Someone knocked on the washroom door just as Sam finished throwing up into the commode.

“One second,” he gasped, wiping away effluvia from his chin. “Little busy.”

He flushed down bile and breakfast and straightened up, sucking in deep breaths to try and calm his roiling gut. He ran cold water in the sink and splashed it onto his face, then looked himself in the mirror. He was too pale, his red hair limp against his skull, and his blue eyes had taken on that sunken look that comes from being violently ill. He felt tired all over, and scared, and honestly wanted nothing more than to retreat to a nice dark corner, pull his blanked over his head, and hide until the end of the world.

For better or worse, that was not currently an option.

“Sam?” It was Ma’s voice, gentle and full of warmth even through the wooden door. “Are you alright sweetie?”

How did mothers always know? Was there a spell or something that was class-specific, gained upon the birth of your first child? ‘Detect Mental Distress’, perhaps. Ooh, or ‘Sense Filial Emotions.’ Even on the other side of the door, she’d figured out something was wrong.

“Yeah Ma,” he lied through his teeth. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Another rap on the door, this one less gentle. “Son of mine, I am your mother and don’t think I don’t know when you’re fibbing. You haven’t been able to lie to me since you were six years old.”

In spite of his gut, Sam managed a smile. “Seven,” he said to the door. “You never caught on that it was really me and not Marie who stole those cookies you’d baked for Widow Stevens.”

There was a moment of silence. “You mean you let that poor girl take the blame for taking my world-famous double-fudge almond bars?”

“Best cookies I ever ate. And I gave her some after, as an atonement.”

“Everything I’ve ever known is a lie.” He heard her heave a sigh. “Sam, open up.”

Well. He’d have to face her sooner or later. At least his belly wasn’t doing loops around his adam’s apple anymore. He took one last glance in the mirror then crossed the tiled floor and tugged open the door.

Ma was standing in the main room. The bathroom was actually one of several in the ‘Washroom’ construction he’d put up here. Showers could be had on the other side, and there was a changing area in the back.

She took one look at him and the stern expression on her face melted into one of concern, and she came forward to embrace him. For a second he stiffened, then he just sort of folded into her arms and allowed himself to be held.

“Oh my poor boy,” she murmured, and those strong arms hugged him close. “You’re trying to hold all this up alone, aren’t you.”

“Have to,” Sam hadn’t intended the words to come out gravely and a half-step from a sob. “Everyone’s counting on me. Have to keep going.”

“And now,” Pop’s voice rumbled from his side, “you’ve got Melloram coming to you too.” Sam turned his head enough to see his father standing there beside them both. And then the big man was holding him as well, enveloping him in strength and support from both sides.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Ma snorted, finally leting up on the embrace and stepping back. “Come on, let’s find a place to talk. Seems like we need it before we figure out what to do.”

“I should ask the others—“

“Ask your family first, son,” Pop said, patting him on the shoulder. “Those that know you best will speak the best advice.” The big man paused, then a slow smile spread across his features. “I think it’s time for a meeting.”

Sam blinked and brought his head up. “Wait, you mean—“

“Oh, Jackson,” Ma laughed, “what a splendid idea. It’s been ages. Months at least.”

“Do us all good to let off some steam, I think.” Pop nodded. “Work it through. Sam? How about we grab a piece of floor in that training room of yours?”

Sam found himself grinning in response. Yeah. Yeah, that was exactly what he needed right now. “Absolutely.”

They trooped together through the western tunnel and turned right at the end, swinging into one of the two training rooms that Sam had installed on this floor. It was a long room full of exercise equipment and workout platforms.

And in the back was an entire section devoted to combat skills; indestructible dummies, weapon-training routines, and sparring mats and rings a-plenty. Sam nodded to the shield maiden currently manning the head trainer desk—and thereby allowing dungeon residents to train up more essence per session than if she hadn’t been there—and led his parents back to one corner of the combat area.

“So what’s in your mind, son?” Pop asked as Sam took off his harness and slid Thumb Bane out of its loop and set it aside.

“I’m… Not sure how to put it in words, Pop,” Sam said, shaking his head. “It all just feels too… big. And it keeps getting bigger.”

Sam felt the magic of the sparring ring settle over him. He didn’t know how it worked, not exactly, but the description had given him the basic idea. It was an equalizing magic, bonded to some kind of non-lethal weave that made sparring a test of speed, strength, and skill more than of levels and powers.

