It was two days before they saw land again. At first, no one believed it, but when Valerie and Sophie did their calculations they had gone far enough. Anthony called for a little discussion and it was pretty unanimous that they had wanted to have their feet on solid ground for a while.

Anthony called for them to go through the motions of landing close to any place that looks suitable. The whole time, Bob and the scouts were looking for any sign of monsters.

The coast that greeted them was full of fjords. Here and there were beaches but any ship that wanted to dock there for any amount of time would eventually meet its demise ceremoniously against a large rock.

By this time, however, the monks that had the air affinity had learned a thing or two. Simply by adjusting the amount of air flowing into the balloon carrying them, they were able to slowly descend.

That was when a few of them realized that with all the leveling they had been doing for their air bending cards that they were able to fly around a bit.

This caused a stir. Brandon, the monk who had chosen the water bending card and kicked off this whole debacle, watched as his two comrades flew around on little Jets of air.

"You know what? I think that they deserve that. They put in the work for us," Anthony said to him.

"Yeah I mean it seems like it's broken but now I want that power."

"Brandon, you're literally moving this ship with the power of your mind because you have that water affinity. Let's not discount that. Also, we have this boat because of you."

"I suppose you're right. It doesn't make me feel any better though."

"You can always ask Finley to make another one of those cards. Apparently he got really good at them."

"I'm seeing a bit of a flaw in this plan if we have to land in water every time we'd land," Brandon said as their boat rocked. The balloon had finally deflated it enough that it was not carrying most of their weight. The repair team, led by Sophie, was now looking for places where they could reinforce the stitching of the canvas even as it just decided that it wanted to lay on the mast.

"You think that after all that hot air we put into it that it would stay up more?"

"Oh, that's the other thing. Take a look at that," Brandon said and the two of them look back over the water.

He wasn't surprised to see Bob of all people flying over the water in just about nothing but his shorts. Actually, no he looked naked. He was surprised to see Stella doing the same thing. Both of them had one arm out on each side, using spigots of flame to fly.

They were flying around like they were sitting on top of a tricycle whereas the monks were in a sports car.

Despite all the work that they'd put through, the monks still looked far more natural using their new car powers, perhaps due to the constant need for them to draw an air and push it through.

"That's something you don't see everyday," Anthony said, gesturing to Bob and Stella.

"What, you taking a piss mate? You don't see Sonya naked all the time?" Brandon asked.

"I mean I do. It's just the flying thing?"

"Oh yeah that."

Anthony would have glided him but the monk wasn't looking at him. It wasn't everyday a guy could see two people trying to fly using spouts of flame below them.

"It's like they have Iron Man jets except they're only shooting them out of their hands. Hey! You need forward momentum!" Brandon said. "Hold on, let me be right back."

With that, the monk jumped over the side of the ship in the direction of them. Them parked the ship as he was jumping causing it to slow down and then jumped on top of the wave. He rode the wave over to where Anthony and Stella were.

Anthony, good to hear a fair bit of yelling and before long, both of them now had spouts of flame coming out of both of their hands and both of their feet. Bob briefly tooted a flame out of his butt.

Looking satisfied, the monk returned on a wave, getting close enough to death that he was able to easily scramble up and over his side before making the way behind him dissipate.

"I think that you're an asshole if you do something like that."

"Yes, but I have flair. Also I can see when. Bob?"

"I saw it, yeah."

Anthony sighed deeply. These were the antics of the men and women that he had grown accustomed to living next to, until the end of their contract with the gods, and oral agreement that no one had really written down, they were semi sort of bound together. It was feeling less like chains that you would feel at a prison, and more like the chains that you would find in a downtown dungeon in a mid western city. Industrial strength chains that any passerby would appreciate before going to meet their friends from a munch.

---

From the spot that the ship had settled on, it was only a short swim to get to land. Sonya was already establishing a gate through to the beach, memorizing the landmarks.

Swimming was for plebes. She didn't even have a good one piece suit. She definitely didn't want to get her stolen scrubs wet.

She stepped through the aperture, finding herself on a silty beach full of sand flies. She walked about trying to find a spot where they wouldn't harass her but it was no use. The ship was close enough but she was having trouble concentrating on it. Instead of focusing on where she'd portal-ed from, she used the anchor Point in the hold again, stepping through just as fast. Now, if something happened at least she had the memory of being on a sandy beach where the local mosquitoes are trying to eat her alive.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She focused on finding a part of the fjord where she could portal to. As long as she had line of sight, she was able to portal there. But everything looked so rocky, and she couldn't see the fjords from below deck. Or rather she could only barely make some out to the little porthole.

Using the porthole to make a portal, to try to get a spot above everything. This time, instead of walking through she just looked through the portal. Because there was nothing quite like not getting bitten by sand flies.

There really wasn't a place for a step out. It was too jagged and sheer.

She tried to do two difficult things at the same time. While keeping the portal open, she used her Earth powers to grade the top of a fjord.

"If you can't find a way around, you must make it way through," She muttered to the goats next door.

One of the pygmy goats belated at her.

She stabilized her portal, stepping out onto the square that was approximately two by two meters.

It wasn't the best thing she'd ever made but she could work with it. All the material from the peak that she had pushed down was now around her and she smoothed the top.

If there was one thing that she was missing right now it was railings around it. Closing the portal and to give herself more active mana.

She paused to look around at her new surroundings. The best part about this place? No sand flies.

The worst part about this place? No railings.

Rather than be sad about her whole situation, instead. Sonya took the time to smooth out a second layer in the rock below her. To an outsider, what looked like the fjord suddenly lost twenty feet of its peak as it reorganized into the top level of a skyscraper.

