By the time we were finished with the Litch, the other defenders had finished off the Revenants. It had been a hard fight. We lost five defenders. Two from the meteor, and three in the melee. It would have been more, but the magical healers had move to the edges of the melee and provided immediate healing to stop the bleeding and keep everyone they could alive.

  There was a group waiting for me as I approached the healers. Some of the defenders had lost limbs or needed further healing, so I spent the next hour ensuring replacing lost limbs, ensuring there was no internal bleeding and that all the organs were repaired. Needless to say, I had used us a lot of mana and now needed recharge.

  No better place to recharge than at home. I made my way home on foot. I just wanted to take the time to decompress. It was a nice walk, if a little lonely. There were very few people on the streets. Much less than yesterday. I spotted less than a dozen on my way home. Word must have spread about how hard these waves were and nobody wanted to be caught outside if a monster made it past the defenders. All the homes along the way were closed up and shuttered. No one expected visitors during the wave.

  Gabriel was waiting for me when I got home. He handed me a snack, which I was very appreciative of. Then he handed me an armful of messages. I took the messages and went into my office. Most messages were from people I helped and were expressing gratitude, but one stood out. It was from the Church of Death. Since I was still wearing my Choker of Breathing, I didn’t worry about airborne poisons, so I opened it.

  “Young Master Trevor of Tierra:

  I am writing this letter to inform you of a grave misreading of my god’s will. Apparently, the Death Merchants had been corrupted by outsiders. These outsiders had persuaded the corrupted Death Merchants leadership that Death had wanted you and you had refused his call. The Death Merchants leadership put out a warrant for your execution. A few Death Merchants teams were assigned to hurry your embrace with Death.

  I was only informed of this recently by Earl Donnert. He assured me that there was some kind of mistake, because Death would not want anyone before their time.

  When I investigated, I found corruption in the Death Merchants leadership. Greedy men using their positions to send devout churchmen out to kill for money. You will be glad to know they have all since joined Death in his domain. The warrant has been rescinded, and I apologize for any inconvenience. Please be assured that no one from this church will hasten your meeting with Death.

  Sincerely,

  Golby Towers

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Death’s Representative on Tellus Nova”

  Thank you, Earl Donnert, I thought then put the letter back in the envelope, storing it in my desk with other important correspondence. It was excellent news, and I heartily accepted his apology. I must remember to thank Earl Donnert for his intervention. No more worries about assassins or Death Merchants. Living a quiet life seemed more and more a real possibility. But that was for the future. For the next couple of days, I have to focus on getting through the monster wave. With that thought, I put Death Merchants out of my mind. Mostly.

  With nothing else to do, I pulled out the Arcane Puzzle Box. The 12” x 12” x 12” cube was black and had writing on it. The writing was in an unknown language, but by Linguistic Gift allowed me to read it. ‘Thy innermost wish is granted’ is what it said. The box itself had 4 smooth sides. The one side with the writing and another side had a series of grooves carved into it. It looked like a maze or a labyrinth. I tried to trace the path through but kept getting distracted. I don’t normally get distracted easily, but it sure was happening. I spent over an hour before I realized it was a labyrinth and not a maze. The objective would be to trace the labyrinth from beginning to end without error.

  It sounds easy, but for some reason I would get distracted after just a little progress. After an hour, I began to suspect that magic was causing my distraction. I used Magic Sight, and there absolutely was magic in the cube. I didn’t know exactly what it did, but I suspected it was the source of the distractions. Using Magic Sight, I continued to try and trace the path. I had made it about ? way before Gabriel came and let me know it was dinner time. I put the Arcane Puzzle back into my Storage Ring. Maybe tomorrow I could focus.

  Dinner was great. Not just the food, but the whole experience. Everyone was in a good mood. Gabriel was even smiling and laughing at the stories told by Rafella. There was one story in particular that was memorable. Her fiancé told her about some of his camp mates and how they had never been in the woods before.

  One of his mates was a poor noble’s younger son, Marke. Marke, being the youngest son, had led quite a pampered childhood. His mother had been overly clingy, so he didn’t have much experience doing things on his own. It was only after she had passed that he was able to be on his own. He had three older brothers, so he needed to learn a trade or something. When his time for mandatory army service came, he jumped at it. He was eager to learn everything he could, hoping his father would buy him a commission after his service. His naivete became evident on the first night of their field training. Everyone worked together to set up the camp. Marke was not much help, but at least he tried. Finally, when the camp was set up, the platoon sat down to eat. After their dinner Marke asked “Where’s the bathroom?” After a few seconds of silence, another recruit pointed to a tree and said, “That’s for number one.” He then handed him a shovel. “That’s for number 2.” Marke looked confused. The other recruit had to explain by what he meant. Apparently, Marke had never had to do his business outside before.

  Everyone roared laughed at the story, some even had tears in their eyes from laughing so hard.

  This was just what I needed. A normal night with my new family helped me deal with today’s violence better than any therapy ever could.