"Well George, are you happy now?"

Bob flicks off his hood and glances at the dog. George is lying nonchalantly a couple paces back, licking his paw.

"Are you happy now? Do you respect your master."

George barks.

"And don't you forget it."

Bob waves a hand at the space next to him, "now, George, what about that camping chair." Pop, the chair materializes already unfolded.

"Thank you kindly," Bob ruffles the dog's head in thanks, as he turns the chair to face the ramparts and sits down.

George interprets the action as permission to "borrow" Bob's dead. He bounces up and bounds off to continue corpse collecting.

"George, do the corpses stack or something? How are you able to fit so much in your storage space? Surely it can't be infinite."

George doesn't answer. The mystery of the golden retriever is one of profound and limitless depth.

Bob was worn out. Yes he'd mostly been resting a couple feet under the mud, directing Harry via his mud sense. But the sustained concentration required, not to mention the continual adrenaline rush, really sapped away at the body's resources. It wasn't mana shortage. Manipulating Harry was highly mana-efficient. The only big-ticket spells had been submerging himself and that beetle who'd run off with his knife. No, Bob's brain was the limiting factor. Dare I say it, intelligence.

Truth be told however, did he really have to tell the truth, did anyone, lies were comfortable and comforting, but truth be told, the fight had been a closer thing than it might have appeared to the beetle spectators. They probably concluded he'd been in no danger throughout, the master of the fight from start to bloody end, but that was far from the truth. The whole show had been one of near misses and lucky chances.

For example, that mud-scythe idea had been an absolute shot in the dark. Just between you and me, Bob had been on the verge of abandoning the strategy entirely after Harry had dropped the knife twice in a row. Imagine if that had happened mid-fight; it might have been a disaster. He and Harry would have to work on their grip strength later.

And that wasn't even getting into the fact that Bob had very nearly been kebabbed. Yes he wasn't exaggerating. Kebabbed is the appropriate verb. One of those beetles had seemed to sniff out where his hiding and had stabbed its horn down straight at him. Thankfully he wasn't beetle shaped and the horn had penetrated between Bob's legs, only an inch below the family jewels. He'd quickly gutted the animal and then did his best to hide under the corpse. But talk about grotesque. Yes there was a layer of mud between himself and the body, but Bob could sense through mud. He knew what was lying over him.

He'd gotten lucky at other points as well. The beetles weren't stupid, but they weren't smart either. They hadn't caught on to the fact that he could only sense through the mud and didn't have some all-seeing eye on the battlefield. If the one beetle hadn't flown directly up, Bob never would have been able to bring it down. And if that other beetle hadn't flown low enough to the ground that its flight disturbed the mud, Bob never could have figured out its trajectory.

Thankfully perceptions become reality. Nobody had to know how chancy and all-over-the-place the battle had really been. Bob would keep those truths locked up in his head. And he'd tell a grand story if somebody asked: I, the mud magician, alone, without my weapon, stood facing down a horde of giant beetles, I raised up my hand and... You get the picture.

Ok. Bob had sat for a couple minutes. He'd had some water. He went to the bathroom (he'd conjured up a little privacy mud screen). His mana was replenished. His spirits were restored. He had a couple notifications pending. But you only get to play video games when you've finished all your homework. And there was a lot of beetle-work still to do.

"George, what'd you say we get back to our side project, you know," he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, "beetle genocide."

Bark!

"Attaboy."

Bob rose up from his chair and nodded to the dog, who popped the chair away into his inventory. That never got old. Bob wished he had his own inventory and didn't have to rely on the mercurial golden retriever. The grass is always greener... Those grass walls really were green weren't they? Like a striking, vivid green. It was much more dramatic than the grey stone of European fortresses.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"You know I almost feel sorry for them George," he indicated at their finely crafted grasswork, "it's truly impressive what they've built here. A city in the grasslands. I mean, it's miles better than my cruddy settlement. And we, unfortunate souls, are forced, by circumstance, against our will, to burn the whole thing down. It makes you tear up boy doesn't it?"

The dog barked with a grin on its face.

"George, I'm not sure you're reading the room right. This is the sad moment. Put on a sad face."

George barked excitedly.

"Yep that's the face of a mass-murdering dog alright. That's our George. Well whatever, it was always going to come to this in the end."

Bob and George walked together up to the wall, watched by hundreds of beetle eyes from the ramparts above. The gallery made no aggressive moves. They didn't seem to have any ranged attacks and they'd given up on foraying out. The ritual slaughtering of their best company had been a hard lesson for the animals. They had walls so why not use them. Smart, yes, stupid, yes. Hadn't they seen George in action?

