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. 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 and ropes, several buckets, and an odd assortment of saws, shears, and bloody strips of cloth. The room reeked of blood and vomit.

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. 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 rod in his mouth. 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.

"shhhii...atus".

Current Status: Grievously wounded, restrained, gagged, minor bleeding, crippled, acid burned, weak, and confused. You are under the effects of a death curse.

Health: 105/1460 Regen: 365 per hour

Stamina: 0/4070 Regen: 1020 per hour A magical effect is draining your stamina.

Mana: 0/1260 Regen: 160 per hour A magical effect is draining 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 fore-arm 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 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.

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 thing 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."

Ozzy wasn't in a position to see what the crazed dwarf was doing, but it became obvious as he picked up the knife and jabbed it into Ozzy's side. "Don't mind me, just going in and grabbing a memento of the occasion. Ah, there it is." Setting down the knife, he took the tongs and jammed them into the wound, fishing around a bit until he clamped down on something and pulled it out. Holding up the tongs, Ozzy saw a chunk of his own ribs had been pulled out.

Makken pulled out a large jug from his bag and poured some of contents on the wound, making it ache and burn like fire. "Yeah, no one likes that. Try not to cry like a toddler, it embarrasses me. Just need to clean the wound so you don't get infected. Need to keep you around awhile for some more fun and games."

"Time for a bit of 'medicine' I think." A piece of flexible tubing was brought out. "Made this from a manticores innards. Tough and flexible once you cure it right. Here we go, try not to move, don't want this going down the wrong pipe. Just got to put this through hole in that little log in your mouth. The wood keeps you from biting down on my pipe, can't have that."

The pipe went through the wood and into Ozzy's mouth and was jammed down his throat. Makken attached a funnel on the other end.

"My pappy came up with this. He was a genius at this stuff." The contents of the jug went into the funnel, and down Ozzy's throat. It burned all the way down. "There we go. 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 cuts, stitches, bruises and contusions. He was missing most of his left leg, and the right was entirely gone along with his right hip.

"You'll excuse me for a bit. Now that I know you won't die, I have to go do a bit of cooking. Special Ingredients don't come along like this every day, got to make the most of it."

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

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Despite his insistence that he could get the new quarters up in a week, time and reality had worked against Jorges. The stone had been the big problem, specifically, getting the stone to where it needed to go. 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. He'd accepted it would take closer to three weeks to get the basics done and the rooms on the second floor built out so people could move in.

Then they started digging out the basement. 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 to small broken chunks the size of your fist. All packed down with a layer of dirt on top, and ashes below that. 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. After a quick survey, the building plans changed to use these existing foundations for the new building. This saved weeks of work, 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 were made partly or completely out of similar stone, as were many of the rock walls around the fields. The town was built up on top of some ancient ruin. Which might explain a bit why there was a dungeon underneath the tavern. He mentioned that to everyone, as a precaution. Anything odd would be reported.

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 bottom. 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 bits 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 the area that would be open courtyard.

What made Jorges really 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 spikes.

=======================================================================

Billy took the scroll Ben handed to him and unrolled it. He 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 grabbed a robe, a bottle of beer, and dialed Vernon’s number. Not getting through he used the code for emergencies. Vernon's face at appeared within 30 seconds. "What's going on Billy that needs me personally, offline, and on emergency code?"

"Sedgewick is under attack. Momco declared a limited 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 was interested. "Not too hard to see the value. 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 you 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. 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. Momco is right on my schedule. I've got the best two hundred mercenaries that money can rent nearby your area. They are undercover, well supplied, and ready to go. I've had them moving up unseen through the dense forested areas for a few weeks."

"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 Momco know that we are ready. I'm sending you some more mercenaries I'm going to hire today, and put out calls for more. I want Momco 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 Momco 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. "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 really hanging out here."

"Understood, Billy. I'll check in tonight and give them the time to move in on the day the war starts. They'll be there two hours ahead of time. Momco will shit themselves and probably just 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 UncleV confirming 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. Co-ordinate 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.