The walk back inside the dungeon was a slow, heavy one. Sam felt like his feet weighed a thousand pounds each, and was amazed they didn’t leave cracks in the earth as they fell.

God in his heaven, it was happening again.

“I will give you credit, Tolliver,” said Araxes, walking beside him. “You do have a singular talent for drawing the attention of the wrong element. Have you ever considered stopping?”

“Shut it, bone-bag,” Ma growled from behind them. “Or I’ll flip you over and piss fire straight up your nose-hole.”

Araxes blinked. “What a singularly unpleasant image.”

“Doesn’t exactly tickle, neither. Now hush.”

“You alright son?” Sam barely heard Pop’s voice.

For a second he considered lying.

“No,” he said instead. “I just got a death threat from a dragon. I’m about as far from Alright as I can be, Pop.

“I thought things were supposed to get easier the farther you went along,” he continued, staring off into the middle distance. “Or at least that I’d get time to breathe. Feels like I’ve been doing nothing but running ever since Araxesendenak brought the mountain down on us. First that, then the kobolds, the revenant, Sally, and now this.” He threw his hands up on the last syllable.

Ma gave a snort, and Pop smiled ruefully.

“Not easier, son,” he said, placing a hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezing. “You just get better at dealing with the panic.”

“Great,” Sam sighed. “That’s just what I need to hear.”

“Do you need a minute to process? Your mother and I can hold down the fort for you if—“

“No,” Sam drew in a breath and squared his shoulders. “No, I’ve got a dungeon full of people looking up to me, and I can’t turn and run screaming from the room.”

“No matter how prudent a decision that might be,” Araxes muttered. Then there was a hollow ‘donk’ and the lich let out a yelp.

Ma’s voice came, full of smug satisfaction. “I said hush.”

“Alright,” Sam shook his head and pushed the panic to the back of his mind. Deal with the problems one at a time. “Alright, so first thing’s first, I need to figure out what to do about Quentin.”

“You’re not going to be giving yourself up to that lizard,” Ma said firmly. “Not on your life.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about that. I’m not anxious to throw myself on the fires just yet…” He trailed off and frowned. Now wait just a second.

“Actually, that might not be such a bad idea.”

“What?” Ma squawked, then paused. Sam glanced over his shoulder to see a thoughtful look on her face. Yeah, she got it too. And so did Pop, he saw.

“Could give us some extra breathing room,” Sam said. “Extra time to get our defenses prepared. Or even negate the need for them entirely.”

“You’d have to make it look good,” Pop said, rubbing his chin. “And you’d have to stay out of sight until we’re sure they’ve bought it.”

“Assuming they do,” Ma said. “Which they might not. We don’t even know who’s sending the mobs after you, or what her abilities are.”

“Something to keep on the table at least,” Sam said as they finally emerged into Cora’s central chamber.

There were a hundred people in there. With more spilling off into the corridors. Even at its busiest, the chamber had never been packed like this. Sam stopped and stared. Most of them were townsfolk, and he recognized the majority. His own dungeon mobs were dotted here and there, chatting with the newcomers or looking around in a way that only a trained eye would recognize as them keeping an eye out for trouble. All of his mobs were armed, he noticed.

And he also noticed every eye in the place turn to him, except for those mobs who were on the lookout for trouble. Those, he saw, tensed up just a little bit.

Good. Never hurt to be prepared for crowd control. He had no idea what was going to happen next with this group.

“We saw the dragon,” Pop said, “and figured they’d be safer in here. Those that didn’t come with us are hiding in their basements.”

“Good plan,” Sam said. “Okay folks, it’s safe now.” Mostly. “You can head back to Melloram if you want.”

“What was that?” Nat’s voice called from somewhere in the press, and a second later the elf shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. “We heard it from in here… Sam, did a dragon just freaking declare war on you?”

Again, for an instant, he considered lying. It wouldn’t solve any problems, but it might delay them long enough for him to catch a breather. The last time he’d been in front of a crowd like this… Well, he’d given the kobolds the opportunity to flee the mountain, hadn’t he? And that had worked alright.

Somehow he doubted the residents of Melloram would react as well when he told them they were in the line of fire thanks to some unknown slight he’d offered to some unknown entity.

“Yes,” he said instead of the lie. “And if I have to fight a dragon, then that’s just what I’m going to do.”

