“Good things can gestate just as well as bad ones,” Stella said, handing the package to Finley. “Just like these mushrooms we found.”

The elf accepted the package readily, but eyed it to make sure that he wasn’t getting a dud.

“This is the second batch, right?” He said, turn it over and giving it a sniff. The warm pleasant aroma was certainly that of a mushroom adjacent smell, but he didn’t know exactly which.

“Yeah, Bob says that we can keep growing these, and he has plans to make a few more gardens just for spices. The goat company is going to be working extra hard on growing crops when it’s not winter anymore. Which, by the way, how long is that from now?”

The elf shrugged. He weighed his arms around gesturing at the tropical beach.

“I can’t really tell from here, but maybe another month or two? I hate to say that I lost track of days and the lizard folk here are no help.”

“Hey!” a voice called out from inside the compound.

“Sorry Steve!” Finley said. “What I meant to say is that Steve has been a great help.”

He mouthed the words no. Stella laughed. Steve wasn’t out of earshot, but he couldn’t see either of them.

“Anyway, Zan is here, and I thought you wanted to talk to her?”

“Ah yes. I wanted to talk about the frequency of the portals. Twice a day is getting to be a bit too little if you catch my drift,” he said. “And as head of security, I’m concerned that I’m going to have a buildup of product here that needs to get to the front lines.”

“That’s a pickle,” Stella said. “But we are thinking about that a lot. With the ongoing troop movements between the peace turtle clan areas to Gloucester, that is taking up most of their gate time.”

Gate time was his most pressing concern. Finley had long ago got to where he had enough supplies to support the war efforts. Now it was a matter of getting it to where it needed to go. He had access to a single gate through Zan that could reach across the continent of Sunderland to the seventy-sixth dwarven legion.

“I just need more time,” he said. “I think that this is the most important thing for the caravan.”

Stella held up her arm. A small dwarven clockwork piece sat there. Andrew, their artificer, had made tiny clocks at the request of the humans. It was something about synchronizing their schedules, a soup of words that only came from a chosen. They had so many turns of phrases that it make his elf brain spin. His clock, of course, sat on his desk where it belonged.

Not on his arm.

“You can have more time. It sounds like the legion needs to do one a more big push through and they are just about ready to leave their staging grounds. I’ll speak to Anthony about making more time for you guys to do more transfers,” Stella said.

“Thank you.”

It had been two months since the Caravan had contacted the last remaining bastion of the Irumian military, the seventy-sixth legion. As they were the only part of the military deployed abroad continuously, they were not home when the calamity struck. That calamity was a continent-wide collapse in which every single person became a zombie or was eaten by one. The caravan, Finley’s group, had spent months escaping the continent of Noveria before flying south to the long, wide continent of Sunderland that stretched across the equator of their planet.

In Sunderland, they contacted the Yellow Tail tribe, a group of lizard folk that signed a treaty with them. The yellowtail tribe was one of the thirteen lizard folk tribes that had established themselves on beachheads along the northern coast of their continent.

“Do you think that you’ll be ready to come to the council meeting tomorrow?” Stella said. Now that we have to plan out everything deliberately?”

Council meeting for another thing that humans insisted on. They wanted to sit down and talk about things frequently. Frequently for an elf was once a week. For an elf like Finley who had spent most of his life as a traveling merchant across the content of Noveria, it was a lot of contact. He didn’t mind it, but it was a change from his time alone with the two horses that had pulled his wagon all over.

“I’ll be ready. I don’t really have much to report, so it’s going to be more of them asking me for more things that I have to go find for them. As usual.”

“We are getting into the academy’s stores, so at least we’ll be able to outfit the legion with new stuff. And all our recruits can have that boiled leather that they’re so keen on.”

Finley nodded along, opening the crate of spices.

“This has got to be one of the best things that you guys have done so far. It’s going to make everything taste so much better. I’m so glad you went with this,” he said, holding out a spring of parsley. “I have always wanted to decorate my velociraptor legs with something tiny, green and ornamental.”

“Well, you’re in luck because today I have a very special offer for you Mr. Elf.... And that is you can have this whole box for free. It’s just going to cost you your soul,” she said.

“Oh, this is the souls are a thing and have a monetary value thing, right? I already sold my soul twice today. Once for an uncommon card and once for a velociraptor leg.”

“Well, that’s on you for offering it for so low. All right. I’ll take a firstborn child instead, if that’s what you want to do?”

Finley considered the offer. As he wasn’t likely to have any children, he would gladly give one of those up.

“I’ll take that deal,” he said. “Though...”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“The deal is made,” she replied, bowing. “I shall come collect the child when it is ready.”

“You can take Steve whenever you want-”

“Hey!” Steve shouted, coming out to see them. “Oh! Miss head of security! Good day to you!”

He popped out from behind the log wall, his large lizard snout comically oversized and red.

“Did you get into the honey?” Stella said. “Because there were still some bees in there and...”

“I did no such a thing-” he said, his nose clearly getting larger.

“Right,” Stella said flatly. “Just like a man to deny what’s going on right in front of his face.”

She looked at the lizard man closer. Finley tapped into his healing magic, preparing a spell to make sure that the lizard wouldn’t lose his ability to breathe in the short term.

He walked over to Steve, patting him on the shoulder. He pushed a wave of mana into his spell, causing the lizard’s face to resume its normal yellow tone.

Zan took that moment to walk out. Her dark black flame hair stood out over her white robes with a gold trim.

“Hey guys, ah yeah, he was a mess, but he didn’t want to say anything,” she said.

The light-skinned girl, another chosen, was the only member of the caravan that had chosen the wizard class. She had apparently been from some place called Asia before being called to his world. He didn’t know about it, but all the human chosen had known. Because of her card class, she could easily learn new spells.

