Bob, Morky Mork's most recent side piece, was in pickle. Unfortunately for him, that particular Eldritch summon appeared to adhere to the laws of causality. He could only summon Ca'at for a few hours at a time, but it wouldn't freelance.

It barely did what he wanted.

The tiny black thing that only appeared to be a cat was having an interesting time when he summoned it. What he wanted to do was have it come in, cut open some bodies, extract their cards so he didn't have to do the hard work and then return. This would be perfectly served if there were some algorithm guiding the zombies instead of them acting like legs were an afterthought in this model.

It would be super easy if the undead did what he wanted them to. But the promised conga line of dwarven zombies never appeared.

It was a bit frustrating.

He didn't know whether he should be sad or glad. He had spent so much time killing zombies over the past few weeks. Not killing them felt odd, and he was a bit adrift.

"Hey Bob, have you ever considered that maybe there are districts of the city where the undead didn't go to or have filtered out from?" Stella said, sitting up in her saddle. "Because it's not like there's going to be that many zombies at the top of a hypothetical Mall of America. After such an event, they're going to come to the bottom of the steps or they're going to fall down. I don't think many zombies can navigate stairs."

Bob considered it as she trotted closer. The view from the top of the maze was about as pastoral as it could get. From the ground, by horseback it was still something, not losing it's majesty, even as the air had betrayed them.

It was a scene that humans were content to watch for an afternoon, just a peaceful land. Save for the undead dwarves, it would have been picturesque.

"You know what that's kind of what I was thinking as well. Maybe this western part of the city is higher than the rest? But then what do we have to do? Start going house by house inside and making more noise?"

Stella shook her head vehemently.

"Even when I was an emo teenager, I didn't have that much of a death wish. Please don't turn this into some sort of power fantasy dick-waving contest where we see how many zombies we can each kill. This might be a battle but we are not going in guns blazing."

He bit his lip. She had accurately read him. He might be her Legolas, but she wasn't his Gimli.

"I am open to any suggestions you have, Stella. You're so beautiful and smart. I think that you can solve this one for us," Bob said.

There were only about fifty meters between them and the gate. Sophie circled around looking for any clues that anything else was going on. She was on a return route.

Brianna and Iggy were there as well to bait the zombies. If they had to take the zombies on a little wild goose chase, they were going to try to hand them off at some point in time. This was a lot easier when you had five riders instead of four.

All of this extensive prep work made the chosen really good at luring out zombies. Bob was making sure that everyone got cross-trained as a scout that could. It paid dividends.

"I mean we can just set the shit on fire right?" Stella said, her eyes lighting up. "It's a very humid climate and I think... I think that this place could use a little fire."

"Oh, my little pyromaniac no. Just because the wood might not all burn doesn't mean that we can just burn to the ground. I think we need to come back with another idea. If we don't know that we can go into the city like this because we don't want to spend our time fighting block by block then what else can we do?"

"We could swim out to the boats?" Stella said. "The question that nobody has asked is how many sea monsters live in these waters. If there are sea monsters in the quiet sea then perhaps it's not that unsafe for us to swim through? Maybe the sea monsters are tired of eating dwarven zombies?"

Her deadpan voice brought a smile to his face. Of course the dwarves could taste terrible and he would never know. He could die happy not knowing that. Even though it wasn't technically cannibalism, he was more worried about the caravan asking him to prep and cook dwarf than actually eating one.

"Do you think that Nessie would eat a dwarven zombie, lady? Nessie has better taste than that. She is a lady dinosaur and this is way bigger than a lake."

"If you are trying to tell me that dinosaurs would selectively not eat food that presented itself because it was slightly graying, I don't think you know what he's talking about. Hunger is hunger. Because what if the sea monsters got affected by whatever turned them all to the zombies and then..."

Bob was prepared for her to talk about sea monster zombies. He was not prepared for her to insult his favorite mythical creatures. Bob definitely wasn't ready for the idea of an undead sea monster.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't sully the name of Nessie. She may be our enemy, but she is a queen."

"How about this? We call her Vanessa, the sea monster. Because if you look out into the ocean right now, there is a large neck sticking out."

Bob turned to face the water due south of where they were and realized that while he had been focusing entirely on the door, Stella had taken in the entire surroundings. She had not been just talking in jest the entire time. In an unfortunate turn of events, his cards didn't even let him know of the threat as it wasn't undead.

