The moment Trulda threw open the barn door, the cold night air rushed in, thick with the scent of burning wood and churned-up earth.

  Just twenty steps away, the adult hoarderscale crouched low, its massive form coiled like a spring, short tail lashing. Its cheek pouches pulsed, glowing faintly with stored fire.

  Trulda didn’t hesitate. She charged, screaming a battle cry.

  Weylan stepped outside, turning to shut the door behind them, but the moment he moved, something slammed into his foot. A heartbeat later, stone projectiles whizzed past his head. He ducked, twisting to find the source.

  Three adult spitters stood in the darkness, cheeks swollen, their mouths working to fire another salvo.

  Then, all around him, the earth exploded. Hatchling hoarderscales erupted from the ground, their bodies hidden beneath a thin layer of dirt. They sprang straight for the barn, claws scrabbling against the wooden floor as they raced inside.

  Weylan grimaced. His leg still throbbed, but his Pain Resistance skill made the injury easy to ignore… for now. He sliced through a leaping hatchling, cutting it clean in half mid-air, then froze.

  Time seemed to slow.

  More hatchlings poured into the barn. The priestesses would have to fend for themselves. He could turn back, help them fight inside.

  But that would leave Trulda alone against the pony-sized monster and whatever else lurked in the darkness.

  If she fell, she’d respawn the next day. But if she couldn’t kill the adult, it would burn down the barn around them. Or would it? That would destroy the food… Were hoarderscales clever enough to notice they shouldn’t burn the building containing the grain they wanted? He just didn’t know.

  He didn’t have the luxury of figuring it out.

  Weylan threw the door shut, and heard someone slamming the wooden bar into place.

  Something small and fast lunged for him, a hatchling he saw at the last moment. He sidestepped, narrowly dodging as he stumbled back. His next evasion was more instinct than skill, his foot barely clearing a blast of stones from the spitters.

  He needed to deal with them first. With his last healing potion in hand, he flicked the cork away with his thumb and downed it mid-dodge. Awkward, but necessary. His leg started to mend.

  Hatchlings leapt from all angles, but he was ready. He let them get airborne, striking mid-jump where they couldn’t dodge.

  Hatchlings jumped at him from all sides, but by now he was used to their speed. He concentrated on protecting his face and struck while they were in the air and couldn’t evade.

  The pain in his leg faded, his footing steadied, and the Assassin’s Movement feat kicked in, everything seemed to slow down by about a fifth. Not much, but in a battle, it was a tremendous advantage. A sharp grin flickered across his face as he wove through salvos of cherry pit-sized stones and lunging monsters.

  Trulda ignored everything else.

  The adult hoarderscale had all of her attention. It did not help her awareness that she’d activated rage the moment she left the barn, her vision now narrowing on her target.

  The beast reared back, jaws opening wide as it prepared to spit a burning projectile. Trulda was faster. She sprinted at an angle, skirting its flank before swinging her lute-club with all her might. The impact drove into its ribs, the shock of the blow making the creature stagger.

  Its cheek pouches flared dangerously. She had concentrated too much on the front end. Its tail whipped around, catching her full force.

  Trulda barely had time to brace before she was flung through the air.

  She hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs.

  She barely had time to roll onto her side before the beast spat. A mass of burning wood rocketed toward her.

  “No!” She threw herself into a desperate roll.

  The fireball missed, but embers rained down. Sparks bit into her skin, burning holes through her clothes. She kept rolling, smothering the tiny flames, until she could push herself to her feet. Breath ragged, she locked eyes on her target.

  It hissed, lashing its tail like a whip.

  She ran full tilt at the adult, zig-zagging to avoid getting targeted again. She scanned the monster.

  Adult-Hoarderscale-Muncher, Level 6

  Scourge-Type Monster

  It wasn’t as easy to just run up to her target and clobber it to death as she’d expected. Though the Adult was much bigger than its smaller cousins, it wasn’t that much slower. It turned and raced away as she came near, only to confront her again with his near limitless reserves of burning wood fragments. It wouldn’t even be enough to get into melee range. The adult was fast, nimble and had long sharp claws and vicious teeth. It would be a formidable enemy at close range. It just seemed to prefer ranged combat.

  Trulda gritted her teeth. This wasn’t going to be as simple as beating it to death.

