I was near the area where Bogart lived. Around me, dozens of red dots moved back and forth. Each one marked a battle I hoped to avoid.

  I had gotten off Misty a while ago and was now crouched in a large patch of grass, praying I wasn’t spotted by one of those damned veilwolves or leprechauns.

  When I was motionless, I could hear the wolves tearing the flesh from some poor animal. The sound was guttural and raw, like someone ripping up old, wet carpet.

  Playing it safe, Sparks stayed in my pocket, sending a shiver through me whenever I was almost spotted. Each time, I’d pause, sink deeper into the grass, and wait until she gave me the signal to move.

  So here I was, creeping through the field, ignoring the rank smell of wolf piss, and inching closer to my target. The leprechauns proved harder to avoid, which made sense since they actually had brains, unlike most of the creatures I had killed so far on this leg of my journey.

  Whenever I spotted a lone one, I’d switch to my boomerang, toss it, and stun the suit-wearing bastard. Then I’d rush in, finish the job, and collect whatever HP and MP potions it carried. The loot was better than expected, and since the boomerang used fifteen mana points per throw, I made sure to top off my meter every time it got too low.

  Now, I had over thirty thousand pieces of gold, replacing all the money I’d spent in town thanks to these shiny shoe-wearing fuckers. But those were thoughts for another time. What I had to do was focus, stay hidden, and kill as many of the creatures as possible.

  According to the map, the Bogart was in a field overlooking a ravine. I plotted a course and started forming a plan of action.

  Until then. Wait. Crouch. Run.

  Lying in the damp grass, Sparks beside me, I looked up at a tremendous tree stretching high into the sky. Near its base, a structure was woven into the trunk. It was metallic and caked in mud in places, with wires dangling everywhere and strange radio-like receivers that, when I listened closely, were broadcasting some out-of-this-world melody, something that sounded a lot like techno music.

  The bass rattled underneath me.

  I shook my head in disgust. If there was anything I hated more than pineapple pizza with ham, it was techno music.

  The reason?

  I was forced to go to a school dance my freshman year of high school, and every song they played was that bullshit.

  Checking the map, I spotted more dots inside the treehouse from hell. All of these weren’t red, though. No, most of them were blue, and they were all stationary—most likely the residents of Penders who had been put under mind control by our giant of a friend.

  That was beyond my shattered thinking. But as I got closer to the house, the sounds became more defined. The melody was a hypnotic, pulsing synth line fused with the bass drum. That boom-boom-boom now thumped loud enough to rattle my sword.

  I looked at Sparks and saw her glitching, her miniature form glowing out of sync with the pounding, awful music.

  I was feeling loopy too, my vision doubling as my stomach twisted, making the ground feel like it was slipping out from under me. I held a hand to my face, blinked, and nearly passed out.

  The music, if you could even call it that, was now shaking the blade strapped to my back even louder. I reached to hold it still, even though I could’ve just unequipped the damn thing. That’s for later. What mattered was that the moment my hand touched the hilt, a leprechaun spotted me and came charging, firing more of those multicolored bolts.

  I hopped up to dodge it, or at least deflect it, but I wasn’t fast enough. The shot slammed into my chest in a dizzying burst of colors, knocking me to one knee and forcing the contents of my stomach out.

  Red bled into the corners of my vision as [-1503]

  Wheezing, I fought to my feet, holding my chest. I’d lost more health points than expected. The motherfucker had caught me off guard. All just another reason I hated techno music even more. Because of it, Sparks hadn’t warned me about the taller-than-normal leprechaun approaching.

  Something about the music was interfering with her warning system. Until I figured out a way to block it, I’d be in trouble.

  She used one of the potions to heal me, and the relief hit instantly. Ahead, the leprechaun waved his arm, drawing more energy into his fist for another Skittles beam. One thing I wasn’t about to do was taste another rainbow.

  Sparks took the initiative and fired missiles of her own. The leprechaun’s eyes widened as a barrage of red-tinged fireworks streaked toward him. He hesitated just long enough for one to catch him between the eyes, sending him tumbling back.

  Time to end this.

  I shook off the nausea from the music and closed the gap, cycling through a list of abilities I could use to finish him.

