The train team proved useful in solving most of the problems that we had. With a little help they all the box cars and passenger cars they needed. They found several locomotives that all ran on diesel fuel. The problem was the fuel. There was a fueling station, but it needed some sort of key to unlock the valves. No one had the key. The next hour or so consisted of people looking for any kind of manual to the machinery at the facility to find a way to bypass. Eventually we found a manual in a facilities office. It was only 1000 pages long, and written in German.

  After wracking my brain for a minute or two, I remembered I had a staff that had certain spells that I really hoped would help. I pulled out the staff from my pouch.

  Apprentice’s Staff of Arcane Knowledge

  Requires Arcane or Knowledge

  The staves are offered to students apprenticing themselves to a master wizard of a chosen arcane affinity. Knowledge staves are one of the more common staves found due to the universal nature of the abilities. Such a staff normally has 20 charges, though if it reaches 0 charges it will have a 50% chance to lose one charge from its maximum. All abilities cost 1 charge to cast. Charges return at a rate of 1/hour. This staff currently is at 4/17. All abilities are cast at a caster level of 20 and an effect level of 25. The spells are as follows:

  Read Magic

  Detect Mana

  Identify

  Assess

  Understand languages

  Perusal

  I looked over the abilities. I never bothered to look at understand languages or perusal. I was only desperate to know another language a few times, and perusal sounded like a throw away ability. I guess I should look at those details now to see if they can help me at all.

  Understand Languages-Tier 1-Arcane, Knowledge, Language, Academic, Intelligence

  When activating this spell the user can understand any legible written language that is not magically scrambled. This will not act as a cypher to decode hidden messages. The purpose is to simply allow the reader to read and comprehend the language they are reading. This only works on written languages. Does not work on magic script, mundane languages only. Lasts for 10 minutes/effect level (250 minutes per casting).

  Perusal-Tier 1-Arcane, Knowledge, Intelligence, Academic

  With perusal the user can skim through a book as if they had been reading it for one hour. It does not grant the user the requisite language to read the book, only to read a book in a language they already know. While this is an incomplete knowledge of the whole contents, it is useful to scan through a book for specific information. The Duration is 10 seconds per 100 pages of text. You do not need to open the book to use the ability, only be touching it.

  Fuck! Forget Cliff’s notes. The level of cramming for a test with perusal was absolutely insane. The possibilities were endless. It wasn’t deep learning, but if you used it to bone up on a bunch of text right before a test. However, I bet someone has invented a speed reading ability, or even eidetic memory. And the understand languages while taking a foreign language course. I was originally going to do grad school alongside the social media work for my grandfather, but these kinds of abilities would completely change how students studied and learned. 10 seconds per 100 pages. Now what I really need is a more focused spell that is more like a control-F function. That would make things almost too easy.

  For our purposes though, I just needed to use the staff to utilize understand languages followed by using perusal a few times to familiarize myself with the locking mechanisms. I sat down with the staff and the book and was about to get started with using understand languages, but I was interrupted by Nora tapping on my shoulder.

  “Neal, you don’t have to do everything! I was coming over to point out the staff option. You delegate so little to others.” She almost full on harumphed at me. It took me a moment, but she just wanted to play with the wizard’s staff. I rolled my eyes and handed the staff over.

  “Here you go. I’m going to figure out what we need to do to get those trucks over to the freight sections to move everything from one to the other.” I shrugged and got up to leave.

  “You could just have Brittney store all of it in her storage ring.”

  I shook my head, “No. That shouldn’t be the option. The instant that Ms. Conway finds out we have such an item with her stuff in it, she will demand the ring. She will have no problem using whatever pull she has with military brass to get it from us.”

  Nora gave a half shrug, “Eh, I was offering an alternative to speed all this up.”

  “I appreciate it, but I don’t think we can cut the corners that would save us the most time at the moment. I get it. I’m ready for this whole fiasco to be over already. I can handle the apocalypse, but add in bitchy billionaires, and being stranded. I don’t even know if the train runs to or through Fenton. I know it heads west, which gets us out of immediate danger. That needs to be enough.”

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  “Billy knows more about the train route than I do. You should have him show you if her can find a map.”

  “Billy knows more about the train situation. He never cared about trains in his life, except maybe to become a railroad tycoon on a boardgame.”

  “Ha! Don’t know what to tell you, but Billy said he had a plan for us if we can get the train going.”

  “Well, that’s unusual.” Maybe I needed to find Billy before too long. I guess if he has a plan for once the train gets going, it only reinforces the statement Nora made about me not having to do everything. I really felt like I delegated better, but if that were true, then I wouldn’t constantly be on the front lines of all of this. I waved to Nora, but she already stopped paying attention to me so she could use the staff on the giant Germanic textbook. That woman does love magic toys.

  From there I headed to the semi-trucks, but first I needed to touch base with Frank. He checked up on the connecting of the train cars so that we could get all this moving along. I guess I was delegating, but not enough. I could have gone and overseen the progress myself, but I really couldn’t be everywhere all at the same time. It wasn’t hard to find Frank. Go where the noise from lifting and moving things was. I stumbled upon a whole gaggle of people working to link up dozens of train cars together. I loved that I didn’t have to do much of anything at all on this part. I wasn’t a train expert by any stretch of the imagination. So, having others hook up multiple train cars together without needing to consult me or ask for directions was perfect. This was one of those times that I was glad others were here who were in charge of their area.

