ZAN HELPED WHISKEY as she designed a posting. They stuck the posting up in Guygale's drinkery, that simple cold shack where he conducted his first interview and where most of the locals visited at least once a day.

  "I like it. Artsy. Finely detailed. This will get people's attention!" he said, letting Whiskey know how impressed he was with the posting, as they stared at it on the community board.

  "Oh, please! It is something we cooked up in ten minutes. Hardly a masterpiece. Easy, big and bold letters to get people's attention. Nothing more. But what shall we do now? Get started on the excavations ourselves? Borrow some equipment? I guess we will have to find Molly-Holly, right?" Whiskey replied.

  The idea of merely talking to Molly-Holly sickened him. Same for the mayor. He would like to avoid that at all costs.

  Whiskey was right, though. Gods-be, he knew how right Whiskey was on this point. "Per the norm, you're correct. Let's go and find her and ask about borrowing some tools. A wheelbarrow would be nice. Maybe some shovels for the workers we are going to hire? I've assumed they will bring their own tools, though," he said to Whiskey.

  "Never count on that," Whiskey said. "As a village boy, you know how finicky people of certain generations think. If this community is anything like the people who raised me, I am sure there's shovels they can borrow. Assuming the lord of the land isn't a feather-hole about that stuff."

  He could only shrug in ignorance. He knew nothing about how the local landowner treated his peasants. Or how this changed during wartime. In the end, they could only surmise, guess, and try their best to enact their will and life. As young people, their responsibility was to move and live until they hit a wall. It was during these wall encounters, where they had to slow down and consider.

  They left the cold shack and found the mayoral hut. This time, the interior was clean and clear of smoke. Even the alcohol smell seemed less invasive.

  "I wasn't expecting to see you all so soon. What is the matter?" Molly-Holly remarked.

  "Yes. We are in need of laborers. We have posted an ad at the cold shack. Would you happen to know if your community has any basic earthmoving tools we can use?" Zan asked.

  "To borrow?" Molly said, scratching her arm absentmindedly.

  Sighing once he understood what she was getting at, Whiskey said, "Or to rent?"

  "Oh. Sorry. To rent! Yes! We have some stuff. Most people from here are likely to bring their own tools, though. Never mind, that! Yes. How about for five coppers?" she said.

  "How about this, actually: for one-whole standard bill, we keep the tools for as long as we need them for our excavation purposes?" Jiehong said, entering the conversation.

  "A bill?" Molly-Holly asked.

  Jiehong nodded and removed, carefully, from his satchel exactly one standard bill of the local currency.

  He saw Molly's face light up. Was a single bill worth so much?

  "You have a deal!" Molly-Holly said as she extended her hand to accept the bill.

  "Excellent. Here you go," Jiehong replied. He handed her the single bill and followed her outside and to the physical training fields where, in a shack, they kept old digging tools.

  To reach the old shack, they crossed several well-kept fields filled with training courses and target practice dummies. For a settlement only large enough to warrant the '-gale' suffix, he thought it was impressive. Our home didn't have anything like these guys. And we were an actual town! I guess this is what happens when your people have a vision. Sucks they have incompetent leaders -- alas!

  Ignoring the couple dozens of masculine toughs who busily worked the field running exercises or participated in mock battles, Molly-Holly opened the door and said for them to take all they needed. The three of them, then, spent the next couple of hours relocating their newly acquired tools to the bunker-dig site. Small though the shack looked, its inside was crammed with a surprising number of crude instruments.

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  Having finished the last of the relocation work, he sat down and stretched his tired body while drinking from his pouch. "Amazing how a day can feel cool, yet you can feel so hot. Like a surprise summer day in winter, if you're overworking yourself, that is!"

  As a larger man himself, Jiehong would know what he was talking about. It did not surprise him, then, when his brother grunted and said, "Right? I'm in the best shape out of all of you -- which is saying something, yeah, considering the lifestyles we lead. Even then! It doesn't take very long for me to just lose the will to work. Two hours of work and I am shot! We all need breaks, is what I am trying to say. We don't have overseers on our backs ready to crack the whip, you know?"

