Bouldy sat smiling on the floor of the Semla Halls, next to the stairs leading down into the mines, waiting and watching as he had been told to do.

  Perched on his shoulder was Pebbles, smiling and chirping as the two living rocks performed one of their most favorite activities—counting the stones on the ground around them.

  “Cree!” the tiny pebble happily exclaimed.

  “Friend,” the giant rock said, nodding and smiling warmly at her.

  Much to the golem’s delight, his little offshoot had already learned how to count to “friend,” which filled him with pride.

  Gazing into the darkness of the stairwell, Bouldy wondered if his friends were having fun down there. He imagined they were. Lots and lots of fun making new friends, laughing, and having a great time.

  He was a little bummed to not have been able to go down too and join the party. Sometimes the golem wished he was just a little smaller. As great as it was to tower above everyone else, it also came with its downsides. Such as not being able to go into those mines with his friends. Or always bumping his head on the chandeliers of the bazaar.

  The golem turned his big eye orbs to the tiny pebble with a face sitting on his shoulder.

  She had it good—she was little, cute, and could fit anywhere.

  Bouldy smiled at her and decided that their next activity would be giving each rock around them a name.

  “Frie…” he started, but his first name suggestion trailed off as a noise from afar caught his attention.

  Steps, small but hurried, were coming from a distant hall to the right.

  The golem knew they could not be from one of the skeleton friends. The crab friend had taught him that Tom and company could not sound like that when running, since they had no flesh on their bones.

  And if not a skeleton, then who could that be coming toward them at such a hurried pace?

  Maybe he was about to see a friend?

  Maybe he was about to make a new friend?

  The living construct stared in the direction where the sound was coming from, anticipation filling him with excitement.

  Then, before even seeing anyone yet, his expression hardened—more so than it already was, given the fact that his face was entirely made of stone.

  What if it was not a friend coming that way? The crab had told him multiple times that not everyone was a friend or a soon-to-be friend. Some people were just not friends at all, and never would be.

  Bouldy found that concept difficult to grasp, but it’s not as if he had never witnessed others doing unfriendly things.

  What if the person running toward that stairwell was one of those? What if it was someone with bad intentions?

  If so, it was the golem’s duty to stop them.

  Friends did not hurt friends. Friends protected friends.

  Bouldy stood up and assumed a ready stance with both rocky fists up and his stony brow furrowed.

  “Cree…” Pebbles chirped quietly on his shoulder, watching the corner too.

  The steps grew closer and closer until a figure finally appeared from around the pillar.

  “Friend?!”

  The golem dropped his fists as he saw a girl in a straw hat appear, cheeks red and breathing heavy from all the running.

  “Oh, thank goodness I found you, Bouldy!” Amber exclaimed between ragged breaths.

  The giant crouched in front of her, looking concerned. “Friend?”

  “A friendly skeleton who said his name was Jim let me through and told me to come this way once I explained I was your friend,” the young birdwatcher explained. “But never mind that right now! I came running because I heard something important about the mines below.”

  “Friend?!”

  “I overheard Madame Ruby talking with Flint about their plans,” the girl said, her brow knitted with conflicting feelings. “Your friends don’t know what kind of danger they’re walking into. You need to warn them!”

  The golem’s expression shifted from concern to active determination, and he stood back up straight.

  Amber glanced at the stairwell behind him as he moved.

  “Oh, no…” she said. “You can’t fit in there, can you? And there’s no way I’ll make it with my low level in a place like tha—Wooooah!”

  Bouldy picked the adventurer up between his giant fingers with as much gentleness as he could and placed her on his free shoulder.

  “Cree-cree!” Pebbles greeted from the other shoulder.

  “What are you doing?!” Amber asked, grabbing the golem’s edges to not fall off as he began to turn.

  “Friend,” Bouldy replied, running past the stairs and toward the next empty hall.

  “Go down?” the girl said. “But how?”

