Pearl Wordsinger, Secrefairy and Chief Chronicler for Tolliver’s Dungeoneers, looked up from her narration tools when she heard the scream. She sighed at the inevitable and tucked them away in their case when she heard the sound of running footsteps getting closer.

She had just put away the last quill in its protective casing when the door to the Tolliver House’s library room flung open and a little minotaur boy just beginning to grow in his horns dashed in, slammed the heavy door behind him, and leaned against it like all the demons from hell’s second-best neighborhood were chasing after him.

“There’s a dragon out there!” he squeaked when he saw Pearl.

“Already?” Pearl glanced at the clock on the wall above her bookcase. “Huh, he made good time. Must have caught a tail wind. Or maybe Sherrilegend finally talked him into trying those motorized wing-assists she’s always talking about.”

“There’s a dragon,” Ponderon, the minotaur boy, repeated. “Out there!”

“Oh that’s just their uncle Quentin,” she waved a dismissive hand. “He’s a sweetie, really. It’s his nephews you have to watch out for. They’re terrors on two wings, they are.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, that’s probably why they get along so well with Polly and Tetra.“

The little minotaur stared up at her with wide blue eyes. “They have a dragon for an uncle?” She could see him consider and discard at least a dozen different outbursts before finally settling on; “is everyone here crazy?”

“Yes,” Pearl chuckled. “But in a good way.” She paused and looked the boy up and down. “Why aren’t you with the twins right now? They could have told you all this.”

“Um.” The boy shuffled and looked everywhere but at Pearl. “They’re playing with a bunch of other kids. And…” he tugged at his fingers like he thought they needed to be longer. “Um. I wanted to hear more of the story?”

Pearl blinked, then smiled. Ah. So he was that kind, was he? Well. She could respect that. Someone who was more interested in hearing a well-told tale than in following a pair of terrors around meeting their draconic relatives? Yeah, she could understand that.

Well, her narrator tools were all put away… So why not?

“Where was I?”

“Um…” He scrunched up his bovine face in thought. “He just learned he was a free unique mob.”

“Ah yes.” She fluffed out her pencil skirt and took a seat on the edge of the shelf. “Now let’s see…” She took a deep breath and activated her Voice Of The Narrator power. Because if she was going to tell the story, she was going to do it right.

It got kind of crazy in the next few days. Sam spent his time helping to clean up the town after the big battle with the revenant, and spending time with his parents, and with Cora and Sally trying to figure out what that whole ‘freed unique mob’ thing meant. No one was able to figure it out, though, and things kind of got put on hold when he got arrested.

“He what?” interrupted Ponderon from where he was now seated on the floor. “Who’d arrest him?”

“Her name was Milthorne,” Pearl said, and paused as a roil of emotions welled up in her breast. The councilwoman had been a pain, but… Well, that was a story for later.

Anyway.

See, you have to remember that Araxesendenak, the lich, was a king. And Sam had, technically, killed him. Well, caused his death. So after he got better from being dead—which is a thing Liches can do, it just takes some time—he sent out a message on his Kingdom channel to arrest Sam and so Councilewoman Milthorne and the guard captain Arde Shi came and told them to arrest Sam and keep him until the king got to town.

So Sam went along with it, because he didn’t want any of the townspeople to get in trouble even though his mom wanted to burn down the town when they came to get him. And he spent the next few days in jail, playing with his skills and basically being a good guy.

And that was when we started to learn about the Failstate.

A shock of thunder rolled through the room. Not outside the house, just inside the room. Fortunately, because the Voice Of The Narrator power was sensitive to crowd size and location, it was a quiet peal. Still it caused Pondy to jump a foot in the air and come down with eyes wide and zipping all around.

“Sorry about that,” Pearl said. “Narrative license.”

“It’s not gonna start raining in here, is it?” the minotaur asked after another moment of frantically looking around the room. “I hate rain.”