Finley had a caster class. His soul card gave him druid powers, but from what he had read in every single book on the topic, he was going to need to get his card spell casting level up to ten. It sat at five, a huge advancement he chalked up to being next to some of the most powerful enlightened beings in Steve’s world.

It felt like he had done a lot to get there, but he knew that he still had a long way to go.

He looked down Steve’s face.

“You have to listen to the wizard, lizard,” he said. “Otherwise I can’t save you. Especially about food.”

Zan crossed her arms.

“See I told you, Steve. Always listen to the wizard.” She raised a hand, chanting something silently.

A white ring emanated from her, entering all directions and then stopping. Suddenly, Finley felt fresh, and he could once again smell the salt in the air.

“Fuck was that?” Stella said, tears streaking down her face. “Did you copy the cleanse card... As a spell?”

“I got it, girl.”

Finley sighed. He hadn’t even considered it. Of course, she would be able to learn a spell just from seeing a card power enough times.

The chosen were so ridiculously broken and powerful.

But that was what they were going to need to take on an entire continent. Bold, beautiful, powerful women who would put a lizard man in their place, which was apparently next to someone that could heal them. This was due in no large part to the fact that they had no visible survival instinct outside of their tribal territory, which is why the lizard women tended to do all the hunting.

“Alright, I got like twenty minutes before I have to open up for the portal from here to the airship,” Zan said. “I only see the one crate, is that right?”

“That’s right. I got some cards for the advance company? And goat company. Less than what I had hoped for, though. I got one summon card, which was an uncommon, and I’m trying to replicate it,” Finley said.

Zan gasped.

“You found a summon card?” She said. “Show me!”

“Alright,” Finley said, arranging his hands to show the card. A little opening in the one and a turn of the other left an image of the card floating.

Uncommon Summon Card: Micro Raptor Level 1

Summons a micro raptor twice per day for thirty minutes at a time.

Summon duration and frequency increase each level.

“Have you tried the wild shape trick?” Zan said. “Giving it to someone else to level?”

“I thought that the goat Lord shone upon us with that time. That or summons are a whole different category. But it worked. Apparently it’s slow to level,” he said.

“That’s interesting. Have any of the chosen...?”

“No, not yet, but-” he said.

She held out a hand.

He drew the uncommon card from his soul deck, wincing at the feeling. Every time he took a card out, he felt the difference, like the ability had just wiped itself from his mind suddenly.

Zan summoned the tiny red raptor. The magic woven a red construction of bones, skin and hide that in half a second became a tiny dog sized summon. Finley knew the little thing well, but unfortunately, could not control it well. If he were to put a label on his level of control it would be, ‘summon it and try not the get bitten’.

Zan hadn’t waited for the explanation. She had to be so sure of herself at that moment.

It looked at her like she was his next meal, despite only coming up to her delicious ankles.

“Aww it... why is it looking at me like that?” She said.

“Control it!” Finley said. “You’re in charge.”

“Zan! It’s going to-“ Stella screamed.

*Chomp!*

The micro raptor bit the air as Zan full on evaded it. Then it disappeared as fast as it had appeared. Zan had cleared three times her height in the time it took the summon to deliver a smashing bite to the poor sea air.

“Glad I took that rogue card,” she said, panting.

It might have been a card skill, but it clearly wasn’t one that she had been too diligent about working on.

“They’re great, aren’t they? For evasion, I mean,” Stella said. “Though I think you need a bit more training. Sophia and I are available...”

Finley accepted they had an unfair advantage, but he didn’t remember that class card being anywhere near so capable.

“I will think about it. You were hoping for a goat, weren’t you? I take it?” Zan said.

“I think a goat summon would be perfect,” Finley said. “It would at least ‘keep with the theme’, as Stella keeps telling me.”

“Goat Lord, goat summon, tomato, tomato,” Stella said. “I just want to know when I can get a summon.”

Finley frowned. He had only just begun to feel how a summon would form. He thought that there had to be more to it.

“I have to ask you if you can speak with Anthony then. Apparently, one tribe has a special group of summoners... and...”

Finley had only so much attention to give, and in that moment, it all bore down on Stella.

“Tell me more,” he said.

“Clan Kerberos has a group of summoners. They are one of the furthest of the clans and word from there almost never makes it back... Except when it does.”

Stella shrugged.

“That was in one of the daily reports. You read the reports, right? You don’t just try to make deals all day?”

Finley rolled his eyes. Another thing that he had picked up from them.

“I have been meaning to read those,” he said.

There were a few trading vessels that brought news along the coast, but anything that arrived would be far out of date. Apparently, Stella had been scouring these reports and news with the zealous fervor of someone who really wanted to know about the tribes. This had been something that the traders had casually mentioned that she was investigating.

Stella wrote notes for the council, passing them between the three locations that they had set up in. Then she would get feedback and update them the following day. Every week, the three chosen who led the caravan met at a unique spot moving.

The airship that hosted the most recent meetup was east of their location along the coast. Through the power of anchored portals, they could leave through the gate inside of their diplomatic compound and mission.

Finley went inside to check the most recent notes from Stella.

Holding it out, he skimmed.

“There’s no mention of a tribe of summoners here.”

“There was in the one two days prior,” Stella said. “Keep up.”

“Yeah. She doesn’t write this for fun. It’s meant to be actionable intelligence.”

Finley sighed. His promised fleet of airships for his world tour of the lizard folk tribes wasn’t finished on schedule. They so far only had one airship up and running, mostly because of the need for highly processed canvas.

He would be happy when he could buy a ship locally. He could bring all of his talents selling to a new market. He could visit several markets. If he ever found out how to cast gate himself, he might trade in several of the markets in a single go.

That would be the ticket.