Ozzy might have woken up in worse places, but right now he couldn't quite remember one.

Everything hurt. His right eye was swollen shut, and the other just barely opened. Without night vision, he doubted if he could even see anything. He was lying on his back, which gave him a view of the rocky ceiling above him. It looked to be rough-hewn rock, like a mine tunnel. Water dripped down from its uneven surface. Turning his head hurt, but he managed it. The left side of the room had a crude wooden stool, some broken wood, chains, and several buckets filled with bloody rags. A low table held an odd assortment of saws, shears, chisels, and knives.

He wondered if he was in a hospital or a torture chamber. Trying to roll he found that he couldn't. His wrists and upper arms were restrained with chains. Heavy rope and leather bands held his chest in place. There was a foul taste in his mouth, but when he went to spit, he found a thick wooden stick in his mouth. He couldn't move his legs. He couldn't even feel his legs. Yep, torture chamber, and they knew their stuff. Time to see how tough these restraints were.

[FAILURE! You cannot use the skill: Push Onward. Insufficient Stamina. Maybe catch a nice long nap and try again later?]

He tried to bring up his status and character sheet to find a clue.

[Current Status: Grievously wounded, restrained, gagged, minor bleeding, crippled, acid burned, weak, and confused. You are under the effects of drugs that have paralyzed your legs.

Current Health: Low enough we don't want to worry you. But you gained a point in the last few minutes!

Current Stamina: 0 and you are suffering a magical effect that drains your stamina.

Current Mana: 0 and you are suffering a magical effect that drains your mana.]

Heavy footsteps could be heard coming from his right side. Whoever it was, they weren't in a hurry. Turning his head, he saw the dwarf come into his limited view, packing a heavy leather bag in one hand. There was a splint on his left forearm and both eyes were blackened from his broken nose. "Awake, are you? Guess the screaming might increase just a wee bit then. Don't worry about it, won't bother me. I've heard a lot of screams before. If you get annoying, I’ll just stuff something in my ears.

Ozzy strained against the ropes and tried to talk. The dwarf walked over to the bloody cloth on the floor, found a relatively clean bit, and tore off two chunks before stuffing them in his ears. "No use talking, I'm not listening. Waste of time. Oh, and the same for trying to get loose. Learned my lesson some time ago. Got you weak as a kitten now and tied down like rib roast about to go in the oven. I made the mistake of thinking ropes could hold you down and earned myself a punch that flattened my beautiful nose for taking the trouble of caring for you. Not letting you do that again!"

The dwarf bent down to his bag and pulled out tools one by one, setting them on the stool. The first was a long butcher knife. He took time to sharpen it with a whetstone. "My mama always told me to work with a sharp knife. Less likely to cut yourself." The next was a short bone-saw. "This you are probably familiar with, being a butcher. Good for making chops and steaks. These are the most useful things though; you would not believe how much I use them." The third tool was a pair of blacksmith tongs. "Easier to get a good grip on bits you need to remove and tug out."

To his surprise, the next item from the bag was a large, white pepper, over a foot long and very narrow. The dwarf used tons to hold it, and picked up the bone saw. "Might want to close your eyes and try not to breathe for a minute. If it stings, bite down on the stick in your mouth. That's Ironwood, you can't chew through it."

Ozzy did as he suggested and after the sound of sawing, his exposed skin started burning. The dwarf was grumbling. "Told Lem they were hot enough already, but no, he had to cross my finest Ghost Pepper with some damned plant he bought from a kobold pyromancer. This variety is almost too hot to eat but makes for a damned fine wound cleaner. Ok, all done, you can open your eyes."

Ozzy carefully opened his one working eye and took a breath. He could see that the pepper was cut into strips. Makken was putting the pieces in a clay jar and sealing it tight. "The seeds are the worst. But I want to plant a new batch where we were pulling up weeds. If anything can kill horseradish, it will be these monsters. Now, this part you won't like. You have a lot of wounds and they've been infected with itsy-bitsy pieces of that critter you ground up under my water wheel. Can't take the chance that one of them sprouts inside you. That would be a bad thing. Need to burn out the wounds so they heal well."

