When the yellows and reds of sunrise were nearly overtaken by clouds and sky, Hans looked up at the Dead End Mountains.

  No merchant today.

  And no gnolls either. Hans cast Find North to get his bearings and walked home. The gates were open now, and townspeople milled in and out, going about their days.

  Hans hadn’t brought a sheath, so he walked with the flat of his blade resting on his shoulder. Though he had slept relatively little, he wasn’t ready to be back to the guild hall. He followed the sound of pounding hammers on metal to the blacksmith’s.

  “Guild Master, going to have give me a little more time than that.”

  Hans laughed. “Not why I came. If you’re busy, I can come back.”

  “I got a minute. The boys are still getting the day ready.” The blacksmith looked over his shoulder at Eduardo and the much smaller and younger Harry stacking a fresh batch of fuel by the forge.

  “Any experience making iron gates or something like portcullises?”

  The smith raised an eyebrow. “What we tryin’ to keep out?”

  Or in. “Biggest thing right now is an ogre, I think.”

  “What do you mean right now?” the smith asked, his eyes wide. He grabbed a nubby pencil and paper to write on.

  “There could be bigger monsters later, but for discussion’s sake, let’s say I need to contain an ogre and also want to keep smaller flying monsters from getting through. This is in the dungeon, so going over a wall to skip the barrier isn’t a concern.”

  “How tall is an ogre?”

  Hans said about two of him stacked up.

  “Gods, never a dull talk with you. How much you reckon a fella like that weighs?”

  “In the realm of 1,300 pounds, give or take.”

  The smith scratched his head looking at the absurdity of the few notes he had. “What do you do with it once it’s stuck inside?”

  “Kill it.”

  “Right, right. So you want a metal gate strong enough to hold something that could weigh more than 1,300 pounds.”

  That sounded accurate to Hans.

  After a few moments of thinking, the smith said they had multiple problems to solve. He had never built a metal barrier for anything larger than a cage for a pet finch or reinforcement for a wooden door, but from what he knew, a lot of jail cells used cast iron bars, and they would need something at least that strong to contain an ogre. Aside from lacking the molds for bars that size, his smithing operation would have a difficult time managing the processes and the volume of materials the project would need.

  And it would be fucking heavy. The Gomi chapter didn’t use solid metal dungeon doors because the amount of metal they would need was impractical to drag up the mountain. A single jail door made from cast iron was around 250 pounds, the smith estimated. To withstand an ogre, the volume of iron they needed was looking like it was north of 1,000 pounds. At a minimum.

  “So you’re saying this is going to be hard.”

  “The hardest. They call something this hard ‘impossible.’”

  Hans nodded. “If it doesn’t have to be strong enough to contain an ogre, does that make this more manageable?”

  “I could probably do you a metal gate, but not much more elaborate than a prison door. Even a small portcullis is more material than I can manage.”

  Hans remembered the story of Galinda’s mother ripping a jail cell door out of a wall. A prison door wouldn't be strong enough.

  He told the smith he’d keep thinking and thanked him for his perspective.

  Rounding the corner to the guild hall, Hans saw someone in the training yard. He could see only the shadow moving back and forth through the narrow gaps in the fence. Hans opened the fence door.

  “Gunther? Class isn’t for a few hours.”

  “I know,” Gunther replied without stopping his thrust practice.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “No.”

  “Want to tell me about it?” Hans asked.

  Gunther turned to face Hans. “Kane’s always gone. Quentin’s always gone. Uncle Ed’s always gone. Roland’s always gone. You’re always gone.”

  “Gunther, I haven’t left Gomi.”

  “You’re up the mountain all the time!”

  “Ah.”

  Gunther resumed practicing, this time focusing on footwork while he executed a combo of slashes and thrusts. Small clouds of dirt kicked up as he moved.

  “You’re right,” Hans said. “That sounds really lonely.”

  The young tusk kept his back to Hans and continued his movements.

