Charlotte's PoV

Charlotte looked at her clock to find it was already 10am. She tiredly rubbed her eyes. It took her a lot of time to get to sleep. Fearfully she looked at her phone and wondered if there would be any more veiled threats waiting for her. Grabbing it she started scanning through her messages.

The first one was directly from Mr. Montgomery's lawyer. It read "Mr. Montgomery wants to sincerely apologize for any offense that might have been taken. He wishes to go forward with the terms previously stated by your associate. Please get in contact with us as soon as possible."

What? How did that happen? She scanned earlier messages and found one from Jim reading "I have returned our mutual friend's threat with one of my own. If you encounter any more situations like the other day, send me a message. I need to turn my phone off for most of the day, but I will still check it every couple hours."

How could Jim threaten someone like Mr. Montgomery? That was crazy. Shaking her head she dialed up her lawyer so they could get the ball rolling. She got an immediate answer.

"Charlotte! About time you called! I've been getting calls every 10 minutes, they want to push the deal through on the original terms!"

Then she heard cackling on the other end of the line. "What's going on?"

Finally her lawyer stopped laughing and said "Word is first thing in the morning Mr. Montgomery had a police car in his office! Apparently it got stolen right from the police station itself but ended up there! This whole morning the place was swamped by police looking for evidence!"

Confused, Charlotte asked "Why would some prank affect his position in the negotiation?"

"No idea. I just find it hilarious he has to deal with a swarm of police officers. Serves him right for being such a pain in the ass."

After hanging up she took the two pieces of information and added them together. If that was his threat then Jim was nuts. Still, the very rich always had a few secrets. Having investigators run all around his building probably was very uncomfortable for him.

Still she was definitely not asking, if he did do something that crazy she didn't want to know about it. That way if he got caught she could legitimately testify that she had no idea.

Charlotte got dressed and headed to her lawyer's office.

***

Jim's PoV

Jim wished he could see the look on Mr. Montgomery's face when he saw that police car! All in all it was fairly simple to pull off. For the first time ever he equipped items from in the game onto his person in his own world. It took some fiddling but he got the process down.

From his experimentation there were three ways to equip his 'in-game' party. Either he could use the party menu and select equipment, or he could 'drag' items from his inventory tab then swipe over to where the person was standing and 'drop' the item on them.

The last option was dragging an item and then dropping it in an open space, which would cause the item to materialize in his hand.

The first two did the same thing and they both required members to be in the party. But if he would just 'drag' an item from his inventory and 'drop' them on Earth, the item that would appear most of the time wouldn't fit properly.

Because Jim wanted to equip items on Earth instead of in the world of FF3, the select equipment menu wasn't an option. Using that would only equip items to his 'game' avatar. The last option spawned the gear that he wanted to use as way too small.

But he found a work-around for that problem. Jim figured out he could combine the drag and drop method while looking into a mirror. So he could drag it from his inventory, go over to the real world and then drop the item on his reflection in the mirror.

The result? Perfectly fitting gear on Earth Jim and no need to change! Honestly he was thinking about using this method to get dressed from now on. Too bad it didn't work on underwear, so he would still need to manually put on those.

Once he was done being distracted by the awesomeness of his cheat, he put on the Ultimate Ninja set. Normally in the original game not only did it make it so that you could not be ambushed, but it also gave your characters wearing it the ability to always strike first in combat. It was fantastic armor for grinding out level ups.

However the item ability changed in the new version of the game.

Equip: Allows User to See Motion. Equipping More Set Pieces Increases this Effect.

Equip: Fully Hides Form in Darkness. Equipping More Set Pieces Allows Resistance to Low Light.

The first new ability of the set was that it highlighted all motion. When he wore the full set it would even highlight motion through walls. It was cool as hell! The second ability made him blend into the night. With the full set as long as he wasn't directly under a street light, he was almost invisible. It was the ultimate cat burglar suit!

With the small addition of a smoke bomb item it made stealing the car very easy. All he did was walk up to the car, toss the smoke bomb, get under the car, open his right eye into the game world and then lift it to put it into his inventory.

