“Not fair,” K3 huffed out once he’d caught his breath again. The pair had covered the several miles to the mine in a dead sprint. For their enhanced bodies, which meant the six or so miles through the forest had taken them around five minutes to traverse.

“Ha-ha,” Ronin laughed having arrived only a few seconds before the Kaldarr. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about.” He said with a grin, “with those long legs of yours… if I hadn’t gotten a head start, you’d have beaten me without question.”

“I’m also wearing an extra hundred fifty pounds or more in armor boss.” K3 complained good naturedly. “What’s that if not a handicap?” Despite the banter and how out of breath he was, Ronin watched him take in their surroundings. They nodded to the guards as they walked the last few feet to the mine opening. A pair of humans, a Kaldarr warrior, a bugbear woman, and a food corps goblin made up the guard detail.

“Lord white flame,” the Kaldarr said as the sound of fists smashing against breast plates filled the air. The bugbear and kaldarr had metal plates over their chests while the rest had ankylosaur plates, so the sound was a discordant clatter. Still, Ronin returned the salute with a nod and a smile.

The area around the cave mouth was now surrounded by a ten-foot-tall mound of gravel. It was wrapped around the opening in a semicircle, another ten-foot thick. The guards had been using it as cover, laying prone and staring out into the woods with rifles in hand.

“Good work,” he said looking each of them in the eyes once they’d gathered around him. “K3 and I have come for an inspection, don’t worry about his complaints… he’s just a sore loser.” He added with a wink, trying to further his image as a likeable leader. His jest got a few chuckles, but he had the feeling they were more forced than genuine. Ah well, it was a start. The way their eyes flicked over to K3 made him think they were more worried about offending the giant, than humoring the boss.

“Of course, my lord.” The Kaldarr said with another salute. “There are several scout teams down in the mushroom forest along with some of the wood elves. I don’t think any of them are due back tonight however, so you will likely only encounter the digging detail.” After speaking, the warrior moved back to clear the path to the mine. Ronin noted as he did, that he wasn’t wearing a collar. That made him smile. He hoped to do away with the collars entirely soon, since willing followers worked harder than forced labor. Quite the departure from his views on them just a few weeks ago.

“Thank you,” Ronin said before turning his attention to the mine opening. K3 had entered while he’d addressed the guard leader to check for threats and was just now motioning Ronin to enter.

“How you going to throw me under the drop ship like that boss?” K3 asked as they moved away from the guards. Ronin smiled at his friend as he looked around the mine entrance. The initial opening had changed, and it had been opened a lot since the last time he’d come in here too. The tunnel had to have been expanded to a good thirty-foot arch and the floor had been flattened. A stack of giant tree trunks was just off to the side, and Ronin could see several more being used to support the roof of the tunnel.

“Oh, quit whining,” Ronin said with a chuckle. “And tell me, why is Owl two opening this tunnel up so much? It looks big enough to drive a pair of my trucks down side by side with room to spare.” He wasn’t complaining about that, it would be great to bring some armored trucks down. However, if they waited until the tunnel was done, they wouldn’t meet his deadline.

“Not sure boss,” K3 said with a shrug. “Maybe the digging detail will know.” Without anything better to go on they moved deeper into the room sized arch. It didn’t take them long to come upon a bugbear man pushing out a wheel barrel filled with gravel. The bugbear didn’t even glance at them, just hurrying passed towards the entrance. A bit later, a human man went by with another wheel barrel of gravel. The pair shared a look and broke into a jog, too curious to walk any further.

“Wow,” Ronin said once the digging detail came into view. It wasn’t what he’d expected, though thinking back on it, he should have. He saw the scout team along with the human soldier squad. They were patrolling the area, but they weren’t alone.

A dozen people of varying races were shoveling gravel into waiting wheel barrels. Once they were full, they would be wheeled away towards the cave entrance, likely to be added to the huge semicircle of crushed stone around the entrance. What was surprising however were the diggers. As he suspected, it was the rats, but he hadn’t expected just how quickly they were going at it.

Another of the light emitting machines was set up in the center of the tunnel. It projected out blue and red lights that blanketed the tunnel. The floor was covered in red lights, while the walls and ceiling were blue. Ronin watched a rat on the ceiling chewing away, dropping chunks of gravel onto the floor below. Until it reached a certain point and the light projection turned red. It instantly stopped chewing at the rock there and moved over to another spot that still had blue light.

“Well, isn’t that something,” K3 said with a low whistle. “Wonder if they could do statues?” He added with a chuckle. “We could have a life size ‘Lord white flame’ at every…” he cut off sharply when Ronin kicked him in the shin. Not that he was at all affected through his thick plate armor.

