"You see, if we retrofit an actual ship, most of the work will be already done for us," the human said.

"Uh huh."

Finley was a bit preoccupied with changing the horses over again. He could bring the horses to water, but they were being divas.

Anthony wasn't being a diva, but he was asking for a lot. Even Andrew shook his head at the odd requests. Finley knew that they were piling up. He rather preferred to stay on ground where there was no risk of going splat.

"So what I'm trying to say is, where can we find a ship?"

"Ah. Well that's a question," Finley said. He turned back to the stout man with the gorgeous beard and long hair. "There is an inland sea southeast of here. It's quite large. Freshwater too. The only problem is that it's close to the Irumian capital."

"Ah. How far is that?"

"If we keep moving pushing it hard? A week?"

"A week?" Andrew said. "I could get a lot of projects done in that time. If you need me to prep canvas then it's possible. I would need almost a whole wagon just dedicated to storage. And this is assuming optimal conditions. Didn't you have a card power related to storage?"

"I do indeed."

"Care to expand on how it works for an old dwarf?"

Finley smiled.

"I have a storage power as part of my tinker class," he said displaying one card above his left hand.

On his opposite hand, he showed his other card.

-Epic Class Card: Tinker Level 3

Skills:

Barter and Appraisal Level 4

Identify Level 3

Animal Handling Level 3

Storage Level 3

King Level 1

As the last remaining Tinker you have the ability to induct new people into the family.

This is a soul card and cannot be removed.

Uncommon Card: One More!

The wielder of this card will gain the ability to increase their storage capacity, or the storage capacity of one item beyond what should be physically possible.

"The way it was explained to me was at the fourth level of the Storage skill, I would be able to create a little pocket place to store things. Right now, I'm able to store a bit more than should be possible in one of my storage bins. It's a large bin to be certain. I can feel the storage skill trying to make something with this card."

He let the cards disappear.

"So it's a card skill, modified by a card. How does it being uncommon factor in?"

"All things being equal, uncommon cards are stronger by an order of magnitude than commons. Rare, similarly an order higher. Epic, which is the level above, is more powerful than rare, easily."

"So these rare soul cards that we have, they are good? How rare is rare?"

"It wasn't unheard of to meet someone with an epic card. Rares were often sold and traded as well. My new accountant class card is an uncommon one."

Andrew blinked.

"Didn't you have some rant earlier about orc accountants?" He said.

"He was a bit drunk when he made the comments," Anthony said, smirking.

"Orcs are savage in a deal. They'll sell you the shirt off your back and make you think that you have made the deal of a lifetime."

"That's oddly specific. Did you get jilted by an orc or something?" Andrew said, leaning in.

"No. It's just something that traders say. We don't generally go into Orc territory unless we have a compelling reason to do so. They are always trying to out compete us. They were."

"I'm wondering how this works. You find an orc boyfriend and then he tries to make you join his multi level marketing campaign that somehow is making money, but oh no! The orc is some star performer and you're only holding him back and-"

Anthony had gotten more and more heated as he talked. When he stopped short, he blinked several times. Finley's jaw was working it's way back up. Humans were weird.

"Anthony, if you want to talk about this kind of thing; I may not be the best conversationalist," Andrew said. "But I'm here and I'm on your side."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Old girlfriends die hard."

They stood there in companionable silence for a bit. Finley understood his meaning, but couldn't relate to the girlfriend thing. Maybe one day he would take a traveling companion. He looked over the people working in the yard. A different kind of companion than this would be nice.

"I think that I'm going to take a bit. Stella and Bob are ready to clean up the cookware. Maybe I can help them a bit. We'll reconvene on this later, alright?" Anthony said.

He wandered off to the middle of the staging area. Finley and Andrew let the moment pass.

"It's a tough thing out here. A new world for all of us, beginning and for you? The old one ending," he said.

"Were you a poet on your world?"

"No. Just a dwarf trying to make his way through life. Some times you stumble, sometimes you fall, but you always gotta pick yourself up. That's how you're able to pick others up as well."

"I can pick you up if needed. You don't appear to be too heavy," Finley said, sizing up his companion. He gestured as if fitting the dwarf for a suit.

"I think that I'll pass. Let me go clean up my gear, and we'll see if we can design something around your growing storage capacity, alright?"

Finley nodded. The eccentric dwarf wasn't the same as any of the Irumian citizens he'd worked with. He was warm just the same and willing to work with them when push came to shove. He idly wondered how it would have been if a single person in the caravan had been born on the world.

That would have been awfully convenient.

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

"Hey do you want to hang out and distract each other from how terrible of a situation we are in?" Stella asked.

"Do I ever!" Anthony replied.

"Great! There's a crate of potatoes for you to skin. Here's a knife that seems like it has only been used as a set piece," Stella said, handing him a large ornate white knife. It felt like it would break without much fuss and not complain too hard."

