“Hey Finley!” Gigi said upon his arrival back into the promontory. He was taking the day, swapping duties with Borgan and Song just to experience something that wasn’t the sun beating down on him constantly.

“Hello my dear,” he said. They embraced, giving each other cheek kisses. “It’s so good to see you back here. A little birdie told me you needed an expert.”

She smiled. The smell of fresh manure hit him as they exited the mansion that held the workshop and goat company. Several small goat sized buildings with fresh hay as a base surrounded a newly raised barn.

“You’re all sleeping in the barn, I take it?” He said.

“It is that or having to keep dwarf form all night, which is... Well, it gets easier around level five, but it’s a bit of a drain.”

“Most of the dwarves are at level five now, or greater, though?” Finley said.

They moved to a series of raised garden beds. Where there once had been a packed dirt road, now beat rows of gardens took their place. Several of them were actively being worked on by dwarves. Two dwarves with wheelbarrows ran past them, their pace nearly frantic as they raced each other.

“Hey! Save it for the front lines!” Gigi yelled. “Yeah, everyone has at least level four, but some of the ones that got their druid card last- they... it’s like they had to get in sync with their cards.”

Finley frowned.

“Power is power. What are you saying?”

“They had to adjust for the difference. Like they could stay in wild shaped form for longer, but their soul wouldn’t let them.”

They stopped in front of a raised bed of mushrooms.

“Oh, I can see the problem here,” he said. “You’re trying to take the mushrooms. They demand to be free.”

Gigi looked at him, defeated.

“Alright, I know that the Goat Lord works in very mysterious ways, but what?”

The raised bed had two half logs retaining the soil. Then, on either side, the earth sloped down. The design was fine if they were dealing with normal plants, but these were not normal.

Finley tapped into the green, looking at the soil and the surrounding grass. The previous owners could afford to have a front lawn of an ornate non native plant. It was like spitting in the face of nature. Finley would never spit in the face of nature.

“You’re trying to....” he said, searching for a metaphor that would resonate with the dwarf. “Put beer into a wine cask.”

“Explain.”

The mushrooms wanted to do their thing and Finley could feel a slight pressure. That pressure had to be the effect of the druids around the area, all trying to ‘tend’ to the garden.

“You’re trying to tend this garden. You need to let this be wild,” he said. “Mushrooms like this can’t be penned in. You gotta give them some more space.”

Gigi nodded.

“Alright. So...?”

“I can see what’s happening here. You’re all trying too hard. You need to try less hard here. Put your effort elsewhere,” he said.

That was what the mushrooms were telling him. Of all the druid cards he had made, none of them were Spore druids like he was. He could tell that the little mound of mushrooms was straining against their imposition. He had heard of other plants that did this, like truffles. They would reject anyone trying to cultivate them. The rebellious plants were delicious, but rare. It was just like the plants that he worked with to decide they didn’t want to do the thing he needed them to do.

“Do less? Yeah, we can do that.”

“What else is going on?” He said. “You have something big to show me, right?”

It hadn’t slept since his notice that they were not looking down at Gloucester. The formerly sleepy Port City dominated the view beneath the promontory, but they just hadn’t been there yet. Gigi had been leading him around by the nose.

“Let’s go check out the new fleet,” she said. “Or perhaps Armada is the right word?”

As they crested the side of the promontory looking down, Finley smiled. There were several dozen airships in various states, all looking like they were ready for battle. Half that many smaller crafts were moving around. On the ground, even more carts were moving large wooden poles around, bringing them from a far off lumber yard. He could fully see a brand new ship taking shape in a small dry dock. This one looks to be nearly ready to fly or float.

“This is a new design. Once the war is over? They are all yours. I know you want to do your shipping empire and I thought you might set up shop here permanently once this is all done.”

“I have never been so proud,” he said. “You have made me the happiest elf.”

Several of his ships now sported a new design with sails that could be turned. The rough systems of pulleys and levers were now replaced by a more elegant design.

“Can we take a closer look?”

Gigi flashed a pageant winning grin.

Above her, several flags appeared all at once. The nautical flags all displayed a different combination of colors. It was their way of speaking far off. All the former goats in the goat company had a nautical card that allowed them to interpret and make these signals. One of the smaller skiffs turned towards them, displaying a response to her call.

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Someone had been paying attention. Gigi was a duchess, after all.

Despite making said cards, Finley could not understand any of the flags. He was societally the kind of person that wanted to stay firmly on land at all times. He would allow himself to be transported on an airship briefly, especially if it was one of the more contemporary designs that he was seeing, but he was done with being over water.

The skiff came over. Finley was surprised to see that it had two people operating it. It had room for at least ten.

“May we come aboard?” Gigi said once it was ten feet above them.

“Please enter, your grace,” a dwarven voice said, dripping with sarcasm.

They flung down a rope ladder. Gigi ascended, followed by Finley.

He was always surprised at how solid and the airship felt anything down. He understood that ships were solid and that he was in on top of one, but also he was in the air. The dwarf at the helm released a gout of flame, causing the skiff to ascend upwards.

“I’m just showing our elf friend here what’s going on,” Gigi said.

He recognized the dwarves as being part of the original thirty that had been transformed from zombies into goats. They were the same enlightened that had been given a druid card that he had made.

It had come at a great cost, but every single one of them was now a goat who could wildly shape into a dwarf. They did it a lot. This had been so worth it.

“So we’ve been wondering about getting some specialty cards made,” Gigi said. “There are a lot of things that we need to do and we’re the only one overworked artificer. We have a bottleneck that is causing us to slow down. He can teach people it, but we only have that one.”

