The village passed by in a blur as I sprinted to the shop, panic squeezing my mind in a firm grip. Katarina and Sebastian occasionally sent messages, but I was blind to them. My only thought was for Encore.

  How could I have been so stupid? That gnome had given us hundreds of gold worth of items. For a few questions. I had believed it. He had seemed so kind, so trustworthy, so genuine.

  I turned a corner and ran headlong into a middle-aged armadillo beastkin. My training with Katarina kicked in and I pivoted, throwing them to the side without losing momentum. They shouted something as they fell. I heard the muffled ‘oomph’ as they hit the ground, but it was a distant part of my mind.

  The quest indicator on the mini-map flashed, two blocks away. It looked like it was in a building adjacent to the shop. I pushed my body further, picked up the pace, the powerful beating of my heart muffling all other sounds as I mentally berated myself for allowing this to happen to Encore.

  I rounded a final corner and saw the building. It was across the street from the shop. I ran to it, looking for a door, a window, any opening. There was nothing. A smooth, unbroken wall of sandstone. I ran in the alley along the side of the building. It was the same. A long expanse of unbroken stone. I circled the building’s back, sliding and just barely keeping myself from falling as I rounded the corner. It was the same.

  A full circuit of the building showed no entrance. I paused for less than a second, glancing over at the colorful shop across the street. Was there some secret passage connecting the two? I pressed a hand against the stone wall of the building. Would I be able to punch a hole through this, with Kinetic Overload? Unlikely. It feels thick, solid.

  I shoved the thought aside and ran across the road, narrowly avoiding another armadillo beastkin, who cursed at me and swing her fist in the air.

  The door to the shop was closed. The lights had been extinguished. I tried the handle and it held fast.

  “Fuck.”

  The windows were closed. I tried the closest one to the door and it also held firm. I glanced up and down the road, trying to focus on my breathing to calm the raging tempest in my chest. A few people had begun watching me with concern. Fuck them. Encore was all that mattered. I choked back a sob as I ran across the street once more, pulling my lute around and performing Kinetic Overload.

  My anger fueled the performance, which I completed at 98%. I infused myself with the explosive energy as I rounded the back alley behind the building. I glanced around. No one was in sight. I enacted transform, shifting my equipment around so I was wearing the pale leather armor set. I had practiced the move dozens of times and it paid off.

  In less than a second I had shifted into the form of an Alpha Arctic Kobold. I took the Earth Stance, a stance of incredible strength but not much use in combat due to its limited flexibility. I formed a fist, shifted my hips as I drew my arm back, and put my entire nine-foot frame into the punch, detonating all three charges of Kinetic Overload as my fist connected with the smooth desert stone.

  I felt the impact travel through my fist, up my arm and over my shoulder. I flexed my legs and back, forcing the energy through the wall, destroying a two by two foot section with a resounding crack.

  Bits of debris and broken wall started to fall within the building from the impact. I didn't hesitate, jumping into the hole and transforming into a gnome, easily slipping in before transforming into my Goat Beastkin form. The building interior was dark, and I had been nearly blind looking into the dark from outside while in the Alpha Kobold form.

  I took a half second, just long enough to glance around and get my bearings. I was in a small storage room, maybe ten by ten feet. Cleaning supplies lined the shelves to one side. The door was unlocked. I opened it and hurried into the hall.

  There were no lights, but my Beastkin eyes colored the darkness in shades of gray. I had stepped into the top of a T junction hallway that extended in either direction and straight ahead. The path led to an open space with a couch and small table. I glanced at the mini-map, but it cast the entire building in the circle of the quest. No luck.

  So I closed my eyes and listened. My racing heart drowned out all sounds at first. I took a deep breath, remembering the meditative exercises Katarina had been training me in. Calm. Quiet. My heartbeat settled and other sounds filtered in.

  Concerned voices from outside, people reacting to the sound of the explosion. Something small scratching from within the walls. A rat? The wind whistled just outside. A high pitched voice lectured from a few doors down, an unending tirade, made faint and barely audible by the walls and closed door. I recognized the voice, turning and hurrying down the hall towards the door. Arjay.

  The sound was two doors down the hallway leading to the living room area. I was halfway down the hall when two bright pinpoints of red light appeared in the dark room at the end of the hall. Gears whirred and pistons began pumping red, glowing fluid through a mechanized humanoid that stood and stepped from within a small square that it had been sitting within.

  It stood ten feet tall, a hulk with an iron frame that cast the room in a dull red glow. It beeped three times as it approached, and a voice that buzzed with mechanical interference spoke.

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  “You are not welcome in this dwelling. Defensive protocol initiated. Previous setting initiated: Kill. State password to reset protocol directive. You have two seconds.”

  The clockwork golem continued approaching in great, lumbering steps. I gritted my teeth, anger bubbling up from deep within. One word echoed in my mind as I squared my hips, lowering my shoulders and running at the contraption. Encore.

  The instincts of this form craved violence, in a unique way. I really wanted to headbutt things. I listened to those instincts, throwing as much energy as possible into the attack. My curved horns hit the golem in its midsection. Bits of metal in the middle crumpled in and the golem was thrown back, but it caught itself with a backward step.

