I tried my best to gently drop Church inside the broom closet as Laura was preparing herself for what might be outside. I was trying to get Church’s feet inside the closet door as I called out, “How’s it looking out there?” There was a pause, which made me worried, so I quickly kicked his feet in to close the door. Laura was near the front doors, glass bottle potions in both hands. Jay was nearby, this time no knitting in her tentacles. She looked worried. I nodded at her as I walked up to join them. Jay gave me a look that made me worried. What was the problem?

  “Madre de Dios,” Laura said in an almost whisper. I got to the door to look out, and my jaw dropped. Outside were two goat… people… things. Their bottom half was goat, and their top half was human. What were they called again? I couldn’t remember. What mattered is they were buff as shit. Their top half is an unrealistically buff bodybuilder. Their muscles had muscles, and they were held up by thick ass hairy goat legs. Oh, and they were at least twice my height. I’m a tall green bean, as it is over six feet in height, so they were pushing twelve feet easily.

  I looked to Laura, who barely cleared five feet. These things looked scarier than anything we’ve tussled with before. Honestly, everything before was kind of a joke. These guys looked stupidly tough. One of them was picking his teeth with a toothpick as the other tilted his head back to let out another loud goat bleat.

  “Hey Jay, what are these things?” I kept my eyes on them as Jay answered.

  “Those are Brawn Fauns,” she said as she examined her screen, which I could now see. That’s new. I didn’t interrupt her with this new development, but it was something to think on. “Looks like they are extremely strong and have all the strengths of a goat…” She trailed off as I looked at her.

  “Really? That’s it? They’re strong and have goat powers?” Jay looked at her screen before replying.

  “Yeah, this information is not the best.”

  “Whatever. Can’t do anything about that now,” I replied. I turned to Laura, who was still quiet. “You ready?” Laura slowly turned her face to me, and she looked frightened with a sweaty brow. “Hey, you okay?” The diminutive witch shook her head no at me.

  “Cabros scare me, Max.” Laura looked back outside with a distant look. “I don’t know how I will react out there.” I looked back outside, and the buff fauns were now bent over and eating some grass. I’m assuming cabros is Spanish for goats.

  “It’s okay, Laura.” She flinched at the sound of her name before looking back at me, worried. “I’ll take point on this, okay? You just toss your things at them from back here, and I’ll take care of the rest. Jay, I need you to coach me and call out what to do while fighting the brawny-”

  “Brawn faun”

  “While fighting the brawn faun. You may have figured it out already, but I’m dumb and need help.”

  Jay’s lips scrunched together and went up to one corner of her mouth. It was her thinking face I had come to know.

  “What’s up, Jay?” I asked.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “This might sound weird, but how many rotten health potions do you have left?”

  I had about five of those rotten health potions left and did as Jay asked me before heading outside. I opened the door, and as I walked outside, the buff goat men stood up to their full height. They watched me while chuckling with each other. Looking back, I saw Laura trying to inch out behind the door. She was definitely keeping her distance. As I got closer, one of the goat men called out to me.

  “What's that all over you, little one?”

  I looked down at my rotten angel body. I was covered in the rotten health potion, and I swear to God it gave off visible stink fumes, like I was the dirty kid from Charlie Brown. I couldn’t smell, but I just knew I had entered a whole new world of gross. Jay wouldn’t tell me why she wanted me to do this, and I was praying it wasn’t a prank on me before I died. I could see Jay out of my peripheral vision, which was good. She was in a position to call out to me any movements, but hopefully, this fight would be over quickly.

  I was now getting very close to the fauns, who eyed each other before readying themselves. I then pulled up my spell screen and hit Wailing. As I opened my mouth, a deafening blast hit them. The last time I used this spell, the monsters exploded from the soundwaves. These guys were made of tougher stuff and stood their ground while covering their ears. The sonic blast ended after a moment, and I could see their health bars barely go down.

  I turned back and yelled to Laura. “Get those bottles ready! It didn’t do much, but-” I didn’t finish my sentence as one of the fauns grabbed my leg and swung me up into the air before slamming me down. I groaned loudly and saw my health bar go down. I looked at the creature who now had blood running down from his ears, but was smiling. It kind of reminded me of Jessica for a moment before it swung me up once more and back into the ground. More damage to my health, and this time I yelled in pain.

  This time, as it flung me up, Jay yelled out, “Improvised weapon!” I clicked my spell Improvised Weapon and selected my leg, which disconnected it from my body. The brawn faun was left holding a decaying leg while I flew up into the air. I surveyed the ground and saw that my attacking faun was now eating my leg, and the other was chasing Laura. She truly was scared of goats. She halfheartedly tossed a potion at her pursuer, but they’d quickly dodge it. As I began to plummet back to earth, I clicked my glide ability. With zombie angel wings spread out, I took the time to line it all up carefully before turning off glide, which caused me to fall directly on top of the faun.

  The large goat man wasn’t fazed, but he did stumble briefly from me falling atop him. He looked from Laura to me and back to Laura. He chose to chase Laura. I tried to stand but quickly fell over, forgetting I had lost a leg. That’s when Jay called out again to me, “Stop it, Max!”

  I looked to Jay and back to the goat monster, who was galloping quickly after a yelling Laura. How the fuck do I stop it? I did the only thing that came to my mind. I cupped my hands to my mouth and made the loudest goat noise I could.

  “BAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

  All I could think of in the moment was to make a goat noise. It worked because the faun stopped dead in its tracks and turned to face me. The look on its face was one of disgust. It walked quickly back to me while shouting, “Don’t you dare say that! My mother is a saint, you bastard!”

  The brawn faun kept walking towards me, and I began trying to army crawl away in terror. Oh shit, I really fucking hope Jay was right about her idea, because I was scared as shit now. Before I could crawl any further, the monster was lifting me off the ground easily in its hands. It took one look at me and took a fucking bite out of my shoulder. I yelled out in pain as it chewed and swallowed. It opened its mouth again to take a bite and went to bite at my arm. Except it couldn’t. Instead, the faun began convulsing with me still locked in its grip.

  Jay’s plan had worked! She thought the goats would try to eat me, and the rotten health potions covering my body were fatal to them. I was happy for the briefest of moments before I noticed how low my health was at that moment. Then the giant, mythical beefcake fell forward, landing on top of me.