Jan Wick Saves the Cat - From the Upcoming Rogue Dungeon Anthology

                                                                     Jan Wick Saves the Cat

                                                                              by Allen Dante

I never liked cats. They’re too quiet, too crafty. You can sense them plotting nefarious schemes as they lick their paws like they’re sharpening a knife. So when a scrawny orange tabby took to lounging in the wooden rocker on the stoop of my cabin, I ignored him. He slept there in the afternoons, and I drank my whiskey there at sunset. Except for the stray cat hairs collecting on my jeans, I didn’t complain about our timeshare of the chair.

But as summer turned to fall, his keen eyes followed me everywhere. When I walked by with an armload of wood or swept the leaves off the walk, he gave me that judging cat look that said, “I know who you are, Jan. I know what you’ve done.”

He couldn’t actually know. Those deeds were far from these hills. A long day’s drive away in LA. Too far for a cat to have traveled.

And he’s a cat, for God’s sake, I reminded myself.

But that’s the kind of paranoid thinking you get living in seclusion for too long. No one to talk to but the posers logged in to play heroes on Hearthworld, and I’d started wondering if a cat had come to claim the bounty on my head. When they sent someone for me, it wouldn’t be a lazy little tomcat.

“Get in line, little snitch,” I told him.

He flicked his tail once and laid his head on his paws. Apparently, he had no objections to biding his time.

I called him Little Snitch often enough that it sort of became his name, and I guess he sort of became my cat. I gave him some food scraps and some milk every now and then, and he filled out into a burly little thing that kept the mice away. He’d strut proudly up to my rocking chair with one of their heads dangling from his mouth, and I’d thank him with a scratch behind the ear. Saved me the trouble of scattering arsenic around the bushes. After a while, I started talking to him out loud, more often than I’d like to admit.

From assassin to crazy cat lady is a shorter trip than you might imagine. It only took me a couple years in a cabin in the woods.

Tonight, Little Snitch was nowhere to be seen when I came out to drink my whiskey and watch the orange light fade over the trees beyond the pond. I set his saucer of milk at the edge of the porch and dropped in a nip of whiskey for him. I didn’t mind sharing when he came around for chin scritches.

I had plenty to drink tonight anyway. I was planning a marathon Hearthworld session, so I’d treated myself to a trip into town for a Mountain Dew suicide. A healthy pour of the neighbor’s moonshine in that extra-large sugar soup would power me till the sun came back up. I’d left it on the kitchen counter for now to let the ice melt in. Unlike whiskey, I liked those sixteen flavors of Dew watered down.

As I rocked in my chair, the wind picked up and rippled the dark surface of the water. That usually meant a storm was brewing, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I tugged the sleeves of my sweatshirt down over my wrists and took another sip to warm myself from the inside out.

Most nights I welcomed the silence out here. It’s one of the reasons I’d picked the place. In the quiet, I could hear things coming a mile away. That’s comfort—knowing you have time to react. If someone turned off the blacktop, I’d hear their tires crunch the gravel long before I’d see their truck come up the drive. And by that time, I’d be ready. I knew exactly how long it took to reach my stash of weapons in the shed and under the bed and in the cabinet below the microwave. A girl can never be too careful.

Something about the wind tonight sent all my contingency plans spinning through my head. Maybe it was the absence of Little Snitch. Maybe it was the way the ripples on the pond weren’t hitting the shore quite right. Something was there that shouldn’t be.

I steadied the rocker and set my half-glass of whiskey on the concrete at my feet without taking my eyes off the edge of the water. I caught a flicker of movement in the muck. It didn’t slither and it didn’t croak, so it didn’t belong there.

I stood up slowly and scanned the shore. I wanted to tell myself that thinking something might be coming out of the pond for me was as crazy as thinking Little Snitch had been sent to spy on me, but this was different. This had my hackles raised, and I’d learned the hard way not to ignore those instincts when they screamed danger.

The leaves rustled on the ground, a few feet over from the muck at the shore. I couldn’t make out what was moving through them, but I wasn’t going to wait for it to come to me. I stepped out into the yard. The front security light flickered on as I did, and I got a glimpse of the thing.

