Dungeons Are Bad Business

Luna sat down on a rock and let the team’s [Medic] tend to her wounded arm. The gnarled woman dabbed some disinfecting paste into the cut and wrapped a few bandages around it. Unlike a [Healer], she couldn’t truly repair the injury, but specialized in alleviating pain and preventing injuries from getting worse.

“[Disinfect], [Soothe Pain].”

A flash of blue light surrounded Luna’s arm, but the [Pumpkin Witch] didn’t feel any different. Her [Ignore Injury] skill meant that she hadn’t even felt the monster’s teeth sinking into her arm in the last scuffle – nor any pain now – but she appreciated the [Medic]’s concern.

Luna looked down at her lance. The weapon was covered in grime and goo, and she’d have to really clean it off before letting it anywhere near her head once she transformed it back into her hat.

Her mount was still on its side about ten feet away from where Luna sat, and it didn’t look like it was going to start floating again anytime soon. Luna sighed. She’d have to turn it into a shield for the remainder of the job, and then see if Hanako – or one of her friend’s many tutors – could fix it for her once she got back to the city. That’s fine, Luna thought. Nothing wrong with fighting on my own two feet.

Not that there was much fighting to do at the moment. The team had cleared this particular cave and the other members of her party were putting the last wounded blightbrutes to the sword…or knife…or spell, as it were. The splotchy yellow and green monsters grunted and screamed as they died, and Luna put her hands on her knees to stop from trembling.

This was nothing at all like dealing with fiends. Fiends were just spirits, so when she slew them they vanished in a puff of smoke and that was that. They didn’t have death cries, didn’t leave bodies laying behind that would be harvested for trophies to present to the guild as proof of job completion.

She shook her head. None of that mattered. A job was a job, and this one paid well. Three hundred silver fleurs for each party member! That’s what mattered. Eye on the prize, Luna.

However, she didn’t feel as if she’d really done enough to justify her share yet. In the three caves that they’d cleared so far, Luna had only dispatched two of the so-called “littles”. The hunchback, greasy monsters were almost as tall as she was, and just as strong. Every other member of the party – with the exception of Glorin who stayed back to treat any injuries as they happened – had all killed a half dozen of the monsters or more.

Despite her nerves about being seen as not pulling her weight, she was grateful the opportunity to rest and took it gladly.

I just need a chance to do something useful. Until then, I’ll just keep doing my best.

The [Medic], who’d been watching her intently, pressed a small birdseed and dried fruit cookie into Luna’s hand. “Eat this, you look like you’re hungry. Are you holding up okay?” the woman asked.

Luna shrugged and took a bite of the cookie. It was good. A little sweet, thanks to the honey that held it all together, but not overly so.

“I’m doing fine, I guess. This job is a lot more frantic than I was expecting it to be. Up until today, the only fighting jobs I’ve ever done for the guild have been clearing fiends out of old buildings in town. I’ve never been on a cave mission before.”

The [Medic], whose name was Glorin, nodded and dabbed a few other cuts and scrapes on Luna’s arms with her paste. “Well, you’re doing fine so far. The first few times you go out with a party are pretty overwhelming. Especially if you’re used to working by yourself. Keeping track of everyone and everything is a skill just like anything else. You’ll get the hang of it eventually. Just keep your head up, do what we tell you to, and you’ll make it out okay. We’re almost done, anyways. Boss thinks there’s only one more cave infestation. Probably less than ten blightbrutes total.”

“That’s good to hear,” Luna said. “Do you think I have time to replenish my [Pumpkin Magic] before we go on? I think I have enough for one more cave if it’s like these last few, but it’d be nice to not have to worry about running out if things get serious.”

“Should be fine,” Glorin said. “But I’ll go talk to Kali and make sure.”

Kali, the team boss, was a tall and sturdy woman with short brown hair and lots of piercings. She was a [Hunter] who wore a simple green tunic and carried a pair of long knives. At that particular moment, one of them was buried to the hilt in the stomach of a blightbrute that hadn’t had the good sense to die in the team’s first attack. Glorin walked over to her and the two talked quietly.

Glorin looked up and over at Luna. “How long do you think your skill will take?”

Luna reached into her pocket and drew out the small pouch of seeds she always carried. “Hmm…maybe ten minutes or so?”

The medic burst out laughing as Kali yanked her knife free of the monster’s guts. The boss nodded at Luna. “If that’s all, no problem. We could all use a breather. Do what you’ve got to do.”

