Finley flexed his storage power trying to push it to the limit. It was about all he could do to keep from thinking about how such a brazen monster attack could occur on well traveled lands inside of the dwarfish kingdom.

The Irumian guard was well known for being fastidious about their work to a fault. On his way to the Yilish mountains, Finley had seen patrols nearly twice a day everyday. That all depended on how close they had been to the local towns. Many of the roads he traveled were next to a rail line. The Yilish line had been under construction for nearly two years with no end in sight.

They would see it at the end of the day when they reached the first town at the pace they kept. Finley had been spending all of his energy into looking for more bandits, who though rare, were known to not harm a tinker.

It was well known that tinkers weren't violent so long as people obeyed their customs and courtesies. It had been one of the reasons that Finley had joined the family. You see, the tinkers accepted not just the enlightened races into their family, but any monsters that swore an oath of nonviolence against all tinkers. There was a second path that many tinkers took to be nonviolent against all, but that was a step too far for Finley.

His upbringing made him uncomfortable around strangers and made it hard to trust anyone. That they had grown to trust him was a point of pride for the spore druid.

"We're about an hour's ride from the next village. If you hadn't been summoned exactly where I had been, you probably would have died out there. As is, I can probably hand you off to the local government there to aid you in your quest or you can pay for your passage further by helping me with those kinds of incidents," he said, "What do you say?"

Anthony stared out into the distance.

"You don't have to talk now. Monsters here- I've heard that heroes sometimes come from lands where there are no such things. I couldn't imagine it."

Anthony continued his vacant stare. Finley activated his animal handling skill to check on his animals. They felt fresh still. Good enough to trot all the way till nightfall.

They went on that way for a long time as the evergreen forests finally gave way to rolling hills. The breadbasket of the kingdom, field after field of grain provided food for the millions that lived in the kingdom. The first farmhouses started up, those still a long walk from the center of the next town. Normally, Finley would feel safer, but today he felt nothing upon passing the dividing line between all forest and mostly farmland.

"I expected to find another traveler but today must be cursed. Found myself a hero and now, oh wait what is that?"

Up ahead, a plume of smoke carried up from close enough to the road that it was concerning. Then as they approached Finley draw upon his natural affinity to try and see if the plants could tell him anything that his eyes could not. A wagon, loaded down with what looked like it had been a bale of hay was on its side. His natural affinity told him that aside from the surprising wagon, nothing was out of place.

Except for the suspicious lack of farmhands in the fields.

This put him even more on edge, as he looked for pack animals. The direction of travel had been the same as his and the cart. Any horses would have been on the far side, if they were still tied up.

Then, he felt it.

The wheat was all crushed under something the size of a horse. Seeing no one moving, Finley decided to risk it and rolled to a stop. It would be a good distance away. Now he just needed Anthony to watch his back.

"Watch my back. I'm checking this out," he said,"There might be someone there."

Anthony nodded, taking a few deep breaths.

Finley slowly dismounted. He slowly approached the cart. If the rider had been thrown off he would be able to see it. He could see the legs of the horse, still and unmoving. It might had been the horse.

Giant claw marks along the side of the horse indicated the reason that it had bled out on the side of the road.

Finley searched for a rider. He came up on the side of the cart next to the horse. It was clearly dead, but hadn't been for long. The cart was clearly just for hauling grain over short distances. There were no side compartments or secondary storage anywhere.

The grey body of a dwarf, was stuck halfway under the horse. The eyes were vacant as dead arms reached out away from him. Even in his death, the stupid dwarf looked strong.

When he got to within a short distance of the dead dwarf, it started moving. It's arms reached out for him and were it not for being trapped underneath a horse he might have been in danger. He narrowly missed being grabbed as he stepped backwards. His ankle flared up, nearly rolling on an unexpected lump. That lump that just happened to be a severed leg.

Finley jumped back in alarm as the dwarf swung it's arms at him ineffectually. Then he realized that he could become the zombie dwarfs next meal. He ran back to the cart at a slow jog. It was time to see if the hero was able to earn his passage.

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

"Hey! Anthony! I'm going to need your help. Earn your keep. Can you help me kill this zombie I found?"

Anthony nodded.

"Just use a weaker version of your spell while it's pinned down. Don't hit the horse."

"I can do that," he said weakly.

Humans were not Finley's forte or even his flavor of the week but even he thought that Anthony looked a bit pale.

"Also, why should I do that?"

"For the card fragments?"

"Oh right. Uh what are those?"

"I'll explain in a minute. Just kill it, please. Aim for the head."

"Uh, okay."

Anthony walked around the horse, blanched and then cast his spell. A bright light where his holy light appeared flashed and then disappeared just as quick.

A bright golden light flashed over the corpse of the zombie. A card floated above it in the air, a few card fragments dropping onto the ground.

"Grab the card and those shiny fragments. I need to tend to this briefly," Finley said.