"So how are you holding up?" Stella said. " You've only got the weight of our survival on your shoulders and all right? Not too much."

"Not too much. That sounds about right. Just a little thing called making it to the next day. I know Bob told me about your mission to the card shop and I appreciate all that you're doing."

"We appreciate you taking the leadership role. I sure as heck don't want it. I thought I'd be able to bluff my way through this or trick my way out of it. It's hard when the fantasy smashes into the reality of it."

Anthony began to slowly peel back the potatoes, one at a time. It had seemed tempting. When Yil had spoken to him about a noble purpose, he agreed in principle. This stark reality was far different than anything you could have ever imagined.

"Ah, I'm sorry. Maybe we should talk about something else?"

"No, you're good. I want to feel normal again. I'm sure we all do but what even does that mean? There is no normal for any of us. Even for Finley who was born here. Everyone he knows is dead. This whole situation is fucked."

"And?"

"And-"

"This whole situation is fucked and I have a trumpet," she said, miming playing a brass instrument.

He couldn't help but giggle a little bit about the absurdity at all. He went to adjust his hair. Wearing it down was new and reminded him that someone had stolen it from him, the same time that they stole his attention.

"You don't actually have a trumpet do you?" He said. "Because I wouldn't put it past the dwarves here to have created such an instrument."

"I did in fact find one. Apparently one of the monks knows how to play?"

Anthony's brow creased. The monks were doing so much work for them right now. The heavy lifting of being the bait while Sonya played tower defense, had not gone unnoted. He had all the warriors as points on the wall as well. They were trying to level skills, the only tangible way to progress in this world. Well besides the salvage operations.

"I would hate to hear that he is some sort of accordion guy as well. There's nothing that the end of the world needs more than a bard with an accordion."

"No comment."

Stella completed whatever she was doing with the pots she had ready for the stew. She began to take from his pile of potatoes. Then she handed him a sack of onions. He didn't miss her smirk. He wondered if the onions here would have the same effect. It didn't really matter in the end for him, as he began to really let them have it.

"You're letting those onions know who is boss, I see. So have you given any thoughts to what kind of second class card you would want?"

"I was thinking monk. I would be far less useless. All I have really is my holy finger gun spells and two variations of healing. I spend four years in nursing school, then two years learning to be a midwife and now all of my magic is automatic. If I had these powers back home, I could do so much good. I might even be able to cure cancer or something."

"Well that's an ethical dilemma that I never want to have to think about. How was delivering babies?"

"It was wonderful. It's such an experience. I would take them through a home birth and it was just so satisfying to hand a healthy baby to mom. And I had Anthony Junior working with me-did you know that there were only about thirty working midwives in Brooklyn? Thirty that did house calls that is. All the others were strictly in hospitals or birthing centers. And we were the only father son duo."

Stella blinked.

"I have to admit that I never thought about it. I never intended to have kids after all that time. I just got so worked up. There were so many problems that seemed intractable; problems that just giving people money would solve. I couldn't imagine bringing a kid into the world."

"Ah yeah. I get that. Most of my moms had enough money to pay me out of pocket or through their insurance so I had a far different experience than you I wager."

"That makes them sound like sugar mommies."

"I was a working man, being paid a professional rate. What's a little sugar between friends, eh?"

Tears trickled down his face as he finished cutting the onions. There was no difference here, onions were assholes on every world.

"Indeed. Well there won't be any sugar in the soup, at least."

She slid a tray of carrots over to him. He went after them after wiping his tears away.

"I think that I want to head back to the way station just for the stream. Also for the distance."

"Have you been thinking about where we are going tonight? We can hole up here. It might spook the horses to be inside of a earthen castle, but we can keep them safe."

"I think my biggest problem is water. There's so many of us that keeping fresh water is going to be a problem. Plus there's always the possibility of cholera or something else worse in the water, the longer we go on. One of my spells deals with diseases so I'm less worried but-"

He gave her a look.

"It's tough to talk about diarrhea in mixed company, huh? You're worried about cholera then?"

"I can't just go and sanitize anything. I mean, we can boil some water but that's about all. It's a good thing we got that beer. That will also help."

"Yeah, about that," she said, "Are you sure that we should be keeping it around?"

"It'll be just fine," he said. Sonya popped up, from behind. She placed both arm around him and he let himself relax.

"What will be fine?" Sonya said.

"The amount of beer?" He said. He could feel her tense up.

"Yeah. So long as it keeps coming. We will be fine," she said, still holding onto him.

If it was important to her, it had become important to him. He made a mental note to bring any beer barrels to be inspected.

"Are you going to go head to the front?" Anthony said. "Bob's nap is almost done."

"How can you tell?"

"Because he is about to meet with his mid-afternoon snack. If I'm not wrong, Stella has made him something to wake up."

"When you say made something, did you mean a giant mallet?"

"I said that she made something. I didn't say what she made."

Thankfully for Bob, the Mallet was not nearly as tough as Anthony expected.