The biggest salamander I’d ever seen IRL skittered toward me, but as the light caught it, it stopped in its tracks and faded into the leaves—its slick brown skin changing into some kind of damn detritus camo right before my eyes.

“What the…” I breathed out.

I’d lived here long enough to know all about invasive species. My moonshine-providing neighbor had kindly told me to watch out for water snakes, though California didn’t yet have the venomous kind he was used to “back home.” But nobody had ever said a thing about salamanders of unusual size.

As I walked farther into the yard, I plucked the axe from where I’d left it in the tree stump out front. Maybe the creature was just passing through, but I wasn’t about to take my chances barehanded with a mutant salamander if it had come with wicked intentions.

I stopped a few feet from where I’d last seen it and waited for more movement. I didn’t have to wait long. The thing charged straight at me. I caught the glint of its slick skin just in time to sidestep its maw of shark-like teeth aiming to take a chunk out of my calf. I brought the axe down on its neck with my full bodyweight like I was splitting a thick log, and the force of the swing easily severed its head. Slicing clean through the flesh, the axe thunked into the ground and splashed my favorite sweatshirt with mud and salamander guts.

Before I could think too long on whether that would wash out or where the Rottweiler-sized amphibian had come from in the first place, another one came out of nowhere and latched onto my ankle.

I yelped as its ludicrously sharp teeth sliced through my jeans and sank into my skin, but I wasted no time bringing my axe down on its back. The satisfying crunch of its spine rewarded my efforts, but a broken back wasn’t enough to dissuade its chomping on my ankle like a dog with a new toy. I brought the axe back for another swing and kept swinging till the damn thing stopped wriggling. Only then could I pry its jaws off my ankle and assess the damage. It’d torn deep enough I’d need to stitch it and it stung like hell, but I could still put weight on it. I cut the rest of the way through the dangling cuff of my jeans with the salamander’s teeth and tied the cloth around the wound to slow the bleeding until I got inside to properly patch it up. I’d just have to hope it hadn’t infected me with some weird kind of salamander rabies.

I stepped back from the hacked remains and gripped my axe in both hands as I listened carefully for more movement. I didn’t trust my eyes in the glare of the security light. I could swear as that last one bit into my leg, I saw a [Leaf Salamander] tag hover over it for a second. Maybe I’d been playing Hearthworld too much lately. I’d like to blame it on the drinking, but I’d only had a few sips of whiskey tonight. It took far more than that for hallucinations to set it. I knew that from experience.

Not hearing anything else emerging from the pond, I turned back for the house. I should tend to my ankle and find a way to call up my neighbor and nonchalantly work the question into our conversation whether he’d gotten any giant salamanders trespassing on his property or was I the only lucky one around here.

Little Snitch’s untouched saucer of milk still sat on the edge of the porch, and I worried that those damn salamanders might have gotten to him, but he was too wily for that. It’d take more than a couple of slimy pond mutants to take him down. Still, I hoped he was somewhere safe and out of the way if more wandered into the yard. I’d need to rig some traps to keep them away. My planned Hearthworld session could wait till I’d taken care of the property tonight. The last thing I wanted was to game all night and then come out to a vermin infestation in the morning.

I leaned the bloody axe against the porch railing and started to mentally inventory the bits and pieces of scrap I had lying around the shed that I could cobble together into an extra-large salamander trap. I took one step onto the porch and stopped mid-stride.

There was an inhuman chitter on the wind. I’d gotten used to the bray of the neighbor’s donkey and the occasional yip of a coyote, but the sound I’d just heard didn’t belong out here anymore than those salamanders did.

It sounded almost like something out of a horror movie. I’d served a tour in Africa once upon a time and I’d heard a pack of hyenas that made a sound close to that. Hearing it here was completely unnatural.

There it was again.

But it couldn’t be…

While I stood there stupidly arguing with myself about what could and couldn’t be real, a blue-skinned humanoid in a dirty loincloth chittered and growled as it shuffled past the corner of the cabin with seemingly no particular destination in mind.

That’s the moment I would’ve slapped myself in the forehead if I hadn’t been so flabbergasted that I froze in place, staring open-mouthed at the creature. All the pieces clicked into place—the Mutant Murders crime scene I’d seen on the news, the hover tag I’d thought I’d seen over the Leaf Salamander, and now a fucking Changeling shambling through my side yard!

