The Riotfish crew was packed into the Battle Wagon, along with enough artillery to start a minor war. Mrs. Meade was driving, and with Fleer taking the first shift as navigator, Oliver was forced to sit in the back.

While there was technically more room in the back than in the passenger seat, it was crammed full of the scuffed, worn, durable fiberglass equipment crates holding their ordnance. Crates had been fitted under the benches, and every available slot.

"Better to have it and not need it," Fleer had said, "than to need it and not have it."

"Okay yeah, thanks, Confucius," Little Timmy had said.

Oliver was twisted nearly sideways on one of the benches lining the sides of the Battle Wagon, crammed between a wall and a crate on one axis, and Little Timmy and the rear door on the other.

D'khara and Roger sat on the bench across the way. A row of crates stacked three high made it so that Roger could only barely see over the top to Oliver and Little Timmy, and D'khara could only see the top of Oliver's head.

Roger bounced on the unpadded wooden bench in excitement.

"We're going on a field trip!" he chirped. "So many wonderful blandishments! Hand cheeses! Extraordinary clam traps! All designed to breathe at me!"

D'khara gripped the edge of the bench with both hands. Objectively, he knew that Roger was energetic and excitable. He was not bouncing on the seat specifically to annoy D'khara. Bouncing and rattling D'khara's skull with every impact. Bouncing with squeaking and making excited chirping noises and--

"Roger stop that!" he hissed.

"Okay!" Roger complied.

A salty voice floated over from the other side of the crates.

"Yeah, like you've got it bad. You don't have a literal elephant laying on you. An elephant that smells like farts and old tires."

"That is a very hurtful thing to say," Oliver rejoined, "and also inaccurate."

Although Oliver hung precariously over Little Timmy, he strained as he tried not to actually lean on the excitable mercenary. Little Timmy was taking it with his usual grace and composure.

"Trade you," D'khara said.

"I have to pee again!" Roger said.

"You just went pee! Before we left!"

"Ha ha! But pee it is!"

"Trade you," D'khara called over to Little Timmy.

"Fine," Oliver said. "I'll come over. I'd be happy to spend some time with Roger."

There was some shuffling and grunting as the Riotfish rearranged themselves, D'khara scuffling around one side of the crates, and Oliver carefully picking around the other, trying not to crush anybody.

After all the shuffling, Little Timmy lounged next to D'khara, his arms crossed.

"It's better on this side. Now we can keep the weirdos on the other side."

D'khara grimaced. He didn't necessarily agree with the sentiment, but he was happy to have some breathing space from the weirdos for a bit.

"How long is this trip?" D'khara asked.

"Literally a thousand miles," Little Timmy replied. "Like, actually literally a thousand miles."

"With Mrs. Meade driving the whole way." D'khara groaned.

"We could tell her that it's time to go fast." Little Timmy grinned wickedly.

"Nope!" D'khara cut in. "We're fine! I bet we've already come 100 miles. A tenth of the way there. Making progress."

Conversation floated over the crates from the other side.

"How do you do Roger?"

"My belly button smells weird," Roger replied.

"Oh?"

"It's made of ham!"

"What is? Your belly button? Your belly button smells like ham?"

Roger cackled.

"No! Silly! Ham doesn't smell!"

"Hmm. I disagree. Speaking of ham, did you know I once ate a whole pig raw?"

"Triangle sounds!"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Yes. It was supposed to be quite a treat. It wasn't."

"Mothers give you treats."

"Very true. My mother was very kind. She kept me safe, in our clan. I was the smallest. Really, I shouldn't have been allowed to live, but she protected me."

"Angery? With flies?"

"Well, yes. Father wasn't involved with us. Not that he was a bad father, mind you, that's just the orc way. My peers were uninterested in me, since I was too sickly to participate in most of their activities. Mother could have gotten in trouble, but I think she had me classified as some kind of house elf to skirt the law."

"Oliver? Oliver Oliver?"

"Yes Roger?"

"I have, to ride on the outside now."

"Um. Outside?"

"Of the van."

"Um. Perhaps you should ask Mr. Fleer."

"I'm going outside! With daisies on!" Roger yelled.

"Okay," Fleer called back, distractedly scrolling around the map. "Have fun."

"Does he realize we're in a moving vehicle?" Oliver managed to say before Roger threw open the back doors and swung himself onto the roof of the Battle Wagon with a gymnast's grace. Even though they were traveling well below the posted speed limit, the rush of wind drowned out Oliver's voice.

"Knock when you're ready to come back in!" he yelled at Roger before slamming the doors shut.

There was the clunking sound of Roger pacing around on the roof for a minute, then it settled down.

"Finally some quiet," Little Timmy said, breaking the silence.

There was a sound of a steady stream of liquid from the roof, as though a hose had been turned on it. Mrs. Meade had to turn on the windshield wipers. Oliver buried his face in his hands while Little Timmy cackled.

"How long is this trip?" D'khara asked.

