Josh drove his shovel into the damp soil with a grunt, the muscles in his shoulders burning from the effort. Beside him, Bhel worked at a steady rhythm, each scoop of dirt tossed with the precision of a blacksmith at his forge.

  “Never thought we’d come all this way, through all that, to then be digging holes,” Josh muttered, jabbing at a particularly stubborn rock. “If I wanted to shovel dirt for a living, I’d have carried on working on that building site. Ugh.” His shovel faltered, as he realised he’d started talking about his previous life… something he’d not thought about in a while now.

  Bhel snorted, not looking up. “Aye, but then you’d have missed out on the chance to nearly get your head caved in by an orc. Think of it as career growth.”

  “Character building,” Brett added dryly from in front of them. He stood watch with Perberos a few paces further, the two occasionally loosing arrows or bolts of flame into the cave mouth, whenever another goblin stumbled screaming out of the dungeon entrance.

  Josh shot him a glare over his shoulder. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one covered in mud and blood.”

  Brett grinned. “I’d help, but someone has to make sure the goblins don’t get you from behind. Consider me your guardian angel.”

  Perberos smirked, loosing another arrow from his comfortable position, sat on the ground. The shaft hissed through the air and buried itself in a goblin’s chest mid-sprint. “Very benevolent of us, yes?”

  Josh rolled his eyes and stabbed the shovel back into the dirt. “Next time we fight orcs, I’m volunteering you to carry the shield, and I’ll stand in the back throwing magic.”

  “Please don’t,” Brett said with mock seriousness. “This robe takes ages to get clean and I don’t think I’d like to smell as bad as you smell right now.”

  A few chuckles rippled through the nearby adventurers, weary, but real. The rhythm of digging and distant crackle of fire gave the scene a strange sense of calm after so much chaos.

  Josh glanced to his right, along the edge of the forming ditch, see another of the mages stood knee-deep in churned earth, her hands glowing with dull orange light. With a slow motion, she raised both palms, and the ground itself shifted, folding back in waves to form a trench twice as wide as anything the diggers had managed.

  Josh paused mid-swing, sweat running down his brow. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Bhel leaned on his shovel, watching the mage reshape the ground like clay. “Bah, show-off. Let her do the heavy lifting, saves me the trouble.”

  Josh laughed, shaking his head. “Fine by me. I’ll just make it look like I’m working hard.”

  “You already do that,” Brett called out. “Mostly because of the face you make when you dig.”

  That earned a few more laughs from the surrounding parties and support staff, small, fleeting moments of levity amid the exhaustion.

  The trench deepened, the earth wall began to take shape. The steady rhythm of digging and the low hum of earth magic filled the camp, a strange, almost peaceful counterpoint to the hours of chaos they’d survived. The trench had grown deep enough to serve as a barrier, and the first crude supports for the wall were being driven into the ground by the dwarfs.

  Josh leaned on his shovel, breathing hard, mud streaked up his arms and across his face. Bhel wiped his brow with the back of his wrist and grinned, “Well, Red, “he smirked, adopting the name Ronald had given him, “looks like we might live long enough to build somethin’ worth defending.”

  Josh chuckled, but his laughter faded as a familiar, steady voice called out behind them.

  “Don’t get too comfortable.”

  Ronald approached through the thinning smog, his bow slung across his shoulder and his expression hard but calm. His leathers were streaked with soot, and one of his sleeves was torn, but his stride never wavered. The chatter died as he came to a stop at the edge of the ditch.

  He looked over the work with a curt nod. “Good progress. The mage’s help is saving us hours.” His eyes flicked to Josh and Bhel. “And you two look like you’ve wrestled a swamp troll.”

  Bhel snorted. “We’d have fared better against the troll. Dirt doesn’t fight fair.”

  Even Ronald cracked a brief grin before his expression hardened again. He glanced toward the dungeon’s mouth, where that sickly purple glow still pulsed, faint but insistent. Goblins still clawed their way free, only to be cut down before it could take two steps. There had even been a few orcs over the past few hours, but the combined fire of five parties quickly brought them down.

  “Keep your guard up,” Ronald said, voice carrying over the gathered adventurers. “That glow means the dungeon’s unstable. It’s not just spitting out goblins and orcs, it’s building pressure. If it breaks fully, we’ll have far worse to worry about than these stragglers.”

  Josh exchanged a look with Brett, the brief calm they’d enjoyed fading from their faces.

  “How long do we have?” Brett asked quietly.

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  Ronald didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed fixed on the dungeon’s entrance, that unnatural light flickering in the reflection of his gaze. When he finally spoke, his tone was low and grim.

  “Long enough to prepare, I hope. But not long enough to relax.”

  He turned away, barking new orders to the guards and adventurers nearby, directing them to reinforce the earth wall or dig like their lives depended on it.

  Josh straightened, gripping his shovel a little tighter. The warmth of laughter and camaraderie was gone now, replaced by a cold weight in his chest, the same mix of fear and anticipation that always came before another fight.

  “Guess break time’s over,” he muttered.

  Bhel slammed his shovel into the earth again with a grunt. “Aye. Let’s make sure this wall’s worth the blood we spilled to build it.”

  The digging had become something almost rhythmic - shovel strikes, clumps of dirt tossed aside, the occasional curse when someone hit a stubborn root or rock. Josh and Bhel worked side by side, the dwarf humming under his breath while Josh tried not to show how much his arms were burning.

  “Didn’t think warrior training involved landscaping,” Josh muttered.

