Later that night, Valerie begged off meeting the entire crew. Anthony let her know that in the morning she could take as long as she wanted. They would bring breakfast. He pointed out where they had dug a trench and set up facilities for her to do her business. He didn't mention the lake.

Anthony and Finley talked about whether it was time to give her some duties but decided that she was young and she was recovering from a horrible traumatic experience.

They let her slide.

Sophie didn't think she was going to want to do work for them when she had been in a safe enclave of her own. But he didn't know and he didn't want to ask, especially since she seemed to know a lot about the city they were in.

Valerie promised Anthony that in the morning she would talk more to the group. She was very hungry, and after the fifth bowl of stew had requested to be left alone to sleep. After being together for so long, her gaunt frame stood out.

Finley said the Tinkers had a tradition of using food as a weapon. Usually this was meant in a dramatic sort of way. That evening, it was used to turn her into a weapon for them.

When they woke in the morning, Sophie approached the tent first to see if she was ready to talk.

"I brought you some stew, Valerie."

Sophie stood out there for about a minute waiting.

She had been patient before with patients.

She'd seen all kinds of things at the psych hospital but this one in particular this was a lot. She had not taken someone from their house to the hospital and then had to deal with them the whole way through. Seeing the whole picture, the holistic view of her mental health was something else.

She'd seen enough bipolar teens affected by terrible family dynamics that she was used to kids acting out.

Once they got their hackles down though?

She'd usually been able to bridge the gap. She had been one of those teens.

She understood.

Sophie was a bit worried that the gap between her and a dwarven girl would be too vast.

Valerie opened the tent flap and stood outside. Her face was a mask of calm. Sophie gritted her teeth and presented her with a bowl of stew.

Perhaps she had forgotten how teenagers were. Or perhaps their experiences were too far apart.

"I'm very sorry that we don't have any beer for you but we ran out and part of our mission here was to see if we can get some more. I don't expect you to know what if you can find any, but if you did, I'm part of the scouting team. It's part of my job to flag buildings for further investigation."

Valerie accepted the bowl, wordlessly. She looked at the fire in the center of their camp.

"You can come sit at that fire with us. You don't have to say anything and have one here. Understand that you are a guest and that they are not to ask anything of you."

Valerie turned to her.

"Thank you."

Sophie followed the little dwarf girl to the circle of logs around their campfire. Several people looked up with concern nodding to the pair. Valerie sat down in between Song and Bob.

She started slowly eating from her bowl. Next to her, Bob was well into his third bowl, eating as fast as he could. With a glare, Sophie pushed out her intent to him. Bob nodded, receiving the message and slowed down. Song continued eating at his normal pace.

The normally lively circle was now deathly quiet. The only sounds for the flickering of the flames and slurping.

Sophie stood attentively next to her. She felt like she should be asking a nurse for some prescription meds for the poor girl, but there was no nurse, besides Anthony and there was definitely no medicine counter.

They were all alone and what had to be the darkest hours of her life, and all they had to offer her was a bit of stew and perhaps a chance to determine her own path.

She was so glad that Stella had gone all out cooking this morning. The orcs had found out that there was a herd of deer in the area and overnight had killed two. What remained of their bodies had been treated and was hanging on a far wall. They had used a bit of help to hang up chains and skin the deer.

They looked excited to see if she could turn the pelts into something. As it was going to be cold anyway, one of her questions for the tiny dwarven girl was going to be about how she could get some thread. All the clothes that they had found were of dwarven size and make. This meant that someone had to adjust things.

She was used to working with clothing but sewing all the clothing for a ragtag band in an apocalypse? Before long she expected it was going to become one of her biggest hobbies, it not, her main job. Sophie loved being a scout. She was able to be the first one on the scene to see if there was anything good. She had been able to grab a few cards which had helped her trade back and forth. It was part of the reason why she'd gotten her warlock job. Plus she got it in the middle of all the Bob and Stella drama.

Not that there was much but Sonya and Anthony? They were like an old married couple.

In her eyes, the couple that Bob and Stella resembled most was probably one from real housewives. Sophie wasn't sure which one yet but she was getting close. It was between the franchises based in New York City and of all places, Portland.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Valerie finished her bowl and held it up. Song took it and filled it. If Valerie was surprised that there were orcs in their camp, she didn't say anything.

Song certainly didn't. He made a few hand talk gestures to Borgan and the two conversed silently back and forth a bit.

"You don't have to stop talking on my account," Valerie said.

"Okay then," Bob said. "We can go around introducing ourselves then if that helps."

Valerie nodded.

Bob went around the circle asking everyone to say a bit about themselves. When it was Andrew's turn, the head made a point to mention that he wasn't a local. Valerie didn't receive that well.

Once the introductions were done, everyone was a bit quiet again. Then someone farted and the tension broke again, a wind between them.

"Valerie, do you want to say a bit about yourself?" Sophie said.

"I'm Valerie Underfoot, I guess you could say that I was a student at the military academy against my parents wishes," she said. "Not that they are against the military. My father was an instructor there and my mother worked the archives. I was hoping to gain a commission like my father and grandmother, but now? I may be one of the last dwarves on this continent... if what I'm hearing is true..."

