“So what’s the plan?”

  The sun was just peeking in the windows as they gathered in the sitting room of the Rest a While. Laura had laid awake for several hours after they’d gotten back, listening to Caroline toss and turn. She’d rested her hand on her stomach, and pictured the people stuck in the spider webs they’d had to leave behind.

  Caroline laid out her tarot cards. “These are all one time use cards.” She pointed to one that had an upside down figure and was labeled The Hanged Man. “This one causes enemies to move more slowly. Melee strikes still would hit us with the same amount of damage, but they’d be easier to dodge. Between that and Brett’s stealth, maybe we can make it through all the mobs to the storage shed, then grab enough weapons to defend the shed while looting it. Then get out.”

  “And ideally avoid the boss,” Graham said.

  “Exactly,” Caroline said. “Especially because I can’t really move while I’m casting this one. I need to get pretty close to cover the patch with my effective range as much as possible. Size of the area and how long it lasts depends on my charisma and constitution.”

  Nate took a big bite of his pick-me-up bar. “I can watch your back,” he said to Caroline. Over his head Laura noticed a message. Currently affected by a debuff. She couldn’t see any further information. The marks on Nate’s neck had nearly faded entirely.

  Oliver was also looking better but still moved stiffly, like he was working the kinks out. The refresher sodas were almost magic in the extent of healing damage, but he’d taken a big hit and there were still limits.

  Oliver took a deep sip of his tea. Laura noticed that they’d all fallen quiet and turned towards him, seemingly waiting for his decision.

  Oliver nodded. “Could use an upgrade anyway,” he said, picking up his kettle corn paddle and giving it a little twirl. He drained the rest of his cup and stood up. “How fast can you all be ready?”

  On the walk out of town, Laura had nudged Nate to hang back with her while they walked and waited until Oliver and the others were ahead out of earshot.

  “I noticed you’ve got a debuff,” Laura said to Nate.

  “From the spider bite, yeah. It says I’m vulnerable to spider venom. I’ll take double the damage if I’m bitten again while the debuff is in effect. It looks like it’ll last a few more days still.”

  “If you have it, then Oliver must too,” Laura said. Nate nodded. Oliver didn’t have any mention of debuffs, but they weren’t in the same party and couldn’t see that level of information to know for sure.

  They all stood on the walking path and examined the pumpkin field, trying to spot the shed they were meant to be aiming for.

  In the pumpkin patch, swathes of vines blanketed the ground. They waved steadily, moving even when there wasn’t any wind. Pumpkins dotted the ground here and there, growing bigger towards the center. The patches of vines also thickened towards the center. And in the middle of everything the jack-o-lantern man peered directly at them.

  Boss - Pumpkin King: Level 9.

  Weaknesses: low constitution.

  Laura examined her map. “There it is.” She pointed to the far left side where a tiny shed sat back behind the curve of the patch. The vines also grew thicker towards that end, like they were protecting it.

  The pumpkin king continued to stare them down.

  “So how exactly are we supposed to sneak past that?”

  “Well obviously,” Laura said, “we need a diversion.”

  A few moments later the group stepped off the walking path and moved down the slope through the short grass towards the pumpkin patch.

  Caroline moved ahead to the very edge of where the vines slithered, her tarot card out.

  Nate and Oliver flanked Caroline on either side while Graham and Brett took position farther behind.

  Caroline took a single decisive step forward, trampling a small Level 1 vine. It writhed, trapped under her foot. The jack-o-lantern head turned to track Caroline. She lifted up her tarot card.

  All of a sudden, flames burst up on the far right side of the patch. The jack-o-lantern head whirled around to see where Laura had ducked and snuck behind the main group and used her kitchen torch to light several plants on fire. The vines at the edges were all relatively small and weak, nothing higher than a Level 2. Some were dotted with brown shriveled leaves that lit quickly. More vines struck out to smother the flames, and Laura scrambled back to get out of the way. The vines seemed more interested in mitigating the damage than pursuing her, so Laura used that opportunity to sprint back to the main group. As she reached them, Caroline had finished activating the tarot card. It slowly started to glow and lifted into the air where it hovered in place. A countdown clock appeared above it in the air.

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  7 minutes remaining.

  The vines all slowed down. The ones towards the outside edge looked like they were moving in slow motion, trapped in molasses, while the stronger ones towards the center just moved at a slightly less intimidating pace than they originally had.

  Caroline remained rooted in place, conserving her energy to make the card last as long as possible. Anything else that made demands on her constitution would drop the amount of time she could sustain the effects of the tarot card.

  Oliver surged forward, smashing pumpkins and dodging the slow moving vines on the outer edges. Any vines attached to the smashed pumpkins shriveled and fell limp to the ground. The pumpkins had no faces, unlike the pumpkin king, but they were capable of moving themselves around on their vines like an octopus.

  More vines slithered forward, trying to wrap around any limb they could reach for, but for the most part they were too slow to catch Oliver. One of the thicker vines managed to reach past him and looped around Caroline’s ankle, tightening like a boa constrictor. Nate bent down to rip it free.

  6 minutes remaining.

  Brett yelled, “I got it open!” He waved from over near the storage shed, having taken advantage of the distraction provided by the main group to stealthily sneak over and unlock it.

  Every vine turned in his direction.