  Bhel grunted, not looking up. “Aye, lad. Builds character. And forearms. Both are useful when you’re cracking skulls.”

  “Could’ve just said you enjoy making me suffer,” Josh replied, flicking a bit of dirt toward him.

  Bhel only chuckled. “That too.”

  Josh stopped digging for a moment before looking at Bhel, who glanced at the tall human. “Wait, can doing things like this increase our stats? Like could I get more strength?”

  Bhel looked at Josh extremely confused. “What? No. Did no one ever teach you about these things? The best we’ll get out of this is a new skill like digging or laborious. You can’t increase stats through work like this… otherwise idiots like you would just be lifting rocks all the time.”

  With his amazing brainwave got destroyed before his eyes, Josh huffed and slammed his shovel back down.

  Not far off, Perberos and Brett had stationed themselves atop of a completed section of the earth wall, bow and staff ready. Every so often, a goblin would get spat out of the dungeon’s shimmering entrance, usually dazed, confused, and unlucky.

  “Another one,” Perberos said lazily, nocking an arrow. He drew and fired in one smooth motion. The goblin squealed and fell, being struck down by several spells and arrows.

  Brett squinted. “You’re showing off again.”

  “I’m maintaining discipline,” Perberos replied, reaching for another arrow.

  The next goblin popped out, scrabbling on all fours. Brett’s firebolt flashed out of his staff towards the monster… and missed, the flame whizzing past and splashing against the dungeon entrance.

  “See?” Perberos said. “Lack of discipline.”

  Brett grinned, already recasting as another goblin appeared. “Lack of luck.” His second shot caught this goblin through the chest. “There. Fixed it.”

  Nearby, the mage who appeared to have a knack for earth magic, a young woman with her hair tied back and half her robe spattered in mud, stood over the ground, murmuring under her breath. The soil rippled and folded away as if peeled by invisible hands.

  “Remind me why we didn’t just let her do all this?” Josh said, pausing to wipe sweat from his brow before gritting his teeth and jabbing his shovel into the ground.

  After another hour of relentless work, the ditch was finally finished, the freshly turned earth forming a crude but solid wall around the dungeon’s entrance. The mage’s earth-shaping had done the work of ten men, and the rest had filled in what gaps they could. Sweat-soaked adventurers leaned on shovels and their weapons alike, their breath misting faintly in the lingering haze.

  The dwarven carpenters were already hammering away with the stubborn rhythm of their kind. They had managed to raise the first skeletal frames of the palisade. Rough timber posts stood upright like broken teeth around the perimeter, ready to be filled out once the rest of the wood arrived.

  Ronald made his rounds, bow slung across his shoulder, barking out orders with the calm authority of someone who’d seen too many battles to waste words.

  “Bhel, take a few with you, lumber team. Fell the nearest trees and get them stripped and cut to length. I want those walls finished before nightfall.”

  The dwarf grunted, already waving for anyone who looked like they could swing an axe. “Aye, you heard the man. Let’s see if these trees fall quicker than goblins do.”

  “Josh, Brett,” Ronald called, turning toward them. “Scavenge the old camp. Anything that can be used for barricades or patching - carts, tables, wagons, doesn’t matter as long as it’s solid. Bring it all back. We’ll make use of every scrap.”

  Josh nodded, slinging his shield onto his back. “Got it. Come on, Brett, let’s see what’s left standing.”

  Ronald moved on, his sharp eyes scanning over the rest of the weary but resolute adventurers. “Carcan, Zolma, you two handle loot and supplies. Potions, weapons, armour, anything worth saving. We’ll need it no doubt. Get it all together and place it over there.” He indicated towards a space behind the wall.

  Carcan gave a tired nod, already turning toward the areas they’d been fighting only a few short hours ago. She tried not to look too long at the blood stained ground.

  Finally, he gestured toward Perberos and a handful of the ranged fighters. “You lot, you’re on portal watch. Anything that comes out of there, goblin, orc, or something worse, it doesn’t take two steps. I don’t want another creature in this clearing.”

  Perberos nodded sharply, drawing his bow and heading toward the eerie purple glow. The mist still rippled faintly there, the ground itself seeming to breathe with unnatural energy. Every so often, the light flared, and another goblin stumbled through, only to be cut down instantly by an arrow or spell. The pace of new monsters had continued to increase though…

  The camp slowly transformed from a chaotic battlefield into something that looked almost defensible. The rhythmic chopping of axes mixed with the semi regular twang of bowstrings. Smoke still hung heavy in the air, but beneath it came the sounds of order being restored. the sound of adventurers refusing to give in.

  Josh and Brett hauled back the frame of a shattered wagon, dropping it onto the growing barricade salvage line with a dull thud. Josh wiped his brow and looked toward the dungeon’s pulsing light, and then the pile of scrap that he and other adventurers had brought back to the line, and now others were dismantling.

  “You think this’ll hold?” he asked quietly.

  Brett followed his gaze, fire still flickering faintly in his hands. “It’ll have to, otherwise we’re screwed.” Unsure if his friend meant the dungeon, or the wall they were making. Though the answer was the same either way.

  Josh stared for a second, before turning back towards the goblin camp and stomping his way forward. “You know the next heavy thing we find, do you think you could actually try carrying it as well? I feel like I’m doing most of the lifting.”

  Brett smirked, following behind his friend and letting out a dramatic gasp. “What!? I’m trying my best!” His finger crossed behind his back.