This was not acceptable. I was tired, a little hungry, and now some shapeshifting nightmare from the depths of the Unterwelt had added me to its menu. I put people on the menu; it didn’t work the other way around.

  I exhaled a torrent of orange-green fire that bathed the biological missile before passing on to the monsters further back. Glowing shields sprang up around the mechs as they rushed to get out of my way, forming a clear line of fire from me to the pitch black tunnel that lay at the end of this fortified cavern.

  The dwarves and their allies scrambled to throw themselves behind the stone barricades and commando-crawled to the edges of the battlefield. I walked forward steadily, turning my open mouth from side to side as I made sure to incinerate everything moving that didn’t look like a hairy short-arse or one of their minions.

  Deep One amalgam Level N/A partially slain. 0.000001% biomass destroyed.

  Gold earned!

  Ten thousand and ninety-eight gold added to the Hoard.

  I paused when I reached the dark corridor and sent a blast of fire down it just to keep the bastards back.

  “Mortem Fucem!” I intoned six times, and six floating murder-blobs appeared around the entrance. That was all my mana gone, but that was a lot of gold!

  Arriving at the bunker that I’d seen Kurt disappear inside, I knocked on the roof a couple of times, making it boom like a drum and throwing up dust with each strike. “Come on out. It’s clear.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” snarled a human in intricate golden plate armour as he emerged from the fortification. Wrath was still cavorting in my mind, that ancient rage only dragons are capable of. Greed-goblin was still being accosted by Lust-Monkey, but thankfully, regret interceded with Wrath on this stupid mammal's behalf.

  “I’m the dragon that just did your job for you, pal,” I snapped. “Where’s Kurt hiding?”

  “You damn near torched half my godsdamned troopers, you incompetent, reckless son of a bitch! Kurt, who is this asshole?” demanded the commander.

  “Siege-Captain Jones, this is Bob,” said Kurt as he appeared, keeping the human between himself and my glare.

  “Bob. Where you from, Bob?” Jones said, turning a raised eyebrow in my direction.

  “Mount Bob, Baronet of the Mill. You’re an outremonde.”

  He nodded. “Cardiff. Flaschenbrecher, go check for any injuries from our friends' assistance.”

  A dwarf, far shorter than the norm, looked up and up at the human and me. “You sure, sir? That was acid-fire. It doesn’t tend to leave folks injured; they’re toast. Well, a puddle of toast. A toasty puddle!” Flaschenbrecher babbled.

  “I didn’t get any kill notifications for anything other than the chunk of the Deep One I destroyed. I wasn’t reckless. You owe me an apology!” I said to the captain.

  He gave me a thoughtful look. “What spell was that?” he asked instead, much more calmly.

  “The fuck’em one? I learned it at the academy in Ankmapak. I can only manage six, but they’ll last a while and will nuke anything that comes down the corridor.”

  “No, we’ve got mages. They’re in more desperate fights than this one was. We’ve still got plenty of room to retreat. The fire thing.”

  “It’s a breath attack. I’m a dragon,” I said smugly.

  He looked me up and down, nonplussed. “Why are you here, dragon?”

  “You’re fucking welcome, taff. I came to see what kind of enemies you’re up against because I’ve arranged a deal with the King to provide you with cyborg warriors, for a price. It’s been a long day, and I lost my temper when one of those things attacked me. Now, apologise.”

  Flaschenbrecher had returned, and he muttered something quietly to the captain. There was a brief round of “What? No way!” followed by the dwarvish equivalent of a “yes way” that involved a number of metaphors involving mining.

  “Where are your fighters?” Jones asked bluntly.

  “Back home. Gimme a sec.” I fished out my portal stones and brought one in next to me. The blue glow drew eyes in a room that was traditionally lit by blasts from flamethrowers, and a small crowd began to gather. I preened and then felt a new arrival in my mental menagerie. Vanity had arrived on the scene. Well, it just meant more demons to play off against each other. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  On the other side, I found a tiny desk carved from glittering stone had been added to one end of the row of glowing doorways. On it was a small sign reading “out to lunch”.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “KKAAATTTTTTTT!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs, causing the inquisitive dwarves I’d left behind, who had been peering around the edge of the portal, to flinch back.

  “WHHHAATTTT?” she screamed as she stepped through another portal. “Can’t a girl eat her lunch without a stinking great dragon screaming for her attention? Go visit Esme if you’re that desperate for the female gaze.” The latest costume roll had left her in a slutty teacher outfit; her former sword was now a seven-inch ruler that she slapped on her desk as she slid into her seat.

  “I need a dozen robo-bunnies. And Simeon needs to up production. How many have we got on hand?” I asked.

  “Five hundred and three. He can’t up production. He’s got a materials bottleneck, and if he juices himself to go without sleep anymore, he’ll have to permanently change his name to Totally-Insane Simeon.”

  “Hire some more mod docs. Have him get them up to speed. We need to increase production a lot. There’s a war coming, and I’ve just signed a contract with some dwarves to supply them with troops. Cyber-bunny troops,” I added.

  She sucked in air through her teeth. “That’s going to be expensive,” she said sweetly. She knew my kryptonite only too well. “We’ll have to convert another floor to industrial and equip it from scratch.” My greed-goblin shook off the amorous attention of the lust-monkey and began hammering at my mind.

