Bob, Mork's elbow grease, decided to take the afternoon to scout ahead. He took some time to select one of the horses that was less tired. True, it had been trotting along with them but this one hadn't been pulling anything with it. This was right after he had worked with Finley on his spear and he felt like a little expedition would do him good. He took two of the warriors with him as backup. Sophie had said that she wanted to make something special and had begged off showing up with him.

Sophie was taking some time for herself. He couldn't blame her. They had spent a lot of time together. She had said something about a spa day and then jumped into the cold river.

Their scouting was short and sweet. They only spent one hour riding before they stopped to rest the horses.

There wasn't anything around for miles but they were getting a bit close to a large swamp. Bob didn't want to cross through it and with the amount of mosquitoes there, he didn't even want to be close.

Brianna and Iggy began their own practice as Bob took the horses to water. Both warriors were excellent with the spear. But being a warrior gave them something that he didn't have as a ranger. They had a weapon proficiency that let them understand the spear on a different level. When he understood it, it was a tool like a hammer. For them? It was like a chef's knife.

They spent almost a minute just getting set up. It reminded him of how he would set up his station as a junior chef. He loved the after effects of mise en place. Everything was where it should be, and he didn't need to think, he was just able to bake.

In the same way, he wished that he could get to a place of unconscious competence with his current situation. If he had been some tough ex special forces guy, then yeah he might be eating this up. Right now, he was putting on a brave face. There was no way out unless they did everything right. And even then, they could still fail. Mork had really hurt him by giving him so many boons that he couldn't quit. If there was a most valuable player of the Caravan? He would have won it twice already.

He didn't want to be in that position. But he knew his responsibility to the group. It was a chance with two death knights. He already knew that sometime in the next year that they might be done, but Bob was really thinking about how far things were away from each other. That the dwarves had so much free land where nothing was being used. It felt so exotic and foreign to him.

This wasn't Hoboken where people were living side by side.

You could go days without meeting anybody.

He didn't envy the Orcs who had done that on purpose. As they danced with their spears, he could see one of them trying to gingerly attack each other. They were doing a full force but he knew that those were practice spears. They wouldn't hurt. They might sting, but he could heal that.

Stella had been going on and on about wanting to be a healer. He had felt useless when Finley was out and he was the best equipped to do anything about it. It was just a bit of his mana which he had detached to help his friend in need.

Now he felt even more useless, just looking at those two sparring back and forth. Sure. He had been teaching him how to do it not even two hours ago, but now he wanted to fight someone on his level.

"Mind if I cut in?" He said, grabbing another swig of water. The horses would be good.

"Do you want to take him or should I?" Brianna said.

"You can get him first," Iggy said, stepping back.

Brianna settled in to wait for him. Bob took her partner's spear and then it was on. She went on the offensive, hitting him in all his weak points. Every time that he thought that he could predict her next movement, she would change. It was nearing that she was faster than him. Once he was paying attention and in the zone, he could match her speed. What he could not match was her technique. She clearly knew a way around the shaft of a spear.

Bob could respect that. Any woman that could knock him down and then offer a hand to bring it back up was good in his book. And she repeatedly did so.

"You're tough. That's good for you, but you're just making both of us tired," Brianna said, throwing the spear to Iggy. "You got this. No one cares how well you fight fresh."

Those words rang through his head after it got pounded several times by a blunt spear edge. He regretted almost everything, until the point at which there was no training value in trying to dodge Iggy's spear attacks. He was slowing down, but his partner was keeping the same pace.

"Alright boys," she said. "Let's wrap it up. Back to scouting?"

"Back to scouting," Bob grunted.

"Hey, since we're here, did you want to give us some tips on hand talk?" Iggy said.

Brianna walked down to the horses and mounted hers. Then, holding the reins of the other two horses, she brought all three back to them.

"I guess I can go over a few things. Actually let me give you the sign for water and horses," Bob said.

He waved his hand horizontally like a bending stream.

"That's water. This one is a horse and yeah they're pretty basic. Borgan said that we need to spend a lot of time on the normal stuff," Bob said. "That helps a lot."

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Brianna and Iggy tried both hand signs and giggled. Iggy mounted up, followed by Bob.

They rode back through the dwarves' plains as they took note of any and all rocks of note. There weren't many, which made each one all the more meaningful.

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The next day brought more of the same. Finley was easing into it. There were only so many times that he was going to be able to enjoy not being attacked by zombies in the near future. So he wanted to take those moments and savor them. Behind them, a storm was brewing up and he tried to see if it was going to come near them or not. But his sense was that it wasn't. It's throw the horses on to move faster and for the humans to take less breaks.

But it was halfway through the morning when the storm started dumping on them that they ran into their first snag that wasn't related to a zombie. Finley had realized that the dwarves had a problem with certain types of monsters but he had forgotten about one of the worse of them.

It wasn't like there were many trolls around. But they stumbled on to three of them. There had been some heated debate previously about whether the tools would be taken over by the zombies or not. As soon as they saw a troll they slowed down, circling the wagons. The warriors got out front, spears at the ready.

