Stella left at what had to be the third or fourth sign that there was something afoot with the elf and the goat. She bravely noped out, retreating to the uncovered wagon. She took up a spot next to the water barrel and handed out water while she watched.

Stella was not going to get between a goat and her best friend. There was a list of things that she would do for Sophie. Those things included lying about her location, lying about her activities, and if necessary, denying her entire existence. There were other things but those were the most serious ones. It wasn't that Sophie had a boyfriend problem.

She didn't.

Sophie probably didn't have a goat problem, for how many goats had just shown up in Arva? Stella, in fact, was convinced that Sophie was still getting the lay of the land before she made any moves. Perhaps it was because of her new body? Stella had felt like a new woman upon her arrival here. Then she had promptly been knocked out and captured by a death knight.

She had been held for two days, expecting to die at any moment.

She never wanted to feel that way again. She wanted to have a clean slate and move on as if none of it had ever happened. Except that she started dating the guy that saved them and things got a little complicated and now they had an official title.

They were dating.

Whatever that meant in a post-apocalyptic society that had been overrun by zombies, Stella didn't know. She wasn't going to get a wedding. Anything like she wanted. She damn sure was not going to have any children with him anytime soon. So in essence, she was having a bit of fun. It just sucked that her best friend was a bit absorbed by a goat while her boyfriend was talking to the Caravan Commander.

Stella walked over to their ice cooler chest. It was one of the heavier things on the wagon. They had lovingly crafted that chest out of a barrel and a whole lot of elbow grease. All she had to do was touch it every so often and check on the temperature. If it was too hot their food was spoiling so she kept it at a nice cool low temperature.

As the resident cryomancer she had the job of getting in there and keeping their box cold. There was several hundred pounds of meat in there that she was sure would make it only so far.

She had taken some food safety classes way back when but she really had to rely on Bob's background as a chef. She didn't trust him on everything. This was especially true in their battle plans because she was a scout with him. She had picked the rogue class when she was summoned because she wanted to be a trickster.

So much for that idea, though.

Zombies were pretty much immune to trickery. Tomfoolery, they might not be. Stella had several happy memories of zombies slipping on a luge she had made of ice. Ankles had been broken, world records had been established and a good time was had by all. Except for the zombies of Dunnamore. They had it coming.

Stella really loved being the go to freezer girl. Really, anything she could do to support the mission made her feel all warm and cozy inside, like she could enjoy a nice graze of the nearby grasslands in the morning sun.

Stella snapped out of it. Wanting to eat grass has to be an effect of seeing all the goats who could eat anything. She could blame the goat that had straight up came to steal her soup, but she didn't think that it would show any sort of sympathy towards her or anyone.

She wanted to say something to it, but she decided that discretion was the better part of not arguing. Instead she spent some time sorting through the stocks that they had, making sure that everything was tied down. She got a bit engrossed in the work, losing her sense of time until she realized that the water cooler chat had chilled.

She popped out of the wagon to see if anyone was done. She was itching to try her new spell. She had seen a few cards that were a single spell, and a few cards that had a spell blast template. She had never seen a card of that level be just a single spell.

Sophie appeared to be wrapping things up with Finley and the Goat so she waved her best friend over.

Stella had a lot of questions. Sophie had some explaining to do.

She fully expected the zero answers though based on how little talk had gone on over there. Sophie was absolutely glowing when she got to the water barrel.

"Care to tell me what the hell that was about?"

"I got a new card!" Sophie said excitedly. She was moving around, shifting as if she had to use the ladies room.

"Yeah I saw that, what is it?" Stella said, taking her water skin to fill it up. It was too bad that the beer wasn't in this one.

"It's a third class card. The Goat Lord is now my warlock patron. Isn't this exciting?" Sophie said, extending her water skin to Stella. Stella took it and began to refill it. The water skin branding, which had said 'Property of Mork' earlier that day, now had a goat branding in its place.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

That was new. Stella checked her own water skin, a gift from Mork and hers was unchanged.

"Sophie, I'm excited if you're excited," Stella said. "But I didn't know you wanted that. Was that what you were aiming for? A warlock job on top of your druid and rogue jobs?"

"I mean, I didn't know either, but it was just so persuasive."

Stella looked back over and it appeared that the goat had left. She hadn't remembered it leaving but the bowl that it was eating out of was definitely still there. Finley was still eating, next to the empty bowl.

The urge to clean up came to her and she immediately slapped it down.

"That goat," Stella said, "he just shows up and eats our food. He's like a teenager."

"Or an older brother," Sophie said.

They both drank down some of the water.

