Digging a Hole Ch. 04

It was somewhere around House Eight when Kay barged into her room. Mad was still in bed, trying to ignore the fact that her senses were all coming online.

"You need someone to take care of you."

Maedwynn did a slow push up off the bed, and stared back over her shoulder in confusion. "Wot did ye say?"

Keileigh nudged a shirt on the ground with the toy of her heeled boot. "You need a healer. And maybe a cleaner too."

"'ave ye been talkin' with Ivy?"

"Of course I--Why? What did Ivy say?"

Maedwynn moved to sit on the edge of the bed, and ran her fingers through her hair. Her hammer was laying on the table, looking quite sharp with the oxidization all cleaned up. "Uh... she said... wot yew said."

Keileigh's brow drew so tight on itself that the number of lines increased logarithmically. "I was up, thinking, all night!"

Maedwynn snickered. "Ye mean Van was eatin' ye out all night."

"Obviously," Kay said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "That's when I do my best thinking." She whisked her finger through the air, sending one of Maedwynn's boots on a ballistic trajectory across the room, and sat down on the spot of couch where it had been. "Ivy said that?"

"Lass," Maedwynn said, pinching the bridge of her nose, "why're ye here?"

"I brought you a healer." She crossed her arms, and pursed her lips sourly. "I bet Ivy didn't bring you a healer."

"She--"

"Can't believe her," Kay said, talking over Maedwynn and shaking her head. "That's so like her, to steal my thunder."

"Lass, 'ow could she--"

"Her ideas are stupid."

"It's the same idea!" Mad yelled, arms thrown out to her sides.

Kay shook her head. "My version was better."

Mad stood up, and went over to the closet for some clothes. "Whaddye mean, ye brough' a healer? Why would Ah..." Then, before Kay could even finish inhaling, she added, "Wai,' is Van planning another attack? An' tha's why ye wen' an' foun' someone?"

"You two are freaks, I swear." Kay shook her head. "It's like you share a brain. She told me not to say anything, because she knew that you'd figure it out, but did I listen?"

"Why else would ye have found a healer?"

Kay rolled her eyes. "Billie is a friend, okay? I've known her for years and she's awesome."

"Where'd ye meet 'er?"

Kay blinked, a momentary pause.

"Don' lie," Mad said, as she watched the lie form on Kay's lips. "Ah'll ask her too. Ah'll know."

"She approached me at a club," Kay said, sullenly. "Yes, obviously, we fucked."

Maedwynn rolled back onto the bed, laughing through hands she pressed to her face.

"I mean, she's hot. Of course I tried to fuck her. That's two compliments I'm paying to you, if you think about it."

"'at's not quite how Ah'd pu' i,'" she said, still chuckling, "bu' Ah see 'ow ye go' there." Then, after a long sigh, she added, "Never change, lass."

Maedwynn shrugged into her armored jacket and followed Kay out into the passage...

... and came to a hard stop within three steps. Three women turned to look at her, and Maedwynn froze in something just short of actual horror.

Van swooped in, hooking her arm and dragging her back a few steps out of ear shot. "Sorry, dwarf business." Then she hissed, "Don't say anything."

"Wot is happening?" Maedwynn said, backpedalling in tow.

"I know you, and I know you're about to start asking some really uncomfortable questions."

"But--" Maedwynn said, pointing, and as soon as her arm started moving, Van swatted it. "Ow!"

"They don't see it."

Mad glared at her sister. "'ow can they no' see it?"

"Self-delusion is probably a part of it," Van said, glancing over her shoulder. "I mean, Kay has been in denial so long about Ivy that it totally makes sense that she'd find and then immediately fuck a girl that looks just like her, but Ivy?"

"Come on," Mad said, smirking but trying very hard to hide it. "Ivy is exactly oblivious enough to have a tall, short haired stand-in for whenever she has to go more than a week withou' Kay givin' her a buncha' shite."

Van successfully hid her grin by turning away from the assembled women and looking the other way down the hall. "And now they're both trying to set you up with their respective crushes on each other." She composed herself, and leaned in close. "You know you can't fuck either one of these two, right?"

