Less than a week after Seymour and Penny’s slightly-drunken riverside planning session, a young Apocalyptic Gardener named Thornton Gring returned to Dragon Dan’s Adventure Depot for the first time since evolving his unique class. His nana came along beside him, a broad old crone with a hunched back. She wore a pale green bonnet over her silvered hair and pulled a shawl stitched from a deeper green material tight around her sloped shoulders. And though she couldn’t have been a day younger than seventy years old, her blue eyes sparkled with child-like wonder as she stepped inside the depot’s bright and bustling showroom.

  “Your retelling didn’t do this place justice, Thornton.”

  He smiled and shrugged. “I’m not so good with descriptive words, I suppose.”

  “It’s a wonder you’re not.” She nudged his ribs with her elbow. “What with all the time you spend absorbing the prurient prose of Lady Lucretia.”

  “Nana! Please.” His eyes panned the showroom anxiously. “I’m an adventurer now – my reputation must be protected.”

  She laughed; a croaking, wheezing sound. “I’m only teasing, dear grandson, but I swear nevertheless to henceforth keep your proclivities private.”

  “Still lusting after the rhino girls, eh Thor?” Seymour Little had appeared. He grinned and bent slowly to bow once each to Thornton and his nana, a gesture which the young Apocalyptic Gardener returned.

  “Now that I’m a bonafide adventurer,” he shot back, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, “at least my lust no longer goes unrequited.”

  “Nice.”

  Nana Gring felt her cheeks flush pink, and the salesman seemed to sense it. He smiled at her warmly using his eyes even moreso than his mouth.

  “You must be the talented artificer responsible for that super cool wreath Thor brought us the last time he was in.” Once again, he bowed slow and deep, and held her gaze with his. “I’m Seymour Little, the depot’s lead salesman.”

  “He’s the one who helped me last time.”

  “The Riftborn,” she recalled and nodded at him once. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Little.”

  “The pleasure is all mine.”

  “Very well. Now off with the both of you.” She shooed them away. “See to your business and find me upstairs on the third floor when you’re finished, Thornton. I wish to explore this dragon’s hoard of folk artificery of which I’ve heard so much gossip amongst my coven.”

  “Yes, Nana. I shall rejoin you as soon as possible.”

  Thornton had gained a lot of confidence in the past month since Seymour first helped him evolve his Apocalyptic Gardener class. He’d even completed a crawl through Vol’kara, having been recruited for his Aggressive Reforestation ability when a team was looking for a crowd control specialist, and during that run he’d looted the extremely valuable Card of the Archer. He had immediately applied it to his Diligence sigil, and at neophyte it granted him basic proficiency with all types of bows, as well as a special attack:

  With the addition of this combat ability, he immediately felt much more comfortable as an adventurer. And in addition to that, he quickly became an above-average solo artist outside the dungeon, as well. The damage done-over-time by the bleed effect of his special attack synergized well with Thornton’s ability to root and snare enemies using his Aggressive Reforestation spell, and he’d been kiting dire animals in the woods near his home in order to practice his tactics. As a result, Aggressive Reforestation was already close to ranking up to adept and his Lacerating Arrow was following close behind.

  As Nana Gring waddled off toward the staircase, Seymour clapped Thornton on the shoulder. “So what brings you in today?”

  “It just so happens I’m in the market for a new catalyst.”

  “Sweet, what’s on your wishlist?”

  After harvesting pelts and meat from the dire animals, Thornton had earned several thousand chits at the bazaar in Xallem. His still-developing powerset so far consisted of only two abilities, which meant he possessed open sigil slots enough to add up to four more. And with the chits he’d saved thus far, he probably could have filled every one of those slots with bargain catalysts – but he knew exactly what he wanted next, and he knew it wouldn’t be cheap.

  “I’m looking to add Words of Renewal to my Purity.”