  “Aggressive action taken. Bypassing countdown. Defensive protocol initiated.”

  I was barely listening, side stepping and transforming in an instant. The robot’s red glow solved the problem with blindness. I shot my hand forward while the transformation was happening, driving stiff fingers tipped with sharp claws into a tight bundle of wires where the golem’s left shoulder met its torso. Sparks erupted and I received a mild shock as my hand sank into the join up to my knuckles.

  The forearms of the golem shifted, separating and releasing three-foot long switchblades. I grabbed it’s left arm and yanked outward, ripping its left arm completely off in a shower of sparks and spurts of deep red fluid. The golem pivoted, swinging the long blades of its right arm at me. I also pivoted, stepping into the golem. I slip my right leg through the golem’s legs, angled it between the left leg, and shoved its torso.

  Katarina had dropped me to the ground countless times with this same move. It had the same effect on the golem. I shoved its right arm away as it fell, parrying the attack. I shifted my stance to stomp on its head, but pulled short at the last second as a circular sawblade slide from the base of the golem’s head and began whirring.

  I crouched, picked up the golem’s left arm, and shoved the blade through its face with another shower of sparks and fluid. It swung its right arm at me and I jumped back. I avoided being cut in half, but the blade still cut an inch into the flesh of my left leg. The pain flashed in an intense wave and I stumbled, unable to stand on that leg. I slammed a moderate healing potion from my quick slot and threw myself to the side as the golem stood and jammed its bladed arm in my direction once again. It missed. I rolled to the side as the potion worked to mend my damaged limb, getting back to my feet as the golem turned toward me, the bladed left arm still wedged into its face.

  It swung its arm at me again and I shifted, mostly avoiding it. I knew I couldn’t avoid it entirely, the damn thing was too fast, so I took another moderate healing potion and positioned myself so the blade wouldn't hit anything vital. I stepped into the attack, a large section of my left shoulder cloven by the blade, and rammed my right hand into the other shoulder joint, trying for the same attack that had worked to rip its left arm off.

  The hit was not as clean on this shoulder, Two of my fingers caught on the metal and broke from the impact, but adrenaline and fury masked the pain. I forced my hand into the joint, balled my fist, and shoved with my entire body, slamming the golem against the stone wall. It tried moving its arm, but the limb was unresponsive beyond a few twitches, with my fist buried in the shoulder as it was.

  I received a few shocks, but the healing potion repaired my lost health and broken fingers at a steady rate. I slammed the golem against the wall a second and third time, ripping its right arm free with the third impact.

  It whirred and spurted red fluid from both missing limbs, slowing considerably. I kicked it in the chest, sending it falling backwards, and leapt after it. I drove the edge of its right arm into a small circle in the middle of its torso. There was a brilliant flash of white light as it exploded and I was thrown out of the room and partially down the hall, my health plummeting as numerous shrapnel tore through my body.

  I consumed a third Moderate Healing Potion, extending the duration of the healing effects, and turned to the door I had heard Arjay speaking through. My ears rang with the lingering sounds of the explosion, but the potion quickly repaired my ruptured ear drums and I could hear him through the door, speaking in an unending stream of words that I couldn’t make out.

  I tried the handle, and got the shit shocked out of me. The force of the electric shock seized the muscles in my hand, locking it in place. My health plummeted, but the lingering effects of the health potion fought against the damage, keeping my health up. I grunted, then roared, throwing my shoulder against the door.

  It crumpled under my weight, falling inward with a final surge of electricity. I fell in on the door and felt something small crunch beneath the combined weight of my Alpha Arctic Kobold form and the metal door.

  I felt a moment of panic. Encore? Had I just crushed Encore? The house had once again fallen dark as the golem’s glow faded and I couldn’t see anything. I transformed back into my goat beastkin form as I stood atop the fallen door, stepping into the room.

  I saw Encore, wearing a muzzle and locked in a small cage that sat on a table against the far wall. We were in a study of some kind. A desk piled with loose pages and bound tomes sat against the wall to the left. A workbench littered with tools and gizmos sat against the wall to my right. I didn’t see Arjay anywhere, but wasted no more than a quick glance around the room before hurrying forward.

  Encore breathed a sigh of relief. He looked exhausted, laying in the small cage, which was locked. I thought about forcing it open, but didn’t want to risk hurting him. Encore caught my gaze and glanced down, at the fallen door behind me.

  “I’m so sorry, Encore. We should have never left you here, I am so sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say as I turned and lifted the door. Arjay lay below the door. He had been crushed, his skull was deflated and a bit of gray matter poked through his hair. I put him in my inventory, wasting no time riffling through his pockets, and pulled the small key out of my inventory that he had on his person.

  I turned and had Encore’s cage unlocked in a second, reaching in and helping him out. I removed his muzzle and pulled him to my chest, whispering.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry Encore. I’m so—”

  “It’s okay. You came. I knew you would. Thank you.” It reached his head up and licked my chin, then snorted. “I regret that act of affection. You are quite hairy in this form.”

  The relief and joy I felt lasted for a second. A brief, glorious, happy second. Then reality crashed back into me and I spoke.

  “Abernathy. Abernathy’s still in trouble.”