"Boss?" It was Femur still outside with the work crew.

Stew gave Smittee's instructions a quick tweak then swapped to Femur's head. The first thing he noticed was that sunset had come outside and the workmen were gathered around cookpots for their evening meals. To the goblin's eyes, the work area was well illuminated by the fading glow from the sky and torchlight, and the crew had made impressive progress.

The second thing he noticed was a hulking figure, nearly as tall as a tree, talking to Raek and Theus at the edge of the torchlight. The newcomer had grayish skin, massive hands, and a face that was all nose. He was dressed in animal skins and carried a huge club.

Rather than panicking or drawing weapons and charging, the guards and workers seemed fine with the visitor.

"Who is that?" Stew asked.

"Nobody I know," Femur scratched an ear. "Little fella, though, not as big as a Mountain King. Cave troll, probably."

"Should I send you some golems or wolves for backup?" Stew thought about sending the panthers, but they might be a little too playful to be trusted around so many humans. Maybe he should though, if Raek was about to pull his disappearing trick again.

"You have wolves?" Femur's voice intruded into his train of thought. He was having more and more trouble focusing on the outside world, even his own minions.

"I really need to introduce you to everyone." Stew realized it would be a little difficult to introduce Femur around since it was likely Femur couldn't leave the first floor. Come to think of it, that suggested some interesting implications for how those rules interpreted the domain around a [False Core].

"Boss?" Femur asked again. "Looks like they're coming here instead."

"Oh?" Stew snapped his attention back to what was happening right now. What's wrong with me? He was going to have to make more effort to focus. He had Femur stand up a bit straighter as Raek, Theus, and the Troll approached.

Raek advanced ahead of the others and knelt to meet the goblin at eye level. "May I speak to your patron?"

"I'm here." Stew replied.

"Ah, good." Raek lowered his voice. "Firstly, I want to explain my behavior earlier. I know you're aware I had a quick look around. I had to have some sense of what you weren't telling us. Discovering you were an Incarnate raised some obvious concerns."

Bossy was right. The others had also caught his accidental revelation. No reason he couldn't still play it cool. "You can understand why your behavior raises other questions."

"Please remember I am under contract, and was double so. I couldn't try to harm you if I wanted to, and harming you is the farthest thing from my intentions." He raised his voice again and gestured back at the troll. "We may have desperate need of your help."

Well, that didn't sound good. Those were overtime without pay sorts of words. "How so?"

Theus turned to the troll and nodded. "Tell the goblin, he serves as the eyes and ears of the dungeon."

Femur chose that moment to try to pick his nose, but Stew stopped him just in time and turned it into a, hopefully thoughtful looking, chin rub.

"You're not getting our first born, goblin." The troll's voice was a perfect match for Morgan Freeman, if Morgan Freeman had been twelve feet tall and also a cement mixer.

"We don't make those sorts of deals here," Stew said.

"Fine then." The troll raised one massive arm above his head. "I am Beryl, and what I can offer is strong arms and stronger backs."

Stew felt like he had somehow missed the most important part of this conversation. "In exchange for what?" Should it be obvious to him for some reason?

Beryl looked from Theus to Raek with a questioning look, then turned back to Femur and Stew. "What do you think? We seek sanctuary. We want to join your dungeon."

Stew looked up and further up from Femur's vantage to meet Beryl's gaze. "Who's we?"

A rustle came from the trees and Stew realized the treeline that had seemed so close was actually some distance away. Instead a crowd of trolls of many sizes stood just outside the firelight. Some were as small as humans, and Stew realized these must be children. Some of the adults were half again as tall as Beryl.

Beryl mistook his question for a challenge. He spread his arms and roared. "We are the Long-Toed, the Stretch-Armed, the Mighty-Thewed! We are thunder on the clearest of nights! We are the Deep Folk of Tender Rock Abyss!"

Most of the workmen and guards who had ignored the troll earlier took notice now, stopping what they were doing and staring. It seems that while they had accepted the single troll's presence, they hadn't noticed the other trolls any more than Stew had.

Beryl took a deep breath, his face raised to the night sky, then he lowered his arms and looked back down to Femur, ignoring the silent humans' stares. "We are refugees, tormented and driven from our homes by those foul Helvitian Gauls and their awful new battlemage king, Merlin."

