“I could get used to this,” Said the one called Clarke, munching on some kind of meat-filled pastry.

“Indeed,” Agreed the one called Isaac, leaning against a boulder. “Never thought I’d see the day Apollyon gave us guard duty.”

“Guard duty next to a town with easily-pilferable delicacies, no less,” Said the one called Diana, grinning to herself. “It’s practically a vacation.”

The crew had taken up residence in a sheltered crag less than a mile from the dungeon of The Last. They had originally intended it as a simple staging point, a place to collect themselves before they assaulted the dungeon itself.

But plans had changed. And now Apollyon had them in a holding pattern, twiddling their thumbs as he assessed new possibilities from the information they fed him. At first Diana had assumed that it would only take a day, two at the most, for daddy Apollyon to figure out his next plan of attack. But the second day was half-way over now, and the crew had yet to receive new orders.

Not that they were discontent. As Clarke had said, it was a cushy assignment. And it could even be considered a nice break from the kind of work they knew they would eventually be called on to perform.

It was just…

“I signed up to be a weapon,” The one called Tanya grumbled under her breath. She glanced up from inspecting one of her dozen blades and glared around at the eyes that turned towards her. “This sitting around is starting to dull my edge. What’s Apollyon waiting for?”

“If he wanted us to know,” said Isaac, “he would have told us. Weapons don’t talk back to the hand that wields them.”

“Except we do,” Diana laughed. “All the time. I think Daddy likes it like that. Too many yes-men around makes your brain dull, even one as old and powerful as his.”

“But the decision is always his,” said the one called Frank from where he rested in the shadow of a boulder. “As it should be. He is wiser than all of us put together.”

“Not prettier though,” Diana said.

“No. I confess that even our lord and master cannot compete with me in the realm of sheer animal magnetism,” said Frank, who was as bog-standard a human male as you could possible hope to see. Diana had met potatoes with better looks and more flamboyant personalities—

They all felt it.

The entire crew came to their feet in the space between seconds, each of them with their weapons drawn. Clarke’s heavy crossbow swept the horizon, searching for targets. Isaac’s scythe appeared from nowhere, glowing black and dripping shaddows. And Diana gripped her two-headed spear close to her body, eyes darting, searching.

“What was it?” Clarke asked.

“Change in the system,” said Isaac, eyes glowing blue. “Something just woke up.”

“Something big,” Diana agreed. “I can’t pinpoint it. Tanya, you’re better with this stuff. Where’s it coming from?”

“No clue,” the halfling woman said, eyes closed. “It’s covering its tracks better than anything I’ve ever seen. I got a sniff, and then it was gone.”

“Effects?” That was Frank, still in the shadow of the boulder.

“Something was activated,” said Tanya, her face scrunching up. “Can’t tell what though. Feels like… A lot of somethings.”

“It was spawn points,” said the one called Stephen, up on the ridgeline. “Dormant ones. Probably been offline since the war.”

The crew all blinked at that.

“What do you see,” asked Diana.

“Dragons,” said Stephen.

“Shit,” said Clarke. “I was worried for a second. Some mindless mobs aren’t a threat.”

“They are being directed,” Stephen said, still peering out into the distance. “I can see the control lines, but I can’t see where they terminate.”

“What?” Diana was up and climbing to the ridgeline in an instant, fetching up against Stephen almost before the word had faded. “Show me.”

The elf pointed, and Diana squinted into the distance. The system coalesced around her vision and magnified. There were dragons a-plenty, though scattered. And more mobs on the ground too. Minotaur lords, hydras, chimeras, racial mobs with high levels and classes…

Oh shit.

“Call Apollyon right now,” she said, knowing her voice would carry down to Isaac, who was the de-facto leader for this mission. “Tell him every spawn point in a twelve mile radius is belching Elites and they’re heading straight for The Last.”

I hope you’ve got something up your sleeve, Dungeon Man. Because all hell’s about to break loose on you.

* * *

Sam(Dungeon Man): Everybody inside the dungeon, now! Chesek, get them as deep as you can and don’t come out until I give the all clear. Rashun, help with the little ones. Skee, get your best man on the trap consoles and stand by for orders.

Sam ran flat-out, dodging around dungeon residents running the other way, heading deep into the safe rooms he’d constructed in the heart of the mountain. He’d put them up after Rakun’s death, reasoning that sooner or later they’d be needed.

Sometimes he hated being right.

“We cannot fight a dragon, Samuel,” Char said, keeping pace as they ran for the stairs. “None of us are high enough level for such a feat.

“But Ma and Pop are,” Sam said through his teeth, jumping over a goblin who couldn’t seem to decide whether he should dodge left or right around the running human. “And if we can get them the right kind of support, they’ll be able to take it down. But we’ve got to make sure they get their shot, and make sure we can help the people they’ve apparently decided to bring to the dungeon.”

