A single lantern sat in the center of Merlin’s wagon, the sole source of light for miles. They’d pulled off the main road to set up camp, and the dense foliage of the surrounding forest was so thick even moonlight couldn’t find them. Charlie, Vetica, Merlin, Mousifer, Bleedy, and Orb all huddled around the lantern closely. They’d draped a large blanket over the front seat and stretched it all the way to the rear to cover their heads. Vetica had skillfully taken some sticks from the forest and used them to prop the blanket up at strategic intervals. Now, it acted as a sort of shelter for them. The shelter wasn’t in place because it was particularly cold, or because they needed to hide from anyone. They’d constructed it under the instruction of Orb with one purpose in mind.

  A ghost story.

  Orb floated around in front of them, one by one, before starting. The flame within the lantern danced, illuminating the tent-like atmosphere. Their shadows waving ever so slightly, affected by the light. Orb cleared his telepathic throat and then came to a halt directly above the lantern. Charlie and Bleedy leaned forward in anticipation. Mousifer watched carefully from Charlie’s shoulder.

  Orb began. “One cold winter night—” He paused. “Come to think of it, I don’t actually know any ghost stories…”

  Merlin scoffed. Vetica glared. “If I went through the trouble of scouring the forest for sticks for no reason, we’ll all be very familiar with a ghost story. A ghost story featuring a tiny blue dungeon core who met his end at my blade.”

  Orb shot backward away from Vetica and rammed into Merlin’s forehead. “Ow!” Merlin shouted.

  Orb turned to look at him. “No need for that! Merlin has just volunteered to take my place as the official spooky storyteller! Well, let’s hear it, Merlin!”

  Merlin rubbed his forehead where Orb had rammed into him. “What? What are you talking about? You can’t just throw something like this at me…” He trailed off, noticing Charlie and his animal companions staring at him with hope. He sighed. “Fine. Let me think…Oh. Actually, I think I have one! Alright everyone, gather around.” He paused awkwardly, realizing everyone was already gathered, and had been for some time now. “Right. Well, our story begins in a forest, a forest much like this one. A group of adventurers had only just returned from a dungeon, and they now sat around their campfire eating hex-beast meat. But the scent of the meat wafted into the forest and attracted a—” He paused, looking around briefly before his eyes settled on Mousifer. “A mouse!”

  Orb sank in the air. “Mice aren’t scary! What the heck, man!”

  Merlin swatted at him. “You had your chance to tell a story; now it’s my turn!”

  “Humph, well, I thought I could trust you with this responsibility and clearly I was wrong,” Orb said. “I’m crossing my arms, by the way. Picture that. Super unhappy right now.”

  Merlin rolled his eyes. “As I was saying, a mouse smelled the wonderful aroma of their food and wandered into their camp. One of the adventurers, a beautiful mage by the name of…Merlina…noticed the mouse. She thought it was cute and offered it a piece of meat. The mouse took it happily and began eating, carefully nibbling at the succulent, well-cooked meal.”

  Charlie looked over when he felt something wet on his shoulder. Mousifer was drooling. “Squeak…”

  Charlie giggled. “Mousifer said that’s one lucky mouse!”

  Merlin held up a finger. “You would think that. But the other adventurers eventually noticed Merlina talking to the mouse and watching it eat. One of them got angry. He was a real jerk face with no redeeming qualities and absolutely putrid breath by the name of Orb…an.” He paused before nodding. “Yes, Orban. He got up and took a piece of bone and threw it at the mouse. Luckily for the mouse, the bone missed it. But the poor creature was so scared it scurried into the forest without getting to finish the meat. Sweet, innocent, perfect Merlin, I mean Merlina, scolded the big idiot Orban, but it was too late. Her innocent friend of the forest had run off now.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we get it. Get to da scary already!” Orb demanded.

  “Hush! We’re trying to listen, Orb!” Charlie said, before turning back to Merlin in anticipation.

