Our heroes are stationed back at the bar they came to when they first came into Fiziks, the very one where they had met Jael and Thaelia. Feral has is feet propped up on a table, reading the local paper. Jael is polishing her katana while Thaelia stares at the blade as the sunlight is reflected off of it, making it shine and gleam. Blasto is tossing a fireball up in the air like a baseball. Phaedra and Tina and playing paper-rock-scissors for the new bow and arrows that they bought.
“We got any money left?” asks Blasto, not taking his eyes off of his fireball.
“Yeah, about 750 grand.” Responds Thaelia.
“Yeah, we put it in the bank.” Says Jael.
Silence follows, then…
“HA! Rock bitch! I win!” screams Phaedra, as she picks her new bow and arrow up.
“Whatever, if I really wanted one, I would just make one.” Says Tina.
More silence follows.
Suddenly, Blasto grabs his fireball in his fist and closes it, disintegrating the fireball.
“Damn! It’s boring here.”
Feral’s face brightens as he is reading the paper, then he raises his eyes from the paper and throws it on the table.
“Read that headline guys!”
Jael sheathes her katana as reads the headline aloud.
“Neighboring town attacked by wild dogs with no provocation. Hmmm.”
Thaelia finally takes her eyes off of Jael’s sword.
“Sounds like we’ve just found our next adventure.”
“My thoughts exactly Thaelia. I’ve been reading about this for a few minutes. Its about six miles to this town. It’s called Monet. And I suggest we not waste anytime. All in favor say ‘I’. Not that I really care, I’m the leader, and we’re going. So let’s go!”
They leave the bar and exit the town towards the north, opposite they way they came. What follows is nothing but unpaved road and fields. However, after almost one hour, they came to a fork in the road. One sign said “Monet-3 miles.” The other sign said “Monet Shortcut-1.5 miles.”
“Hey! Let’s take the shortcut!” says Tina.
“Eh hem. Tina, remember the last time we took a shortcut? A bad ass demon attacked us, remember?” responds Feral.
“Yeah. So? We kicked his ass.”
“Good point, let’s take the shortcut.”
After only a few minutes traveling down this seldom used road, they arrive at a cave. Outside the cave is yet another sign. “Monet-Through the end of the cave, its really safe, seriously, you should go, I’m serious, there are no evils lurking here. Why are you still reading this? You could have already made it through the non-evil cave!”
They stare at the sign blankly while contemplating their next move. They enter the cave and exit exactly three seconds later, unscathed and very confused.
“Well, that was a big disappointment,” remarks Feral.
“You’re tellin’ me,” responds Blasto.
As they round the next hill, they notice a large, walled city with a large gate that, while it should protect the city from entry, was destroyed and left barely hanging by the hinges.
“THAT’S Monet? How in the hell could a pack wild dogs ravage that city?” inquires Tina.
As soon as she finished that sentence, a large dog roughly the size of a car leaped up from below the ground and tried the pounce on our heroes. Feral, being in the lead, was the dog’s first victim. However, Feral’s reflexes were too quick for the beast, and he drew his sword and plunged it deep into the beast’s heart, smiting the mighty beast with a single blow. Pulling his sword out from the motionless heap, Feral noticed something strange.
“Wires? Circuits? This thing was a robot.”
“Hey Feral, look up there.” says Blasto.
They all look up and notice a flying mechanical bird with a camera lens attached to it. It quickly flies off to the east.
“Well, this is an interesting development.” Says Jael
“Well, what do we do? Do we go to the city or follow that bird thing?” asks Thaelia.
“Whatever we do, we’d best do it quick, it’s almost sunset. I think we should go to the city and rest. I don’t want to be on the road at night and get caught by one of those dog-bots.” responds Phaedra.
Our heroes agree and enter the city. However, back at the fallen dog-bots body, a blinking SOS light is seen, and off in the distance, a faint growling draws ever closer…
TO BE CONTINUED…