It took us another seven hours or so to get the rest of the store cleaned up and in working order. While we swept up broken glass, scrubbed the floors, and righted shelving units, I used the Blanket Fort Interface to see what we had, what was worth keeping, and what needed to be cut to make room for additional provisions.
Overall, I was thrilled.
The former MediocreMart had been less Walgreens and more the bastard lovechild of a Walgreens and a Dollar General, with a little dash of local hardware store sprinkled into the mix. There was a great selection of items ranging from Home Décor and Housewares to Grocery and Automotive. Twenty-eight aisles in total, meticulously laid out with all the basics anyone could ever need for survival.
There were a few aisles that needed to be gutted, but far fewer than I’d originally anticipated.
I was pleased to see that the grocery section had a surprisingly well-rounded selection of food. Boxes of cereal, pasta noodles and marinara sauce, soup and canned veggies, cup of noodles, and shelves full of bread. The frozen section was also loaded down with a variety of TV dinners, frozen pizzas, cheap sliders, and boneless chicken wings. Plus, a whole freezer, near to bursting with ice cream. There were also chips and snack food aplenty that would stay good for a geological epoch, even if none of it was healthy exactly.
The store had flats of bottled water, cases of soda, and a whole aisle dedicated to cheap liquor. The booze would make the time here a little more bearable and it would probably also sell for as much or more than the elixirs back in the pharmacy. Same thing with the cigarettes, cheap cigars, and chew, stashed away by the register. During my two deployments, luxury items like cigarettes ended up being worth their weight in gold as people ran dry and nicotine cravings started kicking in.
All of that stayed, of course, along with the exceedingly well-stocked over-the-counter drug section and other obvious essentials like basic hygiene, hardware, and home décor.
All of the greeting cards in aisle four needed to go, since I couldn’t imagine there would be much need for an abundance of Get Well Soon or Happy Birthday cards. The toy and game aisle ended up on the chopping block as well, along with the vast majority of the beauty supplies. Like the cards, I highly doubted anyone would be in the market for tinted moisturizer, liquid foundation, or bottles of cheap perfume that smelled like old gym socks.
Still, I tossed all of that stuff into my storage space. Waste not, want not as my grandad used to say.
There was a large storage area in the back, positioned behind the refrigerated section, but it was almost entirely devoid of items. Just a large open space with a concrete floor, a notice board, and a row of small metal lockers for employees to store whatever meager belongings they brought with them to shift.
Normally, that was where all the items waiting to go to the floor would be kept, but we didn’t have delivery trucks full of stuff waiting to be offloaded. Which made it the perfect spot to set up temporary sleeping quarters. Eventually, I’d get some simple camping cots in here, but for now, I had Baby Hands and Ponypuff give the place a good sweep and scrub, then set up a series of sleeping pallets on the floor, using blankets and pillows from the Home Décor aisle.
It wasn’t exactly a five-star resort and there was little to no privacy, but for Delvers desperate for a safe place to catch a bit of shut-eye, it would do just fine.
Cleaning up from the fight against the Harmacist and getting the store organized was only half the battle, though. I also needed to go through and price each and every one of the items on offer. Croc found a label gun stashed away in the Employee Lounge by the pharmacy, which made the process a bit easier, but it was still slow and tedious work. Thanks to my visit to the Loot Arcade, I already had a rough idea of what the going market rate was for most of this junk.
I marked food and beverages at a single Copper Loot Token apiece, while things like first aid kits, personal hygiene items, medicine, or survival gear such as blankets and flashlights went for more. Anywhere from two coppers all the way up to one silver. I based it off of how much Mana each item would cost to regenerate. Even though I felt the prices were a tad high, they were actually on par or even slightly lower than what someone would pay to purchase a comparable item from the Loot Arcades, plus I had a significantly wider variety of options.
And no monstrous Pac-Man creatures to contend against. The convenience alone was worth the price to play, as far as I was concerned.
Even though I probably could’ve squeezed a little more money out of each item, undercutting the only other supplier made my products much more attractive, and it didn’t really matter to me, since, essentially, I had no overhead. With a little investment of Mana, all of these products would regenerate. I could sell the same thing, over and over and over again, maximizing my profit through sheer volume.
The adrenaline of the battle against the Harmacist had finally faded from my system, which is when I realized exactly how wiped I was. I fell asleep while sweeping up some broken glass near the vitamin section in aisle 26 and woke up several hours later on one of the makeshift sleeping mats in the storage room. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure how I’d ended up on the pallet, but I suspected Croc had something to do with that. The dog was sitting beside me, staring at me with feverish intensity.
“Good morning, Dan,” the mimic said.
I glowered at the dog. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, sitting up then leaning back on my palms.