“Nah,” Pearl waved a hand. “The Voice Of the Narrator would never let it rain in a room full of books. There’s like a bajillion safeguards against that kind of thing—“

She cut off at the sound of another scream from somewhere outside, followed once again by the sound of pattering feet. She waited patiently as the door to the library was flung open, and in tumbled Skee the goblin in his leather jacket and flat cap and long pointy ears and nose.

“Hi Skee,” Pearl said as he slammed the door behind him.

“There’s a dragon out there!” the goblin said, his voice raising in pitch.

"I know, right?" squeaked Ponderon.

Pearl gave him a Look. “Skee. You know Quentin. You flew Quentin, that one time.”

“Yeah, and I owe him twenty gold,” the goblin said, peeking through the glass panel in the door. “I don’t think he saw me. Can I hide in here until he leaves?” He looked back and blinked at the fairy and the minotaur sitting there. “What’s going on in here anyway?”

“I’m telling Pondy the story of the Final War.”

“Ooh, this is a good one. Scoot over kid,” the goblin came and planted his butt on the floor next to the minotaur child.

“Okay, but no interrupting,” Pearl said, wagging a finger.

“Cross my heart,” Skee said, doing so.

“Yeah right.” Pearl sighed. “Bet you ten gold you can’t do it.”

“You’re on!”

Pearl nodded, then took a deep breath and went back into the Narrative.

What none of us knew, least of all Sam, was that back when he was still learning the dungeon, he’d accidentally pissed off this ancient war machine thing that we later learned was called the Failstate—

“And dear lord above she was a massive bit—“ Skee stopped when he saw Pearl glaring at him. She held his gaze for another second, then extended her palm.

Skee sighed, dug in his pocket, and came out with a small leather purse that he handed over.

“Thank you,” Pearl snatched the bag—that was almost half the size of her entire body—and tucked it underneath her. It made a surprisingly comfy cushion.

“Double or nothing?” Skee asked hopefully.

Pearl just snorted and went back to the Narrative.

What none of us knew except for Diana, the agent Apollyon had sent to scout on us, along with the rest of her crew, was that almost the minute that Sam got arrested, the Failstate turned on every spawn point for a hundred miles around and had them start burping up high-level mobs, and all of those mobs started marching on the dungeon.

So now we had bonebag Araxesendenak getting ready to attack us, and an entire legion’s worth of high-level mobs, and there was more too but that will come later in the story.

So Sam was just sitting there, and we were just wandering along, getting the dungeon built more and the town cleaned up and everything. And Sam got the big idea that he needed to bond with Sally, the other piece of Cora that he’d rescued from the revenant remember. So they get permission from the guards, and they go and start the ceremony, and Boom suddenly there’s monsters everywhere and things are attacking the town and it was all chaos!

“That was when Araxes got kinda kill-crazy, right?” Skee asked.

Pearl turned a glare on him, but the goblin just shrugged. “That wasn’t an interruption. You paused, and I asked a question. I was being polite!”

Pearl grumbled, but had to admit the point.

Yes, during the attack, Araxes the lich-copy got ahold of Sam’s harness—which is like a magical item that has all sorts of powers built into it that are useful for construction but also really handy for kicking butt—and he got really kinda gruesomely bloodthirsty and killed a lot of monsters in really ugly ways, and then Sam killed him and—

“What!?” Pondy reared back. “He killed his friend?”

“See, Araxes wasn’t really his friend at that point,” Skee said before Pearl could. “More like a business associate. Yeah, he was moving away from the assho—“ the goblin coughed at the look from Pearl. “—The mean guy he’d used to be, but Chief was worried that if he got too much power back too quickly—he was stuck at level 1, remember—then he might go back to the dark side on us. So, yeah, boom, right in the schnozz with a hammer.”

“But don’t worry,” Pearl said quickly. “Araxes was like Sam. He could come back from being killed. In fact, he came back a lot faster than Sam when he was killed, so it was really more like an inconvenience than anything.”