Walking over to her fallen mount, Luna sat down in the dirt and pressed a pair of seeds into the earth. “[Pumpkin Magic: Recharge],” she said, and her senses were filled with the scent of cinnamon and cloves as she drew power from the ground.

Closing her eyes, Luna felt her wells of power slowly refilling, and once they were done she simply sat still for a few minutes more. Eventually, the vines that had sprouted to wrap themselves around her arms withered of their own accord and crumbled into dust. With that, the spell was complete.

Luna wasn’t totally recharged – she had less than half the pumpkin magic she’d started the day with – but she had enough power to handle another cave.

As she stood up, Luna saw that the other four members of the team were all watching her. For the most part, their expressions were uneasy, but Glorin was smiling.

“You know that you glow when you do that, right?”

Nodding, Luna brushed the dirt off the sides and back of her skirt as she fought back the lump in her throat. Though she’d never seen herself recharging – the skill required her eyes to be closed, after all – she’d seen her mother make night look bright as day, back before she’d gotten sick. She was so beautiful back then, so full of life. Clenching her teeth, Luna banished the memories of happier times to where they normally dwelled and forced herself to smile. Stay focused on the job. Just one more cave to clear.

She reached down to her mount and checked it. Yup, it was totally and truly broken, as she’d thought. Pressing her fingers into the side, Luna said, “[Pumpkin Magic: Transform]!”

The mount was covered by more orange light and when it faded there was a nice sturdy pumpkin shield in its place. Luna strapped it to her right arm – the one that was wounded – and tested her range of motion. Thankfully, the injury didn’t give her any trouble.

“Thanks for waiting, I’m ready to go now,” she said to her companions.

In addition to Kali and Glorin, there were two other members of the party. Emmett was a pudgy [Frostmancer] with short blond hair and Harry was another [Hunter]. He was pale as could be, stick-thin, and carried a dirk longer than his forearm. Despite their differences in appearance though, the two of them were quiet, stoic men. Other than the names of their skills, Luna hadn’t yet heard them say a word.

Filing into a line, the team snuck into the path that led to the next cave and paused as Kali slipped inside to take a look around. The [Hunter]’s [Wraithwalk] skill didn’t turn her invisible, but she was very easy to miss while it was active. Almost completely silent too.

Luna didn’t dare to do anything but breathe. Here, just like the rest of the job, she’d had to do her best to follow Harry’s footsteps exactly because her boots weren’t exactly suited to stealth and the team didn’t want her alerting the blightbrutes to the team’s presence. If the monsters woke up before they were already in a hopeless position, the team would be in for a rough battle.

“Looks like there’s six littles and two bigs inside,” Kali said when she returned. She didn’t sound happy about it. Luna didn’t blame her. The job posting had explicitly stated that the only monsters in the caves were regular blightbrutes, the so-called littles. They weren’t much of a problem on their own or in the groups they tended to keep, but chieftains, the so-called bigs, were a different story.

Standing the better part of fourteen feet tall and almost just as wide, bigs were hulking, scaled monstrosities that could chew rocks and spit the shards like watermelon seeds. Thanks to their broad, spiky arms, they were devilishly hard to get close to without risking serious injury, and they were deceptively nimble for their size.

A knot of fear balled itself up in Luna’s stomach. She didn’t know if she was ready to face such foes.

Kali shook her head and fiddled with her septum ring.

“I’ve got a plan though. Lucky for us, both of the bigs are asleep right now. We’re going to try and make that a permanent thing before dealing with the littles. Nice and simple now, eh? Harry, you and I are going to try and quietly assassinate the bigs without waking them up. Luna, hang back out here, but be ready to charge in and start making a scene if things go haywire, okay? Emmett, if things go wrong, start casting like crazy and try do as much damage as you can. Glorin, be ready with [Stretchers] and [Splints]. Better safe than sorry.”

The mage grunted that he understood and readied his staff. The purple crystal on the end started glowing.

The [Medic] reached into her satchel and drew out several tiny sticks. Her face hardened.

Kali met Luna’s eyes and the [Pumpkin Witch] nodded, tightening her fingers around the grip of her lance.

The hunter grinned and twirled her knives. “If everything goes according to plan and Shay doesn’t decide to leave us any little surprises, we’ll be done in no time.”

Guess I won’t get my chance after all.

The plan made sense, but Luna still didn’t like it. She’d been hired to tank, and felt that it was her job to lead the charge, even though she knew that doing so would be peak stupidity. What good was a tank that stayed back, safely away from danger?