  Running like an Olympic finalist, I raised my sword and activated the Drop Strike Prism

  With the music pounding in my skull, I shattered his left clavicle all the way to his right sternum, sending a spray of plasma into the air.

  He gurgled blood through his lips, clawing at the sword as if he could somehow undo what had already happened.

  I forced the blade down further and watched his body split in two, collapsing into a bed of flowers.

  [Savage Display]

  Sparks zipped around me at high speed, sending a rush of emotion through me that felt like winning a race against someone.

  A little disorienting, sure, but oh so sweet to have a literal drop on my enemies.

  Not letting the kill distract me, I scanned the field and saw no enemies nearby or on the map. Crouching again, I moved toward the dilapidated structure, sword drawn.

  Up close, the tree house looked even more worn and beaten down, with piles of junk scattered over the front entrance.

  And that godawful music still rattled my brain. I pulled a pair of pants from my inventory, ripped them, and tied the fabric over my ears like a bandanna. Sparks noticed, zipped to the tree, wrapped a leaf over her own head, and gave me a nod.

  With the noise muffled, my stomach settled, and I continued with the mission, stepping over several large piles of shit. Large insects buzzed around them, no doubt drawn by the stench.

  I waved them away and moved on to the door. Peeking inside, I found a dim room cluttered with filthy clothes and more metallic mayhem. Switches and gears that looked like nothing but nonsense to my earthly eyes.

  After confirming the map showed no enemies nearby, I followed a narrow path to a pitch-black stairway that spiraled downward to who knew where.

  The staircase was long and winding, with smooth walls caked with dust. I checked the map again, and it shifted to a floor marked B1, which was a series of three rooms, all connected.

  Two of them were littered with eight dots: three red and five blue.

  I directed Sparks into my shirt pocket and pressed myself against the wall, moving without a sound. With the bonuses to PerceptionSpeedWisdom

  Crossing the threshold, I found red, green, and blue lights bathing everything in an eerie glow, bleeding into the dark room.

  Boom, boom… boom boom boom, they pulsed with the pounding music.

  Inside were five hostages, nodding their heads as they separated maroon-colored stone into massive metal bins, one for dirt and rock and the other for ore.

  I figured they were people from Penders, their blank eyes making them look like ghosts lost to the rhythm. Soulless, their fingers were stained red as blood. Every so often, one would shiver, then go right back to sorting ore from stone.

  I watched one worker roll a bin of ore into another room, return, and repeat the process. When another passed close to me, I grabbed her, pulling her in and clamping a hand over her mouth. She struggled for a moment before her head started nodding to the beat again.

  When I looked into her eyes, I saw the crazed stare of someone completely consumed by this hypnotic tune. I ripped a strip from her sleeve and tied it over her ears. A moment later, she blinked, and clarity returned. She rubbed the back of her neck.

  “Where the fu—” I clamped my hand back over her mouth.

  Slowly, I put a finger to my lips and pointed toward the exit behind me. Sparks sent a shiver through me. I looked up and saw the other hypnotized captives slam dancing in my direction. It was as if the woman instinctively knew what to do, which surprised me, but with no time to ask how, I went along with her.

  We moved in unison, pulling them down one by one and fashioning makeshift mufflers for their ears. Each time the sound was cut off, their eyes cleared, and they looked genuinely thankful.

  I made them all crouch down while I went into the other room and dispatched the two leprechauns using the boomerang and my new Dropstrike

  The leprechauns were dumping the bin onto a conveyor belt and basically keeping the hostages in line, from what I observed.

  When the leprechauns were dead, I returned to the room, blood dripping from my sword. “Now, who can tell me what happened?” I asked the small crowd.

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  Silence and shared exchanges.

  Then the first woman I had freed from the mind control spell stepped forward, her eyes clearer and her focus sharper. Raising her voice just enough to be heard over the music, she rubbed her wrist.

  “My name is Sam, and I guess it’s me,” she said. “About two months ago, a couple of Penders’ best diggers and I found a new reserve of Zephyr near the ravine. And since we use it to power pretty much everything in town, we started the excavation process like we always do when we find new resources. We were down there digging when this big, one-eyed dolt appeared, mumbling in some outlandish language.”

