Sewer Skewers, page 7
Finally, the vision that Nacho had seen upon entering the dungeon made sense. The conversation with Crave in the Probability Vision was all forced into his head to make him realize that there was something new he needed to be on the lookout for. He’d bet his last credit that this bag was a gift from Kronos. Nacho felt a smile cross his face as he eyed the Tier one food just waiting for him to be able to cook it.
It seemed his Patron was still watching out for them after all.
CHAPTER SIX
Nacho and his friends retreated to the Barracks in high spirits, where they enjoyed an excellent lunch of basic potstickers, complete with sweet sauce. The cook was so excited that he bought a pan specific to making dumplings, which once more made him question why everything required a specific method of cooking. An additional issue cropped up, as he had not realized how difficult working with three pans in the fireplace was going to be. Mainly because it was hard to get the heat to evenly cover each pan and keep it at the requisite temperature.
However, the effort was worth it. He didn’t need to eat, but even so, he stuffed himself with the taste of home. The fact was, they couldn't leave the items in the freezers, as there was no way to know when that ice would melt in the Bonus Shelves, or if something would come creeping up from the Scary Shelves to refill it. That meant the next few meals would be dumplings, and hopefully they would all get sick of them for good… because when these ran out, there were likely no more left on Earth.
Just to be sure that the bag contained what it said it did, they opened it to inspect the Tier one dumplings and got a happy surprise. It also contained a recipe to make this particular item from scratch, but strangely enough, it was limited to once a week. That was amazing for multiple reasons, but particularly because—even though he could not cook them yet—the Firefly Potstickers were more than just food. They were also utility magic items. Inside the bag were ten little dumplings with little firefly wings folded shut on their backs.
Moments after the group opened the bag, they awoke and buzzed out. After lightly screaming and ineffectually attacking the Tier one food with his Tier zero knife, the cook stared in awe as their doughy bodies began to glow and light the place up.
Slowly getting the hang of them, Nacho soon found that so long as he held the bag they came out of, he could direct the lights wherever he wanted them. He wasn't sure how long they would last, but he could easily test it out, especially since he could make new ones as needed. There was a good chance that over time, they would slowly cook from the inside out, and when they were fully prepared, they would need to be eaten. Until then, he kept them in a Storage Slot so that he could do away with his need for a lantern the next time they were in a dungeon or dark location where using fire would be a bad idea.
For the rest of the day, they planned out how to transfer everything in the KC Costco UnderFun back to Armor Mountain. Traveling between the dungeon and the guild required a full day of walking for a low-level human. In total, the distance was approximately eighteen miles. The halfway point was their newly built cabin on Heartbreak Ridge, but the fact of the matter was that even though emptying out the armor and weapons would be a huge benefit to the guild, it would also be an enormous hassle.
Beyond the utilitarian weapons, they had found quite a few items that would go a long way toward improving their guild's quality of life as well. The most exciting to Nacho was the mattresses, which they’d found stacked in a back room, along with other mass-produced furniture. For other people, like the Bills, who only cared about personal luxuries, there was the entire shop full of food and… just so much beer. That was one thing that Nacho knew was more specific to Kansas or other more southern states: beer and drinks with a low amount of alcohol content were classified as soft drinks and could be sold in stores.
He was sure if they had started in another state, they would never have been able to collect something like this unless they found someone with an actual Brewer class. “Matter of fact… might not be such a good idea to introduce all of that booze to a bunch of people going through the end of the world. We do need clear minds if we are going to survive this thing.”
While Nacho let his stomach digest the solid brick of potstickers in his gut, he opened the interface to his guild.
Chips Guild Stat Sheet
Total Guild Credits: 13,803 credits
Total Number of Members: 271
Guild Master: Eli ‘Nacho’ Naches
Alternate Guild Master: Daniel Chronour
Third Alternate: Reuben Colby
The full list could be expanded to include all two hundred and seventy-one names. At first glance, it appeared as though they had a ton of credits. Short-term, absolutely they did, and more were coming in all the time from the taxes levied on all monster murders and transactions. Even Nacho’s preparation of ingredients was taxed and added to the overall guild funds.