Artificer was a very rare class to begin with and the fact that one of the Chosen picked it meant that anyone else with the class card would be able to learn from a master. Andrew, the dwarf that had been summoned from another world, had been working around the clock to create the blueprints and plans for siege weapons that would take the undead down as fast as possible. But he was only one dwarf and if he went down, they would lose so much.

They flew around a bit, circling to get a sense of what was going on. Finley was happy to see that it moved smoothly. The normal feeling he got of needing to vomit had disappeared.

He saw the new lines of the earthen walls that now made a maze into the port city. Several groups appeared to be clearing out houses to load trash into carts, as he saw one dumping loads of trash into a large pot on the western side of the city.

“That bridge is new,” Gigi said.

A crack running down the center of the city separate east and west. It had been shaped and formed up by the Chosen to fill a pool of water north of the city. A brand new foot bridge wide enough for the carts stood there, defiant and new, leading from the burned half of the city to the half that had been saved from the black flame of a dragon attack.

“That looks like an expert made it, though I can’t see much from here,” he said.

“One of the dwarves from the legion is a master carpenter. He has been helping us with the buildings. Fox company, the support company all works out of the city. They’re clearing it for the rest of the legion to camp out. I guess it isn’t camping though if they’re sleeping there.”

“The word you want is garrisoning, your grace,” the fire bending dwarf said, winking.

“Ah yes. This will be the garrison headquarters,” she said. “We are expecting to have to house and feed them all. Can you touch down or hover next to the new mess, please?”

The pilot grunted.

They stopped a bit north of the bridge where a plot of land large enough for a city block had been razed. The Tinker wagon that had joined their retinue so long ago sat there next to a large tent. Finley knew that it was where the fox company would run its operations, shifting the necessity supplies around from a central location.

“We cleared this a while ago,” she said. “The black flames are all gone. Because it’s centrally located and next to the bridge,bridge, we are going to put the kitchens and mess here. Andrew is dropping a gate framework here. This is where we’ll be putting the first of the new permanent buildings.”

The piles of lumber across the way gave it away. The spot they had picked was large.

“Water from the lake, I presume?” He said.

Gigi nodded.

“If you put... A pipe from here to there it will be easier to fill up a tank and...” Finley thought it through. “You’re going to need someone with a cleanse skill, aren’t you? Clean is a common card. I think the problem is that it gets snapped up quickly and no one wants to give it up.”

Gigi shrugged. She pointed out a few more things before they were one again airborne.

“I need to come by more often, but...”

“But we need you in Sunderland,” she said. “Everyone is doing the most that we can. You especially have a role to fill. Heck, we might be growing livestock here soon if the legion can swing it. Their camp followers are rumored to be bringing something special soon.”

Camp followers were an integral part of a war expedition. Whether it was husbands bringing their wives, or fletchers making things, there were a lot of non-combat roles that needed to be filled by any available dwarf. This fell to the camp followers, a motley collection that follower the legion wherever they went. Some of them had even made their way back to Noveria, settling into houses in Gloucester.

They passed by a pub on the east side of the port city.

“Hold on, is that an open pub?” He said, looking down at a building on the north side of the city.

“Ah yes. That is the pub that I used to work at,” Gigi said. “It’s mine now. And it’s the only game in town. Would you like-”

“Yes!”

They got unloaded right nearby, Finley supremely pleased to be back on firm ground. A group of pleased dwarves sat outside, despite the midday sun, their full mugs tempting Finley. He wanted to drink, but he was more than ready for the company of his people. Tumble and Fen were fine as companions, but they hadn’t been through what he had. He identified several members of goat company that had gone through the long journey with him.

“The duchess!” One said, raising a mug. “Welcome, your grace!”

The group of about ten dwarves raised a mug each.

“Thanks guys,” she said. “They do this every time I drop by, despite me living upstairs. It started getting weird when the legion did the same thing. Now the joke of me being a duchess has transformed into like... Me actually being in charge.”

“I feel like this is going to be excellent for your career,” he said. “You’re a real dwarf of the people.”

They entered the pub. Someone had put a lot of love into the decor and it looked like it had been cleaned to a specific standard that hadn’t been reached yet.

It was a breath of fresh air to step inside the pub. An atmosphere that he hadn’t encountered for what felt like years hit him. This was what he was missing. It was the people all along. Through his travels with the Tinkers, he had met so many people and really bonded with them.

Sonya had said that there was no bond mile a trauma bond, and he knew that everyone in there had lost someone. He had lost everyone.

“Finley? Are you crying?” Gigi said.

“No, it’s just... I got some dust in my eyes when you opened the door. I’m just so happy to be inside of a real pub.”

“Finley, so many people owe you so much because of your connection to the goat lord and how you saved Anthony and Bob way back when,” she began. “I know that we are far from completing the important work, but I think that we need to stop from time to time and recognize how far we have come. As such...”

She motioned to a large painting above the bar. It displayed a picture of a Tinker wagon on the promontory over the city that they were in.

“We can’t just survive. We have to thrive.”

He inspected the painting, moving up close. He just stood there for a long time.

It had been a long time since he had seen art of any kind. The Yellow Tail tribe was particularly allergic to any kind of aesthetic save for statues of strong, muscular heroes of the people. They had an entire park of female heroes in the center of town, made out of worked stone.

But this?

“This is beautiful,” he said. “This is what I have been missing.”

“You’re always welcome at the Duchess’s.”