So anyway. They finished killing all the monsters, Araxes came back and was really mad but they all realized that it just wasn’t smart for Sam to stay in jail anymore, especially when they realized that Araxesendenak, the real lich, probably knew more about them than they’d realized and was coming for them right now. So they all went back to the dungeon.

“This sounds like it happened really fast,” Pondy said, frowning.

“Yeah, but when you were in it it felt like it took weeks to get through,” Skee muttered.

ANYWAY. So we all went back to the dungeon and started making plans. And that’s when the Dragon arrived.

“He was a pain in the a— Butt back then, too,” Skee grumbled.

“Wait. You mean that dragon?” Pondy waved a finger towards the door.

“Yup! Quentin kinda started out working for the bad guys.”

“In all fairness,” a rich, basso voice rumbled from the direction of the library’s open window, “T’was mine ancient oath that didst place me and mine against thee and thine, Lady Wordsinger.”

Everyone turned to see a single slitted golden eye surrounded by red scales and the beginning of a brow ridge peering in the open library window.

“Hi Quenty!” Pearl said, waving.

“Good greetings.” The eye blinked, and somehow gave the impression of a deep regal nod. “I hope I am not interrupting?”

“Nah, I’m just telling Pondy here the story of the Final War—Pondy? Pondy, where’d you go?”

“O-over here, miss Pearl,” said a squeaky voice from behind a bookcase. “That’s a dragon.”

“This is Quenty,” Pearl said. “Don’t worry about him, he’s a really good guy. Right Skee— Skee? Skee, where are you?”

“…Over here,” said a meek voice from another bookcase.

“Ah, master Skee,” Quentin’s voice went self-satisfied. “I believe we have a matter of twenty gold between us?”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” the goblin grumbled and came out from behind the bookcase, pulling another purse from his pocket. “I swear you cheated on that though.”

“I didst warn thee, sir Skee,” Quentin said as the goblin came over and dropped the pouch through the window. “Thou shouldst be more wary when making wagers with a dragon, especially about such things.”

“W… What did you bet on?” asked Pondy, peeking around his own bookcase.

“How long a dragon can hold his breath,” Skee grumbled.

Pondy blinked. “Why would you…?”

“It’s a goblin thing, okay?”

“At what point in the tale art thou, Lady Wordsinger?” Quentin asked through the window.

“We’re just about to get to the part where you and Sam first met.”

“Ah.” The great eye blinked slowly. “Not mine proudest moment.”

“Um… Don’t worry mister dragon, she’s going really fast. It probably won’t take long to get past it,” said Pondy, slowly coming out from behind the bookcase.”

“Ah. Perhaps I shall listen for a spell, then.”

Pearl nodded, ooched around on her new gold cushion, and took a deep breath.

Right. Now. Where as I. Oh yeah, the dragons!

Quentin, who you’ve met, arrived not long after with a message from the Failstate, though we didn’t know her by that name at the time. He said his mistress had declared war on Sam Tolliver and all his allies, and that he and his dragons were part of the army marching on him. And they’d come with an offer. If Sam turned himself over and allowed himself to be killed, the army would turn around and everything would be fine.

“But you said he couldn’t be killed,” Pondy said, frowning now. “How does that work?”

We knew that, and he knew that, but the dragons didn’t know that. And Sam hatched a pretty sneaky plan. He’d let the dragon eat him, and then he’d come back all better, and the Failstate would be tricked into leaving everybody alone, at least for a while.

“It was a good plan, too,” Skee muttered. “Would’a worked perfect.”

“For the nonce,” Quentin said quietly. “But not forever. And the outcome, I daresay, would have been much worse than what ultimately transpired.

Yeah, see, Sam made the plan, and almost went through with it… Right up to the point where he was getting ready to get eaten. And then—

“Aunty Pearl, you forgot about the rev-loo-shun!”