He pulled off the bloody bandages on Ozzy's chest and tossed them into the half-filled bucket. Then rubbed the pepper on the wounds. The pepper juice burned worse than dying in the burning barn. He nearly bit through the stick in his mouth.

"Yeah, no one likes that. Try not to cry like a toddler, it embarrasses me. Just need to clean the wounds so you don't get infected. Need to keep you around awhile for some more fun and games."

He grabbed a jug from the floor.

"Time for a bit of 'medicine' I think." He upended the jug and poured the contents over Ozzy's chest. The Butcher felt the pain recede.

"Healing potion, made in bulk from an old family recipe. Tastes like crap, so he found away to make it work from the outside. My pappy came up with this. He was a genius at this stuff. That should keep you alive until the next round. But where are my manners? You're probably curious. Here, take a look."

The dwarf produced a small mirror and held it up for Ozzy to see. His torso was a mass of healing cuts, stitches, bruises, and contusions. His legs looked worse. "You can see why I numbed you. Your legs got the worst of it. Don't worry, after I treat them with pepper juice and the topical healing concoction, I've got some foul-tasting regeneration potions upstairs. Mama always said, "The worse it tastes, the better it is for you. That was bullshit, of course, she was just a lousy cook. But her potions are powerful."

Ozzy wasn't sure how long he lay there before he passed out again.

======

Despite doing everything he could to finish the shell of the new building on schedule. Sedgewick had surprises in store for Jorges. The stone had been the big problem, specifically, getting the stone to where it needed to go. He'd come to rely on Ozzy to help move the big slabs. The Butcher was a huge help when it came to picking up the stones and putting them in place, but he was AWOL for two days. The other problem was the wagons. There just weren't enough wagons and draft horses. ACME only had a few, and he couldn't just run off somewhere and buy more. The heavy wagons were wearing out faster with the high-tonnage loads and unimproved roads. A proper road to the quarry was next on his list. He'd accepted that it would take closer to three weeks to get the basics done and the rooms on the second floor built finished to the point where people could move in and work on them.

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Timber and stone accumulated near the building site and they began the process of clearing away the dirt and loose stones so that a proper foundation could be laid, along with digging out the basement that would be under the courtyard. They'd only gone down six feet when they hit stone. Not natural stone that they would have to dig out with picks, but broken stone ranging from large slabs like he needed for the walls to small broken chunks the size of your fist. All packed down with a layer of dirt on top and ashes below that. Then more layers of large stones. It was like a city had been destroyed, bulldozed flat, and then covered up by time. A few test holes showed that some of the area was filled in, and other places were long solid walls that had probably been foundations. These walls were made of massive pieces of stone many times bigger than what he needed. He changed plans when he found those. After a quick survey, the building plans changed to use these existing foundations for the new building, making it slightly larger. This saved time and gave him a nearby supply of stone for everything else he needed.

On a hunch, he took a tour of the town, this time looking at the stonework on all the buildings. A full three-quarters of the existing buildings were made partly or completely out of similar stone, as were many of the rock walls around the fields. The town was built on top of some ancient ruins. This might explain why there was a dungeon underneath the tavern. He mentioned that to everyone, as a precaution. There might be more surprises waiting below.

The exterior walls went up fast. The basement area ended up being over 15 feet deep as they kept taking out more and more stone. Finally, they hit the bottom when they discovered a layer of solid stone blocks. Massive paving stones made up this floor, over 8 feet on a side. That's where they stopped. Eventually, the huge area would be separated into smaller rooms. But for now, it was left with what remained of the original walls and newly constructed supports holding up the first-floor crossbeams. These were massive things, nearly whole trees, brought using two wagons and both teams hitched to the front. These supports, in turn, held up the flooring made of 6"x12" wooden beams. Since plenty of stone was available, a layer of paving stones was put down on top of the wood, covering the area that would be an open courtyard.

