Chapter 33.1: A Salt and Some Batteries

Blood, the stench of death, and the ephemeral moonlight; those were the things that a ninja experienced on so many occasions of her life. Sharde was no different. In the dream world she had spent several days and nights dealing with a quest line that she had thought would be ended during a single night.

Her equipment was close to the breaking point. Yet, she persevered. The pay-off would be extraordinary and she was close to the end. In fact, after she finished off the previous wave of dark wolves, she had finally found a clue.

Sharde held up the simple pendant that the wolf had been wearing. It was old, silver, and quite filthy. Time had tarnished its metal, but what it represented was still quite clear. It was the pendant of the queen. Vyrkolag would come for Sharde once he learned that she had slain the she-wolf.

The exhausted ninja gamer goddess looked around at her handiwork. The ruination of life, she had piled the bodies high in her one woman war on the evils of the forest. It was to her favor that the quest line had generated monsters equal to or slightly higher than her level. The sheer number of them had been a problem, but now that did not matter. The sun would rise soon. She had to prepare. He would come for her that night, and he would no doubt bring a large wave of wolves with him. She would only have one shot when the final event occurred. That was normally how these sorts of quests worked.

Down, down to the ruined town she went, her weapons in hand. She had to get her weapons and the cloth armor that she wore needed mending. She could do both on her own, but she needed the smith’s work shop. Time was short, but her needs were many.

**

Atop the roof of a small liquor store three people were having an animated discussion. During the recent struggles, Sheriff Ansen had commandeered the solidly constructed building. The owner had been out of town, but had the foresight to purchase a sanctuary field effect for their business. The solid construction and location of the building had proven to be a major boon for the reduced police force.

“What do you think I am? Do I look like I have that kind of money?” asked Ansen with more heat than he actually felt.

“Come on, open that wallet a little. The inside of it hasn’t seen daylight in a year.” said Scott.

Ansen snorted at him then shook his head. “We don’t have the money.”

Ashton spoke up then. “Well, we’ve established that already. What we really need is raw materials.”

“Don’t have many of those either.”

“The city is littered with raw materials.” replied Ashton carefully.

“Yeah, but they belong to other people. Things are bad, but they aren’t zombie apocalypse bad. I can’t just turn a blind eye to full-on looting in the open streets.” said the sheriff.

“What about stuff in the police impound, or confiscated things that aren’t going to be used in a trial?” asked Scott.

Ashton grinned at him. That was a good point! “Yes, don’t you routinely sell that stuff at auction?”

Ansen’s eyes widened slightly. “Well, technically the mayor has to authorize that in this town… But…”

“But the mayor is a pathetic dick. Fuck that guy.” said Scott.

Ashton chuckled. “This is not a hard decision, really. The stuff in the impound lot, and the confiscated items are not evidence unless it is tagged as such, right? You’re the sheriff and you need supplies.”

“Fine, I can authorize that and if the mayor doesn’t like it, well to hell with him.” replied Ansen.

“Good. Now, what do you want and what do you have?” asked Ashton, a gleam in her eyes.

“Honestly? That apple juice is probably the most important thing. I only know of a handful of people in the whole damned town who have healing abilities. There are a few people who claim to be able to make health potions in the dream world, but they can’t do it here yet.” said Ansen.

Ashton gently tapped her bottom lip with her index finger. Scott had coached her on the probably capacity to create the items that he had made already. Given the supposed value of the fortified apple juice versus the need, it would be good business to gouge the ever loving crap out of people who purchase from them. However, this was a family friend of Scott and also the only legitimate possible allied group in town. Everyone else could be ripped off till they cried bitter tears, but this needed to be a fair deal.

“One hundred bottles of fortified apple juice for a thousand dollars, or the trade equivalent.” said Ashton.

“That’s insane!” exclaimed Ansen.

“The actual value is nine dollars per bottle, but there are production costs, and everything has to be made by hand through a process that is unlikely to be available to anyone else in town.” she said.

“Still, to think juice would cost so much.” replied the sheriff.

“If you can bring in the vitamin water that Sc- Blackthorne needs, then we can lower the price to half.” she replied lightly.

“Stuff costs about a dollar fifty a bottle…” muttered the man. “We’re not exactly expecting to receive a paycheck this week.”

Ashton nodded. “Well, true. Maybe you can trade a few items with various store owners, or let me do it on your behalf.”

“Hey, aren’t you the store manager for Archers?” asked Ansen after a moment.

“Sure, at least I was before I was murdered and framed for being a meth dealer’s associate.” she replied.

“That store was overrun by sewer zombies last night. We’ve got them contained in the area at the moment, but we have absolutely no idea what’s going on inside.” replied Ansen in a shrewd, yet slightly hopeful voice.

“What an interesting thing to say.” said Ashton, a grin on her lips.

“Yeah, it’s a serious danger zone. My officers try to patrol the area, but we just don’t have the man-power to push in and finish them off. A pity, so much stuff in there that could be useful to the public. Some enterprising looter will probably make it inside at some point and we couldn’t do a damned thing about it right now.”

“Yes, a real tragedy” said Scott.

“Of course, with those enchanted weapons of yours we might have a chance.” said the Sheriff.

Ansen’s meaning was clear. He was not encouraging open looting and would try to stop it if he saw it occurring, but he also had no means of policing the area properly. Once their deal was done, the police would clear out the remaining sewer zombies inhabiting the area. Basically, if someone ransacked the place right now, the cops would not even know and would not particularly care if it was done both quickly and quietly. The sheriff also did not want to know about it either way. At the moment, his desire to save lives was a higher priority than his desire to protect the property of multi-national businesses.

“Weird that zombies would end up there.” said Ashton.

“That was damned weird. They worked their way there and to the other major retail stores in town. It took all night, but we managed to clean up the rest of them since we couldn’t block them off.”

“But not at Archers?” asked Scott.

“No matter what we do at Archers they just keep coming. It’s like they’ve decided to just spawn there in the parking lot.”

“That’s funny, zombies popping up at the biggest retail store in town.” said Scott. George Romero would be proud.

“Well-” interjected Ashton. “-we should get going so that we can itemize our inventory. You should do the same so that you know for certain what you have to trade.”

“When should I expect you to come back?” asked Ansen.

Ashton glanced to Scott and he nodded. The armored man turned to Ansen. “A few days at least.”

“That long, huh?” asked the sheriff.

“I can leave a few items here as a sign of good faith… Not too many, of course.” said Scott.

“That would be appreciated.” said Ansen. He knew what Scott’s had actually meant to say. He would leave enough items to be useful, but not enough to go on a raid of the department store.