The problem with this book is that the beginning just isn’t snappy enough. A tome this size is a real commitment, and it didn’t really have a compelling start. But what could you expect with a title like ‘Golems and other animated constructs in logistics’ by the apparently very sage Marty Bunion.

Mark slid the book under the counter as the outer bell rang. It wouldn’t pay to have Miggins see him reading on shift.

With a small sigh of relief, he saw it wasn’t the manager. That relief turned to ashes as he recognised Toby, Jack’s little brother, and knew roughly what was coming next.

Mark greeted him with a friendly nod. “Hey man, where’s Jack?”

Toby gave him a sheepish shrug. “I’m sorry man, he’s been cursed again. Well, hexed really. I thought I’d better come and tell you he won’t be in later.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Ugh, seriously? I told him to steer clear of dating witches. Go on, what is it this time.”

Toby grinned sheepishly. “He’s a massive newt. I put him in the bath before I came to tell you.”

Another eye roll. He was going to have to find a new way to express his feelings as he was getting dizzy. “Figures. When he’s less amphibian tell him that I’m not covering for him anymore. Seriously, I warned him already about this, and we’ve got two shipments due in today. Big ones. That I’m now going to have to solo. Not to mention the six more that need to be collated to go out. I’m going to be here late again.”

The young man tried to interject on his brother's behalf - “But Mark...”

Mark cut him off abruptly. “No, man. Seriously. I’m going to be here alone, again, thanks to Jacks weird occult taste in women. I’ve warned him. I warned him when he was hexed into a caterpillar, I warned him when he was cursed with the clumsy, and I warned him when that one without the hat set him on fire. And that’s just this month. Witches are bad business, but no, he’s just got to keep chasing them.”

He’d worked himself up now and was feeling more than a little agitated about the whole thing. It must have shown on his face as Toby backed away; hands held out placatingly. “I’ll tell him. I promise.”

And with that, the youngster fled out the door, the little bell chiming his departure.

Mark sighed and slumped on his elbows. After thirty seconds of face-in-hands time, he picked himself up and checked the first manifest again to see what was arriving.

From ‘Reclamation and Distribution Co’ he’d be receiving: Twenty-two crates of potions, a dozen potions per crate. Assorted types. Three barrels, all weapons. One of swords, ten count. One of daggers, thirty count. One of assorted maces, ten count. Five crates assorted adventuring gear; ropes, fire starters, water skins and the like. Three crates assorted tools.

Not a bad delivery; even without Jack, it’d only take him an hour or so to unload and check.

The second manifest was a more painful read.

From ‘Bobs’ Craft Supplies’ he’d be receiving: Ten crates raw ore, six copper, four iron. Twelve crates coal. Two crates of ingots, again copper and iron. Three spools of textiles, two of cotton, one of wool. A full cartload of assorted wood, hardwood and soft. Five barrels of cooking oil. Two barrels of turpentine.

That was going to be a heavy one. He’d have to unload the metal from the crates a bit at a time. At least they only got the Bobs’ delivery twice a month. He knew that Miggins would never go for a golem, which was a damned shame as it would make this job so much easier. He’d try to sell the idea some more when he could. Yes, they were expensive, and yes, they took quite a lot of magic to run, but it’d be worth the expense in the long run, and he wouldn’t have to haul every single goddamned crate.

He sighed some more and reached for his empty pocket before stopping himself. He did a lot of that these days. He’d been here for what, three months now? It was still so hard to get rid of the subconscious action to check his phone. His hand still drifted to his pocket occasionally, and a complex mix of emotions hit him when he realised what he was doing.

His phone battery had been flat when he arrived here, and there wasn’t any electricity – not in the way that he understood it anyhow. So, it stayed in his bedside table; a small, shiny, inert rectangle. One of the few ties to his past that he’d taken from the wreckage.

The outer bell rang, and he straightened up. A large man, ruddy faced with magnificent whiskers stomped in. “Carts outside, me mate.” The man proclaimed. Followed up with, “Got anything to drink?”

“Hi Johnson. Give me a second and I’ll be out.” Mark responded with a nod. “There's some ale in the breakroom, you may have to clean a cup out though.”

