The temperatures around Gomi had been liveable again for a while now, but the weather only recently reached a point where being outdoors wasn’t perpetual suffering.

  Charlie and Galinda surprised Galad with a visit, and before long, word of their presence got around. If Hans’ adventurers were feeling cabin fever in the dungeon, surely Charlie and Galinda felt that in triplicate. They had spent all winter in their bakery-apartment doing whatever they could to keep out subzero temperatures.

  So Hans invited all of them to dinner.

  “I’m thinking maybe we should have taken the offer to move down here,” the Mayor joked. “Feels like a nice spring day. View’s pretty good too.” He looked out over the water at the ferry gliding slowly toward the tunnel to the surface.

  “We definitely hope to see more of you,” Olza said. “This is a new stew recipe, so that’ll be an adventure for all of us.”

  Galad nodded his agreement. “I second, Olza.”

  Dishes began to rotate around the table.

  “About stew?” Charlie asked.

  “About seeing more of you. But maybe I should rescind.”

  Charlie laughed. “I’ll be the first on a minecart when they’re done. That means the return trip too. Not looking forward to getting back home from this trip after seeing how long it is.”

  “Wagons are available, you know.”

  “Galinda feels bad for the horses,” Charlie replied.

  “It’s a long walk,” Galinda said.

  “Two months isn’t a long time,” Charlie added. “The carts will be running, and we’ll be back down before you know it.” The Mayor nudged his wife with his elbow.

  She tried to ignore him.

  “Tell him why we made the trip.”

  Galinda sighed. She stood, left the rooftop deck, and returned with a book, presumably fetched from one of her bags she left downstairs. She handed it to Galad. Olza looked over his shoulder as he turned through pages of sketches.

  “These are beautiful, Galinda,” Olza said, taking her eyes off of the drawings for only a moment to offer the compliment.

  “They’re for the tunnels,” Galinda said.

  Galad raised an eyebrow. “The tunnels?”

  “Paintings.”

  “Which one were you thinking?” he asked.

  “All of them.”

  “She’s got ideas for how the kids could help,” Charlie said. “But that’s the whole history of the Tribe. From the first day you and your folks got to Gomi all the way through Leebel’s Rest.”

  “How long will it take to paint the whole tunnel?” Hans asked.

  Galinda laughed. “It won’t cover more than an eighth.”

  Galad squinted, confused. Then he smiled. “Ah, I see. I like that.”

  Hans coughed.

  Olza leaned toward Hans. “She isn’t painting all of it to leave room for future generations to add their own history.”

  “That’s a sweet sentiment.”

  “Since we are discussing business, when are you getting the titan bones cleaned up?” Charlie asked.

  Unable to suppress a chuckle at Charlie’s abrupt shift in demeanor, Hans said, “You seem very concerned.”

  “Nobody likes a corpse in their front yard.”

  “What do you suggest we do with them?”

  “Revive it so we can Banish it properly,” Charlie said.

  Charlie’s casual recommendation for briefly using necromancy was born out of a larger disagreement.

  When Devon and Mazo were finally able to join the fight against the undead circling Gomi, the Blue Mage refused to let the Paladin destroy the titan skeleton. Devon’s god blessed him with a Banish ability that destroyed undead and demonic monsters completely, but then a rare titan skeleton would be gone forever. Mazo absolutely would not stand by and let that happen. Under no circumstances could Devon use Banish.

  Like any other reanimated skeleton, disconnecting the head from the body dispersed the force that brought it to life. That was how most adventurers did it, so she advocated they do that here for the sake of preserving the specimen.

  The argument went on for quite some time, all while the undead titan tried to break free of the bronzewoods ensnaring it and shrieked to attract more undead to its location. Galad finally intervened and said to please just kill it so they didn’t have to worry about it breaking loose anymore.

  So Devon beheaded it with his sword.

  And when Galad asked where Mazo planned to put the bones, she replied, “Oh, I have no idea.”

  So the skeleton with a head the size of a cabin–minus the side of the skull that was melted–was still just down the way from the Gomi brewery. In fact, the body was close enough that Galad could see the top edge of a pelvis from his bedroom window.

  Charlie literally stomped when he heard later that they could have destroyed it completely.

  But now it was just a skeleton. There was nothing to Banish. The skeleton would have to become an undead again for that to be possible.

  “We’re going to have kids playing on titan bones in the summer,” Charlie said. “It’s unseemly.”