  “Oh shit.” Brett grabbed handfuls of tools from the shed and started sprinting back towards the group. “Why are they moving so fast?” He yelled, dodging vines. “I thought your card was supposed to slow them down!”

  “It doesn’t work as well on higher level vines!” Caroline yelled back.

  Laura and Graham ran to meet Brett to grab new weapons.

  Looped over one arm he had two shotguns, like the kind a farmer would carry, and in the other hand he clutched a long, wickedly sharp looking scythe. “Scythe’s for Oliver,” Brett said, panting. He shoved the shotguns at Graham and Laura and continued running past them.

  “What about you?” Laura asked.

  “I’m bringing this to Oliver then getting the hell out of his way,” Brett said yelled over his shoulder, still running. “Good luck!”

  He continued sprinting, skirting a wide circle around the edge of the patch. More vines reached towards him, but these were moving slow enough to easily outrun.

  Laura stowed her kitchen torch in her inventory, and pumped her shotgun. “Let’s clear out these ones around the storage shed,” she said. “There might be more things in there we want.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Graham said, blowing a hole in a Level 3 pumpkin. Its guts trailed along the ground.

  Laura shot at some of the thicker vines, severing them in two, but more just wriggled in to take their place.

  “I think we need to destroy the pumpkins if we really want to clear this out,” Graham said, pumping his shotgun to expel the spent shell before obliterating another Level 3 pumpkin.

  “How many times can we possibly fire these?” Laura said, examining the shotgun. “I thought you had to reload after every shot?”

  “Depends on the size of the magazine,” Graham said, taking aim at a giant mass of vines that was part of the largest mob helping guard the storage shed.

  Tucked behind the mass of vines was a Level 5 pumpkin. Laura fired at the vines several times, pumping the shotgun between each shot. Working together, she and Graham managed to clear a hole through which Laura could see a portion of the giant pumpkin itself. Laura’s next shot blew a chunk off the top of the pumpkin, but its vines kept going, grabbing Laura by her ankles. They pulled her legs out from under her. The air knocked out of her lungs as she slammed into the ground.

  The vines started dragging her towards the center and the densest part of the patch. Graham swiveled and began firing at the vines that had Laura in its grip. She pivoted and dug her fingers into the dirt, trying to slow herself down. More vines grabbed her by the elbow. She was starting to lose feeling in her toes as the vines wrapped more tightly around her ankles.

  Her fingernails bent and forearms scraped along rocks and gravel as she pulled, desperate to regain ground. One well-aimed shot from Graham knocked the vines around enough to let her lurch forward until she could nearly touch the side of the shed. On the ground where Brett had presumably dropped it was a small sickle, with a blade no longer than her hand.

  Graham tried to pump his shotgun again and failed. “That’s it, I’m afraid!” Graham said. “End of the magazine!”

  Using every ounce of strength, Laura dug her toes into the dirt and pushed forward. She felt something pop in her shoulder as she wrenched her arm free to grab at the sickle.

  Please be a level 1 weapon.

  Her fingers closed around the wooden handle.

  Item: Weeding Sickle

  Type: Level 1 Weapon - Short range

  Requires a minimum of 3 Dexterity and 2 Strength.

  Laura flipped onto her back, pulling the kitchen torch back out of her inventory. She fired the torch at the vines wrapped around her ankles to weaken them, then swung the sickle at them, severing them cleanly with a wet “thwack”.

  CONGRATULATIONS!…

  She swiped the notification away as she jumped to her feet and stumbled back towards the storage shed. Her feet were flooded with a pins and needles sensation. Graham hurried to join her.

  4 minutes left.

  There were several canisters of gasoline. Boxes and boxes of shells. Various tools hung off the walls.

  She and Graham evenly split the shells and stored them in their inventories. Then they grabbed the gas canisters.

  “Care to roast some pumpkins?” Laura said.

  They dragged the gas canisters outside. The first they poured on the mostly empty section they’d cleared directly in front of the shed. Graham then used all the strength he could muster to hurl the gas canister into the air above the Level 5 pumpkin. Laura shot it in mid air, raining gasoline down on the pumpkin which tried to shield itself with its vines. The air stank and the fumes made Laura’s eyes water. “Stand back,” she said to Graham. She crouched down and pulled out her kitchen torch.

  She flinched back as she pulled the mechanism to light it. The resulting fireball caused the canister on the torch to ignite and searing Laura’s hand. She cursed and lobbed the torch at the Level 5 pumpkin. The canister exploded like a grenade, shredding the front half of it. All its vines withered and dropped to the ground. The browning shriveled leaves immediately ignited, adding to the flames.

  CONGRATULATIONS!…

  LEVEL UP…

  “Well that was certainly effective,” Graham said.

  Several of the smaller pumpkins started to explode in the intense heat.

  On the far end of the patch near Caroline, Oliver had very efficiently been using his new scythe to clear a path around her. Nate continued to act as a spotter, keeping any stray vines away from her. Brett stood back behind them all. It was unclear if he was acting as another spotter for her, or just getting ready to sprint away.

  The jack-o-lantern man was staring down Laura and Graham, looking at them over the field of burning vines. He seemed to grow taller. The vines surrounding him rippled, then parted easily. To everyone’s horror, he began walking through the fields. The fire inside his eyes and grinning mouth burned brightly as he came for them.