As a man who had never seen a dinosaur in the flesh, his first instinct was to squeal a tiny squeal of glee. His second instinct was to suppress that.

Sophie came up. The monster that was actively moving around in the water. His only saving grace at that point was that it was nowhere close enough to attack them and get out of the water reliably.

"So when were you going to tell us about Vanessa?" Bob said. "Because I feel like that should be something that we're talking about actively. We don't hold these kind of things back."

"Yeah this is exactly what happened when we told you to start eating some roughage with your breakfast, Bob. Things got better for you, didn't they?" Sonya said.

Bob had to admit that they did. Things had gotten smoother and silkier for him just because he listened to them on this one. It was a small thing that he could easily let go.

He wasn't happy that they had to band together and basically staged intervention, but he did it.

The time that they were ready to stay to intervene on Valerie about drinking up all of the good stuff had never materialized because the girls had seen fit to talk to her about that. Their coffees were a bit dry, just like his liver had been for a bit.

There had been a push to make everything seem as nice as possible for Valerie, to give her some more time as a kid. Bob was on board, but there were some unfortunate realities of war that he was butting up against.

The fact that she had needed a small intervention had been a bone of contention on their travel here.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Bob had bonded with Valerie about being targeted like that. It wasn't that he didn't like being targeted. It was just that he was going to get around to it at some point in time and what did it matter if it was six months from now or not. He was a man of his word. He would finally eat some lettuce or leaves or whatever they were asking to eat. Vegetables just happened to be a culinary term and he knew them, even if they kept not finding enough.

"Hi Bob?" Stella said

"Yes?" Bob replied, holding out a hand to grasp hers. His other hand held the reins of his horse. He glanced around, looking for a threat.

"I know you think this is the most romantic moment ever, but I'm about to fart," she said.

"Oh mother-"

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

"So those humans huh?" Borgan asked Finley. "All chosen? They all have these crazy powers that you'd think they would spend their entire life dedicating themselves to attaining, but... didn't that one girl just make like an entire fortress on her own? And she keeps doing it. And she's so good at it. She taught someone else to do it?!"

Borgan and Finley stood on the wall watching as they expected a horde of zombies to peel out of the city at any moment. They had been waiting for a long time and had run out of conversation material related to their current job. There were only so many times that you could tell a person the same story about your past on a long road trip. They had shuffled around a lot on their way here.

There were a lot of combinations of people that Anthony had gone through. That both were on watch now was good though. They had time to bitch about the chosen. Song had joined them as well, as they were a package deal unless Bob was there.

"You know," Finley said. "When I met Bob and Anthony, they were just so powerful and I was just in awe. That quickly changed. I was quickly just pissed that they were so powerful."

Finley coughed. Song made a sign indicating someone being overpowered and relying too much on their cards.

"No right? It's shameful. Not that I didn't want to be chosen or anything, but this is just so it's like watching someone playing a more advanced game than the one you've been playing your entire life. They got the keys to take the caravan lock box before they started so they could begin with those heritage cards that old gran was saving," Borgan said.

"Your old gran saved heritage cards to pass down to the kids also?" Finley said.

"I think all old grannies do that. Once they put up their weapons and retire from adventuring, of course."

"Of course," Finley said. "No one can stop an old gran from adventuring except for herself. Or a sea monster like that."

Song signed acceptance. Then he did a complicated two hand sign that evoked the feeling of a moving beast.

Finley was going to have to learn a little bit more of the hand talk, but he was mostly sure that that was exactly what he was saying. He jumped into some sort of monologue.

"He's commiserating," Borgan said. "I think I speak for both of us. Yes I do? Will we both say that we miss our old Gran terribly and we're so glad that you didn't get to see this happen. This entire situation that we find ourselves in. There are no words. Thanks Song."

The orc brothers slapped each other on the back, one nearly shoving the other off the wall.

"I know that you were going to go to your clan meetup before all this happened, but what were you planning to do before?" Finley said.

The orc tentatively pointed out the large neck of a sea monster that had come up to observe next to the town. The fact that it was large enough for them to see from that distance meant that it was probably alive and intended to cause some sort of chaos or mayhem.

Perhaps it was the embodiment of the human God Murphy? He would have to ask them.

"I'll tell you what I wasn't going to do. He said I was not going to take my time to examine the quiet sea. Because after this? I'm never going to believe anybody about anything ever again. They said that there was a monster but that thing? I didn't believe it," Borgan said.