“And it’ll get bigger still, I’d wager,” Ma said, stripping down to her undershirt, revealing patches of torso with scars crisscrossing each other, and arms that, if not pure-steel muscle like they must have been back in her adventuring youth, were still respectable in size. “Come on Sam, what’s really on your mind?”

She waited for a heartbeat, then reared back and whipped a haymaker punch at Sam’s head.

Sam twisted his upper body and felt the sting as his mother’s fist grazed past his shoulder instead of slamming into his jaw. He turned the momentum into a full spin and lashed out with his bare heel at his ma’s knee. She danced back, laughing, then charged in again with both fists swinging.

The next few moments were a blur. Sam ducked and dodged, slapping aside punches and taking glancing blows as his mother pressed the assault. It was a dance. Twist, duck, weave, block, dodge left. Wait for the opening. Wait for the—

He felt it before he saw it, and when he saw it his elbow was already halfway to his ma’s sternum. He felt the blow connect, heard the air whoosh out of her, saw his mother stumble back, eyes wide and mouth open as she fought for breath.

“It just keeps getting bigger,” Sam snarled as the adrenaline burned through his brain. “Damn it, A week ago, I was just… Me. Now everyone’s acting like I’m this big hero! Worse, they’re starting to act like I’m some kind of savior. Blaine wants me to take over a town? Carve a nation away from a lich king and… What, set myself up as king?”

“With himself as power behind the throne, no doubt,” Ma gasped. “Never trust a politician looking for a favor. They’ll shake your hand with one, and steal your britches with the other. Lords and ladies, Sammy, you’re packing a punch these days.”

“I’ve been practicing,” Sam said with a smirk.

“Then show me.” Pop said from behind him just as a pair of strong arms wrapped around his neck and lifted him bodily off the floor.

Panic flared as he felt oxygen and blood cut off from his brain. He struggled, pawed at his pop’s iron arms. Then training kicked in and he twisted, rocking, bucking against his father’s body. He slammed an elbow backwards into Pop’s midsection. Heard a rough ‘oof’, and felt the arms loosen just enough to slip out of the hold and hit the ground.

He kept his downward momentum, dropped to one leg, and kicked out with the other, hooking his Pop’s ankle and knocking it out from under him. Pop squawked and went over backwards, and Sam rose and leaped onto him, locking the older man into a chokehold of his own.

“Did you see their faces?” Sam grunted, straining to keep his hold as Pop fought back. “They were looking at me like I was some kind of… Some kind of prophet, or holy man, come to free them from slavery and lead them on to the promised land. They were hoping in me, Ma, like I was the answer to their prayers.”

Pop finally tapped out, slapping Sam’s thigh three times with open palm, and Sam released him and rolled back to his feet, breathing hard. Pop stayed on the ground, wheezing and laughing at the same time.

“Might be that you are, Sammy,” Ma said, coming over to look him right in the eye. “Answers to prayer come in all sorts of funny packages. But that’s not what I’m seeing as the problem, and not what you are either, is it? It’s not what they think they see that’s got you troubled.”

She attacked again, but her words had distracted him, and he caught her punch square in the chest. It knocked him backwards and off his feet. He twisted, changing his fall to a roll. Hit the mat, came to his feet just in time to duck a roundhouse kick that would have knocked his teeth in if it had connected.

“It’s what you see in the reflection of those looks,” Pops said, rising to his feet as his son battled his wife. “You’re afraid of not measuring up to the faith, and the hope that they’re showing for you.”

That was exactly what it was. Sam swore as his ma’s fist grazed his ear, then found balance for a counterattack and drove into her, pushing her back across the mat.

How did they know? How in all the hells and heavens combined did they understand this stuff? Was there a book you got when you reached your twenties? More parental magic?

Or maybe they’d been there before themselves, once?

“I’m just a kid,” he snarled. Launching a vicious one-two combination at Ma’s head. . “A dumb punk kid who keeps getting into fights he can’t win—Ack!” Ma slipped inside his defense and rammed her forehead right into his nose. He stumbled back, feeling blood start leaking from his nostrils.

He raised his hand to acknowledge the hit and for a pause.