  “I’m sorry that I made you feel like that. I know no one did that intentionally, but that doesn’t make it less hard.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What would you like to see change?” Hans asked.

  “I want everyone back in Gomi.”

  “Okay, but what if we can’t all come back to Gomi like you want? What would you want to happen then?”

  Gunther thought. “I want to be up the mountain with Kane and Quinton.”

  Hans felt Gunther was justified in feeling frustrated. Even Hans misunderstood the boy's resilience. Yeah, Gunther could take care of himself, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be alone all the time. Maybe he could go with Ed on wagon runs eventually. At the moment, the risk was still too great. Roland was out hunting most of the time. And everyone else on his list was up the mountain, like he said.

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  “The dungeon is dangerous.”

  “Don’t you have wood kids up the mountain already?”

  Wood kids…? Oh, apprentice carpenters. And yes, Gunther was right again. Hans rationalized their presence as temporary, he realized, but effectively, he already had several children sleeping outside of a dungeon entrance.

  “Fair point,” Hans said. “What would you want to do up there?”

  “I can train, and I can help Miss Tandis. I’ll carry her stuff, anything she needs.”

  “I don’t know… you’re still too young to be an Apprentice adventurer.”

  The tusk spun angrily to address Hans. “You let all those people be Apprentices, and none of them had killed more gnolls than me.”

  “Okay, okay,” Hans said. “I promise to look into it.”

  “What does lookin’ mean?”

  Gods, this kid. “It means I promise to see if it’s possible. You made very good points, but this is a big decision that I need time to think about. Can you give me time to do that?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Okay is right,” Hans said. “Now please quit dragging that rear foot. You’re like a peg leg pirate out there.”

  New Quest: Talk to Kane, Uncle Ed, and Tandis about Gunther spending time at the dungeon.

  Hans knocked and cracked the door.

  “Yes?” Olza yelled from the back of her shop.

  “It’s Hans. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  A long pause elapsed.

  “Olz–”

  “I’m thinking!” she yelled, cutting Hans off. “Okay, fine, but I’m very busy.”

  She waited behind the counter for Hans. He saw his presence make her uncomfortable. Her proud chin dropped. Her shoulders hunched slightly. She fidgeted, never leaving her weight on one foot for longer than thirty seconds, if that.

  “I’ll be quick,” Hans said.

  “Okay.”

  “A conversation I just had reminded me that I enjoy your company. A lot. I value that time. It’s good for me, and I don’t want to lose that.”

  “Listen–”

  “I mean it. I’ll respect whatever you decide, but I’d never let myself live it down if I didn’t tell you that. I’m thankful. I don’t fault you for how you feel. I also live a certain kind of life. It’s all I’ve got left really, and it’s not going away. Definitely not with what we’re building here in Gomi. You don’t have to agree with it, and I won’t talk to you about those parts of my work.”

  Olza didn’t reply right away.

  Nervously, Hans filled the silence. “And honestly, I’m dying to tell you about the math the smith just put me through with this thing I want to build. It’s pretty wild.”

  “What is the thing?”

  “A gate to keep monsters from getting out of the dungeon.”

  The alchemist sighed. “You just said– I’ll think about it, okay?”

  Hans agreed and left Olza in her shop.

  Well done, Hans. Hell of a job you did there. Real inspired stuff.

  The momentum of the moment was like falling out of a rowboat. He didn’t want to be in the water, but since he was, he’d swim back and grab the paddle he dropped a ways back.

  Devon,

  Thank you for your letter and your kind words. As always, Theneesa is too generous. She contributed far more to the effort and deserves the credit.

  I also thank you for your honesty. I’m enjoying the quiet life out here, and I’ve come to terms with my ambition and my adventuring days being behind me. I’m content being retired, and I’m grateful to have your support so that I may continue living in this place.

  For what it’s worth, I miss your friendship. You’ve earned every bit of your success, and I greatly underestimated the pressure you face as a result of that success.