Unfortunately, building a civilization after an extinction-level event was an expensive affair. The guild credits were almost exclusively used to pay for walls, housing for people on Armor Mountain, and other important utilities. That included things like a cistern and a series of waterworks, such as showers for improved hygiene. A well would be next, and they’d have to figure out how to pipe the water up to the top of the mountain. On top of sorting out these necessities, they were going to have to camouflage not only the pipe, but every major improvement that they put in place.
Being on top of the mountain was a huge benefit, as they could build up walls to limit how much of the burgeoning town was visible from below, but if Nacho had learned anything from guild siege warfare in his past life, the most important thing was not making sure that everything was camouflaged from outsiders. It was that people on the inside had to be restricted to a need-to-know basis.
It was far too easy for bored civilians to start spewing guild secrets as a form of bragging or a way to pass the time. Back when Nacho had been an Assassin, that was one of the best ways to learn an Elite’s schedule so he could claim the bounty on their head: just find the most annoyed, bored, refusing-to-work sucker and pay them the slightest amount of attention.
He had never failed even a single time to gather the information that he needed.
As they relaxed after a hard day, Nacho tried to account for all of the impressive gear they had managed to collect. Taye had stored the Tier one Robbin’ Hoodie Archer Pack in one of his Storage Slots. The thing that was most surprising was that everyone had agreed that Nacho should get the heavy armor if it worked for him. He would have preferred to auction it off or offer it as a reward for the first person who reached level ten, but he had been outvoted by his team.
As a matter of fact, Taye had smugly agreed to let the Robbin’ Hoodie stuff go to the first Archer who could use it without issue. There were a few other Archers in their ranks, and it would give them all incentive to grind harder… but everyone knew that he was the best Archer, and the highest level. There was little doubt that he was going to get that gear at the end of the day.
Finding such impressive stuff in the dungeon, which they should never have been able to access so early, had lit a fire under everyone's rear. They all wanted to upgrade not only themselves, but also the tools that they had. The motivation stemmed both from the desire to keep themselves alive, as well as the innate need to make their enemies deader, faster.
Nacho, Reuben, and Taye stuck close to the fire in the cabin, either trying to unwind after such a dangerous visit to the dungeon or preparing food for the reinforcements that wanted to try their hand at delving. This worked out just fine for the cook, as his path to improvement involved practicing ever-more-impressive meals and perfectly processing difficult ingredients. Having willing test subjects likewise sped things along nicely.
Brie, Abby, and Kristie decided to return to the Scary Shelves, accompanied by more than a dozen other guild members. Seeing as there was a peak Tier one monster lurking somewhere in its depths, they’d agreed to move slowly, but they planned to begin emptying out the bonus shelves first. Nacho’s magic-imbued food traveled along with them as snacks in case they needed power-ups, and he was scrambling to replace the loss of so many resources that had been stacked in his Storage Slots.
That gave him plenty to do around the fire, and he would likely be working into the late evening to resupply the enhanced food stores and pocket pancakes.
A cool breeze from outside seemed to sweep right through the rustic cabin they had slapped together, and Nacho frowned as the heat of his pans rapidly dropped. A glance outside informed him that it wasn’t actively snowing, but dark, threatening clouds were looming overhead. He tossed another log into the flames as the remnants of his team pulled their seats closer to the fireplace. “I hate to spend the credits, but do you guys think we need a wheeled cart? We can hook it up to people and have them pull it, which… makes me even more reluctant to buy it, since no one is going to want to be the mule.”
“I’ll be your beast of burden,” Reuben volunteered after a rapid inhalation and affecting a self-sacrificing tone.
Taye raised an eyebrow questioningly. “Why not just buy horses? I saw them in the Store, and they’re relatively cheap. I think I saw that they were around thirty credits?”