  Frank stepped over to me from the people working on the train cars. “Hey Buddy, I take it you need a status update?”

  “Yes, something else as well.”

  “Oh? With the train team out here helping with any technical issues, we should be okay to go in a few hours.”

  “I’m glad we can get the train set up to go quicker than I had originally hoped for. I have a complication. The woman who has the bodyguard also has 7 semi-trucks full of artwork to transport. We need to shift all of that to the train.”

  “Umm, Neal, I’m no expert at any of this, but if it takes up a ton of space, then we need to hook up more cars. Not sure how many more cars we can attach to this engine. They said the older locomotive they were able to start up would limit how much we could take.” Frank grimaced indecisively.

  The implication was clear that I needed to make decisions on who or what can go. Given that It wasn’t a question of people before things, I might need to decide how much of her stuff can actually go along. Brittney’s ring was the absolute last option to solve this. If Karen found out about it, I would have that confiscated by someone, and all our logistic flexibility would go out the window. If anything, I needed a few spares of those. In a perfect world, those items would get mass produced and everyone could haul all their own shit. I wasn’t going to solve anything by thinking in circles about this. I really needed Frank, Billy, Brittney, and anyone else I could get with me. Heck, first squad would be awesome to have. Too bad Katnessa is back in Fenton, as we could really have used her the past few hours.

  With a backdrop of distant explosions on various roadways to protect fleeing people, I decided that time really was of the essence. “Frank stay with me. I’m going to check on reinforcements. We need to investigate those trucks.”

  “No problem, boss. By the way, where is Nora at?”

  “She’s solving our diesel problem. Also, she’s having fun with the magic staff.”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “I’m a leave her to that.”

  Meanwhile, I called Billy. It rang twice before he picked up, “Hey Neal, what’s up?”

  “How’s Joe? Have you all started moving towards us, or are you still resting?”

  He laughed, “You have no patience buddy. Joe’s okay; well, he’s waking at least. Lucky for you, we left a while ago. Brittney’s spell zonked her out for about 20 minutes, but she is up and moving with us. It is a higher tier healing ability, and I gotta say I like our chances better with her having that ability.”

  “That’s awesome. More importantly, how close are you?”

  “We just passed a bunch of dead giant spider things. They look like nightmare fuel.”

  “You didn’t have to fight them. It was about as bad as you can imagine.”

  “Oh shit, that was you?”

  “More like Nora’s fireball, plus the rest of us.”

  “We have fireball! That is so fucking awesome.”

  “Just ask Frank how it was to get caught in the edge of the blast.”

  “No! He okay?”

  “He came through just fine. It was the fight after that nearly killed us.”

  “Damn. You need to take a beat and stay out of danger, my friend. You’ve been taking a shit ton of risks lately.”

  “I know you’re right, but still trying to figure out that whole delegating stuff skill. Sadly, I don’t think it is a system recognized skill.”

  I laughed at my own bad joke only to be told by Billy, “That wasn’t that funny, Neal.”

  “Eh. Just get here as soon as you can. Come around to the side with multiple semi-trucks. I could use the everyone if at all possible.”

  “No problem. Be there soon, bud.” He hung up. Which was my cue to start heading towards the aforementioned trucks.

  “Frank come with me. We are going to start heading to the trucks. It sounds like Billy and some of our other friends will be here soon.” And I started making my way back over to the trucks with Frank in tow this time. It is always an improvement to bring the muscle.

  I heard voices as I got closer, an argument to be exact. It sounded an awful lot like Natalie was having a pointed conversation with the truck guard. I round the corner to spot her cameraman filming her asking the guard questions about what kinds of art are so valuable to need to be preserved.

  “I’m a tell you again: Go Away!” The guard looked frustrated and frazzled. I could appreciate Natalie being able to do that to him. I liked her a lot, but she sure could be pushy when she really wanted answers. That is, if charm and cuteness didn’t work.

  “Sir, I’m asking valid questions. You want this stuff to take up an awful lot of room on the train, but aren’t willing to have a bit of oversight. As a member of the press, I am quite concerned.”

  “Well, ya can be concerned somewhere else.” His tone was escalating. He was a big guy that had both rifle and at least one sidearm. His body was tensed up, but I guess Natalie didn’t exactly care.

  “The press should be able to have access to the items. If only to substantiate the claim that they are important historical artifacts and amazing works of art.” She saw me out of the corner of her eyes and winked at me.

  “Sir, as the Captain, I do agree with this member of the press. This is a war zone, and there will be limited space on the train cars. We have to take every person first. We will need to check to see which crates are the most necessary to preserve.”

  He rounded on me, “You again! I don’t get paid enough for this shit.” He started to raise his rifle at me, but my slowly shaking head while nodding at Frank, who already had a large pistol and his shield up. I needed the guard to see that he was outgunned. He took one look at Frank and started lowering his rifle.

  He pulled out his cell phone and called someone, “Ma’am, I’ve got problems here by the trucks. They want to see inside. And they have me outgunned. A reporter is here. You need to come down here.”

  I didn’t hear the other end of the call, but his expression didn’t improve.