Chapter 7
Seriously, what in the hell was I even thinking?
Lets roll back just a tad bit and think about this a little, shall we? It was only a few hours ago that I had been hammering on Death’s front door with a battering ram and demanding that he let me in. That little incident where I was pinned to the floor by the goblin? That could be considered a close call, a brush with mortality if you will. Happens all the time. Now the ogre? That big bastard by all rights should have killed me. I had survived by the big idiot’s own mistake and sheer dumb luck. At no point in that fight had I been in control. At no time did I have some grand plan to escape, or to snatch victory.
My rifle? It had been completely useless, I might as well have been pelting him with marshmallows for the good it did. The pistol? Pointless beside popping his eyeball and pissing him off even more.
I was completely and utterly at its mercy until the very moment it drove my knife into its own neck.
Even after it had died, I still would’ve been irredeemably screwed if its body hadn’t quickly despawned. I’d have suffocated under its weight. Killed from beyond the grave.
So why, might I ask, in the holy shit was I walking right back into that like nothing was wrong? There wasn’t a singular rogue thought in my head that maybe I should, I dunno, take a break, maybe a week or two to relax. Heck, even a single day would be nice. Lordy, so much as a two hour nap! I was marching head-first right back toward the front lines to hop back into the trenches and face another attempt at break-through by the Germans . And this time I wasn’t even bringing any body armor! I didn’t even think to grab my first aid kit! I had only a fraction of the ammo I had brought with me last time.
This didn’t make a lick of sense! This wasn’t how I normally acted, I was a rational per-
My dog started barking up a storm at something moving around in my front yard, and a second later my phone dinged to notify me that someone was at the front door. I laid my shotgun on the counter and walked toward the door. "Just a moment!” I yelled as I shoved my 9mm in my waistband behind my back.
It turned out to just be my next-door neighbor, Steve. An older guy, he offered to mow my yard a few times, invited me to a barbeque or get together every other month, and was overall a nice dude if a bit chatty. It turned out the reason for his visit was that he had seen me running earlier and it reminded him that some of my mail had been left in his box by mistake and he was bringing it over. He handed me the small bundle and started rambling on.
He talked about gas prices, taxes, the HOA down the street harassing him to join, his daughter’s latest bad break up, politics, neighbor kids cutting through his yard, and his bad back. I simply stood there and listened to him, nodding and adding in an occasional “wow, that’s crazy” when it seemed appropriate. My giant teddy bear of a dog laid on the ground next to us, belly up for belly rubs. That was an immutable rule around here. If you came to visit, the dog had to be paid her toll.
At long last he finally left, saying something about a roast he had cooking, leaving me to sort through my mail. Most of it was junk or scam attempts, and then coupons. Most of them got tossed, but I always saved the ones for Subway. I ate there twice a week at a minimum, usually when I only had time for a short lunch at work. A few other pages of coupons for groceries, which I sat aside. They were useless until I got a new fridge. Listening to Steve rant about nothing had given me a few minutes to stop and think about my plan, and made me realize there were a few things I needed before I waltzed into the dungeon to test out my Aura.
I needed more cash first. Damn money, need it for everything.
I tossed my laundry into the drier and turned it to max dry, then grabbed my gold and off to Charlie’s house I drove. This time though, I sent him a text to let him know I was coming.
“Hey, OMW, bringing some stuff.”
“Already? Damn son.”
In all the time I’ve known Charlie, his responses were always quick. He was waiting for me on his porch as I pulled up.
“James, twice in one day, I don’t even see my girlfriend this often.”
“Yeah, well, I kinda hit a goldmine with this one.”
“Ah, no talking about that out here, inside first.”
We took shelter in the safety of his living room, and he closed the curtains.
“Right, how much more did you get? Five? Ten?”
I stared him right in the eye and dumped the bag of fifty two nuggets right on his coffee table. A few rolled off onto the floor. Excellent dramatic effect.
“Jesus fucking Christ James. How in the fuck did you-”
“Nope, we agreed you wouldn’t pry.”
“Fuck me sideways. Yes, you’re right. Damn. Alright. Well. I don’t have enough cash on hand to cover this much at one time. Are you willing to do some of this as trade value?”
“Sure, depends on what you got that I want.”
“Let’s see after we get this weighed. Since you wanted to be a theatrical ass, you get to pick it back up.”
