"So was that your girlfriend?" Daniel asked. “She’s hot. Except when she’s a bear. Then she’s scary. Actually, I get the feeling she’s scary all the time.”

"Ex-girlfriend," Gambit reminded him.

“Definitely scary, then.”

Rick gritted his teeth. They had finally found her, and then she was gone again. He needed to... needed to what? She was obviously better geared and equipped than them, and she knew what she was doing. They were more likely to need her protection than the other way around, and they had no idea where to find her.

It was good to know she was alive though. Not an NCP. More than alive, she was kicking butt apparently. Since when had Sam liked tanking? She’d played Everwar with him, and she’d been good at it, but she’d gravitated to the support roles and never wanted to put in as much time as he had.

He was embarrassed how poorly he’d done in the dungeon. Go figure, his first time trying to raid heal and he’d pull Sam as his audience. She must be laughing at just what a bad job he’d done. Maybe she wouldn’t want to find them.

Gambit cleared his throat. "She knows where we are. She can find us."

"We were going to move the caravan," Rick protested. “Should we wait?” He wanted to find her, but he didn’t want to waste more time. Not while Technique was still out there, no doubt blasting through the levels and getting ready to take on bigger challenges.

Gambit shrugged. "She's been through all of this, she’ll know our next step." He pointed towards the stone spire in the distance. "I mean, unless there's more than one starting village."

Daniel clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, man. She'll figure it out. Don't be down."

"I'm not!" Rick started to protest, but the others just shook their heads and smiled. Rick glared. For the hundredth time, he told himself he was stupid for feeling protective. Sam was doing fine. She was his ex. She hadn't even seemed that happy to see him. Which annoyed him.

Slate came over from the other side of the camp. "Did you get the token?"

Rick and Gambit glanced at each other. “The what?”

Daniel cut in. "The caravan token! Yes, we got it. It was on the loot list that popped up. Didn't you guys pay attention to the briefing?"

Slate threw up two of his hands. "Thank you! Alright, hand it over and let's get this thing upgraded."

Dr. Schneider came over smiling broadly. "Welcome back to camp."

Rick pulled out the token from his inventory and held it up. It was a metal brick the size of a pencil box with an intricate logo carved on the surface.

He inspected it. [Caravan Upgrade Token. Provide this to your manager to upgrade an encampment to a caravan.] The object had some heft to it.

"Why is it so big?" he asked.

Slate shrugged his lower shoulders. "It goes in your inventory. Who cares how big it is?"

Rick held out the token to Dr. Schneider, who took it with a smile. "Oh, thank you. This will be very helpful." For a moment, his expression clouded, and he stared at the object in confusion. Then it dissolved from his hand, and he smiled again. "Very helpful."

Glowing light filled the entire camp. The piles of packing crates and equipment, as well as the retinue stations, like the smith, shone so brightly, Rick had to blink and look away. Then the light faded.

It left behind a camp transformed. Around the outer edge was now a row of massive wagons. They were enclosed boxes, like a gypsy caravan of boxcars, each with three pairs of wheels. Several huge six-limbed beasts of burden were gathered together in a corral of rope and wooden stakes nearby.

"Wow, that's pretty awesome," Rick said. Gambit just whistled.

Dr. Schneider rubbed his hands together. "The possibilities are endless! There's an entire series of upgrades you can get, and that's even before we hit the next tier."

Rick tried to listen as the man enthused about the features of the caravan, but his mind was a whirl with the implications of their last dungeon.

Sam was alive.

What's more, she was doing well. She was better geared and twice their level. And she was a tank. They really needed her on their team. Why was she running solo? They had only met a handful of the NASA crew. Presumably others had survived and remained combat viable players. So where were they?

"--And each person gets their own bunk!"

Rick interrupted Dr. Schneider's explanation. "Doctor, I've been thinking we need to look harder for the other survivors of the Martian expedition. Do you have any ideas how we might go about that, where they might have ended up?"

Dr. Schneider's smile faltered. His brows drew together in concentration, and he spoke slowly and deliberately. " I don't think I can help you very much. I'm having a hard time keeping my head clear."

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His face relaxed and he smiled. "Except where it comes to this caravan. Everything we do to improve it will help all of us. We're going to want a lot more retinue, so the more of the Mars expedition we can find, the better. But as for where to find them..." His smile slid sideways off his face. "You should talk to Dr. Martel."

"Okay, thank you," Rick said. He felt a twinge of guilt as he studied Schneider’s worried face. He’d done this, turning him into a retinue member. No. No, the system had done this, and if he wanted to keep his own free will he needed to stay in the game. He cleared his throat. "Tell me about those bunks again."

Dr. Schneider perked up immediately. He led Rick over to one of the large wagons. They were about the size of an RV. The animals that were going to pull them were as big as… as a triceratops, which was about the best comparison Rick could make. They even had three horns on their faces.

Schneider led Rick up the stairs and into one of the wagons. Daniel and Gambit were already there. "Check it out, boss, we've got our own little bunk space, each of us."

“I bet he snores,” Gambit said, and Daniel laughed.

There was a very narrow hall lined with doors. Several stood open. Inside each was a little cabin, like on an overnight train. Each boasted a tiny wardrobe, a bunk, and not much else.

Rick tried to lean in for a better look, but his head bonked into an invisible barrier. A message popped up. [This space belongs to Combat Player Daniel. This space is not configured for outsider access.]