Sonya made sure that the smooth transition stayed that way as she decreased the overall height and tripled or quadrupled the overall flat space around her. Then, she did some fine point work, creating railings out of some of the latent metals she had dug up. The negative space that has existed swallowed up the earth that had been there.

She didn't want to run a delivery service, but she needed to see if they could get a foothold somewhere.

She opened the aperture to yell for Finley.

"Hey Finley! Get me Bob and maybe Stella up here," she yelled.

"On it!" He said.

She sent some green flame up atop, giving a clear indication of where she was. Bob and Stella were definitely still working out their issues with their fire flight. The monks saw her and immediately made a beeline for the shoreline. They zoomed along, while behind them, Stella and Bob looked like they were wobbling on training wheels. That had to cost a lot of mana for how impressive it didn't look.

Sonya opened an aperture once again.

"Two sets of clothes, please, Finley."

A pygmy goat carrying two sets of robes walked through, placing the robes gently on the ground. Then Sonya gestured to see if she wanted to go through. The goat shook her head and then wild shaped into a young adult dwarf.

"Ah! Gigi! Welcome to the orcish meritocracy," Sonya said. "Apologies for the nude fire flyers."

"It's amusing how all of you humans are treating this as a moral thing instead of a 'we need to not burn through our clothes' thing."

"It's that puritan upbringing. Even here in another world, those damn guys are still trickling that shit down. It's like generational trauma but with extra steps."

Sonya realized that Gigi, though a dwarf and female, wasn't Valerie. She was treating the dwarves and interchangeable

"Ah sorry that's a lot to put on you. How are you doing?" She said.

"I'm feeling good. I got wild shape to level two which I was going to test," Gigi said. "But also this whole no clothes thing..."

They both smiled.

"What did you do before all of this? I worked in a hospital. Valerie tells me that it's like a medical center here."

"Oh me?"

"Yeah, tell me about yourself."

"Oh, I'm nothing special."

"A literal goat God reincarnated you so you could fight with us. Tell me about yourself," Sonya said.

It had to be a dwarven thing. Or maybe Valerie was just very outspoken about herself because she had to sell her skills to senior officers who had the positions he wanted. Sonya began to sculpt a bit more as the monks began their initial approach.

"I'm disappointed... But I was a barmaid?" She said. "I didn't even have a good card. I was born with a common Cleanse card."

"That is so not disappointing. Am I to understand that you were actually able to use your card to be better at work?"

"My Cleanse card? My soul card is level seven."

"You are about to be the most popular goat in this damn caravan, Gigi," Sonya said. "Common or not, your powers are in demand. You should charge a premium for your services. The girls and I have been passing this one Cleanse card around because... Periods and all. Do dwarves get periods?"

"We do, yeah," she said. "We just don't talk about this stuff much."

Two monks flew up and over the place that Sonya had cleared. They flew past it, far overshooting their goal and it looked like they were going to circle around.

"We probably need a landing strip," Sonya said. "But at this point this just sounds like extra work. Just trying to scout out where we are."

Where they were was high and on the coast. There wasn't much else. The general erosion of the coast had made a landing rough.

Or if she looked far enough, she was sure that she could see another body of water. Or at least a cleft in the land that could be a river. It wouldn't be anything like the Great River that she had been promised.

"Gigi, have you ever been this far south?"

"I mostly stuck to the pubs in my city."

That was about the time. The two very naked people came to a stop hovering in midair. Using spouts of flame, both Bob and Stella stood up next to them. The earth scorched where they touched.

"Ah! Thanks for this," Stella said, grabbing a robe.

Bob wavered, not grabbing his robes, as a chill went through the air. Sonya looked around.

"I'm just removing the excess heat. Apparently that's a thing I can do now," Bob said. "I can't freeze stuff like Stella, but yeah this will be great for cooking."

"We're going to make so many new dishes," Stella said. "Gigi, you're going to experience the genius which is Bob."

"Oh?" Gigi said.

"The only thing stopping us from taking over the world is that we can't keep time to the life of us," Stella said.

Sonya coughed.

"Gigi was just telling me how she has a Cleanse card."

Bob and Stella looked at her intensely.

Stella slid an arm around the dwarf.

"Well hello, newest bestie tell me about yourself," Stella said.

"What's with you humans and asking about my life? I feel like I'm some sort of celebrity or something. Do you all want a piece of this?" Gigi said, laughing.

"We all just appreciate a really good Cleanse card," Sonya said.

"It's one of those things that you never really miss until it's gone. And then when it's gone because you're the girl who has it, you're always thinking about it. It's like your ex that you really want to get back with. You want to ingratiate yourself- get into their good graces," Stella said, walking around the dwarf.

"It's just that it would be great if-wait did you say something about exes?" Bob said, fastening his belt. "We just don't have a way to tell time and the clocks that we have seen so far are all beyond us."

"Oh! That's terrible. I have a card skill that lets me tell time and-" Gigi said.

The speed at which everyone's heads turned to look at the dwarf nearly shocked her off of the lookout point.

"Bob, she is mine first," Stella said. "I already called her my bestie."

"You can understand us perfectly when you're in goat form, right?" Bob said.

Gigi withdrew.

"Uh, yes?"

"So if I said something like, 'Time ten minutes for me'- you could do that?"

She nodded.

"You are going to be the happiest goat on this planet when you're back in goat form. Let's talk business," he said, bringing her into his confidence.

The pair walked off.

"So... Flying with fire?" Sonya said. "Tell me everything."

Stella squealed.