Anthony nodded plucking the card out of air and then placing it in his hand. Finley would have to show to man how to put a card into his body later. Then Anthony grabbed the fragments off the corpse and slowly walked backwards.

Finley attempted to commune with his patron diety, dropping to his knees. He closed his eyes, reaching out for the familiar warmth of his goatish self. Then he tapped into his natural affinity, pulling nutrients from the dense farmland around to grow a circle of yellow flowers around the horses body.

"In his name-" Finley bleated.

"I'm not even going to ask about that," Anthony said settling beside him, "and this is a card? Like the one I have in my soul?"

"It's how we harness magic here. May I see the fragments?"

"Here," Anthony said, dumping the fragments unceremoniously into the waiting hands.

The little pieces appeared like glass. The fragments gave off a bit of natural shine as he held them out.

"Five fragments. That's nearly enough for a card. And they're all rare. This is quite curious. You may be truly blessed by the gods however cruel they must have been to send you here."

"Fragments? As in I can make a card with these?"

"I have another rare fragment somewhere in my caravan," Finley said feeling the space with his storage skill, "once we make camp for the night I can help you forge a card."

"The card I have has helped so much, I cannot imagine the-hold on- what's that?"

Anthony pointed down the road back towards where they had come. One of the first farmhouses that they had passed stood out against the rolling fields of grains and grasses. Had it been the first? Finley couldn't recall.

Anthony wasn't pointing to that, however. His gaze was locked on a group of about five stout humans who were walking with a now familiar gait. Finley shook the man by the shoulder.

"Into the caravan, hero. I said, into the caravan hero!"

Finley nearly had to pull the man onto the seat as he gave the horses the command to stop eating grains and to start to move.

Every step that the horses took away from whatever was happening in the fields would be another step closer to safety.

Every minute they stayed was another minute that they could end up as a zombies next meal.

"What the hell is going on?" Anthony said once the horses finally agreed to move.

"Whatever is happening, keeps happening. If I didn't know better, I would say that we're being tracked or followed."

"I can't believe that I left my son and wife back home and came here to this. I would throw up more, but I don't have any food left," Anthony said, leaning back against the caravan.

Finley concentrated on pushing the bay mares to a trot. All he wanted to see was brown movement.

"I purchased some jerky today from the dwarves," Finley said, "hold on to the reins and I'll grab you something to eat. I have water too."

"Thanks," Anthony said, switching seats with him, "you're quite kind for an elf who just had me kill an undead monster."

"You've got to level your class skills otherwise you won't make it far here fighting monsters."

"Oh? How do I do that?"

"You probably kill monsters. Look I have a merchant class and a druid class, I'm not a card expert."

The sounds of the mares hooves trotting was a loud respite for their talk.

"Who was it that you prayed to back there? For a moment it felt like I was a kid back in mass. Back before I was a midwife with a packed schedule. Back before the back pain and the hernia...hey are you listening?"

A green tinged forearm held out a thin salted cut of meat, offering it to the human.

"It will have to do," Finley said.

Finley looked out that back. They hadn't stopped running in their direction and the open road let him see far up the slow slope. They weren't the only group behind the caravan. Another group of five followed along behind them. Finley needed a good trip over a bridge where they could all fall to a glorious death. Not him of course, as he valued his new life,and not Anthony, but definitely the growing mass behind them.

He considered if making another wall with the grain around them would be beneficial. Their pursuers seemed to have a single minded interest in them and probably wouldn't be deferred for long. What he didn't know was what kind of card the man had received.

"Hey, hero, what was the card you got from killing the zombie?"

Anthony held the card up.

Finley squinted. It did look familiar. He should probably have asked more questions, unfortunately they kept getting interrupted.

The silvered design of the card displayed an axe. It was either a class card for a lumber jack or an axe skill. Either way he couldn't see much worth in it. Unless it was a woodworking skill, then he could really use it.

"Alright I would normally not attempt to form a card in a moving caravan, but do you consent to-"

"Will it increase my chances of not dying on my first day here?"

"Yes-"

"Then do it."

Finley grunted. He had expected that type of answer. When forging a card the situation one was in affected the card produced. All he could think of was that he would need some of his tools to complete the job. He grabbed his slate and then pulled out his bag of card fragments.

Dozens of common and uncommon fragments in a uniform size filled a small bag. He'd been saving them for a rainy day or a day like today.

First was the slate. He placed five of the rare fragments from the human together. Then he started the last fragment that he found at the bottom of his common and uncommon pieces. The slate was designed to house exactly six pieces. When forming a card he joined six pieces of the same rarity together: common, uncommon or rare. He'd never seen an epic or higher piece.

Cards with a higher rarity like Epic level cards and higher could only be found by taking them from others, soul decks or by merging cards of lower level. Merging lower level cards in a set of five created a class card, so long as the abilities worked together.

Upon placement of all six of the pieces, the slate began to glow and then the pieces turned into one card the size of his palm.

There was a flash of light from the effect creating a new card.