“And every time I do,” he said quietly “someone pays the price. My friends get killed and maimed. Bugruk lost his legs. Leiliana lost her arm. Meegy and Puff and Ingrid and Gerd…” the names were with him forever now. He’d promised he wouldn’t forget them, and he was keeping that promise. Goblin, mushroom warrior, shield maidens… All fallen in a battle he led them into.

And yes, it had been their choice. And yes they had gone willingly. And no he would not take away from their choice by blaming himself for what had befallen them.

But as all the gods in heaven were his witnesses, it didn’t stop it from hurting. And the hurt only reminded him that there was more pain coming, and more loss, and maybe a time when he wouldn’t win, and those who followed him, who hoped in him, who had faith in his ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat…

When they’d find out he was a fraud.

“I beat Rakun by sheer luck,” he said, bringing his fears out into the light for his family to see. “We freed the town because the dice fell our way, not because of any genius plan that I had, or because I’m some kind of tactical mastermind. Yeah, we started out well and my plan was working, but then it all fell apart and we had to scramble and people died… And it almost didn’t work.”

“Yes, we saw.” Pop’s voice was a basso rumble. “Rakun threw quite a wrench into your gears. Had you on the ropes for a time. Almost had you beat.”

“Yeah,” Sam closed his eyes as the images came again, and the smells, and the screams. “How can I lead people, how can I be what they want me to be, when I’m such a fake? If I can’t even out-think a revenant, how am I going to win against a lich?”

“You talked yourself into having lost that fight pretty quick, Sammy,” Ma said, tilting her head. “Weren’t we just discussing how you’re here and that undead fucker isn’t?”

The profanity cut into the bleakness of Sam’s mind like a knife and brought his head up. “Well… Yeah, but I just told you. I got lucky.”

He saw his parents trade a look. Then they both advanced on him. Sam realized their intent a bare instant before it was too late, and dove to the side as they launched a combined assault. His ma came in from the left, Pop from the right. Feet and fists lashed out, aiming for vulnerable spots, not pulling in the slightest.

He spun away and danced back, trading distance for time. They kept coming, and he darted to Pop’s side, keeping his father between himself and his mother. Ma tried to get around, but Sam kept moving, kept dodging, kept blocking Pop’s strikes. He felt the blows in his bones. The older man wasn’t holding back in the least. He was serious.

Distractions fell from Sam’s mind like water, leaving it cold and clear. He twisted away from a kick, ducked a punch, and snapped Pop’s head back with a vicious uppercut. The big man stumbled back, and Sam helped him on his way with a heel-kick that pitched him straight back into Ma. They both fell to the mat in a tangle of arms and legs, struggling to get back up.

Which they did, and advanced on him again.

“You weren’t lucky, Sammy,” Ma said, taking the lead and approaching him cautiously. “You were smart. What do you think war is? You make plans, and they go perfectly, and you win battles? Son of mine there hasn’t been a war fought in the history of the world where something doesn’t go tits-up and people have to scramble to make it work.”

She suddenly dropped to the floor, and Pop leaped over her, slamming into Sam in a full-on tackle. He hadn’t seen it coming and went down with a yelp. He hit the mat hard, starbursts appearing before his eyes as his father wrapped him in a bearhug. He felt the breath squeezed from his lungs, saw his vision going dark around the edges.

He snapped his knee up right between Pop’s legs.

The older man gasped and the pressure of his arms released. Sam shoved him off and rolled back to his feet—Just as his ma snapped a kick right into his face. He went up and over, slapping hard onto the mat on his back. Stars flashed and blood filled his nose.

“A good leader isn’t someone who’s plans go right all the time, Sam,” Pop groaned from where he was curled up on the mat. “A leader plans and prepares. And then he meets the enemy, who gets a vote in how things go down by the way, and when the plans go pear-shaped he picks them up and turns them into something else.”

“And he keeps going,” Ma added, stomping down towards Sam’s chest. He caught her foot in both hands and heaved, flinging her backwards off her feet. She hit and rolled back up just as he regained his feet as well.

Ma met Sam’s eyes and gave a bloody grin. He had split her lip at some point. “When Rakun had you cornered in the town hall, what did you do?”

Sam remembered standing in the desecrated hall, glowing runes and blood all around him, and a sparking magic circle on the ground. And surrounding him and his little group of warriors, enough undead to wipe clean the town and everyone in it.

“I…” He paused. “I had Sheshek make a hole into the basements and close it behind us. Rakun himself told us how to get out of there.”