  The golem grinned at her. “Friend!”

  “What do you mean, you’re going to ask the floor?!”

  ***

  Balthazar watched with eyestalks frowning as the girl jumped off the hunched Golem’s shoulder and rolled forward, stopping in front of him with hands on her knees.

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  “What the heck is happening?!” yelled Joshua, cowering behind the crab’s backpack with his own, much larger, pack. “Why is it raining golems?!”

  “Undead,” the gasping adventurer said, looking up at the crab. “Those… things are all undead. And they’re just going to keep getting back up.”

  The merchant glanced back at the breach in the wall. The blast from Bouldy punching his way through the ceiling seemed to have also dislodged several rocks that now partially blocked the ogres' entry point again, forcing them to restart their pushing and shoving to slowly make their way in.

  Between that and the golem’s landing point, Thunk used what little stamina she had left to knock away the few ogres already in the chamber, while Hannabeth used her broken wood shield to fend off the punches from two of the beasts trying to pummel her.

  Ogres were not known for their intellect, but these took it to a whole new level. Drool fell from their gaping mouths as they continued to strike the piece of cracked wood held by the knight with their fists, completely ignoring the many other open angles she was leaving.

  Or the fact that they could be attacking with the clubs they were holding instead of their hands like they were doing.

  Paying more attention to their features, Balthazar realized the grayish tone of those ogres wasn’t the only diseased-looking thing about them. Bits of rot and small darkened gashes were scattered all over their thick skin, like old vestiges of a lost battle.

  Now that he really thought about it, the crab realized it should have been pretty obvious from the start—those ogres were very much dead.

  “Yeah, I had just realized that, and you stole my big reveal, kid!” Balthazar said. “But forget that! Who are you and what…” He stopped and narrowed his gaze on the girl. “Wait, I remember you. From Condor! In the room with Ruby. You were her apprentice, serving the tea! You’re a Birdwatcher!”

  “They’re zombie ogres?!” exclaimed the freaked out farmer boy behind the crab.

  “Y-yes, I-I was,” the girl in the straw hat said, her anxious eyes like those of a kid who just got caught stealing the last cookie from a plate. “I-I’m Amber.”

  “You’re one of Ruby’s damn cronies, that’s what you are!” the merchant exclaimed with indignation. “I’m not trusting a word out of your mouth! You Birdwatchers are nothing but trouble! You guys fed poor Rye that weird tea. Ruby used me to get to Tweedus. You all nearly captured us with who knows what intentions, if it wasn’t for the old wizard yanking us out of there with some big spell that left me still feeling nauseous every morning when I wake up! I want nothing but distance from birds and birdwatchers!”

  The golem standing behind Amber carefully stepped between her and the crab, hunching to not hit the ceiling of the cave.

  “Friend,” he said.

  “And what the hell are you doing, Bouldy?!” the incredulous crustacean asked, throwing his pincers up in exasperation. “Bringing one of them down here?! And how did you even find where we were down here?”

  “Frieeeend,” the stone giant said, with a certain self-satisfied air to him.

  “What do you mean, you asked the floor?!” the bewildered crab exclaimed. “And you’d better have a damn good explanation as to why that girl is here with you!”

  Bouldy nodded affirmatively.

  “Well, explain yourself then!” demanded the eight-legged merchant.

  The golem opened his mouth as if taking in a big breath—something he absolutely did not need to do—and made a brief but dramatic pause before beginning his explanation.

  “Friend.”

  Balthazar stood motionless staring up at his bodyguard for a handful of seconds as the cacophony of ogres groaning, a barbarian yelling, a knight shouting, and a farmer boy crying played in the background behind him.