Somehow, someway, Hearthworld was bleeding over to Earth. That was some capital L Lunatic conspiracy shit, but I was not going to doubt my own eyes. And I’d be damned if I was going to let some computer-generated monsters overrun my hideout.

I stepped back off the porch and picked the axe back up as I headed straight for the Changeling. I took a running swing and buried the axe deep in its chest, spraying a mass of blood and bone splinters over both of us. So much for my favorite sweatshirt.

The creature screeched and swiped at me with both its black-clawed hands. I managed to duck out of the way of one, but the other caught me on the shoulder as I tried to wrest my axe free. Its razor-sharp claws shredded my shirt and my shoulder, and I started to worry less about saving my comfy clothes and more about saving my own ass. My ankle was already throbbing from the salamander bite, and now my shoulder was ripped and bleeding.

It occurred to me then, a little belatedly, that I’d brashly rushed into melee combat IRL! These might be Hearthworld monsters, but this wasn’t Hearthworld. I didn’t have any healing potions in my inventory here to gulp down when my health bar leaked too much red. I had a first aid kit under the bathroom sink and a small-town doc a few miles away who was either heading to bed about now or getting trampled by Changelings himself.

I nearly took a claw to the face as I strained unsuccessfully, trying to free the axe. It must’ve been lodged behind a rib or something.

I had to slow my roll here and think like Jan Wick, real-world ex-assassin, not Killer_Gurl, Hearthworld high-level Rogue-Assassin. There was a big difference. I didn’t have any special magical powers or enchanted armor. I only had the skills I’d honed over a decade of infiltrating the lives of the elite and quietly taking them out. I had to do what I did best. I had to keep these creatures at arm’s length and dispose of them without making myself an easy target.

And that started with letting this one walk away with my axe in its chest. I didn’t want to do it. I liked that axe, but I could buy another axe. I released my grip on the handle and dodged out of the way as the Changeling swiped wildly where my head had just been. It stumbled forward, shrieking, and with the unbalanced weight of the axe protruding from its torso, the Changeling toppled face first into the muck at the shoreline. The force of its fall drove the head of the axe completely through the back of its body resulting in a pop of vertebrae and a short-lived organ volcano.

That was the easiest kill I’d had in a while, real-world or in-game. As I headed for my stash of weapons in the shed out back, I wondered idly if I could convince more of these guys to impale themselves with my tools and save me the trouble of mowing them down with my favorite HK. Although after not having seen any real-world action in the last couple of years, I wouldn’t mind the living target practice.

Grand plans, of course, never go as planned. I didn’t make it to the arsenal in the shed. When I rounded the back corner of the cabin, the motion-sensor security light illuminated the unwelcome serrated-tooth smiles of two more Changelings. They were still the scrawny low-level variety of Troll, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. My shoulder still hurt from being clawed by the last one, and these two stood between me and the shed.

I instinctively jumped back out of their reach and glanced around quickly for anything I could use to defend myself. Sticking out of the hay bale I’d gotten to spread over the garden tomorrow was my trusty pitchfork.

That’ll do.

I ran for it, and like coyotes after a skittish rabbit, they gave chase. Luckily for me, their off-kilter gait didn’t allow them to run very fast. I wasn’t in top form with my injured ankle, but I made it to the hay bale and grabbed the pitchfork before they were on me.

I spun and thrust the rusty tines into the neck of the closest one. The blue-skinned creature sputtered blood as it reached for the shaft, but I couldn’t let it lock me in a tug of war for my weapon. I yanked back hard and pivoted to swing at the second Changeling.

I misjudged its speed and whiffed over its head as it tackled me and flipped us ass over teakettle into the freshly tilled garden patch. I heard a loud crack, but I couldn’t tell if it was me or him. I’d find out soon enough. I used our momentum to kick my legs out as we landed and shoved its gangly body off mine so I didn’t get trapped under it. Then I grabbed two fistfuls of soil and aimed at its eyes.

Momentarily blinded, the Changeling thrashed around on the ground, unable to locate me as I righted myself and found the pitchfork beside us—in two pieces. The shaft had cracked in half. At least it wasn’t me, and now I had two weapons. I hefted the fork end in one hand and the splintered shaft in the other.

