“What the heck is that?”

  Tiller asked the question as he stared at the bizarre machine that stood between them and the gates of Medley.

  It was fairly obvious what it was, but the question still needed to be asked. The machine was quite obviously some extrapolation of a steam train. It was huge and long. It was made mostly of metal, with wooden siding on the carts. It had massive metal wheels and spewed steam from a monstrous exhaust chimney. The only thing missing were the railway tracks.

  The shape of Cutter, riding on the Stone Robot-mobile, was already shrinking into the distance. Cutter had escorted them to the city gates in case of an ambush by Tonk’s faction of the ogres. They had agreed that Pod and Tiller could conduct their business in town and then await Cutter’s return to escort them home, hopefully with the composter. In the interim, Cutter would remain at the farm in case of another outside attempt to exhume the murdered Bonk.

  Pod stood beside Tiller, his hands resting on Reader’s prototype levitating hand cart. He just grumbled, “Ah, shit. It’s bad news for us, is what it is.”

  Reader had progressed to the point where he could tie a weave to a raft of joined tree trunks and keep them aloft for an extended time. He was still concerned that the weave would come undone, but his estimate for the duration of his new refined weaving would be measured in days or weeks rather than minutes or hours. Reader had not progressed far enough to make a weave that was strong enough on its own to bear much load, and certainly not far enough to make it self-propelling or steerable. Enter Pod.

  When Tiller loaded the harvested crops onto the raft it could bear no more than two sacks before sinking to the ground. Pod’s courier sigil seemed to synergize with the raft, however. He had been able to load the entire harvest onto the raft and, as long as he was the one operating it, the raft both stayed afloat and the weave held. For Reader it raised a fascinating question about the synergy between sigils and weaves. For Tiller it was a satisfactory solution to the first step of their transportation problem.

  Tiller said, “What kind of bad news?”

  Pod pointed to the train. “That there is Willy Rover’s steam wagon. That’s bad news for us because Willy Rover is a bulk goods trader, and food is bulk goods.”

  Tiller’s shoulders sagged. “Wait… he’s here selling food? To the stores?”

  Pod nodded. “It sure makes for a shitty day to come to town to sell a bunch of produce.”

  Tiller squinted, thinking. “Would this Willy Rover just buy our stuff? If he’s a trader? What’s he do, go from settlement to settlement picking up and dropping off?”

  Pod said, “Oh, he’ll buy, alright. But he’ll buy at wholesale. Needs a profit margin, so you’d get the worst price you can possibly imagine.”

  Tiller looked sorrowfully at the loaded sacks on Pod’s cart. “The harvest was already smaller than I expected…”

  Pod said, “Told you, if you’re not fertilizing the soil it’ll produce less and less over time. You’re the farmer, you should be the one tellin’ me.”

  Tiller continued, “With a smaller harvest we’re even tighter to make up the difference we need to make the thousand gold for the composter. And we need a few shekels left over to buy new seed. Shit.”

  Pod said, “You could always sell that fancy new sigil…”

  Tiller reached into his pocket and let his fingers brush the orb he’d found that morning, nestled in a ball of leaves in the throes of harvesting. A watering can symbol marked its face. It seemed the universe had a way of providing sigils to non-fighting classes too. When he’d shown it to Maeve she’d seemed pleased but unsurprised. She’d said there were stories like that—bakers finding sigils in a ball of dough, miners smashing a rock to reveal a new sigil. It wasn’t common, but she said when one was progressing on their path such prizes were sometimes released by the universe itself.

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  Tiller said, “I don’t want to. But if I have to…”

  Pod said, “The way this is going, it really might be a case of have to.”

  They visited Uppy the Bufo and Drake the Goblin, showing the food stores their wares. Tiller had decided, for now at least, not to visit the ogre-owned store. It remained an option, and Cronk’s friendliness might benefit his relationship with the operator, Zonk, but it felt precarious to be involving himself with the ogres at all if it could be avoided.

