“We’ve finally done it!” Andra announced to her allies gathered in the Guild’s common room. “We’ve hit the big time! We’re doing a job for the crown!”

“Yay, supporting the corrupt dictatorship that oppresses us,” Riven replied sarcastically as she leaned on the table.

“What’s the job, boss?” asked Fiona. She was sitting upright, looking excited.

“A necromancer is raising an army of zombies. Our job is to kill him.”

Andra beamed. It was finally happening. Andra had known this moment was close ever since she had brought the news from the Demon Lands to the castle. True, it had meant several hours of interrogation and for some reason a night in a jail cell, but she had gotten to speak with the king’s generals. Of course, the generals had seemed rather annoyed at the news and more than a little doubtful about its accuracy. In fact, the eldest general had almost sounded like he was expecting to disprove Andra’s report when he had tiredly suggested that spies be sent to investigate the Demon King’s activities. However, the fact that they were now receiving a job protecting the kingdom from an internal threat was proof that Lady von Ekko’s Glorious Adventurer Brigade had earned the notice of the crown.

“Pass,” said Riven.

Andra was taken aback. “What do you mean ‘pass’? You can’t pass.”

“I can absolutely pass,” Riven replied. “Zombies are gross and I don’t want to deal with them.”

“Oh, what, you don’t want the necromancer to turn you into a zombie?” Andra asked.

“What? That doesn’t even make sense. If I were a zombie I’d be dead. My spirit would be gone and my body would just be a reanimated corpse.”

“Yeah, I’m going to pass too,” Kaylen said.

Andra gaped. Kaylen was turning down the job, too? “Wait, shouldn’t you be all gung-ho about getting to be a hero and save people from a zombie army?”

“I mean, I guess, but let’s be honest,” Kaylen explained, “the only reason this job is falling to us is that everyone else in the Guild turned it down. No one wants to deal with zombies.”

“Plus,” Fiona added, “the army can handle a big-headed necromancer and his zombie forces. They’re only outsourcing to the Guild because they don’t want to deal with it, either.”

“Seriously, Fiona? You too?”

Fiona flinched, her ears lowering. “S-sorry, boss. I mean, if this job is really important to you, I’m sure we can do it.”

“Don’t let her walk all over you,” Kaylen snapped. “Do you have any idea how often fighters get sick fighting zombies?”

“That’s not covered by work comp, either,” Riven added.

Losing her patience, Andra slammed her fist on the table. “Listen, you idiots. I started this team. I figured out how to get you worthless children to actually work together. I got us through our first few jobs and actually starting making a name for ourselves. I’m the one who’s in charge and I get to say whether or not we take a job. We are doing this.”

The other three stared at Andra in silence for a moment, stunned by her outburst.

Finally, Kaylen turned to Riven. “So I finished that book you lent me.”

Riven grinned, sitting up. “Oh yeah? What did you think?”

Kaylen touched a finger to her cheek as she struggled to find the words. “It was confusing. I thought it was supposed to be erotica, but there wasn’t any sex at all. It was just a hundred and fifty pages of the alien queen using her hypno ray to make the captain do and believe embarrassing things.”

Riven bounced excitedly in her chair. “I know, isn’t it wonderful? Sex scenes always clutter up erotica and they’re always such a boring slog. I usually just end up skimming them. But that book gets straight to the good stuff.”

Kaylen sighed in resignation. “The good stuff being the mind control.”

“I’m not sure what else you expected,” said Fiona.

“What was your favorite part?” Riven asked, still energetic. “Mine was when Xandris made Melanie think that her name was Pet. And then Melanie’s wandering around the queen’s Pleasure Palace and all the queen’s servants are calling her Captain Atmos and she keeps correcting them and insisting that her name is Pet.”

She sighed contentedly.

Andra was about to launch into another tirade when she heard a throat clearing behind her. She turned to see another group of adventurers. Bessen, Andra’s old teammate, was among them, still huge and with her battleaxe strapped to her back. In front of her was a short person dressed head-to-toe in a long black coat, hood, leather gloves and, strangest of all, a plague doctor’s mask. They held a doctor’s bags that clanked with the sound of glass. Next to them was a dashing woman with a long brown coat and a wide-brimmed hat that didn’t quite hide the way half of her head was shaved. She had a rapier sheathed at one hip and a crossbow hanging from the other. Her pointed ears marked her as an elf. Andra recognized her as Nightingale Ross, a spellsword. Finally, there was Atworth Warren, a tall, slender, androgynous person wearing a dark green cloak and standing next to, of all things, a tiger.

“Are you the other team hired for the necromancer job?” the person in the mask asked.

Andra cocked her head. “Other team?”

“Yeah. Marian said the castle requested two teams, and that the other team was gathering in the common room.”

Andra thought back to her conversation with Marian. Had she mentioned anything about a second team? All Andra could recall was that they were fighting a necromancer who was creating zombies, and the time the party was supposed to catch their train. True, there had been a bunch of other stuff, and Marian had still been talking when Andra had walked away, but it hadn’t seemed important so Andra hadn’t paid attention. 

