It didn't take Fiona and me long to find the Army Headquarters. I think it was all the soldiers outside that kind of gave it away, No, maybe it was the massive dirt-filled sandbag walls; if you could call massive cubes of material filled with dirt sandbags. I assumed they used dirt instead of sand since it was easier to come by. I was honestly impressed, how had they managed to move all these massive walls into place and fill them. Turns out that was an easily answered question, the heavy equipment moving around behind the wall kind of gave it away. Looks like they had more mana engines for those as well.

As we approached the gate guards stopped and searched us. Not exactly sure what they were searching for as everything was inside my inventory and it wasn't like they could access it. After a quick pat-down, they waved us through. I just shook my head in displeasure as they went back to watching the gate. I couldn't believe their lax attitude.

We approached one of the few buildings within the walls, a single-story home. You could tell there had been more homes at one time, cleared foundations marking their recent location. I imagined they used some of the material to help fill the walls. I approached the door and gave it a few solid knocks.

"Come in," a muffled voice said from inside.

Opening the door we stepped into the house turned office. At least a dozen soldiers were milling about inside. It looked like they were sorting and filing paperwork. I assumed the one at the small desk, facing the door, was who we needed to talk to first.

"Were here to speak with Sergeant Cunningham, Gertrude said he might have some work for us," I stated plainly, dropping the old crone's name, to hopefully put some weight behind my request.

"Please have a seat, he will be with you shortly." The man behind the desk said in a nasal tone.

I'll be honest, none of the people in this room looked much like soldiers. I figured most if not all of them were reservists. For shits and giggles, I used Identify on everyone in the room. I was flabbergasted by what I saw. Not a single one of these people was above level 5, and that leveling had probably all happened in the first few days. If this was what our defenders were working with, this town was probably worse off than I thought. Putting aside my worries I sat down, and waited, and waited.

I was getting antsy and angrier as time went by. No other people came in, yet the Sergeant made us wait 45 minutes. I felt like I was at a Doctor's appointment, having to wait so long. And was about to say screw it and leave, when Mr. Pencil pusher at the desk said we could go in to see him now. Through all this Fiona was unfazed. I envied her calm demeanor but perhaps she was more used to the military bureaucracy.

Walking down the hall, we entered the only door that wasn't a bedroom or a bathroom in the small house. After everything I had seen so far, what greeted us wasn't much of a surprise. Sergeant Cunningham was an overweight, balding, mid-fifty-year-old man. First I thought he must have slept through System activation, missing the opportunity to change his physical characteristics. I honestly couldn't think of another reason. Why keep the extra weight or the lack of hair. Certainly, he could have tweaked his body in the system to get rid of those features. I pushed those thoughts down, perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was busy trying to help people at the time and couldn't be bothered with physical appearance.

He didn't come off as your typical army Seargeant, I had worked with a few in my time as a programmer. My guess was he was a reservist like the rest and just happened to be the highest-ranking soldier in this area or that survived the initial fighting.

He had the generic class of Fighter and was only level 4, lending more credence to the fact that he had been auto-assigned a class and stats. I wasn't sure how all that worked since I had finished my build. With his lower level it was likely others did all the fighting for him. It made sense to keep the command structure intact. It was easy to tell the man had been out of service for at least a few years, his shirt barely fit and it looks like someone had let out the seams to even make that happen. I sighed internally, he wasn't the type of person I would normally associate with but he was keeping the town at least somewhat secure, so I had to give him credit for that.

The shirt reminded me of my patience and sanity at this point, stretched to its limit. I looked over to Fiona, trying to gauge her reaction, only to see a stony face. 'Curse her,' I thought, making a mental note never to play poker with that woman. We took the two chairs in the cramped office, not bothering to wait for permission to sit.

"So, my assistant says you are here to offer your services? You do know we are in a state of war? Granting me the power to place this area under martial law. If you are a citizen you must join the ranks and help defend your country."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I'll be the first to admit to not understanding every law known to man, especially military law, but this sounded like a load of horse shit to me.

"Look, Sergeant, we just came here to see if there were some odd jobs we could help with, not to be drafted into service. I may be local, but my friend here is not."

"I have the authority to draft you by presidential order," Cunningham said, a vein pulsing in his forehead.

I guessed the man had gotten used to people following his commands without a second thought or any backtalk.

