It took Finley half an hour to get the newest addition to the caravan checked out. It would run. It wasn't even in disuse. The previous owner had to have been moving through the area with a purpose.

They had left enough items inside the new caravan that Finley had a good idea of what they were looking for. This person had been trying to trade commodities, if the amount of empty barrels was any indication. Where Finley had been a generalist, selling and trading staples that most travelers would want.

The warehouse was full of root vegetables. It was also full of three varieties of potatoes. As fast as they could, they grabbed crates of each, placing them into the Tinker wagon. It wasn't as heavy as it was awkward. When the twentieth case arrived, Finley checked his Tinker card to see that his storage skill had finally gotten to level four. This small change gave him an insight that he had not had before. Every nook and cranny of the wagon seemed to expand inside of his mind. He looked inside the wagon seeing it expand, then stepped backwards.

Such an expansion would have been reflected on the outside. No such thing appeared as the wagon was no larger than it had been. He went back in to recheck his measurements. Something about the accountant skill gave him a easy measurement tool. Perhaps it was the eidetic memory, reminding him of what it looked like before. It was definitely larger on the inside than it was on the outside.

"Hey Finley, what's going on?" Anthony said.

"Something very strange is going on inside of this wagon. As we loaded it up, it got bigger."

"It's the same size as it was."

"Look inside. The interior is larger than it should be."

"You have got to be kidding me. I don't think we have time for jokes right now."

"This is serious, Anthony. My storage ability just went to level four. I think that storing all these crates of food in here has changed it. Also look," he said spreading his arms wide. He did the same thing on the inside before stepping into the outside.

Anthony tilted his head. He nodded, and then turned on his heels and walked away.

"Hey wait a second! Where you going?"

"I think I need a minute."

The salvage crew continued to hand Finley vegetables in neat stackable crates. Using Stella and Sophie, nearly every inch was covered before Anthony returned. Only a narrow passageway through the center of the Caravan was left. Thankfully the crates were all set up in such a way that they easily stayed put, loaded one on top of the other.

"Anthony, I think we need to bring the rest of the caravan over here," Finley said. "There's more food and this is packed to the brim."

"I'll get them moving. It's about time to determine if we're going to stay here for the night or move onwards. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?"

Finley scratched his nose. He looked at how long the shadows were around them.

"Either way we need to mount up."

"Makes sense."

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Anthony raised a yellow flag towards the stage area they had been using. Someone on top of the Mansion returned a wave with the same color flag. He then returned to the large map that had been just out in the open in the warehouse. He had affixed it to the back of the newest caravan for review.

"Anthony, what are we doing? Bob wants to know!" Sonya said from atop the earthen wall. "I see you flagging down the rest of the caravan."

"We're concentrating here, and getting ready. We need to pack more of the food in."

"Alright thanks," she said before disappearing to provide overwatch. She was still on the wall, just a bit out of their line of sight.

"I wonder if we can do anything to keep this place in cold storage," Anthony said, looking to Sophie. She had been helping the salvage team once the warehouse had been deemed empty.

"You would have to ask our resident cryomancer. She would have that answer. Elemental water is separate from all those specific ice powers. She explained it to me at great length this morning. Also don't call her cold-hearted, ice queen or the ice bitch, please."

Anthony nodded. He had never considered it.

"I feel like I just want to know what she can do. She is so attached to the hip to Bob that I don't really want to separate them."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Oh," Sophie said, smiling. "I would be too happy to do that for you."

"Oh wait," he said, his hands outstretched.

Sophie deftly pushed against the air, lifting herself up and over the earthen wall.

"Did she just bend the air around her?" He said, looking at the swirl next to him. "Nah."

He turned to greet the rest of the caravan. Zan and Andrew both drove the other wagons in. It took them a minute to get to the spot where he wanted them to be loading. Once there, they got to work. Andrew and Zan came to speak to him. The herd of horses followed closely behind, with the remaining men and women riding.

"We're going to load up everything we can. Finley has some new power to store more things inside of the wagons. With all the horses, I want everything we can grab. There's no telling what's going to happen next," he said, patting the dwarf on the shoulder.

"I'm going to go and help," Zan said. "Then I'll see if there's something about the storage magic that I can work with."

"Thanks, Zan."

"Well I could always lend a hand loading everything," Andrew said. "No harm in doing the work that needs doing."

"Let's get going. I want to convene the council in about ten minutes. There ia enough of us here to pack these wagons. There wasn't a lot of room before. Now, we have three."