“Just watching you sleep and not thinking about eating you or how succulent your meat would be.”
I recoiled. “Why would you even say that?” I asked, brow furrowing in skepticism. “You’ve gotta know how insanely suspicious that sounds, right? It definitely makes me think you were considering whether to eat me or not.”
“What? No. I would never, Dan,” Croc protested. “Friends don’t kill, eat, or dismember each other. We’ve already gone over this. Even though, objectively speaking, you probably would be delicious. Not that I want to eat you, of course.”
I cleared my throat and scooted back a wee bit. “Of course,” I replied with a weak smile, before politely excusing myself to the bathroom.
Just when I thought I’d finally gotten used to how weird Croc was, the mimic went and did or said something that made me question all of my life choices. At least, inside the safety and protection of the store, I wouldn’t have to worry. If Croc ever did lose control and try to make a meal out of me, Stasis Halo would lock the mimic down faster than a boot Marine buying a used Dodge Charger at a twenty-one percent interest rate.
There were two gendered bathrooms, each with several stalls, but there was also a smaller, private bathroom attached to the employee’s breakroom. That bathroom would serve as my private commode. There wasn’t a shower, unfortunately, so instead I took a quick baby wipe wash—scrubbing away days of blood, sweat, and grime—then brushed my teeth and applied a fresh coat of deodorant, which helped combat the eye-watering stench of BO wafting from beneath my armpits.
I’d need to be on the lookout for proper bathing facilities. Attaching some sort of laundromat probably wouldn’t go amiss either.
The employee’s breakroom was rather lackluster and unimpressive. It had a small, timeworn love seat and a round table with a few metal folding chairs, but it also came with a small kitchenette complete with sink, fridge, stove, and microwave, as well as the most important item of all time.
A coffeepot.
There was plenty of coffee over in the grocery aisle, so I wouldn’t have to worry about running out anytime soon, and there were extra coffeepots for sale in the housewares section.
Croc slinked into the room as I puttered around the breakroom—nuking a frozen burrito from the coolers and putting on a pot of coffee to brew.
“Listen, I just wanted to apologize for what I said back there,” the mimic offered. “About eating you and all that. For the record, I would not eat you, but as we discussed yesterday, friends don’t lie.” The mimic took a deep, steadying breath. “And though it pains me to admit it, it would be a lie to say I’ve never considered eating you.
“I love helping Delvers, but it’s also in my nature to eat Delvers. But I would never do it. I’m basically the mimic version of a vegetarian. Do I have the capacity to eat you? Yes. Do I have the ravenous desire to eat you? Also yes. But I’ve taken the moral high ground and elected not to eat humans. Except for bad ones,” it amended after a second. “Or ones that are already dead, I suppose.”
Croc seemed to brighten as an idea occurred to it. “You know what? You and I are just like Edward and Bella from the internationally bestselling and beloved by all Twilight series, written by the unparalleled wordsmith Stephenie Meyer, starring the expressive Kristen Stewart as Bella, and the eminently talented Robert Pattison as the dreamy, yet mysterious Edward. Our love and friendship cut against the very fabric of nature yet, somehow, we make it work with absolutely no negative repercussions whatsoever. Plus, I like to watch you sleep, just like Edward! The parallels are truly uncanny!”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Are you being sarcastic right now?” I asked. “Because I genuinely don’t know whether you’re being sarcastic or if you legitimately love the Twilight series.”
“Of course I’m being serious! I mean, what’s not to love? Romance. Drama. Action scenes and cool powers. An apex predator befriending a squishy, irresistibly delicious meat-filled human then subsequentially wrestling with their insatiable desire for murder?” Croc nodded enthusiastically. “It’s very relatable content, Dan.”
“I can’t decide which part of that statement was the most concerning. But I feel the need to point out that Edward does eventually eat Bella—”
“Wait, does that mean you’re a fan of the series, too?” Croc interpreted excitedly.
I was half tempted to deny it, but then recalled the dog’s brutal and uncomfortable honesty. Friends don’t lie to each other. “I read it on deployment, okay? And it was fine. Not great. But fine. If you’re into that sort of thing. Which I’m not. Here’s the real takeaway, Croc. Please, for the love of my sanity and all that is good in the world, never, ever, under any circumstance, for any reason whatsoever, compare you and me to Bella and Edward again. Ever. For any reason. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.” Croc shook one eye at me, and the pupil jiggled. “I can’t blink,” it said, “but that’s what I was trying to do there, just so you know. There is one other tiny little point of awkwardness I was hoping to talk to you about.” Croc paused and took one fearful look over one shoulder. “I’m not quite sure how to say this, but it’s about…” The mimic dropped its voice to a whisper. “Princess Ponypuff. The golem with the pony head,” it added for clarity, as though I’d somehow be able to forget the terrifying pony Voltron, destroyer of worlds.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Croc continued. “I’m not saying that she’s overtly created a hostile work environment, but there’s definitely something not quite right about that one. Baby Hands is great. He and I are like two peas in a pod—he’s a great listener, too—but Ponypuff just keeps staring at me with cold, unblinking murder eyes,” Croc said while simultaneously staring at me with cold, unblinking plastic eyes.
