“Yes, my loyal, beautiful subjects. You shall all bask in my power again soon. But now I need you out there once again, defending the Leylines and reporting magical interference to Mama Agnes.”
Levy was still holding court outside the deli as Shaggy sat inside noisily chewing on a carefully cooked hunk of meat. The taste was beyond Shaggy’s imagination. Which he partially attributed to his brief stint in prison. But it could’ve also been up to Mr. Stein’s increase in power. His chosen deli manager had really grown into his Meatmancer class. With one, rather large, hang-up.
“Does it have to watch me eat?” Shaggy asked as Franklin Stein worked behind the deli counter.
The man’s short hair was frazzled and spiky in places now. He had a wild look in his eyes as he snapped his head up to answer Shaggy’s question. His gaze traveled from Shaggy to the eight-foot tall monstrosity sitting by the counter. The amalgamation of meat got a sad look on its meaty face and waved a giant, three-fingered hand at Shaggy. Franklin apparently bestowed the creature with a facsimile of life and it now stood as guard dog and mascot of their little deli.
Shaggy swallowed as he watched sausage links writhe under the mass of meat that made up the creature’s body. Large hunks of meat and sinew seemed to pulse with the beat of false life. The damn thing made Shaggy feel equal parts disgusted and hungry at the same time. Which was only mildly disturbing.
“Oh, leave Chops alone, Boss. He does good work around here and he works for nothing.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Shaggy muttered as he took another bite out of meat.
Chops grinned at Shaggy. Bone-looking teeth clattered noisily as Shaggy tried to return the gesture. The few patrons they had in the store walked past the beast like it was little more than a dog. So at least he knew it wasn’t disrupting their business. The thing just sat at the end of the counter with its large, meaty arms wrapped around its equally large legs.
Shaggy’s pack had split up again to handle their own business and Shaggy himself planned to lie low for a bit. Hoping that he could direct the gang from the terminal below ground. He needed to talk to Levy about getting their own war room setup. But The Queen was still busily holding court.
Shaggy’s wolf had nearly leapt out of his chest at the sight of some of the sycophants. With the way some of them were looking at his wife, his wolfish instincts were going nuts. Which is why he was currently sitting in the deli feeding his own beast with meat. But the heat inside was growing hotter, and he was afraid that soon he would go feral and yank Levy away from her adoring fans.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to do that as he heard Levy winding down her speech. She riled them up again before sending them back out into the neighborhood. Shaggy bit into a sausage and let out a sigh through his nose as Levy approached. She was pretending to glide through the deli as she passed his table, but one look at his face and Levy stopped her joking.
“What happened?” She asked worriedly.
But Shaggy shook his head and tapped his sternum with a thumb. “I think the mutt inside missed you. Seeing you pay attention to those sycophants and not him made him a little uppity.”
An indignant bark echoed in Shaggy’s head, but he ignored it as Levy grinned at him.
“Riiiight. I’m sure it was just him that missed me. Nobody else.”
“I was barely gone.”
“Oh, but, my love, even a second away from your face is too much to bare…” Levy intoned from memory.
Shaggy rolled his eyes as Levy took a seat and continued.
“I try to find a likeness of your beauty amongst the stars, the moon, or even the forest in which we wander…”
“I should’ve never attempted poetry.” Shaggy growled to himself.
“But they are pale imitations to the fire and splendor of your own countenance!”
Shaggy put a greasy hand on his wife’s wrist and raised a finger. “No! Bad Sorceress. Stop it!”
His wife stuck her tongue out at him as she giggled to herself. “I liked your attempt, and it’s the thought that counts.”
“That’s what people say when a gift is shit.”
“I wouldn’t quit your day job to write poetry, dear. But you stepped out of your comfort zone for me. That said a lot.”
Shaggy waved away the memory and tried to steer them back on task. “What’s this I hear about our neighborhood being attacked?”