  Based on the previous sales day in Medley, Tiller had estimated he could sell their existing harvest for five hundred gold. Given that their kitty already contained 540 gold coins, this would have been enough to buy the composter and, with a friendly bulk discount, maybe enough seeds for replanting.

  Instead, Tiller found himself standing before Uppy the Bufo with his jaw hanging open. “Three hundred and fifty? Uppy! You can’t be serious.”

  Pod interjected, “Drake offered us four hundred and we told him he was crazy too. You can do better’n that!” Drake had, in fact, also offered three hundred and fifty coins.

  Uppy crossed her flabby arms across her bosom. “That’s the best I can do. Willy’s in town and he’ll offer me the same. Only reason I’m offering you the same is ’cause you’re locals and I’d like to see you expanding for the future. Willy’s only around but once or twice a month, if that. Suits me fine for you to offer more and offer it more often, but business is business and margins are margins.”

  Tiller fought a rising panic. “Uppy… I need more than that. I can’t sell all of this for three hundred and fifty bucks… unless… what if you took out an order on my next harvest too? I could let you have a discount on the next harvest in exchange for a deposit? You know? That would play well to your margins, getting a discount? I could sell you this for three-fifty and the next harvest for the same if you pay half of the next harvest right now?”

  Uppy’s little eyes darted around. He could see she was intrigued by the offer, her merchant brain calculating the fatter profits she could make with cheaper purchase prices. For a moment he thought she’d say yes. But then: “Sorry. I would, I really would, but I don’t know ya. You showed up here a couple weeks back with nice produce, and again today. Don’t get me wrong, I like you well enough, Tiller, and I’d like to know you better, but I can’t go forking out—how much? Half of three-fifty? A hundred and seventy-five gold coins? For a promise? You could be in another realm by the time I realize you’d taken off. There’s just no doing it.”

  Tiller bade her good day and wandered a little way down the street with Pod. The leprechaun was growing impatient. “I expected to be in Spinner’s by now. Just sell the bullshit and that new sigil and call it.”

  Tiller leaned against the wall of the nearest store and shook his head. “The sigil will make a hundred. All in, that’s four hundred and fifty. Put that with our kitty and we’d still not have the thousand we need for the fertilizer. Plus, if I go back without seeds then the farm stops making money.”

  Pod said, “Cutter can fuck off and make a couple hundred gold then to make up the difference.”

  Tiller sagged. “Cutter can’t go if we haven’t sorted our little problem out. Besides, I…”

  Tiller didn’t know how to articulate that he couldn’t endure another day or two of the tension. He’d been unable to sleep the previous night, every sound from outside convincing him that Tonk had returned to dig Bonk up or just burn down the farm and be done with it. He needed the composter. He needed the matter to be resolved. He could feel himself coming apart from the unrelenting stress of it.

  A shadow fell across them and Tiller looked up.

  The being before him was a hulking and confusing sight. It took him a moment to realize what he was even looking at. The being was dressed in very fine clothes. A silken cape hung from the shoulders, a fine shirt with lace collar and cuffs. A fantastic hat with a beautiful red plume, reminding him of the Three Musketeers. But the clothes, well-tailored though they might have been, fit poorly to the odd body beneath them. The newcomer was a construct, like Stone Robot. Only larger. Far larger, towering over Tiller. His body was nearly black. Tiller couldn’t determine if it was constructed of dark stone, cast iron, or some other exotic material. Where Stone Robot had a shiny marble panel for his eyes to be displayed, this newcomer’s entire face was composed of the same shiny material.

  The face portrayed in pixelated lights reminded Tiller of none other than Colonel Sanders.

  The big construct’s digital face split into a huge grin. “Say. I couldn’t help hearing you were having a bit o’ trouble back there. Hope you don’t mind my overhearin’. You got me thinking that maybe we could help each other out. Do a little trade together. The name’s Willy. Folks call me Willy the Rover.”