The other Changeling, with blood dripping from its punctured neck, had mounted the hay bale for higher ground. He jumped at me as soon as I stood but before he realized what a monumentally bad idea it was to dive toward a woman wielding a sharp object. I aimed the tines of the fork at his head and hit my mark. One eyeball popped like a perfectly cooked pea as the pitchfork slid into his skull.

His body went limp before it even hit the ground, so I let go of the pitchfork and grasped the broken shaft in both hands as I turned for the Changeling that had tackled me. He’d made it up to his knees but was still unsuccessfully trying to wipe the dirt out of his eyes and lash out at me.

I wasn’t about to give him the chance. With a swift roundhouse kick to the head, I knocked him prone again. Then I drove the broken half shaft through his heart and pinned him to the ground. Even that wasn’t enough to stop his body from squirming.

A firm believer that trouble can’t follow you if you always make sure to double-tap, I picked up one of the landscaping stones I’d intended to border the garden with and brought it crashing down on the Changeling’s skull. The creature stopped moving then, and I hoped Changeling brain made good vegetable fertilizer. Maybe I’d plant flowers in this section, just in case.

I stood up and dusted off my hands while I looked around for any more invaders. I didn’t have to look far. Stepping from the trees into the light at the edge of the yard was a hulking creature with thick blue muscles and a strong, square jaw. A blood-crusted flail hung from one of his four-fingered hands. His onyx eyes locked on mine, and my heart skipped a beat.

I might have been able to hold my own going hand-to-hand with the low-level Changelings, but a Thursr? I didn’t stand a chance. I knew it and he knew it.

His angular face broke into a wide sharp-toothed grin.

I booked it for the house. My best chance was to make it inside the cabin. The shed was too far away, too close to the Thursr on the other side of the yard. I had to get to some real weapons, or I’d go down hard and fast unarmed in my garden. I wasn’t going out like that.

I kept my eyes trained on the screen door. I’d left the back sliding door slightly ajar to let in some cool air for the night. There was just enough room for me to pass through it, but the Thursr would have to open the door or come through the glass. Either way would slow him down. I hoped.

I didn’t spare him a glance as I ran. I knew he was headed for me, and I would either make it or I wouldn’t. Second-guessing my mad dash or the speed at which he was barreling toward me wasn’t going to get me there any faster. I pumped my arms and ignored the pain in my ankle as I willed my legs to move quicker.

I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to when I reached the screen door. And I didn’t want to. The Thursr’s claws grazed my sweatshirt as I crashed through the mesh. The whole screen door popped off its track, and I managed not to topple myself as I trampled over it into the kitchen.

Behind me, the unmistakable shatter of glass told me the Thursr had wasted no time following me inside. But breaking through the sliding door did slow him enough to give me a half-second head start on reaching the cabinet below the microwave.

I slung the door open and grabbed the Heckler & Koch P30L I kept loaded and ready. I always thought it would be an associate coming for me, not a Thursr, but I turned to unleash hell on him all the same.

My shot went wild as his flail sank into my forearm and knocked me off balance. I didn’t go down, but I screamed when he whipped the flail back and ripped strips of my flesh off as easily as if he was tearing open a cardboard package. I’d never look at my Amazon deliveries the same again. If I made it through this.

I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t think about the pain searing my skin. If I lost concentration, that would be the end of me. I steadied the gun with my other hand and squeezed the trigger.

At point-blank range, one bullet square in his chest opened a sizeable hole that poured blood in a steady stream, but that wasn’t nearly enough to take him down. It really only seemed to irritate him.

I backed down the short hall to my bedroom and shot again. I had to get out of reach of his flail and keep on shooting if I was going to have any chance here. My mind raced through the options of getting to the shotgun under my bed once I’d emptied this magazine into his chest and/or leaping out the bedroom window to escape the enclosed space I’d trapped myself in. Neither seemed like particularly realistic options as he loomed over me.

The next bullet hit his shoulder as he countered my retreat with a roaring lunge. I shot again as I tried to dive to the side and out of harm’s way, but the hallway wasn’t wide enough for that. His massive form reached wall to wall as he bowled me over and knocked the gun from my hands.