"Well now that he is here, we can give him my job back. I know it's a bit early for that but it was his wagon that we started this trip off with."

The Tinker wagon was a work of art. It most closely resembled an art car that someone who had spent a lot of time at Burning Man had designed. It had so many little details that potentially told a story of its previous owners. There was a small painting of an elderly woman, with a child nearby the front. The painting itself was no bigger than her palm. However, it was one of many. Little pieces dotted the structure. There was clearly room for more as well, only a third was covered.

She might begin painting later. There were only so many ways to remember such a memorable visit, and this probably was worth the paint.

"Stella, we should get some paint and think about doing another one of these squares on the other wagon. Make that one ours. I mean, especially if we're going to be together for a long time, if we want to live, then we should record our adventures."

"I mean I'm shit at painting but I can learn. There's not much else going on right now," Stella said. "Paint was not one of the things we grabbed on our salvage run. I don't even know if they have paint or if we would need to make some. And if we needed to make some I'm not even sure what we would need to make it. I'm sure we can figure it out."

"Maybe there's a card," Sophie said, looking at the artwork closely. "I mean it looks good but I couldn't tell you if it was professional or not. It was probably made by whoever owned this caravan."

"Oh that would be nice. Finley probably didn't think that any painting powers would be useful. Or maybe it's a part of his Tinker class card."

Sophie wondered what else he had thought would be useless. They probably had about three hundred odd cards to sort through and some of them were new and hadn't been sorted by Finley. This made her think about what the Orcs had as their powers.

They definitely had some sort of musicality to it but she couldn't really put it finger down on what they actually did. She felt stronger and her Mana came back to her pastor when they were around and making music. They also said that they had several effects that they could imbue with their magic. She would have to ask them later.

"Oh hey, Finley's getting up," Sophie said.

"Let's give him his space."

"I think he is coming this way."

"He looks like an elf on a mission," Stella said, grabbing a large dwarven stein the size of her forearm. She filled it to the brim with water.

Finley made a beeline for her. She presented the tall green gangly elf with the stein. He accepted it with both hands and then drank the entire thing in one go. He wiped his lips then returned it to her.

"When you're ready to talk, we are all willing to be the one you talk to. In fact, we should probably set up the betting market for who you want to do that with. Feel free to let me set the wagers," Sophie said quietly.

----------------------------------------

For the first time since he woke up, Finley smiled. There wasn't much currency to play games with and any currency that they had would be worthless. It would just weigh them down on their trip.

Finley decided that he wanted to go for a walk. There was something new about Sophie and he didn't know how to put his finger on it, but she felt like she was a member of the family. He hadn't asked her before if she wanted to join. But now, they'd all travel together for about a week. Week he could begin to question if some of them wanted to be part of his family.

But first, he would want to go clear his head. He was going to walk around the entire interior of their staging grounds several times. It wasn't that he felt like he needed to exercise. It was that he had spent two days lying down and he needed to do anything except for that right now. Also, he needed to find a spot to relieve himself.

He nodded to Sophie then began his walk. He would tell them later. First he needed to take care of himself.

----------------------------------------

The next morning, the caravan woke up to defy the day. Anthony watched as the group formed up once again, this time with Finley present. It was about time that he spoke with the group. Everyone knew that if they were going to head out, that the caravan mounted up at first light or before. Having their council meeting in the morning with the potential to leave for the day meant that everyone was up and ready.

"Alright. I expected that last night's news about Finley really made us all happy. It's good to see you back with us," Anthony said, "Probably none of us would be here today without you, so thank you."

Finley nodded. Anthony handed him the stick. Finley tossed it over his right shoulder. Anthony faked mock indignation.

"I suppose you guys want to know about the next couple of towns on the way, correct?" Finley said.

It was a chorus of yesses and nodding.

"All right. Well that's good. Are we still going south towards the inland lake? Because if not, we need to make a decision soon. The next town on our way is a bit bigger than this," Finley said, "I'm curious if our Bards passed by or through it. Have either of you guys seen Heirisburg?" Finley said.

"We haven't. We've been traveling through the wilderness for the past two weeks. We just stalked through the woods, hunting along the way. It's not that we disliked dwarves. It's just that the average worker out here doesn't know or didn't know. We did see some traders that had passed through Heirisburg."

"And nothing that they said now seems relevant in retrospect?" Anthony said.

Finley held out a hand.

"Do you recall getting close enough to see the gates? This is the important part," Finley said. "Because if we need to get over a closed gate that might be difficult. We would have to take our time and potentially siege the town."

"Oh? Why is that?" Anthony asked.

"Because Heirisburg was the staging grounds for one of the Dwarven legions."