“You just stop right there,” Ronin said with a growl. “The wrong person hears you say something like that, and it just might happen for real.” He shuddered, thinking about rat crafted statues of himself all over the place. “Besides, how would it look if they started building my statue before we managed to feed everybody?” He shuddered again at the riot something like that could spark.

“Sorry boss… still, this is something else.” Ronin nodded at the words, as he watched the ten rats swarming around the tunnel. They chewed a wheel barrel’s worth of gravel every minute, but they were still only cat sized rats digging a thirty-foot-wide tunnel.

“Why are there only ten of them down here?” Ronin wondered aloud, “there are at least twenty more back in the cave. If they were all going at once the progress would be much faster.”

“They will only work for so long before they get full and need to rest, my lord.” A goblin scout Ronin didn’t recognize answered from his side. She’d approached while they were looking but hadn’t said anything while they talked. “We have them on three-hour rotations with three rotations off with three teams of ten. They don’t get fed between shifts, so they get three hours to eat and nine hours in their cages. The food corps will be along shortly with the replacement batch and will return these rats to their cages. It’s not ideal, but the next generation are only a week or so away from joining the work force. We’ll be able to ramp up production then my lord.”

“Thank you,” Ronin said with a smile. “It looks like you are already getting a lot done. The tunnel is much longer than I would have expected for such a short time.” He really wanted to ask why they were making the tunnel so big but didn’t think it a good idea to broadcast to his people that their boss didn’t know what was going on in his own camp.

“Has there been any issues with the rats attacking the workers?” He asked, noticing the rats avoiding a pair of workers shoveling gravel into a cart. The sight of them so close to the rats gave him flashbacks to when White hair and the others had been eaten alive in this vary tunnel. The thought made him shudder involuntarily.

“No, my lord.” The scout said, raising her hand to show off a large bracelet. “Everyone working with the rats is given one of these at the beginning of our shift and has it collected after our shift ends. Whenever one of the stone carvers gets too close, it makes a special beep on their collars. If they keep coming after hearing that noise, the shock they get is enough to knock them out. We haven’t had an incident since the first one got knocked out… although, we did have a worker who rushed the rats, knocking them out for fun. Owl Two took care of that one, we haven’t seen him since then. It was cruel, watching them flop about and scream.”

“Thank you,” Ronin said with a nod and gestured for the scout to get back to work. He wondered if he should follow up on this worker Owl two had disappeared, but eventually decided he didn’t really care. Self-defense was one thing, but deliberate torture wasn’t going to be allowed. Besides, these animals had been bred in captivity and hadn’t ever hurt anyone.

“I think I’ve seen enough,” he said to K3 once the scout had left. “I don’t know why the tunnel has to be so big, but it looks like Owl two has this, at least, well in hand.” He turned around and started jogging back up the tunnel.

“At least the work tomorrow will be easy now. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get the gravel you wanted.” K3 said as he caught up and fell into step a foot behind Ronin.

“True,” he said with a smile. “It’s starting to come together, as long as Owl five gets back tomorrow with a drop ship full of locust limbs I’ll be able to sleep easier.” The people he’d brought back were still starving. He needed to feed them before their hunger outweighed their common sense.

“How is that going by the way boss?” K3 asked, his voice coming out as gently as his massive chest would allow. “I know you didn’t get a chance to talk before she left but…”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.” Ronin said cutting K3 off. “She couldn’t control her emotions. Anything she thought she was feeling, can’t be trusted… and now, with Lily and Vasylia… the whole wife thing… I should have stopped it, but Owl two was all for it and I didn’t want to lose the bugbears… Now, it feels wrong to even consider Brie in that way.”

“Marriage isn’t a custom my people follow,” K3 said glossing over how Ronin said he didn’t want to talk about it before talking about it. “Men go to war, women raise children. I guess it didn’t make sense for them to tie themselves to a man who would likely die on campaign… Goblins don’t get married either. Nearly all a clan’s children are produced by the alpha… and from what I’ve heard from Elyria it seems like moon elves mate once and for life.” K3 stopped talking as they jogged out of the tunnel and bid the guard’s farewell. The pair moved in silence until they were a hundred yards into the forest.

“What’s your point?” Ronin asked, not sure where his guard was going with that line of thought.

