There were only two dwarves left when they reached the top of the ravine. No Nose had slipped, made just one mistaken choice of footing, and the rock he was balanced on had given way. They had watched him go sliding down into the waiting swarm of spiders- a thick carpet of crawling limbs covered the cliffside where they had climbed up.

Corris the Broken reached the top first, and held out his hand for the dwarf behind him.

“I think one of them bit me.” The man babbled as Corris helped him up. “I think…” He tried to say something more, and lapsed into silence, breathing hard. His limbs curled in as if he was cold.

And in moments - twitching, too-long, agonized moments - he was gone. A froth of spit clung to the edges of his lips.

They’d been sent to find the Dungeon, and a fucking Dungeon they had found.

Corris stared over the lip of the ravine. The spiders were retreating back into their holes, dragging choice tidbits of his comrades with them. One of the silk-wrapped packages was still alive, still struggling. Corris wished he hadn’t seen that.

Reaching into his pockets, the dwarf took out his rolling papers and his tobacco, folding up a cigarette. He turned the dead man onto his back, folded his arms across his chest, and pushed the cigarette and his own flask into the cooling hands of his fallen brother. Tem. His name was Tem. “Ancestors take you.”

But they wouldn’t.

Good dwarves didn’t get sent down here. Many years ago, Corris had broken trust with his family. It was a small betrayal, but there were no small betrayals, not for dwarves. He’d been stripped of his name and made Broken instead. The scar stretched in a low arc from the bottom of one eye to the other, bending his nose inwards as it crossed over the bridge.

And he’d made a new family. Not of the best materials, just the cast-offs and exiles and idiots they sent him, but a family nonetheless.

Suffi herself had promised him his name back if he found the Dungeon for her.

So now, he’d traded one family, loyal but flawed, for one that had scarred him and thrown him into the dark over one mistake. It was a shit deal. Corris wasn’t even sure why he’d taken the offer. He didn’t want to be a Greybeard again. Didn’t want to see the grudgingness in his old brothers and sisters as they accepted him in name only.

But now he had an inkling of what to do with his name. His boys, Tem and No-Nose and all, wouldn’t be allowed into the Hall of the Ancestors. But he would, when he passed away. And when he got there he’d demand an answer, for who the ancestors were to leave dwarves, loyal and fierce and brave ones, waiting outside the Halls for eternity.

Aye. That sounded about right.

Corris the Broken leaned over the edge of the ravine, hocked up a fat wad of saliva, and spat.

Then he turned and went his way.

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With one incursion repelled, I was licking my lips for the next course. Metaphorically.

But this one wouldn’t go down so easy.

The merfolk had cut through my reelfish with a derisive show of force, and as they arrived on the root-tangled banks of the mangrove orchard the mage raised his hands, bringing up a vast wave of water that slammed into the trees and swept the silken webs away.

The spiders were thrown back, the smaller specimens drowned or pulled into the lake by the enormous force of the wave crashing down. The trees groaned, branches snapping, golden fruit vanishing beneath the surface of the lake.

The crowd on the shore roared in outrage but the invaders simply didn’t care. They weren’t here for treasure or glory.

They were here for me.

The mage touched a hand to a talisman that hung around his throat, and it was the same as the incense. I was assaulted by a restraining force that reeked of divine magic.

As they advanced through the trees, the fisherman spiders rallied to descend. It was a brutal route. The harpooner hacked away at them before they could close the gap, and the swordsmaster seemed to flit away before they could even see her properly, her feet barely touching the ground as her blades whirled through the air slicing limb and thorax.

Today had shown me that my fisherman spiders simply weren’t equipped to be real threats. They were effective in taking care of broken formations, distracted enemies, but they needed a larger and more deadly creation to serve as the hammer while their sheer numbers provided an anvil.

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But there was still hope. The jeweled spiders were crawling above, and now they leapt, two of them landing on the mage’s back and biting before he could swat them away. A third dropped for the swordsmaster but she reacted beautifully, her blade intercepting to slice the little spider apart in a burst of bright yellow.

I watched with anticipation as the mage sunk to his knees, the other two circling around to defend him. I was due to be disappointed. Holding his hand over the first bite, the mage twisted his fingers and drew his own blood out in a long ribbon floating against the pull of gravity. He was simply draining the toxins back out of himself. He repeated the motion over the second sting and rose to his feet, looking only slightly worse for wear- a little paler around the gills maybe.

Oh if only I could scowl.

They tore their way through the spiders after that, pushing through the grove towards the black tree. I had already ordered Adamant to retreat once they were in my territory and I no longer needed his eyes, but I waited, wanting to see if the tree would attack. It had always been a sinister presence in my Dungeon, an unknown even to me.