It clattered to a stop on the floor planks just inside my bedroom, a foot too far for me to reach. And with this beast on top of me, I couldn’t crawl an inch for it anyway.

The Thursr drooled like a hungry dog as he grinned down at me. Of all the ways I thought I might go out in this world, I’d never imagined it’d be as a Troll’s dinner.

“Master be pleased,” he said. “I bring him trophy.”

He kept one meaty hand pinning my neck to the floor while he reached back with the other and slid a Michael Myer’s looking knife from a sheath on his belt.

I gulped at the thought of what kind of souvenir he wanted to take out of me while I lay here still alive and damn helpless.

I started calculating whether I could reach under that sloped forehead and poke out one of his beady eyes. Maybe if I got a good twist up on one shoulder, I could hook a finger in his eye socket. I was damn well gonna try. I took as deep a breath as I could under his weight and steeled myself to go out fighting.

The Thursr swung the knife down at my face, making a mess of my plans to gouge his eyes out. I shoved both fists out in an X and caught the meaty forearm in the crook of my arms. The knife point stopped an inch from my nose.

And then, as if wishing for it had willed it to be so, I heard the distinct patter of chunky little paws on the kitchen linoleum.

Little Snitch gave a yowling battle-cry as he launched himself onto the Thursr’s back and dug in with his front claws. Then he mercilessly kicked his hind legs down the monster’s skin. I’d been on the wrong side of those claws a couple times when Little Snitch hadn’t approved of the way I’d rubbed his belly. He’d raked his paw down my forearm and slit five gashes like he was wielding five tiny knives. I just hoped he kept them sharp enough to pierce Thursr hide.

At the very least, Little Snitch had given me the distraction I so desperately needed. The Thursr released my neck and swiped the knife at his own back to defend himself from the new attacker. I took the moment to scrabble for the P30.

As soon as my hand landed on the grip, I aimed at the Thursr’s head and unloaded the rest of the magazine. Most of the shots hit in a perfect grouping on his long forehead. There wasn’t much of his face left when his mouth went slack and his thick body thudded to the floor.

Little Snitch, who’d been along for the ride, hopped off the creature’s back and padded over to where I’d collapsed against the doorframe.

I reached out to stroke his back as he arched and purred. “Thanks for the assist,” I told him. “That was a close one.”

He sat down beside me and licked at the Thursr blood on his paw as if to say, “No biggie. All in a day’s work.”

I didn’t let myself sit there too long. The Thursr had a master, and I didn’t know if or when he’d be knocking on my door. I stood myself up and went to check the body. I kicked it for good measure, but judging by the blood splatter paint job his exploding head had done on the wall, there was no need to double-tap this one.

I picked up the knife he’d dropped.

This was coming with me. I wasn’t about to leave a monster of a pig-sticker like that lying around while there were creatures that could use melee weapons invading. I checked the flail too, but it was just a common flail with no magical properties, so I dragged it into the bedroom and stuffed it under the bed. I didn’t want to make it easy for anything that wanted to kill me by leaving a weapon upgrade on the Thursr’s corpse.

Then I grabbed my second-favorite handgun, a Glock 26, out of the nightstand. Little Snitch and I headed back to the living room to get eyes on the situation outside. My ears were ringing so loud from the gunfire that I probably couldn’t have heard a propane truck roaring up the drive.

Out the side window, the back security light threw the shadows of the Changeling corpses in the garden into sharp relief now that it was full dark. But what caught my eye more than my newly acquired garden decorations was the medieval vendor’s cart parked at the edge of the woods. Piled high with a random assortment of weapons and caged animals and potion bottles, it obviously belonged to someone other than my friendly neighbor. The question was who?

Little Snitch hopped up on the back of the couch to see what I was looking at. Then he turned his head toward the front door and twitched his ear.

Before I could ask what he’d heard, I heard it too. Over the incessant ringing in my ears came the faint creak of the rocking chair on the porch. I stepped quietly toward the door till I could see out through the screen. A fat, bearded humanoid sat under the porch light, rocking in my chair, sipping my whiskey. His bulging form, covered in expensive-looking silks, spilled out the sides and back of the wooden rocker, and I wondered that it hadn’t busted under the weight of him.