Oh, right. He had meant to ask about that name earlier, but now seemed like a bad time to bring it up. Femur might end up smashed to paste before he could ask any other questions. "And what do you want from me?"

"Are you so cruel that you would make me beg?" Beryl set his club on the ground in front of Femur and lowered himself to one knee. "Fine then." He said again, lowering his head. "I am Beryl, Production Analyst of the Tender Rock Abyss Deep Folk. According to my calculations we have a twenty percent chance of survival if we remain above ground when the Helvetian Honor Horde arrives. This improves to thirty-five percent if we can find a hiding place and may reach as high as forty-five percent if we find protection from a strong ally."

Those were some very low numbers, but Stew couldn't get past the first part. "Did you say Production Analyst?"

Beryl looked up, looking surprisingly sheepish for a giant troll. "Is it so obvious then? I was only First Shift Leader until this year. We lost both our Production Analyst and our Chief Resource Officer to a sneak attack as we crossed the pass. They died bravely that the rest of us might escape. Since, we have found friends here." He looked at Ba'Rush who had come over during the roaring. "But we need stronger allies. I am told that you are the strongest in these soft lands."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Theus stepped forward. "If I may. These are a staunch company of the finest earth mages and builders you will find, and they need to be below ground before Merlin comes, or the Legion for that matter. Neither the Gauls nor the Romans have been kind to the Elder Folk."

"Neither have the Phoenicians or Macedonians, to be fair." Raek added. "We all have debts to the gods."

Beryl let them talk, staring Femur in the eye and saying nothing.

"I can offer you your own level, but I will need a contract from each of you." He shared his updated, standard contract with Beryl.

The troll looked into space for a moment then his eyes grew wide. He turned to Theus. "It's true. You told me, but I thought this was impossible." He turned back to Femur. "An eighteen month renewable contract with a thirty day termination clause? Why are your terms so generous?"

"It's only fair." Stew shrugged Femur's shoulders. "It's what I would want."

Beryl nodded and Stew sent the contract to all of the other trolls. Doing so gave him a count, one hundred eighty-five. It was a good thing he had unlocked all this mana, because the automatic upkeep looked to be one stone per week per troll and one mana per day. He might have to have Big John scout out another stone quarry or see what it would take to upgrade the one he had.

Beryl was the first to accept.

As they signed the contract, the trolls formed a line and walked down the dirt path to the dungeon that would someday be the town's central thoroughfare. The workers and guards all stared silently as they went. He asked Femur and learned that most probably hadn't seen this many trolls in one place before. No one had, they were usually shy and reclusive.

Stew added a stairwell to create a new floor below 5 then shuffled it up to replace 1 as he had before, using the same tricks he had used for the slime level and swamp to turn it into a one acre, bare room – really just a big elevator.

As soon as all of the trolls were in, he swapped the floor down to 6 then moved it again, making this the fourth floor. Now Femur had 1; Eira had 2; the slimes were still 3; the Trolls had 4; Bossy was 5; and the floor he thought of as "his" was now 6.

He made Beryl the level boss and started looking at options.

[Beryl - Level Boss, Unnamed Level]

[Cave Troll - Level 15]

[Production Analyst, Deep Folk of Tender Rock Abyss]

[Mana Cost - 1 / day]

[Stone Cost - 1 / week]

[Health 50/50]

[Agility 4]

[Strength 25]

[Constitution 8]

[Actions: 1/1]

[Action Recharge: 1 / day]

[Special Attack: Reprimand]

[Special Ability: Statistical Modeling and Analysis]

The other trolls ranged from level 1 through 18 with varying stats and abilities like [Stone Weaving], and [Crystal Singing], some were fighters with abilities like [Foe Smash], and [Mountain Fist]. One tall, bald troll named Mythril seemed to be their strongest fighter. She carried a spear taller than herself and had a skill called [Skewer Thief] which would allow her to target any enemy even if they used stealth to hide. That seemed like a handy thing to have after seeing Raek's abilities. Even if he was under contract and couldn't harm the dungeon. Others were bound to have similar skills.

