“The hell is that?” I asked, scratching my head. The parts where the steel cabinet began the teeth were melded into an odd solidified jelly. I walked side to side just to see the scale of it. “Jeez…”

Sten raised his cup. “Easy as pie. Burn made a potent gas using cleaning supplies and rolled it into their hideout. Turned their acid skin into rubber, after that we just had to pummel them to death while Rolada dazed them.”

Rolada waved her fingers at us and let out a yawn as her mother fought with the goop in her hair. “But now I’m all sleepy. I’m just glad Bent beat the queen before she completely wrecked the place.”

The burly ogre held out his cup to clang off Sten’s and downed it in one go. “She was a tough one.” The ogre scratched at his cheek and looked away from me. “I may have broken a few walls while bashing her into them…”

“It’s fine,” I said, brushing away his worry. I was too tired to be bothered by it, after all the place needed a lot of fixing anyways. “What did you guys eat? It smells great.”

From the kitchen came the sound of chopping knives and out came a minion wearing a clipped together chefs hat as tall as he was, holding two bowls full of a hearty meat stew. Two more drones ran out behind him wearing white aprons over their black work shirts and stood on each other's shoulders, taking the bowls to place them at Lin’s and my spots.

The chef curled his hand and kissed it, and gestured to Lin and I. “Merp!”

I slid into my chair, finally getting to rest after the long march. The stew simmered in a deep, rich broth, with chunks of stag meat, root veggies and a variety of herbs. The scent reminded me of onion and garlic, or some equivalent, and thoughts of Earth wafted back to me.

“How did you get this at the base of your ears, silly girl?” Sliva growled as she shook the brush to dislodge the goop. She jabbed the brush in my direction, keenly looking at me. “Your trip was longer than I expected. I was about to call a winged rider brigade to rescue you three.”

Lin lightly blew on her spoon, her eyes focused on the chunks of meat in front of her. “We killed a level ten spell casting gryphon, made a bunch of friends with some refugees and helped them move to their new town. Oh yeah, Josh killed some nightmare mushroom tree hivemind, made allies with greatsword wielding hot elk warriors, and brought thirty new friends home.”

Every set of eyes in the room snapped to us, then to the door. Faint conversation came from the far hall with people claiming furniture.

I took the first bite of my meal. The hot food was filling, and everything I needed. The minions gathered around me, the chef holding up a cup of fresh, cool water to quench my thirst. “We have a funeral to go too. So here’s the quick version…”

…

Outside the walls in the open field the funeral pyres burned. The saved wood along with a little bit of oil and powder from Burn had set them ablaze in a hurry. The wood crackled and sputtered, sending embers high in the dark overcast sky. The moons hid behind the thick cloud cover, with only slivers of lights revealing the column of smoke. I stood beside my companions at the head of the procession, with watchful villagers keenly checking my every movement.

Rolada, her mother and a few of the carpenters played instruments. The foxes played flutes while the dwarves played strings. The soft melody set a humble tone, and Sten stood beside them.

Sten held up a hastily scrawled parchment, and cleared his throat. “By fire their bodies fell. By fire their spirits will rise. By these ashes they will leave behind a legacy as tall as the oaks of Verdant Spires.”

A wave of applause came from the gathered villagers. Sen and Mala moved in with small smooth stone plaques. Mala stuck in a broken spear to root out ashes at the bottom of the burning pyres, and rubbed the ash on the stones. Sen set a small fragment of gemstone, stag hare antler and boar tusk on it.

Mala beat her chest, and let out a deep sorrowful hum. “We adorn these slabs with markings of the enemy. For our brothers died in battle. With a warrior poet's words we send them to the halls, may they find the rest they deserve.”

“Do you wish to add anything too, Lord Hale?” Sen asked, projecting his voice to the crowd. The end of his tail swished, the black scales slightly glowing on the snow. Magic came from it, going in my direction. The hairs on my neck stood up as his voice whispered behind me, more so into my mind than my ear. “If you have a coin to spare for each, it would be seen as respectful. Helping the desearced spirits hire a lawyer in the halls of judgement.”

I joined the other two leaders, and reached into my pockets. I grabbed a fistful and opened my hand so only the two of them could see, and gave them a worried look, unsure which would be proper.

“Copper is fine, but silver if you want to be fancy,” Mala whispered. She waved her hand and gave me a slight nod. “Little bit of magic to entertain the kids too.”

With a flourish, I produced a silver coin for each, and used my arcane trick spell to add a hint of flare. As Sen took each coin little sparks danced around it. I focused hard on them, trying to twist what they looked like with some success. Rolada changed her tune slightly, and the sparks transformed into an outline of a dwarf fighting a stag hare with a tiny man on its back.