  “So you’re hoping for a healing power, then?” Seymour nodded, looking impressed by Thornton’s commitment and confidence. “Well I know we’ve got those words, but they don’t come cheap.”

  Thornton held up his dire-leather wallet, fat with chits.

  “I come prepared to spend whatever it takes.”

  “Well shit, bud, that’s what I like to hear! Let’s get you hooked up.”

  Seymour led him to the main counter and before long they found the proper binder containing the Words of Renewal. It was a faded piece of yellow parchment, with a poem about Spring written on it in fine script. Seymour took Thornton’s chits and smoothly completed the transaction.

  “So,” he then said, “you want my help applying it?”

  “I’d like that very much. Hopefully you can aid me once more in evolving a unique and powerful sigil power.”

  “Yeah, I can’t make any promises, but it’s fair to say that evolving freaky-ass powers is kinda my specialty.”

  Together they went to the door which led to the testing chambers, but Seymour stopped short. An alarm klaxon blared across the showroom, and then a man’s magically-transmitted voice spoke a warning for everyone to hear:

  “Attention esteemed guests,” it began, “due to an impending extradimensional incident, the entirety of the third floor of the depot will close immediately and until further notice….”

  Hours later, long after sunset, Seymour gathered his motley team of would-be adventurers inside his cramped personal quarters. The hedge maze had finally reappeared, once again rapidly consuming the third floor of the Adventure Depot.

  And Nana Gring still hadn’t made it out yet.

  It was almost too perfect.

  “I will give my life to rescue her,” Thornton swore.

  Seymour nodded, wearing a thin-lipped frown. “I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

  In addition to Nana Gring, a woman and her three young children had been browsing through the knick knacks up there and no one might have ever known they’d gone missing if her husband hadn’t been conducting his business downstairs in the showroom, same as Thornton had been when the transformation occurred. The woman and her children were trapped in the labyrinth for some hours before an extraction team came to their rescue, led by the husband and his dungeon crawling teammate, an orc whom Seymour had barely recognized—on account of having lost his beard—as none other than Rathbone Killmaim.

  “It’ll work out perfect for us, believe me,” Seymour explained to his freshly-assembled team. It was himself, Penny, Thornton, and Handsome Gentry the bard, who stood stone silent while Penny prepped his arm for a temporary sigil. “Killmaim and the husband cleared out something like two dozen of the topiary creatures, by their estimate – so the hedge maze has gotta be as safe as it's ever gonna get for us; straight up depopulated.”

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  Penny carefully laid what at first glance appeared to be a delicate square of translucent parchment flat upon the bard’s bicep. It was actually two sheets of incredibly-thinly sliced onion, and stuck between its sticky layers was a lattice-work of sacred geometry, made from gold-spun thread.

  “This is an improvised Sigil of Escape, similar to those sold by the Adventure Depot – but two-hundred chits the cheaper,” she explained. “I have fashioned one for each of us, and they are connected to a temporary teleportation array I’ve set up in Testing Chamber Four. Wearing these sigils will allow us to evacuate from the hedge maze in the event of a disaster, or if we encounter challenges too great to overcome. Assuming, of course, that no one disturbs the array.” She shot a quick nod Seymour’s way, and he nodded back. “This will only be used in an emergency, gentlemen, and as a last resort, for there will be…. potentially unpleasant side-effects.”

  “Such as?” Thornton wondered. Before Penny could—or would—answer, the parchment transferred its sigil onto Handsome Gentry's skin with a flash and a sound like meat sizzling. There was even a smell like meat cooking – though judging by the bard’s lack of a reaction, the application didn’t appear to be at all painful. Thornton leaned closer to have a better look while Penny rattled off the unfortunate side-effects:

  “Dry mouth, runny nose, mana constipation, and a potentially oily discharge.”

  “Oily discharge?” Thornton’s face screwed up in disgust. “Discharge from where, exactly?”

  “Everywhere,” she replied calmly. “And all at once.”

