He almost drove home without remembering the girl lying in the back-seat; and stopped, checking on her. She was still in the process. Transitioning. Whatever she was becoming; an elf Dimensional Mage most likely; it was still ongoing. He didn’t want her to suddenly change her mind and destroy his house… but at the same time he didn’t want to leave her at the militia compound.
He considered asking the cops to take her; but they all seemed to be in a hurry to leave as well. He finally decided… he’d lock the truck. Leave her in it, with a note, if she were still asleep when he got home.
He nodded to himself… before heading out, steering the Lightning down the highway, heading back for El Paso, and his home.
It wasn’t too long a drive home… and when he arrived, his concern turned out to be unnecessary; Kylie had awoken while he was driving.
He glanced back at her as she stirred, with ten minutes left on the drive. “Alright. We’re in El Paso. You can crash on my couch tonight if you’d like, or I can take you home. Either way… its getting late. I’ve got things to do, and a flight to washington in the morning.”
She seemed a bit confused as she stirred. Her skin was still the same brown tone; but she had the elongated ears of an elf, rather than the normal human variety… and blinked. “...am I not staying with you?”
“Thats optional. You’re not my woman, or my property. If you want to be, you’re an asset. Ally. No more, no less.”
She nodded, looking around at the dimly lit streets. About half the street-lights were out, and some of the traffic lights weren’t working. “...Huh. Why are the lights out?”
Grey glanced up. “Probably because the people who fix them are getting paid in dollars. And dollars went from having some value last month, to less value last week, to none at all right now.”
He thought for a moment. “Everyone’s savings are gone. Nobody’s paychecks are worth anything. Nobody can copy the system currency…. But until there’s enough of that in circulation that we can replace dollars with it… well.” He pulled onto his street.
“You never answered. Home, or my couch?”
Kylie nodded. “The couch. I don’t want to be alone right now, and I trust you not to do something to me in my sleep.”
Grey nodded back…. He had no reason to do so. “Fine. I’ve got a reward that lets me summon a system kiosk once a day. I’ll be calling it up as soon as I get home. It only lasts for a few minutes, but more than one can access it. So if you want to buy or sell something using system credits…”
She blinked. “Uhm… I don’t think I have any?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I earned some without even knowing I had. And anything can be sold; some stuff is only worth a fraction of a credit, other things are worth quite a bit. The rifle and armor you got could be traded for something else; though there’s a certain percent of loss involved. If you have some credits… you might be able to upgrade. If you stick with me long enough that I’m reasonably certain you’ll be of use, I’ll likely get you something, if you can’t yourself.”
He looked up… and pulled in to park in front of his house. Joshua’s house.
He calmly shut the door, heading for the front door, glancing back at her. “I’m heading into the basement. I’ll be piling everything up I plan to sell so I can toss it all on at once… and hope to get enough credits for what I want.”
She looked a bit confused… but nodded. “...Might as well check. I did get myself an extradimensional storage, using my one tool. Its only the size of a large piece of luggage, though… and I didn’t have any weapons in it. Or I’d have likely gotten killed by one of them trying to escape.”
“Did you upgrade a weapon and an armor?”
“...Armor, yes. Weapon, No. The first weapon I touched since the system was the AR-15 we looted from the men.”
He nodded thoughtfully. That… could be beneficial. “.... Weapons that count as ‘Relics’.... That have a history to them… are upgraded compared to normal things. If we pick something with a story to it for you to upgrade, it might pop in as a special item.” Which is what caused all this to begin with.
“We might rob a museum, later. We’ll see. Don’t touch any weapons that haven’t already been upgraded until then.”
Unless… did the boon only appear if the first weapon you touched wasn’t a system-touched item? They should just visit a museum, have her touch an ancient revolver or the like.
He muttered to himself as he headed into the house… letting Kylie follow him in, and then down to the basement.
“Just focus on the kiosk, and think about your credit balance. It’ll tell you. Then you can use the options to check values of items, buy, and sell things. If your balance is zero… just leave it be. What you’ve got will work for now.”
He inhaled deeply.
He’d be heading to Washington in the morning. Hopefully being power-leveled to 20 in the next few days… it might be a few days… but his objective could actually be within reach soon. First, though….
He activated the kiosk.
The now-familiar silver spire snapped into existence… and he immediately started dumping the Uncommon items, and the single Rare, into the kiosk, setting them all to sell at the recommended price.
A few of them had notable prices on them; most of them were just uncommons, but…
That seemed a bit odd. Why was the Dimensional Token worth so much? Was it due to the size? The contents?
He decided not to worry about it; just dumped it all at the Recommended Sale Value the system listed, and switched over to search for things for sale… starting with something to let him access the new Village token.
It didn’t take long to bring up a few items.
That…. Was quite a range. From something that could let him rob his enemies to a trivial one-use trinket to something he could imagine using in combat; creating a portal to his hostile village shard would be an absolutely horrific fate. And if he couldn’t do that? He could just pump this new shard full of hostile undead and use it.
He only had 2200 credits at present, but…
A long series of ‘Item Sold!’ notifications sprang by, and his credit total started rising… until, after a few seconds… everything had sold. His total updated.
He stared at it for a few seconds. It had all sold, instantly. Perhaps he should set higher prices next time, and let it take more time to sell. Still.
