“And to think I let you menials pass by! I should have devoured you when you set foot on my beach. Orcs! Protect me!” The lamia wailed and used her last functional arm to struggle against her significant bleeding.

  The orcs hesitated. They were gathering for another day of work, but their master appeared less than masterful.

  Payton snarled and raised her ax. Injured, the lamia lay low on the ground and she could easily reach its neck. But she couldn’t bring her ax down. She was completely unable to move, even the blood oozing from her face had stopped. Frozen completely, she overbalanced and fell onto the lamia.

  With fangs bared, the lamia bit Payton on the wrist twice and a tiny bit of motion returned to her. The bleeding began again and the painful burn of poison raced through her veins.

  “I hate poison.” Payton thought and realized she couldn’t hear Sage playing the violin anymore. She couldn’t look around and could only stare at the sand as the poison progressed. She did feel the snake tail push her aside and then heard Sage play something else. Payton felt the heat of sudden fire wash over her as she lost the ability to use her eyes and drifted into space to wait to respawn.

  “There is no way I’m hiking back down to that beach just to hike back up here.” Payton said to herself when her feet touched the paving stones. Crunchy shoe was a tiny village of forty people whose only occupation was harvesting wheat to sell to the other tiny villages nearby. Most of them hadn’t gotten their prime class yet and they relied on soldier patrols from the capital to keep predators away from the village.

  “So, are you and your friends considering staying for a while? Cause you’re welcome, very welcome. We’ll gladly build a couple houses.” Chad dropped two buckets of water and hurried to the bell plaza.

  “No, we’re not intending to stay. My sister should be here by morning and we’ll probably leave right away.” Payton took a step back from Chad. He had a tendency to stand too close and even in the game he smelled like he needed a shower.

  “So you’ll be staying the night in the guest hut. Maybe I could interest you..” Chad coughed and wiped his hands on his shirt.

  “Are you asking me out?” Payton’s voice left no doubt that she was not open to that option.

  “No, no. I get it. I understand why they put me in a tiny village as far from most women as possible. We hope you will help us with a pest problem.” Chad whistled and grinned awkwardly.

  “What pest?” Payton asked suspiciously.

  “It’s weird, like we worried the AI was broken. But the expert from the capital said it’s not. I’ll show you, I don’t think I can explain. I’ll show you.” Chad bounced with nervous energy and started walking out of the village. Payton followed him past the wooden walls and to the open grasslands. The grass had been cleared from huge rectangles and golden wheat grew in various stages across the plains.

  Payton could appreciate why Chad thought the AI might have messed up with this pest. Curly brown fur contrasted against the pale wheat. Two heads swayed a little over the sloped back and they didn’t seem to be concerned about the two people watching.

  “So, we know they’re sort of llamas. But llamas aren’t this aggressive and these guys have a really nasty spit. It will kill, but we need to get rid of these guys.” Chad pointed out four of these strange beasts in this field.

  “They can’t be that tough.” Payton watched them loll their tongue out and graze on the wheat.

  “One of them killed two soldiers from the capital. It died afterward, but at that point it put a damper on the celebration. They were only at level two though, you’re much higher right?” Chad looked at her to appraise her response.

  “A bit.” Payton hesitated before answering. A notification that she had reached level five popped up and she figured the lamia had finally died.

  “Good. So, one of the ladies in town thinks she could still tame these two-headed freaks. But the big one, the matriarch she says, makes trouble when she tries to get one of the smaller ones. If you can remove the matriarch, it would really help us out.” Chad pointed to one of the white and brown patterned llamas.

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  One head would dip down and bite off wheat while the other chewed and watched for incoming threats. It looked like a sesame street reject made out of shag carpet. She didn’t want to approach it and now she’d agreed to attack it.

  “Is there no one with a bow or something in your village? This seems like a job for a bow or maybe a spear.” Payton asked hesitantly. This seemed more like hunting than fighting. Another notice came across her view.

  As this action will significantly benefit a settlement depending on you, 150% experience will be awarded.

  “I do have a bow, but the arrows are garbage. They have leaves instead of feathers and rocks for points. Not like pointy rocks, rocks I found on the ground. They work on rabbits and this badger that keeps showing up.” Chad shook his head.

