Real isn't that he would only be able to stay in for a little bit longer, Finley weighed his options. There were only so many things that a drunk elf could do. Seeing as how the peace turtles had taken their offer, he was pretty certain that they were going to get what they wanted. Wanted. It was those other things that were a bit far beyond the initial question that he was wondering about.

"Do you think that they're going to introduce us to the other tribes quickly? Or is it going to be one of those months-long things because the legion is on the move," Finley said.

"I think that we should take them at that word. They're known for keeping their contracts," Tumble replied, turning his mug of beer upside down only to see he had left a single drop of beer.

Intellectually, Finley knew that he had to wait. But physically, he could not. He knew that his friends were in deep. He also knew that if he didn't do this correctly, they would be far worse off. He needed their help to save his friends but he didn't want to seem desperate. Desperate sales people don't sell.

Desperate Tinkers did not last long. That was why each Tinker that wanted to break it out and start their own Caravan had to go through an apprenticeship of at least five years before they were able to do their own thing. Or at least until a Tinker chief would let them become their own leader.

They had one against an enemy that would do nothing less than tear them apart if given the chance. They had traversed across several countries and an ocean to get here. He wasn't going to give the peace part of a chance to turn him down. Because if they didn't, then pretty soon the dragons would show up for the tribes. And he was pretty sure that the tribes wouldn't be able to defeat one of those dragons on their own, without a chosen.

The conference of several scribes and the warrior Nemo continued as their drinks were refreshed.

"If I knew that we were going to drink so much of our own stuff, I would have drank more before we got here or on the way to lighten the load," Fen said.

Finally looked up and saw just about the last thing he had ever hoped to see. The commander of Kuzdul company, stood there. They had traded verbal bars a few times. A small detachment of the support company had stayed to facilitate Finley, but this Commander, an orcish woman.

Melissa Lin, the only Orc commander had volunteered to be the last one in Sunderland. Most of her company was teams of people that weren't dwarves. There were a few dwarves in there, but they were majority were Orcs, lizard folk and finally was happy to see three elves. She moved over to him and unceremoniously sat down.

"You didn't think to invite me to this?" She said.

Time that day, Finley was taken it back by the height of someone. Commander. Lynn was a head taller than him even when sitting down. Not that he could blame her for being tall, he wished that he was that tall it was the second time that day that he had been stymied by a taller person.

"I sent several messages through your adjutant. You were invited. However, I was told that you were unavailable."

"That person has been dealt with. They're going to be on toilet digging detail for the next month and a half."

There was something in her eyes that struck him. She looked like she was getting a little thrill out of telling him how she was punishing. Someone else. He shuddered. Anybody who would be that flagrant about a punishment was worth watching. Either that or she just was making a terrible joke at someone else's expense. Finley actually liked the adjutant, a small Dwarven woman who seemed to take his request seriously.

"She was never going to give me that note. I was around. She has been standing in the way of me receiving notes that she thought were not worth my time. Probably because I'm an orc," Captain Lin said.

The peace turtles still be in conference, Finley was obliged to sit there and listen to the orc complain about how there were certain dwarves that did not take her seriously.

"If she is not taking you seriously out here where there's low risk, how can you take them back to the home country where it's just wall-to-wall zombies everywhere you go?"

For the first time, she appeared to consider his words and think on them. Then, the most evil smile he'd ever seen flitted across her face.

With a nod, Nemo turned to face face them.

"Captain Lin, so good to see you, it's a pleasure as always."

"Warrior Nemo it's good to see that you are as deft in negotiations as you are on the battlefield."

Something passed between them. Finley could feel it. It was a bit adjacent to respect and sweat. He would ask her later about it.

One of the scribes returned and began talking to Nemo. There was a lot of gesturing and waving and finally was pretty sure that they hadn't gotten the answer they wanted but he was going to wait for them to say that.

"Captain Lin, Finley," Nemo said. "It appears that the tribe wants to help. However, first they want to give the other tribes more skin in the game."

So it wasn't a refusal outright. It was a gentle reorientation. He could deal with that. If they wanted the other tribes to buy in first that will be fine. They could deal with that. All they would have to do would be to go and talk to more of them first.

"Please understand that this is not my position and based on my discussion, I will be heading to Noveria with my team after this."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

But still, five lizard folk was better than none. He would take that. Now they just all needed to get on the same page.

"Let's talk details," Finley said.

---

"And there's been no sign of him anywhere? That's unusual."

Anthony had gone from indifferent to concern in the space of one conversation. Bob had disappeared after the previous days battle.

Not only that, Stella didn't know where he was. Anthony thought that was a more worrying part than anything else. If Bob could just disappear like that, when he had most of their important cards, they would have some trouble finding the other death knights.

He hadn't left a note so it couldn't be a suicide or a cry for help.

"He might have just quit," Stella said. "He wouldn't kill himself. Let's give him some time to return."

"I think he's pissed at me," Sonya said. " I was just trying to kill as many zombies as it could. Collateral damage be damned."

"Well, if you see him please apologize. We need him," Anthony said. "We are so close."