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Although it was not mathematically possible that the trip took an eternity, D'khara felt he could write a credible dissertation disputing that. Every joint and bone ached from the steady rattle of the Battle Wagon, and his temper was strained to fraying by Little Timmy and Oliver and Roger and Mr. Fleer and Mrs. Meade and the whole world and everybody in it and every thing.

Roger had been in and out of the van a dozen times throughout the trip, only a few of those when the Battle Wagon was actually stopped. Little Timmy had taken the opportunity of the long trip to start expounding some of his many conspiracy theories. Oliver had taken a brief nap during which he snored so violently that Mrs. Meade kept shifting to make sure the CV shaft hadn't broken and shredded the transmission. Mrs. Meade, of course, drove with painful slowness, which gave the Riotfish the opportunity to be exposed to the rich variety of horns from many, many, many other drivers on the road.

As they were nearing the end of their mathematically questionable journey, Fleer twisted around in his seat.

"So, D'khara, we're getting close to the cabin. Is the caretaker or guide or whatever going to meet us there?"

The bottom dropped out of D'khara's stomach. In the rush to get everything ready for the trip, he'd completely forgotten to book someone to take care of Mrs. Meade.

"Yep," D'khara squeaked.

"Excellent! We'll be there in about fifteen minutes. We'll be able to walk around and stretch our legs."

"Yep! Ha ha! Good times! I will go in and take care of everything! Don't you worry!"

"Ah, you've got someone on site already. Makes sense. Thank you for taking care of that, by the way."

He could actually feel the percent chance of passing his 90-day evaluation drop into the single digits.

D'khara sat and tried, by force of will, to stretch the remainder of the trip into an equally mathematically impossible eternity while he frantically tried to figure out what to do.

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The clerk leaned back in surprise as a broad nose popped over the counter, followed by two beady eyes and a huge nimbus of bushy mustache.

"I have a cabin booked," said the face.

Clarence the desk clerk had never seen a dwarf before.

"Um, a cabin?"

"Yeah," said the dwarf. "You do that here, don't you?"

"Oh yes, sir," Clarence replied, anxious to start into his spiel. "Welcome to Wildglen Cabins, where We have comfortable accommodations overlooking--"

"Don't care. Can you take care of someone for us?"

"Um. Take care of?"

The dwarf jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at a little old lady who was wandering around the lobby looking slightly concussed.

"Her. Make sure she's taken care of. Entertained. Manicures. Whatever."

"Oh, sir, I don't know if we can really--" he was cut off as the dwarf slapped a credit chit up onto the counter.

"For you personally," said the dwarf, pointing at Clarence.

The deep purple credit chit changed the clerk's demeanor drastically.

"Absolutely, sir, we would be thrilled to make sure that her stay is the most memorable of her life! We have local tours, spas, historic sites of interest, fine restaurants, theaters..."

"Whatever. There's another one of those for you if she's happy when we get back."

"Yes, sir! Splendid, sir! We will take the utmost care of your, um...?"

"Think of her as grandma to a bunch of terminally rowdy grandkids. We will be very unhappy if she's unhappy."

"Yes, naturally," Clarence said, his gaze wandering to the door of the lobby. Outside squatted a van that looked as though it had been on the receiving end of a direct missile strike. Standing next to it was a man in a suit arguing with... was that an orc!? "We will... utmost care... yes, sir." He fumbled a key out of the rack behind the counter. "Here is the key to her cabin."

The eyes glared at him for a moment.

"I'll, uh, just show her to her cabin, how about, and make sure she's all settled in."

"Good thinking," the eyes replied. They stared at him for another long, hard moment, then thankfully turned away.

"Mrs. Meade? We got you a place to stay. Like we said we would? This man is going to show you the way."

"Oh, you boys will be careful, won't you? I'll worry about you all ever so much."

"We'll be just fine! We want to make sure you're taken care of. Mr. Fleer said to call him if you need anything. He won't be able to answer right away, so you can just leave a message."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be fine, dear. Thank you so much."

"Thank you, Mrs. Meade. You take care."

She tottered in close and D'khara steeled himself. Mrs. Meade enfolded him in one of her generous hugs as he stood, ramrod-straight and immensely uncomfortable.

Dwarves are not, by nature, huggy people.

After inflicting her affection on him, she waved goodbye to the Riotfish as D'khara stumped out of the lobby and swung into the van.

"Got her squared away?" Fleer asked.

"Yep. Made sure she'll be well taken care of," D'khara replied, firing another grim look at the clerk inside, who smiled a sickly grin and waved back. Clarence the desk clerk was now in possession of nearly half the money D'khara had earned as a Riotfish so far. "She should have fun."

"Excellent! We'll leave the Battle Wagon here for the duration of the op. It won't be any use in the swamp. I've contacted a local to take us the rest of the way to Daugereaux. He should be here shortly."

"All right," D'khara replied, handing equipment and weapons down to Oliver. "We'll try to have this stuff ready by then."