Tilly Steelsdottir had once stared into the mouth of a Chromium Dragon as it drew in breath with which to spew molten metal all over her in the intent to turn her into a living–well, for a couple seconds anyway–statue for its trophy collection. She could, if she tried hard enough, remember the acrid feel of the fear in the back of her throat and taste the metallic tang in the air as she faced down approaching death. She had known panic that day, and no mistake.

'Course, then her Honey Buns had gotten free of his shackles and broadsided the big lizard with a flying dropkick, and together they'd kicked it's ass all the way to the Ebberains. But she could still to this day, if she tried hard enough, remember what that panic had tasted like at the time.

The panic she could feel spreading through the dungeon now was worse. Much, much worse.

It had been bad enough when it was just Sammy that was gone. Now Cora and Sally and even little Pearly were gone too, teleported somewhere else.

No one knew where they'd gone–althoufu Tilly had her suspicions but she was gonna keep that close to her vest thank you very much, this little goblin wasn't gonna be the one to add to that panic no sir.

And as if all that wasn't enough, then Araxes had screamed and passed out. Araxes, who was a lich, who were supposed to be immune to sleep, she was positive. And not just ‘didn’t need it’ immune, but like ‘couldn’t fall asleep with the world’s most boring accountant showing off a slideshow of his most uneventful vacation onto the side of a cart full of fluffy sheep that had been rocked to sleep by real rocks’ immune.

She could feel it in the air. It felt like things were falling apart. Oh sure, old One-Eye and Annie had taken charge, directing the mobs into securing the dungeon, and then delegating the whole ‘in-charge’ thing to trusted lieutenants while they went off with Councilwoman Milthorne to address the remaining citizens of Melloram about their new status–and wasn’t that just sadness piled on sadness there. Tilly felt genuinely bad for those folk, who had never asked for any of this but had just gotten swept up in the disasters that had followed Sammy bashing in that stupid lich’s head in.

She hauled her thought processes back into line. The people of Melloram weren’t her lookout. Other people were dealing with that. Her mind was set right here, pushing her Stud Muffin around the dungeon in his wheelchair–that she had done a fantastic job creating, though she said it herself–and making sure he didn’t over-exert himself.

Her honey-bunny was noble like that, the big dumb man that he was. Even though he’d been chopped down to her size now, he still tried to haul the wait of the world around on his shoulders.

Sammy was like that too, come to think of it. Her love machine must have rubbed off on him a little.

“I hope Sammy’s okay,” she heard herself whisper. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but there it was.

“He’ll be alright,” Bugruk rumbled in a voice like bedrock as she wheeled him down the corridor at the head of a bunch of her goblins and some gnomes he’d conscripted for the coming task. And his deep voice was strength she could draw from, even if she had plenty of her own to do the same with. It never hurt to have a little more bedrock on your side at times like this. “Sam’s tough. And he’s scrappy. Even if the lich does have him, he’ll get out sooner or later.”

The two of them entered into one of the two Mess Hall rooms on the first floor dungeon. It felt like the absolute worst time to be taking inventory of their remaining food supplies, but that was the task Jack had set before them. A part of her thought it was the absolute dumbest thing they could be doing right now. The part of her that itched to let loose her crowd-control skills was practically screaming at her that she should summon up Elmer and Beauregard and the rest of her buzz-saw elemental companions and go stomp on up to the lich’s capital and reduce him and all his friends to red paste and fine-grain powder. And then have her boys rip down his fortress to the foundation. Then have the seismages reduce that to gravel. Then salt the fucking earth and burn it so that nothing ever–

She must have started talking out loud at some point, because suddenly Bugruk’s big hand came up to cover hers, and she closed her mouth and bowed her head forward until her forehead was resting against the single brain sprouting from the back of her lover’s otherwise-bald head.

“Sorry Lover,” she murmured. “Not used to being on the back foot like this.”

“Annie and Jack are smart folk,” Bugruk rumbled after a couple seconds. “They know what they’re doing.”