“I’m not sure,” K3 said with a shrug. “I guess I was just pointing out how every race does things differently, and we have at least five of them. So, try not to think in terms of right and wrong. When to one race you’re doing the right thing and to another you are committing a crime… We’re the white flame syndicate,” he said with a chuckle. “I know the boss, he’s a pretty good guy… and around here, he decides what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Ronin thought about that as they jogged back to camp. He’d read books from before the fall about ‘social constructs’ and how they weren’t real, and people could be anything they wanted to be regardless of anything else. He didn’t buy into that theory, having spent his whole life on earth fighting for survival. A lot of the things he read about sounded like drivel made up by people who had more food and free time than they knew what to do with. So, they had to play pretend to keep themselves entertained.

Still, K3 had a point too. This wasn’t pre-invasion earth where there were only humans. This was a world filled with all kinds of strange creatures who all thought in different ways. Not only that, but Ronin oversaw everyone here. That didn’t give him the right to tell them their beliefs were wrong, but it did give him the power to do what he believed was right.

“Thanks man,” he said after a while. He hadn’t settled his problems yet, but he at least had a new perspective to look at them with. “Enough of that, we’ve got too much to do to be worrying about this. let’s check in on the damaged drop ship. I want to be sure Owl two cleaned out all the trogs and isn’t holding anyone else prisoner in there. Then I want to make a quick round to see how far along the teaching areas are coming.”

“You got it boss,” K3 said as he sped up to match Ronin’s new pace.

* * *

“You guys are up early,” Guts said as he approached. The big goblin was rubbing his eyes and yawning. Ronin looked over from where he was helping Harken attach the new trailer to his truck. Dawn’s first rays were only now cresting the valley’s walls, but Ronin and K3 hadn’t slept at all. They’d spent the whole night inspecting the camp to check the progress of all the projects they’d been meeting about in the command tent. What they had found was disappointing.

“Guts,” he called out jumping off the low sided trailer. “I hope you got a good night’s sleep. Because we have a lot of work to do today.” Ronin said clapping his small friend on the shoulders.

“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” Guts said looking over at the new trailer. “Is this what you wanted?” He asked looking at the four wheeled monstrosity. It was set up off the ground some three feet on big wheels. The bed had foot deep sidewalls and was some ten feet long and wide, not including the hitching post that connected it to the back of the truck. The entire thing was made from thick cut logs on a metal frame. It looked like Owl two had welded it together from bits of Kaldarr dropship.

“More or less,” Ronin said with a grin. “I don’t want to push the truck too hard, and if we pile too much weight on the thing it’s liable to sink into the ground and get stuck. But don’t worry about that right now, I’ve got a big task for the food corps.” Ronin said, changing the subject.

“Yes sir,” Guts said, standing up straight and saluting. His sleepy manner of a second before replaced in an instant with calm professionalism. “We are always at your command, my lord.” He finished with an incline of his head. In times like this, Ronin didn’t know if it was their friendship talking, or the parasite drone, but he appreciated it all the same.

“At ease my friend,” he said with a chuckle. “Owl five is due back today from the food run. I’d like you and the corps to gather up and get ready to cook enough locust limbs to feed the whole camp. These people have been waiting long enough, think you can handle it?” He asked, still grinning. Knowing that Guts would be up for the task.

“You mean I’ll be forced to cook instead of shoveling gravel all day with you and the big lug over there?” Guts asked in mock hurt tones. “Well boss… it’s a sacrifice, but for you I’ll do it.” He said with a wink and another salute. Before running towards the cave, calling for his men as he went. “See ya later boss.” He shouted as he ran, like he was afraid Ronin might change his mind and make him shovel instead.

“Lucky little…” K3 muttered as he walked over to Ronin. “We’re ready boss.” He said as Ronin turned away from his goblin chef and looked at the small group, he’d had K3, and Harken gather early that morning. He’d asked K3 to gather the thirteen kaldarr and Harken to gather twelve of his most loyal clan members. Including the old bugbear that made thirteen of either race. Ronin looked over their hulking figures, each dressed in work clothes and holding tools meant for digging. He took a deep breath before addressing the crowd.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said in a voice meant to carry. “Many of you have had very little sleep, and I apologies for that. Still, you represent a vital part of our little community. I plan to spend the day improving that community, and I ask that you accompany me in that task.” He felt awkward, knowing his speeches were terrible. Not that it was entirely his fault, having never given any before he’d entered this pocket world.

“The camp is turning into a mud pit. Fortunately, we have plenty of gravel to fill in the low spots and make our living space more habitable. Unfortunately, it’s several miles from here. The truck is going to make the task easier, but it’s still going to be a lot of work… work I would rather not do alone… so what do you say, willing to help me out?” He finished lamely. Looking around pleadingly.

