It was not just Payton, Sage, and Zahir on their way to the manor. It was Payton, Sage, Zahir, and Ryan. Ryan had also gotten into his prime class during the fight at the gate. Payton wasn’t exactly sure how much help being a monk would be. He was only carrying a staff, not even a knife.

  And they were all carrying rolled up rugs. Rolled up grass mats that were heavy and scratchy. Zahir also had an unlit torch.

  “This is a terrible workaround for fire. They will tear these mats like paper.” Payton whispered to Zahir as they approached the manor.

  “It will work. They don’t defend themselves. We put a mat over their head and light it on fire. We might not even need Sage’s spell casting.” Zahir sounded like he needed more convincing than Payton.

  “There are more than ten icelings here. We’re going to run out of options quickly.” Sage pointed out.

  “There are another ten mats getting woven in the village and if we get as much experience from these icelings as we got at the gate, we’re all going to level up quickly.” Zahir explained and then went silent.

  They had reached the broken wall around the manor and just like Payton’s first visit, the grounds appeared abandoned. Two spears, dropped before death from the last visit, were a few of the different things about the manor. The ice wall had retreated enough that it no longer hung over part of the manor anymore.

  Zahir pointed at one of the plaster outbuildings and the rest followed him to the man-sized door. They ignored the larger, barn doors and hoped this was just a garage for wagons. The door opened smoothly and Ryan went inside first, followed by Payton. Two wagons waited for horses that hadn’t been hooked up in decades and a carriage looked like it had been in the middle of being repainted some time ago.

  Two iceling footmen swayed in place by the carriage, not noticing their visitors yet. Zahir clenched the torch between his legs and struggled with his flint and steel to light it. The steel rasped across the stone and showered the tacky head with sparks. The icelings stopped swaying and Ryan took half a step back.

  “Light you idiot.” Zahir muttered as he struck the stone a second time and then immediately struck it a third time.

  The icelings turned and took a step towards the group. Payton unrolled one of the mats and when Ryan heard it, he did as well.

  The waxy rag tied to the head of the torch caught fire and Zahir suddenly had good reason not to hold it between his legs. Payton ran up to an iceling and threw her mat over its head while avoiding a grabbing hand. The mat didn’t seem to slow it and it turned to pursue Payton.

  Ryan rushed to the second iceling, who was also ready to pursue Payton, and threw the mat over its head. He then slipped behind that iceling and wrapped his arms around its concealed neck. It then gave him a piggy-back ride in pursuit of Payton. Zahir panicked and yelled for Payton to run.

  “Light the dumb zombies idiot!” Payton screamed and Zahir remembered what he was holding. The torchfire caught on the dry grass and ate its way across the mat and as it spread, the iceling slowed down. Payton dropped the rest of the mats and brought her ax down through the mat.

  It cut disappointingly little into the iceling’s head. The split in the mat let the injured head slip through and the mat continued to burn. The split scalp wasn’t bleeding and as the fire ate most of the mat, the iceling stopped midstep.

  Zahir lit the second mat and Ryan ran to find his staff, wherever he had dropped it. Payton circled the now still iceling to avoid the other iceling and stared at that head popping out of her burning mat.

  Her hands clenched the ax handle and she felt her face tighten unpleasantly. When her hands raised above her shoulders they relaxed and her torso twisted to load the strike. The ax sailed through the air, past the burning collar of the iceling, and ended in a support beam. It wouldn’t come free with a rough tug and then Payton remembered the second iceling. She drew the heavy, bronze knife and turned to Ryan and the iceling.

  Ryan slammed his staff into the iceling’s knee which snapped with the sound of a frozen pond snapping. Smoke from the burning mats was beginning to be a problem and Zahir’s arrow sprouted from where the face should be under the mat. The iceling fell towards the broken knee, almost smothering his mat with the fall. Zahir stabbed through the mat with his own knife and the iceling stopped trying to get back up.

  Payton coughed and gagged on the smoke. The icelings were beginning to develop pools of water as they started to thaw out. The straw mats were extinguished and the three of them hurried out the way they had come in.

  Once out of the smoke, Payton saw the notification that she was a Barbarian 2 now. Then she realized her ax was still in that smokey mess. Then she realized that Sage was nowhere to be seen.

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  Payton dropped her knife and put a hand to her chest. Whether it was the smoke or the panic, she felt like she couldn’t take a breath. Zahir saw her and put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

  “Look around the building, see if you can spot Sage.” Zahir pointed to Ryan and then took Payton’s hand. “I’m sure she’s just looking for our next targets. Somewhere with better ventilation probably.”

  “Those things are out there, dozens of them, and you’re making jokes?” Payton gasped.

  “She’s coming out a window. She’s got a bag with her and four of those things.” Ryan reported with growing worry.

