"Hey Borgan, Song, can both of you come with me on a brief scouting expedition? We're going to check out the city and I wanted to see if you had any insight," Bob, Mork's delivery man said.

The two orcs considered the question as they splashed around in the lake. Bob had never seen an orc frolic until today. It was pleasant.

"We have nothing much to do right now so as long as we're back in time for our shift we have no problem with that. Is that alright with you?" The orc looked at his brother who shrugged. "It's all right with us. We'll follow along. Are we taking horses?"

The orcs hadn't ridden any of their horses yet. Everyone was avoiding this because the orcs were quite tall and heavy. It was the reason that they had been granted their own wagon post haste.

"No horses this time," Bob said. "We'll walk for about an hour and we'll walk about an hour back. I just got an ability to let me leave a mental direction marker but only one. Now, there will be no issue with us returning back here at all with my tracking and marking ability. Actually, I have been meaning to ask you guys about your abilities. If you want to tell us that it's fine. If you don't want to tell us, that's also fine. We just need to know how to work with you if that makes sense."

Bob had fully expected them to not want to give anything away. They were the newest members of the group, after all. Trust had to be earned. Respect had to be earned.

Bob remembered those adults he used to have in his life because he didn't have a choice in the matter. People that had told him to respect them because of who they were, when what they meant by respect was that they needed to be treated like an authority; meanwhile, respecting him meant treating him like a person.

"I just want to be clear. I'm not telling you that if you don't do this that it's going to be an issue. I volunteered for this job. You don't have to come scout with me."

In the back of his mind, he was remembering Anthony's speech about volunteers, not recruits. Song, who was up to his neck in the water, began to sign something small with his hands, obscuring his face. Bob was going to have to make an effort to learn their sign language. It had to be isolating to only be understood by one person.

"Maybe you can teach me some of- actually what is the language that Song uses with you?" Bob said.

"Hand talk. It used to be called orcish hand talk and sometimes hand cant, due to all the shortening. We can explain some of it. Song would be relieved, I am certain, to know that he could communicate with anyone else," Borgan said, walking towards the shore. Song smiled then made a gesture of pointing to himself, then opening a book, then pointing to Bob.

"He is saying that he is going to teach you," Borgan said.

Song pointed to Borgan, then Bob, then smashed a fist from one hand into an open palm, grinding the one hand into the other. Song narrowed his eyes. Borgan giggled.

"He also says-"

"I got the message thanks," Bob said.

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Two orcs and three humans crested a ridge, fully expecting it to be their last one of the day. Stella didn't mind a bit of hard work and she needed to stretch after a day of hard driving, but she was starting to think that Bob wouldn't be happy until they could lick the walls of Heirisburg. At least he had said so several times.

Their main objective was to determine where it was, so they had followed the orcs' lead to the city. The group had been surprised to find several zombies milling around aimlessly less than ten minutes from what had to be the final ridge.

Spires from the city kept popping up as they got closer and with each little ridge, Stella and Sophie would mark their passage. Sophie grew a tall thornbush, shaping it to be a distinct marker. Stella trimmed around the resulting bush, making the shaft of the bush appear even longer. It was the first time in a long time that trimming bushes was a group project for either woman. That they were doing so in front of a crowd was far more rewarding than it had any right to be.

The grass turned into a beacon that they used to ascertain if they were able to easily return back. Placing the bushes on top of a relatively higher point would be a dead giveaway if they were fighting anything intelligent. Thankfully until they had a good line of sight, none of the zombies even got close.

This first batch had decided to walk over to them and eat their internal organs. Stella disagreed with that on general principles. She preferred her organs to be inside of her. Stella and Bob took turns taking shots at the zombies. Bob shot with his crossbow. Stella was well aware of how many bolts that they had, and fully expected him to reduce his amount, reuse any bolts and recycle them into new zombies.

It was the eco-friendly way to kill, after all.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

This environment might not need saving, but she damn sure would save all of the bolts they came across.

The team dispatched the zombies with prejudice. They held fast on their positions, giving the benefits of the doubt to the undead. They didn't have the ammunition for a double tap. Using too much magic would wear them out and they needed it if the groups got bigger.

Borgan and Song approached them to determine if there was anything useful. This was the fourth group and so far aside from their cards and potentially their gambesons and shoes, they hadn't found much. Stella held out hope. Bob's summon had been helpful but each of the dwarf zombies so far had mining related cards or in one case, a mine cart construction foreman card.

The one good thing that came out of it was that the orcs were now very familiar with how they worked together as a team. True, they had been in a battle together, but then they were doing the backup music. Something about their performance helped the others in the fight. With only five of them, the orcs were a bit more hands on.