Mad's lips turned sour. "Yer no' even mah real dad," she said, giving her sister a healthy shove.

"I'm serious," Van whispered, as the two of them moved back toward the group.

There were two pairs of them. Kay and Billie came over first, because of course Kay insisted on introducing her girl first. Billie was perhaps the same height as Kay, but her hair gave her a few inches in pure volume.

"I can heal anything," Billie said, when they moved into the big hall. Several hundred dwarves were gathered there to hear Van, to hear the big plan, and they were raucous. "Though, I usually work with animals. I'm one of the galaxy's leading combat veterinarians."

Mad, who was standing right behind her sister, as Van speechified, rallied, and invigorated, knew she couldn't afford the expression her instincts were telling her to wear for a revelation like that. She leaned over and said, "Tha' sounds exciting."

"Oh it is," Billie replied, "and I take it very seriously. All those poor little critters. Rule number one of combat veterinarianism is that if it doesn't have a voice, it can have mine."

"'s uncanny," Mad said, blinking.

"What kind of animals are native to an asteroid belt?"

"'s just..." She blinked, looking around in confusion. "'s just demons, Ah think."

Billie nodded, chin held high, and said, "Hold on, little demons. I'm coming."

The speech went over like gangbusters. All of the assembled dwarves, and it really did seem like all of them, were positively rabid at the idea of reclaiming Ironhold. She was pretty clear up front that the expectation was that Ironhold had been stripped bare, but none of them seemed to care. The prospect of a win this big, even if it was only symbolic, put tears in more eyes than Maedwynn was ready for.

The tracking data they'd gotten from S1.42. D94 had been verified and reverified. Even after half a century missing, some systems there were still ticking away like clockwork. They'd found that Ironhold teleported every twelve hours, on the dot. They had no idea what kind of magic was making that happen, but they had full confidence that fixing it started with retaking it. The House mystics were bursting with confidence, and Maedwynn had to admit that their belief was infectious. She would have been the first one to throw out some red flags, that there was no way of knowing that Ironhold wouldn't get sucked into a hell dimension the minute dwarven boots touched ground, but there was no flinch in any of them. No doubt.

All heart.

With so many dwarves operating on the same frequency, it was impossible not to get swept up in the fervor. Even Kay was nodding along, and hadn't rolled her eyes even once.

"It's never gonna work," said the woman on her left. Ivy's candidate shared nearly all of Kay's physical traits; tall, thin, with short spiky hair (albeit brown rather than blonde). "Between us."

The whiplash was violent. "Wh... Wot?"

"You and me," she said. "Don't get me wrong you seem... great?" This was accompanied by a head-to-toe eye scan. "It's just not gonna work."

"Well Ah appreciate yer candor."

"It's not you," the woman said. "I've got my sights set on Ivy and her polycule."

Maedwynn smiled. "Have you been to the website?"

"Yes."

"Signed the waivers?"

"Obviously," she replied, growing more irritated.

"Completed the application?"

"Look," the woman snapped. "I'm sure you think you're helping, but I have it all well in hand."

"Ah'm just sayin,'" Maedwynn said, shrugging, "Ivy's a stickler fer rooles."

The woman frowned at her, and said, "Your accent is... varying."

The urge was certainly there to tell this woman, who was not Keileigh and who had not introduced herself at all before shooting down any kind of romantic future between them, to never change, but Mad just smiled and kept that to herself.

***

Within hours, all four hundred dwarves that could be mustered were mustered, jammed into sixty of the worst, least suitable shuttles for a full-scale invasion. The nerds had tracked three teleportations, by that point, and were confident that the next location would not only continue to follow a pattern but put Ironhold well within striking distance. Sure enough, when it popped up right on time, right where they'd said it would be, Maedwynn and Vanwynn's shuttle was the first to lift off.

"This is it," Van said, as she re-entered the crew area of the shuttle. "This is really it."

Mad clapped her on the shoulder, and got a clap on the cheek in response. "This was yer plan."

Van beamed.

"Don' get ahead'f yerself," Maedwynn added, giving her sister a good shake. "The hard part is still t'come."