"You could certainly try, but I've seen what levels you have to work with and I would estimate my odds at better than 50/50," I said, a bit of anger in my voice. As if the government still held any power.

Fiona just raised her eyebrow a touch at my exaggeration. Of course, she was right, even if I did have to flee from these people, for whatever reason, it wasn't like I was going to slaughter the lot of them. They were just trying to do what they were trained to do. It just irked me, it seemed like every idiot with an ounce of power now though they were king.

"Fine, fine, whatever," Cunningham said, trying to calm my anger, "We won't force anyone into serving, it's bad enough we get daily complaints about the Black Dragon and their slaves. There are only so many times you can tell people you can't do anything about them because of our non-aggression agreement."

I could understand his frustration, he was playing a dangerous game and I decided to tell him so.

"You know that won't last forever? Once they have the forces in place they will attack. The Bazaar makes this town too tempting a target for them to do otherwise. Even if it's only to remove a future threat. I know for a fact they are gathering their members before moving to Chicago. I can't imagine them leaving this city in anyone else's hands when they leave, not with the Bazaar here."

"Well, that is a problem for later," Cunningham said, bristling at my tone, "Right now if you truly wish to help we need trade materials, I can't afford to send out soldiers that could be put to better use protecting citizens."

"Ok, but this isn't a charity case, what's in it for us?" I said, pointing to Fiona and myself.

The Sergeant must have been expecting this answer as he didn't miss a beat, "We can offer you access to the armory, or any crafted items, for cost."

"What's in the armory?" I asked.

"Mostly military issue gear and the items we stripped from the dead during the initial days of fighting."

I had to think about this for a bit. I doubted they had anything I would want, still, I wanted to help out the community since I intended to live here.

"Fine, we will agree to help, but we are going to need a storage item if we are to transport any significant amount of loot," I said, hoping we could get another storage item and not have to use my inventory.

"Hmm, I will ask my assistant to see if we have anything that may work. Give him a few minutes," Sergeant Cunningham said, calling for someone in the hallway.

We heard him relay his instructions to the other soldier and they raced off to go fulfill the orders. While we waited the Sergeant asked us where we came from if we had information on the area and whatnot.

I filled the man in on my story of traveling from the north, the Barracks town, my fight with the Black Dragon mage, and my trip south. I left some stuff out, like Fiona's betrayal and my time in the dungeons.

Mostly I told him about the enemy encampment to his north, which he wanted to know more about. I told him everything I knew and his frown just seemed to deepen. I just finished my retelling, when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," the Sergeant said.

A soldier entered carrying a small bag that he handed to the sergeant.

"This was all we had in the supply room, it was overlooked because we thought it was a standard bag at first," the soldier said chagrined.

"Thank you Private, you're dismissed," Cunningham said, waving the soldier away, "Will this work?" he said, handing the bag to me.

I took the offered bag and inspected it, hoping for something amazing. My dreams of a massive bag of holding were dashed; it was a standard 3 cubic foot storage item, like my ring. It was acceptable enough for my purposes.

"Yes, this will work," I replied.

"Good, now before you go running off with the bag, you're going to have to form an agreement with me. To procure crafting supplies and materials in exchange for access to our armory and supplies."

"Um, isn't that what we just talked about?"

"Please accept the terms of the agreement."

"Fine, I accept the terms of the agreement that Sergeant Cunningham has stated," as soon as I finished saying that, I got a popup window.

You have entered into a contract voluntarily, if you fail to uphold the terms of the contract you will be subject to a wanted status that will appear for anyone who reports to Sergeant Cunningham as well as be subject to double damage from anyone in his chain of command

'A bit harsh,' I thought, but I wasn't too concerned. Not like I planned to take the bag and make a run for it. I planned to make this area my home, even after the apocalypse. Plus I needed to wait around for Frathsar if I wanted the reward he offered me.

Even though Cunningham and I got off on the wrong foot I still shook the man's hand, when I stood to leave. Fiona mimicked a salute, not quite used to our style but it must have been close enough as Cunningham returned it. It was time to start making friends and allies and this was a decent start.

Once we were outside the front gate, I turned to Fiona, "Well, now that we've met the neighbors, how about we go do something fun?"

"Our definitions of fun differ wildly," she said, shaking her head.

We pulled out our mounts, getting a few surprised looks from soldiers and civilians alike as we rode off towards our first dungeon.