  -Hans

  He reread the letter twice.

  “This is the worst idea I’ve had in a while.”

  Hans sealed the letter with wax and set it aside, unsure he’d ever send it. An hour later, he walked the letter over to Charlie, leaving it with the Mayor for the next merchant caravan. He worried he would lose his nerve if he waited any longer.

  In preparation for the visiting adventurers, Charlie and Galinda went door to door to explain a new signal system. Were Gomi to be surprised by visitors, they needed a discrete way to inform everyone an outsider was present, lest a family of tusks stumble onto a group of strangers in town.

  Galinda made four decorative banners for each gate, one to hang from the window of her and Charlie’s apartment, and another to hang on the road from Gomi to the Tribe. All a deep hunter green. If the banners were unfurled, citizens would know outsiders were present. Additionally, the guards would start using a loud bell to announce when outsiders approached.

  Hans asked Galinda if she didn’t mind making a few more banners so he could hang them at the dungeon. He wanted to use the system there as well.

  He spoke with Tandis and asked her to manage their people up the mountain. A little bit of wagon traffic would probably be fine, but they needed to drastically reduce the frequency of their trips. The Apprentices may need to delay rotations as well. Tandis suggested speaking to Becky about a trail that cut diagonally from the dungeon road to the road out to the farmlands. That way, foot traffic would be possible, enabling any tusk to move freely between the Tribe and the dungeon.

  The only other preparations Hans and Tandis made for their visitors was to stash a batch of practice weapons in one of the Tribe barns. Hans planned to have the Apprentices cover kid’s classes out there in the meantime.

  “Weird question,” Hans began, “How would you feel about Gunther helping out around the dungeon?”

  “Serious?” Tandis asked.

  He said he was.

  “He’s a handful,” Tandis said, “but he listens when it counts. Hard worker when he’s focused, which is its own challenge. He bugging you about moving up there?”

  “Boy is he. I think I’ve narrowed my concerns down to if Kane’s okay with it or not, and if he’d have something to do with his time.”

  “Lots to be done when the harvesters are going in or coming out, I suppose he could help a bit there. I don’t know Gunny as well as you do, but I get the feeling we shouldn’t give him very much free time.”

  Hans agreed and asked Tandis to keep thinking about it. He didn’t need an answer now.

  “I was talking to the smith about what we’d need to contain something like an ogre, how much metal, what sort of construction–”

  “You’re not putting one of my harvesters on ogre latrine duty,” Tandis said, bluntly.

  “What?”

  “If you keep an ogre in a cage, it’s going to shit eventually, and it’s a waste of a harvester to have them shoveling ogre shit.”

  The Guild Master chuckled. “Sorry, when I say ‘contain,’ I really just mean a gate that something as strong as an ogre couldn’t get through. Not a cage. An ogre would probably never get to it to test it, but something as strong or stronger could.”

  “Can’t say I’ve ever thought about anything like that before.”

  “Fair enough,” Hans said. “I’ll make a note of your intense feelings about ogre poop as well.”

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

  Mend the rift with Devon.

  Complete the next volume (Iron to Bronze) for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

  Secure a way to use surplus dungeon inventory for good.

  Visit the locations of old Diamond quests with Becky.

  Explore the idea of training “dungeon lifeguards” to accompany adventurers in training.

  Determine if the golem is a threat when the tower is undisturbed.

  Find a new Apprentice Rogue to fill the gap in Gomi’s adventuring capabilities.

  Await the arrival of a safe for the Gomi chapter.

  Manage the Kohei adventurers while they are in Gomi.

  Complete construction of the Takarabune (still need diamond, scarlet steel, celestial steel, and mimic blood).

  Ideate on physical chokepoints to prevent monsters from escaping the dungeon.

  Talk to Kane, Uncle Ed, and Tandis about Gunther spending time at the dungeon.