Ray was in a space not unlike his storage. At least, that was the comparison his mind could make. In reality, he had no idea what the hell he was looking at. The room he found himself inside of was not large, maybe the size of the lobby of a modest building. But it was completely empty, except for one wall that was filled with screens.

Empty screens that is. Many of them were blank, some cracked and broken, and yet others seemed to be burned out. But one, single, solitary screen was lit up. He made his way to that particular one and examined it.

“This must be some kind of… administrative space?” he wondered aloud. “Huh. Strange. I’m curious if this happens just for me, or if anyone who claims a building or Hex gets access to a place like this.” Shrugging, he turned his attention back to the brightly lit rectangular screen.

On it were details and statistics of the building that he just claimed, laid out in the usual System format. He looked it over closely and reviewed everything he could. There was a primary screen with a staggering amount of information, a list of a dozen or so tabs on one side of the screen, many greyed out, with other sections he could navigate to, and a summary on the opposite side of the screen.

There was so much information, even down to the square footage, that he immediately turned his attention to the summary portion of the display. It was, by far, easier to read than the in-depth breakdown.

{OFFICE BUILDING}

FLOORS – 7

SUBFLOORS – 1

{FACILITIES}

LOBBY FOYER – 1

OFFICES – 6

BASEMENT – 1

ROOFTOP TERRACE – 1

{STATUS}

FULLY CLAIMED

{OCCUPANTS}

AETHER DRAKE – 1

HUMAN – 2

ORKIN – 2

GOBLIN – 13

“Hmm, got it. That’s simple enough… wait there’s a basement?” he muttered to himself, not remembering any stairs going downward. “Gonna have to look into that.”

Nodding at the information, as it lined up with what he knew and even gave him some information he had no idea about, he eyed the other two tabs there were lit up.

{CONSTRUCTION}

{FORTIFICATION}

Ray selected the first option, only to have a large list appear in its stead. Unfortunately, the entire thing was nearly greyed out, with only a couple of options at the top to look at. Very fortunately, however, there was a single option that he had been outright instructed to get from his mysterious benefactor. He selected that first.

{SYSTEM SHOP}

A SYSTEM SHOP AND ATTENDANT THAT MAY BE INSTALLED IN ANY CLAIMED LOCATION

{REQUIREMENT}

CLAIMED AREA

{COST}

NEX – 500

BASIC MATERIALS - 250

“That’s the one then,” he said to himself. He selected the option, finding that he had just enough NEX and Basic Materials to build the facility. What happened next took him by surprise, as he was presented with a three-dimensional model of the building he had claimed. An object appeared to the side of the model, vaguely in the shape and footprint of what a small corner market would be.

Curious, he touched the screen and found that he could drag and drop the System Shop anywhere inside of the building. Toying with the new, and amusing, feature, he placed it in several areas including the roof and basement. Eventually, he decided to put it in the corner of the first floor just next to the entrance.

Nodding he selected the confirmation to build the shop and stepped back from the wall of screens. As if sensing his intent to depart, he found himself dropped back onto the seventh floor in front of Rivea and Nyx.

“Welcome back human,” snorted the Drake. “Did you find your time within the Claim Matrix pleasant?”

Ray eyeballed the giant lizard, ‘Is that what that was? The Claim Matrix? Is that the place where you go to manage whatever it is you claim? Guess that answers my question if that is available to anyone who fully controls something.”

“Oh yes, everyone gets access to it, or some version of it. It varies for everyone, but it does make decorating or altering any territory or space you own incredibly easy,” she snorted. “At least, it’s easy if you have the resources to do so. I am curious, though, what did you do first?”

“I got the System Shop. It was all I could afford,” Ray said, thinking fast. He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to know about the letter yet. “It made sense that having access to that would give us a wider range of options. Anything the System is selling is going to be something we are going to need at some point. May as well have the option to get it if we can.”

Rivea stared at him. “Right. You have no idea what the Shop is for… do you?” she asked as Ray shook his head. “Right… just go down and look at it. I think you may be both pleasantly surprised and disgusted.”