Rolada’s illusion vanished, and the crowd cheered. One of the other villagers pumped his fist into the sky. One of Mala’s people came froth to drizzle a thick syrup over the top of the first slab, which solidified into a clear layer in seconds. We repeated the process for each of the fallen, with family members coming up, saying their farewells and giving a few words about the deceased. Afterwards Mala handed them the small slab and they headed back.

Scholar Livy

Dwarven funeral rites are quite something. This is a hasty one to appease the spirit of the deceased, adapted from original rites because of the curse overlaying the lands. They have a fundamental belief of all beings being cast from different elements, dwarves of course from earth, rock and stone. In lieu of a coffin they use those funeral slabs, decorating them and recounting their final moments, capturing them in stone.

Given time, and space they may ask to establish a public tomb to house all the slabs. They can be incredible works of art, rivalling that of the greatest museums as wealthy dwarves commission statues, art, and armaments to adorn the shelves around slabs.

It looked like they were giving the fallen beast-kin the same respect, and the beast-kin accepting the slab wiped a tear away from his eye. He was a young feline, with black and white spots on his ears, and barely looked old enough to legally drink.

“I hope Henienkia finds him a nice spot in the sun to set up a hammock. He liked to laze around in the sun after work,” he said quietly.

Sen reached out, resting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I am certain one of the great mother’s daughters can help him. Knowing him I wouldn’t be surprised if he convinces a demi-god to make it big enough for two, and to join him.”

The beast-kin smiled and held the slab tightly to his chest. “Yeah, he was always getting in trouble with the ladies.” His eyes went towards the nearby wall, then to the roof tops. “Thank you for housing us, Lord Hale. I promise in the morning I’ll get to work applying my trade.”

“Hey, it’s what being a good neighbour is about,” I said. “Also just Josh is fine, you guys don’t have to call me lord.”

The young man returned to the crowd and Sen went around to give a few closing remarks to individuals. Mala and her clan kept an eye on the fires, which had burnt down to coals by this point. They scooped up some into buckets, and dosed the flames so we wouldn’t have any surprises during the night.

“Well all seems to be in order,” Sen said, rubbing his eyes. He reached outwards towards me, his palm up and his head tilted down. “Again, I thank you for this aid.”

“I just hope you found comfortable accommodations for the night.” I said, shaking his hand. After I waved my hand towards the wall and a handful of the automatons came out, holding clay boxes. “These are the heaters I was telling you guys about. Every family can take one. It should help keep the chill out tonight, and we can work on getting more firewood tomorrow.”

Sen took over distribution while my body pushed me to head to bed. Lin broke off from the crowd to join me and we headed inside the walls. I wandered the orderly streets, seeing most of the villagers had all claimed houses around the warehouse. It kept them all close together in one section, leaving the buildings towards the river empty.

My feet found the way to the house I had first rebuilt, now rebuilt a second time. The observation platform, and most of the walls were all new construction. The foundation was still original, along with a single wall marred by soot and fragments of stone.

“A funny thing,” I said, brushing against the wall that survived the siege. “Spent our first night here, with no one but ourselves. Now look. Place is starting to liven up.”

Lin smiled and wove her fingers into my hand. She rested her chin on my shoulder and hummed happily. “It’s been a very interesting ride, and I’m glad you were the one I found. Now look at you.” She squeezed me tightly and shook me. “The only thing I’m glad is gone is that squeaky bed frame. You wiggle in your sleep and it would make a horrible racket.”

“I wiggle in my sleep?” I asked. I wrapped an arm around Lin and flicked her ear. “Sometimes you run in your sleep and wag your tail, like a dog on a mission. Reminds me of a buddy that had this sheep dog that used to work at a farm-”

It felt like I had been hit by a hammer. “Oh shit.”

“Josh, what is it?” Lin asked.

“Work. These guys are expecting to work in the morning,” I said. Checking around I saw we were alone and slipped into the house. It was cool inside, but not too bad. The minions had done a decent job of putting some insulation on the houses here. “Damn it, I don’t want them crawling around the dungeon. That is asking for trouble.”

Lin pulled out a chair by the table, and I grabbed one too. It was wobbly and felt just like the original when I had sat down with her that first night. In fact the fireplace, cookware and everything was a good approximation of the original place. It was almost surreal as I knew most of it had gone up in flames. The minions were strangely nostalgic it seemed.

“We did tell them a little about it,” Lin said, crossing her arms. “The dwarves will probably want a peak.”

I folded my hands and leered at the wall. Lines appeared beneath, dungeon lines, the water pipes and voids where rooms were. She was right, but yet we had done a good job keeping actual details to a minimum.

“Someone is scheming,” Lin said, smiling at me. “You do this thing with your eyes and I can tell you're looking at stuff.”

Ideas were rapid firing off in my head. The town was big enough with some room by the walls I could squeeze in a few more buildings. The dungeon itself was further back, closer to the fields towards the road. “This is going to sound crazy. We’re building a second dungeon, and workshops.”

