The caravan kept moving through the night. It was about then that Finley realized another flaw in the design of humans. They didn't have night vision. Not that they needed it with the full moon in the sky, but it could have easily been overcast. He didn't know if the dwarf could see in the dark and he would have to find out. The night could turn as deadly as the zombies.

He could only hope that the zombies had a period where they were less active. The horses might run themselves into the ground.

"I think I have it now," Sonya said next to him, "Eldritch Light!"

She lobbed a ball of dark light up ahead of them. The ball kept steady pace, anchored above their horses. Her previous attempts had continually fallen behind.

"Oooh! A skill level!"

Finley groaned. They seemed to be getting levels far faster than he did. Of course, they were the chosen of their gods, but well he had hoped that being the Tinker King would give him something.

"That's great. I guess keep practicing it, but let's keep this one going. Your previous attempts were good but your control has really shown marked improvement."

"You gotta teach me some tricks," Zan said from behind them, "I can learn just about any spell according to my class. That Eldritch Light looks useful. Oh and bossman, I think I have a better way to store your stock. Especially if we're going to use two or more wagons."

The meek woman had come up with a system for shuffling around Finley's stock without asking him for input. That she had stopped before doing a random reshuffle, he was glad for. He had heard of couples getting into arguments about this kind of thing, one of many reasons that he traveled solo.

"Thank you, Zan. We can discuss this matter at greater length when the horde isn't a threat. Since we changed roads several times they're unlikely to continue after us. I hope that you or Sonya here can come up with a warding scheme that we can use for early warning. Who knows how long these horses are going to want to stay with us? Though they seem content for now.

"That brings up a question that I really should have asked earlier. What do you know about the zombies here? Do they have some elemental weakness of some kind? Back home we have these games where some sort of holy magic is the way to kill zombies and-"

"You kill zombies for sport back home? How terrifying. No wonder you became a warlock."

"Well no. It's more like we pretend to kill zombies. There are no real zombies on earth-" Sonya said.

"Unless you count Florida man high on bath salts," Zan said.

"Fuck Florida."

"You're going to have to explain what a Florida man is to me," Finley said, edging from between the two.

So the girls did, explaining all the ins and outs of the culture of the southern state. Finley wasn't prepared for the discourse and had to shut it down half an hour later when they arrived at a Tinker waypoint.

"The large stone?"

"The flat ground?"

"All of the above. Those are all reasons that we start there. We used to call these way stations here and they-well, I guess it's just me now."

"Zan, do you want to help Bob's team? I think we're going to need some light back there," Sonya said.

Zan shivered. She nodded and carried off to the back of the caravan as Finley back to bring it to a slow roll. Around them, the herd of horses all found convenient patches of grass to roll around and rest in. Once he was sure that he had found the exact spot that would make it the easiest to leave from, he set the brake and stepped down.

"Hey," Sonya held out her hand for him to grab.

"Hey."

"Sorry if that got a little close to home. Losing your entire tribe must be hard on you." She intertwined their fingers squeezing for the briefest moment, "But we're here now."

Finley felt the warmth in her hand. It was nice. He headed over to the stone. It was a large flat stone about half as tall as he was. It was as large as a dinner table. Tinkers had often used it as such. Finley drew upon a fond memory about another stone. His caravan had stopped at one of the stones, and by sheer coincidence had arrived exactly the same time as another Tinker group. They laughed and played and sang songs for two days longer than they had intended.

He placed a hand on the stone. He wouldn't be able to memorialize all the zombies that were following them. At least not right this moment. The goat lord would understand. Instead, he promised the goat lord that he would grow sunflowers at this rock. He tapped into his mana, reaching out for growth. He grabbed a seed from his pocket, scooped out some dirt and put it in. He placed the dirt over the seed, bleated, and then covered it up.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Mana dripped into it from his fist. As if he squeezed an orange, the juice dripped down. A little sprout popped up. Finley finally cracked a smile.

The flower would grow in time.

He turned to find Anthony dismounting.

"Anthony, welcome to this Tinker way station. If I could, I would make this place more like it was, but this is not the time for merriment. We must find a way to guard against the horde."

"This place feels reverent. I hadn't noticed it before I stepped down. I can't put my finger on it. Do you know?"

Finley had been to many way stations. In the past, Tinkers had been reviled and turned away, and due to their nonviolent nature they often just turned the other cheek. For something to happen at a way station, it would go against the family.

No one went against the family.

"I think you can tell if you look deep enough," Finley said, stretching out his own druidic magic to feel the familiar sign.

Anthony closed his eyes. His face went through a series of contortions that reminded Finley of someone trying to fix the undercarriage of a wagon. Finley knew the familiar feeling. It was something that he wanted to experience for the first time once again, but seeing someone else experiencing it would suffice.