"No," Van said, shaking her head, "I've seen this. I've seen us, you and me."

"Ye..." Mad leaned in closer, lowering her voice. "Ye had a vision?"

"Before he even died. I..." Her big sister shook her head. "I don't wanna get into it too much. I just... it's all happening. Just like I saw it."

"Ah trust ye," Mad said. Then she clapped Van's shoulder again, and the two of them shared a long Dwarven hug.

The woman Ivy had brought leaned forward, elbow planted on her knee, and said, "Hot."

Kay's head whipped around, her brow as furrowed as it could go.

Billie cleared her throat, her big eyes wide and unassuming. "This will be my first time in this kind of environment. I have some questions about what to look out for. Which kinds of demons make good pets?"

"Excuse me," Ivy said, with a ferocious uptilt at the end of me.

"Present company excluded," Billie said, with a genuine smile. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around which ones might be the good ones."

Van held a hand up to Ivy, to forestall her, and said, "If they're on Ironhold, it's safe to assume they're under contract to be there."

Billie narrowed her eyes into the distance. "Meaning they'd be old enough and competent enough to entertain competing contracts. Interesting."

"Enterta--" Ivy's eyes were wild, and she cut herself off with a soft but savage Mmmmmmm.

"This?" Kay said, holding her arms out at her sides. "This is what sets you off?"

Mad leaned back and slammed the butt of her fist against the hatch to the cockpit. "Better hurry up. It's gettin' lively back 'ere."

"Reports of the same thing across the flotilla," the pilot fired back.

"Gods dammit," Van shouted. "Do I need to start doling out assigned seats?"

Ivy raised her hand.

"No, I saw your suggestion, Ivy. I was being rhetorical."

"Okay!" Ivy replied, with a smile.

"I mean, I'm glad we're all up for this. There's about to be all the fighting we can handle, but for fucks sakes stop taking it out on each other."

"We're gonna 'ave wounds aplenty," Mad said, turning to face the two newcomers. "Ah hope ye're ready t'fix 'em."

Ivy's friend, who still had not introduced herself, looked around a bit and said, "I'm... ready to cauterize some wounds? Does that count?"

"Of course it doesn't count," Kay said, rolling her eyes.

"Thirty minutes to the LZ," the pilot said.

Maedwynn leaned in close to her sister and said, "We migh' 'ave corpses in thir'y minutes, if they keep escalatin.'"

Van's eyes shone brightly. She said, "I know what to do." She pointed to both Kay and Ivy and grinned. "You ready?"

They both looked at her with confusion.

"Three. Two."

"No," Kay said, her eyes growing wide.

"One!"

Ivy took a dramatic breath, as if she was going to hold that one lungful the entire time.

Billie looked back and forth between them and said, "Are we playing the quiet game? I'm great at the quiet game!"

***

At five km, Ironhold was visible against the black around it. At one km, it dominated the viewport of the cockpit. The station was a ruin, but it was unmistakable. The sight of it was tugging at some of Maedwynn's earliest memories like a hook through her stomach.

Van said, "Scanners are showing a lot of targets." It was the first thing she'd said in a while, and she looked pale.

It was easier for Mad to ignore the mantle of leadership. She wasn't the one making the call on sending so many of their forces on a single strike, and the weight of it was clearly getting to Van. In the back of her mind, Maedwynn was realizing that this exact conundrum was what had likely led to Caz' very vocal misgivings about a lack of leadership, but those previous generations had lacked something Van possessed.

Her.

Mad laid an arm over her shoulder and said, "Aye."

Van was giving the blinking yellow on the scanner a very intense grimace.

"The lads can 'andle i.'"

Van looked back at her, and said, "Yeah." Then, a moment later, with just the barest hint of a smile tugging on the corners of her lips, she repeated, "Yeah."

"An' ye know who'll be right at the front, hip deep innit?"

A short pause. "You and me."

"Fawkin' righ,'" Mad said, giving her a shake.

"Fucking right," she repeated.

"You ready t'do this? Get back yer throne?"