  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.” Seymour stepped forward and clapped the suddenly anxious Apocalyptic Gardener on the back to reassure him. “I really don’t expect anything bad to happen, but just in case it does hit the fan in there, at least you’ll have an escape hatch.”

  “How long will it last?”

  “It’s only temporary,” Penny explained. “This application will remain for about a day, which I expect to be far more than adequate. Now then, for the other arm.”

  She had a second homemade, temporary sigil prepped inside an onion-skin sheath for the bard’s other bicep, too, and gestured wordlessly for him to make ready for its application.

  “And what is this?” Thornton asked while the uncharacteristically quiet bard rolled up the sleeve of his fancy, crimson-and-gold tunic.

  “This is an improvised Sigil of Attachment.” She placed it on Handsome Gentry’s bicep and once again it sizzled and the room smelled like a meat smoker.

  “This is all making me very hungry,” Thornton interjected, inhaling a big whiff of the bard’s sizzling bicep-meat. “Will we have time to eat before we head into the maze?”

  Penny stared at him with her mouth open but unable to form a reply.

  “Gross, Thorn.” Seymour shook his head and quietly laughed. “Do you mind if I call you Thorn now, by the way? It came to me just this afternoon but it feels so on brand for you, right?”

  “I was just barely getting used to ‘Thor’ – but I guess that’s fine.”

  “Cool, cool.”

  “Now that we’ve settled that vital bit of business,” Thorn began, “perhaps Miss Penny would be so kind as to explain the purpose of this Sigil of Attachment she’s just cooked into the bard’s flesh; what function does it perform, exactly?”

  “This will allow Seymour to share Handsome Gentry’s senses so that he may remotely view and hear everything we do, which will of course be vital if something goes wrong—”

  “Wait,” he interrupted, “is Seymour not coming with us?”

  “Nope, I’ll be camping out in Testing Chamber Four, making sure no one screws with the array you’ll need to port you out in the event of an emergency. Your escape sigils won’t do anything without it, so we gotta make sure no one messes it up.”

  “Seymour doesn’t currently possess any sigil powers which might be of great use to us in combat, so he’s the sensible choice to wait behind,” Penny elaborated. “Furthermore, if one of the other shop residents—Eusebio Duartez or Adara Oria—should stumble upon the array I’ve installed, Seymour has the best chance of finessing their concerns away. And if events somehow take a terrible turn, he has been trained to forcibly activate our sigils of escape via the array.”

  “How?” Thornton asked.

  Seymour answered. “The second sigil Penny just put on Gentry’s arm will stream everything he sees and hears to the GLCD in the testing chamber, where Penny’s array is set up, and if I think you guys are in danger I’ll pull you out by activating it manually on my end.”

  The array-thing Penny had built was actually made of party streamers – same as the ones which were still hanging from the ceiling of his room. According to Penny, all he’d need to do if shit went sideways was untie a particular junction and pull on the loose ends and the team would be evacuated out of the maze. After seeing it, he had to wonder if Penny’s elaborate party streamer setup in his room—which of course doubled as her workshop—was also some sort of array. He’d asked, but she swore they were just decorations.

  “And I’ll also be mapping your route so you don’t have to,” Seymour continued, “for future uh, expeditions, I guess you might call ‘em.”

  “But in any event, we don’t predict any true danger.” Penny moved to Thornton and gestured for him to pull up his sleeve so she could slap on his Sigil of Escape. “This isn’t Vol’kara, after all, we’re talking about a hedge maze which exists on the third floor of this shop. If genuine dangers resided within it then I expect that surely they would have made their way downstairs at some point, but according to everything we’ve read and heard, that has never come to pass.”

  Seymour had told them all about the topiary tiger he’d encountered on his first night at the shop, and they all agreed that if he could take one out all by himself then they would be more than fine if they met one as a group, even though Seymour was going to be waiting behind.