Anthony sat down and began to meditate. Finley left him to it. Moving, he greeted the horses. It was time to address the horses that had drawn the wagon behind him and kept the strange crew of alive. One by one, he stood next to the mane of each horse, thanking it in turn. As he worked his way around, he took the two horses that had pulled the wagon out and replaced them. The herd was following them out of a sense of safety, not obligation. They were all trained war horses, with the exception of his bay mares.

When he reached the final two horses, he pushed them to replace his bay mares. There was no telling if any zombies would come upon them at night. They were at most half a days ride away from the nearest dwarven settlement. He needed the horses to be fresh.

His horses only needed to sleep for a few hours and then would be up again. They treasured those power naps. Once he was certain that they weren't missing any horses he checked to see if there was enough water close by for the horses to drink.

Finding a small brook, he pulled the horses towards it. It wasn't more than a tree span into the woods. As the horses plodded out to drink, Sonya cast and then tied off a dark light above the stream.

"Hey! You found some water. Once the horses are done drinking, I'm sure that some of us will want to take a quick dip. I will-hey your arms are really green," Sonya said.

Finley looked down to see that they had indeed become more green.

"Druid stuff?" She asked.

"Druid stuff."

"Ah. That's interesting."

"If you're going to strip down and jump in the water, it's not too deep, but I wouldn't jump in. You know how to swim, yeah?"

But she was already stripping down. Finley sighed. They at least needed to set up a watch before they did all those wacky things that humans were fond of doing. Like, for instance stripping naked in the middle of the night after a zombie attack and jumping into a stream.

"Anthony, you have some sense, right?" Finley said, returning from the edges of the way station.

"I'm not well known for it, yet but, sure."

The tall bearded man was checking on the way stone. Everyone needed some rest, but if Anthony was in charge, he would be setting up things.

"Would you just wait a minute before jumping into a river you just found? Or just jump in?"

"Depends on what my friends are doing."

A loud splash interrupted Finley's thoughts.

"Ah. I see. I'm going to hold off for a bit. I didn't see too many towels anywhere so they're going to be a bit chilled when they get out. I don't suppose that there's a cleaning skill? Or a cleanse card?"

"As a matter of fact, I think I have something just like that," Finley said, "Let me check in the the back."

Finley rummaged around for a minute. More and more splashes and laughter was heard. Then he held out a copper card for all to see.

"Ah here it is. The copper bucket is just how I remembered it," he said holding a card aloft, "Do you want to...?"

Anthony inspected the card.

Common Skill Card: Clean Level 1

This card grants mana.

This card allows the user to cast a basic cleaning spell on any living creature or object within a radius of one arms length and can be reused while the wielder has mana.

"I'll pass this onto Sonya who was the first person to jump in."

"I'm sorry, I only have one side deck so she'll have to put it in her soul, but I don't think it will be a bother for her to remove it," Finley said, "Plus how long was she in that cage? Two days? She deserves a wash if she wants."

"Bob is resting in my wagon, but he got a lot of card pieces when uh-so, he got a strange card as part of his survival quest."

"A strange card?" Finley said.

Anthony nodded for the elf to follow him.

There in the wagon bed, sat Bob and a creature that was entirely unfamiliar to Finley. Ca'at meowed loudly, it's eyes a clear blue against black fur. Finley bristled at seeing the tiny beast. Summons were rare, but not unheard of. Then it growled at him and he stepped back. Satisfied at it's show of force the otherworldly eldritch being curled up.

"What tier of card made this summon?" Finley said.

"Oh hey Finley," Bob said, "Ca'at is a rare card. I got it from a quest reward of all things."

"You got a rare card from a rare card power?" Finley said, crossing his arms.

"Yes I- don't look at me like that!"

Finley bleated a curse. He caught Bob off guard and the human didn't seem to know what to do with himself. It was just like a human to get bullshit card powers, while he had been working on his merchant skills for years to scrape some of them to level three. For these people to have more than one rare card in their soul decks after being in his world for less than a week-he was going to have words with the goat lord.

"Can your summon act as a guard? That's what we need right now."

"It has a cool down time but doesn't specify how long it can be active for? Is that normal?"

"No. Or maybe yes. Summons aren't that common. What are the other cards you got?"

"Oh, well, I got several common skill cards that kinda look like my class skills. I didn't know what to make of them."

Finley smiled.

"Finally some good news."

On their side, Stella returned from the river, her naked form illuminated in the moonlight. Bob and Finley turned to greet the dripping wet Rogue.

"Hey, so don't be weird about this guys but does anyone happen to have a towel?"