“Fair enough.”
My grand total came out to $20,800 dollars, of which I was given ten grand in hard cash. The rest of it I’d see what I wanted from his inventory. He led me down into his basement, a room I had been in only a few times before.
I think basement was maybe an inappropriate word for it.
Gun Valhalla might work better.
I consider myself a collector, and at my peak I had over thirty. My collection has shrunk in recent times, either being sold or destroyed (rest in pieces AR-15).
Charlie had an armory.
Along one wall he had cabinets full of all kinds of handguns, from .22’s to 500’s. Along the other were rows of long guns. Military surplus, experimental prototypes, functional video game replicas. You name it, Charlie had it or could get it if he really wanted one. In the middle, a few pallets of assorted bulk ammo. All the cool ammo was in a separate area, the hard to find stuff.
He handed me a hand towel to wipe away the drool as I salivated at the sight. I knew he had some cool shit, but it never failed to impress me.
At the far end was what I was really interested in, besides the NFA stuff (no thank you ATF, I like my dog being among the living). Shelves of thermal and night vision, both head mounted and rifle sights.
Three things in particular were calling to me.
First, night vision. He had a brand new, in the box, AGM PVS-14 3APW. One of the most advanced night vision monoculars that I had ever considered saving up for. Sure, binos are betters, but holy shit are they pricy. I took it out to look at it, and Charlie flipped the light to let me test it out. God was it cool. I could already imagine myself stalking through my house in the dark, larping as a Cool Guy. It even had the exact mount I needed to attach it to my helmet.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Charlie. How much for the mono?”
He turned back on the light before answering, thinking about it for a moment.
“Eh… MSRP on those is close to five thousand, so let's say forty seven hundred. That’ll also be clear of taxes, cause that’s theft, and no shipping and handling like if you ordered it.”
“Say no more, deal.”
A few items over, another item that had me wanting to get a private room to be alone with. A AGM Rattler V2 50-640. I had been staring at it on their website for months, my bank account crying in the corner the whole time. I had even considered saving all of my tax return and selling a few extra guns to afford it.
The thermal sight was top of the line, at least in its category, and had a record function too.
“Before you ask, I’ll give that to you for forty nine hundred.”
“Sold.”
Then the last item. WLAD 3B. It was just begging to be mounted on my next rifle. If I combined that with my new NVG mono, I could traverse the dungeon in complete darkness, acting like a special ops commando, schwacking goblins left and right. A small voice in my head voiced a concern that maybe goblins could see in the dark, but I pushed that voice out, it had no place here when I finally had cool stuff.
“One grand for the illuminator.”
“Yes please.”
I still had two hundred dollars worth of credit to use, plus my ten grand in actual cash (but I had other plans for that). So I went over to his ammo stacks to see if any of it was something I needed. Among them was a small stack of boxes labeled “7.62x39 110gr Tungsten Carbide : FOR GOVERNMENTAL ENTITIES OR EXPORT ONLY.”
“Charlie?”
“Oh, that stuff? Guy I worked with last year got ahold of a crate of it, gave me some. Tested it out too. Smoked right through a half inch thick plate of AR500 steel at a hundred yards. Level IV plates hole punched at eighty.”
“Christ. How much?”
“Considering that shit is like seven dollars a round and impossible to get through civilian channels? Hell, you’re my friend, so I’ll take a loss on it and give you a hundred a box.”
That meant I had just enough for forty rounds of it.
“I’ll take two boxes.”
“Pleasure doing business.”
He helped me box up my stuff and walked me out to my car.
“James, before you go, got a moment?”
“Yeah, what’s up.”
“I just wanted to say, be careful man. I know I already promised that I won’t ask where the shiny stuff is coming from, but you need to watch out for yourself.”
“I know man.”
“I’m serious. If certain people see you throwing around money all of a sudden, they’ll get curious. You don’t want eyes on you.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“I know you aren’t. Also, don’t go spending it all in one place. Remember that stores report you to the IRS if you use a lot of cash in a certain time period.”
Shit, I hadn’t considered that.
“Thanks Charlie. I’ll probably be back tomorrow with more stuff.”
“Christ on a bike. Aight, I’ll get together some more cash then. See ya.”