  “Look, Thorn,” he said, “you just focus on the task at hand. Don’t let anything distract you. That’s why we’re setting everything up this way. You’re the star, here. We’re counting on you to use your skills wisely, especially your new Compost power. Considering the fact that every monster that has been met so far inside the maze has been some variety of living topiary, it should be highly effective.”

  Though they’d been delayed by the sudden appearance of the hedge maze and the resulting disappearance of Nana Gring, Thornton had ultimately come to accept that no matter what happened he still needed to accomplish what they’d journeyed to the depot for in the first place. Seymour had applied the Words of Renewal to his Sigil of Purity and the resulting power couldn’t have been much more serendipitous:

  It seemed to Seymour and Penny that given the fact that the main focus of the Apocalyptic Gardener’s magic was all about manipulating plant-stuff, and with his experience fighting dire beasts all on his own, that Thornton basically represented a cheat code as part of their team of hedge mage explorers.

  “I agree,” Thornton said. “My power set should be strong against these topiary monsters, and Miss Amberwine’s book familiar should prove useful if we unexpectedly encounter an enemy who casts spells of its own, but if you don’t mind me asking: what good is the bard going to be?”

  “He’s got songs and whatnot.” Seymour exchanged a nervous glance with Penny. “Like a full power set, even, unlike the rest of us. So six songs, and he can weave them together to create different effects. Like he can buff your attack rate and body attribute while slowing your enemies… I’m still figuring it all out but he’s gonna be useful, I’m sure of it.”

  Thornton tilted his head at Handsome Gentry. “Do you lack words of your own? I’ve never met a quieter bard.”

  “His songs are all instrumental,” Seymour answered, “as far as I can tell. So I don’t think we’ll need him to like, actually sing or anything. He’ll just strum away on his lute. Blow his funny little piccolo and clap his finger-cymbals and whatnot.”

  Seymour knew Handsome Gentry as a performer who would sometimes gig at Hedwick’s Home for Wayward Aliens, but he was also a bonafide adventurer, with his sigils of Purity, Diligence, and Charity combining to evolve the cardinal Bard class. And, most importantly, he’d died earlier in the day during a dungeon crawl. He wasn’t scheduled to be resurrected until the following morning, but once the shop closed Seymour had headed downstairs to find potential teammates, and had activated the slabs upon doing so.

  Cost of Living had given Seymour access to a new interface which included Gentry’s catalog of magical melodies. They were mostly useful for buffing his teammates and debilitating his enemies, moreso than any sort of direct attacks.

  And it was a blessing that his songs were all instrumental, since Seymour had yet to figure out how to make his zombie cohort speak actual words, let alone sing them. Which meant that the bard would be limited to hanging in back and playing his lute, rather than add anything in the way of melee combat. But that made him sort of perfect, since Seymour could simply program a selection of songs and the bard would weave them all together and play them in a loop until canceled. As zombie minions went, he was about as set-it-and-forget-it as it could get.

  And he was also the clear choice to wear Penny’s improvised Sigil of Attachment, since in theory he’d be able to give Seymour the most complete view of the battlefield while hanging in the backline, just in case he needed to trip the array and port the party out of danger.

  “The only thing is: we’re all a little squishy, right?” Thornton looked at the others. “And we probably all do our job best from the backline, even me. Don’t we need someone to stand up front and soak up the damage?”

  “I’ve got it covered.” Seymour smirked. “I’ll be right back.”

  He hurried out of his room, leaving Penny and Thornton and the reanimated corpse of Handsome Gentry to wait. She smiled at Thornton, who continued to shoot curious looks at the bard who all evidence seemed to suggest was completely mute. All told, they spent no more than three awkward minutes that way until Seymour returned.

  “Allow me to introduce your tank.” He said as he stepped inside. A massive, gray-skinned orc followed on Seymour’s heels. His eyes stared forward blankly, hollow and haunted. “Mr. Rathbone Killmaim.”