“And who,” the caterpillar was saying as it approached, “are you?” Its trailing body pulsated as its little legs moved in hypnotic synchronicity, powering itself towards them.

  From its trajectory, trailing the attending worried skeletons, it was looking squarely at Athena. She didn’t flinch as the creature steamed directly at her. Pan wondered whether she was merely hoping it would stop before it ran her over, or if she had had a plan to stop it herself.

  Either way, the thing snaked its way along the ground, stopping nose to mandible before it even touched her.

  “My name is Athena and I have very little patience for bullshit.”

  The top half of the caterpillar, coming off the ground nearly as high as Athena or Apollo, reeled as if shocked. “What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!”

  Pan observed the caterpillar’s entourage of nervous skeletons. They were still fussing over it, as though concerned it was about to hurt itself or something precious, but he noticed they never touched it.

  Athena flicked her eyes up, as though ticking through a mental checkbox. Then she said, “No, that’s about it really. Do you run this place? Or do I need to talk to someone else.”

  The chitinous fur on the creature, while appearing rather thick, seemed to move with the caterpillar like fiberglass insulation. It seemed almost to Pan like the creature was covered in a layer of golden cotton candy gone a bit rigid in high humidity.

  “Keep your temper,” the thing said, sounding almost injured. “I was only asking. And yes, I run this place,” it made a gesture with one of its stubby foremost arms as if patting its chest, “everyone says I run it the best. This office was nothing without me, and since I took the reins, it’s been great. Everything’s been great.”

  Some of the cinderling skeletons had quit fussing over the caterpillar and had begun picking up the strewn papers and other debris. The ones that remained continued to fidget, as if they were trying to contain a wild animal with only the force of their anxiety.

  The caterpillar continued, “Everyone says the guy who was running this office before me was a disgrace, so I took the reins. Not even a day since I took over and some people say I deserve a reward. They want to give me a metal or a trophy. Because I’ve been running it so well.”

  It rounded on a skeleton - only turning its upper portion - and pointed, demanding, “You. Haven’t I been running this place well? It’s been great since I got here, right?”

  The creatures arms, Pan noted, were short and stubby things. Each arm – Pan was calling the ones on the upright part of its body arms and the ones on the trailing part legs – had no elbow and seemed to pivot as if on a ball joint where it connected to the rest of the body. Each arm had two grasping pincers, which the legs lacked.

  The skeleton jumped when it was singled out and began nodding furiously as the caterpillar spoke. Pan was caught off guard by the way the caterpillar spoke. The words came out like a froth, like it – he couldn’t tell if the thing was male or female yet, not even by its voice, which came out in an almost comical falsetto - was marshaling a hasty defense. Pan thought it sounded all too full of itself.

  “Now, you were-… you were…” the caterpillar said, faltering for the first time. “What did you say you were doing here again?”

  “I didn’t,” Athena retorted.

  “We want to go on patrol,” Apollo spoke up. “The guys outside? They said you’re giving out monster slaying jobs.”

  The caterpillar thought for a while before slowly turning itself around. “Of course. We have the best jobs. Not that there’s a lot of monsters to worry about, it’s mostly clean-up detail. A lot of low-ranking monsters. But you’ll never level up faster than by doing these jobs I have for you here.”

  Leveling up fast by doing clean-up detail? How are we going to level up fast by killing relatively few low-level monsters? Pan wondered.

  “Leveling fast is what we’re all about,” Athena said warmly.

  This caused Pan to look at her, to see if she was being serious. Does she actually like this-… well, this creature?

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  “Smart girl. I can tell you know what you want, and I’m the man to get it to you.” He – apparently male – pistoned over to a large dark wood desk and rifled through the drawers. “We need to give these go-getters a job, pronto!” he demanded of the skeleton crew.

  The ivory skeleton started talking to Athena in a hushed voice. “I hope you’ll forgive the mess. We don’t know what to do about him, honestly. Will you let me see your membership cards?”

  The group each produced the cards Seymour had given them. Pan jumped off Horse’s back to hand his over.

  “Ah, yes,” the skeleton said after glancing at them, “new recruits. At least you’re not those seasoned professionals all but picketing the place for lack of high-ranking jobs. When Mr. Triumph took over, his first order of business was to kick them all out. He wanted to start fresh, or something.” The thing shrugged. “We haven’t given out any business higher than Cadet rank since.”

  The skeleton looked like it wanted to say more, but the caterpillar – named Triumph, Pan noted – found what he was looking for and had powered his way back to the group. He held papers in his pincers.