  “Yeah,” another miner cut in. “And big is an understatement. This bloke stood as tall as a tree and had this weird helmet on his head. He kept pointing at his spine and stamping his feet. Then, he crushed the whole repository, eating the crystals like a sugary treat. After we failed to make sense of his actions, he flipped a switch, and this weird pulsing sound took control of me, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

  The other miners all nodded in agreement.

  “Me, I came here looking for Sam and her crew and got ambushed by a pack of wolves led by a leprechaun,” another miner added. “The hat-wearing lunatic tied me up and dragged me into this building. That’s where I met the Bogart fellow, and pretty much the same thing happened to me. He pointed at my spine, started speaking nonsense, and then I heard that blasted music. After that… nothing. Just a blank.”

  “Why do you call him Bogart?” I asked, curious.

  “Because he bogarts our Zephyr and keeps it all for himself,” the miner replied.

  I scratched my head, mumbling to myself.

  First, there was the spine injury thing, and second, why was he speaking in a different language?

  From what I’d gathered, he at least tried to communicate before messing with people’s heads using the music.

  I placed a hand on my chin. “Can you guys remember anything from the last couple of weeks?” I asked.

  “In flashes,” one of the miners said, looking down at his hands. “But mostly I think we were removing the impure chunks of Zephyr and separating them into piles. For what, though, I haven’t the slightest guess.”

  “Okay. I’ll figure it out later. I want you to stay here while I go deeper and try to get to the bottom of this, pun intended,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I’ll send any more hostages up this way before I meet up with the Bogart. Agreed.”

  The miners glanced at each other, then headed toward the exit. “We’ll wait right here,” Sam said. “And please be careful.”

  Sparks floated beside me as I searched the second room for an exit. The red, blue, and green lights throbbed with the beat, making the space feel uncomfortably intimate, almost like Halloween. Add the maroon-colored dust drifting in the air, and the place was a verifiable madhouse.

  Behind a metallic bin, I spotted what looked like a doorway. I ran to it, peeked my head in, and saw another set of stairs. These, illuminated with bright yellow lights. On them were two veilwolves stuck in some kind of loop, one going up and the other coming down, like they were locked in a patrol pattern.

  To get past them, I’d have to fight. Seeing them from the ground rather than the back of my steed made a big difference. Misty was as tall as a refrigerator, which made veilwolves look smaller. Standing here, staring at these two, I hesitated.

  Their matted brown fur and bright red eyes were warning enough not to mess with them. They growled low, claws scraping deep gouges into the very steps they guarded.

  I could have frozen them with the staff, or at least hit them with the boomerang, but I was about to face the Bogart and needed to save my resources. Instead, I pulled out one of the syringes from Penders, the one that would make my hands larger, and stabbed it into my thigh. It stung a little as I pushed the plunger down.

  Next, I fumbled with the other syringe, hands too big to properly inject the liquid into. Spark flew to me and pressed the plunger down, filling me with +5 speed.

  I looked down, and my fist was the size of a watermelon. Whether this worked or not, I would rely on my sword to finish them if it failed.

  I flexed my larger-than-normal fingers and charged the veilwolves, moving a tad bit faster. One barked, but I smashed it on the head with a closed fist and watched it collapse.

  The sound was sickening as it yelped.

  As for the other, I grabbed it by the neck and choked it until it let out a small whimper, then went limp and fell from my hand.

  By now, the syringes were wearing off, and my hands shrank back to their normal size.

  Sparks gave me a thumbs up, then I approached the steps.

  One of the metal planks flickered away like a glitch, only for more to appear as if by magic, one after another, leading us deeper into this house of terror.

  When we reached the floor, our eyes scanned everything that could be a target. I glanced over the edge and saw yet another flight of stairs leading even farther down. This one is much longer than the ones we had just descended.

  I turned my attention back to the floor, pulled out the map, and counted twenty-five dots, most of them blue. Sparks froze, sent a shiver through me, then fired a volley of missiles as a leprechaun charged up the stairs.

  Hat tilted, arms poised, it was ready to unleash a wicked rainbow of energy in my direction.