“Are they?” The question came from one of the goblins trailing them along, and Tilly’s head snapped around to–Oh. He was one of the new ones. Not one of her boys. He was one of Coras, spawned recently and dumb as bricks apparently.

“I’ve heard stories from your crew of Mad Jack and Crusher Annie,” the brick continued in a spirited attempt at suicide. “Those two would have stomped out of this dungeon and carved their initials into every undead between here and Phyrexes to get the boss back. Old One-eye and Annie… Feels like they might be missing a step, here.”

Tilly opened her mouth to roast the brick, but her lover’s hand tightened around hers in warning, and she blinked in surprise as he stopped the wheelchair and spun around to face the goblin.

“You’re supposed to be smarter than that,” Bugruk said, spearing the goblin with his black eyes. “So why don’t you tell me why it’s a good idea to keep us busy,” Bugruk commanded after a moment.

The goblin blinked, suddenly looking much less sure of himself. Especially as his fellows started to edge away from him, probably because they were worried about the splash damage.

“Uh,” he started, then clammed up.

Her honey bunny jabbed a green finger at the smaller man. “Come on. Tell me why Annie and Jack have us checking provisions, Skeef. I’ve seen your work, I know you’ve got gray matter between those pointy ears. Start exercising it.”

“Ooh, ooh, I know,” said a gnome, emerging from the larder with another sack of beans over his shoulder. “Pick me!”

“Shut up, you,” Bugruk growled, still glaring at Skeef.“Come on boy,” he said, and something in his growly voice must have finally got through Skeef’s thick head.

“Because,” he said slowly, like he was testing the taste of the words as they passed his teeth, “we can’t go after Boss and the others right now ‘cause we can’t control the dungeon yet, and so they’re giving us stuff to do to make us feel useful and in control while we wait for our lich to wake back up and help us figure out how to steer a mountain?”

“Close,” Tilly said, picking up the narrative like a good partner was supposed to. “It’s also because this stuff needs to be done. Too much shit has flown out of the crapper, we need to regroup and figure out where our baselines are before we start forward again.”

“Exactly, Gorgeous,” Bugruk said, his smile just as full of teeth as Tilly’s as he reached back and grabbed the little goblin woman’s hand in his own.

Skeef seemed like he was going to disagree, his eyes narrowing and his mouth opening… Before he finally slumped and just nodded. “I know. I know all that. But…”

“But it doesn’t make it easier,” Bugruk nodded. “I know.”

And that was it right there, Tilly knew. He did know. Bugruk had been the foreman for Tolliver’s Dungeoneers, the best dungeon building company on the continent. He knew about logistics and stuff, but more importantly he knew how to keep people moving and to get the absolute best out of them no matter what.

And as she considered Skeef, she saw the panic and anger flaring behind his eyeballs, and knew that her love dove was right. Right to keep them moving, right to confront the gob like he’d done.

“Okay,” the goblin said, drawing himself up, and as he did the others seemed to straighten up out of a slump Tilly hadn’t even noticed until now. “Okay, I can do this. For Boss. For Cora and Sally too. For what we can eventually do for them. I can do this.”

“Attaboy,” Bugruk said. “Now go get me a count of how much perishable stuff we’ve got in the larders.”

“Yes sir!” the goblin saluted and darted up and towards the larder.

Yeah, Tilly thought, smiling as she watched her man settle back into his role as leader. Do this, so that when the time came they’d know they had what they needed to march to Phyrexes and kick that lich bastard’s teeth out the back of his possibly-non-existent butthole.

It was a good thing her man was here, that was for damn sure. He was always so calm and collected. Nothing rattled him!

===============

The best thing about tusks, Bugruk thought as he fought to keep his roiling belly calm, was that no one could tell when you were grimacing just because it was your normal expression or when you were grimacing because you were seriously in danger of losing your shit.

“Here’s the last one, boss,” the gnome, who’s name Bugruk vaguely recalled as being Archibald or Aristotle or some such, said as he exited the larder. “No more beans under this particular mountain unless the kobolds have a secret stash somewhere.”