“What?” Lin asked. “Like right now?”

I nodded. “I need you to sneak around and make sure people are staying indoors. If they come to investigate the sounds I need you to use the work order queue to tell the minions to dig down, and for the automatons to run over and make it look like they are doing stuff.”

Lin squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Okay, this is going to be interesting. How much are you planning?”

“We told them the baths are underground. We build a second more basic one, with some storage, some rooms and other stuff. A really simple shrine to move ours up too, and like a kitchen. We then build some workshops like a smithy above ground. Give them space to run around and keep busy,” I said.

“Josh,” Lin held up a hand, giving me a stern look. “Remember I was supposed to be a priestess? Let me tell you, a god really doesn’t like it when you move their shrine, less so downgrade it.”

“How bad would it be?” I asked. I leaned back in the chair, causing it to creak and put my hands together. “Like a little bad-”

“Like Yara or Sliva probably getting decreed to smite you by divine orders,” Lin said. “The shrine with the dead guys probably all got killed by a god's power for defling it if they didn’t kill each other.”

“Can we make a second less important shrine?” I asked. Lin nodded and I let out a tense sigh. “Okay, we need to move quickly. Before I fall asleep.”

Lin sauntered over to my side of the table, and stood behind me. I looked back, resting my head on her chest, peering up at her. She stuck out her tongue and laughed. “So I guess we won’t be having any personal fun tonight.”

I reached up to stroke her cheek, causing the cat girl to purr. “Sorry Lin, not tonight -hmph!”

Lin lightly kissed me. “Come on, let’s start before you get me riled up.”

The quick footed cat girl slipped out the door and vanished into thin air. I saw a few commands appear in the work queue. I slapped my hands on the table, and stood up. “Can’t be too bad. I managed to hide it from them for a little bit.”

I had managed to hide being a keeper for less than a week last time I had guests. I hoped and prayed I could do it this time.

I added commands and soon some automatons now holding tools that were too small for them arrived around the buildings I wanted to modify. I peered down the streets, hearing only whispers of conversation. I commanded the machines to walk around the area and quickly dipped back towards the true dungeon. I came down from the shack entrance and arrived at the gatehouse. After making sure no villagers had tried to sneak down here I went inside and called for Dan.

Dan peered around the corner of the kitchen, his gaze questioning me, and he gave me a shrug basically asking ‘what the hell are you doing?”

“Dan I need everyone,” I said. I pointed towards the gatehouse. “I need a fake, hidden hall that only opens for us, and we need to build a second dungeon.”

“Wa?” Dan blinked several times. He then happily danced around, and lifted his arms. He rapidly nodded and looked at me with wide eyes. “Merp?”

“The hall under the houses you made? Extend it. I need a bunch of stuff, let me add it to the queue,” I said. I rapidly tapped the air, looked at the walls of the dungeon, seeing the dungeon lines and best guested how to extend it. “I need a second path to the goblin tower, and a way to hide the original. They will want to see the tower. Most of all I need you guys to stay hidden.” I crouched, grabbing Dan by the shoulder. “You can’t be seen.”

Dan saluted me, mustering all the gravitas he could. “Merp.”

An error appeared, noting we lacked essential materials to make quality workspaces. It made sense, we sold off the good stuff we didn’t use. I cracked my knuckles and stood up. “It’s fine, it can be subpar. I’m sure they will want to rig up their own workplaces anyways. It might even buy us more time. As long as the baths and kitchens are usable I’m sure they won’t mind.”

A stampede shook the dust on the floor by my feet. Every minion in the dungeon appeared, a sea of black fur, black work shirts and red curious eyes peering up at me. The minions looked up at me in wonder, their focus shifting on the dins in my armour and to my pockets.

“I don’t have any rousing speech, sorry. I just need you guys to work fast and crazy hard. We have a lot of work lined up,” I said. “I-”

The minions all let out a victory cry and surged ahead. They split off, some heading for supplies, others dragging slower moving automotions towards the exit. I headed towards the hall to run interference should anyone show up. Behind me the minions walled off the gatehouse, putting a narrow strip of tiled clay up. Shifting my vision I could see the dungeon’s tendrils link up to it, and it silently slid open to let the minions out.

Some minions started digging under the floors, while Mason followed them with clay pipes already in hand. New water ways were needed, and I winced knowing we might be stretching our water system thin. With the heating crystals now in use for the villagers so they didn’t freeze overnight I knew our stockpile would take a hit.

Two goblin automotions made of wood and metal clunked behind me, holding saws and a rusted hammer. They made me a little nervous, seeing how not too long ago they had tried to gut me.

Perception Check : Success!

+1 XP gained.

