It was late in the next morning when Ash descended on the town with Zirennia on his arm. He’d had himself a restful night with all of the girls curled up on his bed, Evie and Ashley of course spooned one another, while he spooned Rachel and pulled Mizu into the little spoon position, nestled against his catgirl Rogue. Aria had been somewhere in there when he’d gone to sleep, and she woke up sprawled out on him, hugging his torso and drooling a tiny puddle onto his chest.

As for his best friend, Lucy and Jezebel had put little Damien in the care of Waffles so they could sneak up onto the rooftops of the nearby buildings as some animals or another, and get their freak on. If he hadn’t just had sex with half a dozen gorgeous women, he would’ve chided them for being insatiable.

Today would be a busy day of preparing and more partying before the two teams set out. Rachel was preparing for her role as back up singer on his trip, while Evie and Ashley coordinated a thorough cleaning for the Wind Runner. The bedding especially needed to be washed, given how often he’d been solidifying his hold over each of his harem members.

It was odd to think of the girls as a harem, but that was essentially it. A group of women who all pledged themselves to him, save Evie, who had pledged herself to Ash and Ashley. Adventuring with him, laughing with him, and sleeping with him were all part of the harem package, and so far he’d only had a major issue with the twins. Aria, Zirennia, and Rachel had all agreed to have sex with him and travel on the Wind Runner for their own reasons. Zirennia to get away from the Nova Corridor game area, and to repay him for saving her life, Rachel to repay him for saving her life, and Aria to get away from a boring town life. Aria was also with him to have him inside her just as often as he could manage. She was far older than he, and enamored with the hot new body she’d gotten with the advent of the apocalypse.

One of the things he wanted to do first was replicate Harem Laird and upgrade it to whatever came next. His hesitance came from the requirements to keep it equipped. He’d need a much higher Lucky and Diamonds rank, possibly pushing him up beyond Expert, to Master.

Instead, he could probably manage to copy and meld Not a Fighter into its next higher rarity. It was already quite powerful, able to turn an enemy off with just a word. He was enjoying some of these Bard powers, though he had a slew of abilities that didn’t seem worth it in combat.

That in mind, he headed into the celebrating town.

This was the second of four corrupted by the taint of He Who Slumbers, and he saw the evidence of a great deal of struggle. A lot of hugging and crying was going on, a lot of sweeping up or loading rubble into carts, and a few places where demolition was underway from structures abandoned to fire.

Ash ducked his head to avoid catching anyone’s eyes. He had been the one to come in here, murdering and kidnapping under the pretense that he was saving folk from the evils of vile demons. He still had no concept how he’d appeared when he suddenly showed up, clawed his way through any sign of resistance, and killed whatever ended up being the boss monster, only to teleport his new followers away to his secret base in the woods.

Would anyone recognize him? So far they hadn’t, but that didn’t mean much. He’d only been in the one other town but he’d been fighting for the safety of the place, while the taint of the infernal had spread and spread. The chaos had definitely helped keep the chances of being recognized down to a minimum. Best keep his head down here.

As for the town, it gave him the impression of being a metropolis and a small town at the same time. A cramped monorail zipped smaller people around at a height of just over three meters, and after checking, Ash slapped a hand against the rail before ducking beneath it. As for the buildings, a lot of them were built in a style he’d never seen before: alternating short and tall floors. The short floors housed gnomes, goblins, nellwyns or other little folk, and had ceilings of about two meters, while the next floor up would have a ceiling of four meters. This helped orcs, orrens, or half-giants from feeling too cramped. On any of these large floors, you’d find a raised walkway or helpful attendants with step stools somewhere, putting little people and larger people on roughly equal sight lines as the huge ones.

He found his way to the Deckbuilder of Many Things easily enough, a samey looking building as the others, made of timber and plaster and that strange alternating floor size composition the surrounding buildings had. It honestly felt like a medieval German town, and he expected to see a barmaid hefting some twenty tankards of ale toward an Oktoberfest celebration.

The bell over the door to the card shop jingled, and Ash found himself in a high-ceilinged floor staring at a large shop space that reminded him of a bank. Aside from the obvious vault and the glass-fronted counter, the open space was filled with attendant desks for personal consultations with employees.