“Damn,” Bugruk rumbled, his great brows furrowing, watching as his small crew of ‘orcish volunteers’--Come help us or sacrifice your kneecaps for the cause–-stacked and tallied the provisions within.

I was afraid of that, went his inner grumble. Stands to reason. You yank a house off its foundations and move it to another section of the yard, can’t exactly expect the plumbing to still work.

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“You’ve got your ‘problem’ face on again, lover.” The voice was Tilly’s, at her usual place slightly behind and to the side of his wheelchair, ready to push him wherever he might desire to go despite the fact that he had two perfectly good arms with which to propel the contraption. But try telling her that.

He had. It hadn’t worked.

“Is it really all that bad? I mean,” the buxom goblin woman nodded at the stacks of foodstuffs the gnomes were hauling out, “it looks like we’ve got tons in reserve. That’ll keep us for a good while, won’t it?”

Bugruk looked down at his notes—which already filled up almost a quarter of the ledger Pearl had gifted to him last year. The numbers were…

Hm.

Open to interpretation, was one way of putting it.

On paper, we’re solid. He thought to himself as his dark eyes tracked down the page again. At least with the food. And at least for the dungeon. He’d gotten another report just a few minutes ago that was a tally of all the mouths to feed inside the dungeon itself—although it had been listed as ‘supply reserves’. He remembered Sam mentioning something about a supply counter back in the early days of the dungeon… Sounded important. He’d need to have a sit-down talk with Cora about it–shit.

He drew in a deep breath through his nose and let it out again, pushing some of the foul energies rocking in his gut out with it, hopefully.

“Maybe,” he rumbled in response to Tilly, tapping one column of figures. “Dungeon’s good, but we need to check in on the town too. See what their reserves look like.”

And, come to think of it, if they count towards our ‘supply’ counter thing, or if they’re not connected to the dungeon like that.

He really needed to talk to Cora–shit.

Breathe in, breathe out. Keep it together, Buggs.

Bugruk twisted and tried to manuever his wheelchair closer to one of the tables now stacked high with provender, and discovered that he didn’t have enough hands to make the movement work. He growled and tried to set his pencil and paper down on his lap, and growled louder when they slid off to the floor as he tried to grip the wheels.

“I got you, babe,” Tilly said quietly, bending down to retrieve them—and then staying bent over for at least a three-count longer than needed and looking up cheekily to see if Bugruk was getting the offered eyeful.

He was. He just wasn’t in a mood to appreciate it.

“Thanks Til,” he said, glowering. “Damn thing’s a menace.”

He was referring, of course, to the wheelchair contraption the goblins had made for him out of whatever bits and scraps they’d found laying around. It was comfortable, he’d give them that much. But with both his legs gone above the knee, it was his only method of ambulation short of dragging himself bodily across the floor—and the way the damn thing cornered made him seriously consider that at least twice a day.

“Beats the alternative, Love,” Tilly said, jiggling a bit before straightening up. “Besides, have I told you how much easier it is to do this now that you’re my height?” and she leaned in to give him a kiss full on the mouth like the shameless hussy she was and would always admit to being.

But damn he missed being able to sweep her up in his arms like before.

Come on Shieldbiter, he chastised himself as the kiss broke away. Get it together. You’ve got a job to do, and whining about being two feet shorter isn’t going to do anyone any good.

Heh. Two ‘feet’ shorter. I gotta remember that when Sam gets back–

Shit.

Breathe in, breathe out. Try to ignore the way your hands keep twitching for the handles of your axes. Try to ignore the storm in your gut that wants you to tear into living flesh, any flesh, until the fear and uncertainty fade to a soothing red.

“Ahem.” The tactful throat-clearing came from Archibald or whatever. The gnome was standing there, holding a clipboard, tugging his long eyebrows and trying not to watch as Tilly straightened up with her customary leer on her face.

“Final totals,” the gnome said, shoving the clipboard at Bugruk while very obviously trying not to stare at the goblin. “Thanks to the chief’s building spree before he got—Before he disappeared, we’ve got a lot in the stores. Couple months at least, looks to me.”

