"How is she doing?" The seemingly innocuous question arose naturally between their two naked sweaty bodies.
"I would say that this whole thing has her thrown. But she's acting well. She was working good with Andrew and then she went up and found something with Stella and we have a new theory."
The bedding shifted is Anthony turned to look at her. He raised a single eyebrow, something that he knew that she couldn't do.
"So what you saying is?" He said, trailing off.
"Well she's... listen, she just doesn't want to talk to me. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's some hokey, woo woo I don't talk to therapists thing. Maybe it's that I'm your girlfriend," she said.
"It's not that."
"It's not that, yes."
"But what I really think is going on is that we're putting her through too much too fast."
"She's got to grow up to be the dwarf she needs to be. We need her. I need her. I didn't even know that I needed an adjutant. She is invaluable," Anthony said, placing a hand next to her face so they were both inches away from each other.
Sonya gave him a drawn out kiss.
"She might be invaluable but she you know it's hard to think about tragedy like that. What was that quote about statistics and death?"
"Like after 9/11 basically everybody I knew was despondent. I mean you could see the the damn fucking smoke coming up over Manhattan. You can see it all the way from the jersey turnpike. I mean I can relate I guess, but that killed what? Five thousand people? And then COVID hit also and that was like the same amount people each week. It's just so abstract."
"Maybe just seeing her entire class turned in front of her eyes turned it from that abstract into a reality. Like if I had to identify your corpse I would be devastated," she said, moving a finger around his shoulder.
"Hey!"
"I'll be devastated but I would be the hottest widow in the town. I would recover."
"All right, that is fair. I don't want to die young and leave a good looking corpse, though."
He grabbed her hand in his. Her hands weren't slimy, exactly. They just had a little bit of excess water due to her hyperhidrosis. Initially she had been afraid that he would not like her just because of that. But he grew to appreciate. She was just a little bit wet.
Even having the cleanse skill didn't help that much. Because her body was 'Oh skin getting dry? No, make skin wet.' But there was nothing that did so much for her self-esteem as much as being a badass zombie killer babe. It was like her calling.
Anthony was glad that they found several military grade tents. It made being alone a little bit easier. The hardest part was finding a spot that was close enough that it would be guarded but far enough that nobody could really hear anything. They had found a healthy medium.
Stella had been clear that one area was going to be the loud sleepers. Specifically for people who snored like Bob. The other area would be the place for people that didn't snore and wanted to be quiet. At least that was how they billed it.
He did not care to be quiet. And every night when he finally rested his head down next to her, he was so tired that he didn't care how loud Stella and Bob were being. It was relaxing to know that he didn't have to really hold his tongue about that either. They had all decided that they were adults and with the exception of Valerie, who slept in one of the wagons, they were free to associate with whoever they pleased whenever they pleased. Unless there was some sort of arrangement that they fell into. Anthony was super pleased about his arrangement. It meant that he got what he wanted and Sonya got what she wanted and for the first time in ages, he'd had some level of fun pillow talk again.
"Do you think that she's going to be okay then?" Anthony said.
"I just happened to think that we're doing the best we can and she is doing the best that she can given the circumstances. You can't be too hard on her. Again, she is a little girl. She is a scared little girl in a strange and scary world where none of her friends and family are still alive. This isn't like oh, we're adopting a gay kid and now they have a found family. This is like we are your last ticket out of this mess kid. And if we don't fucking succeed, your entire way of life is screwed."
"I can see how that might be a problem. I have been thinking that we're going to be able to get across the sea and then get help but I don't know. What if we can't?"
"We literally have everything we need here. It's just that there's only so many of us. They are..." She said.
"They are millions. Yeah."
"And against so many millions of Undead, what could a caravan of eighteen people do? Especially if they had to fight three really smart ones who were controlling the rest of them."
"Did you get a boon from Cara last time you talked to her? Because you were bitching about having to use it on Finley."
"I have been asking her for an appropriate creature summon or mount or something defensive. We'll see if she holds up her end of the bargain."
"Well I can only hope. Maybe I'll take myself a warlock job and see if my cleric patron will take me as well. It would only be fitting if she decided that I could have a cleric job and a warlock job. Your casting seems very important to the good of the cause."
"You do realize that it takes mana to be warlock and you use the same mana to heal people?" She asked.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"It may have crossed my mind. I've done it once or twice. Heal people that is."
"Well if you spend all your mana bucks on cool spells, then you're going to have less energy for healing people when they break shit. Have you ever considered that Mr. Caravan Commander?"
She moved closer to him as if there was any room left between them.
"I like it when you call Mr. Caravan Commander."
"But you told me to call you Big Papi, was that wrong?"
Anthony's eyes widened.
"Ayyy Papi," She said, in a low voice.
Anthony closed any remaining gaps between them, much to her delight.
----------------------------------------
Sophie was doing her best to avoid listening to the sounds of the various lovebird's tents.
Sure, she had some dysphoria before but now now that things were possible, she didn't even know where to start. Did she even want to date anybody ? Was that even possible? She wasn't sure. With her luck, she might end up dating a local if there were any humans left. Then she'd be the one relaying back cool information to the rest of the group.
She didn't really want that though. Not as much as she really wanted to think about dating. Any local would require them to have met ore living enlightened beings. Despite the fact that they picked up three stragglers since the initial forming of the group, no one expected any more.
