I had created a new pile next to my lovely shiny one. This one was less pleasant to look at, but it was quickly being consumed.

  Biomass stored:

  78.5 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 160 KG

  “Bob, why are you eating like it’s a competition?” Kat asked. I looked down at the tiny woman, then scooped up another pile of uni-bunny corpses like my jaws belonged to a mechanical digger and swallowed without chewing.

  Biomass stored:

  92.5 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 160 KG

  “Three fucking armies, Kat. I’m not strong enough. Need to get some gains.” Another swallow and I coughed out a cloud of fur.

  “You don’t need to get involved,” she said with a shrug that was borderline explicit due to her armoured bikini. “Just let them kill each other, loot the battlefield, and then eat the bodies, if you’re that way inclined. Why the panic?”

  “I am not panicking!” I snarled. “Well, maybe I am a bit,” I continued in a more normal voice. “The Mill is caught right in the middle. More importantly, Mount Bob is caught right in the middle. When the Fuderation comes south, the Empire’s going to have to respond, right?”

  “Maybe? Orlic warbands are just a part of life around here. They usually just launch a punitive raid of their own with a bunch of high-level… oh. Yeah, this could be a problem. We do not want level one-fifties running around out here.”

  “So Bob must get stronk,” I mumbled around a mouthful of dead bunnies.

  “It is usually a bad sign when someone starts referring to themselves in the third person, Bob.” I swallowed again.

  Biomass stored:

  108 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 160 KG

  “Bob doesn’t care.” I gave her my toothiest smile. “I’ve only got a couple hundred more of these little bastards in storage. “How many do we have running loose in the lower floors of the dungeon?”

  “Maybe the same again, but they’re hiding now. The Heaven’s Cursed buggers only pop out to eat or attack the warriors moving down to clear the next level.” She gave me another chesty shrug. “We could hire some more troops?” she offered innocently.

  “I’m not sure shopping is the answer. In fact, shopping is never the bloody answer, Kat.” I checked the dungeon status and winced at having dropped below a million gold.

  Dungeon Status:

  Unnamed Dungeon.

  Level: 10

  Floors: 11 (Residential (Industrial) (Agricultural) (TBCx7)

  Rooms: 13

  Sprite level: 17

  Minions: 17/30

  Hoard: 964,103 gold

  “Have you considered just lying low? Take a few weeks off. Let the humans and the Orlics fuck each other up. The Mill will still be there afterwards. This isn’t their first rodeo, and the Fuderation isn’t so bad. Not like the fucking Dwarves.”

  “What do the Dwarves do?”

  “Their battle cry is ‘war crimes’. You figure it out. So just take a break. Have a holiday, maybe head back to the city so you’re out of the area.” She flicked a gold coin the size of her head back onto the hoard, and I nodded in approval. Then I went cold.

  “Is that all my change from the fifty grand I gave you?” I demanded, and she scuffed one foot on the ground, then kicked at the edge of the hoard, which sent a flush of rage through me. Respect the shinies! I carefully adjusted my neckwear.

  “Afraid so. Building a subterranean empire ain’t cheap, scaly. You can take the Bonkers with you if you really want to interfere in the affairs of mortal men. Speaking as someone who used to be an immortal, I’d advise staying out of it all.”

  “You died. That automatically disqualifies you from calling yourself an immortal, Princess. Who or what the hell are the Bonkers?” I asked.

  “That’s what Salnia, Harold, and Simeon have taken to calling themselves. The Orlic picked the name, the others shortened it. I swear, the levels have gone to their heads, man. You should send them out to attack proper fighters. Leaderless bunnies aren’t much of a challenge for the idiots anymore.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “And now you can’t just punch them in the balls whenever they annoy you?”

  “Oh, that hasn’t changed!” She cackled nastily, and I nodded in approval. It’s better to be loved than feared, but she wasn’t exactly lovable, so feared would have to do.

  “So I should send them out into the world?”

  “Tribulation no! Do not do that, Bob. That will go one of two ways. They’ll either get themselves stomped by a random powerhouse, and that’s the best-case scenario, or they’ll get too strong and pull too much attention. If that happens, we’ll have heroes crawling out of the walls! Keep them doing dungeon floors. We can start building up combat floors soon.”

  “Won’t that pull adventurers here?” I was confused.

  “Eventually, yeah.”

  “And we don’t want to attract the attention of adventurers?” I pinched the bridge of my snout between two claws and closed my eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  “You can see how these things might appear, at first glance, to be mutually incompatible?” I asked tiredly.

  “Do I have to explain everything like you got dropped on the head when you were a baby? Bob, getting the attention of powerful adventurers is bad. Getting the attention of low-level adventurers is good. Capiche?”

  “But how do we make sure that it’s only the low-level ones that-”

  “It’s all about the image, Bob. Ye gods. First of all, the main purpose is to create roadblocks if any of the big dicks come after you. Secondly, some low-levels, basically muscleheads who are just starting out, running a dungeon, well, some of them won’t make it. Which means gold for the kills, and you get to loot the bodies.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “And the powerhouses won’t pay any attention if a place is crawling with lowbies. Why would they? If too many of them die, they’ll swing by, but that, wetbrain, is where I come in.”

  “Kat, I don’t fucking care. I’ll trust you to run the dungeon. My issue is that three bloody armies are going to screw up my plan to stick it to that asshole Angtirm. I need an option to stop that from happening. You’re my pixie, my guide, and sprite-ual adviser. Throw me a bone here, empress.” I had finished scarfing down all the bunny bodies I had on hand, and it hadn’t been enough for a single level up.