This time, it stayed still as the invaders marched past. Maybe it sensed they were out of its league.

Either way it would be up to my remaining creatures. I sent waves of anger throughout my domain, rallying the snakes hidden in the grass, the reelfish lurking in the pools of the garden, the clever spiders in their hidden places. Adamant stood with the glass golem and the moss-lion.

I hesitated, and reached out to touch Aurum’s mind. He was still sleeping. He had been since the incident. Waking him seemed dangerous somehow, as if he needed this time to heal, but I couldn’t take risks. Not with such powerful enemies on my doorstep. I nudged him, just slightly, with a mental urge towards caution and readiness. There was no response.

Worried, both for him and myself, I returned my focus to the gardens.

The mage unbottled a clay jug that sat at his hip, drawing out a stream of water that curled into a sphere in the palm of his webbed hand. The swordsmaster stood poised.

In a corner, Vaulder Claith hid his head in his hands and silently prayed.

The glass faun stepped forward first, eager to meet the intruders with his spear. The harpooner, recognizing a similar weapon and spirit for battle, rushed forward to meet him.

If he thought he would get a fair fight, he was mistaken.

A nacre-spider dropped from the ceiling, opening its trap door to reach out with two bladed limbs and slice the merfolk’s throat open in a brilliant double arc of red. He froze, his momentum having thrown him through the razor-sharp legs, and his head toppled from his shoulders.

The mage let loose a razor spray of pressurized water, swatting the spider from the ceiling. With its pearled armor the creature survived, but landed on the floor, upside-down with limbs flailing. The swordsmaster rushed forward to stab it.

That was when the glass golem lunged in. Its spear intercepted the sword stroke, and like that, they were dancing together. Her blades flashed and flickered through the air in wavering blurs of silver, sparking as they struck the faun’s glass flesh. Cracks spread across the reinforced material with each blow of the lithe blades that hammered home. The golem sought her with its spear but she was always a move ahead.

There was something supernatural to the way she moved. Her feet would float above the ground, a half-dozen sword strikes passing in the moment before she touched down again.

But when she did, Adamant was waiting. He plunged both fists into the ground and took control of the soft soil where she landed, causing it to lift up and entomb her foot. The glass golem’s spear plunged forwards.

She bent unnaturally, bonelessly, the strike passing overhead, and her blade whirled low, slicing the grasping earth away without harming the limb trapped within, and came high again, completing a full circle that hung in the air as an aftershadow of silver. The glass golem’s spear went flying into the air.

In a heartbeat she had lunged forward and swung at Adamant’s head, looking to eliminate this threat.

His flesh turned to metal even as her blade passed through the rough stump of his neck, freezing it halfway, more of his body wrapping around the blade to immobilize it under a coffin of steel. His fist swung out and made brutal concussive contact with her face.

She reeled back, her nose broken, one of her swords left behind.

From behind the fungi golem lunged, reaching with its paws. She caught it with a backwards stab, piercing it through the throat, but sheer weight brought it down anyway, forcing her to her knees as its claws raked her back. A scream left her throat.

And a bolt of water from the mage hammered the lion away, freeing her before it could finish the job.

The nacre-spiders were coming down from their nests, surrounding the two. The mage seized water from the nearby pools and whipped it around him, but it did no more than force the heavily armored spiders back, costing a few limbs but no casualties.

Adamant yanked the blade free of his throat as the steel turned back to earthen flesh. The lion came up on its feet, the faun lifted its spear again.

It was round two. She was bleeding heavily from her back, her face bruised and battered. They had beautiful purple blood.

But I don’t think they found the sight of it as fun as I did.

On unspoken agreement, they turned to run. The swordmasters rushed ahead, blades slicing, opening a path that the mage followed through while hurling bolts of water behind him to hold back the three golems.

Adamant reached out to the earth again, and the mage tripped even as his pressurized spray cleaved the golem’s head from his shoulders.

The swordsmaster turned, ready to cover for her ally as the spiders crawled towards him, but she was already one foot through the breach.

And she was directly beneath the sinister tree. A tendril dropped from the branches above, ready to snag her throat, but her blade danced up overhead to slice through the leafy noose.

Before her blade had completed the cut and returned to guard position, the glass faun lunged forward and hurled his spear.

Unable to deflect, her eyes went wide with realization in the split second before the inevitable, and her whole body stiffened in shock as the spear plunged through her midsection. More tendrils descended, hauling her barely-living body up.

On the ground, the mage was struggling to rise. The earth beneath him had turned to a heavy, clinging mud, binding his hands. The lion stepped froward and sunk its teeth into his throat. A twist of its head, and his body went still.

Vaulder, still there, was screaming in total silence.