Josie woke up and readied herself for the day. She still had to look for the princess, and once that was done, she could help Jack.

She checked his room before she went into their office and checked the map. He was still up north. She imagined he was looking for the Dark Rider, and some kind of solution to the problem it presented.

She planned to have her breakfast and save the princess before he got done goofing off.

She noticed the number of Montrose members had gone down. She wondered if Jack had something to do with that. She decided to ask when they caught up with each other.

How many more would they have to kill before they broke the organization to pieces?

She decided to put that out of her mind. She had other things to get done before she could hunt the rest of the Montrose. Once she was done with them, she might be able to go home and give back her watch.

Did she want to go home?

That was a question she didn’t have an answer for at the moment. Being uprooted with no way of telling people you were all right didn’t seem good to her. It was like putting yourself on a milk carton with your loved ones missing you because they didn’t know where you were.

She didn’t want to do that to her family. She wanted to at least send a message to say she was all right.

Jack would probably get all the blame like he used to when they were kids. If she did one thing her mother didn’t like, her friend got blamed for it. When she snuck out at night, Jack. When she punched Becky Becorra in the eye, Jack. When she got drunk for the first time, Jack.

Her mom probably thought Jack took her virginity.

She shook her head. She had to think about her current problems. Solving them seemed more important than a family she might not see again.

And she still had the Ducklings to think about before she did go home. They were her responsibility until she could get them on their feet and doing what they wanted to do in the world. Arming them, and teaching them how to defend themselves seemed the best way to do that.

She sniffed the air as she walked downstairs. She smiled at the smell of pancakes. That was a breakfast food from home that had always seemed extra tasty. Did they have syrup?

They might have some type of sugar, or jelly, but not syrup. She doubted maple trees grew in this world. If they did, she could ship syrup all over and addict people to her sweet, sugary ways.

She decided that if they did have maple trees, it would have some weird name like Wood Blood Extract Trees, or a word with too many glottal stops and not enough vowels.

“Good morning, ladies,” Josie said from the kitchen door as she paused at the

opening. “Smells good.”

“Just something I picked up,” said Elaine. “We have lessons, then clean up.”

“I’m heading up to look for the princess,” said Josie. “I left notes for you and Jack in the office. I half-expected him to be back by now. I might swing by and see if I can track him down before I hunt down the missing girl.”

“Let’s have breakfast before we start our day’s duties,” said Elaine.

“Excellent,” said Melanie.

They gathered their food on plates. Milk was poured from a receptacle kept in the icebox. Coffee had been brewed as a second drink. They took their places at the table.

“This is good, Elaine,” Josie said after digging into her food. “Better than it smelled, and it smelled wonderful.”

“I’ve picked up some skills for cooking, and accountancy,” said Elaine. “The Tower was good for that at least.”

“Have you thought about opening your own inn?,” asked Josie. “You would be rich just on the food.”

“There would be various legal obligations to be settled before I could open any place of my own,” said Elaine. “It’s almost three gold pieces just for the basic taxes.”

“Then there’s the guilds who will all want their piece of the pie, and whomever is running the local undermarket so you can get supplies on time,” said Beatrice.

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“So you would have to deal out more than three gold pieces,” said Josie. “But if you wanted to do it, it could be done with someone to deal with non-inn problems.”

“I would say adventurers, but they haven’t been impressive so far,” said Angelica.

“They do get to explore,” said Laura. “I would love to do that.”

“Going places no one has ever been is a good ambition,” said Josie. “But you will need to be able to defend yourself, and know how to survive on your own away from people.”

“Some hunting and tanning skills would be useful,” said Matilda.

“Matilda is right about that,” said Josie. “You’re going to have to kill and prepare your food in the wild.”

“Archery,” said Alicia.

“I didn’t forget,” said Josie. “Master Harp said he will find you a teacher. If he can’t, I will.”

“No,” said Alicia. “Archery for Laura so she can hunt better.”

“Good point,” said Josie. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Thought about what?,” asked Melanie.

“If Laura wants to explore, she’ll have to kill her own food,” said Josie. “An arrow is a good choice for that.”

“I hadn’t thought about that either,” said Laura. “Good call, Alicia.”

The younger girl nodded.

“What about the rest of you?,” asked Josie. “If you know what you want to do, you can start learning how to do it now instead of later.”

