Tannyr had to fight her desire to retreat back to the dungeon. Northridge itself had become far more comfortable for her, but beyond the existing walls she still felt shivers of fear. She hadn't gotten the Priest class yet, because she wanted to fill out her crafting classes, but now that she was out from any calming effects of dungeon, bosses, or auras—she regretted it.

  If there was one thing that could calm her, otherwise, it was her work. Tannyr looked at the design of wall section and pointed at the metal layered through it. It was a combination of her own designs and those of several royal engineers who knew far more about adamantine than she did. Though, she admitted, she had learned a lot about the metal.

  "That's not right," Tannyr muttered when she looked up from the diagram to the preparation area for the adamantine sheets. "Where are the binding ties?"

  "We're using the steel mesh." The moment he'd said it, the mason knew it was wrong. He fumbled a moment to figure out if he could pass whatever screw-up he'd made to someone else.

  "Adamantine mesh. Why do we even have steel mesh here? We're not using that!" With fury lending her strength, Tannyr marched to where she could see the steel mesh had been stacked; ready to ruin her plans for a tower. With a growing group of masons following her like baby ducks, she worked up her anger and shouted, "Who brought this steel mesh here?!"

  With silence reigning, the worksite quartermaster pushed his way through the mason's gathered around the angry kobold. "It's the mesh for the first tower. It was delivered yesterday from the capital."

  "Then why…" Tannyr marched up to the man and, used to being the shorter party in most arguments, glared up at him. "… is it steel? Not even mithril! The plans call for adamantine mesh. The entire point of these walls is they will not fall apart, and that relies on them being bound together with adamantine!"

  "This is what they sent. I don't have a manifest of what we should be getting. They brought this mesh and nothing else." For a moment, the quartermaster thought the kobold was going to set him on fire with her will alone. When she growled and marched back toward the castle, he asked, "Should we send it back?"

  Stopping in her track, Tannyr turned. "No. Keep it here. Don't use it. I'll have the right material here before the end of the day." Using the last of her anger to propel herself forward, she marched toward the main gate of the castle, heedless of her surroundings.

  She walked around the corner of the growing star fortress walls, intending to enter the inner area near the front of the gatehouse of the existing city wall.

  "Hi there."

  The voice pulled Tannyr out of her distracted state to focus on the speaker. She groaned at how stupid she felt. It was a little sprite, like many she'd seen from Breeze. "You worried me there. I thought you were a creature from another dungeon. We're due a new…" Realization dawned on her that Breeze's sprites wouldn't have any reason to be outside the fort. "You're not from Breeze?"

  Pure and malicious giggles sent a shiver up Tannyr's spine. Panic was threatening to take all control of her actions away, and only the memory of Travis' voice kept her steady enough to reach her hand down to her holster.

  "I don't know who or what Breeze is, but I bet they don't have sprites and pixies like us."

  Hand trembling over her pistol's grip, Tannyr noticed more movement around her. There were several of the creatures letting themselves be seen now. She licked her lips in worry. "W-Would you take a payment to let me go?"

  The pixie flew up and hovered before the tip of Tannyr's muzzle. "We were thinking more like we'd take you back to our dungeon and get you to talk all about what you're doing with the city. Then we'll take all your little tricks and toys. There's nothing you or your dungeon can do to stop us, either."

  That, Tannyr knew, would be bad. An active animal dungeon, with an as-yet unknown primary focus, using its magic creatures to hide their attacks and steal technology was a minor threat to most cities. With her firearm and adamantine hammer, though, she would be catapulting the dungeon forward in technology. Her palm pressed to the handle of the gun. "Y-You know you don't have to do that, right? My dungeon will share resources with yours. You're going to need to, since there's an army coming."

  "No. Your dungeon is clearly inferior, given it sends its minions out unprepared for proper combat. You'll be much happier as a minion of our great dungeon! Take your hand off your weapon." The pixie flooded its voice with magic and giggled when Tannyr did as it commanded. "Now, you're going to follow u—" The pixie froze as a dark shadow passed over it. Looking up, terror filled it.

  "Aaaaaaahh!" Mixie screamed. Landing her wyvern with perfect grace and not actually crashing the beast into the ground—and a pixie that had been invisible—Mixie shook her head to clear it and grinned at Tannyr. "Hi! I saw you out here and wondered if you wanted a ride back?"

  "Mixie! I'm being attacked!" Pulling her pistol free now, Tannyr turned toward one of the sprites she could see, and fired.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Eyes widening, Mixie jumped from the wyvern, Gnasher's, back while drawing the shortswords her brother had made for her. They weren't adamantine, but good mithril blades she could hold easily. "Gnasher! Attack!" It was just like in her games, and Mixie was all for it.

  The arrival of the juvenile goblin had quenched Tannyr's fear and the mind-meddling hooks of the pixies like a dive into ice water. She didn't have the time to reload her pistol, one of the older muzzle-loading models, but she had something every bit as effective. Drawing her hammer, she threw herself at the nearest pixie and swung for its shocked face.

