlier and it needed raw meat.

  "And how do we fight them?" Damon asked.

  "Chop off their heads." Fiora lifted both her hands, her claws catching the light.

  "I can't attack seniors with a sword!" Kim shook Strümbringer to accent the point.

  "You will decapitate them if you want to live," Fiora said. "Nothing in this room is real except you and me and maybe Demon."

  "It's still Damon," Damon whispered.

  "And I should point out, they also have mind tentacles, but they're likely not visible to you."

  "What are mind tent—" Kim began.

  Damon screamed. It was not a masculine scream. Nor was it stereotypically girlish. It was more like a scream a cat might make if it were caught in a paint shaker. The screaming got louder.

  Another cowboy hatted creature had come out of the darkness.

  "It's a yodeler!" he shouted.

  Metal Health: 45

  Monster Type: Halfling Yodeler

  Attack: Yodeling

  Metal Mana: 1890

  Proclivity: Norwegian

  Special Ability: Goat Calling

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The numbers were as frightening as the sound he was now hearing. It echoed as if from far-away hills. Alive with the sound of glee. The yodeling hit him like a banshee's cry.

  Fiora shoved him behind her and gave a blast of flames at the band charging towards them. "Swing and stab like your life depends on it." Fiora added after her flames drove the monstrous musicians back. "Because it does."

  Damon held his staff, but didn't swing. And then one of the zombie banjoers leapt about ten feet, opened a mouth full of crooked rotten teeth, and bit him.

  Country Zombie bite: -1 Damage to Damon

  Metal Health: 3

  He tumbled back, ripping the sharpened teeth from his shoulder. His metal health had dropped to three points. A few more bites like that and he'd be dead. He desperately swung his staff. It clanged off the thing's bony, nearly fleshless arms as if he'd hit metal. He swung again, and there was another clang.

  "Strike off their heads!" Fiora shouted.

  Damon didn't think that would be possible with his staff. But beside him, Kim made contact with the neck of the yodeler. The creature looked surprised as the results of the swing meant that its head was no longer part of its body. His hat and his head shot up in the air.

  A blast of light came out of the body, hitting Kim. "Ah, that hurts!" She put a hand to her face.

  Then, the head of the creature rolled away, and the body collapsed into a pile of stone limbs and ribs.

  "I forgot to mention," Fiora added, smoke coming out her nostrils. "Each time you kill one, its death throes will strike you with a horrible memory from your life."

  "Wonderful," Kim said. "I thought I'd forgotten my first pimple."

  The beheading had stopped the spell that disguised the mutt mindslayers. The creatures before him were revealed to be tall and gangly, with colossal, spiked heads, dog-like snouts, and enormous arms made of stone. They had what also what looked to be a long tail that hung from the back of their heads like a serpent.

  Metal Health: 55

  Monster Type: Mutt Mindslayer

  Attack: Bite, Mind Tentacles, Hook songs

  Metal Mana: 2845

  Proclivity: Norwegian

  Special Ability: Past in Present

  "I can see them now," Damon shouted, bouncing his staff off a head. He had to do more; he wasn't helping his group at all.

  "They breed every time you have a frightened thought!" Fiora shouted. The dragonspawn let out another blast of flames that drove the mindslayers back. The burning blast was hot enough to melt an arm here and a leg there and, on instinct, Damon edged closer to Fiora.

  Kim swung again, slicing off a stone arm. "There are too many of them!"

  "Yes, we'll be driven mad long before we clutch victory in our claws." Fiora grabbed one of the mindslayers by an arm and threw it against two others, making a group of them stumble back. She glanced around the room. For the first time, Damon realized the ceiling was at least a hundred feet above them.

  "We need to get higher," he suggested.

  "That is a splendid plan," Fiora replied.

  "Take that!" Damon shouted. Then on instinct, he looked above his head, and like flicking a page he discovered his list of spells. He had already used Light in the Black so it was a dull color, but there was now another one below it. The exertions of the battle had perhaps made it available to him. It was called Mini Metal Militia.

  He pointed his Screaming Eagle Staff and found his fingers, especially the metal-tipped ones, tingling. A single string appeared, running from one end of his staff to the other. Without thinking, he held the staff with one hand and strummed it like a guitar, and shouted, "Fragmenta Metalli!" Several shards of metal shot through the air, along with a distorted E note. A mindslayer's head flew off in a jaunty manner.

  "What was that?" Kim shouted.

  "A Mini Metal Militia!" he said. "It's a spell. I now have two spells!"

  Then, the dying scream from the mindslayer hit him. He was blasted with an image of a rolling die.

  It landed on 1. It was a fully formed memory of the time his favourite D&D character Tim Dark Son Of Peter died with no resurrection spells. He had been the greatest D&D character Damon had ever played with—a level 19 wizard who could cast meteor swarms. Damon was briefly right there in the room with that jerk of a dungeon master and his gaming friends, all laughing at the cruel death.

  He shook the memory away like sloughing off a bad dream.

  "Take that and that and that!" Damon added, sending out two more Mini Metal Militia spells. "You'll never twang again!" He swung his staff and drove back a few more of the creatures, creating an opening.

  For the first time, Damon thought that maybe, just maybe, they could make it through the crowd of monsters and to the other side of the room. There might be stairs or a ladder, and they'd climb out of danger.

  "There are no stairs on the other side," Fiora said. "Nor is there a ladder."

  "Did you just read my mind?" Damon asked.

  "I read your gaze. And judging by the number of enemies—" She slashed out, and another head came off, which made Fiora cringe. "Oh, the memory of my brother's death! Thanks for that! Anyway, we will fatigue long before we win." She slashed again. "So you know what that means?"

  "We're doomed?" Damon said. An oppressive sense of hopelessness settled in his thoughts, his nerves, and his bones. For every creature they defeated, two more appeared. Kim didn't seem to swing her sword with the same amount of strength or precision.

  Damon managed to strum out another Mini Metal Militia blast. It took off the head of a mindslayer, and the mindslayer screamed in anger at him. This memory was of the image of Dot, their missing dog, on a poster. They never found her.

  "That the only way out is up," Fiora said, catching her breath.

  "And how do we go up?" Damon shouted.

  "We don't," Fiora said. "I do." She unfurled her wings. They were impressively long and leathery, and they momentarily entranced Damon. It would be so cool to have wings.

  "You're abandoning us!" Kim shouted. "You can't! That's… that's against the rules of… of being helpful."

  "There are no rules, spawner." Fiora blew a large flame that cleared the nearby bony creatures out of the way. "And I'm not abandoning both of you." She grabbed Damon by the collar of his shirt, causing him to squirt out a squeak of surprise. Then she flapped her wings, rising several feet off the ground.

  "You're leaving me?" Kim shouted. She swung her sword and took off a mutt mindslayer's head. She grimaced. "Why leave me?"

  Damon and Fiora were already above the mindslayers, out of reach of their arms and maybe their minds, too—he imagined it looked like Mary Poppins holding a wriggling mage.

  "Because Damon said I smelled nice," Fiora shouted in explanation.