Between the force with which they were ejected from the mountain and the lightness of their reduced weight, they had drifted some way from the mountain before they lightly touched down. They landed close to the channel leading from the pool under the mountain to the village lake. Hiram immediately fell to the grass and hugged the ground, tension escaping his body in sobbing laughs.

Jason took a look around. They were about halfway between the mountain and the village, in an expanse of shin-high grass. The channel ran dead-straight through the grass from the base of the waterfall to the village. He could see people heading for the mountain trail he and Hiram had taken earlier. None of them seemed to have noticed his and Hiram’s descent.

On the other side of the channel were a bunch of children who had been looking up at the absent waterfall until they spotted Jason and Hiram fall from the sky. Jason gave them a wave. He then looked back up at the mountain and saw how far he had just fallen. A grin spread across his face.

“If this is the adventuring life,” he mused, “I think I want some more.”

“You’re a crazy person,” Hiram said, getting unsteadily to his feet. He looked uncertainly at Jason, still shrouded in the cloak of stars. Under the desert sun, the void black stood out more than the starlight.

“Hiram,” Jason said, still looking up at the mountain. “Are they what I think they are?”

Hiram followed Jason’s line of sight to the top of the waterfall. He spotted objects being tossed out the same way he and Hiram had been, at least a dozen of them.

“People?” Hiram asked. They were distant and hard to make out as they fell.

“Those aren’t people,” Jason said.

As they fell from the sky, the objects grew larger in their vision. Horror crossed Hiram’s face as he recognised the shape of the creatures.

“More of those things!” Hiram said with horror.

“Don’t be too worried,” Jason said. “A shab is a half-shark, half crab. Neither of which have wings.”

The large creatures lacked Jason’s weight-reducing power and fell well short of the distance Jason and Hiram had reached. The first one hit the ground with a sickening crunch, with others soon following. Jason counted seventeen by the time they finished falling, most of which died on impact. Those that fell either side of the water channel hit the ground and didn’t get up. Of the six that landed in the water, two struck the surface at a bad angle. Hitting water flat from that height was as good at hitting solid concrete, with similar results. The other four survived, but were clearly injured as they staggered out of the water.

New Quest: [Protect the Village]

A number of shabs have emerged from the astral space. Intercept them before they wreak havoc in the village.

Objective: Defeat [Shab] 0/4