  Sage had climbed out a window on the ground floor, reached back in for a bag, and darted away when hands reached out after her. One by one the icelings dropped to the ground and resumed chasing her into the courtyard.

  Ryan had a grass mat unrolled and ready. Payton’s breath was coming back and she realized her ax was still stuck in the garage. And Zahir retrieved his torch from the smokey mess.

  A man fell out of the sky and landed on one of the icelings, smashing it to icy bits on the dirt. He wore loose blue robes and had legwarmers tied to his shins. His orange shirt flashed as he spun into the remaining icelings with calm vigor. He swung a weight on the end of a chain with increasingly wide circles which then suddenly contracted with blistering speed.

  The weight hitting the icelings sounded like a block of ice being dropped on the sidewalk, but loud like thunder. Sage kept running to Payton with an eager smile as if she didn’t notice the man smashing monsters to bits.

  “Which of you four is Ryan?” The man calmly gathered up his chain and weight.

  “That’s me.” Ryan raised his hand sheepishly and dropped the grass mat.

  “Then you are my student to learn the ways of the monk. This place is not safe, we should leave before more of the Titan’s creatures arrive. Is there a village that we could reach before dark?” The man slowly began to walk away from the iceling he had just destroyed.

  “This way.” Zahir said and started leading the way back to Davtown.

  The mysterious stranger chatted with Ryan as they walked. It wasn’t so much that he ignored the others, but there seemed to be more to discuss with Ryan.

  “Then tomorrow, we’ll depart for my school where the other students are gathering.” The mystery teacher stated.

  “Where is this school?” Ryan asked.

  “Bent Spoon. It’s a small town where our master resides. We are gathering students with potential to learn the Path of the Sphinx. In time, we will walk the Path and improve our homeland together.” The teacher didn’t seem to mind the town’s name while it got a sigh from everyone else.

  “Would you maybe know if there is a trainer who might teach me how to fight as a barbarian?” Payton asked hopefully.

  “I have never met a barbarian who needed instruction. My dialog is limited outside of topics of my specialty. For further information, refer to your manual.” It was more of a mechanical response and made it clear that this character was controlled by AI.

  “Forget a teacher, I’ve got a present for you. You have no idea what I found in the manor.” Sage pulled her sister to one side and Payton remembered she was angry.

  “What were you thinking leaving us? We’re a team, we have to work together to not die. We could have spent hours looking for you and really stirred up the icelings!” Payton jerked her arm out of Sage’s touch.

  “There is a window that was open to the basement. There were no icelings there. I found a storage room with this.” Sage held up the bag she was now wearing like a purse.

  “It doesn’t even match your eyes!” Payton wanted to stay angry. But the brown fabric wasn’t anything special.

  “But it does this!” Sage was too excited to react to Payton’s anger. She reached into the bag and withdrew a violin bow. It was much too long to fit into the bag and it was clear that there was something unnatural about the bag. “You can just keep dumping stuff in it and it won’t fill up. It’s great!”

  “That is a Yawning Space bag. The runes to enchant them were lost even before the ice wall descended on our people.” The teacher pointed at the bag.

  “Hey, do you know about any missing people? We’ve had five go missing from our village.” Zahir snapped his fingers at a sudden realization.

  “I’m sorry. My dialog is limited outside of topics of my specialty. For further information, refer to your manual.” The teacher didn’t look very sorry, but then again he wasn’t good at portraying anything beyond mysterious.

  “Great, well that will remain a mystery for now.” Zahir’s smile disappeared.

  “Indeed.” The teacher agreed with a smile.

  “More than that, I grabbed some iron weapons before the icelings started chasing me. Like this made me think of you.” Sage drew an ax out of her magic Yawning Space bag. The metal was dark grey with carvings that were nearly black. It was angular, like a square cut in half diagonally, and there was a triangle hole near the socket holding the handle. The wood felt ancient. Smooth like hands had spent years working out the splinters.

  “It’s beautiful.” Payton whispered and stopped walking for a moment to appreciate it.

  “You are welcome. It’s fitting since your last ax is still in the manor. I still owe you armor. Can barbarians use armor?” Sage watched her sister get acquainted with this new ax.

  “I don’t know and I don’t think our new friend can help.” Payton touched her leather armor. She rested her new ax over her shoulder and smiled as they walked. “But don’t think I forgot about being mad at you. You just ran off and left me again.”

  “I wasn’t useful in the garage. I would have set it on fire or been in the way. I saw an opportunity and went for it.” Sage busied herself with the violin bow, testing to see if it still held tension.

  “You don’t know what it does to me to think I’ve lost you. You’re all I have left.” Payton admitted even though it was hard to say.

  “I’m not actually going anywhere. We’re still on the ship. It’s only in the game that I run off.” Sage didn’t like when her sister talked like this. She didn’t like feeling guilty for being independent.

  “This game is reality right now. And it’s not like I didn’t react to you leaving me in the real world.”