“I wouldn’t buy a horse without buying a full info pack on horses and carts. I think you can connect horses to carts using… tackle? Cart tackle? Let me check the Store…” Nacho squeezed an eye shut. “That doesn’t sound right… there it is. See? The Patrons love to dupe us into buying stuff we think will work without a problem. Then when we get it, we have to dump a ton more credits into buying an info pack to actually use it. Then, of course, there is the main issue of buying any animal: eventually, they will fill with Putrid Mana and turn into monsters.”
“I think Matt and Maggie were horse people.” Taye pushed forward stubbornly. “They just joined us, and they had a ranch on the outskirts of Kansas City where they boarded horses. If they had horse skills, that would help, right?”
Nacho knocked around the coals to rekindle the flames. “It would have to be specifically using carts and horses. Just saddles and ribbons wouldn’t help, and I think you are purposefully ignoring the issue of the horses becoming monsters.”
“Ribbons…? Did you mean ‘reins’?” Reuben bought an Epic root beer from the Store and took a sip of the cold, fizzy beverage with a satisfied sigh. “I’ve never heard them described as ‘ribbons’ before. It's cute.”
“Clearly there’s a reason I didn't buy horses. To put an end to this, let me ask you, Taye: What happens when the horse goes feral because we don't have anyone that can tame it? Sure, we can get another horse, but after putting in however much time it will take to train the beast, do you really think they will be open to putting it down and starting over?”
Nacho paused his verbal thinking to flip the final pancake onto a plate, then stood up, feeling restless. “Even small expenses build up quickly. We need more walls on Armor Mountains. The gear in the Costco is fine, and it will put us in a really good position as a guild, but walls are our first priority. After that, we need to get to Tier one. Horses would be neat, and a cavalry would be nice. But the fact is: we live on a mountain. How would we get the horses on the mountain?”
“True. It’s too steep. They’d fall, and wouldn’t be able to giddyup.” Reuben tipped his bottle of root beer back and winked at Taye. “We need to make a road in and out. Don’t worry, Taye, he gets like this sometimes. Watch this… hey, Nacho! We need a plan! What’s the best way for us to survive the winter and upcoming disaster, whatever it may be?”
“The winter?” Nacho stopped pacing and stared at the wall, his eyes unfocused. Reuben pointed at the stunned man and failed to hold back his laughter, setting off Taye as the cook started to rapidly mutter. “Walls. Carts. Levels—a house for you and Brie. Clear the Deep Buggy Darkness so the termites can't destroy whatever is built on top of the mountain again.”
“Wait… again?” Taye stopped laughing suddenly, but luckily Reuben chose that moment to interject.
“Dude, you’re sleeping on a shelf in your kitchen,” the big guy pointed out easily. “Wouldn't hurt you to have a house of your own.”
“I like my shelf!” Nacho protested distractedly, waving his friend away. “Besides, it is most efficient for me to sleep next to the stove so I can get to work right when I wake up.”
“You’re addicted to work.” Reuben shook his head sadly. “It works for me, but still, there are other people that can… wait, never mind. No one else can cook. But! You can take some rest days and let people eat canned food now. Oh… if we combine Costco food with my Marketing Skill, we can lure new people in to join our Guild, and we make more credits! See how this all sounds? A little crazy, right? Why don’t you take the rest of the evening off?”
Almost as if his words had summoned them, at that moment, a crowd of people emerged from the entrance to the Bove Lair and trudged toward their cabin. Reuben looked relieved as Brie came into credit transfer range; he had been trying to downplay how nervous he had been for her safety.
“‘Lure’ makes it sound so tawdry…” The Healer thought for a minute. “Entice? Yeah, we can entice people to join our Guild. That’s definitely the better word. We’ll have actual, real, made-in-China American chips, and they’ll come sprinting out of the woods like feral cats.”