None.

However, Luna had to admit that she wasn’t particularly well-suited to tanking. Unlike adventurers who had classes designed for it, she didn’t have any skills that would force monsters to focus on her instead of her teammates. She didn’t have [Taunt], [Provoke], nor [Cover]. All she could do was yell and scream and hope that the noise drew the attention of their enemies.

So far, the results of her tactics had been mixed, and if she was going to keep on taking tank jobs – the pay was certainly good enough to consider it – it might be worth going to the guild on one of her few days off and trying to unlock a class better suited to it.

Kali took a deep breath.

“Alright, on the count of three, okay? One…two…THREE!”

Side by side, she and Harry slunk into the cave with their weapons raised.

Luna leaned back against the wall of the passage and waited. For the next few minutes, everything was as quiet as it should have been, but then there was a loud roar, a scream that could only be Kali, and the unmistakable sound of something hitting a wall.

Harry’s gritty voice followed soon after. “Glorin! Kali’s down! Pumpkin Girl, get in here! NOW! Emmett, do your thing! It went bad!”

Rime covered the walls and ceiling as Emmett’s staff summoned icicles from every surface. No longer caring about making noise, Luna sprinted forward, her boots crunching against cave stones.

Once inside, Luna saw what must have happened. Though the [Hunters] had managed to successfully dispatch one of the bigs, the second one had woken in time to fight back.

The littles were stirring too, their hideous faces twisted in cruel grins. Luna looked past them, at Kali’s body. From the way her limbs and head were twisted, it didn’t look like she’d be getting up anytime soon. Tears filled Luna’s eyes and she hurried to wipe them away.

Harry had been knocked down as well, but he staggered to his feet and looked over at Glorin.

“She’s hurt real bad. The big threw her like she didn’t weigh a thing. Gawain’s balls, Glorin. I think…I think she even might be—”

He didn’t get to finish, because the surviving big planted a scaly fist into his stomach and he too went flying.

“Harry!” cried Glorin.

“I’m okay,” the [Hunter] groaned as he rolled over and sat up. His dirk was gone, but like any good outdoorsman, he carried more knives than he could ever possibly use at once and reached down to his boot to retrieve one.

The big was standing between Luna and Kali, and so were the littles. Staring at the injured woman broke something in Luna’s mind. This was real, this was dangerous, and if she wasn’t careful or strong enough, she’d join her leader.

Now, Luna had always “known” that adventuring was dangerous - there was an entire hallway in the guild office filled with memorials and tributes for fallen members and Luna had read almost all of them - but seeing names and dates on a piece of paper was different than seeing someone you’d just spent the last few hours with lying on the ground like a discarded toy.

She felt like a fool for taking this job. If the team had a real tank, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. They could have gone with a different strategy, one that wouldn’t have put Kali in so much danger.

In that moment, there was one thing that was crystal clear to Luna – though one pesky part of her brain refused to accept it – this was her fault. It wasn’t rational, but that didn’t matter just then.

[Warning: [Sunny Disposition] deactivated!]

[Might -5]

[Wit -3]

[Faith -3]

[Guts -5]

But if that was the case, maybe she could fix it. Stabbing her lance into the ground, she cast, sending a wave of vines at the big and tried to bind it.

The creature laughed – a harsh, guttural sound – and broke free.

“Grok hum! Tesh’ga grok hum!”

Raising her shield, Luna ran forward and stabbed at the creature with her lance. The blightbrute blocked and brushed her away, the way an adult might brush away a dog getting a little too enthusiastic about playtime.

Channeling her pumpkin magic into her weapon, Luna tried everything she could. None of her attacks worked and the monster’s good humor seemed to be fading. It looked bored, and Luna got the feeling that a bored big might just kill her instead of keeping up this charade of a fight.

Luna’s limbs were heavy and her wells of power were as dry as her lips – one of which had just split.

[Caution advised: You are approaching your limit!]

[Skills may be unpredictable or fail to work properly!]

The [Pumpkin Witch] ignored the warnings, dismissing them with a growl. It wouldn’t be right to say that Luna was seeing red; the haze that obscured her vision was more of a pinkish orange. A pair of the littles were coming toward her, and the stench of their breath made her want to vomit.

Raising her lance, Luna took a step forward and thrust the point into the nearest blightbrute’s chest. The little wasn’t fast enough or strong enough to avoid the blow, and the weapon sank into its flesh with a meaty thud. The monster let out a cry and crumpled to the ground. If she’d had the saliva to do so, Luna would have spat on it. As it was, she simply stepped on the little’s shoulder to get enough leverage to free her weapon and turned her attention to the second blightbrute.