Concerned, Ray headed for the stairwell with Nyx on his heels. Before he reached the doorway, however, he paused. Turning back to Rivea he asked, “Are you stuck up here? I mean, do I just leave you up here? Do you need anything?”

“No. I will be down shortly. Our little… tryst reduced my stores of Power, and I can no longer utilize my abilities,” she explained, dropping her head to the floor. “I will be down when I am suitably recovered.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Ray nodded and made his way to the first floor. Stepping out from the stairwell, he was immediately stunned at what he saw.

There, in the corner of the lobby, was a large and somewhat ramshackle shop front. The sign above it said, ‘System Shop’. But it was what was sitting behind the front counter that had Ray on edge. A tall woman with the lower half of a snake was relaxing behind the desk. Her top half was dressed in a black blouse, with her hair perfectly coiffed. She was waiting patiently, hands clasped in front of her as the Orkin and Goblins surrounding eyed her suspiciously.

Derek popped out from the makeshift bunks and walked over to him.

“Yeah, that thing just showed up all of a sudden. I… don’t really know what to make of it to be honest,” he said. “None of us headed over that way. We were waiting for you.”

Ray nodded and began walking to the shop, Derrick following on his heels. “I chose that as the first thing to build when I finished claiming the building. We only had enough for that one thing. Hell, everything else on the menu was magnitudes more expensive.”

“You… outright bought the shop? And it took most of our materials?” Derrick asked with hints of accusation laced through his voice. When Ray nodded his confirmation, the engineer sighed in exasperation. “Ray. You can buy or build something outright, but it is expensive. When you build stuff partially or put in the work first it gets much cheaper. You can be fast and expensive, or cheap and slow. But you cannot be fast and cheap and you don’t want expensive and slow. That is a really good way to get killed in our world now.”

Ray opened his mouth, then closed it. He thought it over even as he stopped in front of the new shop. “I fucked up, didn’t I?” he said slowly, turning to Derrick.

“Yeah. Not badly, but we certainly could have used those resources elsewhere,” Derrick pointed out. “I will get the guys working on scavenging from the rest of the building. I don’t know what to do about NEX exactly, but I guess you can figure that bit out. When you do need something else built… let me take care of it. I bet you I can optimize the process, so we spend much, much less.”

Ray agreed wholly and said as much. Derrick was the engineer, and he knew his stuff. He had to take advantage of the knowledge and work towards efficiency as they didn’t have the NEX or resources to spare right now.

Turning back to the shop he walked up to the woman… snake. Examining her, as she did him, he thought through what he wanted to ask. Finally, he spoke up, “Hi there. Can you tell me about the… shop?”

She smiled at him brightly. “Of course! That is why I am here after all. My name is Talla. I am your shop coordinator, at least for now. The System Shop provides base-level services through intermediary branches spread through the multiverse. Many independent companies purchase the rights to these shops, providing them with staffing, services, and goods that would not normally be available through a base System Shop.”

“Right. Like a franchise. A standard franchise will offer stock options, but a privately held franchise will offer those options and more due to personal, local, or outside business connections,” Ray said, causing Talla to smile in agreement.

She nodded happily, “Exactly. It's great to have someone understand. Now, the basics. This shop is at a basic level. The more you buy, sell, earn, invest, or take action will result in a higher shop level. This, in turn, will give you access to greater amounts and higher qualities of goods and services. Once the shop reaches the Bazaar level, you will need a separate building for it entirely, and multiple companies and entities will be represented there. All with unique services and wares for sale.”

“That’s… a lot to take in. Two more questions for right this second. Who do you work for, and… uh… what are you?” Ray asked, hoping he wasn’t being rude.

Talla just laughed, easing his worries that he had offended her. “I work for Trian Incorporated. A Ninth Universe trading firm. And for your second question, I am a Lamia.”

“That’s cool,” he said. “Thank you for explaining. Oh! Another question, do you live here? Do I provide food or a wage or something? Can you fight with us?”

She laughed again. “No, I don’t live here. The shop is open from dawn to dusk on the native world it resides in. I do not fight unless threatened, however, I can be hired to assist in various administrative tasks.”

Then she grew deadly serious. “Any attempts to attack me by residents, however, will be met with an extreme level of deadly force. Should the attackers survive, and I be harmed, Trian Incorporated will dispatch a recovery team and terminate all threats to recover me.”