“Ah, yes,” Araxes said, bouncing off the same poor goblin. “I’d forgotten, we now have access to much higher-level flunkies. Wonderful!”

Sam sprinted down the stairs three-at-a-time, narrowly avoiding breaking both his legs as he dodged around kobolds and other dungeon residents coming up. He felt his harness snug into place around him as it finished equipping from his inventory, and he pulled up the diagnostic screen as he ran. It was fully charged and in perfect condition, having been repaired and recharged after the fight with Rakun.

Good. He was going to need it.

Sam(Dungeon Man): Skee, I’m going to drop some anti-air defenses right outside the dungeon, see if we can’t keep the thing distracted long enough to get everyone inside. Bugruk, get to Cora’s chamber and run the maps for us. If there’s one dragon, there might be more coming.

Bugruk(Roly-Poly): Right. Be careful Sam. A dragon’s nothing to screw around with.

“Sam!” Sally was suddenly there, speeding along beside him as he made a left turn and dashed towards Cora’s chamber. “My sister! She’s out there!”

“Where is she?”

“In the basement of an abandoned tavern. It’s like a root cellar. She said she liked the dark! We gotta help her!”

“Sally, I swear to you we’ll do what we can. But right now there’s only one thing in front of us, okay? Assuming that flying lizard out there doesn’t roast us all, we’ll go out and get her, okay?”

“I’m an idiot. I should have brought her in. I thought it would be safe!”

“Worry about ‘should have’s later,” Sam grunted. He and his little entourage hit Cora’s chamber at a run, and Cora dashed forward to leap up onto her dais. Bugruk in his wheelchair wheeled in from a side tunnel and took up station beside her. Cora’s eyes glowed blue, and from them came a projection map of the dungeon and the areas around it. At the very edge of Cora’s influence, Sam saw dozens of blue dots surging towards the dungeon, with the white dots of Ma and Pop in the lead.

And behind them, catching up fast, was one single enormous red dot. The dragon, gaining ground fast.

“Stay out of its line of sight,” Bugruk called as they ran past. “It can’t hit you if it can’t see you!”

The entrance tunnel was wide and shored up with timber on both sides. Sam had widened it after the battle, thinking to make It more accessible for the dungeon residents and anyone else who needed to get in. He had not, of course, considered that a dragon might want to get in as well.

“You realize this is madness, of course,” said Araxes as they sped down the length of the tunnel. “Dragons begin life at around 20th level. A wyrm of the size projected on Cora’s map must be at least twice that, if not more. We would have higher chances of survival skinny-dipping in the caldera of an active volcano.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time either of us have died,” Sam said with a tight grin. And he filed that away as a tactic, if need be. He could act as a distraction to buy time for the others. Death for him was a minor inconvenience, thanks to his link to Cora as her Guardian. Not his preferred tactic of course, but an available one nonetheless.

Then they were at the gate. The heavy steel doors were wide open, and Thrash and Booger were standing there staring out. Sam slowed to a jog and came up beside them. Now he could see the people running this way. And in the air behind them, like some awesome bird of prey, the dragon winging down on them.

“They’re not going make it,” Thrash said, his eyes hard. “I think your mom and dad are driving them hard as they can, but it’s not going to be enough.”

“We gotta get us some gnomes,” Booger said, picking his nose thoughtfully. “Couple o’ steam cannons would at least get the damn thing’s attention.”

“Yeah,” Sam glanced up at his status bars. His health and mana were at full, and all his abilities were ready to be activated.

Oh-kay.

Sam(Dungeon Man): Change of plans. I don’t have enough time to get air defenses set up. I’m gonna have to get the dragon’s attention off of the townsfolk.

Bugruk(Roley-Poley): Sam, you gonna do something stupid?

Sam(Dungeon Man): Yup.

There was no help for it. He was going to have to get the dragon’s attention off the fleeing townsfolk somehow, and right now he only saw one way to do it. He’d even done something similar to it before, not three days ago.

Granted, teleporting onto the back of a flying dragon in order to hit it with a hammer was slightly different than dropping onto a T-Rex skeleton from a great height. He pulled Thumb Bane from his belt loop, guaged the distance—which was rapidly decreasing—between himself and the flying reptile, and drew a deep preparatory breath.

Then, just as he started to activate his Guardian Teleport power for the second time that day, the dragon roared.

And what it roared was his name.

“SAMUEL JAMES TOLLIVER.”

The dragon’s voice boomed like an explosion, reverberating off the mountainside and echoing for what felt like miles. Its deep basso rumbled in his bowels, and felt like it was shaking his bones free of the joints.

“SAMUEL JAMES TOLLIVER. I BEAR WORDS OF WAR FOR THEE. COME FORTH AND WE SHALL PARLAY.”

Sam’s jaw dropped and his eyes went wide in shock.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”