Pearl jerked to a halt and swiveled her head to see the Terrors peering in at her through another of the library windows. Polly and Tetra must have been standing on something to get up that high, and both had their chins resting on their forearms on the windowsill.

“What did I say about interrupting,” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“’Always do it when I forget things’?” said Tetra.

Pearl muttered something unkind under her breath.

Okay. So. Backing up a step. One of the things that happened before Sam went out to get eaten was a man named Blaine came to ask Sam to lead Melloram in a revolution against Araxesendenak. And Sam said he’d think about it, not giving a straight answer. Except Blaine kinda had Sam over a barrel, because if he said ‘no’ Araxesendenak would be so pissed that they’d asked in the first place that he’d come and blow everyone up, but if he said ‘yes’ then Araxesendenak would be pissed they went through with it and come and try to blow everyone up. There, everyone happy? Can I keep on with the story?

“Yup!” said Polly.

“Quite,” said Quentin.

“I’m good,” said Skee.

Pearl growled.

So Sam went out to get eaten, and at the last second realized he couldn’t go through with it because dragons are all honorable and stuff, so he confessed his plan to Quentin, and things were just about to go really good when Araxesendenak showed up.

See, the lich had a teleportation chamber, and he was able to use it to send himself, all geared up for a fight, right to the center of Melloram where the meeting was taking place. And he killed Sam right away because he was like level a million, and he almost killed a bunch of other people, but Sam’s parents were there to fight him, but even they were about to die, when Diana attacked.

Now, I need to back up a step again.

When Sam was younger, he had a friend named Marie, who went out to try and be a famous adventurer, and then got killed, and that made Sam hate all dungeons, because he kinda loved her a lot. Only she hadn’t died. It turns out that Diana, Apollyon’s servant, was actually Marie.

This is important, because just as Araxesendenak was getting ready to kill Sam’s parents and some of his friends and stuff, Diana/Marie came flying in and wrecked ol’ boney like he was a pinata. They fought, and there was this big epic battle, and it ended in a stalemate. Boney flew off, and Marie/Diana came back to the dungeon.

“Samuel did not take the revelation well, I’ve heard,” Quentin rumbled.

No, not at all. He got really dru—upset. Because he’d loved Marie, and she’d been alive the whole time and never told him and just kinda left him to believe that she was dead and it hurt him really really bad. So he went to talk to her, but before they could talk very much, Apollyon—I told you about him, right? One of the Five? The Shapers of reality? Anyway, he pulled Sam into what he called an Admin Room to have a long talk with him.

“Oh! Oh! I know this part!” Tetra squeaked and tried to clamber in the window, but only succeeded in getting stuck half-way, and Skee had to go help her clamber the rest of the way in like a fat spider. “Polyon told Poppa that all reality was fake, right?”

“No dummy,” Polly said, rolling her eyes. “He tol’ Poppa that he was the only real person in the world.”

Close. Apollyon revealed to Sam that reality, what we thought of as reality, was governed by a System, and that those under the sway of that System had no choice but to live by its rules. So every goblin was a mechanical-loving madperson—

“True,” Skee said, nodding.

And every kobold in the world loved debates, and every gnome was a genius inventor. There could be variances—were lots of variances—but they all had to occur within the rules. Except for Sam. Because now that he was a ‘free unique mob’, he’d basically shaken off all that rule stuff, and was what Apollyon called ‘a True Being.’

And he told Sam that he was working against the system, and the others of the Five, to restore the world to the way it had been thousands and thousands of years ago, to remove the System and make sure everyone could be free and have their choices.

From there, things started happening really really fast. Sam didn’t get like any sleep for three days, and in that time he figured out how to use a skill called the Tinkerer to monkey around with reality—I still don’t really get it myself, but he keeps telling me it works so I guess I believe him—and he used it to try and make a portal to the White Room so he could take everyone there and explain what was going on. He couldn’t do that in the real world because the System was always listening and might do something bad to everyone if he talked about what was going on.