Song signed something to both of them and Finley got the words monster and ocean out of it but the rest of it was beyond him.

"The ocean monster is scary to you?" Finley asked the orc.

"He's saying that he would not believe in the sea monsters either. It's that inflection of his hand. That was at the start. That makes you understand that he's talking about himself in the third person."

"You can speak about yourself in the third person using hand talk?" Finley said. "Truly, anything is possible. Finley thinks that is wonderful."

Song made the sign for laughing and turned to point at the sea monster. He pulled out his lute and began playing.

As he did, Borgan began to hum along with it.

The melodic tune was just a little bit faster than Finley had expected.

It was uplifting.

It wasn't until the third phrase that he realized that their vision had gotten sharper. They were enhancing his vision or all of their visions at the same time so they could get a better look at the monster.

Finley had not expected to be able to make out a tiny mustache, top hat or monocle but if the monster was wearing those three things, he would have been able to see it. This one appeared to be a girl monster because it sported none of those. Which isn't to say that a girl monster couldn't wear a top hat monocle or mustache properly, only that this one wasn't.

It had arrived under dressed for the party, having not eaten anything prior to the main course.

It was in the expectation that he realized that perhaps the monster wasn't there to attend any sort of social function. It was probably there to get lunch.

A city of snacks was about three short meters from the lake.

He really hoped that it didn't go down to resolve into a giant snake. He had no concept for that kind of monster. It could be huge underwater.

There were many reasons why Finley avoided the seas. This one just shot to the top of the list. Sea sickness was about number ten.

Eels, crabs, sea snakes and sharks were all higher than seasickness. But none of those things that had been described many times in books and pictures that he had seen could compare to the Majesty of a fully unveiled sea monster.

"She really takes the piss doesn't she?" Borgan said. "I hope she doesn't do anything silly, like try to attack our guys."

"You think that she's going to be able to attack from that distance?" Finley said. "Maybe if she had a breath attack? But Bob and Stella are smart. They're not going to leave themselves open to attack. With this song you guys are playing can you affect them? I can see them from here and they looked like they're withdrawing."

"They're withdrawing? Finally, I was waiting for when these Zombie dwarves would make an appearance. I'm really hoping for a good haul this time," Borgan said. Finley knew that he already had two class cards in his deck, and that Borgan was looking for specific attack cards that would help him overall.

"You both understand that we pool our efforts right? And you'll get some good cards but we are all working together."

Borgan waved away his notes. The orc had his own problems with cards.

"Hey. I understand we never talked about when we did a shuffle, but since they're here waiting, you want to talk about it? Is there a reason why you didn't pick a card?" Finley said.

Song going to begin to sign something very slowly. Finley was kind of getting it.

The lessons were paying off. Perhaps he was signing something about it paying off?

"Are you saying Song, that you don't feel like he doesn't feel like he's earned it? What's going on?" Finley said. "You have both more than earned a place in this Caravan. And you have both earned a right to take whatever you want when it's offered. If you guys had taken a combat class then you guys would be in a better place right now."

"Song can't take any combat classes. We are both full up."

Finley looked at them, shocked. He hadn't known about Song. He knew about their bard class and he had expected them to have an accountant class as well. Many orcs did.

"Do you both have an accounting class for some reason?" He said quietly.

Song signed acceptance.

Several things raced through his mind at the same time. Though they were a part of the Green Fang tribe, they were also part of the orcish meritocracy. The meritocracy valued accountancy and numeracy above almost everything else. He had heard about a mathematician class but he knew that accounting classes were standard. In that vein, he realized that if there was so many accounting class cards made, then eventually they would make their way into the general population. And then perhaps it would get passed down over the years.

"Are your class cards heritage cards?" Finley said.

"They are in fact Soul cards. Our bard cards are heritage cards."

Finley nearly smacked himself in the head realizing the truth. They had both gone through so much that they had started off with...

"Now hold on a second here," Finley said. "Both of you started with a soul card that you evolved into an accounting card? That seems statistically unlikely."

"For two orcs to do that ?" Borgan said. "Any random two orcs? The probability of that is two percent."

"And you see that is exactly why I need more information," Finley said. "Because I too have an accountant class card."

"Well isn't that interesting?" Borgan said. "I'm sure I speak for both of us when I say I would love to hear more about that."

"I'll bust it out when we have downtime," Finley said.