Finley prepared to counteract the trolls by tapping into local flora.

Deep into the ground, much of the plains around him was connected. It almost felt like he could directly trip up one of the trolls from where he was. So he did.

Once the was tripped up it stopped, that was when Stella came in strong with her ice magic.

"Do we need to kill them with fire, or is there some elemental weakness that they possess?" Anthony said from his side.

"If you know any fire spells, this would be the time. Do the best you can to slow it down. This isn't going to be like the zombies. Trolls, as far I know, are usually taken down by a huge team of adventures. If they weren't smack dab in the middle of the road, I would say let's let them go, but they're coming right out at us. I don't think the horses could run them down if they wanted to. And we have so many things to do right now."

They found out. Finley realized that all the horses that weren't attached to the wagon were now cowering in the back. He made a move to go calm them. He pulsed out his energy trying to convert mana into happy horses. He probably wasn't that effective but at least the horses didn't look like they were about to bolt for good. With a half circle of fighters raid the three trolls continued onward towards them now looking like they were aiming for the center. That was where the major started firing spells as well.

It was unfortunate that Finley was spending so much time on the horses, but he couldn't do it without them. When he turned back the troll was out of the vines. He also appeared to be on fire. Fire was dangerous on dry plains. But with the help of the storm, he was able to do a little bit to help. Where the flames sprouted, he used the green to tap into more of the grass.

He was surprised at the amount that it pushed back against him. Though the grass wanted to help, it didn't really care whether it was or not. He reached in and made the care. If the grass could have yelped from his pushing and prodding, it would have. Toppled over fully embracing the ground. Bob had everyone fire on that one.

Before long they could see the glint of the card picking up on its chest. Bob's summon had done the job again. It looked like it didn't want to do it with the other two glides but it was too large of a place for no one to be dependent.

Sonya grabbed his elbow trying to pull him back. He realized with a shock that it was the elbow that he had regrown recently. For the first time he pushed Mana through it and it felt like all of his channels had changed. It wasn't just an elf arm anymore. He had merged it into a solid composite of the two.

His arm, all of a sudden, felt hungry to cast something.

He had no better word to describe it. So he let it take over, molding the chaos that it was trying to push out.

Finley loosed a bolt of green magic at the lead troll. It moved faster than his eye could see and it's only because the troll turned a sickening shade of purple immediately that he knew what had happened. Whatever spell he had just cooked up? It had turned the gray green skin of the orc into a mess of bruises.

Sonya gasped behind him.

"Let me get the next one," she said. "I can't have my driver take all the credit."

Finley let her do her thing watching as she shot a bolt of brown earth magic. This one buried the troll that she attacked. It wasn't just buried. It was crushed under the weight of her magic, As if the past of time was going to erode the troll into dust. At any other time he would have been very pleased to see this happening. Right now? He hadn't realized how much Mana he could actually put into one bolt.

Finley felt very tired. This was bad for many reasons, most of all because of the trolls that were bearing down on him and the Caravan. Unfortunately for said trolls, he was surrounded by his new family who all had taken specialties in destroying lumbering brutes. Zombies and trolls weren't exactly the same as the latter had some intelligence.

He remembered his refresh card. Tapping into it. He tried to refresh himself and only got a little bit of energy for his trouble. He checked his card.

Common Card: Refresh

Skill: The user of this card can push someone far beyond their limit. People can run farther and longer. Animals feel rejuvenated. Effect lasts for four hours. Cool down: Thirty Minutes

He had not even thought to check. Finley exhaled, grabbing his sphere. Behind him, Anthony also shot wave after wave of holy bolts, aiming for both of the trolls' knees.

"Why don't you get them in the head?" Sonya yelled.

"They can't move without knees!" Anthony yelled back.

Emily had never considered whether magic was loud. Sure he'd cast a spell or two in his time and level up his druid card, but now? The entire area around him was loud with spells being cast at the trolls. The second troll fell only a few sets before them and the third one fell on top of it.

That was the first time that Finley truly appreciated a fully operational flame flinger. You see the flame flinger didn't just produce flames, it produced a small mass of Mana that the flames attached to. This liquid mana had never heard about stop, drop and roll, as none of the trolls had. Once this contacted skin, it stayed on there until it burned through, or the mana burned up. To say that there was no shortage of people volunteering to not test that out would be a lie. No one wanted to be the target. Everyone had wanted to try it out.

Fortunately for its creator, Andrew was standing up continuing to fling flames at the pile of trolls.

The downpour that was continuing looked like it would extinguish the flames at any moment but they kept returning. Finley was surprised at their strength. After his frustrating day of learning how to wield a spear, he wanted that kind of strength for himself. The fact that he could tap into his druidic magic to deliver such a strong explosion felt like the opening salvo. Perhaps, he would get strong like the rest of his Caravan.

He could only dream as he relaxed back into the seat.