It was a tragedy for the little creatures. Bob couldn't help being reminded of the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, cough, the big bad golden retriever. The moral was perfectly clear: sometimes life and death comes down to simple Material Engineering. Sure grass is a noble material. It's renewable, highly versatile, wonderful insulating properties; I mean, it's aesthetic, just look at these emerald walls, those are the structures you write poems about. Aesthetic and flammable.

"George, you want to do the honors."

Bark, confusion, realization, pop, a stick dropped at Bob's feet.

"George, either you're making fun of me, or your level of conversational comprehension is much lower than I have been assuming."

Bob picked up the stick and pretended to throw it into the distance. George ran after it, slowed, looked around, looked around some more, got bored, looked back, saw the stick, rushed back and popped it out of Bob's hand. Yeah very much still a dog. Was Bob being mean? Maybe. Was the sadness of thinking you've lost a thing greater than the happiness felt upon finding again? Who can say? Dogs can't talk after all.

"Ok George. I see you need the thing done properly. Half of me believes you just enjoy going through the whole sequence. But you win. I'll play along."

Bob stepped closer to the wall and turned to face his charge. He straightened himself up and extended his index finger:

"Sit!" George pulled himself up into the canine's classic posture.

"Shake," Bob leaned forward to hold his left hand for George to grasp, whoosh, out of the corner of Bob's eye, he saw a black shadow streak over his head, instinctively backing away, he tripped forward, just as two other black points erupted into the space behind him.

He felt a sharp pain in his lower back. "I've been hit, I've been hit, those confounded rascals," he moaned as he crawled frantically away, only turning after he'd put five good paces between himself and the wall. The wall with three black beetle horns protruding ominously out of it.

"George, what's it look like?" Bob pulled up his cloak and shirt, as George nosed forward and gave the cut a salty lick.

"Don't lick it George. Stupid dog."

It hurt terribly, terribly, like the end of the world was coming, or wait, did it, it actually didn't feel that bad; yeah it hardly hurt at all. Bob managed to get a hand around his back and there was barely any blood. Only a pin-prick, a mere scratch. Bob already felt better. He probably didn't even need a health patch. That didn't stop him from slapping one on just in case. Do you think these patches are mildly addictive? How many had Bob gone through in the last week?

Bob sat up and started to describe his heroism to George. "George, did you see my dodge there? Practically psychic. It was like I knew, without knowing, that the attack was going to come. And you saw how calm and determined I was, despite suffering serious injury."

George ignored Bob and snarled at the wall.

"You're right George. I agree entirely. That was extremely rude. And you remember I almost felt sorry for the creatures. George, I think it's time we taught them how weaknesses work."

The beetles had retracted their horns and Bob glared at the holes in the wall. Wait a moment, I'll be able to see what it's like inside the fort. Bob started to walk forward, planning to put an eye on that hole. Bob, what's wrong with you? You know there's a beetle standing on the other side of the hole ready to horn you. Do you want to get eye horned? Good point. Was that a pun? Does it matter Bob? Something about a peep-hole demands peeping, but Bob controlled the impulse. Bob would get a good look inside after they're roughed up these walls.

"Ok George, sit." The dog sat.

"Shake." The dog shook.

"Lie Down. Roll Over." The dog lay down and rolled over.

"Wait." The dog waited.

"Fire." The dog unleashed the fires of hells, in a black and ret jet of molten energy that bathed itself over the grass wall in a beam of condensed fire.

Bob stepped back horrified. No matter how many times you saw the attack, somehow you couldn't get used to its sheer destructive qualities. George was an ally, but Bob still felt himself quaking in his boots. How did those beetles on top of the walls feel?

As every respectable gamer knows, grass is weak to fire. AKA the first truth of material engineering. The walls incinerated like crumpled up paper. Flames danced along the structure, eating their way from panel and panel, licking over the ramparts and spitting up columns of black smoke. The emerald island was transformed into a sea of blistering flames, into a hellscape of crumbling structures. The beetles buzzed left and right, some losing their way in the smoke and crashing down in to the fires, but most retreated back deeper into the fort.

Bob and George waited. Bob clicked his tongue impatiently. "Come on. Come on. "It didn't take long. In two minutes the mighty gateway was a pile of smoldering ash. In two minutes the labor of a thousand creatures was melted away, dust before the wind. The Visigoths had come for Rome. And Rome was not ready for them. The end of an empire. Barbarians at the gate. The mud magician, face masked in his dark cloak, stepped over the threshold and into the eternal city.