The man and the dwarf went to work.

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Bob, Mork's zombie slayer, watched as the last couple of crates got loaded in. He really wanted to help out but as Stella kept telling, being on watch was helping. His eldritch beast was working overtime on the zombies that Sonya was killing. He was conserving ammunition. He hated conserving ammunition but it wasn't like there was crates of crossbow bolts hiding around everywhere. Even the one musket they found wasn't in serviceable condition.

Bob had grabbed the musket from the warehouse as a souvenir. If nothing else in their down time he would ask Andrew to try to replicate the instrumentation. A guy had to have dreams after all. Dreams beyond the beautiful woman that did not want to be known by her ice powers. He had so many ice and icing jokes that he wanted to use, simmering below the surface.

Bob sighed, closing his eyes to concentrate. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see the five markers that indicated the quests. The only time they weren't readily apparent was when he was sleeping. It had taken him a while to get used to it. He had noted as much as he could about them but the icons were small. Their size was a function of how distant they were, or at least that was his best guess.

For a long moment, he concentrated on each icon. It would have been nice for one of them to bring up something about each target. Some kind of information. Bob had no such luck. He noted in passing that nothing really seemed to have changed since last time he thought about their distance and size.

Bob went through his slow box breathing process. He took a four-second inhale, paused, holding his breath for four seconds. He then exhaled for four seconds and once again held it for four seconds. It had been one of the things that his father had taught him to control his emotions. When he was an adult he realized, that it was as much for his father as it was for him. His heart rate slowed as he continued to cycle through that for five minutes.

Truly relaxed, he once again checked the icons. For the first time he recalled, one of the icons had moved. For someone so far away to move in such a way is for him to notice it was a bad thing. Bob checked again, opening his eyes and then closing them. Surely, he was wrong? But as sure as a pilot who didn't want to be called Shirley, one of the death knights was on the move.

"Stella, get Anthony. We have a problem."

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"So, one of the death knights is on the move? So what?" Anthony said.

"It is moving towards us," Bob said. "It might be slow but-"

For the second time in their council meeting, Bob closed his eyes and the entire council stayed quiet. All but two of the Caravan sat with them. Sonya had opted out and kept up the watch with Brandon. They were still visible from the back of the warehouse.

"Anthony, it's taking gates."

There was a murmur in the crowd. Everyone looked to Finley.

"There are many gates in the dwarven lands. They are mostly there to facilitate trade with the elves. As one elvish company has the monopoly on gate travel, it's expensive but something that is more and more common. Or it was getting common."

"We're talking about large portals here right?" Zan said. "That's what we're talking about, correct?"

"A gate spell is tied to two specific locations and a runed stone doorway. It takes a lot of effort and some very powerful casters to create. They are relics, powerful magical items that are not intrinsically tied to cards, though they are created by card powers."

"Well that's just great," Anthony said. "I suppose that since everyone on this continent was turned into a zombie, that every gate is now open and no one is stopping the undead legions from marching through and coming right after us, correct?"

"With no guards, they would just be open portals between locations. The gates themselves only require the ambient mana to continue running. So long as the mana is there, the gates can run," Anthony said. "Each gate should have a Fail-Safe switch that closes it."

"Finley, have you traveled through a gate before?" Zan said.

"They were just building several large enough to transport a Tinker caravan through. I was going to try the one that goes from the Irumian Capital on my return trip if the fee wasn't too much."

"If the death knight is on the move, then they probably have an objective in mind. Do you think that we are big enough fish for them to try and catch us?" Anthony said.

"Fourteen chosen?" Finley said. "And myself for good measure?"

"Fourteen chosen who could be turned into death knights," Bob said, shuddering.

The council was silent for a long minute. Most thought about their time at Dunnamore. Even Bob and Anthony were not excited about the prospect of fighting a death knight.

"Twelve of the people here could have been turned to death knights. That we were able to help you is something that I'll never forget. There is no world in which I want to fight a fair fight against a death knight," Bob said. "If one is headed for us, we need to get out of its way. I will figure out a way to kill it when the time comes."

"Thank you," Anthony said. "Folks, I think it is time for us to get away from a populated area. I'm glad that we stole this large map from the warehouse. This, according to Finley is a very current and accurate map. We are heading south around the capital. I hope we can find some.other survivors along the way, but if not, we have months of supplies."

The group murmured assent.

"Let's do any final preparations, then Mount up!"