I had to stop at home before I did anything else, cause no way in hell was I leaving ten grand in optics in my back seat while I went shopping. I lived in a decent area, but people had their vehicles broken into often enough that I never left anything I cared about in mine.
I secured my new toys in the safe, and decided that my next trip to the gun store would be tomorrow instead. Today, I’d be going to Menards.
First item on my shopping list? A nice ass fridge, which I arranged to be delivered to my house later in the day.
After that, power drill, diamond tip drill bit, ladder, concrete screws and anchors, ten foot steel pipe, hooks.
My total came to around $2500.
Back home I went.
I grabbed another roll of duct tape, pulled my freshly washed and dried vest out of the drier and threw it on. I packed the pouches with additional shells just in case. I slung the shotgun on my chest, and slapped on my helmet and new NVG mono.
Then into the dungeon I went, tools and ladder in tow.
By my math, it had been about three or so days inside the dungeon since I’d left, and to my great relief all of my tape was still there. I wasn’t planning on going back to the four rooms, at least not yet (I could only hope the tape would stick around long enough to find them again), so I started down a different pathway.
Within minutes I found myself another treasure chest chamber.
I had a great idea for what I was going to do.
I set up the ladder by the entrance I was expecting the goblins to come from, and got to drilling. I set the steel hooks into the granite, and placed the steel pipe overhead. On the ground I drilled another spot for a hook, to which I tied an end of a long line of paracord. I ran that cord up and over the pipe, then down and tied a noose trap loop into it. I did that two more times to maximize the chances of a goblin’s foot getting snagged.
Let me just say that so far the mono had been amazing. Yet, it was awkward using just that small FOV to see in the dark, but fuck was it cool. It might’ve taken half the time if I had just set up real lights while I worked, but that would’ve taken the fun out of it.
Fight me.
With my traps set up, I popped the chest to trigger the goblin attack.
This time around, four of them appeared, and came running.
They all stopped at the entrance, and stood there snarling. I was standing right there, yet they didn’t come for me. I quietly patted around my vest until I found one of the glowsticks I had left in it, cracked it, and threw it to the other side of the room, and watched the goblins track it through the air before they sprinted toward it, screaming excitedly.
So, the dumbasses couldn’t see in the dark, and were apparently part moth. The rearmost goblin was the unfortunate one, his foot got caught in the snare, and he started to claw at his ankle, unable to comprehend that it would only get tighter the harder he struggled with it.
The other three ignored him and crowded around the source of light (one of them tried to eat it). My shotgun red-dot had two NV brightness settings, high and low, which I had set up ahead of time. I placed the dot right on the back of the goblin that was gnawing on the glowstick, and fired.
Nine pellets of solid lead tore through him, splattering his compatriots with blood and glowstick fluid. He folded in half. The next goblin had his leg taken off at the kneecap, then ended with a follow up blast to the face. Number three began to panic, hearing only the loud noise and seeing the flashes of light.
They were like fish in a barrel.
I finished him off and topped off the shotgun tube as I approached the last goblin. I cracked another glowstick and dropped it near him, then folded up my mono to see better.
He swung his clawed hands at me as he hissed like a trapped cat.
I had to steel myself for what I did next. I tore off my glove and held my hand out toward him, leaning close until his hand clawed at mine.
Aura: 65%
I leaned back and looked at my hand. It was completely fine. Not so much as a scratch. I smiled maniacally as I shot the goblin in the chest, and continued to chuckle to myself as I collected my loot.
Gained 4 Soul Energy, 14/40
By the time I had removed the steel pipe and my snare traps, my aura had already gone back to 85%, about twelve minutes. I hauled all of my stuff back home and placed the gold in my safe for tomorrow. Another thing added to my list, a second safe for gold.
Man. Just how much had my life changed? I needed a safe for all my gold these days. What’s your honor student up to?
After stripping off my gear and setting the mono’s batteries to recharge I drove into town to get a sandwich using one of the coupons that Steve had so helpfully dropped off.
Yes, the Subway lady knew my order by heart. If you ask me very nicely, I might tell you what it is. She even threw in a free chocolate chip cookie.
I ate my sandwich there and then drove home. My fridge was showing up right as I got there, and I had the delivery guys set it right outside the kitchen for me to position myself later.
“Fuck… This means I have to rebuy all my groceries now.”