  Merlin glanced over at Vetica. She was smiling at Charlie, happy he was having fun. She turned back, and her eyes met his. He swallowed. If he butchered this and ruined Charlie’s fun, she might just butcher him. “But while the mouse may not have finished his meal, it didn’t quite matter. He’d eaten enough of it, enough of it to affect him as hex beasts affected this particular kind of mouse. You see, normal mice don’t travel into dungeons, so they don’t have the chance to eat hex beast meat. But when they consume the flesh of a powerful monster, the mouse’s latent potential is unlocked. This particular mouse squeaked and whimpered and screamed in the night. Its eerie noises filled the forest, and whereas normally such a sound might attract predators, on this night, even the scary things lurking in the woods knew better.

  Charlie gulped. He turned to look at the blanket above their heads, and the fabric on either side of the wagon. He found peace in seeing everything was as it should be. Nothing can hurt you when you’re in a blanket fort. Nothing. Orb said that was a pretty hard rule that even Lord Cendra wouldn’t violate. Though Charlie wasn’t so sure about that one.

  “Eventually, the noises stopped, and the forest settled into a quiet,” Merlin said, holding his finger over his lips and looking around at all of them. “The adventurers were sleeping now, and Orban agreed to take the first watch. He stood there at the edge of their camp, scanning the forest when he noticed it. A large silhouette lurking in the darkness of the forest. Orban lifted his torch and held it out, hoping to cover the creature in light, but no matter how he waved it, he couldn’t illuminate the creature from this distance. That wasn’t too much of a problem, as the creature ran toward him. Orban, the big idiot that he was, decided to fight. He drew back his fist and readied himself. The last thing he saw was a giant mouse leaping at him out of the darkness.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened, and he crawled toward Merlin. “What happened next?!”

  Merlin smiled. “When the hero of our story, the magician without rival Merlina, awoke. All the members of her party were gone. The only thing that remained was a single boot. Orbans boot. In it, a treat that was left behind to make up for Merlina’s kindness. Meat for meat.”

  “Squeak!” Mousifer said, rising to stand on his hind legs and covering his mouth with a paw.

  Bleedy slammed his paws onto Merlin’s wagon in excitement.

  Orb spun in the air. “Wait…you killed off Orban! Seriously? He was my favorite character!”

  Merlin grinned. “Some say that on nights such as this, if you listen closely, you can still hear that giant mouse wandering in the forest, hunting for anyone unkind to mice or extremely powerful and handsome wizards named after the great witch Merlina. If you just listen closely…” Merlin cupped a hand to his ear.

  Vetica furrowed a brow, turning to look toward the rear of the wagon.

  “Okay, why am I kind of nervous?” Orb asked.

  “Bleedy…” the racoonever annoyed.

  “Wait, what’s—” Vetica started.

  “Arh!” A large creature jumped into the wagon, knocking the blanket over onto all their heads.

  “SQUEAK!”

  “Bleedy!”

  Charlie shrieked.

  The telepathic scream of a little girl filled their heads.

  Vetica ripped the blanket away and threw it outside the wagon, with the assailant still trapped within.

  Charlie hurried over in a crawl and saw it. A scaler.

  “Apologies, Charlie, Orb asked me to help him transfer one of the scalers here for a training exercise. I’m beginning to realize that was a lie,” Parent informed them.

  Orb rolled all over the floor of the wagon. “Ha! I got you, suckers! I totally got you!”

  Vetica glared at the dungeon core. “Seriously? You were screaming in all our heads like a little kid. Why does your scream sound like that? Like a young girl?”

  Orb turned away from her. “Okay, for a moment I got too wrapped up in the story and forgot I’d told that scaler to jump in here with us toward the end of the tale. Also, don’t scream shame. That’s so rude.” Orb paused, noticing Charlie.

  He looked around with watery eyes.

  Vetica hurried over. “Are you okay, Charlie? Did it scare you?”

  Merlin sat up. “Oh, no…I’m sorry, Charlie, I thought you’d like the story—”

  Charlie burst into laughter. “That was awesome! I love ghost stories! Thank you, Merlin! And everyone!”

  Orb huffed. “That was more of a monster story than a ghost story, but whatever. I’ll allow it.”

  Vetica blew a stray strand of hair from her face. “Alright, Orb, what was all of this about anyway?” she asked.

