I don't expect updates, but I do appreciate them when they come. I hope we see an end to Thob's story.
That's good to know - I just like to be reliable! And I have no intention of leaving Thob hanging, he deserves a conclusion.
Oh hey, that's big news! Many congratulations 
Thanks! It's still only a draft, but at least it's complete.
what's your book about?
Unsurprisingly, it's a fantasy novel

Don't want to give specific details yet, but it draws a lot from Finnish culture/mythology (I think - I'm not Finnish).
It's more serious than Thob, of course. Speaking of which...
The next day the party scouted around the hamlets outside Handygrown. One of these, Knitimage, was one of the oldest settlements in the Prestigious Nation, according to Alisa.
As they neared the village Thob’s nose picked up death on the wind. Figures moved in the near distance. The dwarf readied a hand on his pick.
The village was abandoned, but fresh sandal tracks in the snow attested to recent movement:
No zombies lurched at them from the collapsing houses, though — the place seemed quiet.
The weather had cleared a bit when they reached the mead-hall. Thob was relieved to find it populous and apparently peaceful within:
There were a few elves and two goblins; the rest were humans, tall and fair-skinned like Alisa, and by their manner they all looked to Thob like persons of importance.
As they entered, an aged-looking human offered his greetings: “Welcome to my hall, visitors!” He was a fat man with a long, neatly-combed white beard, dressed in robes of coarse gray fur. “Head chef!” he cried, beckoning another human, “prepare a feast for our guests!”
The “head chef” moved lackadaisically into the back room, while the party came forward to greet their host. “I’m Thob ‘The Mysterious,’ undead hunter, monster slayer, treasure seeker, writer… oh yes, and miner. And you are…?”
“Surely you jest!” laughed the old man. “I am the law-giver of the Prestigious Nation!”
Alisa’s jaw dropped open. “But… there hasn’t
been a Prestigious Nation for over five centuries!”
“There is now, friend!” said the old man. “The Nation lives again, and it will prosper under the rule of King Perom Horseclimax!”
“I’m sorry,” said Thob, “run that by me again?”
“Horseclimax!” ejaculated Perom.
“And you’re the, uh, ‘king’ hereabouts?”
“Indeed,” said the law-giver, “Though I was not always so — I rose from humble origins.”
“Oh really? What did you do?”
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had visitors,” Perom continued. “I’m afraid you’ll find our larders a bit bare — we’ve been on austerity measures, due to the war.”
“A war?” said Alisa. “Against whom? How? Why?”
“I didn’t know you cared so much about animals,” said Cañar, impressed.
“Well, these particular enemies will kill anything that moves,” said Perom, “so there’s not much reason to distinguish, is there? Oh, and besides them, there’s always skirmishes with the goblins.”
“You’re fighting over a
book?”
“Among other things. But the book has… sentimental value.”
Most of the mead-hall’s other inhabitants bore various official titles: Thob met a “master of beasts,” a “high treasurer,” and a “royal chamberlain”. None, however, seemed to have any official duties to speak of, except the head chef who brought out a scant meal for the party. The place reminded Thob of Dawngloves, back in his homeland, with all its barons and generals and the king—but no kingdom. If he had been more given to philosophy he might have found this poignant; as he was, it seemed merely absurd.
Figuring anyone called “head chef” would know where the royal booze was kept, he asked, and received the expected negative answer. The chef did, however, wax poetic about his own favored delicacy:
The most interesting of the functionless functionaries was the “chief doctor.” She was adorned with ornaments made, distressingly, of bones, and carried a heavy ceramic slab—it had something written on it, but she held it close to her body so Thob couldn’t make it out.
The two goblins, an elf bowman, and one human obviously didn’t belong to the law-giver’s entourage, though the human called himself a “leader”. They all looked shifty to Thob. It was therefore little surprise to him when, after they had hob-nobbed with Perom’s people for a while, the so-called leader made a subtle nod to his fellows, laid a hand on his knife, and lunged towards the law-giver. The two goblins drew their weapons, and the elf shot a quick arrow at Cañar that she just narrowly blocked. “Goblin assassins!” she cried. “To arms!”
She lashed at the bow-elf; Thob squared up against the human leader, jumping between him and the terrified Perom. Alisa fought one goblin, armed with a hammer: the goblin landed a blow that broke Alisa’s fingers, but Strodno rushed to his aid, slicing off the hammer-goblin’s own hand.
The hand fell to the floor. Perom looked at it. And, suddenly, the hand began to move.
“Oops!” said Perom. “Sorry—I didn’t mean to do that!”
“Ahhh!” cried a nearby dignitary as the severed extremity groped towards him. He kicked at the grasping claw, and it lay still again.
Meanwhile the hammer-goblin was now dead, and Thob’s pick had just parted the leader's head from his shoulders:
He was getting quite good at this fighting thing, it seemed. Strodno, Cañar, and Alisa now ganged up on the lone bowman, stabbing, lashing, and bashing, until Strodno cleaved her head apart.
Everything was quiet for a moment—until Perom let out a little gasp of fright.
“What the…?!” shouted Strodno, grasping her weapon.
“I’m so sorry!” moaned Perom. “It’s just a reflex, I swear!”
There was no time to argue the point — there were zombies to kill. Thob noticed, though, as he put down the leader for a second time, that some other of the royal officials seemed unperturbed by the risen dead: one, the mysterious doctor, even seemed morbidly affectionate towards them:
These zombies, fortunately, proved much frailer than the ones Thob had previously encountered: any sufficient force seemed to dispel the dark magic that animated them and returned them to the grave. Soon the hall was quiet again. “Now,” said Thob, “just what is going—!?”
The bodies began to quiver once more, and then to stand. “It wasn’t me!” Perom wailed.
These zombies looked different—fiercer, more knowing. The dead elf looked at Thob, and clenched its fist. Pain shot through his body.
The pain wasn’t crippling, though, and he fought through it. These magical undead were no tougher than their normal counterparts: one good swing, even a solid kick, and they collapsed lifeless:
The erstwhile goblin assassins fell, for the third and (Thob hoped) final time. The hall was a mess:
“Now,” Thob said, pointing with his pick at the cowering law-giver, “I think you’ve got some explaining to do.”