"Ah yes," Dr. Schneider said apologetically. "That one's already been claimed. Here, try this one over here."

He opened a door on the other side of the hall. Rick stepped over and looked in. As soon as his head passed through the door frame, a pop-up appeared. [This living space is unclaimed. Do you wish to claim it? Confirm/Cancel.]

The others down the hall looked the same, so Rick clicked [Confirm.]

Immediately a small menu appeared in the upper corner of his interface. [Your personal space. State level, 1. Access setting, default. Real occupancy, no pets.]

There were some other blank slots in the interface that might have been for the wardrobe to hold inventory. Rick didn't feel like exploring it just then. He stepped back out into the hall where Dr. Schneider was waiting.

"We want to relocate to a new town. Do you know how we can make that happen?"

Dr. Schneider nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes. There's just a little preparation, and then we can be on our way. Do you want to start now?"

"Just a minute." Rick went down the hall and stepped out of the wagon. There was a small porch at the end. Above, a little ladder led up to seats on the roof, presumably for the driver, and another down to the ground. When he climbed down, Slate was waiting for him. "Is there any reason we can't relocate camp now?" Rick asked the Martian.

“No reason, unless you want to do more grinding around here."

Rick shook his head. Seeing Sam had him antsy. She was way ahead of them, and he wanted to catch up as quickly as possible. He wasn't going to be able to do that in Noobtown.

"How long will it take to get underway?"

Slate hesitated, his confident smile fading slightly. "I've done a lot of research, but..."

Rick picked up what the Martian left unsaid. "But you haven't actually been in a caravan that relocated. I get it."

The Martian shrugged again. "Okay, just let me send a message, and we'll get started."

Rick took a few minutes composing a long message to Colonel al-Raman. He detailed as much of what they had found out about the caravan system, game guides, and the dungeon as possible, but left out their encounter with Sam.

When he closed the message interface after sending, Dr. Schneider was waiting expectantly. "Are you ready now?"

Rick nodded. "Let's get moving."

"Excellent. Who do you want to assign as caravan guards? We may be attacked while we're traveling, and we want to be ready."

“So, uh,” Slate said, scratching his head with his upper left arm. “This is, uh, kind of a new experience for me.”

“I gathered that,” Rick said, as Dr. Schneider’s face went blank again. A moment later, the expression cleared. Schneider looked up, smiling.

“We can hire mercenaries! Either on a per-trip basis or as permanent retinue members but that’s not available to us yet.”

“How do we get those?”

Schneider’s face went weird again. “Information not acquired –” He shook his head, looking upset. “What are we talking about?”

“Never mind.” Rick turned back to Slate. “This is your first time as a game guide in how long, exactly?”

Slate looked as embarrassed as a rock creature could. His skin turned a slightly paler shade of brown. “Well. Thing is, I’m pretty well studied on the theory. And I spent more time than you could possibly imagine in that bar asking questions every time someone knew came in. Which wasn’t that often but after a couple million years it adds up.”

“But practical experience?” Rick asked wearily.

“When you put it that way…” Slate scrunched up his face and shuffled his feet. “That is… one. This one. My first. I’ve been studying!” he added quickly. “And some of the old timers from the first couple generations came back here to retire. Half my bar tab is from buying them drinks and asking what they learned. I know what I’m doing!” he insisted.

Rick decided to let the matter drop. Nobody else had been eager to sign up as their guide, after all.

Dr. Schneider spoke up, sounding like he was reading off a script. “The encampment caravan system is the basic tool for a party moving around this world. Individuals can just up and go, but when a party moves from place to place, they bring their encampment with them.”

Rick considered his words. “That sounds like a lot of trouble. Why bother?”

“You’ve seen it already,” Slate replied. “This retinue system provides benefits. Not much now, but your smith is going to be able to repair your gear, maybe even make new stuff. And there’s all sorts of other things that can be unlocked—an alchemist making you potions, specialized smiths that make armor or a particular kind of weapon. Those are just the tip of the rockbud. The top players in the system?” Slate’s eyes lit up. “They have moving fortresses. Huge things that can hold hundreds of people, multiple parties even, if it’s attached to a guild. And the retinue possibilities are…” He shook his head.

“Are what?” Rick prodded, sensing hesitation.

“Well, I don’t know,” Slate admitted. He hesitated again, then threw up both sets of hands. “I’ve never been on one, have I”

“You said the caravan system was necessary for us to get back to Earth,” Rick prompted. He felt like he was getting better at reading Rork body language. Slate was hiding something.

“Partly, I said that to get you moving and motivated,” Slate sighed. “It’s true. Before you can unlock the ability to move from one planet to another, you’ve got to unlock the next level past this one. Turn it from a caravan – which enables you to take your retinue along with you – to a fully-fledged flying machine.”

“Why?” Rick frowned, rubbing his chin. “Wouldn’t that mean only people in parties can leave one planet for another? How do solo players like that hunter we saw manage it?”

“How should I know?” Slate snapped. “Why send a crazy space probe from planet to planet promising to connect them into a galactic network? As far as I can tell, a party’s vehicle—or a guild’s mobile base—is the essence of that galactic network.”

“This is way too complicated. How could anyone know this without outside help?” Rick thought of all the times he’d looked up details for a badly-written quest on an outside website infested with adware and putrid comments sections. “Never mind. That… tracks, actually.”