  I ducked and punched as it rounded the corner, driving my fist straight through its ribcage. Its eyes filled with terror, and it quickly bled out and tumbled down the stairs.

  I paused, letting his corpse hit the floor, my pulse hammering something fierce. Nothing happened. Only the muffled pounding bass line from hell, rattling my nerves.

  On this floor, the music was even louder, but our makeshift bandannas held firm. To be safe, I tightened mine and pressed forward. Sparks did the same, her little muscles flexing under the grimy lights.

  Looking at her stirred something in me, a mix of pride, strength, and friendship. As if I had known her my whole life. Almost like how I felt about my sister, Stacey.

  Turning, I faced the room, focusing on the map, and knitted my brows at the obvious. The captives had to be protected when I rushed in to kill the leprechauns and break the music’s hold. Built how?

  Out of the twenty-five dots, nineteen were blue, all clustered in the room ahead. Stationary.

  In the kitchen, two red dots lingered, while the remaining four patrolled the rest.

  Zooming in on the interface revealed the structures: one massive chamber filled with piles of mined ore, where the captives were forced to work.

  The kitchen housed a large furnace and another object I couldn’t identify. The enemies stationed there were probably cooking dinner for the captives, some kind of slop, I guessed. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember leprechauns ever being cooks.

  Then an idea fired off. Well, sort of.

  Who was I kidding? The only idea I had was to sneak into the kitchen, take out the so-called chefs without anyone noticing, and then rely on intuition.

  With luck, the only ones dying tonight would be the leprechauns.

  I crawled along the wall under the blinking lights, dodging when I could, ducking when I had to, and sometimes stopping altogether to avoid detection.

  The hostages moved like the ones I had already freed. Same blank expressions. Same red-smeared fingers. Same vacant stares. All of them nodding their heads or stamping their feet in time with the ridiculous music.

  The leprechauns stood over them, watching. “Soon it’s lunch. Then, back to refining,” one yelled out.

  Then, one walked to the far wall and cranked the volume higher, making sure the Bogart’s hypnotism didn’t fade.

  One leprechaun wore a gold suit, and when I saw that, I nearly shit a building, gargoyles and sharp edges included.

  He was bigger than the others, holding what looked like a megaphone in his hand. He also seemed sharper, keeping the other three leprechauns in line.

  “Hey, you half-wits,” he barked through the megaphone in that stupid-ass Irish accent. “Don’t let the wee humans’ spell break, or I’ll break your ass. The last time one was freed, it almost ruined our whole operation.”

  The others looked at it, chuckled something back, and kept surveying the captives.

  The worst part was that I had never fought a souped-up leprechaun before. Who knew what tricks this one had? Cashius would have been a burden in the fight, but I still would have taken any advice on how to kill these idiots. Any shred of information, even a cheat code, would have been welcome.

  Oh well. I’d face it head-on and hope my weapons and stat boosts were enough.

  I pressed so close to the wall I could feel every chip in the paint. Pulling up my HUD, I flipped to heart rate and pulse. Both were slightly elevated. By the time I reached the kitchen doorway, I blinked, cleared the screen, and brought up only my HP and MP. Then I downed another MP potion, just to be safe.

  For this part of the mission, I needed to play it tight and tactical. Precise strikes, fluid motion. None of the wild, reckless crap I had pulled before. This time, I wanted to kill the first leprechaun without a sound, then move on to the next before he had a chance to alert the others.

  Peeking around the corner, I saw one chopping up strange vegetables. One in particular caught my attention. It was shaped like a cucumber but smooth and red, glowing under the dim lights like crystallized blood. The other chef was slicing meat into chunks, licking his fingers every time he switched pieces.

  A pot simmered on a decent fire. The first chef tossed in the vegetables, then, without warning, whipped out his dick and pissed in it.

  “They should like this ingredient, yes?” he asked the other.

  The second chef glanced up, the four-leaf clover dangling from his ear. “Deadly,” he replied before returning to his work.

  I pulled up my menu, cycling through weapons that could kill these gross motherfuckers quickly.

  Viper and Fang were too wild and required me to move fast. The Slugthrower was way too loud. The staff took too long before it froze the enemy. Havoc Maker was too brutal, and the blood spray would alert the other chef.

