Four game days have gone by with not much happening. The Forgotten Chapel Dungeon has levelled. I’ve Levelled, my dungeon buddy Tye has levelled. The Silver Drift Mine settlement has levelled.  We killed our enemies or they died fleeing, so what’s not good?  Everything.

The enemy now knows we are running the Forgotten Chapel Dungeon but that in itself isn’t so bad, because they can’t break the dungeon. They can send their high levels in and loot it repeatedly and kill all the mobs, but the mobs will re-spawn, and as we’ve shown, we will get some of them too, so them sending teams in could slowly benefit us and help the dungeon to level. No it’s not that.

There’s plenty of work to do in the dungeon. I’ve got Thorvald and his NPC miners digging out Level 2 under the supervision of my alchemist buddy Bernard who will be boss of this level and with the rather creepy, but technically brilliant attention of Peter the Silent, the NPC rogue and trapsmith. Work goes ahead, new mobs, new traps. I’m looking forward to that.

Work goes on in the Silver Drift Mine settlement. We’re extending the place to bring the barracks underground and in fact everything that doesn’t need the sunshine will come underground eventually. We’ve now got a settlement milestone underground so all the player characters can bind there  -- that’s me (Sir Gorrow of the Bloody Field), Bernard the Alchemist, Tye the Fire Mage and Saint Fitheach, the… saint.  Pretty peachy.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that I know Maligon baron of the neighbouring evil town of Carrionburg. Until recently, he didn’t know the Forgotten Chapel Dungeon was run by me, a Knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, but now he does. He’s going to search for us and if he searches long enough he’s going to find our back door in the Secret Valley. And when he finds our buildings and fields in the Secret Valley, he’s going to bring enough troops to burn them to ashes.

Our food supply was always precarious. I look at the scarred wooden desktop in front of me. On it are two items, a lethal red a white-spotted toadstool and a smoky grey quartz crystal. These two objects have been making me ponder recently and I wonder if these two objects between them don’t offer a solution to our problems.

I lift the crystal to my ear and hear it buzzing. It’s faintly warm to the touch. There’s something magical going on in this crystal and the Evil One was putting enough effort into mining it from the deposits at Carrionburg to show it’s of high value. Trouble is, we just have no clue what it’s for.

I stand. Tap the toadstool and feel its spongy surface give under my fingertips. To think, my staffing agency dwarf Asterix thinks my NPCs can live off these things once the potatoes run out. Imagine drinking toadstool beer! I need to discuss recipes with my brewer and business manager, Jason. I rub my forehead. I thought this game would be about me swinging my sword and cutting down enemies but instead I’m a manager, well on my way to being a baron, when I would have preferred to be a paladin.

I turn and step out of my chambers into the rocky passage outside. Guttering torches give it a flickering light and the air smells of smoke and burned wax. I’m planning to go and see how Level Two of the dungeon is coming along when I bump into Tye, our flame-haired fire mage in his wizard robes. ‘Gorrow, I was just coming to see you. Do we have any money left for some more mobs? I fancy getting some Smoke Bugs. They’re really cool… well they’re hot really, but you know--’

Tye’s halfway through his explanation about why I should pay for extra monsters for his dungeon level when we hear the echoing footsteps of someone running down the stone corridor. We both pivot round to see who it is.

A militia man appears from the Long Corridor that leads to the settlement back door to the Secret Valley. He pauses, saluting, still out of breath.

‘Take your time man,’ I say but he blusters on, the words falling over themselves as he pushes them out in his urgency. ‘Sir, Gorrow, sir. Secret Valley. We weren’t expecting…’ He flaps his hand. ‘Came from over the hills…’

Tye raises an eyebrow. ‘What came over the hills?’

This talk of things coming over the hills is alarming me. I start to stride off in the direction of the Secret Valley Door. Tye follows. ‘I’m coming too.’

The militia man turns and runs. Six feet behind us he yells, ‘It’s a black dragon.’

I remember black dragons. I fought one when I was a squire under Sir Mercurius. They are evil in alignment and breathe acid. Not all of them are allied with the Evil One. They tend to help him when it suits them rather than being on the payroll.

Even so, we hurry.

