“I feel like I'm being gaslit here. I don't appreciate it. Bob," Stella said. " You knew the mission parameters. We've talked about this. Like you're not supposed to just run off. And I... I need you to understand that this is the problem."

Bob just looked dejected. Behind him, Brandon and Iggy were taking turns killing zombies from the side of the boat.

"Stella, is this the time for this?" Bob said.

"Bob, this is exactly the time for this. You have to stop running away from your responsibilities just because you want to play a hero. We're all in this together. We are all in this together. If one of us fucks up? Do you remember what happened?"

She didn't point at Bob because she was not that kind of girl. But she let for his pleasure to be known in other ways.

"Yes, I remember what happened."

"What happens? Bob? What happens if one of us goes off and then dies?"

Bob coughed.

"The general consensus is that they are going to become a death knight."

"And who of us is the strongest? Has the most abilities that we need to keep fighting the good fight? Who is that person? Bob, it's not Finley. It's not me, either. I'm not the strongest. I just have two classes now and I'm not particularly great at either of them."

"I'm the strongest one," Bob said quietly.

"What was that? Could you say that again?" Stella said.

"I am the strongest one."

The entire time up until now he had been looking down at the deck rather than at her face, but when he said that he was the strongest one, he finally looked up at her, his dark eyes staring into her soul.

Their talk was punctuated by the sounds of Brandon scoring several direct hits with his sling. Brandon whooped.

"Great shot!" Iggy said.

"So Bob, am I getting through to you yet? Because this is not a joke. We can't. We can't keep on like this. You need to stop going to the front lines and doing whatever the fuck you want. I get it. I get it. Sonya stole your kill. All right. We all know it. We all know you're still brooding about it. She got the gate card. But her God also asked her to do the same thing and I don't care who kills them."

"What?"

"You heard me right, Bob. I don't really give a fuck who is killing these deaths knights. It doesn't matter. Because, at the end of the day, all that I care about is that is not becoming another one of them. That dragon? I'm sure as fuck that was not a Death Knight but you know what it looks like? It looks like the orcish Death Knight might have some sort of ability to make flesh golem dragons."

Bob shuttered under her gaze, returning his eyes to the floor. Stella knew that he knew he was in the wrong.

He wanted to give her the silent treatment and try to sweep him under the rug. But there had been too many times when his judgment had been slightly skewed because his God gave him the quest and though his quest system had saved them once or twice, it made her realize that no one goes after a pirate ship without a really good reason.

Especially if they have to run through a zombie infested port city.

"What did your God offer you for securing this boat?" She said.

Bob blanched. He had a little tic that he recognized from when he was trying to get away with something.

He shrugged and then pulled out a card and showed it to her.

Rare Skill Card: Skill Thief Mimic

The wielder of this card can temporarily learn up to five card skills of uncommon strength or lower and two skills of rare strength. Uncommon skills learned this way can be replaced once daily. Rare skills will decay and fall off once daily.

"Well shit, Bob," Stella said. "That's all you had to say."

Bob looked relieved.

"Are you serious? Stella?"

Stella took her face in both of her hands. She moved very close to him.

"Bob, I get it that you are a hunky dumb man with a kind heart. You are my himbo and I appreciate you so… you have to stop doing dumb shit."

In he history of romantic kisses between two people that were absolutely mad at each other, there were only a few that took place on a pirate ship. Of those, there was only one that ever took place on a pirate ship in the center of a burning city full of dwarven zombies.

Stella kissed her big dumb boyfriend, hoping beyond hope that next time he would learn his damn lesson.

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

Brandon scored another hit, this time using his strength to lob a rock clean through a zombie's head. The sling that they had got was at the edge of its appreciable life and the way that he had worn out, felt like it had been a very long and happy life for the sling. If there was a Valhalla for combat slings, this one was going to get it.

The sling itself had at least one hundred confirmed kills. It chose that minute to snap.

Brandon shrugged, displaying the half-broken piece of equipment to Iggy. They both turned to see Stella, kissing Bob as if she were Spider-Man and he was a sandwich.

"I want what they have," Iggy said.

"Like right now?" Brandon said, puckering up. " But I feel like things are moving so fast for the two of us."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Not with you!"

"Hello Iggy, you wound me. Also, do you think they're ever going to come up for air?"

As if on cue, both Bob and Stella who were still making out, flipped them the bird.

"Yeah I want what they have too," Brandon said.

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

The line of zombies continued on until the gate. One more of the zombies were just not making it, turning into Ash and then collapsing there in the plains.

Sonya had decided that today was probably the worst day, that she was about to experience in terms of her magic needs. In fact after she cleft the city in two, she visited her patron to ask for some more sugar.

Cara had a chair adorned with blades of course.

As her primary agent in the living world, Sonya had the distinct impression that Cara saw her as the oldest sibling of a family that had yet to be filled out. Despite the fact that Sonya herself was in her mid-thirties when she arrived on this world, she felt like Cara was the drunk step aunt that always called her her baby.

That at least was the way that she described it to Anthony the night prior and now she was realizing how true it was. Unless she had decided to listen in and take notes, their dynamic hadn't changed.

Sonya asked for sugar or boons in the terms of cards or mayonnaise and Cara gave them out if she was supposed to.