  Galad laughed. “That’s already happened. A titan skull makes for a good clubhouse.”

  Charlie rubbed his face with both hands. “Tell me that’s a joke.”

  “It’s not, friend.”

  “We could put the skull at the entrance to town,” Hans suggested the second before he stuffed potatoes in his mouth. When he finally looked up again, he asked, “What?”

  Everyone else at the table visibly disagreed with that decoration choice.

  “That sets a terrible tone for visitors,” Olza said.

  “Nuh uh. It’s cool.”

  Hans searched each face again, looking for support. He found none.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Galinda shook her head with disappointment.

  “Sorry for trying to help,” Hans grumbled.

  “We could sell them,” Olza suggested. “I’m surprised academics didn’t start poking around last year. I bet a University would love to have those in their collection.”

  “I’d support that,” Charlie said.

  Galinda chimed in. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “We shouldn’t sell our history.”

  Charlie pursed his lips. Then he took a spoonful of stew. Chewed it, swallowed, and said, “Well, shit. You got me there.”

  “We can figure out a place to put them,” Hans said, attempting to make peace. “If we don’t think of anything else, we could move the bones up the mountain and store them on the dungeon campus.”

  Galad smiled. “You want the bones for yourself.”

  “I’m the only one who likes them.”

  “That’s fair,” Galad said. “Now that Olza mentions it, though, academics were a group of people we did not consider. Our plans have accounted for adventurers, merchants, tourists, and people interested in relocating here permanently. You believe their visit is inevitable? I assumed the bookworms wouldn’t be keen on that kind of adventure.”

  Olza nodded. “Behind the scenes, academia is just as cutthroat as adventuring. A new dungeon? Tamed cave crawlers? Bronzewood trees?”

  “Gomi-grade potions,” Hans added with a grin.

  “Yes, those too. There are a lot of reasons a researcher would want to get to Gomi before anyone else.”

  “Are there risks to consider?” Charlie asked.

  “They’ll want to see everything,” Olza answered. “And I mean everything. We should decide ahead of time what is and isn’t off-limits.”

  “It’s all off limits,” Hans declared. “You and Mazo got there first and claimed the research. All the others can wait for the papers to publish to learn about the dungeon.”

  “Or we accommodate them and create more allies.”

  Galad raised his fork like he was raising his hand. “I would prefer that approach.”

  “Let’s decide what that entails first,” Charlie cautioned. “What are the dangers? What don’t we want to get out? Right away I think about the Gruwalda recipe, the dungeon core, Honk’s pets, and our harvests.”

  “Cracking the Gruwalda recipe is probably inevitable,” Galad said as Olza nodded that she agreed. “They won’t have the valorite to replicate it even if they do, but that might invite another breed of prospector when someone figures out we’ve got an endless valorite supply.”

  Hans spoke next. “The dungeon core has to be off-limits entirely. Reaver’s Rest taught us what goes wrong when you mess with a dungeon core. I think we’ve got harvests protected with our dungeon scheduling. Honronk’s pets? I don’t have the damndest idea what to do there.”

  “Do academics teach?” Galinda asked.

  Olza smiled. “Oh, that’s a good idea. If they’d pitch in at the academy, they might be able to help us build out our library as well.”

  Active Quest: Establish a Hoseki-grade library in Gomi.

  “That I can get behind,” Hans interjected. “The more knowledge our people have access to, and I’m not just talking adventurers, the better off we’ll all be.”

  Charlie huffed but seemed to accept the logic. “The dungeon is your stepchild,” he said to Hans. “How do you see this working?”

  Hans thought. “They have to hire adventurers for a dungeon escort and then schedule when they’re doing it with Tandis or Terry. If they want materials we harvest, I say we offer them at cost, assuming they’re for research. Anything else in the dungeon? They can take whatever they like. It’ll grow back.”

  “And they’ll need lodging and a place to conduct their research,” Galad said, absentmindedly scratching one of his tusks with a finger. “We could rent a space out to them. There’s a few good options near the guild hall.”

  “You don’t want to claim their business for your inn?” Charlie teased.

  “Maybe when they first arrive, but if they’re sticking around as long as we’re suggesting, they’ll want something more permanent.”

  And on the discussion went. Eventually, the dinner conversation shifted to more casual topics. A few of the Gomi originals expected children in the summer. The kids on the surface were excited to attend the academy. Perpetual access to fresh fruit was still the talk of the town, so the dinner party spoke about that briefly as well.

