Shaggy felt his feet hit the dirt floor of his room in their new hideout as he logged back in. He had spent most of his day going over work orders for the week, and he was ready to get up to some mayhem. He quickly checked his various menus to see if he had gained any status buffs from logging out in his bed, but it didn’t look like he had gained anything. Shaggy clicked his tongue as he heard voices coming from the main room and went to investigate.

In the large dirt main room stood both Ren and Vlad, both looking down at their Hideout’s integrated console. Shaggy glanced around the room, noticing that the large metal crates had been moved and other than the three of them, the room was empty. He stretched both his arms above his head and walked over to his friends who seemed to be discussing plans for their Hideout.

“No kid yet?”

Ren turned his head to look at Shaggy as he said. “Not yet. Probably needs to settle after a rough day at school.”

Vlad didn’t look up from the console as he added. “If he went.”

“He said he was going to.”

Shaggy just shrugged his shoulder and looked at the control console. Unfortunately, one of the others was using it, so he couldn’t see the Holoscreen. But he could probably guess what the others were discussing. He, too, was ready and willing to get started on building the War Room.

Waving a hand over the console, he asked. “So what should we buy first for the War Room?”

The other two just stared at Shaggy as he realized he may have missed the mark entirely. Ren looked quizzical, as Vlad seemed indifferent. Shaggy coughed awkwardly into his hand before he asked.

“Well, then, what are you two looking at?”

Vlad snorted and tried to say something, but Ren cut him off. “He wants a dungeon.”

“In an underground hideout… made of dirt?” Shaggy asked incredulous.

Vlad threw up his hands. “YES! A dungeon is pivotal to a vampire’s motif. Plus, we are already underground. So why can’t we just dig deeper?”

“Because,” Ren started, rubbing the space between his large rhino horn and his eyes. “we don’t have the credits right now. Because there are already baby tunnel worms invading the space we have. Let’s not forget that we don’t even have prisoners to put in a dungeon, nor have we captured anyone the entire time we’ve been playing together. Mostly we just beat down whoever gets in our way and then move on.”

“Let’s put a hold on a dungeon until later. There are more pressing things to get done first.” Shaggy said. Seeing that Vlad was going to argue, he added. “If you can get the money together, you can have a dungeon later. But for now, let’s do what we can with the space.”

Vlad deflated, and Ren looked slightly annoyed. “We don’t have room, and digging deeper is dangerous enough as it is.”

“What about going up?”

“What?” Ren asked, confused.

Shaggy pointed a finger at the ceiling. “Why don’t we go up? If we take this current room to be a basement or even a sub-basement and go up into a proper building, Vlad can have his dungeon. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about the worms, just random gangs. Although if we do our jobs right, they won’t want to mess with us.”

Both Ren and Vlad put on thoughtful looks before they nodded. Shaggy sighed, happy that they could now move on to other subjects. But Vlad had one more complaint.

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“That’s going to take forever, though.”

“What? You got something else you want to be doing? Everything in this game is going to take us time. Just mark it down as a long-term goal and let’s focus on the short-term. Getting the current iteration of our base into a workable condition.”

Ren nodded along with Shaggy. “Yeah, what was that you were saying about a War Room? We got hung up on dungeons and the efficacy of making individual rooms.”

“Well, I wouldn’t make yourselves rooms. Apparently we don’t get a buff. Although they might be good for the Lackeys.” Shaggy explained.

Vlad nodded as Shaggy explained the function of the Hideout’s War Room. Ren and Vlad both looked eager, but quickly realized getting the new room fully outfitted would have to be another long-term goal. Shaggy also spoke about their three Lackey’s and the pop-ups he received for them. Vlad was momentarily annoyed that he hadn’t been acknowledged as the system-verified leader, but he got over it. After Shaggy was done explaining, Ren asked.

“Is that why those three came back and gave the pair of us reports about what they scouted above ground? Well, Tinsel and Blobby gave reports. Ephemara gave more of an excited babbling about all the houses that were topside that we could rob.”