  Biomass stored:

  149.5 KG

  Biomass required for evolution: 160 KG

  My chin landed on the hoard, and I snuggled down into the gold.

  “Have you considered relocating?” she asked as she built a small pile of coins into a seat.

  “Is that an option?”

  “No, it isn’t,” she snapped. “You can’t just tuck the core in your belly pouch and fly away with it. It’s bound to the site. Besides, what about the arkendrite?” She tapped a foot pointedly. I thought for a minute. Mind turning over the possibilities and the problems.

  Issue One: Don’t allow the Mill to be caught up in the battle. Angtirm must pay.

  Issue Two: Three goddamn armies.

  Issue Three: Don’t get noticed by people who can swat me like a scaly fly.

  Issue Four: If I go all “death from above”, the only realistic chance I have of solving Issues One and Two, Issue Three becomes a real fucking problem.

  I explained my list to Kat, and she sniffed in response. She stood and paced back and forth, muttering to herself. I caught snatches of it, and it mostly seemed to be insulting my parentage and my intelligence. I doubted I’d be getting any help from the tiny psychotic.

  “Maybe we can solve each other's problems? Let’s go have a chat with the definitely-not-mental Orlic,” she declared as she pivoted and strode towards the hatch. I slipped reluctantly off my shinies and slithered after the pixie, a spray of tails flicking out to return any errant coins back to the pile.

  We found him hard at work on the industrial floor. Rows of prosthetic arms and legs lined the walls of his workshop, and the forge glowed a cherry red. Soot and ash flavoured the air as my tongue shot in and out. Fortunately, no Janglebonks were nearby. The thought reminded me that I had one in storage and should see if they tasted as good as they smelled sometime soon. It might be enough to push me up to another evolution.

  “You’re drooling,” Kat muttered, and I swiped at my jaw with one paw. “Simeon! Got a question for you. What can you do to turn the uni-bunnies into cyborgs?” My jaw hung open at her words.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea!” I objected.

  “Angry thy lords? Wooden smegs and growing farms?” Simeon asked, flinching as my eyes narrowed. I watched as Kat parsed what he was trying to say.

  “Just regular cyborgs, and yeah, arms and legs would be good,” she replied.

  “I’m really not sure unleashing a swarm of cybernetically enhanced bunny soldiers on the world is going to do my karmic balance any favours, Kat. This is insane. No offence, Simeon.” The Orlic shrugged.

  “Says I’m not in my glamour and fame,” he muttered.

  “Indeed. Kat, the bloody bunnies caused enough trouble when they were just fluffy. Give the little shits robo-arms and lasers mounted on their heads, and we’ll be in trouble. That kind of thing is going to get noticed!”

  “I can barley-milled in some flowery explodes?” Simeon offered.

  “I’m not sure that helps, Simeon, you fu–” I began.

  “He means build in some controls, Bob. Just let the grown-ups talk for a minute.”

  I closed my mouth with a snap. Apparently, the dude who needs to let everyone know he’s sane, and the ancient psychotic pixie with a genital-punching obsession, considered me the immature one. What followed was a rapid-fire exchange of gibberish rhymes that didn’t throw Kat off at all, followed by several threats of violence from the pixie. When they finally stopped, I raised an eyebrow as Kat turned and beamed up at me.

  “All sorted! He’s gonna build in a kill switch and kit you out with a remote control. Should have a couple of hundred ready to go in a week or so.”

  “Still not sure I’m happy about this, Kat. Bun-bun reproduced asexually. I don’t want–”

  “Heaven’s fury. Bob, this is a great idea. Nothing can go wrong. It’s two hundred psycho-bunnies and a war dealt with by one stone.”

  “That… is not a great metaphor, Kat.”

  “Look at it this way. Are cyborgs cool?”

  “Like the Terminator? Yeah, they’re pretty cool.” I was coming round to the idea.

  “The T-800 was a cybernetic organism, not a cyborg. All his living parts were just vajazzles. And have you always dreamed of having an army of cyborg-monster-bunnies who are programmed to do your bidding and kill Sarah Connor?” she asked sweetly.

  “That is weirdly specific.”

  “You get the idea, you overgrown iguana. Simeon can brainchip them, give them laser arms and jetpack legs or whatever, then you can be highly visible in town, preferably hanging out with prominent members of the defending asshats while the deed is done,” she said, and Simeon nodded quickly.

  “No chance they’ll run gamble truck, total fuss.” Simeon gulped and stepped away from me, bouncing off his worktop. I was confident that purple and black sparks were radiating from my eyes.

  “He means they won’t give a fuck, and I think the last part was boss?” Kat looked up at the soon-to-be dragon-shit who shook his head frantically.

  “Gamble truck. A - M - O - K,” he enunciated carefully.

  “Oh, they won’t run amok. See, Simeon says it’s fine. So, robo-bunnies. Yay or nay?”

  I pondered for a moment. I briefly wished I had my orb, but it was stashed in the pouch. I didn’t want to talk to Tex, but I’d recently found that pondering was most effective with an orb in my hand.

  “So, no army of unkillable cyber-bunnies running amok? And by the way, Simeon, amok rhymes with flock, not truck, you fucking barbarian.” I took a deep breath. “Ok. I’m sure nothing will go wrong.”