“Dragons aren’t so hard,” Pop rumbled. “Just got to hit them when they aren’t looking and watch out for the tail.”

“God damn Sam,” Nat breathed. “And you’re as calm as anything about it. You just got threatened by a dragon!” Nat blinked his wide eyes, shaking his head in disbelief. “Man you have changed, haven’t you?”

“I reckon we all have,” Sam said with a wry smile. “I mean, I didn’t see you squishing undead in stone corridors before the revenant came, did I?”

That got a grin from his friend. “Okay, point.”

“You are going to fight the dragon?” The voice came from an older halfling man standing a few paces behind Nat. “Do you honestly believe you can win?”

Sam grinned. He recognized the man, by sight if not by name, from the times he’d gone walkabout in Melloram back before his world had shifted. “You’ve met my folks, right? Ma and Pop are some of the highest-level adventurers—“

“Retired,” Pop interjected blandly.

“But haven’t lost a step,” Ma added.

“—that you’ll ever meet,” Sam continued without missing a beat. “And I’ve got an entire dungeon’s worth of traps, defenses, allies, and supplies at my back. And,” he added with a fierce grin, “if that’s not enough, I’ve got enough grit to fill a river barge and enough gumption to propel it a hundred miles upstream. That dragon won’t know what hit it.”

As he said it, he found he could almost believe it. But then he remembered Quentin’s voice, and the majestic strength he’d seen beneath those scales, and that belief started to wither.

Except it shouldn’t, should it? It was true, the dragon looked tough. But he’d already planned to kill it once today, with Ma and Pop’s help. He could just as easily plan to kill it next time it showed up. And even if it arrived with friends in tow, Sam wouldn’t be going out to face him alone.

“And you’re going to fight the lich too?” Another voice, feminine, took Sam a moment to track down the speaker. She was an older elf woman, her blonde hair turning to gray, but with no loss of the willowy grace that so many of that race exhibited. “You pick a lot of fights, sonny.”

He gave a snort and shook his head. “No ma’am, I haven’t picked a single fight since I woke up dead. Each one of these are fights that came to me through no fault of my own.”

“What about when you hit me in the chest with a bloody great hammer?” Araxes asked in a whisper that carried across the entire room.

“I was defending my friend,” Sam said, shooting Araxes a smirk. “You hit Pearl first.”

“Yeah, and it hurt, you big meanie,” Pearl piped up from where she was sitting on top of Cora’s head on the dais.

“Point is, yeah I’ve got a bunch of folks gunning for me. And I plan to stand up to all of them and kick them right back over the line. Permanently, if I have to.”

“Attaboy,” Ma laughed. “Show ‘em your fangs and don’t back down. That’s my Sam.”

“And you two are with him?” The elf asked, looking at Ma and Pop. “And what about the rest of your crew? Them too?”

“Yes,” Pop said simply. “All of them.”

Sam felt a warm glow settle in his chest at that. He’d believed, of course, and he knew the people he still had to bring back from Cora’s spawn lists… But to hear Pop speak it with such certainty converted that belief into conviction.

The elf nodded and looked around the room, clearly seeking someone in the press of bodies… And found who she was looking for in the form of a short fat man with a bushy beard and a nose that had obviously been broken several times over his life. He locked eyes with the elf and raised an eyebrow. Then returned her nod when she gave it and shouldered his way to the front of the crowd as well.

Sam watched him come, and felt a wash of electricity raise goosebumps across his skin. The expression on the man’s face, the purpose with which he moved, and the way the crowd parted before him… Something was happening.

“Excuse me,” he said as he moved up beside Nat, who was staring at the fat man like a fish, eyes wide and mouth open. “Am I to understand, mister Tolliver, that you are in charge of this entire complex and all those within?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding slowly. “Well, not ‘all’, obviously. You’re here, and the kobolds and any of the other mobs are free to leave at any time. Me and the cores,” he waved a hand to indicate Sally and Cora on the dais, “and Araxes here,” he jerked a thumb, “are the only ones who can’t leave.”

“Because of oaths taken?” the man wanted to know.

“Because Cora’s tied to this room, and Araxes and me are tied to her.” He paused. “I guess Sally could leave if she wanted.”