"A lot of these dwarves look like they were suited up for work of some kind," Bob said, as he knelt to inspect one of them.

"Yeah. Imagine if you were at work and the zombie apocalypse happened and he was like, you are still coming in right?" Stella said. "Do you think that they were heading to work and it just happened?"

"I wish I had paid more attention in school," Sophie said. "There is no reason I can think of that all of these people could be so affected so quickly. It's like the whole continent got a virus."

"A better question is why didn't Finley catch anything?" Stella said. "Anthony said that he had been at some remote Dwarven village before they met up and all of the people there were not undead."

"It's probably one of those things. Do you think that it targeted only villages of certain sizes?" Stella said.

All three of them looked up at Borgan for comment. He looked a bit flustered.

"I have no idea how this happened. I have no idea why my brother and I were spared. I am grateful every moment of every day, but I don't think that I will have the answer to this no matter what I do," he said.

Song signed a few circles to his brother.

"What's he saying?" Bob said.

"The circles mean he's trying to show layers. Like the card levels and he was saying that Finley has the same level of rarity card that we have. Do you think maybe there's something there? All three of us have mythic cards. Song is telling me that at least," Borgan said, turning another dwarf over to inspect it.

"How do you know that Finley has a mythic card?" Stella said. "Did he show you his deck or something?"

"There's a weight to someone's soul depending on what their initial soul card is or has been merged into," Borgan said. "Though we should ask. Ours were passed down through the clan."

Stella decided she was going to drop it for now. She would have to circle back and talk to Finley about what a mythic actually meant. She didn't have one of those. What she did have was two rare cards and a couple of cards that she swapped in and out. And now, she had a potentially full deck if she wanted to ever open her own mind. She was actively considering the option.

"All right guys, I think we're close enough now. We know where it is. Let's head back. And this time keep your eyes open for any more zombies that are on the horizon. If we find that we've got company," Bob said. "I want them to pay full price for admission to this show."

They moved back, one by one, until they hit the first bush. Bob had them rest a little bit to ask if the coast was clear. When it was, they continued on without incident back to the staging area.

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"Sonya, do you just really like Tower defense games? Or is this like some sadistic prank," Anthony said, looking over the maze. "Like I trust you, I really do but it's just a lot."

In Finley's opinion, Sonya had made a masterpiece. She fully encircled the staging area with a thick dirt wall about twice her height. Then she had designed a set of stairs leading up on two sides. The wagons entirely pointed towards the exit, though they did wrap around the campfire. They would just have to take turns.

Sonya had decided this time that she was going to not leave an exit door. Her powers had grown and she was now able to more easily access parts of the wall so that they could exit. She felt confident that she would be able to move it aside if there ever was an emergency. And if she got incapacitated, she knew that Sophie would be able to help. Sophie, having acquired a warlock class, had learned some of the tricks that Sonya was using. Zan, their wizard in residence had also learned how to cast the same spells, but she was even more of a glass cannon than either of them.

And so it was that Sonya finally rested after cleaning the water and making sure there was a ladder available for people to use. The ladder provided lake access so that people could take a little bath. Andrew had been willing to set up torches around the walls so that if nothing else, you would run into one. If the zombie showed up, they would fall into her maze while trying to get to them. And that's when she had all of her friends to help.

That was about when the scout team came back in and Sonya turned her attention to cooking. Finley and Stella started chopping vegetables and made some stew. Sonya set the pot to boil. Now that they were going to be feeding seventeen instead of fifteen, they needed a bit more. Her hope was that occs ate what humans ate. No one had really asked the orcs about what they wanted to eat. Or even if they ate potatoes. Sonya was sent as the representative to ask.

They just thought everything that humans ate was odd. They really liked to take their time while eating. When she asked Borgan what he wanted to eat, she noticed that Song was trying to sign things to Bob and Bob was signing things back. Bob wasn't doing it very well but she was kind of proud of him.

Though he could hear perfectly, the orc was mute. She didn't think it was a good idea to ask why, but since he communicated using hand signals and Borgan was the only one that could speak it, she might consider learning as well.

So it happened that when the first few bowls of stew came out, the orcs had a bit of a crowd watching. Bob fumbled his way through orc hand talk, and the crowd went wild. Sonya smirked at his attempts. They were genuine but he looked so out of his element that it was adorable.

Stella gave it a shot as well and she had a few signs down before long. It was less important for Bob to learn the signs and it was for everyone else to be able to understand. Borgan. That was when Sonya really understood how isolating it could be, if one could only get their point across to one person.

It was a lot to put on one's brother to be their sole translator in the world.