A young fey woman approached him immediately, with her orange, purple and brown moth wings twitching spasmodically like she wanted to fly over to him. The smile she favored him with seemed genuine, and the UI didn’t inform him otherwise from a Hearts, Coins or Charming check.

“Greetings!” The fey said. “You’re a new customer. My name is Tinniel and it will be my pleasure to help you out today.”

“Ash,” he responded. 

“A pleasure to meet you, Ash,” she said.

“Likewise.” Along with his smile, he gave her the finger guns and appreciated the giggle he received in return. He also scored several Relationship points, and therefore experience. Yes, this was going to be enjoyable.

“Right this way, if you will.” She conducted him to one of the consultation tables, which had walls on either side to keep things confidential. “I see you’re a Journeyman Bard and Sorcerer. Maximizing on that Charming score, are we?” Another giggle. “Do you have anything specific in mind for today, or are we just browsing?”

“I have a few questions, first, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh! By all means.”

He went through a couple of random questions to just get a feel for her personality. He had no wish to end up in the same kind of situation as the magic items shop in Mexicali. He soon learned that she’d worked at this shop since she could remember, and her boss was a pretty good guy. She liked him, if she was being honest. She wasn’t quite clear on what he meant by NPC, and narrowed her eyes in suspicious confusion.

“How do you like your job, then?” A job that hadn’t existed two months ago.

She didn’t mind being a shop attendant, since it was nice to have safety from whatever monsters and awful stuff was happening outside of town. This wasn’t how she’d phrased it, though. No, she didn’t use the term ‘NPC’ or ‘Save Point’ but rather said she liked the sense of safety of the magically-protected town. Until recently, that was, when He Who Slumbers had turned over in His great slumber, and unleashed demons upon the town. When she mentioned that name, she fished a holy symbol pendant out of her loose shirt and kissed it.

Tinniel was barely part of the old world, not remembering his question when he asked what this place had been before it was an abilities card shop. Her eyes flew open when she suddenly mentioned that she’d had a car ‘a long time ago.’ She laughed this off as she said the word ‘car’ as though she didn’t believe it, or didn’t quite remember what it was.

“Can I help you with something specific, or would you like to browse a certain type of card?”

He gave her a smile. “Specific. I’d like to upgrade this.” He produced his copy of Not a Fighter and laid it gently on the black felt cloth on the table.

She read it over, then blushed. Her mouth dropped open and when her eyes flickered up to his face. He made sure to keep his expression carefully neutral.

“I see,” she said.

He spread his palms wide. “I’d have a look at any Bard auras as well, uncommon if you have duplicates. Otherwise rare or higher.”

She cleared her throat. “Right. Of course. Well we… we have a strict policy of seeing a customer’s means of payment first. I hope you understand.”

It turned out that a rare like Not a Fighter would cost him two thousand coins, or by trade, three of his rares for one house rare. They had a more extensive trade-in policy, since cards came in full art, holo-foil, and other rarities were of higher value, though not always. Some abilities and spells were in much higher demand, and were priced accordingly, if the shop had them in stock at all.

“For example,” she explained, “some of the consumable summon cards are quite powerful and will turn the tide of a battle, so they’re valued quite highly.” Consumable experience was also priced quite highly, which didn’t surprise him.

Although he didn’t love this rate he’d been quoted, he definitely didn’t have enough coins, and perhaps he never would. He already owed sixteen thousand plus to Ray Eastman, the swindling bastard. Ash couldn’t quite bring himself to be angry with the man, but there it was.

He produced several rare cards out of his inventory and spread them on the felt for her to inspect. She nodded at them.

“Let me go have a look at the stock.”

An idea came to him, and when she returned looking apologetic, he leaned forward. In a conspiratorial whisper, he asked, “Have you got anyone in here asking after mythic or masterpiece rarity?”

Tinniel’s eyes flew open. “I… but… no! Most people don’t even… a lot of our customers assume it just stops at ultra rare.”

That was ridiculous. He had a whole stack of them. The whole batch, top to bottom, was beyond his level or not for his class.

“Assuming I have one, and assuming it’s quite a good one, what’s the coin I could get for it?”