"Our throne," Van said.

"Pre'y sure it'll only fit one of our fat arses."

"At a time, maybe," Van said, now adding in a light chuckle. "We'll take turns."

"Ah could ge' used ta tha.'"

One final slap on the shoulder, and Mad headed back through into the crew cabin. "Up an' at 'em, ladies," she barked.

Billie and Ivy's friend were both looking very bored, inspecting their nails with their legs crossed, but Ivy and Kay were staring daggers at each other. Mad took one look at them, and went over to lean against the bulkhead next to Ivy.

"Ow," Ivy cried, twitching her foot away from where Mad had just stepped on the tip of it.

"Oh," Maedwynn said, looking down and moving in the opposite direction. "Ah'm sorry."

"I won?" Kay said, in wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonder. "I won?"

"No," Ivy said, frustratedly. "That doesn't count!"

"I won!" When Van came through from the cockpit, a moment later, she was assaulted by another emphatic, "I won!!"

Van looked at Maedwynn, who shrugged. "Alright," she said, grabbing Kay's upper arms to try to keep the taller woman from bouncing through the bulkheads. "Alright. Focus!"

"But I won!"

"No," said Ivy's friend, laying a hand against her chest. "I won."

"Oh who gives a shit," Kay shot back. "I beat Ivy. That's all that matters."

"Thirty seconds," said the pilot.

"Ya hear that?" Van shouted. "Get your shit together! This is it!" Then she went over to the display panel on the bulkhead, and said, "Patch me through to the flotilla."

"You're live."

"Dwarves!" Van shouted. "This is what we promised when we got here! We're on the verge of retaking Ironhold, our ancestral home. It's fucking monumental, but it's also just the first step!"

Ivy leaned over to Mad and whispered, "I thought it was called Ironhome?"

She paused for a moment, sniffed, and continued, saying, "I need every fucking one of you at your most raucous, your most savage, and I'm gonna need it again because this conquest is just getting started. Get it warmed up, Dwarves, get it hot. It's time to dig."

Then she bounced her fist off the big red disconnect button, and the call cut off.

"Touchdown in five seconds."

Van and Mad made eye contact, nodded, and braced themselves.

The hatchway door came down with a heavy thud, and the six of them rushed out into the grounds right alongside the thirty millimeter cannon unloading into the swarm that was approaching. The sky was full of the blue-white engine halo of dozens of shuttles on approach vectors, landing wherever they could find the space and scorching a few dozen demons each on the way. Mad would have been interested to see how many bodies there were underneath their shuttle, but she was already up to her eyeballs in it.

She, Kay, and Van came out swinging and blasting, carving a huge swath through what were clearly lesser demons, nothing compared to the troops they'd been fighting on D94. Ironhold was caked in them, but this time they'd brought enough dwarves that it almost didn't matter. It couldn't.

Shouts rang out across the surface, dwarven war cries so resounding that they would have needed a hundred mouths, a hundred throats, and a hundred pairs of lungs, to be so loud. Maedwynn cleaved through a few imps, a thing she rarely managed with her hammer, and had just enough time to catch her breath and look up as both Kay and Van stepped in front of her.

A wave of dwarves smashed their way across a landing field just ahead, seizing what remained of a hangar. Nearly the entire surface of the asteroid had become a battlefield, and Maedwynn had never felt more alive. She raised her hammer over her head, screaming, "FOR THE HOUSE" as loud and as long as she could, a cry picked up across the surface, and when she lowered her hammer it was glowing blue.

A part of her wanted to be snarky, to be quippy, to say something like It's never done that before, but she'd seen things like this before. Special things. She felt the generations before her, some of which were likely buried on that very rock, reaching through her. Sharing their power with her, and when a wrecking ball of a demon smashed its way through to them she knew what she had to do.

"Leave 'im," she cried, as she charged forward. "'e's mine."

What followed was a long, drawn out fight, her unstoppable force pitted against its immovable object. This demon was as hard as granite, all over, and even though her swings definitely seemed to be hurting it, she rarely did more than chip the outer layers. In between titanic swings, the thing was squirrely and unpredictable, sometimes skittering at her on its short legs and sometimes trying to simply roll over her. No matter how hard she hit it, the damn thing just kept coming.