The two militia guards at the entrance to the Secret Valley thud the feet of their spears into the rock floor in salute and draw the mighty doors open. I smell the biting stench of hydrochloric acid even from here. The black winged worm is hovering, flapping its leathery wings so it remains stationary in the air and spouting floods of acid down onto the farms and fields below. Cows scream in pain as the acid bites through their hides right down to the bone.

I turn to the guards. ‘Where’s Armand?’ He’s my sergeant at arms and in charge of the troops out here. The guard points a leather gloved hand. ‘Down there, sir.’

And I see him. Armand is marshalling the Raffles Light Archers, the remnants of the regiment we rescued from the burning ruins of Camelot just as it fell to the enemy.

They’re behind tall pavises, which protect them from some of the dragon’s acid breath. Flights of arrows shoot into the air at Armand’s command.

‘Draw. Wait.’

The archers stand, their bows bent, the drawstrings taut.

‘Wait, wait, get your aim. And fire.’  Armand brings down his arm and at that signal twenty arrows from our twenty archers fly through the air and clatter against the dragon. Most bounce off its armoured skin but some get through, but for all the damage they do, it seems hardly worth it.

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The dragon is devastating the settlement. I see some of the farmers lying in hissing heaps of bones and skin beside their animals. I shake my head. I still have no ranged weapon ability. I bought a longbow a long time ago and have failed to develop that skill. There are so many others demanding a share of the skill points I get through levelling.

We run over and I put my hand on Armand’s back to let him know I’m there. I don’t want to break his concentration. Another sheet of arrows flies up and most bounce off uselessly. Our counterattack is pathetic compared with the dragon’s assault, but it’s the best we’ve got.

Armand shakes his head. ‘We’re hardly hurting it.’

‘What about the eagles?’

‘Most were out of far patrol patterns. I extended their range so we could get an idea of enemy troop movements well before they came close.’ He gestures up towards the great reptile. ‘The two or three that were here got killed pretty fast. They’re no match for that thing.’

Black dragons are pretty rare -- they’re top predators so they have a big area where they are the only one of their kind. This one must have just stumbled into the happy valley looking for somewhere to nest and decided it needed to clear us humans out first.

‘Fire is the answer,’ Tye says. Tye is now Level 6. He’s not really a match for the thing above, but he’s an enthusiast.

‘With your permission, boss, can I blast it?’

I nod. ‘Of course.’ Everything helps.

A Flaming Ray darts across the sky and jabs at the dragon as it hovers, its big wings flapping like leather bellows. The thing screams out in pain and its black beady eyes swivel round looking for the one who caused it.  The next bright ray confirms Tye is the author of its agony.

‘I did fifty and seventy on it, and that’s not a crit yet,’ Tye says.

The dragon turns and begins to flap in our way.

I remember my horse. ‘Is Spirit okay?’ I yell at Armand as I start to follow Tye who is already haring across the field. He wanted to drag the dragon’s attention away from the vulnerable militia but he’s a long way from cover. I see he’s heading for a grass fringed rock that stands maybe twenty feet high away from the farm buildings. He’s running as fast as he can, hitching up the blue skirt of his robe so he can go faster.

Armand yells back at me as I follow Tye across the field.

‘Yes, Spirit and the mules are safe. I moved them.’

I’m sprinting after Tye. I don’t know what I’m going to do - maybe, stand in front of him? I’ve got 50% Acid Resistance on my armour and he probably has zilch on his robes.

Then he turns. I see his face contort and he holds out both hands as blinding lines of fire spearhead out from each and zap towards the dragon. ‘Take that, bitch.’

I snap my head round and see the dragon take both rays in its chest. The power of Tye’s attack knocks it back slightly and it screams in pain.

‘Fifty and sixty!’ the wizard yells in triumph. But that dragon isn’t beaten, it’s just annoyed.

‘Run, Tye!’

Tye pushes back his yellow-red hair from his forehead and turns and bolts. I turn and scream up at the dragon, holding up my shield. I’m still all in green as the mysterious Green Knight. It glances do and disregards me. The thing flaps on again after Tye and I have no attack to draw its aggro.

But his attack and my shout have given Tye long enough to get to the rock. He dives behind it, disappearing in the long grass and then he must have crawled his way round because the next thing I see is his face peeping out the far side of the rock.