“Yeah, it happened after we established our first Crime Ring. It was weird. Now we’ve got gangs of all stripes rushing the area. But they are excellent fodder for the grunts. The few that busted in here are the reason Stein was able to summon Chops.”
“Back up. Crime Ring?”
Levy nodded. “Crime Rings are a bonus to certain connected stores. Nuc’s people and their associated stores are our first Ring. It’s merely a Credit Laundering bonus, but with four stores connected to the Ring we could launder a good deal of cash.”
Shaggy thought for a few moments until he remembered the aliens he had dealt with in Nuc’s store. “That’s the clothing store, grocer, a vid store, and the Arcade?”
“And Nuc’s little bodega. Each of those gives us a place to wash our credits at an increased rate thanks to the Ring.”
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“What about this place? Or the cafe you want to build? Do those count as Crime Rings as well?”
“Not quite,” Levy said, getting to her feet and wiping off the grease on her wrist. “Wipe yourself off and come along, husband. You need to see the terminal. We’ve got a lot of work to do and I’m excited you’re here to do it.”
Shaggy grabbed a napkin from the table and wiped off his mouth and hands. “You don’t want to hear about my time in prison?”
Levy cackled as some of the deli patrons eyed him warily. “Haha! You can tell me about your prison bitches later, dear. For now! To the Wolf Cave!”
Shaggy rolled his eyes and followed his wife as they rushed past the deli counter. Shaggy gave Franklin a nod and threw a few credits on the counter as they rushed by. Passing the few Lackey’s working at the back of the deli, he and Levy rushed to the maintenance tunnels below and then down into the dirt cave that they called home.
More Lackeys and small robots were milling about the place. Additional buildings were being built and Shaggy could see several people dragging logs to the pink portal near his house. Apparently, the rest of the Legion still needed wood. But they were getting sheet metal and weapons in return. So overall it was a good trade.
Levy led him to their shared in-game house and practically kicked open the door. As soon as they were inside, Shaggy pulled her back firmly and spun her into his arms. He heard her giggle as he dipped her across his chest and leaned down to steal a kiss. It lasted a long while as Shaggy’s wolf wanted to take things even further, but Shaggy quickly regained control and stood them both back up. Levy chuckled as she blew out a breath and fanned her face.
“Oh! Remind me to make the wolf jealous more often.”
Shaggy’s only response was a growl deep in his throat. Levy cackled again and hurried away from him toward the metal terminal sticking up at almost the exact center of their home. Levy waved a hand at the screen as she brushed her fingers along his collarbone. Shaggy sighed at the feeling and turned his attention to the blue screen in front of him. On it were the standard Lackey numbers, Loyalty Ratings, Happiness, Housing, and Businesses.
Shaggy checked over everything and noted that they were done a few Lackeys since we went away. He’d have to ask about that. But the most notable change was the map of their selected turf. Someone had drawn an outline around their neighborhood.
Levy saw what he was looking at and provided an answer. “The system designated that area as ours. It’s blinking green right now cause we are under constant attack from NPC gangs. But we have a month-long immunity from Player-based attacks.”
“Real time or game time?”
“Real time.”
“Shit! That’s almost three months in-game to get our shit together. Are NPC gangs going to keep attacking throughout?”
“Maybe? I can see it. I think this time is supposed to be spent building up our strength and preparing for PVP.”
“And what better way to bulk up than throwing a bunch of NPCs at us? Smart.”
“Yes, I am. Now, wolfy-dearest, if you turn your gaze to the other portion of the screen, you will see our current business deals and protection schemes.”
Shaggy nodded along as he checked the list. “We’ve got Nuc’s Associated Businesses…”
“I named them myself.”
“And then we have a few stores with the Business Association. But the Association isn’t giving us a Crime Ring.”
“I think that’s cause we haven’t ‘come out’, essentially, as a criminal organization to them yet. To that group, we are just a group of hard-working business owners and they don’t want to hear otherwise.”