  Making a halfhearted effort to capture the other dungeon creatures with their magic, the pixies found no purchase on the minds of them. "Split! Return and warn—"

  Gnasher chewed his mouthful only once, gulped, and looked for the next course. With the pixies in full retreat, he followed his last command and pounced into the air to track them.

  "Gnasher! Return!" Mixie was quick to assess the situation and judge that they shouldn't chase after the tiny creatures—even if she really, really, really wanted to. Pixies, she knew, were sneaky and could shake pursuers easily or, worse for her, split them up and bend their minds with magic. "Are you okay?" she asked Tannyr.

  "Yeah." The little girl she'd spent plenty of time minding and playing games with, to say nothing of teaching mathematics and masonry to, had just saved Tannyr's life. "Yeah I am, thanks to the brave hero." She reached out and ruffled Mixie's scruffy hair. "But let's head back, okay?"

  "Wanna fly?" Like she'd been told to do, Mixie cleaned her weapons off on a handy piece of cloth that was sewn to their sheathes. "Gnasher can carry both of us, I promise!"

  "Why don't you walk me back? Gnasher deserves a reward, and I know a butcher in the city who will sell me so much meat that the big guy won't be able to fly anywhere after he's done with it." Tannyr didn't need an excited wyvern crowding her side and rubbing his head against her to know Gnasher understood exactly what she said, and besides, he'd been as much her rescuer as Mixie was.

  After several gold was spent to provide Gnasher with a supply of meat that was going to last the wyvern for a week, Tannyr left Mixie with a promise they would talk about her victory once she'd spoken with Travis.

  While Mixie's presence had let Tannyr move and act, the city itself being part of Travis' domain was a welcome reinforcement—and stepping into the dungeon akin to pure bliss as the tension in her muscles unwound fully. "Travis, I ran into some pixies from a new dungeon," she said, the moment she was inside.

  Travis' name got his attention instantly, and the following words shocked him. "Are you okay?"

  "I wasn't at the time, but a young hero saved the day. Let me finish explaining, first, so you can notify the city guard. I was walking back from the first of the towers being constructed, and a pixie got my attention. I thought it was one of Breeze's at first, but it was not only hostile but lacked manners." Tannyr shivered a little at the memory. She'd really been about to walk off with them to their dungeon. "They don't know about the army coming, though I tried to warn them. I gave them a chance to be friends, but…" Having marched all the way to the third floor tavern, she slumped onto a seat. "I couldn't even fight them when they used their mind-whammy on me. Then my hero arrived."

  "One of the wolves?" Travis asked.

  "Mixie. She couldn't have seen the pixies, but her wyvern slammed into one and killed it. I've never been so glad to see her in my life." Her hands didn't shake, for which Tannyr was thankful. "I think I might ask for an escort whenever I'm out there from now on."

  "Maybe taking a few wyverns with you would be a good idea?" Travis asked. He was already contacting Brolly to let him know of the new dungeon and asking Astrid to hunt it down. Finally, he asked, "How is Mixie taking it?"

  "I'd never seen her so serious as when she realized what was happening. It's like the little girl who listened to the real life adventurers playing the games with her soaked up all their seriousness and became a rock. I needed that so much. Ugh, I even missed the one shot I took with my pistol!" She managed to get her head back to the questions, though. "A wyvern or two would be great, but I'm going to need to take that Priest class so I can keep them safe. The pixie did a number on me, but the moment Mixie arrived, whatever it had done evaporated."

  "She'd been talking to Elanor. I'd swapped her to Priest for that reason, so she could be safer on the wyverns." Noticing the hero of the hour herself entering his tower, Travis asked her to come down to the tavern. "She's coming now."

  It was a slightly subdued Mixie that walked into the taproom and looked around for Tannyr. The enormity of being a real life adventurer had finally sunk in and left her a little in awe of what she'd done while trying to figure out how she'd done it. "Hi!" Old habits died hard, though, and she ran up to Tannyr and hugged one of her favorite adults.

  "Hey, Hero. How's Gnasher liking his reward?" Giving Mixie a hug, Tannyr got up and walked to the bar to make them both drinks.

  "You got him a whole spidersheep! He won't be able to fly again for days!" Laughing at the memory of her big friend chomping his way through his meal, Mixie looked down at her hands. "They were going to hurt you, right?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, they were." Setting a mug of sweetened water beside Mixie, Tannyr sat down across from her with a mug of the same. "Lucky I had a hero."

  Jerking her head up, Mixie tried to find any hint that Tannyr was exaggerating the truth, but she looked entirely genuine. "That's what friends do, right?"

  "Absolutely. Hey, you wanna come with me later to ask Tinpot to make me a new gun?"

  Mixie snorted and laughed. "You need to learn to shoot one, first!"

  Her own laugh smashed up the last of Tannyr's apprehension at having been saved by a goblin kid not even a tenth of her age. "I'll learn how to shoot, but only if you teach me how to ride a wyvern."

  Nodding her head, Mixie guzzled down the fruit-sweetened water like an ale-drinking veteran. "Okay! But remember, you gotta be friends with 'em before they'll let you ride. Oh, and get the Priest class."

  "That'll need to wait for tomorrow," Tannyr said. "Today I have to go to the capital and yell at someone who is swindling the kingdom out of adamantine."

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