Brie rejoined them as soon as she entered the cabin and began to regale them with the stories of what her group had found down in the depths. She had come back several hundred credits richer from killing Pizza Cockroaches. According to her, they were triangular and dripped with cheese and olives. The reason they hadn't found the slice-shaped insectoids on their first excursion was that the monsters still followed the instincts of their base form and had been hiding under the first few rows of shelves. They’d been high Tier zero monsters and surprisingly hard to kill, but the large group had handily taken care of the huge swarm.
As she talked animatedly, Reuben began muttering about how he was never letting himself sit out of a combat run again. Frankly, Nacho had been surprised that he hadn’t gone with her, but he had chalked it up to the Healer being completely wiped out. When she finished her story, both Nacho and Reuben had the same question: Had there been pepperonis on the roaches, and did anyone try to eat the monsters?
The answer was ‘yes’ on the topping, and ‘no’ on the eating, due to the Putrid Mana. Nacho didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed. No one had died; that was the important part. They were all richer; also good. Yet, he couldn’t stifle the disappointment that he had failed to harvest pepperoni and pizza monsters. He was almost certain that he could get rid of the cockroach bit and just warm up the rest of it to make a proper American breakfast. Abyss, he could leave the cockroach in, and it would still be genuine New York style pizza!
The cook spent the evening speaking with various guild members about their Skills, explained what they should upgrade, and offered some strategies on maximizing their respective classes. It was a good public relations moment for Nacho, according to Reuben, but he only cared about making sure that his guild members didn't get caught up in the trap of low-performing Skills. Apparently, helping people get stronger and giving them a better chance at surviving long-term was something that earned a person a lot of good will. Who knew?
The night passed all too quickly, and as the sun crested the horizon hours later, The Dinner Party left for Armor Mountain. Taye, Kristie, and Abby—now properly known as Generic Party One due to failing to agree on a party name—would stay with the other volunteer guild members and continuously delve into the Scary Shelves to see if they could flush out any more monsters, as well as to learn how far those Scary Shelves went.
Nacho reminded them to be careful, and to run screaming if necessary. It seemed like everyone took his warning to heart, so he reluctantly began the journey back to his Guild encampment. The travel day passed with only a few encounters, mostly nasty monster animals that were put down with relative ease. Mutated rabbits were still rabbits, after all.
When they reached the halfway point of Heartbreak Ridge, Nacho grilled Wight-Tailed Deer steaks from a fresh kill over a fire for lunch. Nacho cut out the rot, processed out the Putrid Mana, and used Active Cooking to grill the steaks to perfection. “Ahh… Very Fine Venison is still one of my favorite and most flexible recipes. It’s about as hard to mess up as it gets.”
“Yet it goes down like chewing wood, every time.” Reuben informed him as he gnawed on a fully-cooked chunk. “Ever heard of medium? Does everything have to be well-done?”
“I take it as a compliment,” Nacho stated without looking up from his work. “The food is saying, ‘well done’!”
“False,” Brie countered without hesitation. “You’re still just a really bad cook.”
“Practice makes better.” Nacho shrugged as he let their insults flow off of him. “You tell me how to make it better, and I’ll try to make it happen.”
The sun was just setting when Nacho and his friends finally climbed the rope ladder up the eastern limestone slope of Armor Mountain.
Walking along the main path felt good, like coming home. With the northern wall finished, the mountain gave off a feeling that this place was becoming an actual citadel. A substantial number of the guild members were still living in tents, but stone houses were starting to pop up more frequently as they earned plenty of credits in the bug dungeon below. Of course, Old Bill had to be a cantankerous old coot and had slapped together a shack made of random cast-off material instead.
“I'll burn that down and make him live like a human as soon as we have everything else upgraded,” Nacho promised himself, having to tear his eyes away from the annoying little structure. He had visions of putting together a true medieval city of little multi-room buildings protected by strong walls, as well as a central citadel they’d build on top of their guildhall. It was a very ‘Beowulf’ mead hall at the moment, which was neat, but not entirely practical.
