I sat up on my bed and thought back to Blink. “What do you mean hunting coins?”

Blink sent me images of her grabbing bags of coins from people’s waists. Then her running and skipping away. Then she sent me her, grabbing a whole leg of something from a kitchen as she ran through giggling.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, and thought back. “Blink, you can’t be doing this. Those coins aren’t yours, and neither is that food. Food costs coins here.”

A few minutes passed before she sent me another image of her putting the half-eaten leg of meat back into the kitchen. Then she showed me a guy bumping into someone and walking away with their coin purse. The next thing she showed me was her taking that same coin purse from the thief and skipping off.

I felt her push a thought into my head. “See Daddys everyones doing it!”

I sighed and shook my head. Blink was a lizard, a crazy, murderous priestess of Chaos. Worse than that, she had never been someplace that might didn’t make right. This was the first day in town, and she started to steal.

I sent over to Blink. “You can’t just take anything that you want. We have to buy things here not just take them. Its not right.”

A few moments later, I felt her pouting. Then she showed me that she was heading back to the inn we were staying in. After a good five minutes, I saw the door open, and no one came in. Blink had come back.

She closed the door and appeared. “I don’ts understands. Whys can’ts I just takes what I wants? I not kills them.”

I sighed. “Blink its what makes the world work. We have to respect what others have so that they respect what we have. If we don’t then someone bigger and stronger will take from us.”

She nodded and asked, “Buts you just takes what yous wants. All the horses and weapons and the rings.”

I nodded. “That’s a little different. That is the spoils of battle. They attacked us we beat them and so we got the loot.”

Blink perked up when I said that. This worried me because I was sure she got something wrong from what I was trying to teach her. I could see it now her going out to try to pick fights with people weaker than her so that she could kill them and take the loot. Or worse, since she seems to like a challenge, she would try to fight people too much more powerful than her.

I shook my head. “I don’t want you going out and starting fights that’s not how we do things here. Also we don’t want to kill people in town unless we can’t help it. There are guard who will capture the people and put them in jail.”

Blink cocked her lizard girl head to the side and asked. “What’s jail?”

“Its a room with bars on the window so that you can’t get out. They put you in there for a while because of stealing or hurting people. Its small and not fun at all. Not someplace you want to go.”

She nodded. “How long if you steal?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t know in this city it could be a lifetime or it could be a day. Some places back on my world use to cut off your hand if you stole. So just don’t do it.”

Blink sat there for a while until someone knocked on the door. Then Blink jumped to the wall and vanished. For all the work that I had done, I still had yet to figure out stealth. I just couldn’t vanish like that, which I would love to do.

I opened the door to Kasidy, who said. “Your turn.”

I nodded and grabbed my stuff. “Thanks!”

Then I headed to take a bath. This room was different than anything I had seen before, even in the safe rooms. This bathtub was a large wooden barrel with slightly warm water. Next to it were a few pitchers of water and an old-school laundry washboard.

I shook my head. “I got to come up with a good way to heat water. Would make baths much better.”

When I got back to my room, food was in there, along with Kasidy and Blink. “Hey, rooms kind of cramped, but let’s figure out what we are doing.”

Kasidy scooted over on the bed, far enough for me to sit down. The stew was better than what we had been eating. They just had fresher food to work with. Also, I was guessing a higher level cooking skill.

I sat my empty bowl down. “Okay so tomorrow what we need to do is find the right place to sell this gear off to. Then we need to find a map that can show us where to go to get to Cloudia.”

Kasidy nodded. “While we have a good bit of supplies we might be better off if we check our gear here as well.”

“Yup. Lets get you some new gear while we are here. Something better for the trip we are making. If you need more or better paper we can get that as well. What else do you think we need to get?”

Kasidy thought a moment. “Some verity of food. But we also need to think about how we are going to travel. If we are going to go back to walking it will be slower but our gear will be better protected in the room. If we get a wagon we can go much faster but then we are just leaving it out.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that is a good point. How much further each day do you think we could get with the wagon?”

“About half as far again as with walking. So three days travel for every two.”

“What about on just horses and no wagon?”

“I don’t think thats a good idea. You aren’t that great on a horse and neither am I. While they could make our travel time much faster I don’t think the risk is worth it. Also we wouldn’t have a way to carry much in the way of supplies.”

I chuckled. “We haven’t been carrying much in the way of supplies now. So why would we start?”

Kasidy gave me a smile that told me a whole story of how dumb I was. “Well if we are taking horses we need to make sure they have food and water. Right now your waterskin has done enough for us. But if we are out on those plains we need to take water with us. Or plan on where we are going very carefully. Also most of the places we can stop to water might have other people. So we might still need gear for setting camp.”

She took a deep breath and kept going. “Also traveling on the roads will mean more people. So if we are going as light as we have been it will look odd. People can’t just get more food every few days. They have to stop and hunt or gather it as they go. So most just get a wagon for a trip like this and load it with what they need.”

I leaned back on the bed a bit. “Okay, I see your point but if we go light and hit the watering holes it should be find.”

She shook her head. “Right except if it starts to rain and we only have bed rolls it will be a bad night. Its almost cheaper to buy one horse and a wagon than 2 horses and gear. Then we have the room for a tent and water.”

I thought for a few moments. “Okay I get what you are saying but if the wagon breaks down we have to fix it. Wouldn’t it be better just to get the horses and deal with things?”

Blink butted into the conversation. “Daddys gets wagons. Sleeps ins it.”

I turned to Blink. “Only if we get a big one could we all sleep in it. I’m not sure if it wouldn’t be better just to hike.”

Blink smiled. “Wagon Daddy wagon! Can bring yurt!”

I shook my head. I still didn’t think I had the manna to shut the thing down. It took 100 to make it close up, but I didn’t know if I could pull from my other gear to make that happen. If I could, then that would be great, but I couldn’t go back till we left the town.

I sighed. “Okay so if I can get to a dungeon I can go see if I can get the yurt. If so we sleep above ground the rest of the way. Even if I can’t get the yurt to us I guess a wagon would be the best bet.”

I thought for a moment and said. “Okay so a horse and wagon and get me a horse to ride as well. Having the mobility would be helpful but only get it if we can afford it. Tomorrow we sell the loot, find a map and then finish planing. I expect one more night here in town and then we are gone.”

Kasidy smiled and got up. She grabbed the bowls and set them on the floor outside the room. Then she waved.

As she closed the door, she said. “Night, Dungeon Lord.”

I shook my head. Then I grabbed my sleeping fur and got ready for bed. Tomorrow was likely going to be a full day.

* * *