Stella surveyed her newest acquisition. It was a ship that she had already nicknamed the clubhouse. The decks were clear of zombies and she was looking for something productive to do. She did a full circuit around the ship, counting the ropes that had it tied down. This was a true ship from a story, sized for a queen like she was.

Unfortunately, it smelled like one too. Bob was also trying to be helpful in his own way, much to her chagrin.

It was the fourth time she caught Bob fiddling with the ropes that something dawned on Stella.

He didn't know how to tie or untie a knot. He had never been on a ship before. He definitely hadn't been a boy scout.

That unearned mojo was probably leading him to think that he was going to be able to steal one and then drive off with it. He probably thought that you drove a boat. Stella knew better, though her interests had been in a different area.

"Bob," Stella said. "What are you doing? This is not a car that you can hot wire. There's probably an anchor in the sea that we need to pull up and it's tied off in at least two places. You can't just commit piracy without considering the implications of having to captain and crew a ship."

"He's trying to brute force piracy," Iggy said from the front of the ship. There was a large splash as the thing he was carrying slipped into the water. She was reasonably certain that it hadn't been an ex-dwarf.

"You can't brute force piracy, Bob!" Stella yelled from across the bow.

"Watch me," Bob said, attempting to brute force piracy.

Stella knew that his entire experience around boats involved watching Pirates of the Caribbean on repeat and playing Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. This did not give her the same amount of confidence that he apparently had. He had lived next to one of the most storied ports in the entire eastern coast of North America, and yet barely left the confines of his small neighborhood.

"Do we even know if this vessel is seaworthy?" Stella yelled, tossing the last zombie body part off the deck. One of the legs of a sailor had been detached and stuck on a board. "Typical boys leaving the cleaning to the women."

She had half a mind to requisition the cleanse card before she did anything else, but she didn't know which girl had it right then.

"How would we know if it was seaworthy?" Bob said from midship.

"Well, there are a lot of ways you could do that," Iggy said. "We could check on the mast and see if it was secured. We could check on the hull to see if it's got any leaks. We could check and see if there were any zombies stowing away under the decks. That one seems a little bit more pertinent right now. Do either one of you want to back me up on this one?"

Stella coughed, giving Bob a side eye. There were only three of them and it was a bad idea for them to split up anymore. It was super bad for Bob to split up and go on his own but that was something that they were going to hash out later.

Bob had a ranger skill to let him see how close any zombies were to him. A zombie that had been killed would not show up or trip up his proximity alarm. He called it his favorite enemy alarm but Stella knew what he really was. It was someone that she thanked Mork for everyday as he gave Bob a clear view of what was around him without him having to look. Since he was so blind, everything that was in front of him, including Stella, this was only to his benefit.

Would she ever drive with anyone else? Not if she liked that person but that wasn't the point. When she spun the wheel it moved, making her think that it might actually be something she could use.

Now she was thinking about how it would connect to any piece of machinery to provide some sort of forward thrust. This wasn't a steam engine. If they were going to turn this into an airship, they would have to figure out a way to make it move. She was thinking about who had taken that wind aspect caster and wishing that that person was there with them right now to move things.

Having a working ship would open so many opportunities for them.

The quiet sea had borders with all four of the nations that they needed to go to. Save for the human nation, whose death knight had decided to gate in to attack them, the dwarven, orcish and elven death knights awaited them in their respective kingdoms. They were probably slowly building up power, unopposed.

The ship itself would be able to get things from one spot on the quiet sea to another. It wasn't immediately obvious how they would do that. There wasn't a manual they could refer to that would give them all the instructions.

Stella would give anything for a Wikipedia page on how to operate a boat step by step. Some of the former sailors might have sailing cards.

She realized that probably several of the zombies that they had tossed overboard might have sea related cards. Especially if they were there long-term. Perhaps some of the zombies had good skill cards.

'Hey Bob, can you come over here and help me with this next part?" Stella said.

"What did you have in mind, my dear?" He said, his voice as sweet as possible.

"I believe that some of the zombies around here might have cards that will give us a bonus to operating a waterborne craft. So I request your aid in getting some of these zombies cards. Would that be suitable for you, my lord?"

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Bob blinked several times and then nodded at her.

"What are you proposing?" He said.

Iggy arrived, apparently not wanting to miss a party.

"What are we doing? Are we going to go get some more zombies? Because I was thinking that some of these zombies might have been sailors and that might benefit us in some way if they had some cool cards." Iggy said.

"My thoughts exactly, my good friend. It's too bad that all the zombies that were on before the shift were thrown overboard by someone who was carelessly using all of our resources to fulfill his goals of getting his black belt in judo," Stella said.

"But who would do such a thing on their own volition?" Bob said. "That would be so ridiculous as to throw away such harder to come by zombie cards? Oh wait a second. This is about me, isn't it?"

Stella and Iggy gave Bob the stare that he had been deserving of for quite some time.