  “Ok, I’ll get this one.” Payton interrupted Chad and waded into the wheat.

  “Just watch out for the spit, it burns.” Chad called after her and waited around to watch the fight.

  The llama interrupted its grazing as Payton approached. Both heads swiveled to watch her and one of them let out a whiney snort. The other, smaller llamas bolted at the noise. One of the heads snorted out a sneeze at Payton and a yellow spray made her jump out of the way. The wheat where the spray landed hissed and turned black.

  “That is so gross.”

  The big, shaggy body lurched forward and upward. The sharp hooved feet scratched at the air inches away from Payton’s face. She darted back and the two heads darted down to bite. The wide teeth grabbed Payton’s left shoulder and the head shook to drive them in deep.

  Payton thrust up with her ax at the wooly neck and her chainmail bit into her skin. The head let go and the other head darted in to bite again. Payton’s fist broke its jaw and she managed to get both hands on the ax again.

  The front paws scratched at her again, taking turns this time with feeble effort. The uninjured head coughed up more bile and Payton’s ax cut halfway through the other neck. The bile stopped halfway to a spit and the other head flopped over the back, senseless.

  Payton took a breath, thinking the llama might try to flee. Instead, it charged and hit her with its wide chest. She fell to her back and the llama began stomping on her. Her stomach. Her legs. Her arms. Almost her face.

  She tried to roll away, but ran into a furry pillar planted to block her. Payton spun, kicked the planted leg with both of hers, and slid out from under her foe. The ankle joint bent unnaturally and the llama collapsed to its front knees.

  “Die!” Payton screamed as she brought her ax down on the remaining neck. The ax passed cleanly through and the heavy beast collapsed against her. She had the distinct impression she was stuck under a muppet.

  “That was amazing! I thought you would respawn for sure once it got you on the ground. Those toes are surprisingly sharp. And you interrupted that second spit. How did you do that?” Chad pulled the beast off and dragged it out of the wheat field before Payton could start worrying that she was in real trouble.

  “Do you know how many bruises I’ve got? I got bit by a llama. That was so weird.” Payton shivered which was also a painful experience because of the bruises.

  “I’ve had those bruises, this thing stomped me to death three times. Spit me to death twice, which isn’t something I expected to ever say. But I’m gonna look so good wearing this guy’s fleece.” Chad pulled out a knife and went to work skinning the matriarch llama.

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t come along to deal with this?” Payton asked. She began inspecting her chainmail for any holes torn by the hooves.

  “We would have to wait until the next patrol came next month. And we would probably need the whole patrol to deal with her, unless the soldiers have leveled up as much as you have. But the higher level soldiers get reassigned to more dangerous areas.” Chad grunted as he cut through a knee.

  “And you’re going to just hang around at low level getting stomped on?” Payton asked bluntly.

  “I’ve been killing rabbits since we got here and I’m still a Laborer level three. Most of the dangerous stuff here are plants or those centipede things. And we don’t have steel or a blacksmith to make weapons. I don’t know how many rabbits it’ll take to reach level four, but it's more than six hundred.” Chad explained and peeled back the skin with a rip.

  “That sucks.” Payton said before she could stop herself.

  “Yeah, but there is a lot of wheat to grow here. A lot of people eat our wheat, without it those precious levels you have would stop right away. No meal, no experience.” Chad explained and the hide came away with the sound of velcro. “Come on. There isn’t a ton of good meat here, but there’s plenty for tonight’s meal.”

  Payton limped along with Chad back to the Crunchy Shoe. Chad had wrapped four quarters of llama meat in the hide and carried it all the way back without getting winded. He even stopped and let Payton rest as her injured leg needed.

  The village celebrated with song and dance that night. The scent of llama meat roasting over the communal fire mixed with the songs. The cuts and bruises started to fade and a finger she didn’t realize had been dislocated slipped back into place. It took so long after a fight for her health to regenerate and if it was serious, it wouldn’t regenerate at all.

  “I hope you had a nice rest, that lamia was crazy.” Sage greeted her sister when she arrived at the village the next morning.

  “Yeah, restful. Weren’t you going to bring orcs or something?” Payton noticed Zahir and Sage were clearly alone.

  “It takes a lot of time to pack up a whole settlement. They’ll come along eventually.” Zahir didn’t look happy with that fact.