She needn’t have bothered. An icicle sprouted from its forehead, and it too fell to the ground.

“Don’t worry about the littles,” Emmett yelled from across the room. “I’ll take care of them. Deal with the big so that Glorin can get to Kali! You’re the only one of us who can withstand its attacks!”

More shards of ice filled the air and harassed the remaining littles. A few bounced off the big’s body, failing to even pierce its scales.

Wondering if she was about to find out the answer to whether or not there was an afterlife, Luna trusted Emmett to do his job and charged the big. As she approached, she stared into its horrible red and yellow eyes.

The monster looked calm and relaxed. It didn’t care that its companions were dead. That was part of what made it a monster. Like an old friend, it smiled at Luna.

Despite the lingering chill in the air from Emmett’s spells, Luna was warm and getting warmer. She didn’t feel so tired anymore either. The haze in her vision was growing more intense too, but Luna could still see what she needed to.

She smiled back and attacked once again.

This time, when the big took a swing at her, Luna caught it on her shield. As it turned out, that was a stupid thing to do. She might have been feeling stronger, but she wasn’t actually stronger, and the force of the blow sent her sprawling.

Hopping back up, she channeled more magic into her limbs and tried to stab the big, but her weapon was batted aside, and like Harry had been earlier, she was struck in the gut by the monster’s fist.

It knocked all the wind out of her and Luna couldn’t breathe for a little while. Eventually, adrenaline and pumpkin magic helped her start filling her lungs again, but it took a lot more effort to stand back up than it had before. The light surrounding her body was starting to get unpleasantly hot, but she grit her teeth, ignored it, and attacked once more. It was barely a strike. More like begging with her lance, really.

The big retaliated and Luna found herself on the ground yet again, but this time she’d rolled enough to where she could see Kali’s body near the monster's legs. The [Hunter]’s limbs were twisted and askew, but sure enough, Kali was breathing. The rise and fall of her chest was so slow and slight that Luna wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t just imagining it at first. After handful of breaths though, there was no room for doubt.

“Kali’s alive!” Luna cried, relief surging through her body. Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks.

[Notice: [Sunny Disposition] reactivated!]

[Might +5]

[Wit +3]

[Faith +3]

[Guts +5]

“I could have told you that,” Glorin yelled. She was still at the cave entrance, her little sticks in her grasp. Her face was drawn tight with worry. And with anger.

“Come on, girl, I can’t get Kali out of there and make sure she stays alive if you can’t deal with the big,” Glorin called. “If killing it is too hard, just give me something to work with! Half a minute or so where I won’t have to worry about it taking a swing at me. That’s all I need. What’s that energy around you for, anyways? Do something with it!”

Luna’s old prayer echoed in her mind. Please, just give me a chance to make things right.

Well, just like she’d asked for, here was her chance.

Was she strong enough to take it?

While Luna was lost in her thoughts – usually a bad place to be, even when there wasn’t a giant monster trying to kill you –Emmett shot a [Lesser Icebolt] at the big in an attempt to give the [Pumpkin Witch] an opportunity to strike. However, unlike its companions, the big blighbrute’s hide was simply too thick for the projectile to pierce its flesh and shattered into tiny, harmless pieces.

Harry had caught his second wind of sorts, and tried to get close enough to stab the monster’s legs, but he couldn’t get into range of the big’s windmilling arms without risking death and danced away to sink his knife into another little nearby.

“I won’t know if I don’t try,” Luna murmured. Her mind cleared. She had no space for idle thoughts. No space for doubts. The only thing that she felt was determination. It’s time to earn my reward. I’m going to kill that big.

Her body wasn’t so sure. Her legs didn’t want to move, her lance was the heaviest thing she’d ever held, and her shield like a stack of bricks strapped to her arm. Worse, her wells were desert dry.

[Warning! You are at your limit! Further uses of skills may cause irreparable damage to your wells!]

“Fun fact about limits,” Luna growled as she forced herself to stand and willed her arm to raise her shield. Her lance shook and trembled, but she managed to get it pointing in the right direction. “They’re meant to be broken.”*

Luna was hurting now. Bad. The power of [Ignore Injury] had long since been overwhelmed and it felt like every inch of Luna’s body was begging for her to simply take the warning to heart and give up. She could run with Emmett, Harry and Glorin. They could escape, even though it meant they'd have to leave Kali behind.