He might be a himbo but he was her himbo and she was going to take charge of his education. He was a guy with a magical summoned cat that let them get cards out of people without much fuss. That didn't mean that he was paying attention to keeping the bodies for harvesting. He was in fact not paying attention to what they wanted.

Most of the bodies had ended up in the water.

He was great at throwing zombies around when he wanted to, but this was exactly the time that Stella would have preferred a lighter touch.

"There are a couple of other boats around that we can draw from. If none of them have anything, then I'm going to call it. We still have the problem of that sea monster over there and the dragon."

"Is that dragon still alive?" Bob said. "I really thought that I dealt with it."

Like Bob's excuses for not baking her a cake despite being on a reality show where he did the same thing, that dragon kept popping up. Stella was going to get a kick out of him sooner or later. It was just a matter of time and finding some flour and sugar that hadn't already been kicked over by a salvage team.

From their vantage point in the sea, the sea monster was still off to the west of them and it looked like it was still playing around with the dragon. The sea monster, in it's infinite wisdom, was like a puppy that had been given a chew toy. The puppy didn't know if it could break the chew toy and it was going to try its hardest to do so, the day that it came home from the store.

The chew toy, not the dog.

“Do you think that that dragon has a bunch of really good cards in it?” Iggy said.

“Undoubtedly,” Stella said. “In fact I think that more cards than the regular haul. It would be really great if we could take advantage of that somehow, but that sea monster seems to be way more sturdy than a dragon.”

Bob was still doing his best to examine whatever it was with the item he had found next to the large wheel that steered the rudder of the boat they were on. He passed it to her and she put it on her dominant eye, peering through.

Rather than just being a regular old thingamabob, this one had a magical sense about it. It. She felt like she could push mana into it, and then get something out of it. Somebody had described having something that let them see the world in a different way, and Stella kind of remembered it?

She recalled that the skill card was called mana sight. Having some experience with it would have been great right about now.

There was definitely something fucky going on right there with that beast in particular. If she could judge it just by how dense the color was, the sea monster was far denser than the dragon in all its parts.

She then looked at a nearby zombie, finding one on the ship that was far less dense than either of those two. It was bright and shiny with mana. That's sea monster looked strong as ever and-

"Hey Bob, question. How is the sea monster doing that thing where he flips the dragon around and around?"

"Well that would be my grappling card skill. I left it there and took advantage of it. Should I unsummon it?" Bob said.

“No, I think that it's good where it is. Honestly that sea much. Looks like it's having the time of its life and the more that it's not paying attention to us, the better. I would really appreciate it if in the future you stopped. Running. Off,” she said punctuating the sentence. She put a finger into his chest jabbing hard enough to make herself feel it.

“I know that you really want to have this conversation later, but that was a dumbass thing you just did there, Bob, and I'm pissed at you and the only reason that we're not having is out right now is because you're telling me that and we need a fucking exit plan. You got us into this boat with the sea monster on the loose and there's no way for us to get back.”

She exhaled straight into his face.

Below them and more towards the city, the docks were now packed with zombies that had sought them out. Half of the zombies were on fire and so if she realized that unlike the water which you might not be able to catch fire, she was in something that was exceedingly flammable. She had never wanted to be someplace else more in her entire life and had less ability to take care of that.

“So Bob,” Stella said. “I would love to hear your plan for us to get the fuck out of here. What are your thoughts?”

Bob gulped. That was not what she expected. But she had expected a lot from him.

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

"Alright Anthony. I'm ready to do it but I think this is going to take me out of the fight as it were. You have to be 100% sure that nobody else is going to need my warlock powers for anything else." Sonya pleaded with her eyes.

The zombies were working their way through, and deciding that they would like to be those trick birthday candles that you could blow out and they would be let light themselves. This was not even in the realm of possibilities that Anthony had planned for. Thankfully, Sonya had the sense to lead them on a wild goose chase through her maze as they smoldered.

Anthony looked at her, smoldering. Beneath his gaze, she looked so beautiful and strong that he got a little bit choked up there for that moment.

This was a come to the Goat Lord moment for their Caravan. They had trained on this type of operation so many times and now they were coming out of it with the ability to just crush a town's worth of zombies.

Sure, it took just about everything they had but if those cards kept leveling, this might be something they could do more often. If every person on that continent was zombified, one day, they would have to face a reckoning. Reckoning. Especially if as a death knights crew they were able to control more and more of the undead.

The only reason that Anthony was hesitant to cross the quiet sea and go through the orcish meritocracy lands was that they were going to need to return to kill the other death knights. It was in the terms and services that he had clicked through when he had been summoned to his place.

Anthony had not read the terms and services nor was he presented with the chance to do so.

But he knew that if he strayed from the path for too long, that would be a problem and he could get called up for dereliction of duty or something.

"I need you to do it. The caravan needs you to do this."

Sophie tensed her whole body in front of him, deciding that now was the time. Anthony got a whiff and shuddered.