"The yard is clear. Do you want us to establish a perimeter?" Brandon asked.

Somehow the monks had all gotten the same idea of sleeveless robes. They all had spent their time comparing their guns with they waited on Anthony to tell them what to do next. Next to him, Sonya cackled.

"Do you feel confident that you can attempt to lure some of them away?" He asked.

"Me and the boys can handle this," Brandon said.

"Can you quit hopping around?"

"Apologies."

The monk walked alongside the horses.

"Can you draw all the zombies in a three block radius-" Anthony leaned back. "Hey Bob are you good with shooting fish in a barrel?"

"What?"

"I said-Fish in a-nevermind. Brandon take your crew and see if you can draw them away from the three block radius. Bob's team will then try to clear some out. I'm sending in the heavy artillery today."

Anthony patted Sonya on the shoulder. She was the heavy artillery. His holy bolts could devastate a single zombie at a time. She had the area of effect spells that cold take out a bunch. With Zan backing her up, the two would be able to extend the safe zone a bit further.

"Well at least I'm helping," Sonya said. She leaned against Anthony. "I slept the sleep of the dead. Whatever I said last night, I claim the fifth."

"There are no fifth amendment rights here. We're not even in America. You were never even an American."

"Blame it on American television, eh?"

"You guys have such strange words," Finley said from behind them.

"Yeah, I agree," Sonya said. "Why couldn't you guys have a queen or a parliament or some normal government? Heck we have a King back there."

"And a queen up here," Anthony said.

"You what-"

----------------------------------------

While the monks did their work. Bob, chosen ranger of Mork, had a mission.

He needed to clear a pathway to the closest card shop. Well he didn't need to clear one. He just needed access. And a hammer, which had been provided by Finley. Card stores apparently loved glass cases and had great locking doors. He also had Sophie and Stella to use magic on the roof so they could cut their way in.

The first thing he noticed upon getting back to when it got busy was how few zombies remained. The monks were really taking their jobs seriously. This time, they carried lots of rope. The rope bridge across the main road was going to be his baby it they could get it up.

Andrew the dwarf had given them enough sharp implements to nail the rope down on one side. Then they would have to find a way across the street. Ten meters of rope would be enough for what he intended. He would tie down a grappling hook on the far side to climb up to the next roof and fasten it there. Then it would be a tightrope walk until they got more rope attached.

One of the monks ran by, drawing a pack of zombies slowly southward. He waited for them to pass, checking alongside the major north south route.

Then he fastened one end to the building, using Sophie's help. Something felt right as he rappelled down the single story. He held on to the slack, picking up the pace as he jogged across. Then he climbed up as fast as he could, praising Mork for dwarves who had left a stack of crates in just the right place to jump from.

The rope became significantly less slack as he pulled it up to him. This roof was close to the previous design, with enough of a tilt to let the snow drop towards one of the roads. He couldn't see a clear best place to place the anchor. He grumbled, pulling out another rope that he then ran to the far corners. There he tapped two large bolts into each corner. He tied the rope off, connecting it with a series of sailors knots when Stella arrived.

She saw what he was doing and wordlessly checked his knots. Then she checked all four sides of the roof. Stella gave him a thumbs up before placing one more bolt in a far corner. She took off some of her own rope, tossing it to the next building. It was only about five feet away. She jumped the distance easily.

When she nodded to him, he went back to provide cover for Sophie.

Sophie made everything that was difficult about his parkour look effortless. Bob really wanted to tell her to stop showing off, but not wasn't exactly the time. Perhaps that evening, he would.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Bob wiped the sweat off his brow and steeled himself for the next part.

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"If we just dig a big trench," Zan said, gesturing at the map they'd scratched out in the dirt. "Right here, at the outer perimeter of our three block radius, we can lure them in. I understand that you're really wanting this to farm some card pieces. We want that too. I think that a lot of this hinges on how we extract the cards and card pieces."

"Right. If we use Bob's summoned creature, then it will do a lot of the work for us. And I have a ritual that acts as a magnet to card pieces. I have to stay still for about a minute though. So I would need to be protected," Sonya said. "My idea is to use one of the roofs of these reinforced buildings. The only problem is if they start trying to destroy the building or something."

Zan nodded. Both women were trying to figure out how to get spells into Zan's spell book. Zan had started with three spells. Sonya had instinctively known a whole branch of magic. Through trial and error they figured out a lot of the things that didn't work. Sonya wanted to say that they were ready to move on to the things that did work, but knew that you never said those sorts of things aloud.

"Do you want to try the earth moving spell again?" Zan said.