Tinniel’s composure cracked there, and she had to go a little fish-like for a bit. Her mouth worked open and closed several times before she found her voice. “Wait here please,” she managed, and this time flew off on her moth wings to land on the counter. She hopped off and disappeared into a back room.

When she reappeared, it was with a small, elderly gnomish man in tow, bespectacled and balding. The two approached and the gnome had a seat across from him. They made introductions; the gnome was the proprietor, Mr. Figglesworth. He placed a small, bulbous mushroom on the table and explained that it would create an aura of silence and blindness, preventing others from seeing or hearing what they were up to. Ash watched the color’s shift over the baseball-sized mushroom cap, playing over it like the hypnotic patterns on a cuttlefish’s back, before focusing on the tiny old gnome.

“Tinniel tells me you may have a high rarity card and are looking for payment in coin?”

“I have a sky ship to pay off,” he said, shrugging, “but nobody’s getting a look at the card until I know what sort of rate I’ll get on it. Taking a look at your menu here, I’d guess you sell them for anywhere from a quarter million to several million coins, apiece. Is that correct?”

The gnome shook his head. “It would have to go to a silent auction, for that sort of sale. In point of fact, it will be months before I can sell one at all. No one is leveling fast enough to equip one. It’s pointless for me to buy anything over ultra rare, assuming you’re telling the truth and such a card exists. I’d need to know where you came by it anyhow, in order to ensure some affronted parties don’t come looking for it, powerful enough to vaporize the entire town to get it.”

Ash produced instead several ultra rare cards he couldn’t use. None of the girls would be able to use them either. He didn’t have a Ranger, Warlock or Barbarian, and the Druid cards weren’t going to Lucy and Jez, since they were generating quests and were on the fast track to become NPCs. Also, he wasn’t too pleased with forcing Waffles to play babysitter so they could flit around as hummingbirds just to see what hummingbird sex was like.

“As you can see,” he said, “I have access to high rarity cards. And these are of no use to me, since I’m a Bard and Sorcerer.”

Tinniel was staring at the cards in disbelief, but the gnome kept his cool much better.

“Your menu here says you should be paying me 5-10,000 on each of these.”

“These are quite something.” Mr. Figglesworth, said, but he was frowning and his enormous eyebrows had drawn together in concern. “Again, Mr. Ash, it will be very difficult to move these any time soon.”

It was Ash’s turn to frown. “Are you a card shop or no?”

“I can just as easily give you store credit,” Figglesworth said. “I—“

Ash swept them back into his hand and made them disappear into his inventory. “I understand. I’ll just be going… and before I do, I’ll let you know that the last card shop owner who tried to swindle me ended up with his shop burned down. One person comes after me and tries to strong arm me for the cards in my possession, and I’ll know it was you who set them after me.”

Figglesworth appeared enraged for just a second, then settled for affronted. “I can offer you twenty thousand for the lot,” he said.

“They’re worth double that at least,” he responded, rising from his chair. “And if you want to have a look at the masterpiece, to show it off to potential customers, the price just went up to a half million.”

He turned to go, but Figglesworth called for him to stop before he took a step.

“Forty thousand then, for all five of them,” he said.

Ash felt like spitting ‘You’re going to sell them for a hundred thousand’ at the gnome, but instead held his tongue and produced the cards one more time, spreading them out on the table like a seasoned magician. “Let’s see the coin.”

Outside the shop two minutes later, Ash took a deep breath and looked in his inventory. He should’ve been in the clear, with a good five or ten thousand coins left over.

What he got instead was Ray Eastman’s last laugh.

 

Congratulations! You have paid off the Wind Runner to Ray Eastman, Quality Used Sky Ships and Ground Vehicles, greater western Feenix area. You have paid down the collateral damage fees, and repossession team fees. Your remaining balance is now 0 coins.

Due to the early repayment clause in your contract, an additional 8,946 coin has been charged.

Ray Eastman of Ray Eastman’s Quality Used Sky Ships and Ground Vehicles, greater western Feenix area thanks you for your business.

 

Ash threw back his head and howled laughter at the sky. He had been left with two coins to his name.