  Breaking for lunch, the party had a simple meal of dried meats hydrated over the fire with diced onions and garlic. Basic supplies they had purchased before leaving Hope-Ridge. With salt and pepper, and sides of fresh river water, the meal kept them going and sustained them with healthy energy.

  "Not to act as that overseer cracking the whip, but we should get started again, yeah?" he asked.

  "Let's, please," Whiskey said. "Until the locals see our ad and come to us, we have no choice but to work. It would be a mistake for us to sit on our heels and do nothing while waiting for our army of imaginary workers. Besides, the more we get done by ourselves, the less we will have to pay. We shouldn't abuse our money. We should do as much as we can before resorting to spending. Remember, we don't know what the war is going to do to the economy..."

  "Nothing good, I reckon," Jiehong replied. "About the economy, I mean."

  "Exactly! Without further ado, let's get cracking'!" Zan intervened and directed his teammates. He blushed at his choice of words, 'let's get cracking!' where did that come from, he wondered? Probably from him trying to think of two responses at once before suddenly settling for a half-remembered verbal trick he heard from a long-ago festival performer.

  His verbiage and awkwardness aside, the day proceeded uneventfully. The trio worked the bunker's earthy shell. Once enough sedentary accumulation cluttered their workspace, Jiehong volunteered for wheelbarrow duty. Jiehong said, "I could use a break from jabbing at these rocks."

  By the time they had their evening meal, not a single local enquired about their ad. He looked over to their progress in unearthing the bunker within; he knew they still had a long way to go. "I hope we offered them enough," Zan spoke. He confided in his teammates wondering if they shared his doubts. "If we have to do this all by ourselves, we're practically handing to Mentality an 'activate all your golems' allowance."

  He looked. Although both Jiehong and Whiskey shared in his sense of urgency, they said, "Let's give it time. It's only been a day."

  The following day was much the same as the previous day. They worked until the sun went down, this time, he on wheelbarrow duty instead of his brother.

  While the labored themselves, he, Jiehong, and Whiskey kept mostly to their work. Until, one day, a couple of days whence they posted their ad, Whiskey said to the group. "Let's get a conversation going. It doesn't have to be a lot. Or deep. Just a simple conversation to pass the time. Or we could argue about something stupid... seriously, guys, I am so bored!"

  "Okay, okay! If that's how you feel," he said, letting down the wheelbarrow while on a micro-break. "How about arguing about something dull?"

  "That could be fun," Jiehong said, washing the sweat from his face with a rag.

  "Whiskey," he said, "since this was your idea how about you inaugurate our first pointless debate?"

  "I would love to. Let's see... hmmm... okay. I think I have it. How about this as our first ever comedic debate topic: 'Rock is my best friend. Yay or Neigh?' I am going to say, 'yay,' for the sake of argument. Shall you boys take neigh against me or are you deciding individually?"

  Both he and Jiehong burst out laughing. Though they quickly cooled their giggling, the topic suggestion had been so unexpected, neither of them knew how to react. Plainly obvious this debate was going to be silly to the extreme, he prepared himself for a fun time. 'Okay, that is fine,' Zan intoned. 'I thought silly debate meant a real topic of value to their lives, not abjectly invented silliness!' Still, he appreciated it as a welcome diversion from his overly serious life.

  Looking to each other and smiling, he was fine with going against the idea that rocks were better friends than people.

  "I'll start the debate," Whiskey said, as she picked her pickaxe. "Rock is my best friend because they are always here for us. No matter where we go, we can find some good old-fashioned rocks!" The sounds of banging away against the sediment then filled the air.

  Nearly done with his break, he inserted the rag back into his breeches. He said, "First point against: rocks are not human!"

  Although he then proceeded to dump the wheelbarrow into the dumpsite near their land, through the echo-beetles, he continued to hear the debate: Jiehong, now back at work himself, said as a point against Whiskey, "Not only are rocks inanimate, as Zan said, but being inanimate, they cannot hear our concerns or nourish us. Therefore, how can they be our best friends?"

  Whiskey snorted. "You guys' prize sentience over existence, then?"