  Hatchlings crawled over the barn, scratching at the wood, desperate to get inside.

  Weylan was still fighting against the spitters. He had hatchlings clinging to him with their teeth from arms and legs, but seemed determined to ignore them. He had almost reached the forest edge. She called out to him. “Don’t go into the forest! You don’t know how many are still hiding there.” She could no longer follow his progress, as her enemy had started blasting her with fireballs again.

  Weylan stopped mid-pursuit of the last cat-sized spitter, realizing how close he’d drifted to the trees. The spitter ducked behind a tree and turned back, confused its pursuer had stopped so suddenly.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Weylan’s grip tightened on his blade; his eyes scanned the underbrush. But the smaller hoarderscales were hard to detect.

  He could see a humanoid shadow moving through the wood, slow but deliberate. As it came near the edge, he recognized her.

  Ulmenglanz stepped forward, her usually elegant stride marred by exhaustion. The bark-like skin of her battle form was split in places. She had no injuries that bled, but her form carried the weight of battle. The cost of an unstoppable rampage finally catching up to her.

  The moment her gaze locked onto the battlefield, she paused. Her chest rose and fell heavily, the fierce glow in her eyes dimmed, but not extinguished.

  Then she saw it.

  The last hoarderscale spitter, perched at the edge of the field, its cheek pouches still swollen, watching Weylan from the safety of the undergrowth. The last survivor of its group, it hesitated, still confused that its pursuer had stopped chasing it.

  Ulmenglanz didn’t hesitate.

  The wood was a part of her. Underbrush, trees and branches did not seem to hinder, but to carry her forward. A gust of wind rustled the leaves, then she jumped. Her hands clenched around the hoarderscales neck. It tried to jump away, but could not escape the vice like grip. With a crack, its neck broke. The dryad dropped it and stomped on it until she got the kill notice. The glow in Ulmenglanz’s eyes flared once more, then faded and she staggered forward, dragging herself toward Weylan. She looked out at the field with the adult and the barbarian circling each other.

  “Trulda…” she rasped, voice hoarse from overuse. “Does she… need help?”

  Weylan looked at her battered form, barely able to stand upright. Her bag was gone, her clothes ripped, the loops of her belt containing healing potions empty. He steadied her and shook his head. “I’ll go help her. You get yourself to the barn. You’ve clearly done your part, and more. No need to kill yourself. We’ll handle the rest.”

  Trulda barely had time to register Ulmenglanz’s return before another fireball whizzed past her head, exploding in a shower of embers nearby.

  “No time for talking! Get this thing to hold still, so I can smash its head in,” she barked, hurling herself forward again.

  The adult hoarderscale was shifting, its tail flicking, as it tried to reposition for another long-range attack. Trulda knew its pattern now. It would keep skirting the battlefield, firing from a safe distance, until she was too tired to avoid the inevitable.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  With renewed focus, she kicked up dirt and ran, her rage burning hotter than the fire in its cheeks.

  One last charge. No more dodging. No more dancing around. She was ending this.

  While Ulmenglanz stumbled toward the barn, Weylan, now free from having to distract the ranged attackers, raced to Trulda’s help. He lengthened the grip of his swordstaff to spear length while running. With his Assassin’s Movement feat kicking in to give him another speed boost, he leapt onto the adult’s back and plunged his swordstaff into the base of its skull. The beast did not go down that easy. It screamed and thrashed wildly, trying to shake him off.

  Trulda saw her chance. She gripped her lute-club in both hands, planted her feet, and swung straight into its distended, glowing cheek pouch.

  The impact ruptured it.

  Fire exploded from the burst sack, consuming the creature’s head in a violent blast of heat and embers. Weylan leapt clear just in time, rolling as the massive lizard collapsed, its own stored flames searing its body.

  The monster twitched once, then stilled.

  Trulda swayed, breath ragged. After a while, she wiped soot and blood from her face and looked at Weylan. “Are you ok?”

  He smirked through the exhaustion. “You just had to hit the explosive part, huh?”

  She grinned back. “Of course.”

  But the night wasn’t over yet. The hatchings had retreated during the fierce fight, but were already circling, building up the courage to attack again. They still had to last until dawn.

