Bob, sexiest ranger of Mork, couldn't sleep. There was a time in his life when he had a social media following that he watched religiously. Not just the following but specifically his amount of followers. The amount of people that were hungry for cake thirst traps overwhelmed him from the start, causing him to get more digital to market his cakes. It had spiraled, as things he got obsessed with often did. He had spent a lot of time in therapy working on his obsession with getting more and more followers.
The unhealthiness of checking everyday to see how many people had watched his reels had got to him. He would spend hours baking and then at least a half an hour a day staging cakes and slices of cakes to show for his loyal followers. At first he was excited, then he became obsessed, then he needed help. It took a long time for him to admit that to himself, but in the end he found it. It just turned into another part of the job that he grew to have to do even though he didn't like it.
He felt that same twinge of the fear of missing out every time that he checked if the undead legion was on the move. No one else had that special ability, which really meant that he needed to keep watch on his new followers. There was a big difference between being chased by a zombie and having to keep one's business afloat. In both cases, he was worried about his next meal. In only one was he worried about being someone else's next meal.
The fact that he had a real time view of where they were but only in a certain amount of detail irked him. If it had just been a matter of the quest telling him the radius or something else simpler he would have felt much better about it but there was nothing like watching a predator closing on you. He didn't want to be eaten. Even more than that, he didn't want Stella or Sophie to be eaten. He couldn't say the same about the entire Caravan, but it would be highly inconvenient for someone to be turned into a fifth death night. If there was one thing that Bob hated more than anything, it was inefficiency and being inconvenienced.
He had spent many mornings working on his craft. In culinary command school, he learned about mise en place. It began as the technique to start working with every implement in the correct place, so there was no extraneous movement. Or at least that was his version of it. Before we started working, he always took five minutes to set up and make sure that all of his knives were correctly placed and all of his baking implements were where they needed to be. He had a specific way that he stacked his bowls cups and where he put the milk, sugar and flour. He was able to be meticulous there in a way that he wasn't in any other place in his life.
Those five minutes were always some of the best of his day. Looking back, he realized how much he appreciated that little bit before the chaos began.
Bob took that same preparatory spirit as he cleaned his weapons, checked his crossbow and inspected his clothing. The subtle scent of what had to be male body spray wafted off of his crossbow when he was done. When the cleanse card was used, it affected everything in radius. He didn't know for certain, but he really thought that it killed things at the bacterial level. There was no other explanation for how clean it felt.
He was beginning to have a problem where he would start to need new crossbow bolts. There was only so many times that he could fire and reclaim the ones that he had. Eventually, he would need to replace them. He had never considered this something he would have to do. Otherwise, he probably would have looked up a YouTube video on it or some explanatory podcast talking about it.
Bob had taken several short sticks from nearby trees and placed them around where he and Stella were sleeping. They hadn't gotten their own tent yet but they did have bed rolls. What he had done was to place each of the similarly sized sticks in the direction that each of the death knights were. Three of them were south. The other was north of him, where he imagined Plainsmount was.
He lined off all them up, taking care to really put them in a distinct location. They were all at least a meter from where he was sleeping but no more than three.
Eventually tired met wired and won the battle.
When he woke, one of the icons no longer lined up.
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"Who here is good at math?" Anthony asked, "I'm only good at calculating drip rates."
There were two shiny rocks and one stick in formation. Anthony was trying to triangulate the distance that the death knight had traveled. He had assembled the small council of people who had volunteered to be leaders in their caravan.
"If we traveled, how many leagues is it?" Andrew said.
"About ten leagues, based on the time it took," Finley said.
"Alright. If we assume that Plainsmount is ten leagues away, and that the death knight moved, and this is his new direction, how fast did he move?" Anthony said, drawing a triangle in the sand. "We know the angle between before we went to bed and now."
The angle that all three points made indicated that it was nearly a full ninety degree change. As such they had some idea.
"We can't assume that it is heading directly to us from Plainsmount," Bob said.
"Let's assume the worst case scenario."
It was like finding a full bag of chips in the garbage. Anywhere else it would have been a welcome sight.
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"Worst case? If both sides are ten leagues long then the death knight moved fourteen or so leagues while we were asleep. It's around the square root of two hundred. What? Don't look at me like that. Ten squared plus ten squared is two hundred," Stella said.
"How long is night here, Finley?"
"Right now? Approximately nine hours, but when did he set the first marker?" Finley turned to the bald man who was fussing with his cloak.
"An hour after we arrived. But it was already dark for a bit then."
Anthony grimaced.
"So they can move about fourteen or more leagues in seven to eight hours. It took us an hour to go that distance on the horses." Anthony looked down trying to focus.
"We need to move on," Bob said. "Figuratively and literally. I can do this trick again at the next way station. Maybe there is a range finding card?"