Jim wondered what he could bench press while in his cheating mode, it seemed absurd. But the smoke bomb was important too so that crazy things like cars disappearing didn't get seen by cameras.

After his pacing session Jim did some research and found out that Mr. Montgomery had a private elevator. Dropping the car off was just as simple. All he needed to do was hack that private elevator while in his ninja suit, take the elevator up to his office, drag and drop the police car from his inventory, then leave the same way he came.

Add in a few smoke bombs to spice things up and running at olympic speeds while camouflaged and no one should have seen a thing. Easy work!

All in all he liked the solution he came up with. At least in his head the statement he made was something along the lines of "If I can get into your most secure place while stealing a police car, then nowhere is safe."

Plus the fact that police would be snooping around would be too funny!

Now back at his hotel he was procrastinating logging back in. He already marched for six days, dammit! He was so tired of walking! It would be nice if he could just drive his car on the other side.

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The thought rattled around in his head for a few seconds. Then he realized that there was no reason why he couldn't do that! A short U-turn from where they were and they should be able to find a road! It was a longer route but with driving they should make up a lot of time.

Screw zig-zagging down some mountain trail! When he watched the commercials for his car they were driving off road, and it was a 4 wheel drive vehicle, so why not? What could go wrong?

***

Forrest's PoV

They had all packed up camp and were waiting for Jim to come back. He had tried talking to Scarlet a couple times but something seemed to change over the night. She seemed worried and distracted.

With that outlet gone he started to brood in a corner. Glancing over at Maria he couldn't help but smile. As long as she had those two wolves attached to her hip, then she was a happy girl. He watched them for a good half hour, and then Jim started moving.

The group started to converge on him but he said "Give me a few seconds everyone, give me some room."

Everyone watched him and he started doing his gesturing stuff. And then something appeared. Was it a carriage? What was the point of that? There were no roads and they had nothing to pull it.

Jim shouted to everyone "Okay kids, gather around!"

He started pointing at people and then counting off on his fingers. Finally he said "Looks like we got five people and two dogs. What a big family! Forrest I need you in the front to give me directions, everyone else to the back you go!"

As they made their way to the carriage Jim said "These are handles, just lift up on them like this and the door opens. When you get in make sure the doors are closed firmly."

They followed his instructions and entered the thing. As he looked behind him he saw everyone trying to squeeze in. Somehow Scarlet got in the middle and she didn't seem to like the situation.

Scarlet said annoyedly, "Nope, this isn't happening."

Then she crawled through the middle to sit on his lap. He gulped. Trying to distract himself from the soft body on top of him, he glanced over to Jim who seemed to be making sure everyone was inside.

Jim said "All the doors closed? Good! Forrest, since we got wheels I want to go a bit to the south west of Jacksberg first. With driving we should save a lot of time. I want to go to a small little desert. Do you know the place?"

He was about to tell Jim that he didn't know but then Scarlet pulled out a map and began to search it. Then she said "Yea, I see it. There is a road that breaks off that way. We just need to turn around and get back to the main road. So this is a magic carriage? Is it really fast enough to save time?"

Jim grinned and said "Yep and yup!"

That's when the carriage started to growl.

Scarlet was the only one who seemed to be unimpressed and said "Why do you want to go to this desert?"

"There is a low chance for a potion vendor to spawn there. She is one of the few on this continent that actually sells the Remedy Potion. They work like Elixirs, but just without the health and mana parts. I want to check to see if she spawned!"

There were so many questions but Forrest was learning to just go with the flow. He still felt bad about losing the two prisoners. He heard stories of the battle from everyone and they were damn lucky to be alive.

If Jim had taken his two wolf companions with him, then they would have certainly been lost. With his navigation duties taken over by Scarlet he looked out the window and wondered what he could have done better.

Then the magic carriage started moving. As the bumpy terrain shook the vehicle, it also shook something else. There was a woman on his lap. A very attractive woman who was now bouncing against something. His chain of thought was thoroughly disrupted as the magical carriage continued to bounce on the bumpy terrain.