Frozen with the wave of Power that came off her, she shifted instantly back into customer service mode. “And that’s what I can do!” she finished cheerfully.

“Fuck you’re terrifying,” he muttered, to which Talla only smiled wider. “Fine. Great. So… I have a few things I need help with. First, I need to locate my people. I think we were all split up after the Integration. Then I need help taking over this Hex.”

Talla nodded and pulled out a tablet-looking device. “Of course, Mr. Finnegan, one moment.” She tapped away at the table for several seconds before it hit him that he had never told her his name. But she started speaking before he could address it.

“At your current level, I have scrying spells for one hundred NEX each as well as basic inscribing and enchanting spell books for five thousand each. Those will assist greatly in your attempts to locate others,” she said.

He thought that over. Those were, with their current resources, expensive and out of reach. “How about hiring refugees or slaves? I did that last time.”

“Ah yes,” the Lamia hummed. “I see here that this universe was recently restructured into the standard System format. Welcome to a far more stable reality,” she chuckled. “Unfortunately, what you did before was… crudely done at best. Your administrators were not skilled. Not your fault, and I am glad you survived the experience. You cannot ‘purchase’ sentient beings. You may purchase their contracts or open your settlement for those wishing to migrate permanently. You need to control your territorial Hex fully prior to any permanent residents joining you from off world. Temporary mercenary contracts are available, however.”

“Grand. Well, it’s a shop I suppose. So, you need to make money, er, NEX, somehow,” Ray said quietly. “I will check out those mercenaries later. For now, I need to know if you buy things. And what kinds of things?”

Talla brightened, “Absolutely Mr. Finnigan! We purchase anything you bring to us that is usable. Even some forms of dirt that can sustain crops can be sold. There are countless worlds out there in need of anything and everything that you could imagine. The prices, however, are going to fluctuate wildly.”

She pointed to a small kiosk on the wall. “If you don’t want to buy or sell to me directly, the kiosk is where you can put up sell or buy orders or take on sell or buy orders. Keep in mind that, unlike direct purchasing, there is a percentage fee for facilitating the order. If you are low on NEX, I would recommend that as a possible short-term form of income. It is rather useful for areas with large quantities of beasts and monsters.”

“That’s reasonable, supply and demand and all that,” Ray said offhandedly as the Lamia nodded. “Awesome. Well, thanks for the information Talla. I will definitely come back when I have something to buy, or sell, or more questions to ask.”

Talla bowed slightly at the waist, “Of course Mr. Finnigan. Have a wonderful day. Oh, do be careful when going outside. There seems to be quite the quantity of creatures out there,” she reiterated with twinkling eyes.

He nodded, catching her drift, and headed back over to Derrick. “Alright. It’s a shop. We can’t afford anything right now, but they buy basically anything and everything. Makes me wonder if we have something here that we can scavenge and sell. Based on my discussion with Rivea we can harvest the creatures we kill as long as we don’t take the drops.”

“Ah, that makes sense. I was wondering why the bodies would just vanish like that,” the engineer replied. Then he paused. “Wait, who is Rivea?”

Ray blinked, forgetting that he hadn’t told Derrick about much that had happened on the floors above. “Ah yeah. Let me catch you up to speed. We killed the Lampreys then ran into a massive Drake. Turns out it could talk, wanted to eat me, not in a good way, and that she doesn’t like ice. So I froze her in place with a big use of Power, got her to swear fealty to me, and now we have a flying monstrosity as an ally.”

“Liege or not, if you call me a flying monstrosity again I am going to vivisect you,” said a calm yet distinctly female voice.

The pair turned to see who had spoken and saw a young lady with black horns curling up and towards the back of her head. Jet black hair with grey streaks covered her head and swept down to the middle of her back. She was short, just over five feet tall in Ray's estimation… and extremely attractive.

She was wearing black leather and was standing near them with her arms crossed, tapping her foot in irritation. Nyx sat next to her with an amused look on her face. With a roll of her eyes, the canine imparted an age-old truth to the pair of guys standing in front of them.

“Men.”