That was fine with her because the more it came at her, the angrier she got, and the angrier she got the brighter her hammer glowed.

Suddenly, in the middle of her epic struggle, the thing reared back and rolled away, shrieking in its weird way, as Kay's twin beams bore into it.

"No," Maedwynn shouted. She pointed her hammer at it, the haft laying smooth and flat against the inside of her arm, and said, "No! What're ye doin'?"

"You're needed," Kay said, and then her eyes flicked. Over her shoulder.

Mad turned and looked up. And gasped.

A huge ship, larger than Ironhold, larger than Deepwatch station, was barrelling toward them through space. She couldn't tell how large it truly was, with nothing to compare it to and no sense of distance to even begin guessing, but it was coming. It looked like, underneath the rot and organic growth, it had started out as a human vessel of some kind. A long, horizontal axis, with sections on either side that vaguely resembled wings. Humans were always putting wings on everything, even in space where it did fuck all.

"Wot the fuck am Ah s'posed ta dew abou' tha'?" she cried.

"Be ready," Kay said. She planted her feet, continuing to pour energy into her onslaught, though it seemed like the demon had figured out that she wasn't hurting it and was pushing through.

Maedwynn looked down at her hammer, still a burning blue in her fists. She knew better than to ignore a sign like this. Hadn't her first brush with a vision proved to be wildly successful?

"Wait," she cried, overwhelmed by a burst of inspiration. "That's fer you ta handle!"

Kay spared a brief look, turning just long enough to glance at her and then the ship, and scoffed.

"Yew can stop tha' ship. Yer the only one who cahn!"

Kay took a grudging step backwards, keeping her distance as the wrecking ball fought through the two-fisted torrent of energy. "What are you talking about?"

"My vision! Yer book! The transmutational whateveransuch!"

"Get to the point," Van yelled.

"What'd ye call it? When ye use the book to steal s, uh--Oh! Cascading void!"

This time Kay stopped altogether, turning to face Mad, and it was only because Van jumped in to to distract the thing that the tall blonde wasn't immediately flattened. She roared, "What?"

"Displace somethin' from the tip of that ship!" They were both having to shout, at the top of their lungs, to be heard over the battle noise around them. "Like ye were sayin'! Send it from 'ere to someplace else! Anywhere else"

"And start a cascade here? In this dimension? On purpose?!"

"Little help?" Van screamed, as the thing chased her.

"Trust me," Mad yelled, "Now! While it's still far away!"

"We have no idea what kind of runaway effect that will have!"

"Do i'!"

***

Katherine just blinked, trying to wrap her head around the idea. "I thought I... It causes, like, a fucking black hole."

"Not if we say it doesn't!"

"This is just like the bigfoot thing," Katherine snarled. "You tried to tell me how to play my character, and it backfired."

"We all walked away from that!" Melinda dropped her pencil and held out her hands. "It's not that complicated! We can decide that it's small, just the right size or maybe a little bigger with some complications, and that makes it heroic."

She pinched her forehead and said, "I'm still having a hard time with that part of the rules. We can't just say a black hole won't kill us."

"I mean," Ivy said, flipping through the manual, "we could. We could just say it's a small one."

"I'm sorry but no! It doesn't matter how small a black hole I make if we're close enough to lay eyes on it! It'll kill us all!"

Valerie slumped a little in her chair. "Even if it's a little one?"

"There's really no precedent in astrophysics for understanding the matter accretion threshold that might cause a black hole to start shrinking," Ivy said, looking down at her phone.

"We can just say there is for this!" Melinda cried. "It's not actually a black hole! It's not a collapsed star, it's magic!"

"My magic," Katherine spat back. "Mine. You said I'd get to decide how it works, and I say that if you make me do this we're all dead!"

Ivy looked around the table. "Should we solve this like we always used to? Put it to a vote? Does a black hole kill us all?"

"Yes," Katherine said, at the same time Melinda said, "No!"