“You might as well come out,” he said with a gravelly chuckle. He didn’t look my way. He kept his gaze out toward the pond like he was watching something there.

Hopefully it wasn’t a horde of salamanders.

I aimed the Glock at his head. I had no doubt at this range I could hit that melon-sized target. He didn’t look like a fast mover. “What do you want?”

“To see the residents of my domain,” he said. “Come here so I can have a look at you.”

“I don’t take orders from trespassers. Get off my property or I will shoot you.”

He flicked his hand into the air, then thrust it quickly forward.

The Glock flew out of my grip and through the front screen door, tearing a hole as it went. It landed with a splash in the dark waters of the pond and was gone.

Shit. He was some kind of magic user, and apparently that had come with him when he crossed over to Earth. The hover tag that flickered briefly into view over his head said [Collyer the Collector]. That was a new one to me. As many hours as I’d spent in Hearthworld, I’d barely scratched the surface of all its dungeons had to offer. I didn’t know what to expect from a Collector, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way. Respawns weren’t a thing here in the real world.

I gripped the Thursr’s knife tighter and pushed open the screen door.

Little Snitch ran out between my legs before I could stop him. He leapt for the intruder’s leg with claws extended, but he didn’t make it. The Collector waved his hand again, and Little Snitch froze, mid-flight, legs outstretched. Then gravity took over, and the cat’s frozen-in-time body thumped back-first onto the concrete. If it hurt him, he couldn’t even meow about it.

I wasn’t going to stand for that. It pissed me off enough that this guy had strolled up to my porch, taken my chair, and started sipping my whiskey, but hurting my cat—that invoked pure rage. I leapt for the Collector then, bringing the knife down with the full force of my body.

Instead of jabbing the blade into his gullet though, I bounced off a blue shield of light so hard that I was thrown back into the side railing, cracking one of the spindles with my back. The knife flew out of my hand and embedded itself in one of the cabin logs.

“Tsk tsk,” the Collector waggled a disapproving finger in my direction. “I’ll never reward mutinous intentions with vassalhood.”

I groaned as I pushed myself back to standing. My ankle still smarted from the salamander bite, and my torn shoulder should’ve been in a sling, not firing guns and fighting with knives. But I would not be pushed around in my own home. I would defend myself and my cat. I would defeat this guy if it took the last breath from my body.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath for my subservience. It’s not my style,” I said, curling my hands to fists, readying myself to attack again when I saw the right opening.

He took a long draw to finish off my whiskey. Then he responded, “In time, you’ll understand your place in my collection.”

“That’s your cart.” I nodded toward the side yard where the front of his cart was just visible.

“A small taste of my wares. Only what I had with me when I came through, but I can see here there are opportunities for so much more.” He nodded toward the neighbor’s lights in the distance, then looked me up and down like I was yesterday’s trash. “And so little to stand in the way of acquiring it. This dungeon will make an excellent base.”

I didn’t trust him enough to take my eyes off him, but I wanted to look around for the dungeon. Was there an entrance to one somewhere on my property now? Was that where all the creatures were coming from?

“Dungeon?” I asked.

He gestured generally at the world around us. “This Cabin in the Woods Dungeon. I have laid claim to it, and I will start my collection from here in this realm.”

He said it so matter-of-factly. Like sitting in my chair had granted him the deed to my home. How dare the bastard? I seethed on the inside and fought the urge to lunge for him right then. If I could bust through his shield, I’d rip his jiggling throat out with my bare hands.

But I knew that wasn’t the way. Acting in anger—passionate retribution—that put you in danger. That could get you killed. And I was too good an assassin to get myself killed on my own front porch.

I relaxed my fists and straightened to my full height. I willed the emotion out of my face and replaced it with an impassive mask. He was the objective now, and you never let the objective see any glimpse of the truth.

He took my newfound silence as an invitation to ramble on about what he planned to do as he “collected” his way through this new world.

His words were full of boasts about his past conquests and his favorite items in his vast collection. He got excited when he talked about adding Little Snitch to his pets and subjecting the cat to obedience training. He probably thought that would get a rise out of me, the way he said it with a devious gleam in his eye, but I kept my emotions in check and remained unmoved.