That wasn't ever going to be a serious option.

Luna knew what she was risking. She knew all about what happened if a [Pumpkin Witch] pushed things too far and broke her wells. She was reminded of it every morning and every night, saw the results each time she looked into her mother’s glassy eyes, and lived under the weight of bills to pay for treatments that didn’t work and would probably never work.

She knew, and didn’t give a damn.

There was a job to be done and Luna Redhenny was not the type of person who shirked her responsibilities.

An image formed in her mind’s eye. It was nothing more than a shape, nothing more than an idea, but as anyone who knows how the world works will tell you: sometimes there’s nothing more powerful than an idea.

Nodding to her teammates, Luna grinned and lifted her lance towards the big in a defiant challenge. “Leave everything to me, you three. I’ll buy you all the time you need because I’m going to kill this thing.”

The big laughed once again.

“Grok hum!”

Luna opened her mouth and used a skill she’d never had before. She didn’t know where the words came from, but there was no time to dwell on little things like that. The skill was a twenty foot tall bonfire burning in her mind, begging to be used.

“}|GREATER PUMPKIN MAGIC: CATAPHRACT|{!”

As soon as she said it, the energy coursing around Luna turned matte and started to transform.

Of course, like all good girls who invoked magical transformations to defeat evil monsters, Luna was lifted into the air. Basked in the glow of pure pumpkin magic, she slowly spun around, and her wounds were healed. The energy of her spell filled the cave with the scent of vanilla, cloves and cinnamon. Her adventuring outfit – which was more or less what she wore on a day-to-day basis – was replaced by a set of scale armor. Each piece was forged of glowing, chromatic pumpkins. A helmet that looked like the pumpkins carved around the harvest holidays was the last piece to appear, and once it settled itself on Luna’s head, a pair of wings sprouted from her shoulders.**

Her weapons transformed too. First, Luna’s shield freed itself from her arm and flew into the air. Its shape changed from a circle into a triangle as it combined with her lance. The result was a winged spear with a citrine gem fixed near the point, and it fit the [Cataphract]’s hands perfectly.

Luna looked down at her glorious new appearance. She felt incredible. Her body was light and full of energy. She could do anything.

But not for long, it seemed. In the corner of Luna’s vision, there was an orange gauge that was slowly draining away. She swung her spear a few times and noticed that in addition to leaving tiny orange-gold motes of pumpkin magic in the air, all of her strikes took tiny slivers of energy away from the gauge.

Getting hit would probably drain the gauge too, but Luna wasn’t interested in finding out.

She didn’t have to worry about her footing anymore. Thanks to her wings, her feet were still about six inches off the ground.

Pointing her spear at the blightbrute’s heart, Luna began to focus her energy into the weapon. It was the same channeling she’d always done, but on a much greater scale, and a heck of a lot faster.

As the weapon began to thrum with power, Luna noticed that the energy in her gauge was slowly turning transparent. Must be an indicator of how much power the attack is going to use. She watched the projected energy expenditure reach the gauge’s halfway point, and then the three-quarters mark shortly after. No point in holding anything back, I guess. She let it fill to full, and the gauge flashed red.

Luna’s wings flapped of their own accord, pulling her higher up into the air. She looked down and saw that loot pumpkins were sprouting out of the ground like mad near where she’d been floating. That was interesting. A mental note: come back later and harvest those. Might be some nifty stuff inside.

Now, the real question: how did she go about killing this thing? She might have been a [Cataphract] for the moment, but in her heart Luna was and always would be a [Witch].

She’d attack like a witch.

Sitting on her spear like it was a broomstick, Luna leaned forward and took hold of the weapon’s wings. She started spinning like a drill, sending hundreds – no, thousands – of tiny pumpkin motes into the air. Time, as measured by her heartbeat, slowed waaay down, and she could only see a blurry outline of the blightbrute’s soon-to-be-dead face.

Grok hum this, you prick.

Once again, a name burned in Luna’s brain and all she had to do was open her mouth to give it shape.

“[Stroke of Midnight]!”

Her words trailed off into a scream, and like a bolt of orange-gold lightning, Luna blasted forward.

The world went dark.

[Congratulations, you are now a Pumpkin Witch, Level 30!]

[Might +3]

[Faith +1]

[Adventurousness +2]

[Guts +3]

[You have successfully broken your limits! You can now use Greater Pumpkin Magic: Cataphract to temporarily change classes in times of dire need!]