Sonya didn't mind being called a good girl by a goddess, but it felt like she was intruding on someone's kink. Did Gods have relationships as such? That was a question for a time when she wasn't trying to salvage a bad situation.

From their spot in the maze, they could see down easily. The line of zombies, as flaming zombies tend to do, had lit up the dry grasslands around them. This being black flame, it tended to burn things down to ash.

At least that's what they had learned so far. No matter if they applied water to it or not, if it struck? It wasn't going to make it.

Of all the things that she was grateful That fateful day, the fact that no one had gotten hit by the black flame was high on the list. She would never say that out loud, because Murphy was hard listening but she was keeping track of the people that came in to see Anthony for their minor bumps and scrapes as she concentrated her mana once again for a big push.

Finley hit her with a refresh and she felt like she had just choked at least three coffees with twice as many espressos. She could taste colors as she began the next part.

One line of dirt moved down on the north side of the conga line. Another line appeared on the south of the conga line. Rather than wall them in, Sonya had decided that she was going to make them into a little soupy path.

The water table here was high so as she sunk the ground in, she tried to connect the zombies inside of that water to a little place next to the dam. The ship that was at least two stories tall was stuck at the north side of Gloucester.

She could see it from her vantage point, but there would be a problem if they diverted all of the zombies to that ship. She was pretty sure that Bob wanted them to keep it. She was also sure that Stella was probably lecturing him and stealing it? Because this seemed very unlike him. Or actually seemed exactly like him If Stella wasn't around to keep him on track.

"Boys will be boys," she said, bending the rules of reality, increasing the stream.

Right now it was just dirt but she could feel that if she just connected it to the right spot, she would be able to fill it with the ocean water.

So she took the short route, diverting to the ocean on the eastern side of the city. This connected her already made canal which was empty of water but full of bloody zombies to an easy source of water.

Unfortunately, as you tried to speak to the water to offer it a bribe or incentive to come up river, she found that she didn't have anything there to give.

"What's a girl have to do to get a river to listen to her commands?" Sonya yelled.

Several shock faces turn to look at her, all a bit concerned.

Sonya closed her eyes and thought about this. She had been through middle school math and knew that water wanted to follow a path of least resistance. She also knew that it wanted to be in stasis. She could bend the earth around it to accommodate the water only so much. But if the water wanted to go to some place deeper, she realized her folly.

Rather than just making a canal deep enough to drown a zombie, Sonya made them deep enough to drown a giraffe.

Remembering a rough description of giraffes, she hadn't even thought about the giant animals in forever.

If the water wanted to blow to someplace that was lower than where it was, then it would definitely drain into her river.

This is where she ran into her second problem. This was of course that they were on the border between land and water.

The water was an ecosystem of its own. She wasn't making a pipe, she was making a trench or canal.

Sonya had not spent that day at school when they went over how to make one of those. She was pretty sure that Canadians didn't need to get taught that as part of their normal education.

She was just throwing spaghetti at a wall trying to see which would stick.

The gentle sloping shore, which was made of silt and sand, decided that it was not interested in her bribery. As soon as the giraffe depth canal was finally excavated by her expedition. Most of her mana, the shore did its best to undo that.

What could the sand do? It was a shore thing.

She persisted.

The zombies, who were approaching the maze, had first been sunk ten feet, then at least double that into the dirt. Then, a wave decided to wash over them, baptizing them in the Quiet Sea.

As zombies do, none of them particularly liked their situation but no one was there to take their complaints.

I took the zombies a minute to reorient, it had already been going one direction and now they just had to return to going towards where the humans were. Sonya could feel them stepping through the earth.

It was one of the last things she felt before she pulled back, conscious of her ability to overspend herself. Sonya did not have imposter syndrome. What she had was an addiction to killing zombies that might put her over her mana consumption limits. Even with a sugar mama backing her up, Sonya had given all she had.

Getting up from her meditative lotus pose, she grabbed out for Anthony's hand.

"That was incredible Sonya. That was absolutely incredible. You're a credit to the Caravan and I need you to stop being so awesome."

She bubbled around for a little bit before realizing that she probably needs to sit back down again.

"Help me back down?" Sonya said. "That took way more out of me than I had to give."

"Of course."

This time, instead of sitting up, she fully laid down focusing on her breathing.

She was out of it.

All that refreshing energy and Cara's gift?

Those two things get her a powerhouse juggernaut in her own right. If there weren't so many zombies, she could have used the Earth to crush them. But she had a team dedicated to dispatching zombies who even now still flooded into the maze. It was just a matter of time.

"Hey Sonya?" Anthony said from somewhere above her.

"Yes?"

"Try not to fall asleep okay?" He said.

"Sure thing boss," She said, before closing her eyes.

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

Bob, Mork's best in show, stood on top of his newly acquired ship.

"Do you think we're good now? Or do you think they're going to be coming up to meet us? Because I think that I am ready for a snack," Bob said.

"And you really thought that you were going to get one of those out here? I really doubt that you're going to get what you want here, Bob. Plus, if you've already forgotten because we're just lounging on this deck taking pot shots at zombies, I am the one that cooks the food."

"You are the one that cooks, yes."

"Do you have any cooking implements anywhere around us?"

"I guess dinner is going to be delayed."