The fish bake was one of the first things that they got to experience that was totally part of the new continent. It was the first time that Finley had made a bartering agreement on the spot in a while.

It felt good to be back in the groove of things. This had felt like he was back part of an actual trading Caravan for once. Even though most of the deal was him buying lots of fish to eat, he could feel the skill working on it. And then the best part? He got more delicious fish to eat.

"I have to say Finley. This is probably the best that we could have done. You got some information; you got us a map on where we need to go. You have some information about that tribe, the bright tails, and to top it off you us enough fish to last us till we get there. I understand that some of us are a bit sick of food that has been intentionally cured to last longer. This is a lot."

"Thank you," Finley said, accepting Bob's hug. "I couldn't have done it without the people that made me be the face of this organization. And that is you so thank you but don't ask me to do that again. We have Valerie. Or Gigi."

"But you did it so good!" Gigi said, in between bites of fish.

The fish was so good that she had decided to use her time as a dwarf to eat about two of them. Not every dwarf had landed on their final druid card so about six of them had to swap out cards with others so they could all get a chance. Gigi made sure that they didn't leave anyone out. It was one thing for him to trade away three highly powerful cards It was quite another to deny others some fresh straight from the source when they had been eating jerky and tubers for months.

"I don't really care who does the talking. But we can't leave Valerie exposed. If she really is going to take the mantle of the queen. That means that he's going to need an Entourage. Or at least a security detail," Anthony said. "Plus, she's underage and even though we all know she's smart, we have to get her to survive this next trip if we want her to win the war."

"Don't you think it's a little bit much to put all of this onto a former bar maid and a trialing sales elf?" Gigi said.

"That's all we have. I don't have a special chosen with diplomacy skills. What I do have is the two of you and I'm asking you to do this for the good of the cause. You don't have to like it. I don't like it. I don't think that I have any value in doing this. I'm usually dealing one-on-one with mothers and their partners, not trying to make a treaty with a tribe of lizard folk."

Finley paused, taking another bite of the sea bass. He had never had this kind of fish before and it felt lovely and there was enough. Each bite just melted in assault content, after following the lizard folk’s instructions had been divine. Sure, he wanted more now but what sales was? It wouldn't want to entice their customers to buy from them only.

"You know what I think?" Finley said. "While we're just sitting here cooking? We can buy more fish. That will give Gigi the opportunity to work on her bartering. It's a low threat environment. I'll even give you stuff to trade."

Gigi laughed at him.

"You want me to go back down there and buy more fish? That's easy. I can do that all day. You know I perfected my customer service voice, correct?" She dropped into a lower voice. " Excuse me sir, would you like the darker beer tonight or would you like some wine? A special is the Sunderland Sea bass."

Finley got chills. He had to check to see that he wasn't in a tavern somewhere, about to be swindled by a mutton dish that didn't include a side of home fries.

"That was something," he said. "Anthony, I might have a bartering skill, but she has a natural ability. I want her to order the beer."

Gigi remained in the customer service voice as she got up. Taking his mug, she refilled it.

"Will there be anything else sir?" He said in the same voice. Then she switched into deadpan. "I can do this all day."

"That was impressive. I would start a slow clap for you if everybody here knew what that was, but I think I would only get about a third of the people here. Still, the job is yours if you want it," Anthony said.

"And I get to work with this guy?" She said, pointing to Finley. They were close, already.

"Of course, of course. Once we get the contract. Actually, maybe we need to do contact with our buddy here because if I wasn't in charge I might think about splitting and taking a very long and well-deserved vacation."

"Anthony, the gods summoned you here to deal with this problem. You might have to take care of it, but we are not here on a message from the goat Lord. I'm here because I like you and all these people. And because some of you guys are family, I guess I'm going to stick around," Finley said. "That doesn't mean that I don't want to leave right now."

"In my opinion, you should ask her to join the tinkers. She's like a sister to you. I know you guys started off. Weird where we didn't know that you guys were enlightened and as such, you were kind of his pet?" Anthony said.

"Yeah, we don't talk about that," Gigi said. "But if you're offering to make me one of the tinkers, I would gladly accept. Especially if there's a bartering skill or a class card involved."

Finley had to remember that not everybody had a class card despite being around overpowered chosen for the past months, he could remember. And just because she had a Tinker class card didn't mean that she had a second one. He was going to have to do a lot of work to make a Tinker card for her. She was worth it.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"If you want to become one of the family, all you had to do was ask."

The tiny dwarf nearly bowled him over.

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

The first bit of land popped up and Anthony was so grateful that it wasn't more fjords. What he saw stretching from both sides of his vision. All the way out to his right and left were sandy beaches. They were even palm trees and what had to be coconut trees as they got closer.

But the thing that made him realize that he was back in Civilization was the Yellow Tail ships floating around the large surfside City.

He fell onto his knees, invoking a silent prayer to Yil, God of the dwarves.

"If I may find just some small rest before I head back out, I would be so grateful."

People meant trade and trade meant fresh food. He had never wanted fresh foods so much in his life. They had made food for each other, but they had to heat out of the stores of dead dwarves.