The mission almost went south instantly as when I went to the hall under the houses I saw the small cat girl from before sitting by herself reading under a dungeon light. She was wrapped up in a blanket, and I almost didn’t see her. She looked up and I almost gave myself whiplash and I instantly called up the work queue and told them to avoid where I was, immediately. The faint digging sound under my feet instantly stopped, and the minions backed up to swap tasks.

The curious girl’s ears swivelled on her head. She put a little bracelet made of dried grasses into her book with a battered cover. “What are you doing mister?”

“I could ask you the same thing. Isn’t past your bedtime?” I asked. Realizing that probably wasn’t going to help I stood aside to show the goblin automatons. “Since I’m sure the villagers wanted to get to work I was going to have my little helpers fix some places for them.”

Deception Check : Success!

She leapt up and wrapped her blanket around her neck like a cape. She ran up to the automatons and poked at one. “I’m studying my book. I’m hoping to be an inventor and make machines that help people too!”

“Oh? That’s great, maybe you can help me sometime. It might have to wait as the place I got them from isn’t safe yet,” I said. Behind her I saw a clay tile fall off the wall and a small minion hand shoot ahead to grab it, pulling it back before it shattered.

She bubbled with excitement, and opened her book to show me. “I got it from an old crazy guy for a slice of bread. With it I hope to make this magic dragon!”

The design was equal parts madness, to an absolutely incredible display of genius. It reminded me of technical drawings one of my college roommates did for his masters degree, each part meticulously drawn to scale. The margins however were full of nonsense my various knowledge skills couldn’t even pull up, claiming they were false. Still, it looked interesting, a flying mechanical dragon using similar parts to what the automatons were made off, and at least the fire breath had real Igni type writing I could read.

“Hang on a second,” I said, scratching at my chin. “The fire breath, it’s designed just like the flame thrower design I found.”

She flipped through her pages and brought up a boat. “Yeah and if you have one of the boxes the goblin people have on their wagons you can use it on a boat instead. Can you let me help mister? If I practice enough I can hit level two and be a real inventor, with a subclass and everything.”

She brought up the prompt to swap class information, and I accepted it.

Luna Sparktail, Cat beast-kin, Level 1 Inventor

This was interesting, and her skills could be potentially super helpful, but I had to focus. I needed this kid to head back to her mom and go to bed. If there was one thing I knew it was kids could get into mischief or learn things they shouldn’t if left alone, and I had a lot I didn’t need her poking at.

My eye twitched as the wall on the far end of the hall opened up and a minion looked at me. He waved and started to put in a door. Before Luna could turn I clapped my hands. “You know what? Why don’t you head to bed and get a good night’s sleep. My friend Lin,-”

She gasped. “The really pretty one with white hair?”

“Yup, she’s my royal treasurer. We might have it in the budget to pay for any help,” I said.

Luna clutched her book to her cuddly cape. “I promise to sleep super well so I can help you mister, lord, uh….Josh!” She reached for a waterskin by her reading spot and frowned. “Oh, I’m all out. Do you have a well so I could get a drink of water?”

“I can get you one,” I said. With my focus divided on getting the minions to keep out of sight, and my sleep deprived brain wanting to actually rest I fell on old habits. Luna begged me to look at one of her own personal sketches for a back scratcher stick, and before I knew it a soft tread of feet came from behind me. “Oh shi-”

Mike, the miner minion wearing his fake beard and with a pickaxe over his shoulder came in with a tray and a big glass of water. The cat girl thanked him and took the cup, drinking it all in one go. “Mister Josh, who is this?”

Sweat broke out on my brow, stinging my eyes. The two goblin automatons looked up at me as if saying I was an idiot, while the minion completely oblivious to my blunder joined in, looking at Luna’s book.

“T-this is Mike,” I said, trying to recount what Burn had said before. I gulped down a painful sensation rising in my core. I lowered my voice to a whisper and put a hand up to my mouth. “Want to know a secret?” When Luna nodded I crouched down. “Mike is a gremlin, but he thinks he’s a dwarf. He helps us mine things so we don’t tell him. He’s really nice, but he likes to remain hidden so don’t tell anyone.”

Deception Check : Success!

+3 XP gained.

Luna nodded and held out a hand to shake Mike’s. “It’s nice to meet you Mike. I like your beard, it’s very dwarven.”

Mike smiled and stroked his fake beard. After taking Luna’s empty cup he wandered off, and I sent off an order begging the minions to ignore dumb orders from me for the night. I couldn’t believe it worked. Thank god kids were gullible and believed in fairies and things.

Wait. Fairies and stuff were real here.

Luna stood up straight and raised her book to the sky. “It’s nap time! Tomorrow I shall be your royal inventor!”

The little cat ears on her head shot up and she ran off to the nearest door. She went up and back to the home her family had chosen for the night. As soon as she was out of sight I fell on my ass and groaned.

“I give this a week before I’m screwed,” I said.