  * * *

  As Weylan stormed out after Trulda, several hatchlings had used the opened barn door to swarm inside. Alina used her quarterstaff to stomp on a hatchling, but three more jumped inside around her. Skorr kicked one back outside. The farmer took three long steps outside, shoveled up the mass of burning sticks that still lay at the wall and threw it on an empty patch of tilled earth, prepared for planting some winter herbs.

  Faya hurled a bucket of loose earth at the smoldering remnants, then everyone stepped inside, just in time before Weylan threw the door closed to prevent more intruders to get inside. They heard Trulda's battle cry, then rapid running.

  Everyone frantically fought against the intruders. Skorr downed the last potion he estimated he’d be able to use before suffering from potion-sickness.

  Selvara had used her invisibility spell and sat on a rafter, high enough up to keep everyone in sight. It was pure mayhem inside, but the priestesses seemed to be able to handle the amount of hoarderscales that managed to get inside.

  Faya dropped her quarterstaff and let out a high-pitched scream as a hatchling managed to evade her strike and jump right at her face. She barely managed to wave it aside to prevent it from biting into her nose. As it dropped to the floor, the farmers pitchfork pinned it into the earth.

  Alina picked up Faya’s quarterstaff and pushed it back into her hands. “Keep bashing!”

  Mirabelle waved her quarterstaff around very ineffectually. The quick critters evaded her hurried swings without much effort. It was no use. She stopped a moment and concentrated. Then intoned. “Thou hath disturbed the peace of home and hearth. Suffer the displeasure of Lieselotte’s Frown!”

  Her eyes flashed in righteous indignation. The hatchlings around her stopped, confused. One looked down on his tiny paws like trying to determine what it had done wrong. Then it got splattered by a two-handed strike from Mirabelle’s quarterstaff. Two more of the hatchlings got hit by the other priestesses before they managed to recover from the mental spell.

  Alina sounded incredulous. “The Frown works on monsters?”

  “The power of our goddess is great. Praise Liselotte.” Mirabelle made a quick gesture of reverence by forming the hearth flame with the fingers of her left hand, then continued hunting down the last intruders.

  There had been almost a dozen, but they still managed to get them all. The last one tried to hide up in the rafters, but a gentle talon touch and a less gentle Shocking Grasp dropped it.

  Mirabelle stared a moment at nothing, then grinned. “Did you also just level up?”

  Alina and Faya looked at their own notices and nodded. Mirabelle dropped her quarterstaff and picked up a broom. “Great. Help me clean up the floor, I have an idea.”

  * * *

  Trulda turned, still catching her breath from the desperate fight outside, and shoved the barn doors shut behind her. Her pulse was still hammering in her ears, but at least the massive hoarderscale lay dead in the dirt. The others had retreated… for now.

  She expected to find the priestesses reinforcing the barricades or tending to Skorr’s wounds. Instead, she froze mid-step, eyes widening at the sight before her.

  Right in the middle of the barn, the girls were clearing a space. Mirabelle and Faya hurriedly swept straw aside, pushing it into the corners. Alina just finished digging a shallow pit in the dirt floor with a hoe and started to stack a pile of discarded wooden planks and broken tool handles inside, ready to be lit.

  Trulda blinked. “Are you seriously building a…” She stopped, struggling to even say the words. “A fire? Inside the barn? After we just barely stopped it from being burned down? It’s not that cold!”

  Mirabelle didn’t even look up as she placed a few carefully arranged stones around the pit. “It’s not just a fire.”

  Faya wiped sweat from her brow and glanced over at Trulda, as if surprised she didn’t already understand. “We all leveled up from the battle. That means we can finally enact the Hearth’s Protection Ritual.”

  Trulda opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  Alina dropped the hoe, clapped her hands together, and let out a breathless, almost giddy laugh. “In an hour, this barn isn’t going to be just a shelter anymore.” She grinned at Trulda, eyes alight with the thrill of newfound power. “It’s going to be a home.”

  The farmer, as the owner of the house so to speak, had to light the fire. An hour of chanting followed, while the others blocked the entrances the hatchlings kept scratching open.

  As the three priestesses finished their chant in unison, the hearth fire took on a golden hue. The constant scratching on the walls ceased.

  Skorr, Weylan, the farmer and Trulda dropped down exhausted. Finally, a moment of rest.