  Orb bounced high into the air, glowing brightly. “Well, Halloween, of course! It’s a spooky holiday on Earth where people do all kinds of fun things! I figured we could do some Halloween stuff with Charlie, show him a custom from the world he’s from, y’know?”

  Merlin quirked a brow. “And ghost stories are a part of that?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Well, I much prefer a good Halloween movie, but that wasn’t an option, so I figured we’d figure it out as we went. Speaking of which, did you get all that stuff I asked for everyone?” Orb asked.

  Charlie tilted his head, looking at Vetica. He’d wondered where she’d ridden Marvin too earlier after they made camp. Apparently she’d been gathering supplies or something for Orb. And she wasn’t the only one.

  “Affirmative. I dispatched the scalers to procure everything on the list,” Parent said.

  “Perfect. Let’s get down to some Halloweening!” Orb said.

  Charlie and his friends sat in the center of a large room in his dungeon, where Orb insisted they move. They’d been hard at work for a little contest Orb had devised, and now it was time to reveal the results. An audience of scalers encircled them, waiting for the scoring. Charlie, Vetica, Merlin and King Scalea were all working individually. Bleedy and Mousifer had formed a team. Orb had informed them that it was important to dress up on Halloween. Merlin had donned a long black cloak and had fake fangs hanging out of his mouth. Charlie was wrapped in bandages like a mummy. Mousifer had little devil horns, and Bleedy was wearing a large witch hat. Vetica had refused to wear any costume, so for the sake of not getting assassinated, everyone agreed she could go as a…well, an assassin this year. Her normal clothes would more than suffice for that.

  Orb floated up to the line of candidates. Now, it was time for their dungeon core judge to get to work.

  With a strain of effort, and a noise that somewhat resembled a fart, Orb suddenly changed shape. One moment he was a floating blue dungeon core, and the next he was…well, a floating pumpkin. He was the same size, but now he was bright orange with little ridges all along him. It was kind of cool. “Welcome to the first annual dungeon pumpkin carving contest! I’m glad you all could make it. Now, let’s see what everyone came up with. We’ll start with Merlin!”

  Merlin ran his tongue around his mouth. “Hey, Orb. Where did you get these fake teeth? They kind of have a weird taste to them.”

  “Heh, who said they were fake? Honestly, it’s better not to think about it too much,” Orb said.

  Vetica stifled a laugh. Merlin made a disgusted face and spat the teeth out.

  Everyone turned their attention to his pumpkin. Merlin’s pumpkin had two triangular-shaped eyes and a crooked jaw with jagged teeth. The insides were well carved, and he’d put in a surprising amount of effort. The candle flickering inside brought the carving to life. Charlie clapped his hands together as he took it in. “Great job, Merlin!” he said.

  Merlin brushed off his own shoulder playfully and then took a bow. “Thank you, thank you!”

  Orb floated up to it, scrutinizing it. “Not bad, Merlin! 2 out of 10!” He floated closer and lowered his telepathic voice. “Shouldn’t have killed off Orban, butthead.”

  Merlin scoffed. “Seriously? I worked hard on that—”

  “Alright, next up is Vetica,” Orb said, floating away before Merlin could continue.

  Vetica stood beside her pumpkin with her arms crossed. Orb froze when he saw it. “Um…Vetica, I don’t think you fully understood the assignment. What exactly is that?”

  Charlie tilted his head as he inspected the pumpkin. Vetica had carefully removed all the ‘skin’ of the pumpkin. Instead of the usual orange hue, it was orangish-yellow. Aside from that, it appeared as if she hadn’t done very much. Vetica raised an eyebrow. “You said we should make them as spooky as possible. There’s nothing spookier than being flayed alive.”

  Orb dimmed a bit. “That’s terrifying…you skinned a pumpkin? Why…you didn’t even remove the guts?”

  Vetica grinned. “No, I did.” She squatted and rotated the pumpkin to show the other side. There was a small opening in the back. “It didn’t make sense to strike my opponent from the front. I attacked from behind, then I removed all the insides to complete the terms of the contract,” she said, as if that made any sense.

  Charlie frowned and looked up at Orb, wondering how the dungeon core would rate it.