“Yeah,” Vlad added. “She didn’t seem to care that those houses were probably some of the poorest in our area. Which is already pretty destitute.”

Ren took out some folded papers from his pocket and handed it to Shaggy. Shaggy unfolded the paper and then looked at Ren, astonished.

“They actually gave you detailed written reports!? That’s crazy!”

Ren nodded. “I know, right? A little immersion breaking, really. Although I guess Tinsel is pretty diligent.”

“But they got us some better intel. Not so much robbing the poor, and more about the various movements of the gangs.” Vlad said, waving a hand at the paper in Shaggy’s hand.

Shaggy nodded along as he read the report. Tinsel and Blobby had given slightly different accounts of the various goings on in Under-Town. The Quinica were hoarding Tech and no longer selling while they waited for their supposed big-shot to arrive. The Raks and UGB were proceeding as usual with various shipments to and from above ground. While The Phreaks were continuing to grow their drug trade and had even pulled in some lesser gangs to help sell.

As for the other lesser gangs, Blobby had come up fairly blank. But Tinsel had a few tidbits about the overall state of Under-Town. While big, Under-Town was still fairly crowded, and some crew was always beefing with another. Tinsel didn’t see the need to state who was feuding with who, but he mentioned that most of the lesser gangs were trigger-happy. Both to get them noticed by a bigger gang and to scare off potential competitors.

Shaggy skimmed over the two reports before he folded them back up and glanced at his two friends.

“What about Ephemara? I asked her to check out the local crews in our neighborhood.”

Ren snorted as Vlad adopted his vampire accent. “She didn’t seem too impressed with the various ne’er-do-wells in our neck of the woods. In fact, she seems more focused on how the surrounding citizens were easy pickings.”

Ren stopped, shaking his head to add. “Although she mentioned that our professor’s friends were not to be trifled with. ‘Big-ass, terrifying lizards’ is what I think she said.”

Vlad dropped his accent and cut in. “Okay, for real, we are not going to rob a bunch of poor people, right? I mean, I am all for being a villain, but there’s gotta be a line.”

“Well,” Shaggy said, rubbing his chin. “It would probably be pretty easy.”

“But so not worth it.” Ren said. “What’s the point of stealing from people who don’t have anything?”

Vlad nodded along with the big rhino-man. “Yeah. Not to mention the only people who have anything down here are the gangs.”

“Okay, that works for down here, but what about once we go above ground? There are a lot of ‘innocents’ up there, right? Well, we’re supposed to be Villains.” Shaggy argued.

“I have no problem robbing them. But only if they have something worthwhile to steal. Even the folks down here. If they have something, we can take it. I just don’t see the point in robbing people who have nothing.”

Shaggy nodded in understanding before another thought popped into his head.

“What about drugs?”

“No.”

“No kids.”

Vlad and Ren spoke over each other and quickly turned to stare at each other. Shaggy sighed as he rubbed his temples. Sure, it was a tricky issue outside of a gaming environment. But in-game, who cared? Ren did, apparently. But the big rhino-man glanced between Vlad and Shaggy before he put his hands up.

“I want nothing to do with it. I got too much with that nonsense IRL. So just keep me out of it.”

Shaggy and Vlad nodded before Shaggy tactfully changed the subject. “So how about we clear our neighborhood of riffraff? I could do with some exercise and if Ephemara can be believed, we shouldn’t have any trouble.”

Ren nodded, seemingly thankful for the change in subject. “Let’s give Slink a few minutes to get online. Also, I sent out Tinsel and Blobby to recheck her work.”

“And I asked her to keep watch on the lizard folk.” Vlad Said back into his accent.

“Alright. Cool, so all we have to do is decide how we want to deck out our common room.”

“Oh please, Volfy. We all know a dark prince of the night such as myself needs a quiet and unobtrusive space to plot my dastardly machinations.”

“Yeah. Maybe we should make you your own room. You can plot all your schemes in their while the rest of us are playing on the Speedball table.”

“Oh shit, hold up. They have Speedball?” Vlad asked.

Ren and Shaggy laughed as the three of them poured over the common room options.