"There might be one," Finley said. Anthony could see that he wanted to go check right this moment, but was holding back.
"I guess we have to move," Anthony said, putting on his best stoic face. "Then we can see if they do the same. Finley, I know I ask a lot of you but are we near any towns? Especially ones that we can defend. Or even if we can't, use against them."
"Mount up?" Bob said, standing. Stella stood with him.
"Mount up."
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"So Bob thinks that they are following us. Is that what I'm hearing? I don't think that we're that interesting. Maybe they're just lonely. Did you ever think of that? Bob?" Stella said. Putting her gambeson on for the second time, now correctly. The black fabric reflected a bit of the sunlight, but was otherwise unremarkable.
"I love how you talk about me when I'm right here," Bob said. "It's quite nice to be noticed."
Unfortunately for Bob, his gambeson was gray. They matched except for the colors.
"Hey. You wanted into this situationship. Sophie warned you," she said, "Right Soph?"
A full head of brown hair popped out from beneath the caravans canvas flap door. It eyed both of them suspiciously before disappearing.
"If you're going to have a define the relationship conversation right now, I would appreciate it if you didn't call me in to be the referee," The muffled voice said. Stella lifted the flap up wearing at her friend.
"Do we have everything ready to go? Bob is just hooking up the horses now."
"I double-checked that everything was secured correctly. Do you think that Finley is going to give out some cards before we move on? It would be great for morale."
"He said something about once all the horses are readied up, but I didn't get any of the specifics. He asked to do his own thing with all the horses as well," Stella said. "He's got a lot of shit to do. And until somebody else gets their animal handling card to level three, he will continue to have a lot of shit to do."
"That's what happens when you shit hot fire. Also, that seems broken as an ability."
Stella held the flap open while Sophie dismounted.
"One of us literally has the powers of Elsa from Frozen and the other one is a badass elemental druid."
Sophie took a second to pat herself down. She was satisfied that all of her bits were in the right place. Both women walked around the caravan twice.
Their main objective was to see if there were any problems that they could fix where they were stationary. While they were moving, whatever it was out of the question. Now, at the rapidly disappearing camp, they had a chance to stave off long-term problems. When they got back to the horses, Sophia held out her hands and playfully brushed it, top to bottom.
The horse whinnied, responding to her touch by stamping one hoof. She lingered there long enough for Stella to check over everything that kept the horse attached to the caravan.
She knew that it wanted to continue to receive attention, but Stella couldn't let them go down that path. They had a time that they needed to leave by and it was drawing dangerously close.
They heard a whistle from the front and most of the band walked to meet up with Finley in the center.
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"I worked all night on this when I wasn't resting. I think that if anyone has been asking their god for help that it is working."
Finley held out several packs of cards, each set held together via twine.
"The biggest thing is that everyone that didn't have animal handling as a class skill or card, now has the opportunity to put it in their decks. I have several more in case we find some more survivors," he said. "So at least there is that. I don't have that Monk class card but I do have most of the pieces that I need to make a few other classes."
Finley didn't take his time handing out the packs. He knew which one was for which person. He just had to pass them out. When the last person had their pack of cards, he turned to address the group again.
"Most of these cards have synergy with what you already have. Everyone has three cards more now. I have a card library of cards that are less useful. When Anthony's ready we can take some down time and you guys can have a turn looking for something. But each one of these are going to be pretty useless in combat."
There was a general murmur as people put cards into their soul decks.
"Hey guys, take a few minutes to get familiar with your new cards because let's mount up in five minutes. I won't be comfortable until we put more space between ourselves and whatever is on the march," Anthony said. "Also, any last minute shuffles between people who really want to sit next to each other, this is the time, Bob and Stella."
The red faces of his companions warmed Finley's heart. Stella and Sophie had a quick conversation off to the side. Half the eyes are on them, the other half were inspecting their new cards.
Andrew came up to him and shook his hand.
"I thought that that woodsman card was great but this combination? I really appreciate the thought you took in this."
Finley had found or made three cards that dealt with measurement, enchantment and one meta crafting skill card. Has he had no use for it himself and they had a legitimate artificer with them, it made sense to give him all the options. Hopefully, with that he would be able to make the floating ship that all the humans decided was their best option.
Bob had probably gotten the worst hand of the lot. Finley had understood how powerful the cards were that Bob had and was working to figure out a way to complement his powers. The only thing that Bob didn't have was a strong spell casting skill or card. His ranger class gave him a divine spell casting ability but as Bob had explained earlier that day it was more geared towards survival, simple rituals and healing.
That was why Bob had gotten a special common card gave him one particular spell to use.
Common Spell Card: "Did I do that?"
The wielder can cast Magical Missile unerringly to a long distance. Distance is determined by line of sight. This card has a cool down of ten seconds, or the wielder can use mana to cast it again in quick succession.