“And she’s constantly saying odd things about meat, or ‘the failings of mortal flesh,’ or how ‘the power of friendship shall unlock the great pits of the eternal dark.’ Again, not anything overtly threatening or hostile, but there’s just something that doesn’t feel right about it, you know? She also follows me around. And I saw her surgically dissecting one of the few remaining Carbie dolls. Just little things like that.”
“Gee, that sounds creepy,” I replied flatly. “Can’t imagine what being on the receiving end of that would be like.”
“Couldn’t agree more. It’s amazing how socially unaware some people can be. The point,” Croc continued, somehow missing both my sarcasm and point entirely, “is that I’d love to get out and stretch my legs a bit. Just, you know, get some distance and create some healthy boundaries. We’ve got all these new powers to try out, you need to go to a Progenitor Monolith, plus our Artifact and Relic supply could use a few upgrades before we have our grand opening. I in no way mean this as a criticism, but things are a little… underwhelming in that department.”
I grunted and drummed my fingers on the edge of the cheap table.
Croc wasn’t wrong.
I’d cleaned out the glass security cases behind the front register and replaced the high-end booze, tobacco products, and lotto scratch-offs for the handful of Relics and Artifacts I was willing to part with. Seeing it all laid out showcased exactly how thin our supplies really were at the moment. After crafting the two Golems, all we had left was one Gremlin Jockstrap, two Basic Camo Spells, and nine of the Erlenmeyer’s Molotov Cocktail Relics.
The Molotov Cocktails would probably fetch a decent price, but everything else was basically one step above garbage. I could change that, though, assuming we could get our hands on more Relics. Since I could analyze the synergistic effects of Relics using the Researcher’s Codex, I could take trash-tier loot and forge them into Uncommon or even Rare Relics that people would kill to get their hands on. And anything else I could either trade away for better equipment or Sacrifice to level up my own abilities.
I’d put out a couple of the PowerPro Muscle Might Extreme Pump Preworkout Elixirs and the handful of Artifacts I’d looted from the Roid Gremlins and the Mall Rats.
But the handful of Artifacts I had on hand was as disappointing as my Relic selection. There was the enchanted barbell bow staff, the jump rope flail, the Jinxed Fortune bracelet, and a few other miscellaneous items that had no overt power, but empty Effect Slots: a pair of crocheted mittens, a plastic ring with a giant fake flower, a left flip-flop, and a chipped coffee mug with a picture of a kitten hanging from a power line that read, “Just hang in there.”
I’d swapped the classy booze for Lesser Healing, Mana, and Stamina Elixirs, which helped round out the display and was the biggest draw by far.
Still, all things considered, it was rather… lacking was a better word than pathetic, though pathetic was probably more accurate.
Unlike Croc, though, I wasn’t worried.
“You’re right that we need to expand our inventory,” I said, “but you’re thinking about how we’ll do it all wrong. We aren’t the party of DnD adventurers, and our job isn’t to go out and raid dungeons. We’re the distributor, Croc. Our real job is to advertise, and if we do that well, then other Delvers will bring us everything we need and then some, and we won’t have to lift a finger.”
Croc stared at me, rubbery mouth hanging agape. “Once again, I stand in awe of your wisdom, Dan. Truly, you are the defining intellect of a generation.”
I looked for a barb in the words, but as always, it seemed the mimic’s compliment was genuine.
“Just out of curiosity, though,” the dog continued, “how exactly are we going to do that? The advertising and whatnot, I mean.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.” I reached a hand through the Void and pulled out a can of spray paint. I’d been pleasantly surprised to find there were cans of spray paint in the Hardware section, which meant I wouldn’t need to raid any more art supply shops in the immediate future. Then I drew out a second item—the red Twinning yarn I’d purchased from the Loot Arcade. That wasn’t endless, but I had more than enough to last me for a good long while.
“Come on,” I said, jamming the spray paint and yarn into the exterior pockets of my tool belt.
Croc and I left the breakroom behind and beelined toward the front of the store.
I gave a sharp whistle as we walked and called out for the two Cannon Fodder golems to meet me by the front. Princess Ponypuff was already loitering behind the counter, while Baby Hands lumbered in from aisle two, his heavy footfalls reverberating off the ceiling tiles overhead.