“I want to be a witch so I can turn people into frogs,” said Matilda.

“I want to be rich,” said Beatrice. “I don’t want to live in a grungy stall with no way to live.”

“I want to have a farm with some sheep and cows, and potatoes,” said Angelica.

“I don’t know what I want,” said Melanie. “I can’t think of anything better than this.”

“You’ll see something you will want to have, and then you’ll work on it,” said Josie.

“It still won’t be better than this,” said Melanie.

“You’ll be surprised,” said Josie. “One day, you’ll be old and gray and want to lose your weight because you’re too fat to get out of bed.”

“Not that long,” said Matilda.

“Don’t be a diplomat, hon,” said Josie. “You’re not good at it.”

Josie enjoyed the meal. Eating with her own family had always been stressful and full of recriminations. This was a lot better in her opinion.

“I’ll clean up while you guys go to your class,” said Josie. “Then I’ll be out of town for a bit.”

“If I wanted to be an adventurer, could I be?,” asked Alicia.

“Yes,” said Josie. “But it’s a dangerous job, and you have to be ready for that.”

“I can be ready,” said the girl.

“Then go work on that,” said Josie. “Go ahead, girls. I can handle some light cleaning before I head out.”

The Ducklings assembled in their adventurer clothes and formed up with Elaine. They left, talking about what they needed to do. Melanie complained about not being whisked across the city again.

Josie shook her head. Everyone wanted a free ride.

She cheated on cleaning up the breakfast dishes by switching to Zatanna and working a few spells to put everything up, clean everything, and make sure the fire was out in the fireplace. It meant some extra work for the girls for dinner, but she thought that was acceptable since no one would be home for hours.

She went upstairs and got her map and picture of where the princess had been. She could use that when she got closer. She locked up and teleported as far north as she could.

Josie landed on small hill overlooking a meadow. Other hills ran off on the other side of the grass. A rabbit with horns looked at her before running off. She checked her watch as she walked forward. She decided to let her persona go and walk for a ways before doing another teleport.

She wanted her watch to be close to full power when she arrived at where she thought the Princess would be. She doubted she would have an easy time settling things. Everything had gone her way so far, but she knew that trend couldn’t continue forever.

Someone else was bound to win sometime. She just had to be ready to minimize any damage to her when that happened.

Hopefully Jack would find the guy and shank him with something explosive and burning.

Josie walked until she heard her watch return to full power. She checked her map. Then she called on Zatanna again and shot for a spot close to where she wanted to be.

She let the persona go as she looked at the town below and to the left of where she had landed. It was close to the sketch she had drawn the night before. She could see several landmarks from her drawing down there but they were wrong.

She scanned the town and realized she was on the wrong side and that’s why

everything looked wrong.

She smiled as she walked to her left to circle around in the direction she wanted. Once she was lined up on the street she wanted to walk, she could walk in and look around for the princess.

She had a feeling the princess didn’t want to be found. She decided to put that in the back of her mind. She had a job to do, and the best way to do that was find the object that needed to be moved, move the object, walk away.

The last thing she wanted was to get in the middle of some family feud that might have greater ramifications than she wanted to deal with at the moment.

First she had to make sure she could talk to the princess and figure out why she was in some town instead of back home. Once she had some more information, she could figure out how to do the rest.

Maybe she should have waited for Jack. He was a better negotiator than she was. He turned on his charm, and people fell over themselves trying to help him out.

She couldn’t get a cup of coffee from Starbuck’s without threatening one of those slack jawed gomers with a punch to the face. Jack got extra whip cream and sprinkles.

And they all smiled at him like he was dating all of them.

Josie shook off her irritation. She had a job to do. One more job down would be one more step closer to going home.

She felt Tony Robbins would have a field day with the quest system. It was perfect for a self help style guru. It kept track of everything you needed to do to turn your life around.

And if you didn’t work on the quests, they got angry at you.

She walked into town, hoping things would be easier than what she thought would happen. Hope for the best, expect the worst was a maxim one of her literary heroes had laid down and she had taken it to heart.

And Reacher was never wrong.

She wondered what trouble she would be making for the people in town. Did

they know about the princess? Did they hold her against her will?

Was she going to have to fight the whole town seemed more relevant the more she thought about it.