  What I needed was something precise and wicked nice.

  Settling on my standard bow and arrow, I equipped it and tested the grip, sliding the shaft between my fingers and feeling the grooves in the wood. The bow bent with ease, the string taut and eager. Holding it made me regret not using it more often.

  Nocking the arrow, I zeroed in on the leprechaun who had pulled out his Johnson and pissed in the pot. On the display, a toggle read I clicked it to see what it did.

  A red crosshair overlapped my display. My stance shifted, and my arms locked in place as I tracked the leprechaun, moving in perfect sync with him.

  A tutorial played across the lower part of my vision with audio only, I could hear, replacing the map:

  This was something I could’ve used earlier in the game, and I wondered how I missed it. Then I remembered I hadn’t used a bow since the elves ambushed me when I first got here. Maybe the bow I used then was too low-level, and this one unlocked the feature.

  I didn’t know. What I did know was that I was about to kill two leprechauns efficiently and without making a sound.

  I narrowed my eyes and focused on the chef’s beady little eye. The crosshair followed, moving with such precision it felt like cheating.

  Only one way to find out.

  As he began chopping another piece of meat, I pulled back and fired. Before the first arrow hit, I switched to the other target, focused on his throat, and loosed again.

  Both arrows connected with lethal accuracy, and I felt a surge of energy from within. Lowering the bow, I watched one leprechaun collapse over his cooking station with an arrow through his eye. The other fell with a shaft buried in his larynx, causing his body to fall to the side with a large thump.

  Behind me, I heard movement.

  I slipped into the shadows.

  Seconds passed, and no one followed up on the noise.

  I moved quickly and looted their bodies, taking more HP and MP potions before checking my XP status. With only a few more kills, I’d level up to twenty-six. Something I wanted to do before I reached the Bogart, because those two extra stat points made a difference, believe it not. Not noticeable from level to level, but in the long run, that was what the game was about, or at least, that was how I was looking at it.

  The four enemies were still in the same position in the other room, according to the map. Retracing the path I took to get here, I doubled back, wrecking my brain for a solution to the problem.

  I moved swiftly, using the blinking lights to hide my body, hoping I didn’t get anyone killed but knowing it was possible.

  The captors smiled that same sick smile when I spotted them, all six feet of them. One even folded his arms like he was big and mighty, standing next to a long column. His buddy paced the floor in a tight circle over the hostages. The third nodded his head from atop a lookout perch.

  As for the elite dickhead, he stood in the corner of the room, eyes fixed on the bigger picture.

  I crawled into the room, eyes locked on the perch. It was just a window one floor up, with chains crossing in an X and a tall-ass leprechaun standing inside. Below it was a doorway, and from the looks of it, no one was paying attention to it, which might work out for me.

  I hid behind some crates, making sure no one could see me.

  When I ducked inside the entrance, I spotted a nice length of frayed rope on an old dresser, along with a couple of pouches of gold, two strength-boosting potions, and a mega health potion.

  I added them to my inventory and crept up the stairs as quietly as possible.

  Right in front of me was the leprechaun. His enormous frame was intimidating. Not because he was tall, but because I didn’t want him alerting his cohorts if he heard me.

  The room he was in was small, dirty, and poorly lit.

  Before he could notice me, I brought the rope into my hands and coiled it tight. My forearm flexed as I bit my lip, trying not to make a sound.

  I downed one of the strength potions, and a surge filled my veins.

  , I thought.

  By the luck of the gods, he leaned back and yawned, giving me the chance to slip the rope around his neck.

  On my tiptoes, I strangled him.

  His fingers clawed at me, breaking the skin in a couple of places. He even tried casting one of those ridiculous rainbow beams, but I squeezed harder until his hand went limp.

  I gave one more brutal flex of my arms, and I felt his body sag lifeless in my grip.

  Then I let him fall gently to the ground, looting him as I absorbed the orb and gold.

  Below me, the captors and captives had no clue what was going on, not even the gold-suit-wearing weirdo with the megaphone.

  If I could kill the others just as silently, I’d face the elite guard head-on and see if luck was on my side.