Riven leaned to the side to get a better look. “Is that you under there, Maxim? When did you join the Guild?”

“Oh great,” said Maxim, his tone dripping with disgust. “I didn’t know we’d be working with two thieves.”

“Look, it’s okay,” said Andra. “We’ve got this. We really don’t need any help.”

“Uh, no, that’s not how it works,” said Atworth. “We accepted the job, so we’re doing it. You don’t get a say in whether we’re involved or not.”

Andra scoffed. “Please, what use would you even be? I know from experience how lazy Bessen is. And what’s Atworth’s job, anyway? To tell the tiger to attack the zombies? Really impressive. Though not nearly as impressive as someone dense enough to think his ability to mix two things together will be useful as an adventurer.”

Maxim scoffed back. “You think alchemy is useless? What are you going to do, pick the zombies’ pockets? That’ll be about as helpful as Riven when she runs out of magical energy thirty seconds into the fight.”

Riven stood and stepped around the table to confront Maxim. “And what’s going to happen to you when you bump that bag into a tree or something? You’ll go up like a fireworks display.”

“At least Riven will actually use her magic,” Atworth said. “I’ve worked with Kaylen before. She’ll charge right into a group of zombies and be the first one to get torn apart.”

“Hey, someone has to take action,” Kaylen snapped as she rounded the table to join her companions. “You want to talk it over with every monster you come across.”

“Wanting to avoid violence is not a fault,” Atworth shouted. Their tiger growled in agreement.

Meanwhile, Fiona had left her chair as well and was now hugging Bessen. “I’m so excited that we finally get to work together.”

“Me too. I can’t wait to see if you’re as impressive on the field as you are in the training yard,” Bessen agreed.

“Fiona, you’re messing up our trash talk,” Andra said in a stage whisper.

“Sorry, boss,” Fiona replied.

At some point, Nightingale had wandered off and was now staring intently into the pile of ashes in the common room’s unlit fireplace.

Maxim sighed with frustration. “Okay, look, how about this? Both groups go in separately. Whoever captures or kills the necromancer first gets all of the reward money.”

“Deal,” said Riven, speaking up before Andra could respond. “I can’t wait to shove our victory in your smug expressionless mask.”

It wasn’t until the party had boarded the alchemic train and were well underway that they realized that they had talked themselves into doing a job that they had not wanted to do.

Lady von Ekko’s Glorious Adventurer Brigade settled into the dining car. It wasn’t going to be a long trip, but it was long enough for a meal, and it was said that the best food was eaten at 80 miles per hour. Andra disagreed, but she was hungry and the food was decent enough. Unfortunately, it seemed that Maxim’s group had had the same idea and was already at a table, their tiger curled up underneath. How had it been allowed to board the train? Andra’s group selected a table as far away as they could get.

“Hey, what do you think they call themselves?” Kaylen asked conspiratorially. “Team Androgyne?”

When no one responded she added “Cause, you know, they’re all pretty androgynous?”

“So that’s the deal with that tiger,” Riven said, ignoring Kaylen. “I’ve seen her around the Guild and I always wondered what was up with her.”

Andra frowned at Riven. “You saw a tiger wandering around and your reaction was just to shrug and move on?”

“Yeah, I mean, she wasn’t bothering anyone.”

Fiona whimpered sadly. “I was really looking forward to working with Bessen.”

Just then a balled-up napkin landed on the middle of the table. As one, the group looked at their rivals’ table to see Atworth snickering.

“Atworth!” Maxim snapped. “That was childish.”

He turned and saw the group looking at him.

“Throw another one.”

The rest of the train ride proceeded similarly. Maxim’s team continued to jeer and toss napkins, and Andra occasionally paused in eating her goulash to throw some barbs back, until the conductor sternly demanded that the groups stop. The buildings of Rampart City grew smaller and smaller until they were gone and replaced with the picturesque farmland beyond the city. This, in turn, was replaced with woods, the trees so close to the tracks that it became dizzying looking out the windows for too long.

Eventually, the train pulled to a stop at a large town. Andra couldn’t remember the name, probably something like Woodburg or Treeville. Most of the buildings looked new; it seemed that the town had experienced a lot of growth since the building of the alchemic rail. As soon as the train had halted, the two parties stepped out of the dining car and into the surprisingly crowded station.

“Alright, so the necromancer is supposed to be hiding out in a tower somewhere in the woods east of town.”

Andra was addressing her party, but it seemed Maxim couldn’t resist butting in.

“I suppose you’ll be asking around to find its location?”

Andra glared at Maxim. He must have been planning to get a head start while Andra’s group dilly-dallied around town. “Of course not. We can find the tower on our own.”

The two groups ended up marching through the town, side-by-side until they reached the edge of the forest.

“Alright, I suppose this is where we part ways,” Maxim said.

“Yeah, I suppose it is,” Andra replied. She turned to face her party. “Go!”

As one, Andra’s party began dashing into the trees. “So long, suckers!” Kaylen shouted.