The kaldarr muttered in agreement, shuffling their feet, and hefting their tools. They looked as uncomfortable listening to his speech as Ronin had been giving it, and all to ready to just get to work. The bugbear on the other hand looked at each other and glanced at Vasylia, who was standing among them holding a shovel, and Harken who had just finished attaching the trailer to the truck.

“Of course, husband.” Vasylia answered for them all, heads nodding in agreement with her words as the bugbears took her lead. “You lead, we will follow.” She added with a small smile of encouragement. Getting muttered agreement from the men and two other bugbear women who had shown up to work.

“Thank you.” He said simply, bowing his head in gratitude. “Now, climb into the trailer and hold on tight.” He said with a grin, heading to the truck’s driver seat and climbing in. He’d expected Vasylia or Harken to join him and K3 in the truck but they both jumped into the trailer with their clan members, before nodding to him that they were ready. Accepting their choice without comment, Ronin climbed in and waited for K3 to join him before putting the truck into gear and slowly heading out to the mine.

He took it slow, but they still made good time, arriving at the mine entrance in a quarter of an hour. Everyone hopped out once the truck stopped. He noted that several of the bugbears looked slightly motion sick but that the kaldarr had held up just fine, being used to motorized travel.

“Alright,” Ronin called out as he exited the truck and stood before them. “Nothing complicated here folks. Put the gravel into the trailer, just try to keep it evenly spread to avoid any weight problems.” After getting nods from those present, he set to work, shoveling the loose stones for all he was worth.

The others set too as well, and they worked in silence for a while, save for the sound of rocks crunching into the wooden trailer bed. Once it was full, they all climbed back in and headed back to the camp, where they spread the stone around the clearing. Climbing back into the trailer, they headed back to repeat the process.

Once they had gotten into a rhythm; filling the truck and riding back to dump it, Ronin gave a subtle nod to Harken and K3. The pair nodding in turn before they struck up conversations with the others, Harken addressing the kaldarr and K3 the bugbears.

The conversations didn’t happen quickly, but soon enough the two groups were talking to each other without their leader’s encouragement. Ronin smiled as he listened to the small talk. They discussed their White flame syndicate decks, their weapon preferences, how the farming was coming along. He got so engrossed in their conversations that he’d zoned out of his own surroundings. The shadow that loomed over him snapped him back to himself, worried that he was about to be attacked, he stumbled back a step raising his shovel to guard himself.

“ha-ha, a little jumpy are we husband?” Vasylia asked loudly, smiling at the others as they stopped to see what had happened before getting back to work with smiles of their own at her words. Ronin chuckled, doing his best to calm his racing heart and reassure his people that he was fine.

“It seems that your plan is starting to work husband.” She said, moving closer to him and lowering her voice. “Bring some of your more valuable people together and get them on friendly terms with each other through shared labor. I take it this was the goal the whole time?” She asked as her powerful arms, accustomed to swinging a hammer, shoveled the heavy gravel with little effort. Ronin looked at her, not really surprised she’d seen through his decision to bring the kaldarr and bugbears together.

“That is part of it.” He admitted as he continued to shovel as well. “Though the work we are doing is necessary too…” his words were interrupted as the shadow of the returning dropship swept over them on its way back to camp. “Good,” he said turning back to his work. Deciding to focus on the task at hand, rather than the goblin scout who had just flown in. “The food corps are already set up and waiting for the harvest. The people will be relieved to eat all they can today.” He tried to ignore the sideways look his bugbear ‘wife’ was giving him as he continued to shovel.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asked softly enough that he could pretend not to hear if he wanted to.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” He said with a shake of his head. “Right now, I just want to finish this task so that I can get onto the next one… and hopefully get my people more comfortable working as a group while I’m at it.” He added as he looked over the group of fantasy and sci-fi creatures, he had somehow brought to life in the pocket world he had designed to let him play the hero. He snorted at that thought. Wishing he could play the hero, but knowing he didn’t have the luxury, thanks to his oldest friend who was even now dying back in the caves he had once called home.

“Then let’s get to work.” Vasylia said, thankfully not prying any deeper. “It looks like this load is full, so what do you say?” She asked, a shy half smile crossing her strong-featured face. “Let me drive back?” Ronin looked up at her large frame, thick fur matted to her body as she worked just as hard as any of the men around her and snorted.

“Sure, why not.” He said with a smile, happy for the distraction from all the problems he had to deal with in the few weeks he had left before he had to go to war… a war he had to win before he met Leo Dawson again.