(Be careful what you wish for. There is no going back.)

*This is not, strictly, true.

**Of all the objects in the universe, few things are more thematically coherent than a magical transformation.

Luna woke up outside, and while it was still light out, the sun was starting to set on the horizon.

“What happened?” she murmured. She tried to sit up and look around, but found that she was simply too tired to move.

Harry grinned down at her.

“Finally awake, eh? Hey, Glorin! Luna’s up!”

The [Medic]'s face appeared above Luna and loomed there for a moment. At first her eyes were tight with worry, but she relaxed when she saw that the only thing afflicting Luna was fatigue. She glared at Harry and Emmett and nodded. The men did as well.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Glorin said quietly. “You were like something out of the old stories.”

Luna had other things on her mind.

“Is Kali okay? Did I get the blightbrute?”

Guiding a second stretcher next to Luna’s, Emmett laughed. Kali was lying on it, looking much better than she had back in the cave.

“Boss is still out, but she’ll make it," he said. "With her injuries though, she probably won’t be going out on any jobs for a while. That’s fine by me. I could use the rest.”

Harry chimed in. “As for the big, yeah, you got it. But more than that, I don’t think the guild is going to need to worry about another blightbrute infestation in those caves ever again, either. I’m not sure if I should thank you or curse you out for getting rid of one of our steadiest jobs. We'll probably have to do something boring like delivering packages now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here,” said Glorin as she shot the man another baleful look. “I’ll show you. Just a second, let me help you sit up.”

Leaning against the [Medic] for support, Luna looked down the road at the direction they’d come from. She gasped. Like a giant had put its fist through it, there was a huge hole in the side of the mountain where the caves had once been, and shattered pieces of stone were scattered all around the road. Some of them were as large as a person.

“I did that?”

“Well, I can assure you that it wasn’t any of us,” Glorin said. “You don’t remember? Gawain’s balls, you must have gone deep.” She helped the [Pumpkin Witch] lay back down and her hardened voice changed. It was almost motherly. “Listen to me, Luna. You’re wasted on jobs like these. With a power like that, you should go out into the world, you know? Go find yourself a real adventuring party. Make a name for yourself. You could be something special…hell, you could be a [Hero]!”

Luna laughed and winced at the ache it sent through her abs and shoulders “Yeah, right. Me? A [Hero]?”

“I’m serious,” the [Medic] said. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

She continued, but Luna’s head started feeling fuzzy, and though she tried not to, she fell asleep.

“Luna, is that you?” her mother called as Luna opened the door and trudged inside.

“Yeah, it’s me, ma. I’m home.”

After taking Kali to the clinic so she could be treated by professionals, the team brought Luna home. By then, the [Pumpkin Witch] had recovered enough that she could stand on her own, though she moved like a slug travelling through molasses down the hallway and into the living room.

Luna slumped against her mother’s chair and wrapped her arms around the woman’s shoulders as she closed her eyes and relished the fact that she’d made it home safely. Her mom looked up.

“Are you okay, dear? I had a terrible feeling that something bad happened to you. You were gone for so long. I was expecting you back after lunch, you know.”

“Sorry about that. My guild job took a little longer than I expected it to, but I’m fine. Just a bit tired.”

“Well, you don’t sound fine to me, young lady. Come over here so I can actually see you and let me take a good look at you.”

Luna recognized the tone in her mother’s voice, so she didn’t bother trying to argue. She was too tired anyways.

Sitting on the ground, Luna looked up at her mom and smiled. “See, ma? I’m fine, just like I said.”

The color drained from her mother’s face..

“Luna…” she said. “Your eyes…”

“What about my eyes? They’re fine.”

But her mother was sobbing now and wouldn’t say anything more, so Luna had to stand back up – no small feat – and go take a look at herself in the hallway mirror. Her eyes didn’t feel any different. Her vision was fine, too. What was the big –

She squealed at her reflection.

Instead of a pupil, the center of each of her eyes had been replaced by a tiny, glowing, golden pumpkin.

Luna's Character Sheet:

Luna Redhenny:

Primary Class: Pumpkin Witch (Sarah Redhenny), Level 30 (+3)

Secondary Class: Tailor (Sarah Redhenny), Level 14

Might: 36 (+3)

Wit: 27

Faith: 22 (+1)

Loyalty: 34

Adventurousness: 33 (+2)

Guts: 33 (+3)

Hope: 22

Stealth: 7

Charisma: 24 +1