Further one had expected to pick up any passengers to begin with, much less the last two Orcs on the continent or an academy student.
There was a human kingdom somewhere. It was some place southeast of where they were currently. Perhaps someone had been saved there? Due south was the orcish meritocracies holdings. And if Finley was to be believed, they were currently west of the elven Dominion. Nothing of what they had been told led her to believe that they would ever see another living human on this continent.
Sophie might have expected a more integrated society. He was also expecting something less monarchical. So she began quizzing their newest member.
"So there's a dwarvish King right?" She said looking straight at Valerie.
"There's a king and a queen and a court of course."
"Are there barons and dukes and and all that stuff? How do they divide up the provinces or states?"
"There are a few dukes. I think it was four but the King creates a new one whenever it needs to be created. Then there's like thirty two barons with associated baronies."
"Thirty two barons? That's interesting. Do they each have a big plot of land somewhere?"
Valerie paused, putting a finger over her lips and really looked like she was trying to dig up an old memory.
"They each have a parcel of land, except for the ones that are in charge of a city. And some of them well. It's about eight of them fall under each Duke. So each Duke has a land but the Baron is the governor of that specific plot of land. But if there's any dispute that it goes to Duke or Duchess."
"And how do they treat women in your culture?" Sophie asked.
"What do you mean? How do they treat women?"
"Like are they a marginalized part of society? Or are they fully integrated? Are they expected to be in the house? They could they even have jobs if there was no King because he died with the queen then being charged?"
"What an odd question," Valerie said. "They are not marginalized? If only because that is a word I'm not familiar with. Do women do the same things as dwarven men? Yes. The only difference is that that they don't have beards."
"That cannot be the only difference," Sophie said. "What about child bearing? Who does the cow rearing and then who takes care of the children?"
"Well, if a mother doesn't want to take care of her children but wants to work, the kingdom has a vested interest in making sure that she can be a product number of society. That's why we have so many child care centers? I don't know how best else to put it. I spend a lot of time in one of those when I was real young because they knew my mom's job was more important to society at large then having her always watch me. Don't look me like that. It was not that tough."
'What about if like a man of the house died? Would the woman have the same rights to the house and everything in it? Or would he go to one of male relatives?" Sophie said.
"That's a really odd question. But I guess it would go to the closest living relative? This is why we ask everyone to designate an heir. I mean you. You know the name of the town right?"
"Heirisberg? I thought that was a joke. Like I know it's a real name and you guys have been saying it but I really thought that that was a joke."
Valerie couldn't hold back a snicker.
"Really it is called that is because years ago so many of these nobles decided they wanted to send their sons and daughters to get trained at the academy. So it was just a lot of heirs being trained. It was a large concentration of them and the working class decided that they would have a little bit of fun with the name. So, when everyone was out on a long field turn exercise they brought it to a vote."
"Are you telling me that the locals decided to change the name here just to mess with the nobles? That's brilliant."
"I know right? Like my parents aren't nobles. My father might have been a colonel might hold the position as effectively a noble, but he came up through the ranks. They had to leave a certain amount of spots for the working class. Every year new cadets come to prove themselves. Because you might be born of good stock but in the academy, we cook you down to what we need."
Sophie found the idea of cooking their military leaders in a stew pot hilarious.
"I love it."
"What about you? You guys have these earth-slang terms and inside group knowledge that I don't have. You want to tell me something about your home world? Or maybe your planet?"
"I don't think there's a lot for me to tell. But I did work at the hospital which is like Finley said you guys had healers?" Sophie said.
Valerie nodded.
"It was like a bunch of healers that worked together except these guys were all dedicated to mental health. So we could have people that would come in with eating disorders or they would be suicidal or they would just not know what the heck was going on. It was a large building, even bigger than the academy campus."
"There are enough people to justify such a building?"
"Oh yeah. Your town might be big by dwarven standards, but we human like to live really closely packed together."
"When you say closely packed together, what are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about thousands of humans in the same space, the size of the academy grounds. We used miles so like square miles I knew a town that was six thousand people in one square mile."
"I don't know what a mile is."
"Think of it like a span. And not only do we build up but we built down a level. And we had these buildings that went up really high. Like so high that you could see the cloud cover there without having to look up."
Both of them looked up to see some fluffy clouds enjoying their time in the night sky.
"That's really tall," Valerie said. "Do they fly or something? The buildings?"
"Oh that's another thing. We had commercially available flying travel all over our planet."
"Excuse me?"
"See I don't know if there's a flight skill or spell, but we had these giant mechanical contraptions that turned fuel into thrust. With these giant engines that turned these blades and this plane would fly. And yeah it's a little bit abstract. I'm not the best on planes myself. It's part of the reasons we want to get a airship. Everyone from Earth understands how much of a boon it would be to not have to deal with everything down here on the ground. And it was much faster if we could use wind or a fire magic to move us. Sure, it'll be heavy but..."
"You want to get up in the air in a contraption that is designed to fly. You humans are something else. Now I'm understanding all the stories that I've heard about the humans in my world. They were wild, but so it sounds are you."
"I mean I'm wild as a person. But as a group? We are a chaotic mess."
"You're not really selling me on this whole humans. A good thing. It just sounds like you guys are just chaos goblins."
"So goblins do exist! I knew it. I won that bet," Sophie said.