Next to her, Valeria shrugged. "I'd rather not end the game, but... it's Kath's spell. She's the one who decides how it works."

Ivy turned, but the other two women at the table just shrugged. Billie said, "I have not followed how any of this is working."

"Yeah," Gina added. "These rules make no sense. You can just say something is fine, or it ends the world?"

Ivy, Katherine, Melinda, and Valeria all said, "Yes," exasperatedly, at the same time.

"Okay, well, don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'm done."

Billie nodded, and the two of them stood up.

Katherine, feeling a sudden pit in her stomach, said, "You're leaving?"

Gina nodded. "Yeah. This was... fun? I'll see you at work tomorrow, though."

Then, when Billie moved out from her chair as well, Ivy said, "You're going too?"

"Gina was my ride."

As one, Ivy and Katherine said, "You two know each other?"

Billie had the graces to at least look sheepish as she turned, but Gina was already halfway to the door. The four remaining women sat at the corner table, there in the coffee shop, and frowned.

"Well," Valerie said, "there goes a third of our group, aaaand we're still at an impasse."

"Five minute break?" Ivy said, cheerily.

Melinda got to her feet and stretched. "I'm gonna get a refill. Anyone else want something?"

"No thanks," Katherine said. The others shook their heads as well.

"Okay."

When she was out of earshot, Katherine groaned. "That went about as bad as it could've."

"I'm so embarrassed," Ivy added.

"The only person," Valerie said, "who was less interested in either of these blind dates working out than those two was Mel herself! She didn't care!"

"What?" Kay recoiled. "No, she--"

"Neither one of them was her type," Val said. "She was just being polite for you guys."

Katherine and Ivy looked at each other, each a little flush in the cheeks, and nodded. After a moment, Katherine shrunk in on herself and said, "At least we tried."

"And," Valerie replied, "I'm sure she's appreciative."

Ivy asked, "Did you guys get everything moved earlier?"

Valerie shook her head and stretched. "We got her stuff out of Mom and Dad's house, so she's not crashing on their couch, but most of it is just piled up inside the door."

"I can't wait to reorganize everything," Katherine said, with absolutely zero enthusiasm.

Valerie leaned over, smiling, and kissed her. It never took much from Val to make her heart race.

"Thank you for letting her move in with us."

"Temporarily," Katherine added. "Move in with us temporarily."

"She just needs to get back on her feet. Trust me. It won't last."

Ivy leaned back a little, to look across the room, and said, "Is she still gonna start at your work?"

Valerie nodded. "She starts on Monday. They've got her doing secondary ops to start, but I'll be training her to be a machinist. At ninety days, they'll see how she's doing. Maybe put her on a mill."

"I still can't believe she lasted five years at boxing. Of all the things she coulda been doing, why boxing?"

"Did you ever see her fight?" Valerie asked.

Ivy nodded. "I found some on Youtube."

Valerie just shrugged, saying, "It made her happy."

"I thought Andrew made her happy," Katherine said, rolling her eyes.

"Don't start again, okay? Just let that go. He's gone, he's not coming back, and most importantly, she doesn't want him back."

Ivy said, "You're a good sister for looking out for her."

Valerie didn't blush; that wasn't her way. She just looked down, and pressed her lips into a line. "Letting her live with us--"

"Temporarily," Katherine interjected.

"--temporarily," Valerie repeated, "isn't that much of a hardship. She always carried her own weight with chores, and once she starts getting paychecks she'll chip in on the rent."

Ivy looked sideways at Katherine, and smirked. "Still no threeway, though, huh?"

Under most circumstances, Katherine would have had a witty reply. She had not, and would never, give up on her dream, but something else had caught her attention. Across the room, at the counter, Melinda was talking to someone.

"Who is that?" Katherine said, squinting to see.

Ivy and Valerie both turned, but said nothing as Melinda continued to talk to another woman. About her height. Thinner, but athletic.

"I guess that's her type?" Then, Valerie added, "Is she blushing?"

Indeed, it seemed like Melinda was blushing. And laughing. The woman, whoever she was, was having an effect on Mel.