Shaggy grunted as he moved the map to look at his own Deli and Levy’s under-construction business. The Deli was actually waiting for a Racket to be assigned to the store. They could also make it a legitimate business. In which case, it would launder more credits and be added to Nuc’s Crime Ring. Levy had already chosen Underground Casino as the Racket, so all they needed to do now was build it.
“So once we get your cafe up and running we can add it to the Deli’s Crime Ring and get a bonus to the Casino?”
“That’s the plan. But we can assign other Crime Rings to various businesses. Like Sybil’s Auto Shop. If we can set up more Mech or Tech-based stores, we can give her a bonus to making better cars.”
“What counts as a Tech-based store?” Shaggy asked.
Levy reached around his shoulder and swiped a finger over the holoscreen in answer. “Anything that has to do with building or selling technically devices. Remember Clyde?”
Shaggy searched his memory before it came to him. “The Lackey with the Power Generation Mutation? He wanted to run an electronics store, right?”
“Exactly. If we can set him up near Sybil and then get another Lackey who is good with mechanical or Techno stuff, we can get a Crime Ring going.”
“Wait. So we need a minimum number of businesses to make a Crime Ring.”
“Unless the Racket is big enough. An underground casino can be considered a Crime Ring with just two businesses. But for others, we need three.”
Shaggy scratched his chin in thought as he placed little Holo-Projections of future businesses on the projected map. “So let’s say we have a Stolen Goods Racket out of Clyde’s, Sybil’s and another Lackey’s businesses.”
As soon as Shaggy placed the last business, a robotic repair store, onto the map, a red circle encompassed all three. It pulsed angrily before it settled. A drop-down menu appeared above the map. Shaggy clicked on the menu and was given a list of three proposed Crime Ring Bonuses. They could choose from bonuses to weapon crafting, armor crafting, or a general bump in anything produced from the business.
Levy chuckled from his shoulder again. “See? If we can get the businesses up, we can offer the Legion guild-wide bonuses.”
“These are guild-wide?”
“The credit laundering one is. I have no reason to assume the others won’t be.”
“Shit.” Shaggy said, rubbing his hands eagerly. “We’ve got to get on this.”
Just as he said it, their little portion of the map went red. It blinked ominously for a few seconds and Shaggy was about to ask what was going on. But the red blinking stopped as quickly as it began. Levy huffed in annoyance and Shaggy spun to look up at his wife.
“Another gang just took a run at our deli. Whenever someone tries to attack one of our businesses, we get an alert. I suspect Mr. Stein and Chops handled the attack just fine.”
Shaggy growled and grew his claws out, thinking about gutting the next gangster he came across. But a sharp swat on his nose brought him back to reality.
“No! Bad Werewolf! Stop that! You can’t go running off every time we have a problem. That’s what the Lackeys are for.”
“Is that why we’ve lost a couple on the menus?”
“Of course it is! They’re the grunts, love. So we have to make them do the grunt work. Let them protect our turf. You need to be down here running this little hamlet we call home. While I set up my Witch’s Tower… away from all the bureaucracy… and that damn terminal.”
She gave a heated look at the hunk of silver metal in front of both of them. Shaggy figured she had been kept busy with the neighborhood while he was away. Probably too busy to get up to her own mayhem. With a sigh, Shaggy nodded his head and Levy squealed in delight. She planted a wet kiss on his cheek and happily hopped around.
“I guess I’ll get started by sending the troops out and making sure they are prepared.”
Levy stopped jumping as a thought seemed to occur to her. “Oh! Oh! Shaggy! Do you know what this means?”
“What?” Shaggy asked automatically. Before his brain could catch up. When it did, he shook his head in resignation. “No. Not happening, Levy.”
“You get to do a training montage!” Levy sang as she started to dance.
Shaggy put his head in his hands. If only to keep his wife from seeing the grin on his face.