The ruddy faced man nodded and headed through to find the ale. At first Mark had been horrified at everyone's consumption of ale all the time. This guy was a delivery driver and was pretty much always tipsy. He’d realised eventually that even if the guy was totally wasted, the mules did all the work anyway, and the mule and cart collision rate was pretty much nil.

He’d tried to like the ale, but it was both too watery and too bitter. Instead, he stuck to what he could draw from the water pump, which was, unsurprisingly, more watery but less bitter, even if it did taste faintly of iron. Man, he missed soda.

Reaching under the counter, he rifled through some rags, grabbed the hidden hip flask and took a small sip. The stamina potion within tingled in his mouth, down his throat. Fuck it was good, like drinking liquid sunshine on a cold day. He felt the energy course through him, energising his very bones. He’d love another sip, but he was running low. With reluctance, he stashed the flask back under the counter.

Mark bounced out of the warehouse and eyed up the cart. The two mules were unhitched and docile, munching on whatever was in the trough that Johnson had filled. One turned to watch him as he did a quick count of the crates. They were stacked haphazardly, and he couldn’t tell how many there were from a glance. With yet another sigh, he got to work.

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At least he’d had the foresight last month to create a wheeled dolly to put the crates on. Miggins had even smiled once he’d seen it work. Mark had fought tooth and nail for the materials to put it together and had finally broken through the miserly resistance by commissioning the bits himself, proving the concept and ‘selling’ it to the warehouse. Miggins took absolutely nothing on faith.

He grumbled internally, cursing the already well cursed Jack. The unloading wasn’t so bad, not since he’d acquired the Heavy Lifting skill. He was sure he could lift over a hundred kilos now, no sweat. The real issue was trying to check everything off while Johnson chatted and chatted and chatted. Usually, he could get Jack to run interference and keep the old coot company while he rifled through the goods. Not today.

On cue, Johnson reappeared with a grubby mug in hand. “So, hell of a run it was today. There's roadworks as you come out of Hereton, they’re cobbelering the roads or something. Not sure what shoes has to do with it, but there's a big old diversion around some fields and they got the whole lot closed off. Mhmmm. Going to be weeks before they’re done cobbelerising or whatever, apparently.”

Mark nodded and made vague ‘I’m listening’ sounds as he worked, loading up his dolly with crates from the cart. The route was flat enough, so he could do this in a couple of trips to the warehouse. Fourteen crates and one barrel on the dolly later, and Johnson was still talking about the roads. The lack of audience participation didn’t seem to phase the guy. The driver followed him the short distance to the big doors of the warehouse, never stopping the torrent of words that fell from his mouth, even as Mark lined the crates up inside.

Dolly empty, he went for the rest with Johnson still in tow. As he dutifully unloaded the other crates and barrels, the verbal barrage became more interesting as the ruddy faced man moved on to reporting the threats that had been sighted nearby. The town they were in, Footman’s Burrow, was a frontier town, and threats were commonplace. To the east lay the untamed wilderness, where adventuring parties went to get rich or die trying, and various monsters did the same in reverse.

A large pack of dire wolves was spotted near Hereton, though they hadn’t yet attacked anything. A raiding party of goblins made a feint at Loudmouth on the coast to the south, before torching a couple of farmsteads nearby instead before being driven off by adventurer supported militia. Cultists of Kerrang were becoming more frequent, and a few villagers had disappeared from Thereton, likely taken into the forest nearby. Normal stuff for these parts, really. Nothing immediately threated Footman's Burrow itself by the sound of it, and that was a relief.

With all the crates and barrels lined up in the warehouse, Mark grabbed a pry bar and started to open the containers. One pass opening, then grab the manifest and another pass to check them off. Adventuring gear, assorted, two crates, check. Barrel of swords, ten count, check. Crate after crate. All fine and dandy. The fifth to last crate was a potions crate, and it was filled with a dozen luminous yellow potions. Stamina potions. Fuck it, he needed another before his flask ran out, and this stuff was expensive. He snuck a look at Johnson, who was finally watering the poor mules, still chattering away.