Except he didn’t have all the information he needed, so he asked Sally to help him bond with the third sister—I told you about that, right? Cora’s personality was broken up into three pieces, Cora, Sally, and a third one called Persephone? Well Persephone was the part of them that had all the knowledge and memories from thousands and thousands of years, so Sam figured that she’d have the information he needed. Only when he went there, he found out he’d have to become her guardian for him to give her that information, so—“

Pearl had to stop to take a deep breath. This part of the story always went faster than she realized.

Except things went snafooey and Persephone ran away from Sam and accidentally ran into Araxes instead, and she decided she liked him, so they bonded. And now Araxes is a guardian for Persephone and has access to all her knowledge and stuff.

“I am so confused,” said Pondy.

“We all were,” Tetra assured him.

“Yeah, this part was weird. Poppa always just kinda skims over it when he tells it,” agreed Polly, still outside and leaning on the windowsill. “Otherwise it gets really long.”

Okay, fast-forwarding a little. Sam worked too hard and fell asleep just as the Failstate’s minions attacked the town. Everyone fought them off, and Sam had to fight off a bunch of monsters in his dreams. He and Cora did that together, except whenever anyone asks them how they did it together they both just kinda blush and get this funny look in their eyes and change the subject. I dunno. But after the fight, Sam woke up and was able to take everyone to the White Room and explain everything that was going on, and now everyone understood that they were fighting a war that had started thousands and thousands of years ago.

See, back then, the world had been changed from what it used to be into the world of the system and everything by just a few people who wanted it to look that way, and they warred against the whole world and won, except Cora’s mistress rebelled against them after she saw how terrible it was, and that was when the war we were fighting started.

So now we knew, we were kinda fighting for the freedom of the world. Except really we were just fighting for each other and to stay alive, and maybe if we were lucky we’d save the world in the process.

So now there was another battle coming because the Failstate just kept sending troops, only this time Sam figured out how to win without winning. He’d use magic to move the whole dungeon, and the town, and everyone, underground and through the earth like a big massive submarine. So we’d run away, and keep moving, and the Failstate and Araxesendenak would never be able to find us or attack us. Isn’t that neat?

Ahem. Sorry. So we all got ready for that big battle. And Araxes asked Sam to trust him and give him a chance to fight for real, and Sam said okay, because Araxes had been changing a lot and was a better guy than when he had started. And there was this big epic battle, and Quentin was there, and Sam and Marie and Sam’s parents and everyone fought against the Failstate and against the troops Araxesendenak sent to help and it was huge!

And in the end we won. And the town and dungeon and everything started to submerge, and we thought everything was over…

And then the lich king used his magic teleportation room to snatch Sam right out of the town, just as we all went underground. And Sam wound up in Phyrexes, the lich’s capital, with the lich king standing right there grinning at him!

Pearl paused, glancing up at the clock, and grinned a little wickedly at all the wide eyes that were staring at her.

“And that,” she said in her normal voice, “is where we’re going to stop for now, because it’s dinner time.”

“WHAT???” shouted three small voices and one grown-up one. Quentin, of course, managed to remain in dignified silence.

“You can’t stop there aunty Pearl,” protested Tetra. “That’s just mean!”

“Well that’s where the story stops,” Pearl said, adamant. “Besides, a good cliffhanger is good for you. Makes you want to know what happens next!”

“I guess,” grumbled Polly. “Stupid cliffhangers.”

“Dinner?” Pondy said, raising his eyebrows. “Can I stay for dinner?”

“Of course!” both Terrors said at once.

“Come on,” said Tetra, grabbing his hand.

“It’s roast beef,” said Polly. “Gramma is cooking it. She does the best roast beef.”

The terrors disappeared again, dragging the increasingly bemused-looking minotaur boy along with them. Skee, after a moment’s grumbling, got up and followed.

“But seriously,” rumbled Quentin when it was just the two of them. “No one likes cliffhangers.”

Pearl just grinned.