  “Okay…that’s way too dark for a holiday episode. Disqualified. Absolutely disqualified. Also, did you flay it before or after ‘killing’ it? Because… you know what, I don’t want to know. Let’s just move on. King Scalea, what do you got for me?”

  A pleading look from Charlie was the only thing that kept Vetica from drawing her knife on Orb.

  Everyone turned to look at the large Komodon scaler. He wasn’t paying them any attention. He was off to the side slowly chewing on the remnants of his pumpkin. Flecks of it fell to the ground as he ate messily. When he was done, he looked around and noticed Mousifer and Bleedy’s pumpkin. He lumbered over, having developed a taste for pumpkin flesh. Mousifer stood on his hind legs and waved his arms frantically. Bleedy started trying to push the pumpkin away; it rolled awkwardly onto its side.

  “Don’t eat their pumpkin King Scalea! They worked hard on it,” Charlie said.

  Orb sighed. “There’s a few extra in the corner over there, big guy.” They watched King Scalea hurry off. A few other scalers followed him, hoping to try the strange food out themselves. “I’m going to give him a three out of ten.”

  “He literally ate his pumpkin! How did he score higher than me?!” Merlin demanded.

  Orb floated over to Mousifer and Bleedy’s pumpkin to inspect it, but the two furry creatures rolled it away further. “Guys, I need to see your pumpkin to judge it!” Orb said. Together, Mousifer and Bleedy retreated with their pumpkin rolling ahead of them. Orb gave up and turned around.

  “—and that leaves Charlie! What do you got, bud? We had to save the best for last, of course,” Orb said, floating over.

  Charlie beamed. He’d requested a tiny blanket to cover his pumpkin. He’d worked really hard on it and didn’t want to ruin the surprise. Charlie pulled the blanket off and revealed his submission. Carved into the surface of Charlie’s pumpkin were miniature depictions of him and all his friends. A miniature Charlie crawled in the center of the pumpkin. Orb floated just over his shoulder. On either side of them, Merlin and Vetica stood. Richard and Mary were in the background. Along with a number of other people they’d met on their journey. Hilda, Luc and Lyra, Geron, Themis, Canano and Gebby, among others. The small depictions of their friends stretched all around the pumpkin. Above the portraits were small decorative scalers that were carved in a way that they looked like they’d been caught scurrying around the pumpkin. A few of the scalers were bigger than others, undoubtedly to represent the komodon scalers. Charlie thought it was pretty good, if he said so himself.

  “Charlie, that’s really cool. But…this is a pumpkin carving contest. This isn’t a pumpkin. You clearly made that out of dungeon material! That’s definitely cheating,” Orb said.

  Charlie bit his lip. “But it’s orange!” he pointed out. “And you said it was too dangerous to let me handle any of the tools! What was I supposed to do?”

  The dungeon pumpkin was in fact orange. Courtesy of Parent, who had informed them Vetica had purchased some dyes when she’d run into town earlier to get supplies.

  Orb let out a mental sigh. “Well, what the heck, I guess that’s true. Fine, I’ll allow it, just this once. But by next year I expect you to be able to carve an actual pumpkin!”

  “Deal!” Charlie said.

  “I’m going to rate it…10 out of 10! With that, Charlie’s the winner of the first official dungeon pumpkin carving contest!”

  Charlie grinned really big, and despite the very biased judging, this was an outcome Merlin and Vetica could get behind. They both clapped for him. The scaler audience smacked their tails into the ground, imitating them and adding to the applause. “Yay! Thank’s everyone!” Charlie said.

  Merlin turned to Orb. “Alright, well, now that’s done, are we about finished or did you have something else in mind, Orb?”

  Just one last thing — the most significantly important event of Halloween, trick or treating. Everyone, if you would, follow me. Orb said before floating deeper into the dungeon. King Scalea hurried over and picked Charlie up. The others followed. A procession of scalers lined up to join them, curious as ever. Charlie thought they seemed to enjoy the festivities as well.

  After a small trip down a wide tunnel, Orb came to a stop. Charlie tilted his head when he noticed the door. “What’s that?” he asked.