“Nah, I’m just as stuck. I can’t get too far from Legs here,” she bumped up against Cora meaningfully, “Otherwise I start feeling sick. Pretty sure I’d wind up dead if I got too far.”

“And what are your plans for after? If you beat this dragon, and the monsters that are coming for you, and the lich and his legions, what then?”

“Then?” Sam shrugged, “Then I’ll leave. By that time this dungeon will in all probability be a thriving city—or close enough to one that you’d have to get up close and squint to tell the difference. And I’ve promised it to the kobolds. So, I reckon you’ll be getting some neighbors, and probably a good deal of trade from the place too.”

“You will create a nation, then give it up of your own free will?”

“I dunno about ‘nation’…” Sam frowned as the idea settled in. Except that was exactly what he was going to be doing, wasn’t he? The city would have no other leader than himself and whatever else he and the people around him put in place. No king, no lord, no master. Just a crazy kid and a bunch of kooky kobolds putting a city-state together.

“Huh. I guess I will at that.”

“You will carve it from territory controlled by a reigning monarch? Most would consider that an act of rebellion.”

“I’m not one of that bonehead’s subjects,” Sam said with a tight smile. “Technically it would be a war of aggression, not a rebellion. But yeah, I guess we will. To be fair, I’m pretty sure he started it.”

“I can confirm,” Araxes said, raising a hand. “I definitely started it. And may I just say how truly odd it feels to be a spectator to this conversation? This is me we’re discussing so frankly, you know.”

“No,” Sam said, glancing over at the lich. “It was you. There’s a difference.”

Araxes subsided, eyeflames shrinking down in thought but saying nothing else.

“And if the lich objects?” the man asked quietly, eyebrows raised. “What will you do then?”

“By the time it gets to that point, one of the two of us will be permanently dead, so I reckon it won’t matter one way or the other.”

The man nodded again, slowly. “I see. And you truly believe you can prevail against all your enemies? Even the lich? And carve a new nation from the ashes?”

“I’ve got the tools,” Sam patted his hammer. “I’ve got the friends, the dungeon, the resources… And most importantly, I’ve got the family.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “With all that behind me, I figure I have the best shot anyone could hope for.” He frowned then. “Why are you asking me all this?”

The man looked behind him, sweeping the crowd with his eyes. Many of the ones he looked at nodded with varying degrees of firmness. A few looked away.

Fran, he noticed, was not in attendance.

“Do you know who I am, son?” he asked, turning back to Sam.

“You’re familiar,” Sam said slowly, “but I can’t place you.”

“Councilman Augustus Blain. I am…” he stopped and heaved a sigh. “I was one of five members of the council who ran Melloram with the mayor. But after that… creature came… Well. Now it is just Councilwoman Milthorne and myself.”

Sam winced. “I’m sorry.”

“As are we all. But that is not the point. My point is that I represent a full third of the power in Melloram, and I’ve spoken with the mayor and… We have reached an understanding.”

“Oh lord,” Pop breathed. Sam glanced back and saw her slide her hand into Ma’s. Their faces were serious and…

What?

“Samuel Tolliver, my town has been under the rule of Lich King Araxesendenak for three hundred years. In that time we have witnessed famine and war, abuse of power by his officials, and tasted the fear he himself feeds us.”

“Good times,” Araxes said with a wistful sigh.

Councilman Blain went on like he hadn’t even heard. “But the true tipping point happened a bare hour ago. When he, through his lackey Councilwoman Milthorne, attempted to have you arrested.”

A low, ugly murmur rippled through the crowd. Sam blinked at the anger he heard in that undercurrent.

“The man who came to our aid when repeated petitions to our sovereign went unanswered. Who carved his way through a horde of undead monsters, who gave of his blood and those of his followers that we might live.

“The man who chased our captor into death itself, and returned with the corpse of the man it had once been,” Blain turned and gestured towards Rakun’s grave, “and buried him in a place of honor, remembering the man, and not the monster.

“Samuel Tolliver, I do not think I have ever spoken these words in earnest before. You are a true hero, and I believe you are what I and my people desperately need right now.

“On behalf of Melloram, with the full support of Mayor Viasa and the majority of the survivors of the town behind me, we wish to ask for asylum for ourselves and our town, and ask to join you in the founding of this new nation, to at last free ourselves from the tyranny of Lich King Araxesendenak.

“Please, will you lead us in your revolution?”