I used his long oration to take his measure. I noticed the way his chin trembled slightly when he lied. He only rocked with his left foot, as though his right had been injured, and whether fully healed or not, he’d come to favor it. He kept his right hand busy fidgeting with the empty tumbler while he kept his left free for any magic that might need doing. He was overly confident, but with a healthy hint of mistrust, judging by the way he kept tabs on my place on the porch out of the corner of his eye. He was practiced and subtle about it, but I caught the flicker of concern now and then. My quiet presence unnerved him.

I liked that. The vengeful side of me wanted to keep him on edge, but I needed to lull him into complacency. That would give me the opportunity I could take advantage of.

So instead of plotting how I might blow him up and my poor cabin in the process, I prodded him with a few questions about his plans for the dungeon and what other vassals he already had.

Thinking he’d piqued my curiosity, he happily rambled on for a while until his throat ran dry, and he realized he’d been out of whiskey for some time.

“My drink has run out.” He swirled the empty tumbler in his hand.

“Refill?” I offered, even though I hated the idea of wasting my good whiskey on this guy.

His thick beard twitched into a smile as he held out the glass.

I wondered for a split second if this was my moment, if his shield would lower to pass me the glass. I imagined grabbing the knife from the cabin’s log siding and thrusting it into his brain or at least chopping off his hand. But he would see that coming. I was quick, but I wasn’t superhuman.

Instead of attacking him, I reached for the glass and opened the screen door, managing not to look sadly down at poor Little Snitch, still lying on the concrete frozen in that mid-pounce pose.

“Good girl,” the Collector said.

I grimaced as the screen door slammed shut behind me. The last man who’d addressed me so condescendingly had ended up tethered to a block of cement on the ocean floor being torn apart in a shark buffet. This Collector would get his too. I would see to that.

I headed straight for the whiskey I kept by the coffee maker, but I spotted the extra-large Mountain Dew suicide that had been sweating on the counter for a couple hours now. Making my moonshine-Dew cocktail to power up my gaming session seemed like such a quaint idea from a past where Hearthworld monsters didn’t exist in real life. But that wistful thought was quickly replaced by inspiration.

I kept the neighbor’s moonshine under the kitchen sink, right next to the rat poison because I joked that either could kill you if taken straight up.

Suddenly, I had the urge to make a cocktail.

I brought two mason jars out with me to the front porch. Both swirled with the dark brown color of sixteen mixed flavors of Mountain Dew.

I offered one to the Collector.

He eyed me skeptically. Everyone knows that only a great fool would reach for the drink he was given. He shook his head and motioned for the drink in my other hand. “I’ll take yours,” he said.

I shrugged. Made no difference to me. I handed him the drink he asked for and backed away again with the other jar. I didn’t like being close to him, but more importantly, I wanted to place myself strategically next to the knife embedded in the cabin.

“Serve me well, and you will be rewarded. I see that my well-behaved subjects are taken care of.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I said, doing my best to keep the sarcasm from dripping into my voice.

He didn’t drink right away. He rocked back and looked out over the pond again like he was surveying his domain.

I wished I could manifest my powers from Hearthworld like the Collector could. I could use a good boost from [Assassin Persuasion] right about now. A touch of [Rogue’s Illusion] to mask the flavor of the poison would go a long way, but the best I could hope for was that the in-your-face soup of Mountain Dews would do that job for me. Without tasting it myself and making it a literal suicide, I couldn’t tell if I’d been successful. If I’d had pure arsenic, it wouldn’t have a flavor, and I wouldn’t have worried about it, but manufacturers added something bitter to rat poison to keep little kids from adding it as a sweetener to their cereal. I didn’t want that bad flavor to deter the Collector from drinking it.

He looked down at his jar and then over to me. “Aren’t you thirsty?”

“I wouldn’t presume to drink before you,” I said coolly.

He raised his glass. “I insist. To your future with me.”

I smiled a genuine smile then and raised my own jar. “I’ll drink to that.”

Then I tipped the jar back and let the liquid hit my lips, but I kept them sealed. I swallowed the spit in the back of my throat instead to finish the illusion that I had taken a drink. I’d perfected the art of pretending to drink early in my career when I’d spent many an hour roaming the parties of the Hollywood elite, earning the trust of the most powerful in their ranks. She who is sober has the best eye for blackmailable offenses and discreet opportunities for disappearances.