“And when you found all those prisoners down there, what did you do?”

“Got them out, protected them from Rakun’s goons. And…” He smiled and glanced up ceilingward. “And brought Tilly out to help. Thanks again for that, by the way.” He waved at thin air, knowing that the goblin sawmistress would be watching from her limbo, along with the rest of the Dungeoneers on Cora’s spawn list.

“You adapted to new information,” Ma said, moving back in, fists up in the guard position. “You assessed new threats and came up with a plan—quicker than most might have, I’ll add—to deal with it. And when the enemy reacted to your reaction, you went right back at him with something else he. Wasn’t. Expecting!” She threw jabs with each of those last three words, forcing Sam to dance back.

“That’s what war is, son,” Pop said, finally managing to sit up.“It’s not a single perfect master-stroke. It’s back and forth, it’s a fight for survival wrapped in the unexpected. And being a leader means taking the unexpected when it shows up, wrangling it into something you can use or turn aside, and kicking it right back into your enemy’s teeth.”

“And Sammy,” Ma took up the monologue, “you did it masterfully.”

She darted forward suddenly, ducked Sam’s punch, and wrapped her arms around him… And just held him there in a hug.

Sam closed his eyes and bowed his head into his ma’s shoulder. What they said sounded… True. It sounded good, even. But when he tried to apply those words to himself, when he remembered the fear and the uncertainty and the sheer bloody panic that had nearly overcome him… It was difficult to reconcile what his parents were saying about him and what he knew of himself.

“But what if it was a fluke? A one-time thing?”

“Sammy,” Ma said, and he almost laughed at the the pure knowing in her voice. “Son. I just saw you stand face-to-face with a dragon and start thinking about ways to kill it before it could kill you. That’s not something a half-wit who doesn’t know how to adapt to changes on the battlefield does.”

She shoved him away then and kicked out at his knee. Sam twisted away, then spun and lashed out with a back-handed fist. It slapped into his ma’s temple and rocked her to the side. He spun again and kicked, catching her square in the chest and launching her backwards… To crash into Pop just as he was regaining his feet. Down they both went, and this time down they stayed, breathing heavily, sweat pouring off their bodies onto the mat.

“Well, maybe a half-wit,” Pop laughed. “Trying to kill a dragon isn’t always the most sane of pass-times.”

“Point,” Ma gasped. “But, my point is,” she sat up, wincing, and looked him in the eye. “How many brushes with death have you had in the past week, Sam?”

“Lost count,” Sam said, panting hard. Gods, he’d forgotten just how intense family meetings could get. “And some of them weren’t just brushes.”

“But you walked away from every one of them. And kept your people alive. And put in the fucking ground the people who were trying to hurt you and yours. Every. Fucking. Time. Does that sound like a fluke to you? Because it sounds like a pattern to me.”

Sam blinked hard at that. For a second he heard the voices trying to disagree with Ma, to tell him that it was pure luck, that he was living on borrowed time and that he would—

I survived angering Lich King Araxesendenak in his own domain and at the height of his power.

And set in motion a slew of events that—

I am an immortal warrior who has slain golems, dinosaurs, and demons.

But you had help along the way, and—

I tracked a revenant to its lair and chased it into death itself, where I slew it in a place beyond time and life with my own hands.

Cora helped.

Yes she did. And so did all my friends, and all those who follow me. And I, we, are all stronger for it. Everything that’s come at me has been stronger, faster, more powerful than me. Everything I’ve encountered since Araxesendenak swung on Pearl should have killed me.

And still I stand.

His gaze came up from where it had dropped to the floor, and he saw both of his parents looking back at him, smiles on their faces and steel in their eyes.

“There you are, my son.” Ma’s voice was full of satisfaction. “About time you showed back up.”

“Looks like you’ve figured out something real important,” Pop agreed.

“Reckon I have,” Sam said with the beginnings of a fierce grin. “Thank you. I… Needed this.”

“Yes, you did,” Pop said with a nod, then heaved himself to his feet and turned to offer his hand to Ma. “And now, I believe we have somewhere we need to be, don’t we?”

The grin on Sam’s face bloomed as he straightened up, fingers testing his nose. Broken again. He’d have to get one of the healers to fix it. “Yes we do.”

“Good,” said Ma. “Let’s get cleaned up, then go see a man about a dragon.”