  “Just do it. There’s some shit going to go down, and we’ll need the numbers ourselves as well,” I ground out. Two million in that pouch, Bob. You’ve got two million. “And get a proper alchemist. Turns out I’ve got unlimited access to some really good reagents.”

  She made a few notes, then tapped on what looked like a miniature old-fashioned gramophone a couple of times. After a second, Gledna’s voice blared from the horn. “Whatchu want?”

  “I want some manners from my minions. Just because you don’t have balls doesn’t mean I can’t make you wish that you did,” Kat threatened. I must be tired; I had no idea how that threat even worked. “I’m sending the portal guards off with Bob; send some more down pronto. What is it I’m asking you to do?” Gledna repeated her instructions back to Kat, then the pixie flicked the horn so it spun away from her.

  “Gem, please?” I held out a hand, and Kat tossed me a tiny crystal that I hoped had been stuck to the bottom of her desk like an alarm button. At least it didn’t feel warm when I caught it, so I assumed that was the case.

  “How long until you’re back? Got some stuff piling up that I can’t just deal with. You do have to do some work when it comes to running the dungeon,” Kat said.

  “I’ll be heading back for a bit after I’m done with the dwarves. Oh, I’ve acquired an elf minion as well. No idea what we’ll do with him, but if we’re feeding him, we might as well get something back.”

  “What can he do?”

  “Inspect lavatories? Paperwork? He was some kind of spy who got kidnapped by the same pixies that got me.” She raised both eyebrows at that. “I escaped, don’t worry. Give me a few hours to deal with this Deep One situation and get the dwarves to cough up some more gold, and I’ll be on my way home. Ah. I’ve also got twenty dwarven miners coming as well, to help out with raw materials for the drones. So we need beds for them.”

  “Anything else?” Kat asked icily as she scribbled a few more notes that I suspected included rude descriptions of yours truly.

  “No thanks.”

  I reached out through the gem in my palm and felt the cyborg minds waiting. At a silent command, they fall into a column and march past me to the portal. Twelve of the latest models, the specifications ran through my mind as I walked behind them and sent the portal back.

  The smoky, dimly lit battle-hall was almost a relief after the threat of having to help Kat do paperwork. “Jones. This is them.” I waved at the borgs.

  “These are they?” he asked as he walked around them. He flicked one on the arm, causing a satisfyingly metallic ping, but I had them all set to non-reactive. “Control system?” he was inspecting the mana-cannon mounted on the closest one's shoulder.

  “Here.” I held up the gem. “It forms some kind of mental bond with the construct.”

  “May I?” He held out his hand. I paused. Once he had control of them, there was nothing I could do. They weren’t a threat to me, acid beats cyber-bunny, after all. I was pretty confident in that particular game of rock-paper-scissors.

  “You got any experience controlling multiple constructs at once?” I asked.

  “I work for the Bergk?nig clan. You saw all the mechs?” he said with a snort.

  “Keep them on non-reactive until they are in combat. Then you can let the uni-bunny ‘pilots’ take over.” I passed him the gem, and his eyes lost focus for a moment; then he grinned.

  “Interesting. Orlic construction, but there are other ideas in there as well. Whoever made these is a genius.”

  “I’m not going to tell him that. And he’s a minion, not for sale,” I growled.

  “So, you have a dungeon. You’re an interesting man, Bob.”

  “Dragon. I’m not a man,” I muttered.

  The cyborgs turned abruptly and marched out past my floating spell forms. The battle-hall was relatively quiet, fighters grumbled as they dragged their battered bodies back behind the barricades, and the occasional clank as a mech shifted position was all the noise now that the fight was done.

  “Low-light vision modes. Excellent sensory feedback. They really are angry, aren’t they? The bunnies feel like bundles of fury,” Jones said as he stared off into the middle distance.

  “They’re bound by the control gems. Just keep them away from any carrot farms.”

  “Does it look like we have farms down here? You like mushrooms? Spend any time here, you learn to like mushrooms, or you find a way to escape. Damn… the reflexes are top-notch. Holy! Hah. Now that’s awesome. Can they use tools? The mana-cannons are great, but they’re cutting beams. Not really ideal for Deep Ones. Jesus, what are the wrist blades made out of? They’re enchanted? Unsealable wounds. That’s a dirty trick. I love it!” Jones babbled.

  I listened, bemused, as he narrated the battle he was remote-controlling.

  “YOU LOT GET READY TO MOVE DEEPER!” he bellowed at the end of a stream of consciousness about how the armour was holding up. “I’ve cleared the way to Wachposten Immerstehn. Mechs take the lead!” The room suddenly burst into life as the soldiers began to bustle. Torches, light orbs on the end of sticks, were hefted by the troops, flamers were reloaded with noxious-looking liquids, and the troops flowed behind the mechs that stomped past my floating spells.

  “So you approve?” I asked.

  “We lost Immerstehn four months ago. We’ve been holding half a mile from it since. With it back under our control, the parallel tunnels are available for supply runs again. Four fucking months of slaughter, and I just drone-piloted us back to it in a matter of minutes!”

  “You owe me twelve hundred gold for that squad, and I want a grand per cyborg going forward.” Greed rubbed its claws together in my mind and then punched Lust in the face.