With the prybar he gently tapped one of the potions on top. Not hard enough, the potion just sank a little further into the wood shavings they were packed into. Another side glance, still clear. He hit a little harder, and the round bottle cracked. Half the potion seeped right out, staining the wood shavings. A little too hard, maybe. Oops.

He called over to Johnson. “Mate, one of these stamina potions is broken. I can’t accept it in this state, look at it.” The driver wandered over and peered in. “Oh yeah, so I see. That’s a shame. They’re generally sturdy and well packed those bottles. Perhaps there was a fault in the glass. I’ll tell them over at the depot that one didn’t make it and amend the bill.”

Mark nodded. “Cheers Johnson. Give me a second while I get rid of this glass before I look through the next crates.” With Johnsons cheerful assent as the man turned back to his mules, Mark gently picked up what remained of the potion bottle, careful not to let any more of the liquid spill. He hurried it through to the counter, hiding it next to his book in the little nest of scrap fabric. He’d decant it later.

Victory. He hid his smugness as he got back to work. The half a potion he’d just creatively acquired was worth around a month of pay. And goddamn was the stuff good. He briefly longed for another sip before pushing the feeling down. He was already juiced, if only a little. He had to ration it. Everything else on the delivery was fine, and he reported as such to Johnson. The driver scribbled on a little notepad, handing the sheet and stick of charcoal to Mark. ‘All fine delivered, bar one broken stamina potion.’ it read. Mark signed it and handed it back.

“OK.” Said Mark. “I’ve got two for you for Thereton, five crates total.”

Five minutes, five crates and what felt like five thousand words from Johnson later, and the ruddy man was back on the cart, driving the mules through the dirt road that ran through the town.

Mark sighed in relief as he watched him go. That went well. Time to sort the stamina potion before the other delivery arrived. He was partway through decanting the potion into his flask when the outer bell rang. With a thrill of panic and a quiet curse, he managed to sneak the flask and broken bottle under the counter before his new visitor arrived.

A lanky bespectacled man appeared in the doorway. It was Charles, from the bakery next door. The visitor cleared his throat to assure Marks attention before asking his question. “So sorry to bother you Mark, but we’ve a panel come loose at the back of the shop. Could I trouble you to borrow some nails?”

This was the second time the guy had been in to ‘borrow’ nails. He had a drawer of them that he’d rescued from old, knackered crates that wouldn’t make another trip. The town had a blacksmith and nails were cheap enough, but obviously he was an easy target, and closer than the other end of town.

“Hi Charles. Did you bring me a roll?”

The man blushed a little, rocking from foot to foot. “I’m so sorry, all of today's bread is accounted for. I’ll bring you one tomorrow, I promise.”

He’d said that last time, and still no rolls. Whatever, he just wanted rid of the guy. Mark turned to the drawer at the back, rifling through the junk and fishing out four nails.

“You owe me two rolls now, OK?” He said, as he handed them over.

Charles nodded, the spectacles bouncing on his nose. “Yes, yes of course. Thank you for the nails.”

Charles fled, 'borrowed’ goods in hand.

With a sigh, Mark got back to his decanting. When the broken potion was empty, he ran his finger around the shattered glass and licked the residue off. Damn, it was good. He’d just tossed the glass into the waste and was about to resume his usual duties of leaning on the counter and daydreaming, when the outer bell rang again. That’d be the Bobs’ delivery.

Back to work.

Hours of backbreaking hauling later and he was knackered. His skill took the edge off a bit, but didn’t seem to give him energy or power, more like it concentrated it. He’d need to eat a tonne later to balance himself back out. But Bobs' was put away, and six more orders were ready to go out tomorrow.

Miggins turned up in the final hour, pottering around and slowing Mark down with a little bit of pointless micromanagement. He knew how to pack a crate, for god’s sake. He’d been doing it for over a decade – though admittedly, only in this... World? Place? Dimension? For a couple of months. But the core concepts were the same.

The day was over for now. He’d be back later, as he lived in the back of the storeroom. Miggins had agreed to this in return for quite a steep rent, but it was either this or the tavern, and the tavern was more expensive still. For now, he knew where he wanted to be. He picked up his satchel, shouted to Miggins that he’d be out for a couple of hours and strolled into the street without waiting for a reply.