What made Jorges happy though, was being able to do a proper gatehouse. The gatehouse needed to be two and half times as tall as the gate, so there was room for the portcullis to be raised into it. It was less useful in a world of magic and monsters, but still good protection from bandits and goblins. Both of which they had a lot of nearby. He didn't have the iron for a classic barred portcullis, but they could get by with one made from hardwood and ending in iron-covered spikes. Jorges pushed everyone as hard as he could and the workers responded by putting in sixteen and twenty-hour days. There was a lot of enthusiasm for trading a crowded grass hut for more spacious wooden apartments. It helped that they all remembered the night the Daemon had rampaged through the huts. No one questioned the value of living in a small fortress. It was doubtful they could have worked any harder, even if they'd have known the contents of the scroll Ben had delivered.

====

Billy took the scroll Ben handed to him and unrolled it. His language was both colorful, loud, and brief.

"Oh screw me!! SHIT! No meeting today, get to work, no one bothers me for rest of the day." And then he logged out of the game.

With a hiss of escaping air, Billy's pod opened and he carefully stepped out. He dressed quickly, downed two painkillers, and grabbed a bottle of beer. Then he punched in Vernon’s number. Not getting through he used the code for emergencies. Vernon's face appeared within 30 seconds. "What's going on Billy, that needs me personally, offline, and on emergency code?"

"Sedgewick is under attack. Famco declared war on ACME. The stakes are Sedgewick, the dungeon, and the city. They put up some copper mines nearby that somehow have a similar value to all of that."

Vernon seemed unsurprised and very smug. "Not too hard to see the value. They're pulling out high-value copper ore and loot from the graves they keep finding. It's like a profitable mini-dungeon without the problems. You've got a dungeon and something that might never get unsealed. A mine with metals could be very profitable this early on. That will be nice to have. We can send Sammy down and convert his crew to miners and metal smiths; this will be a nice addition to what we have going."

"Except we have a war to win first, Vernon."

Vernon seemed way too at ease. "Tut tut, my boy. I've told you old Uncle Vernon has these things handled. Do you think I would forget how several of those thieves operate? They'd rather steal the markets we create than do their own work. Nothing unexpected and nothing I haven't planned for. Famco is right on my schedule. I've got the best two hundred mercenaries that money can rent near your area. They are undercover, well-supplied, and ready to go. I've had them moving up unseen through the densely forested areas since they came in with the beta wave. They cost ACME a pretty penny of real-world dollars but they'll be the key to taking that profitable area from Famco.

"Great to hear that, Vern. Send them on in and I'll deploy them around town." Billy would feel better when they were under his command and not Vern’s.

Vernon shook his head. "No, not so fast. I don't want to let Famco know that we're prepared for them. They might back out of the deal. I'm sending you some more mercenaries I'm going to hire today and put out calls for more. I want Famco to see me scrambling to fill out a force of 250. Then, right before the start of the war, we pay off most of them, send them packing, and activate our real troops. If Famco sees us with a bunch of ill-equipped idiots, they won’t try so hard. I'm going to enjoy the look of surprise on their faces."

Billy didn't like it, but Vernon was writing his paycheck. His only option was to go over his head to the Board, and he knew that would fail. "Fine, I'll start getting things done on my end. Please, please make sure those guys are ready to go, Vern. You know I trust you, but my ass is hanging out here."

"Understood, Billy. I'll check in tonight and give them the order to move in close to you on the day the war starts. They'll be there two hours ahead of time. Famco will shit themselves, but won't be able to call it all off."

Vernon signed off and started making plans for opening up the new copper mine. He almost forgot to send out the message.

"This is Uncle V confirming your location."

"Confirming location: Two clicks from some ruins, about three clicks from the village. Orders?"

"Hold tight and undercover. Consider today Day 1. On Day 8, move into the village by 10:00 AM. Coordinate with friendly locals and be prepared to engage hostiles."

"Confirming that Uncle V. Hold until Day 8, support locals, nuke the hostiles."

The confused Captain looked down at the village full of lizard-like creatures and wondered how to tell the friendlies from the hostiles. Guess they'll find out.