"Might as well. We're covered on three sides now. The zombies will have to go all the way around. The horses might not like it but this works as a defense from a mindless enemy."

"Yeah. Noted. Do you want to do the land bridge thing?"

Sonya nodded. The original wall between them and the town had been fortified by eldritch and druidic magic. At her current level, Sonya could feel her magic getting closer to the next skill up, no matter how far away it had initially seemed.

Rare Class Card: Warlock Level 4

Skills:

Eldritch Spellcasting Level 4

Ritual Casting Level 2

Enchantment Level 1

Survival Level 2

Medicine Level 1

Patron Pact Level 1

This card grants mana.

As a warlock, you may have a patron.

This is a soul card and cannot be removed.

It had gained a level as well. She felt slightly more competent. Two days of being fed properly had helped immensely. Being low on mana felt like being low on blood sugar. She didn't want to deal with either problem.

"The problem with moving dirt around is that it has to come from somewhere," Sonya said. "If I pull the dirt in from both sides then I'm robbing either side."

"No, the problem with moving dirt around is the mana it takes. I have an idea. Make the ground next to the wall lower. Use that dirt. Then we call green Legolas over here to shore it up."

"You noticed too, right? I'm not the only one?" Sonya said from the top of the wall. The next lot was thankfully empty, except for the patch of sunflowers that had grown prodigiously. There was something different about that area. She moved to create the raised dirt bridge so it wouldn't intercept.

Finley had been growing lots of sunflowers and yellow mushrooms. They would spring up around the bodies after he said a very loud prayer. It was probably a prayer at least. Otherwise it had to be some terrible cosmic joke.

It was in not language that she could parse. All heavy breathing and bleating, it made her feel like she was looking at a toddler melting down. Of course this wasn't completely true. It was some offering to the goat lord, he'd told her later.

Half party, half animal the goat lord asked his followers to mindfully send off the dead. She got a sense that this was something that Finley wanted to talk about; a special interest that he knew to hold back from telling people. He had been nothing but nice to her. Their magic worked together. She would ask him later.

"Have you ever talked to Finley about the flowers thing?" She said.

"Honestly, it seems like something that he doesn't want to talk about. I mean his entire family died. He hasn't really-hey wait- you said that you were a social worker?"

Zan did the classic wonder woman pose.

"I was."

"Aren't social workers like investigators?"

"You're thinking of detectives," Sonya said. The raised pathway was now wide enough to walk on. She considered leaving a gap. "Do you think that dwarves can jump? Or rather undead dwarves?"

"I think that is a bit of a useless distinction."

"Well, it's only useless if we don't consider how they might make it in. There's a good chance that we might stay here tonight if we can fortify it enough. I think that we need to really stock up here if we're going to make the caravan a viable long term thing."

"I hadn't thought about that. I barely am thinking beyond today."

"There's got to be more than just survival on your mind though, Zan."

"Honestly? No."

Sonya stopped casting, letting her mana free.

"We were summoned here for a reason. It might have been a fucked up reason, and we might be too late, but we have a chance here. We can do some good."

"The only good I see is killing zombies," Zan said quietly. "Everything else? I don't know what you want from me. You got Anthony if you want him. I'm just helping out how I can."

"Not everybody can be a hero. Not everybody should be charging into battle."

Cara, god of drug deals and overland transportation, smiled at her. In that moment, she could sense the pact between them. She called for a break and returned to the caravan, making sure that Zan was headed to eat something.

----------------------------------------

"Chin up, Sonya. You've got to look your best for the end of the world."

Anthony readily accepted her hug. Behind him a large map of the town was taking shape in ink on what had to have been someones stretched out drapes.

"Thanks. I see we've upgraded from the dirt model."

She silently thanked Stellas card powers for making him smell like he was in a Taylor Swift music video.

"Hey Sonya, did you ever watch any horror movies?"

"No, not really. I got too scared. I liked Evil Dead though. A bit of horror comedy seemed to be fine."

"You know that thing that they do where someone gets bitten and then they don't tell anyone?"

She pushed him back. The yard had grown more and more to look like the interior of a castle. There were many clean circles where the ground was flat as a board, a side effect of the cleaning power.

"You didn't get bitten, did you?"

"No. I just thought that you might want to check. I was going to take a break."

He gestured with his eyes to the mansion. In particular the top floor.

"And you wanted to check me for bites?"

"You could check me as well. It would require one or both of us to disrobe," he said, smiling with only his eyes.

"Ah. It couldn't hurt I guess. Then we can get some food after, eh?"

"That sounds lovely."