  “You’ll need to sign some things, but it’s not much. It’s really not much.” He summoned over a cinderling skeleton and in one deft movement clipped off the thing’s index finger.

  It cried once in alarm, more surprised than actually hurt. There was no connecting tissue or skin that the caterpillar had to cut through. Still, the cinderling skeleton held its injured hand in silent shock.

  Triumph put the papers on a desk near the group and held out the severed digit to Athena.

  “Sign here,” he demanded. He was intending for them to use the skeleton’s finger as a charcoal pencil.

  Pan’s jaw dropped. He was almost as surprised as the skeleton whose finger Triumph had so casually taken.

  Athena moved to sign the paperwork, but Apollo put his hand on her shoulder. He said in a low voice that Pan could barely hear, “Should we really do this? We could just leave the town and fight monsters on our own. We don’t have to go through this place for levels.”

  She shrugged off his hand. “This is the best way. We get additional rewards if we rank up in the Gravestone Corps, not just the levels and loot we’d get freelance. Besides, look at him.” She gestured to the impatiently waiting giant caterpillar. “He’s just so…. Silly.” She smirked. “I figured you would have loved him from the start. I mean, look at him. He’s a thing right out of Alice in Wonderland.”

  Apollo spoke seriously. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. Look at his arms. He’s got bracers, which means he’s a player, not just an NPC.”

  “Yeah, well… What does that even mean, anyway?” She took the “pencil” and signed the papers. When she was done, the caterpillar shuffled them to a fresh page and gave her something.

  “I’ve already got one of those,” she said, not taking the Cadet membership card from him.

  “This is a good one. You need to take it with you too. Take it with you on all the jobs you do because you’ll need it.”

  She took it at his insistence, and he indicated for someone else to sign. Athena offered the “pencil” to Apollo. The Scholar shook his head.

  “I haven’t even read the thing yet,” he said.

  The caterpillar chuckled. “You don’t need to read it, it’s the standard agreement. I think you should sign it.” He made a sweeping gesture with his foremost arms, encompassing the whole group, a much less grand gesture given his current form. “You should all sign it.”

  Athena’s already taken the plunge, Pan reasoned. If I sign, then we’ll be in whatever trouble this is together. He thought about his hesitation while fighting the wolves.

  “Yeah, ok,” he said, unable to conceal all of his reluctance.

  “Pan, we should-“ Apollo started, but he was already signing the paper.

  “Great, you won’t regret this. You really won’t,” the caterpillar said.

  Pan held his hand out for the card.

  “What? What is this? What do you want?” Triumph asked, inspecting the hand.

  “Do I get a card?”

  “Card? No, there’s only the one. She gets it.” He pointed at Athena, while offering the “pencil” to someone over Pan’s shoulder.

  Apollo had approached the desk. He didn’t take the charcoal finger, but instead picked up what Pan had just signed and started reading it.

  “You can’t take that. That stays here,” the caterpillar was saying as it swiped the papers back.

  “Ten percent of rank rewards? Is that right? If we sign on, we forfeit some of our earned rewards?”

  Pan took a blank copy off the desk and started reading it.

  “There’s a fee, yes. A modest fee. But it’s all standard stuff-“

  “What about this here?” Pan said, drawing a finger under a section as he read aloud. “The undersigned agrees to complete five jobs per week until the agreed upon timeframe or risks forfeiting all acquired loot or thereby reimburses the Corps for the equivalent value in gold?”

  Stupid, stupid, Pan berated himself.

  Athena crossed her arms. “But it’s part and parcel to joining anyway, and if we stick to it-“

  The caterpillar spoke over his own defense, shaking the already signed documents. “If you want to start slaying, you have to sign. This office isn’t made of money. We don’t want any layabouts.”

  Apollo huffed in frustration. He tossed the skeleton its finger back, who caught it and tried futilely to reattach it. “I’m not signing.” He turned and walked out the door.

  And it was then that Pan realized Horse wasn’t in there with them.

  He must have left early on, he thought. I hope he’s not out there getting in trouble.

  The caterpillar made a gesture like shoving him away. “Ah, well, good riddance, am I right?”

  “Just give us our first job,” Athena said. Her mood had turned sour with the disagreement.

  “I’m glad I can depend on you two. It’s real hard to find good help.” He produced what looked like a wanted poster depicting a hobb. “I need you two to head to the Deadwoods and slay fifty of these guys. Can you do that?”