Bugruk took the clipboard and ran his pencil tip down the columns.

“Looks right to me,” he said after a moment.

“But?” Tilly asked, coming around to stand beside him. “Come on lover, I know those eyebrows of yours. They’ve got their own language. What’s got you frowning like you just blew out your pants in the middle of the showroom floor?”

That was an image. Trust Tilly to find the most scatological comparison possible. At least she hadn’t made it about his johnson this time.

This time.

“If the provisions aren’t coming in, what else has stopped?” he said, meeting his lover’s eyes. “I don’t understand half of how this place works, not like Sam did. Does. But if one piece isn’t working, what else has gone wrong?”

“Gimme a ‘for instance’.”

“For instance, can the dungeon still spawn in new mobs?”

Can we bring the rest of the crew back, he didn’t say. From the look on Tilly’s face, she understood exactly what he was getting at.

When Cora had first awoken, she had brought an earthquake with her that had swallowed up all of Tolliver’s Dungeoneers, killing most of them but somehow also capturing who they were and adding them to her dungeon spawn tables. With enough essence and mineral wealth, she could respawn them as unique mobs and bring the people he’d worked with for nearly a decade back to life. She’d been making good progress on it too. Tilly, for instance, was a recent re-spawn, and Bugruk was already feeling more at-ease now that the gobliness was back making his life alternately miserable and very very enjoyable indeed.

“Oh.” She blinked a couple of times. “Well shit. I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Yeah,” Bugruk said, trying to edge his wheelchair closer to the larder door but being foiled by the nearby table and bench. “Probably not alone in that.”

“Can’t hardly blame them. Things have been happening fast.”

“I’ve noticed,” he grunted.

Fast. That was a charming understatement. In the space of a month he’d gone from the foreman of a dungeon construction company with two working legs to a cog in an eternity-old war machine faced off against gods and devils and liches and ancient monsters, and coordinating it from the wheelchair that was the only way he could get around now.

It was not the path he’d imagined his life taking.

“Alright,” he said to the gnomes and goblins under his command, “get this stuff stored again. Good work. Next up is craftables and weapon stores, so keep moving.”

“Sure thing, boss,” probably-Archibald bobbed his bright orange head. “Come on gnomes, let’s shift some sacks!”

Tilly stood away from his chair as Bugruk tried to turn it away from the table. He managed to drop his clipboard twice more just backing it out, and when a sharper-than-anticipated turn slammed his armwrest into the edge of a table, some of the storm came loose. He barked out an orcish curse and slammed his fist full-on onto the table, which splintered and cracked under the blow like he’d just hit it with an axe. The gnomes froze for a moment, then quickly went back to their work as if nothing had happened.

Except for the glances they kept shooting his way.

“Sorry,” he said to the room at large and Tilly in particular as she moved closer to him. “Sorry. Just not used to this thing yet.”

Probably never get used to it, he thought darkly.

That darkness invaded his mind every time he ran out of things to do, things to steal his focus away from the fact that after fifty years on this earth, after gaining thirty five levels first as an adventurer next to Jack and Annie Tolliver and then as the foreman on Jack’s crew, after regularly being the biggest badass in whatever room he happened to walk into… After all that, a random happenstance had left him perfectly crippled.

The earthquake Sam had accidentally started when he attacked the lich king in the dungeon tunnels had resulted in a cave-in that by all rights should have killed him—and maybe it would have been better if it had. He would have just wound up on Cora’s spawn lists, another dungeoneer Sam would have had to spend essence and minerals to respawn just like his parents and the rest of the crew.

But no. He’d avoided death, only to have both his legs crushed off by a falling slab of rock. And until they found a high-tier healer with all the right spells—and wasn’t that looking less and less likely by the day—and enough gold to pay their fee, he was going to be stuck like this.

And that realization made him want to break things every time he came back around to it. Part of him wanted to break Sam. The idiot kid who’d made the dumbass decision that had put him in this fucking chair… But even as the darkness roiled up he pushed back against it. The kid couldn’t have known. And besides, he was a friend. He’d never have wished this on Bugruk, not in a million years.