  In the midst of all that discussion, Galinda’s sketchbook of mural pieces made its way into the hands of the Guild Master.

  Hans groaned when it was his turn to review the sketches in close detail. Galinda had a scene of Hans and Olza standing over the broken dungeon core, and a few pages later another scene depicted the DCs living in a cabin on top of the dungeon entrance in the middle of winter.

  “I don’t need to be in here.”

  “Too bad,” Galinda replied.

  “At least you were kind to my portrayal,” Hans grumbled. “I was probably fifteen or twenty pounds heavier than what you drew.”

  The table laughed. Hans paused on one of the final pages and tilted his head slightly.

  “What’s this of?” he asked, holding a page open for Galinda to see across the table.

  “I remembered that one later. It’s out of order.”

  “Ah, that makes sense. So early Tribe history?”

  “Yes.”

  The sketch depicted bandits raiding a wagon. An adult male tusk stood in front of the horses, fighting off bandits with a staff, while a young tusk teen on the wagon threw rocks at the attackers.

  “That was the last bandit raid on Gomi’s roads,” Galad said proudly and then deflated slightly. “Or it was until the Prince came through here.”

  “That’s Ragrug with the staff,” Charlie explained, “and that’s young Galad on the wagon.”

  Galad blushed. “Perhaps we can remove me in the final version. Mom and dad did the real fighting.”

  “Was Gruwalda here too?”

  Galad shook his head. “Not for the wagon part. Once dad got me home, he went back out with mom and two of my uncles.”

  Hans had spent enough time in Gomi to know that Galad didn’t mean literal uncles by blood. These were other tusks who had settled in Gomi, forming what would become the Tribe. Anyone older than Galad was an uncle or an auntie to him.

  “To what end?” Hans asked.

  “Killed and buried,” Galinda answered simply.

  “You probably met a few of them when the titan came to town,” Charlie said.

  “You have to understand,” Galad began. “There was no justice out here. Gomi had a few guards, but they were good for keeping the gnolls away, not policing. If the bandits escaped, they would just come back with friends.”

  Hans offered a knowing nod. “Did that happen often?”

  “There were three bad ones and a bunch of little incidents. When dad recognized a face in the second raid of the three, one of the thugs who got away in the first attack, he decided that chasing bandits off wasn’t enough.”

  Olza leaned back and searched her memories. “I’ve only ever heard stories about Gruwalda fighting, but it sounds like Ragrug was pretty formidable too.”

  “That’s… That’s complicated,” Galad stammered.

  “I didn’t mean to open an old wound.”

  “No, no,” Galad assured her. “It’s fine. Dad didn’t do a lot of fighting with an audience. If he was on a run with someone else from the Tribe, he asked them to not talk about the fights they saw. Folks around here are loyal, so I didn’t hear most of the stories until well after he passed. Even then, he’d not want them shared.”

  “I don’t understand,” Olza said. “Why be so guarded?”

  Galad locked eyes with his sister, and a silent conversation played out between the two in seconds.

  Galinda ended it by saying, “They’re family.”

  “Okay,” Galad said with a sigh. “In your confidence, please. Dad was three-fourths orc, and mom was half. With how folks feel about tusks, he didn’t want anyone knowing that Galinda and I were more than half-orc. There’s quite a few people who think of the blood as a balance. We’re good because we have half a human to keep us in check. Dad didn’t fit that, so we don’t either.”

  “There was a time when killing a three-fourths baby was common practice,” Charlie added. “Ragrug came out of that era and didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to repeat that piece of tusk history.”

  “So he did his best to hide it,” Galad said, picking up the end of the story. “He was a big man, but you could handwave how orcish he looked because that expression varies across all of us. But if you saw him fight? No hiding it then. He looked like a full-blooded orc in those moments.”

  Olza hugged Galad and then got up to hug Galinda. “I’m so sorry your family went through that.”

  “If dad saw how Gomi has grown, he would tell you he didn’t regret a thing.”

  Hans raised his cup. “To Ragrug.”

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Monitor for independently grown sections of dungeon.

  Complete the next volume (Bronze to Silver) for “The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers.”

  Establish a Hoseki-grade library in Gomi.

  Prepare the first collection of job debriefs for publication.

  Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  Adapt.

  Enjoy it.

  Prepare the Association for spring.

  Decide how to manage breeding requests for monsters like mimics and shadow scorpions.