  Pumpkin Orb turned, and Charlie saw that the pumpkin was now a carved pumpkin. It had the same triangular eyes and the jagged jaw that Merlin had carved into his pumpkin. The jagged teeth bent until the carved pumpkin’s creepy smile grew even wider. “It’s pure and simple delight.”

  Merlin threw a hand out and gestured at Orb. “You gave me the lowest score and then proceeded to immediately plagiarize my carving! You liked it! You could’ve given me a few more points if you liked it that much!”

  Orb’s pumpkin eyes narrowed. “Yeah, well, I liked Orban too. Gone but never forgotten, rest in peace, king.” He turned back and rammed into the door. A moment later, the dungeon door opened, and a tendril popped out.

  “Boop! It’s time!” Orb called out.

  Boop. Boop. Boop. Charlie’s second dungeon core came booping down the hallway, bumping into the walls, ground and ceiling at every opportunity. A little string had been wrapped securely around him, and hanging from the string were a series of cloth bags. When they got close enough, Vetica reached up and detached them. Under Orb’s instructions, she handed Merlin and Charlie a bag each. She kept one for herself as well. There was a smaller bag that was designed to be strapped to Bleedy’s back, and a few tiny saddlebags for him as well. Those would be for Mousifer, apparently. With everyone prepared, Orb turned back to the tendril. “Alright, now it’s time. The magic words for the evening, ladies and gentlemen, are simple. You say trick or treat, and then hold out your bag!”

  Merlin and Vetica exchanged a look. Charlie needed far less convincing. He looked at the tendril and shouted the words in his mind so everyone could hear them. “Trick or treat!” he said, shrieking out loud as he said it.

  The tendril quickly retreated into the darkness of the room behind it and reappeared a moment later. It wrapped around a small, wrapped lollipop. Charlie had seen treats like these before when traveling through big cities, but had never actually had one. His eyes lit up. “This is for me?” he asked as the tendril dropped the lollipop in the bag.

  “Yup! You two try!” Orb said to Vetica and Merlin.

  Surprisingly, Vetica stepped up first. She held her bag out and waited. The tendril waited for her to say trick or treat, but after an uncomfortable stare down, it eventually gave in. It disappeared and returned with a knife and gently placed it in her bag. Her eyes widened, and she looked at the tendril in disbelief. Now, Merlin was really excited. He hurried forward. “Trick or treat!” he said.

  The tendril disappeared into the darkness for a third time and then reappeared and quickly slapped Merlin. “Ow! What the heck? It gave them fun stuff, but slapped me?” Merlin asked incredulously.

  “Trick or treat. You got the trick. Maybe next time you’ll get lucky,” Orb bounced in a shrug.

  The tendril put some treats inside Mousifer and Bleedy’s bags a moment later.

  “I like Halloween. That was fun!” Charlie exclaimed.

  Orb buzzed in front of Charlie to get his attention and then whizzed further down the hall. “Oh, buddy, we’re just getting started.”

  Charlie turned to look and saw lots of doors all down the hallway. He looked down at the empty bag brimming with potential and imagined all the yummy treats he could fill it with. “I really like Halloween!”

  Merlin paused. “Um, I think they want to participate too,” he said, pointing at the scalers. They crowded forward, and the tendril started handing out scaler-friendly treats.

  “Fortunately, Koi Levi suggested we prepare some snacks for the scalers as well. There’s plenty to go around,” Parent informed them.

  Charlie clapped his hands excitedly, his bag flapping around on King Scalea’s head. The Scaler King didn’t seem to mind though. “More trick or treating!” Charlie demanded.

  “Right! Of course, but first, we’re going to do something we can only do on rare occasions. We’re going to break the fourth wall. Tell everyone ‘Happy Halloween’, Charlie!” Orb said.

  “Whose everyone?” Charlie asked with furrowed brows.

  “It doesn’t matter. They’ll know it was meant for them,” Orb assured him.

  Charlie shrugged. “Happy Halloween, everyone!” he thought aloud. King Scalea hurried down the hallway, taking Charlie from door to door. Vetica, Merlin, Mousifer and Bleedy followed along as well, enjoying the festivities. A horde of scalers followed closely behind, enjoying the day as well.

  All in all, Charlie thought his first Halloween was a pretty good one.