“Alright, team meeting,” I said. “Croc and I are going out to plant doorway anchors, acquire some new territory, and canvass the area with a viral guerilla marketing campaign—”
“You didn’t mention there would be gorillas involved, Dan,” Croc blurted out.
“Guerrilla not gorilla,” I corrected. Then to really drive the point home, “Just to be perfectly clear, if there are gorillas involved at any point in the process, things have gone wildly off the rails. Now, please stop derailing me.”
“Oh, I see what you did there,” Croc chortled. “Off the rails and derailing me. Very clever, Dan. Very clever.”
“Dammit, Croc, please shut it,” I growled, then made a zipping motion, running my fingers across my lips. “Croc and I will be out for a while, but if things go as planned, we should start to have a trickle of customers before too long. Baby Hands, you’re dumber than a sack of bricks—”
“Baby Hands is hard worker,” the golem agreed, nodding its body.
“Yep, which is why you’re the muscle. If anyone tries looting or stealing anything, you stop ’em and throw their asses out with a polite but firm warning. I’ve already programmed a few basic rules into the Ban Hammer protocol, so if they deal more than ten percent damage to you, the store will auto-eject them, and they won’t be able to regain entry. There’s also a door fee for all Delvers who are over level one. If they want to come in, even to browse, it’ll cost ’em one Copper Loot Token, doesn’t matter the flavor. You got all that, Baby Hands?”
“Baby Hands is Baby Hands,” the golem grumbled. I assumed that was idiot for, “Yep, I got all that, boss.”
“Ponypuff”—I turned my gaze on the demonic MegaZord of toys and evil—“you’re in charge of the shop while we’re out. Your main job is to interact with the customers and man the cash register. Any level zero customer who wanders in automatically gets one of the basic Delver Kits we put together free of charge, plus one complimentary night of sleep.”
“Quick question, Dan, but how are we going to earn Relics if we give stuff away?” Croc asked, sounding befuddled but interested in learning.
“I asked you not to derail me, but that is a fair question,” I replied. “It’s called a loss leader. If a Delver is level zero, it means they’re brand new. Fresh meat, essentially. That also means they probably don’t have anything worth trading. But if we give away one of those survival kits, it’ll earn customer loyalty and it’ll help them survive long enough to get better stuff, which they will then sell back to us.
“There’s even a coupon in each of the kits for ten percent off their first order,” I added, “which should help create repeat business. As for the customers who aren’t level zero, they’ve gotta pay. The items on the shelves are all labeled already, so you’ll just have to ring them out once they’re done shopping. The prices for the few Relics and Artifacts we have are also posted”—I waved at the wall of items, each with a paper sticker attached to the front—“and those prices are nonnegotiable.”
The pricing scheme was fair, though certainly in my favor.
We were charging fifteen copper tokens or fifteen Common Shards for a Common Relic or Artifact, or I’d take a two-for-one trade-in on Relics of the same rarity level. The Uncommon Relics and Artifacts were obviously more expensive and ran three silver tokens, one gold token, or fifteen Uncommon Shards apiece. I was also willing to take a two-for-one swap on those, or they could buy an Uncommon for five Common Relics of any type.
As for the Health, Mana, and Stamina Regen potions, those all ran either four coppers of any variety or eight Shards each—which was significantly below the going value at the Loot Arcade. Because the price was so damned good, I’d decided to cap those at three elixirs per customer. They would serve as another loss leader to get people through the door, and even though I was undercutting the Arcade, I’d still be making a healthy profit, since the store would naturally regenerate those over time anyway.
“Let anyone that comes in know that we’re also actively looking to buy any Relics or Artifacts they’re willing to part with.” I reached back into the void and pulled out a sack filled with Copper Delver Loot Tokens. There were thirty-five in there, leaving just five left in my personal inventory. “We’re paying out seven coppers for Common Relics, one silver for Uncommons.” I retrieved a second, much smaller bag, and added it to the first. It contained three silvers, which felt physically painful to part with—the two Silver Delver Tokens I’d earned from clearing the store and one Silver Weaponmaster Token.
Ponypuff accepted the two bags without comment and slipped them into the cash register drawer.
“Any questions?” I asked, eyeing the two golems and wondering if I was making a terrible mistake.
When neither asked, I grimaced and nodded. Probably a terrible mistake.
“Is it time to go summon the gorillas?” Croc asked, sounding hopeful, tail waggling so hard the dog’s rump was damn near vibrating.
“Again—and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough—there will absolutely be no gorillas involved, Croc. And to answer your actual question, almost. There’s just one more little thing we need to do before we can really get this show on the road.” I turned and eyed a spot right next to the front counter. A space that looked like it was custom-built to hold an ATM, or maybe something ATM shaped.
Like a Progenitor Monolith.