I lowered the jar and let out a satisfied sigh as I wiped my sleeve across my lips.

Content that I had enjoyed my drink, the Collector said, “Now I’ll take that one.”

I screwed up my face in confusion and disappointment as though I were terribly distraught that he would want my drink over his. “You want mine?”

He nodded. “Indeed I do. First rule of leadership. Never trust the conquered.” He tossed his mason jar into the yard. He had a good arm. It flew quite a few feet, spilling its liquid in a trailing arc until it thudded to a stop on the grass, where the remainder of its contents puddled into the soil.

I sighed sadly. I’d have a hell of a time getting grass to grow there now.

The Collector took my sigh for confirmation of his suspicions and waved me over to give him my mason jar.

He gave himself a congratulatory toast and took such a large gulp. He drained half the jar before he took a breath and drained the rest. The sugary concoction must have worked to mask the flavor, or he actually enjoyed the flavor of rat poison stirred into a Mountain Dew suicide.

Either way, I watched him with bated breath as he burped long and loud and then licked up the soda left on the whiskers around his lips. I didn’t know at all if a being from Hearthworld would find the same substances toxic that humans did. But I had to try.

I usually preferred more direct methods, like a knife to the throat, but I wasn’t against going traditional. Arsenic had been a girl’s best friend almost since its discovery.

“Do you have more?” he asked.

I almost let the disappointment slip into my face, but I managed to keep my expression clear as my mind began to spin again. I’d find another way, make another plan.

He held out the empty jar, and I took a step toward him, but then his eye twitched involuntarily. I stepped back toward the knife in the wall.

The Collector looked up in surprise and grabbed his portly belly as his stomach roiled with angry digestive noises. “What did you—” he tried to accuse, but a coughing fit overtook him. He scratched at his own throat with his manicured nails as though he could claw his blood-clogged airway open.

That’s when I plucked the massive Thursr’s knife from the log and sliced across his throat with one quick, fluid motion as a cough rocked him forward in the chair. He wasn’t fast enough to brace his own fall with his hands, so he face-planted onto the concrete stoop bringing the rocking chair over with him. He rasped one last breath as his lifeblood poured onto my porch, and I saw a health bar flash empty above his head, then disappear.

The benefit of notifications. You know when it’s unnecessary to double-tap.

My battered body protested as I tugged the chair off the Collector’s bulbous frame and sat it back upright, but I wasn’t letting a dead man keep the best seat at my cabin. By then Little Snitch had reanimated and decided to relieve himself on the dead man’s silks. I couldn’t blame him, and I was glad to see he didn’t seem any worse for the wear.

I rolled the Collector’s body off the porch so he’d stop bleeding all over the concrete. That was going to leave the kind of stain that only a strategically placed potted plant could cover up. In the city, I would have called Chester for a clean. That man could wash blood out of white satin, and you’d never know it had been there at all. But I wasn’t ready to give my location to anyone. Especially after tonight. I’d have to do my best on cleanup myself.

“Helluva night, huh, Little Snitch?”

He rubbed his head against my legs as I collapsed into my rocking chair.

[Congratulations! You have defeated Collyer the Collector, Dungeon Lord of the Cabin in the Woods.

Would you like to claim the Cabin in the Woods Dungeon? Yes/No]

Well, I’ll be damned. The Collector wasn’t kidding about that. He’d spewed so much bullshit at me earlier, I hadn’t really believed him that he’d claimed my property as a dungeon location while he sat in my chair. I quickly accepted and was immediately rewarded with a dungeon map and the ability to alter the layout and redistribute forces.

“Looks like we’re in a new line of business,” I told Little Snitch. “From assassin to crazy cat lady to dungeon lord. Now we’re really prepared if they ever come for us.”

He twitched his tail and lapped some milk from his saucer, which was amazingly still sitting untouched on the edge of the porch where I’d set it earlier.

Suggested to avoid “the ground” twice

In spite of the lack of magic manifesting IRL, I totally think Jan should keep this. There’s no rule as far as we know that non-magical people can’t inherit dungeons, and she’s already been seeing creature tags and health bars, so there’s no reason she shouldn’t see this notification, too. Also it’s awesome and she earned it.