Katherine, mesmerized, said, "I don't think I've ever seen her giggle like that."

Mid-laugh, the girl reached over and laid a hand very gently on Melinda's arm, and all three of them at the table gasped.

"She is hitting on Mel!" Ivy squealed. "She's hitting on Mel!"

Valerie turned back to the two of them, and hissed, "I told you she didn't need to be set up. When she gets back, you two need to be cool."

Ivy held up one hand, with two fingers extended. "I promise."

"You were never a girl scout," Katherine said, narrowing her eyes.

Ivy straightened, and whispered, "She's coming back!"

Melinda stopped a full three feet from the table when all of them turned and smiled at her. After a moment, she said, "You saw that, huh?"

"Who's your friend?" Valerie said, her voice taking on a sing-song quality.

"Uh, well..." Melinda turned, and held out her arm as the woman approached behind her.

"Sorry," the newcomer said. "I just had to tell my friends. I'm Paisley."

Ivy had the same reaction Katherine did, which was just to blink, but something seemed to flicker across Valerie's features. "Paisley-Paisley?"

"Shut uuup," Melinda said, through clenched teeth.

Paisley just nodded. "We met at the sports medicine internship. Iowa State. Senior year. Or--"

"Your senior year," Melinda said. "My junior year." She made eye contact with Katherine and shrugged.

"How random," Katherine said. "Where did you go to school?"

"Dowling Catholic," Paisley said. A little color rose in her cheeks. "It's way down in Des Moines."

"And now she's up here," Melinda said, her eyes wide.

Paisley looked down at the table, and tilted her head. "Stoneburner?"

Ivy beamed, and picked up the book. "It's the game we're playing. It's kinda like D&D, except it's in space, and everyone is a dwarf."

"Almost everyone," Katherine said, rolling her eyes.

"Cool!" Paisley said, enthusiastically. "I love dwarves!"

Melinda went wide eyed. "You do?"

"Yeah!" She pointed at one of the empty chairs and said, "Do you mind if I sit?"

"Uh, yeah!" Melinda said. "I mean, no! I mean, please, yes, sit!"

"Okay," Paisley said, laughing as she moved around the table. "How do you play this game?"

Everyone else looked at each other for a moment before Ivy said, "We're still figuring it out."

"Awesome! Does this game have healers, or... can you play a medic?"

Katherine and Ivy shared a brief but meaningful glance before Melinda responded, "Y-yes. Yes! Definitely!"

//Author's Note: Huge thanks to Skulltitti and Omenainen for being such patient sounding boards and beta readers. I don't always remember to write author's notes giving them credit, but my work is infinitely better for their assistance, and I'm very grateful.

I don't have any way of gaging how many readers have read any of my previous works, but as you might have guessed from the title of this chapter these characters are from a previous story of mine. I tried to write it in a way that let Digging A Hole stand on its own, but it was important to me that this story end the same way Terrible Company did. In both cases, I came up with a story and some characters. Then I let those characters play a game, and told the story of that game as if it was the real story. Terrible Company isn't a sword and sorcery fantasy story any more than Digging A Hole is sci fi fantasy. That's just the trappings, and what's important is what's going on underneath.

The premise, the way I told the story, always leaves some gray areas with regards to which parts are the game and which parts are real. I always meant for those to remain open ended, but the chance to write Paesa again nearly ten years after I did her dirty the first time around was too tempting.

I was always going to, though. Almost as soon as Terrible Company was done, I was looking for the right vehicle to bring these characters back. I bet I spitballed fifty stories, and maybe even started three or four, but none of them were ever the right story. It wasn't until I bought a copy of the book for Stoneburner, and fell in love with the setting and premise, that I found what I'd been looking for. Huge fan. Highly recommended. If anyone checks it out, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Big thanks to my good friend Bramblethorn, who also provided excellent motivation to keep searching for the right vehicle to continue the story of Terrible Company if only to resolve one of its great unsolved mysteries.

If you've read this far, if you've finished this story, you have my thanks. I'm always grateful for my readers, and if you feel so moved please leave a comment. They are such a lovely reward.//