They had a plan.
This was important.
Paul had written it down.
This made it official.
Madison had copied it neatly.
This made it legible.
The Paladin had reviewed it for legal concerns.
This made it lawful.
Ellie had checked the route.
This made it possible.
Luviana had spoken to the locals.
This made it informed.
Jimmy had packed the supplies.
This made it significantly heavier.
Jo Mama had promised to follow the plan.
This made everyone nervous.
The job was simple.
A group of smugglers had taken over an abandoned tollhouse on the eastern road.
They were moving stolen medicine across the border and selling it back to nearby villages at impossible prices.
The local guard knew.
The local magistrate knew.
The Paladin had the warrants.
Everything was legal.
Everything was organized.
Nobody needed to improvise.
Paul held up the paper.
“We enter through the rear gate.”
Jo nodded.
“Rear gate.”
“Ellie disables the alarm.”
“Ellie alarm.”
“The Paladin and Madison handle surrender.”
“Talking.”
“Luviana stays near the prisoners.”
“Heal.”
“Jimmy secures the medicine.”
“Bag.”
Jimmy nodded.
Paul looked at Jo.
“And you stay with me until we know whether force is necessary.”
Jo nodded.
“Stay Paul.”
Paul lowered the paper.
“Excellent.”
Jo smiled.
“Good plan.”
“Yes.”
“What if goat?”
Paul paused.
“There are no goats in the plan.”
“Okay.”
Madison looked at him.
“You should have answered differently.”
“I know.”
There was a goat.
It stood directly in front of the rear gate.
Jo pointed.
“Goat.”
Paul stared.
Madison folded her arms.
“I warned you.”
The goat stared back.
Ellie whispered:
“Maybe it moves.”
It did not.
The Paladin approached.
“Hello.”
The goat lowered its head.
“Careful,” Luviana said.
The Paladin stopped.
Jimmy reached into his bag.
Paul looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Food.”
“For the goat?”
“Yep.”
“What kind?”
Jimmy produced a carrot.
Paul stared.
“Why do you have a carrot?”
“Could need.”
Jo whispered:
“Goat plan.”
Jimmy tossed the carrot.
The goat followed it away from the gate.
Paul looked at his written plan.
Then added:
GOAT.
They entered.
Ellie found the alarm wire.
Rolled.
4.
She disabled it anyway.
“Skill,” Paul whispered.
“Skill,” Ellie replied.
The prisoners were in the cellar.
The medicine was upstairs.
The smugglers were eating breakfast.
Everything remained perfectly manageable.
Until Jo heard crying.
She stopped.
Paul nearly walked into her.
“What?”
Jo pointed.
“Kid.”
Paul listened.
Nothing.
“I don’t hear-”
Jo was already moving.
“Jo.”
She stopped.
Actually stopped.
Looked back.
Paul saw the question.
Not defiance.
Not impatience.
A question.
The same thing she had learned to give him before changing the plan.
Paul listened again.
There.
Faint.
Behind a closed side door.
A child crying.
Paul folded the plan.
“New plan. Go.”
Jo went.
The locked room contained a boy.
Maybe nine.
Thin.
Bruised.
Terrified.
Jo immediately sat down.
Small.
As small as a seven-foot half-orc could make herself.
“Hi.”
The boy pressed against the wall.
Jo did not move closer.
“Jo.”
The boy stared.
“What’s name?”
Nothing.
“Okay.”
Paul arrived behind her.
Then Luviana.
Luviana knelt beside Jo.
“May I come closer?”
The boy nodded.
She approached.
The bruises were old.
Not severe.
But enough.
Luviana’s expression changed.
“Where are your parents?”
The boy pointed downstairs.
Prisoners.
Jo looked at Paul.
The plan disappeared from his mind.
“People first,” he said.
Jo stood.
“Yep.”
The smugglers discovered them thirty seconds later.
Their leader shouted.
The Paladin shouted back.
Madison attempted diplomacy.
Someone fired a crossbow.
Diplomacy ended.
Jo remained between the child and the door.
Paul filled the hallway with magical light.
Ellie came through a window despite already being inside the building.
Nobody understood why.
Jimmy rolled a barrel of stolen medicine down the stairs.
The Paladin caught it.
Luviana shielded the boy.
Madison hit a smuggler with her lute case.
She looked down at it.
Then at Jo.
Jo gasped.
“LUTE BONK.”
“It was the case.”
“BARD BONK.”
“Do not make this a thing.”
Too late.
The fight lasted four minutes.
The plan lasted seven.
When it ended, the smugglers were tied up.
The prisoners were free.
The medicine was recovered.
The boy was reunited with his parents.
The goat had returned and was eating Paul’s written plan.
Paul watched.
“No.”
The goat chewed.
“That took me an hour.”