Didn’t make it any easier, though.

He felt Tilly’s hand on his shoulder, and he brought his own up to give hers a squeeze. Having Tilly around made it easier. The woman was fire and heat and nineteen kinds of passion and love and when she turned it on him it was like getting hit with a million-degree blast from a firehose.

He leaned back in the chair and let her take over pushing him. It was something she liked to do, and he was done trying to do it himself in this damned cramped room. Sam was a good kid and he had a hell of a mind on his shoulders, but he sort of missed the ball when it came to making his dungeon handicap-accessible.

“Here’s the craftables list, boss!”

Bugruk opened his eyes just as another gnome–this one probably not named Archibald flitted up to him, waving a sheaf of papers around. The papers were haphazardly stacked and stapled together, and even from here he could see that at least two pages were upside down.

Pearl would have a fit. The little glowbug was the best paper-pushed he’d ever seen. It was half the reason he’d encouraged Jack to hire her in the first place. That gnome was lucky she wasn’t around or–Shit.

Breath deep. Push back the dark. Breathe out.

“Thanks,” he grunted, reaching out a hand. She deposited the papers into it, then stepped back, looking first at his hand, then glancing down at where his legs had been, then over to Tilly.

“Sure thing,” she murmured. “I know it ain’t great. I’ll do better next time.”

The storm inside him quieted a bit, his lips curl up in a smile despite the darkness. “Thatta girl. Now, how ‘bout you go help your friends figure out what the weapon situation is?”

“Sure!” The gnome lass puffed out her chest fiercely. “We gotta keep working so that when we get the chance we can go and stuff King Boney’s head up his skeletal butt for lichnapping Sam!”

“Point of order,” said the other gnome from somewhere back in the pile of supplies, “the noun is dependant on the victim, not the aggressor. So technically he’s been bossnapped.”

The first gnome made a face. “That sounds stupider than mine.”

“I don’t make the rules,” the voice said, somehow managing to convey a shrug.

“Well I do, and I’m saying he was Lichnapped, so there!”

“Who said you get to make the rules?”

“Your mom, that’s who!”

“My mom’s a saint, you leave her out of this!”

“Get me out of here,” Bugruk rumbled to Tilly.

“You got it, lover,” she laughed and pushed him towards the door.

======================================

The gnome who was not named Archibald but in fact Archimedes Wiltinghouse Goldingtonbottomsley watched the goblin woman wheel the crippled orc out of the mess hall even as two of his fellows came out of the maze of stacked tables to stand beside him.

“What do you think,” he asked.

“I think it sucks,” Karennifer, his sister, said as she stroked her sideburns. “You see how clunky that thing is? Jebediah could build a better one, and he’s not even popped his sideburns yet.

“I hear a bunch of goblins built it for him,” Bradfortnight said, frowning like thunder. “Trust a goblin to figure out a way to keep a fighting man on his butt for the rest of his life.”

“Sherrilegend says he’s a good guy,” Archimedes said thoughtfully. “Says it’s a shame what happened and wouldn’t it be nice if we could do something for him.”

“Chief got the shops set up before he disappeared,” Karennifer said, her tone now matching her brothers’. “And we know the mana forge works. Else we wouldn’t have had the batteries to sink this place.”

“You all thinking what I’m thinking?” Asked Bradfortnight. His grin soon matched the ones that appeared on his siblings’ faces.

“Class project,” all three of them said at the same time.

“I’ll get the coffee started,” Archimedes said.

“I’ll get the drafting tools,” Karennifer said.

“I’ll get his measurements,” Bradfortnight said.

“Better watch out for his sweety. If she thinks you’re coming on to him, she’ll cut your nuts off,” Archimedes warned.

“I’ll be the perfect gentleman,” Bradfortnight sniffed. “Besides, he’s not my type. Too short.”

“Let’s see if we can change that. Meet back here in ten minutes,” Karennifer said.

They scattered.