  “So let me see if I got this straight,” the crab started. “You’re telling me that you made friends with this girl here named Amber when she was ordered to spy on my pond from the edge of the Black Forest, where Ruby and her Birdwatchers have set up a camp, but Amber started feeling guilty about spying on us because she saw we’re alright after all, and so she started keeping things from her mentor and meeting with you in secret, but some guy named Flint started suspecting of her, and today she overheard him and Ruby talking about this high-level threat the Birdwatchers unleashed on these mines to cause us trouble, and so she came running to warn you on the floor above? And also, that her favorite pastries are cinnamon buns?”

  “Friend!” Bouldy said with a grin and a thumbs up.

  “Did you just get all of that from one single word?!” Joshua blurted out from his hiding spot a few steps behind the crab. “I am so confused about everything that is happening right now!”

  Amber approached timidly from behind the golem.

  “Look, I know that—”

  “Alright, I trust her,” Balthazar said to his bodyguard before turning around to walk away.

  “Wait, what?” the girl said, blinking in disbelief at the crab. “Just like that?!”

  The eight-legged merchant stopped and turned around to look at her with eyestalks frowned.

  “What? If you earned Bouldy’s approval, that’s good enough for me,” Balthazar said. “I already know he’s a way better judge of character than me. I’m not going to waste time arguing about it. In case you forgot, we’re kind of in a pinch right now!”

  “Oh…” the flabbergasted alchemist muttered.

  “Boss, boss!” Druma called, running toward them from the other end of the chamber. “Kobolds almost all out into tunnel. Boss want Druma to make big kaboom now?”

  “No!” the merchant exclaimed quickly, seeing the goblin grab his magical staff with a grin on his face. “We’re in a very enclosed space, and you don’t have a clear line of sight to anywhere that wouldn’t risk hitting Thunk and Hannabeth too. Not to mention, from here, the size of the bolt would definitely hit something that would probably bring what’s left of the ceiling down on our heads. You’d need to be way higher than—”

  A purple flash came from the other side of the breach on the wall and rocks went flying everywhere.

  Balthazar and those around him flinched from the sudden blast and turned to look at what was now a large passage into the chamber, wide enough for several more ogres to easily walk through.

  The undead brutes shambled their way into the cave, dragging their clubs and slobbering all over themselves, their milky empty eyes pointed forward at the adventurers standing in their path.

  But something else came into the chamber with the ogres—a thick purple fog, rolling in near the floor, spreading from the breach like poison seeping through a wound.

  A haunting sound, like the mountain itself was hissing on the other side, echoed from the opening the ogres were invading through.

  Balthazar gazed into the darkness on the other side, until his eyes began to make out a shape approaching slowly.

  A faint purple glow surrounded a humanoid silhouette, tall and slender, with what seemed like a cloaked robe dragging behind it. It was still too far in the shadows to make out any more detailed features about it, but something in the back of the crab’s mind told him he was not going to like what he would see.

  The Monocle of Exposition detected the being approaching and a line appeared in the space above the outline of its head.

  [Lich Lord - Level 55]

  “A lich…” Balthazar murmured.

  “Oh, no! That’s what I heard Madame Ruby say they released in the mines! We gotta do something!” exclaimed Amber.

  “There’s no way we can fight that thing right here and now,” said the crab, tapping on the top of his shell with the blunt side of his claw. “We need a plan. Think, Balthazar. Think!”

  “Friend?!” the hunched golem exclaimed.

  “No, no, Bouldy. You can’t go help, you’re too tall, if you start moving down here you might collapse this whole place on…”

  The crab’s eyestalks snapped up to look at the stone golem.

  “That’s it! You're tall!”

  Balthazar remembered the drawings he had seen earlier in that dank cave, of a green stick figure shooting a huge blast from its handheld stick.

  “I hope those ‘omens’ were… what do they call it? A self… service prophecy? Yeah, let’s call it that.”

  He turned to his green assistant. “Druma!”

  The goblin wizard turned to look at the crab, the tip of his floppy hat nearly hitting his nose as he did.

  “Yes, boss!”

  “Forget what I said. It’s kaboom time!”