Jo stood beside him.
“Plan delicious.”
Paul looked at her.
She smiled.
He sighed.
“At least somebody followed it.”
The goat ate REAR GATE.
Madison laughed.
Ellie checked that no smugglers had hidden among the villagers.
Paul handled the paperwork.
Jo carried crates.
Nobody told them to do those things.
They just did.
Paul noticed this sometime around sunset.
Once, he would have assigned everything.
Jo would have wandered.
Jimmy would have acquired something.
Ellie would have insulted her dice.
And Paul would have attempted to control the entire situation through increasingly detailed lists.
Now he looked up from the magistrate’s receipt.
Jimmy had already separated the medicine by type.
Ellie had checked the locks on the healer’s storehouse.
The Paladin was explaining the arrests.
Luviana was treating an elderly woman.
Madison was translating for a traveler.
Jo was sitting in the dirt with the rescued boy.
The boy held a wooden sword.
Jo held another.
He swung.
Jo blocked.
He laughed.
Paul smiled.
Nobody had assigned that either.
They left the village the next morning.
The road was quiet.
Jo walked beside Paul.
For a while, she kicked stones.
Paul read while walking.
He had gotten disturbingly good at this.
“Paul.”
“Yes.”
“We had plan.”
“Yes.”
“Plan went wrong.”
“Immediately.”
“Still worked.”
“Yes.”
Jo kicked another stone.
“Same thing?”
“No.”
“Little?”
Paul smiled.
“Maybe.”
Jo looked ahead.
At the others.
“Party good.”
“Yes.”
“Paul good.”
“Thank you.”
“Ellie good.”
“Yes.”
“Jimmy good.”
“Alarmingly often.”
“Paladin good.”
“Yes.”
“Elf good.”
“Which elf?”
Jo frowned.
“Both elf.”
“Fair.”
She walked a few more steps.
Then:
“Jo good?”
Paul stopped.
Jo kept walking for two steps before realizing.
She turned.
Paul looked at her.
There it was again.
The question underneath the joke.
The one she’d gotten better at hiding because now she knew they could see it.
“Jo.”
She waited.
“You are exhausting.”
Jo’s face fell.
Paul continued:
“You are impulsive. You have an adversarial relationship with doors. You consider property damage a form of problem solving. You have attempted to turn me into a tactical delivery system.”
“Asked now.”
“Yes.”
Paul smiled slightly.
“You ask now.”
Jo straightened.
“You listen when it matters.”
She said nothing.
“You see things the rest of us miss.”
Nothing.
“You’ve saved every person here.”
Paul looked toward the others.
“More than once.”
Jo’s eyes dropped.
Paul stepped closer.
“And when something goes wrong, you don’t ask whether it was in the plan.”
He smiled.
“You ask who needs help.”
Jo swallowed.
“That’s good?”
“Yes, Jo.”
Paul’s voice softened.
“That’s very good.”
Jo opened her arms.
“Smart hug?”
Paul sighed.
Then stepped forward.
“Yes.”
Jo hugged him.
Carefully.
His feet remained on the ground.
Paul noticed.
He did not mention it.
When she let go, Jo wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Dust.”
Paul looked at the damp streak.
“Obviously.”
“Road dusty.”
“Extremely.”
They continued walking.
Ahead, Madison quietly closed her notebook.
She had not written that part down.
Jimmy started knowing which things belonged in the bag and which belonged to somebody else.
The Paladin stopped wondering whether she was traveling with heroes.
Luviana stopped being “the healer.”
Madison stopped being “the bard the king assigned.”
They learned each other’s habits.
Then preferences.
Then silences.
Then fears.
Somewhere between the bad plans and the good rescues, knowing became caring.
Nobody noticed when it happened.
That was probably why it lasted.
The next morning, Paul made another plan.
Of course he did.
He gathered everyone around the campfire.
“Today’s route is straightforward.”
Jo raised her hand.
Paul looked at her.
“Yes?”
“Goats?”
Paul paused.
Then wrote:
POSSIBLE GOATS.
Jo nodded.
“Good plan.”
Jimmy leaned over.
“Emergency canoe?”
“We are traveling through mountains.”
Jimmy nodded.
“Could need.”
Paul looked at him.
Then at the Portable Hole.
Then at Jo.
Then at the entire party.
He sighed.
“Fine.”
Jimmy smiled.
Times the party has accidentally become more competent:
Too many to deny.
Times anyone officially agreed to become friends:
0.
Times they behaved like friends anyway:
Constantly.
They packed.
They checked the fire.
They checked the road.
They checked Jimmy.
Then they left.
Together.
Not because anyone had ordered them to.
Not because the king had another assignment.
Not because Paul had written their names on the same page.
They simply had somewhere to go.
And by now, none of them thought to ask who was coming.