That was enough for the Dimensional Lock mutagen, and the Minor Fire Resistance mutagen. But…. considering the value of the other two shards…
He looked at the sole remaining chip. He could sell it, here and now. Probably get another 12,000 credits. Or would it be less, since it was a shard, and not equipment? Even if it sold for the amount that he paid for the empty village he’d bought, that would be enough to let him get both the Dimensional Lock and the Moderate Fire Resistance mutagen.
Not only letting him prevent Nightfire from escaping. But also letting him make his already fire-resistant abominations ridiculously resistant. He could bathe them in some fire-retardant liquid to make it worse, and just overwhelm her.
He glanced at Kylie. She would probably get some version of the Dimensional Lock spell earlier than level 20. He could save up… try for the Major Fire resistance instead…
So many options.
But. That shard might have more value buried inside it… or even be a great trap itself. And he couldn’t rely on anyone else for this; outside contributions could be useful. But not mandatory.
If he got the portal gun… he might be able to drop Nightfire into a village shard full of undead. Use a dimensional lock on her. And at that point he could do all sorts of things. Swarm of undead? Great. Pump the atmosphere full of poison or toxins? Done. Drain all the oxygen so only something undead like the ants could breathe, and fire can’t even burn?
Trivial.
He chose the Portal gun… and decided to save the rest, for now. That shard might be the key to substantially more wealth… as well as a weapon. Just to round things off, he picked a few of the absolute cheapest health potions, at 1 credit each; and 5 of the next tear up, for 20 credits each.
There.
He glanced at the clock. He still had a few minutes left on the kiosk; and Kylie was staring at it.
He turned away, leaving her to it… and raised the portal gun.
It was… a simple, silver device, almost perfectly smooth, with two triggers and a slot exactly the right side for the chip he carried… as well as two dials. He studied it for a moment.
Well now. That…. That was very nice. It would be better if he could shoot someone and send them there, but if he could shoot the ground at their feet and push them in, or have an undead on the other side drag them? It would still work great.
Still.
He set his revolver, the venom sprayer, and the flamethrower down on a counter; from the tools on and in it, it looked like a reloading bench… and loaded the chip.
He should be asleep within the hour. Plenty of time for an assessment. He glanced over at Kylie. “Not sure what you’re still looking for, but be cautious. About to try something.”
He turned the dial to A for the first dial, then B for the next; a 17.5 CM hole he could look through, stick his head through… and pulled the trigger, aiming at the wall.
One moment, it was a normal stone wall. The next…. He could see sunlight on the other side. A village…
A group of four armored Minoan soldiers, all with Multi-Rifles or similar, standing talking to each other inside the village square.
He nodded thoughtfully… and pulled the trigger again. It seemed to come out in the center every time. And someone was waiting there in ambush.
He dialed it to A/A, and carefully aimed, setting the chemical sprayer on the table by the wall… and pulled the trigger. Then he set the sprayer full of venom up at the hole… and held the handle down until it clicked… releasing it, with a fog of venom spraying out the other side.
He glanced at Kylie. “Head upstairs. They might get lucky and shoot this through the hole. Then I’ll probably open a portal on the floor and start dropping zombies through.”
At first, he didn’t hear much from the other side. Then an abrupt shout… and after a few seconds…
“Wait! Please, stop! We want to negotiate!”
He nodded… and shut off the sprayer… setting a simple brick in front of the portal. “If you don’t make it worth my while, I’ll start off with poison gas to make a nice clearing, then start sending in undead, and loot the place when its all clear.”
There was no response for a minute. Then…. “We’re from the Chain. This place is worth more to us than it is to the market; they’d maybe give you seven or eight thousand credits. Just destroy that chip and we’ll give you ten. If you make an oath to destroy the chip first, we’ll even give you the credits before you do it.”
He studied it thoughtfully. “...If I kill you and sell your gear as well, I’ll still come out ahead. I saw what you’re carrying. I can open a twenty-meter portal and have you surrounded by a mob of undead in seconds.”
He had no idea how long it would take them to escape, or if they’d already evacuated the civilians. Most likely they were offering this added value for sentimental reasons, people attached to their homes. Might as well see what it could bring.
“...Thirteen thousand credits! Final offer! We’re backing up to the portal right now, even if you send them through we can probably escape and blow it!”
The price of the portal gun, plus the amount the first shard cost him? Worthwhile. The only reason not to take it would be to deny the Chain the village. “Done. I swear by the system that if you give me thirteen thousand credits, I will destroy the chip within the next thirty seconds of verifying the credit total.”
What would destroying the chip do? Clearly nothing bad to the space itself, or they wouldn’t be asking.
After a few seconds, a small black cylinder emerged from the portal. He examined it.
He nodded… and accepted the money, dropping the credits chip into storage… and immediately pulled the dimensional chip out of the portal gun, dropped it on the ground… and withdrew the Right Hand of Death.
Kylie; watching from the stairs; covered her ears as he pulled the trigger.
That surely had a ridiculous number of implications and reasons behind it. None of it mattered, though. What mattered…. He had enough credits to get both a couple of mutagens which would make an enormous difference in the final battle, as well as a new tool to possibly help him either set the stage for that battle, or just deposit a mass group of undead into the world very quickly.
Either way… if he could just make up more of the level disparity, he would actually have a chance now.
He just needed to get a bit of sleep... he had an early drive out in the morning. Fortunately, he had a few ideas that might be of interest to them.