This would be the first time that he ate something prepared by someone in this world that was all fresh. Something that hadn't sat in a pantry for a few days at minimum. The fish the day prior? Had been a godsend.

If you'd asked Anthony before heating Steve bass if he'd like to see bass, he would have said no. He might fuck with some crabs or lobster, but sea bass was a step too far. And they probably had microplastics or something like that. Here? In a world with no plastics, he ate that shit up.

And then with horror, he realized that every single person with them was going to feel exactly the same. And they were all going to try to cash in their chips at the same time. Finally, had already warning about this but now, realizing that what he wanted was going to be probably the same thing that everyone else wanted, Anthony had some hard decisions to make. Someone had to watch the airship. They also have to figure out if they were going to put it in the water or keep it up in the air. If they put in the water, then they didn't need any one to continually pump flames into the hot air balloon.

If it was on the water, then for the first time since being on this world, Anthony had to worry about thieves.

He knew just who to ask.

"Stella! I need your help!" he said.

She came over quickly and gave him a sloppy salute. He rolled his eyes.

"What can I do for you? Do you need me to ice you up?"

"No, nothing like that. I just remembered that you had the rogue class. Don’t cross your arms like that. I just realized that if we park the airship in the water, then we're going to have to worry about people trying to sneak in and steal what they think are valuables. Now you and I both know that there's nothing volleyball on this ship. But you're a rogue, tell me how you would ransack the Queen's Con."

"Well first off," I said pointing upwards. "I wouldn't fly that Irumian flag."

Behind her, several of dwarves were unfurling a large white flag that was just now making its way to the top of the mast.

"And why wouldn't I do that?"

"It's just putting a Target on yourself. Like oh hey this is an official envoy of this government, we've got money! Come on down and Rob us!" Stella said. "That sort of thing is like Candy for thieves."

"What did you do back on Earth?" He said, narrowing his eyes.

"I was a student."

"Right."

Her eyes begged him to inquire more but he shut down his own line of inquiry fast. It was probably better that he didn't know at his point in time. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to believe it anymore. His impression of Stella went from a cable woman to femme fatale in one minute. He remembers that she wanted to be a trickster, that was her explanation for why she chose the Rogue class. He had gone back and forth between the Paladin and cleric classes. When it was clear that the cleric could heal better and for longer, he chose that option.

"Anyway, do you want to be the head of security? At least for when we're parked over here," he said. "If not, I can ask Sophie."

"Does this new job title involve a raise?" She said, smiling.

"If you need to get paid more to keep us safe, I will find cards in the budget."

"Excellent. Now I think you're thinking about this all wrong. We have two people with the gate spell. We don't have to land right next to the city. That's a convenience that we don't need. Instead, what we can do is set up a watch like we normally do and just portal people in. I realize this is not going to work for the horses, however. Did you see any grass? I know Finley's going to ask."

Anthony hadn't seen anything. He knew that there had to be something, as they had been informed that they were coming into a very tropical climate. It might be winter up north, but it was the cold season here. All this meant was that instead of sweating through two shirts in a day, he would only sweat through one.

It wasn't his favorite tidbit of information. It explained how the lizard folk were always basically naked. Anthony was considering a stripped-down version of his fighting clothes for official purposes. He was also considering just staying on the boat and having Gigi and finally handle everything. He knew that the lizard folk would respect him as a chosen. But there were so many chosen in his group that he could send forward to take care of these things that he didn't know that he would be able to handle every little detail.

Little details like grass that only popped up when you realize that horses need to eat.

"I didn't say anything, but that was one of the questions that we should have asked the fishermen."

Stella went on about her idea that they needed to park it a little bit further away from shore. If they could set up a gate, then they could anchor that gate and roll out one of the wagons. That could be their recruiting stand.

Then once they started recruiting people, they would send them straight over to the promontory and reestablish their Camp there. Despite going there every other day, they still had to make sure that it was clear zombies before they let the horses run free.

Really, all Anthony wanted to do was to let the horses free over here and use goat labor to move the wagons. Or perhaps, he could convince Andrew to make an engine for their wagon so that they could propel themselves. After all, they did make an airship.

How hard could an engine be?

Stella made several great points about setting up a gate and wagon as a figurehead. There they could sell cards and try to recruit mercenaries.

Whoever went would get their pic of street food. At the mention of street food, Anthony's mouth began salivating and he realized that once again, he might not be the only one looking for delicious street food.

This was the point that made him realize that he's going to have to staff two places at the same time. This meant that he was going to have a schedule for the watch, and a schedule for their outreach branch. And then if things went well, they were going to have to figure out a way to keep people moving between those places.

It all began to sound like a math problem for someone in business school to deal with. And Anthony knew exactly who we wanted to put this problem to. It wasn't his standard, tomorrow, Anthony. This was going straight to the top.

He was sending this math problem to the orcs.

"Stella," he said. "Once you have an idea of how many people you want to put on duty, let me know so I can tag them to do so. We've got to make sure that we are not arriving to have our ship stolen."

Stella gave him the same sloppy salute, her fist hitting the center of her breast. He smiled, saluting her back, pounding his chest with his right hand.