My minions were on the edge of breaking through with their tunnel.

The boring slugs I had designed for digging through the earth were on their last legs, starting to self-cannibalize; the same stomach acid that allowed them to melt through stone ate them from the inside out.

Ilbur and the glass golem marched alongside them, herding the enormous, swollen grubs forward. My tusked rat snuffled along in their wake. Every now and then it would stop, pawing the walls or the floor, and Ilbur would stoop down to help it dig up a muddy chunk of quartz.

Now, I was sending frantic signals for them to hurry up. They would surface soon, close to the lake where the Serpentine was moored, and close to the battle between Cabochon’s spiders and the men of ash.

The glass golem had lost its spear in the fight at the silent market, and now bore the twins blades we’d taken from the merfolk sword-dancer. Silently, it leaned down and offered one to Ilbur. The little orc took it with shaking hands.

I still didn’t understand why these creatures. Why had another Dungeon, another soul of creation, decided to make such ugly, primitive things? I saw no use for the little pig-toad runt that stood there shivering and malformed. He clung to his sword as if it were a child's talisman, to ward off monsters under the bed, instead of a weapon meant for cleaving flesh.

A crack of light shone through ahead, widening as the boring slugs lifted their slimy heads and gnawed the liquified stone away. Stone cracked and fell from the rift of light like an eggshell breaking, and the slugs spilled out into the open day, oozing through the breach.

They were through.

My glass golem pushed its way through the weakened stone, clambering out into the sunlight with Ilbur all but clinging to its heels. It turned, sensing through me that Cabochon was in trouble, and vaulted off, as agile and swift on its backwards-bending legs as a gazelle.

I could have wished for it at my side when the adventurers came, but I was glad I had sent the glass faun off to meet with Cabochon. Right now, its help was sorely needed.

Cabochon had one arm dislocated, and several bleeding cuts. He had no choice but to hold his ground now, defending the unicorn that was unable to climb to its own feet, and his carapace was beginning to crack, the flesh underneath bruised to a pulp under a hail of blows.

Into the dire situation swept the glass golem. It let out a high, keening noise, the sound of a glass blade cutting the sky, and the men of ash clutched their heads as their sense of balance vanished, sending them to the ground. Before they could rise, two of them had died, chopped neatly apart at the neck and at the midsection. The blood couldn’t even cling to the flashing sword.

Men fell apart in showers in ash as the glass faun charged over to Cabochon, blade dancing in circles and reverse circles, flicks and decapitating chops.

The golem was a one-man army, breaking through the ranks of the dirty, ash-streaked bandits and teaching them the meaning of fear. The survivors scattered to the winds, fleeing in all directions.

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It was just bad luck that Ilbur came over the hill then, blindsiding a fleeing marauder. There was a frozen pause, the both of them horribly surprised, and then the man unstuck himself first, lashing out viciously with his axe. The blade caught Ilbur across the face and whipped him from his feet, sending him crashing down, split open to a bloody, oozing red from mouth to brow.

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Ilbur opened his eyes.

His eyes.

His eyes.

No matter how much he insisted, how much he tried to fight to open his right eye, it wasn’t there. Not anymore. He could feel the horrible, splitting pain across his face, a brand of fire that spread a sickly wet heat as it oozed horrific amounts of blood, his broken mouth filling with the metallic taste. There was no part of his face that could move without hurt - every motion twisted agonizingly at the break in his flesh, and retreated in pain, a fluttering motion that agitated the wound further.

His one eye stared out at the world, full of horror and spilling up with tears.

The glass faun loomed over him, and Cabochon, the almost-kind spider who’d given him the shard. He could feel the Dungeon’s thoughts in the back of his mind, a constant low sound like the grinding of stone on stone. They were thoughts without mercy, low and clever thoughts, self-delighted and fickle.

He was hoisted up, lifted into the glass golem’s arms. Darkness came rushing in at the edges of his vision.

He dreamed of the slave-tents, of the cooking fires outside flickering and crackling. The way the light reflected on the tent walls, making the shadow of his father into a mountain.

When Ilbur opened his eyes again, he lay on a bed of moss. It was cushion-soft, and deeply comfortable, and he saw no reason to ever stand up again. The smell of sickness was everywhere. It came from him, rose from his flesh. The pain in his face had ebbed to a low, inflamed torment. He felt the scar forming, the flesh hardening as the blood froze to rigid lumps of hardened tissue. The mark would be with him the rest of his life.

And why?

All his life he’d been afraid, and it had spared him nothing. The slaves who bent and scraped still caught the whip. At the one moment when fear should have told him to run, to fight, it had paralyzed him instead.

So many nights he had listened to his father rant in mad-eyed fury about the cowards and the weaklings, feeling trapped in his own skin, knowing he was the worst of them all. Knowing his father only loved him out of duty, and that he was an embarrassment.

Now he knew why. Because fear, this kind of fear at least, was useless. Hot fear made men run and maybe live another a day. But there was cold fear too, a deep, gnawing dread, and it had never helped. Never spared him a single moment of misery, only held him place, waiting for the next blow of the whip, the next fall of the axe.

Useless.

A blade lay in the moss beside him. Ilbur reached for it. Rolling, he managed to get to his feet, lurching like an unsteady ship at sea.

He found the glass golem standing guard nearby, as still as a statue.

“I- I want to learn how to fight.” Ilbur gasped out. Then his strength failed him, and he fell.

The golem’s cold and lifeless arms lifted him from the floor. The exertion of standing had left him woozy, white spots burning in his vision. The golem laid him back in bed, but this time, curled his arms around the sword.

It was a promise then. He’d learn the sword, he’d be a warrior.

If he lived through tonight. The darkness came for him, rushing in to send him back to fevered dreams, and Ilbur had no strength to waste on being afraid.