Trying to keep a certain part of himself from having a reaction, he realized her hips seemed to move just a bit more than expected whenever the carriage jostled. Then he saw the mischievous look in her eyes as she turned back to smirk at him. Devious! Downright devious! Realizing there wasn't going to be any more critical thinking that day, he tried to relax as his temptress taunted him.

***

Rare Potion Makers' PoV

Milly had lived in Jacksburg her whole life. The shop that she was now in was started by her great grandfather in an unbroken line all the way to her. She was looking at the ledger with sadness. She would probably only have half a year left before she was out of business unless things changed.

Milly's great grandfather was a Potion Maker and he passed down that skill. She grabbed a book under the counter and held it to her chest. It was bound with worn leather. It was her greatest possession. The book was passed down to whoever ran the potion shop. She fondly remembered looking through the book before she could even read.

Everything was going well enough until five years ago. The cost of materials they needed to make the most common potions started to increase drastically. The group that was known as the Merchant Circle kept forcing traders to sell their goods at rock bottom prices.

They claimed that there was a war coming soon and that they had to be prepared. It made life impossible, they had no access to the sellers, and if a buyer had the right credentials they could get potions for cheap. After that the only way to stay in business was to get the ingredients themselves.

But their family had faced this kind of situation many times in the past. The book had an index of all known locations of useful components. There was one location listed that had several things that they desperately needed. But the last note in the margin for that entry said that the person did not return.

Her father was determined and many of the old spots were taken over, claimed to be private property or died out from overuse. Many notes in the index said this next to so many locations. Her father took a chance then and that was three years ago. He never returned.

Milly heard the door's bell and her heart leapt, "A customer!" She thought. That feeling quickly changed to dread as she saw who came in her shop. There were three large familiar muscular men. They charged protection money for the shops on the street. But they shouldn't be here! She already paid this month!

Milly opened her mouth to say just that when the leader barked "Oh don't worry honey we know you paid, but unfortunately the boss is a bit short of funds at the moment. He had the great idea of charging everyone a bit earlier this round. If you could pay up and be a good girl..."

This couldn't be happening. She had to save every gil just to pay the tax collector and the 'protection' fee. If she paid them now, then when the tax collector came in a week she wouldn't have enough! Tax collectors didn't care if you were off by a single gil. Your shop and everything besides the clothes on your back would be forfeited.

Milly started to say "I won't be able to pay the tax" before she was cut off by the same man saying, "We already collected from half the street sweetie. Now wouldn't it be unfair if they paid and you didn't? Can't have that."

Milly knew there was nothing she could do. If she refused to pay they would come back later and rob what they could and break what they couldn't. That was how they stayed in 'business', because if you didn't pay, you wouldn't have a store.

She took out the container with the gil she had put away for the tax collector and handed it over to the thug. Milly could feel her heart break. The store had stayed with them for generations and now it would end with her unless she could figure something out.

The men left with the leader saying casually "Nice doing business with you."

Milly pulled out the worn leather covered book and went to the index page and located the place where her father died. She looked at the entry that had caused her pain so many times. Then she finally added something next to her father's name. "Never returned."

All these years she hesitated to make that entry hoping a miracle would happen. She hoped that he would walk through the front door like he always did. She hoped he would run to her and say sorry for being late. She hoped that everything would return to normal. She hoped that he would know what to do to save the store. But it never happened.

She then added a new entry after that. In a clear elegant handwriting she added her name just below her father's. Either she would find out what happened to her father and save the store in the process or she would die trying.

Her father must have known a day like this was coming. The street they lived on slowly became a ghetto and that brought 'protection' fees and less customers. It was a slow downward spiral. If they had seen it sooner they could have tried to sell the shop but she could understand her fathers reluctance. Generations of their family had lived and died in that shop.

Milly had a cousin who worked at a kitchen in town. She didn't want the family's potion book to be lost with her if the worst happened. Her cousin had a husband and they were expecting a child soon. Maybe the tradition could still go on if she didn't make it back?

Milly started making preparations for the trip.