There had been a lot of silent moments where the Caravan had thought about what they had lost. They had thought about what the task was that they had been set in front of them. Sometimes they thought about the enormity of the loss of what had been before and in this moment, this one girl who had lost everything was a stand in for all that.

Sophie held back tears. She needed to be strong for the girl in front of her.

Later she would let herself have a good cry but she wanted to be strong in front of Valerie. Leave it to her old habits to die hard. Thankfully, Sophie had learned how to kill a lot better than she had before. Those habits had it coming. Their days were numbered.

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

Bob, the murkiest of Mork's minions, called an impromptu council meeting after breakfast. They invited Valerie to see if she wanted to weigh in.

Only the orcs were missing as they wanted to sleep during the day. The walls weren't manned but for their presence, once the group broke up they would get their rest.

"So day two of operations here," Bob said. "We have cleared out all these houses except for that one large building which Valerie has indicated is the academy. Thank you for that. Valerie and now I know that that is a high value Target. We're going to need a dedicated wagon to grab things from there. This makes me think that we're going to need to get a fifth wagon. Andrew, are you on that?"

The group shifted to look at the artificer. He had three sheafs of paper that he had been working through when he was rudely interrupted for breakfast. Of course, he brought his work with him.

"I can make that happen. But for now? Take the orcs wagon and use that," the dwarf said. "They're camped out underneath the Tinker wagons. That should be fine."

"Noted," Bob said. "Can I get two people for the salvage detail that will be guarding the wagon? I expect that we'll park it there and load it up with what we find. I think we need to mind the horses or have the minders take them."

Two of the warriors' hands raised up. They would be great for this detail.

"Now unless anyone has an idea of how we can do this any safer, those two people have that job," Bob said. "If someone had, say, a short term teleport skill or something. No one would have anything like that."

"Like a gate spell?" Valerie said. "Those are rare."

"Exactly, my new friend," Bob said. "Like the death knight we killed in our last clash might have had."

Bob narrowed his eyes. He had a feeling that someone had taken his kill from him. His god had wanted him to kill the death knight. It gave him the tools to do so.

When he hadn't been the one to give the killing blow, he felt like Mork's disappointment. The god wasn't angry or mad, just like a father trying to save face in front of their child.

Someone had gotten whatever card it was, because it hadn't yet turned up. Neither had the corpse of the death knight, something that could have easily been hidden under a layer of dirt. He had a prime suspect with a motive, he just needed them to admit to it. The amount of goats that had shown up after the fight had thrown him off the scent. The general chaos of their retreat as well had been a lot of sensory input at once.

He was still convinced that someone had harvested the death knight's presumably mythic tear card. He just needed them to put themselves.

There was the off chance that one Goat Lord had decided to turn the death knight into a goat. Finley had offhandedly mentioned once that the god responded to prayers in a strange way.

Bob scanned the faces of the people around the circle. None had come forward but he had other means.

"I can't imagine that anyone would keep an ability like that to themselves," Anthony said, standing up. "As such, I imagine amnesty would be warranted in this case. In fact I think general amnesty for cards taken during salvage operations will be fine. I was thinking about starting a list of who has what cards..."

"It was me," Sonya said. "I got the gate card."

There was an audible gasp from half the assembled crowd. Bob was certain that Sophie had just brought out a bag of popcorn, but then when he looked it disappeared.

"Alright. Now if we can just hand that over," Bob said. "The scouts can use that well."

"The rear detachment could use it better-" Anthony said.

"Tower defense needs it!" Sonya said.

All at once, a cacophony of noise beat the discourse into the ground. Everyone was shouting at once, arguing for the card.

"Bwaaaaap!" A sound that had to have been from an air horn sounded, overtaking the noise in a moment. Then the group quieted.

Bob looked directly at the person who had made the noise, expecting one of the bards.

Lo and behold, Valerie was standing where the sound had originated.

"You guys are very undisciplined. Where is your command structure? Your unity of purpose?" Valerie shouted. "How the hell have you guys survived this long like this?"

"Well I..." Bob said.

"No! You're undisciplined trash if you think that getting a consensus on your missions is going to work. Who is in charge here?"

Anthony meekly raised a hand.

"Alright well if you're in charge, act like it, hero. Why is he running this meeting?"

"I run strategy and I am the resident healer. Bob is our tactical guy, he does scouting and infiltration," Anthony said.

"Well you need to be on the same page. This woman has a very powerful card ability that is an asset to your..."

"Caravan?" Sophie said.

"Your caravan," Valerie said. "Look, I know you guys saved me here but I was the top of my class at the academy. I was in line to have an advanced commission. I know this shit."

Valerie sighed.

"I think that as much as I need you guys, you need me. Now if I may, can I explain what you all should actually be doing? But first can you tell me the group's goal here? Are you retaking the town?"

"Our goal is to get enough supplies to get to this inland sea that's a few weeks south of here," Anthony said.

"Oh now this ought to be interesting," Valerie said.