The trolls were looking around at the blank walls and starting to get a little agitated. He doubted anyone called a "Cave Troll" would be claustrophobic, but they were probably worried if this was all the accommodations there were going to get.

He swapped into Beryl's mind, but made sure all of the trolls could hear him. "Let's get started building out your level. I'm assuming you'd like some caves?"

"Yes."

"We would, yes."

"Yes."

Multiple trolls answered, so he tried just asking Beryl, "Who should speak for all of you for how we layout the level? You?"

Beryl seemed shocked. At first, Stew thought it was because he heard Stew in his mind, but Beryl said, "No! Of course not. You should talk to Amethyst, our Structural Engineer."

"Right, sure." Stew looked around until he found an Amethyst, then head-hopped again. "Hi, I'm the dungeon. I wanted to talk to you about what you would like to see in this level."

"You poor thing." Amethyst was a middle-sized troll with short cropped, green hair wearing a sort of bearskin dress with metal loops like barrel hoops for shoulders. "I can see you were nearly destroyed. We'll have our work cut out rebuilding."

Stew was at a loss for words. This was not a reaction he had expected or even understood. "Why do you say I was nearly destroyed?"

"Well I can see you're down to six, tiny levels, and I can feel you generating mana as fast as you can. What was it, a dhole attack?" She straightened, grabbed her shoulder hoops like overalls, and shook her head. "Never you mind, we'll get you straightened out. I'll put our best shapers to work getting some levels dug out."

"I um." Stew wasn't even sure how to answer. "Um thank you. It's really not as bad as it seems. I'm just very. Deliberate. About how I build. Now would you like me to turn this into a cavern?"

"How long will that take?" She asked.

Feeling a little rankled at the assumption that he was on his last legs, Stew showed-off by turning the room into a [Twilight Cavern], extra large.

"Oh!" She spun in place looking around in wonder. "That was fast." She cocked her head. "A little generic, but quite nice for a first attempt, really."

He could hear other trolls oohing and ahhing. It made him feel a little better. "I can do quite a few different styles of rooms." He described some of his options. He was a little guarded at first, afraid of more criticism, but soon realized Amethyst didn't mean it personally and really seemed to know quite a bit about actually building things instead of just poofing them into existence. She pointed out that although the cavern was reinforced by mana it also had some interesting hidden archwork, cleverly concealed by the stalactites. The arches provided tremendous structural strength.

"And, of course once you replace this with reinforced stone it will be even stronger," she added.

"You think I should?" He didn't tell her he hadn't even tried to use the reinforced stone in his menu.

"Of course! This is just a prototype, right? I mean, if you stopped here, some delver would just cut right through your walls, and no dungeon would ever allow that."

"Right, of course." Stew was really glad dungeons couldn't blush.

They talked through some options and settled on a huge [Hidden Vale] with the sky set to a permanent moonlit night in keeping with the theme of the dungeon and the troll's sun allergies. The vale appeared as a deep cleft nestled in the mountains with a forest of hearty evergreens and a trickling stream flowing through it. The stairway from level three entered at one end and the stream disappeared into a cave entrance at the other end. The cave system was a winding, unlit maze, so it would seem to a delver that they entered a cave in the slime level and emerged in this hidden valley under the Moon, only to pass through the mountains via another cave to reach the equally dark plains.

The trolls would live in their own caves through hidden doors off the main caverns.

Stew created the broad strokes with his menu choices, but Amethyst and the trolls with [Stone Weaving] abilities did the amazingly intricate and natural looking finish work. Stew started to see what Amethyst had meant about his first efforts looking generic.

The possibilities had Stew's mind racing. The earth magic was great, sure, and the fighters looked fierce, but trolls like Beryl and Amethyst offered skills he needed even more.

He had literally mindless golems to automate repetitive tasks, and he had controllers to help manage those golems, but they couldn't make decisions, couldn't help him plan, improve. The number of things he was managing right now was a constant drain on his attention.

He was finally starting to see how he might move faster. He had a whole village of trolls that seemed to be experts in middle management.

Afterall, he couldn't watch the horizon with his nose to the grindstone. That belonged on a motivational poster. He should suggest it to Beryl.