She leaned up against him. He tried to get a feel for exactly how many beers he was going to have to drink to forget all this bullshit. It was going to be a lot of beers. And then, they could retire. He wondered how it would work. There was no industry to speak of here except for what the legion had helped them build. So would they all come back and reclaim the land? Would they go out and once every single town had been declared clear, settle down?

It couldn't be that easy. But he found himself daydreaming about a time when he could just get back into what he really loved. If the dwarfs wanted to survive, they were going to have to have a lot of babies. And if there were a lot of babies coming? He was in business. He wondered if the dwarfs had ever set up a nursing school before. He idly wondered how much of what he have been trained on would actually transfer over. And then he wondered if any of the girls could get pregnant. He had expected that they weren't able to or that there was something going on.

The gift for being a chosen, but none of the women had been pregnant despite the many things that they were doing together with the men repeatedly. It was one less thing for him to worry about. But then again, maybe they wanted to be pregnant and maybe there was just something they had to do in order to get pregnant and he just wasn't paying attention. Magic was weird like that. If there was a card that caused you to be infertile, wouldn't they give that out in school so that the girls couldn't bear children until they were ready?

His thoughts. Darkened. And then maybe if someone had a way to extract those cars from a woman's heart they could do terrible things to her. He looked back to Sonya. She was once again novels that they provided for her. In fact, she had a stack of about five that she had blown through over the past couple of weeks. He sat down grabbed one and dug in. Maybe there were some answers inside of the books. After all if they were writing fantasy romance novels, perhaps then I go into the mechanics of how babies were born and all that stuff. He could only hope.

Bob would turn up.

---

In the middle of the battlefield there was one corpse that was laid out and eating clean around it. It looked like the area had been swept. But he knew otherwise. This was the one.

That vision kept appearing in Bob's memory. He had a dream about it. It was pushing him. He didn't know how far he had to go to get to the next one but he just knew that there were two left. There were two that he could go after now and he knew which one was to the Southwest. What he didn't know was the powers or abilities of the one to the Northeast. He hadn't barely stopped to check out the card that had dropped.

---

Rare Card: Necromantic Control

You can control most undead of a tier lower than you.

---

This meant that he moved on his own power. He was going to go back for Stella. Eventually. They might find him somewhere in the wilderness, but none of them had been where he was now yet. The tiny skiff that he had appropriated hadn't seen like much of the time but he was selling it East towards the elven lands. He had taken this crude map and found that the elven Capital was close to the quiet sea. That was all that he needed. If they were going to take away his opportunity to kill the death knights, he was going to opt out. He couldn't rest until they were all dead so he would just have to beat the Caravan there.

He had really wanted to have it out with Sonya but it wasn't time. He spent a day testing it out the skiff before returning to the small beach near the promontory. Under the cover of Darkness he went up and spoke with Stella. She had gathered a few things and without argument. Just followed him. Once they were done, they would find their own way. But for now he was so grateful that she was backing him up. Sophie would be pissed. All the scouts that he had trained would be pissed. He could live with that. He couldn't live with this blows to his ego that had kept accumulating over the many months they had been here.

Have been for him? They would have been He was over it. He just wanted to rest. Once the death knights were done, he could. He would take as long as he needed come back and kill more. With his son at his side and his girlfriend with him his skiff pointed east, they sailed off in the darkness.

---

Sophie spent her time the day after the big battle going plants and contemplating life. Bob might not have left a letter but Stella did. Sophie had read it three times.

It was not her decision whether to tell everybody else was going on. They all knew what was happening. But Sophie was bringing your hands about it. Anybody else, she would have gone straight up to Anthony and Finley and told them. But for Stella? She would gaslight, gatekeep and potentially girl boss for as long as the girl needed.

No, those weren't tears. She was happy for Stella. Sophie had spent so much time trying to be happy for herself. She got in the body she wanted. Maybe she wasn't exactly where she wanted to be location wise. But she was happy. She could be happier and things could be better if her bestie was there with her. But her best he hadn't even asked her to go. And that was probably the thing that hurt the most.

It was a gut punch.

It was a gut punch but she had expected a gut punch. With how choleric Bob was being around Sonya it was bound to happen at some point in time.

So she did what she wanted to do. She took a day off and all she did was work on the plants. It felt like she was cheating.

It felt like she was doing the wrong thing. Without Stella around, she didn't have a buddy for lunch and dinner. That alone made her feel terrible but then it wasn't just her not being there. It was a time that they would have spent together now seeming like it wasn't useful at all.

That almost stung more. She hadn't expected to miss Stella so much that you didn't know what to do with herself. She went to talk to Andrew and Brianna and Brandon and all the other Frontline fighters but everybody else was going through their own thing.

Half of the chosen were in closed door session with Sonya talking about their feelings. That was probably the reason that Bob was able to slip away so easily. That and his Rogue training. Bob have been blessed by his patron deity. Perhaps now is a time that Sophie could ask something from her patron.

"Would it be so difficult for you to give me something to work with here? Bob had a Pathfinder skill to let him let him find all the undead and that combined with his ranger skills. Let him track them all. I'm not asking for much here but without Bob? Either that or the quest that Work gave him? Throw me a bone here, Goat Lord."

She closed her eyes and prayed. When she opened them, small card spilled directly into her lap.