The dragon isn’t fooled. It arches its neck and a flood of black-green acid streams out and smacks into the rock. The stone crumbles and hisses as parts of it melt away, crumbling in a flood to drip into the grass and turn that black and dying.

I see a hand emerge from a blue sleeve and another bolt hits the dragon. The dragon tries to fly around the rock but Tye runs the other way. When it backs off and comes round the reverse way, Tye repeats his move. It blasts the rock with acid, and Tye darts out and shoots rays of fire when he can. Slowly but surely the dragon is eating through the rock, but Tye is causing it damage.

‘I’m nearly out of mana,’ yells Tye. ‘Just sayin’’

The dragon blasts the rock again and Tye jumps out of cover and gives it a double blast. With a final roar the flying beast decides to leave. It will slowly regenerate health but it doesn’t have any health potions like we have.

With a buffet of air, the dragon turns and begins to flap away. I can’t have that. Even if they dragon hasn’t come as an enemy scout, it now knows we here. The thing has to die.

Tye gives a hoot of victory and comes out of cover. ‘We need to kill it.’ By ‘we’ I mean him currently because I can’t hit it. It’s back over the ruined farm buildings. I see others of our team have emerged. Bernard the Alchemist is just coming out of the stone door from the Silver Drift Mine. He stands, pulling his wispy beard, perplexed, then he gets a flask of swirling blue liquid from his inventory and hurls it at the dragon.

Tye and I run towards Bernard.

The flask arcs lazily through the air and smacks against the dragon exploding with a flash of light and a scream of dragon pain. It’s some kind of light bomb, I’ve never seen Bernard use that before. He must have just got the skill.

‘Shoot it, Tye.’  Tye stops, aims and another Flaming Ray lances from his right hand and strikes the dragon as it flies away. It hits it right in the tail. The thing is looking decidedly ill now, black blood dripping. And then, in a casual act of malice, it turns its head and pours acid down on where Armand the Tall and the archers are standign under the eaves of one of the remaining farmhouses.

Some of the archers, reel back shouting in pain, others are protected from the worst of it by their pavises, but Armand takes the blast of acid in his face. He shrieks in pain and staggers back, fingers clawing at his destroyed face. He falls and I rush over to him, but when I get to him the acid has eaten through his skin, showing bone and brain and with a wet cough, he dies. Armand the Tall, my Sergeant at Arms who’s been with me since the beginning of Silver Drift is dead. Grief hits me like a blow. He was an NPC but he was a friend. And for NPCs there is no resurrection.  I’m on one mailed knee, my hand on Armand’s chest as his pixelated body breaks up and fades out, never to return.

I roar, ‘Get that dragon!’

I see Bernard hand a bottle of mana potion to Tye and see the wizard gulp it down, wiping his chin. Then firing ray after ray, transfixing the flying lizard like pins through a huge moth. Because he’s only low level his individual rays don’t do much damage - not as much as the alchemical flasks hurled by Bernard. They fly with supernatural accuracy and crack in blinding flashes along the flanks of the dragon. One, then two, then three hit it and with a final roar, the beast crumples and crashes to the ground, flattening the pine trees that line the slopes of the tall hills that guard the Secret Valley.

‘Got it,’ mutters Bernard.

Tye nods then turns to me where I’m still kneeling where Armand died. I rise to my feet.

‘At least it didn’t get away, boss,’ Tye says. ‘It won’t be telling anyone we’re here.’

Bernard mutters, ‘But there will be more.’

‘Armand’s dead,’ I say.

I know they will be thinking I can just promote another militia man, who will eventually level to be the same level as Armand. But he won’t be Armand. Stupid and sentimental, I know, but maybe I am.

I twist my mouth as I look around at the ruined farms and dead farmers and animals. We will regain those losses, we will rebuild the farms and get the crops in so Silver Drift can survive, but we have to improve our defences.

Then I hear a cry from the far side of the fields, where the rough stone walls make a boundary with the dark pine trees. There are militia there, some of the Halberdiers from the Currock Yeomanry are there and it looks like they’re in combat. I look around from some answers and I see soldiers running. I call out to one of them. ‘What’s up, soldier?’

He points. ‘There are beastmen in the woods. Lots of them.’