By the time Arthur got to the front room, Carly was already hustling a man into the basement.

From the small glimpse he managed, he could tell it was bad. A large gash that ran the length of his arm, and his face was pale and sweaty. It only took a quick glance at the counter for Arthur to identify the culprit for the attack—a multipup.

From one of its mangled heads, Arthur noted a familiar purple hue in its glassy eyes. He grimaced, knowing what that meant. Rathnil.

Before he could lose himself in that thought, he turned his attention to the group of worried faces that stood watching him.

“Sally,” he said to one.

She was a frequent customer, with a small scar along one cheek. Her most recent purchases included one of the board games he’d duplicated. More than once, he’d catch their group having taken over a table as they laughed and played together.

There was none of that laughter in her eyes now. Only worry and a touch of fear. Not that he blamed her. Multipups were not fun foes.

“Sally,” he said again, to draw her attention away from the door to the basement. “Johnny will be okay. Can you tell me what happened?”

He could see the effort it took for her to force her eyes to meet his, and she nodded.

“We were out scavenging for building supplies. You know, bricks, wood, furniture, whatever.”

Artur nodded along, not wanting to hurry her.

“And did you find anything?”

“Sure did.” There was a ghost of a smile there until she looked back at the trapdoor. “We found a massive pallet of bricks in a loading dock. There must have been hundreds of them. Plus a cement mixer that still spins. We were exploring it more when we heard the growling.”

Behind her, he saw her two companions shuffle with nerves. Don, a man with black hair and dark skin, scowled. Tabitha, a severe-looking brunette, fingered the handle of her mace. A gift from Theorisa’s knights when they found out he could now duplicate their weapons and armor.

“That was when it jumped you?”

“Yeah,” Sally nodded. “The thing was acting weird, though. Almost drunk. It didn’t bite; it just scratched. Went down easily when Tabby hit it with her mace.”

Arthur frowned as he looked at the mutated monster. Aside from the eyes, it didn’t look any different. When he reached down and touched the corpse, he found nothing new.

STOCK FOUND

1X MUTATED MULTIPUP PELT - RARE

3X MUTATED MULTIPUP EYE - RARE

1X MUTATED MULTIPUP SKELETON - RARE

1X MUTATED MULTIPUP MEAT - RARE

1X VIAL OF MULTIPUP ACID - RARE

3X RADIATION CRYSTAL (RANK F) - RARE

SEND TO STORE INVENTORY

ADD TO BAG

DISCARD ALL OPTIONS

“Strange,” Arthur said, even as he fished out a handful of coins from the box.

While there wasn’t a quest to hunt monsters in the city, he wouldn’t let them go unpaid. Monster fighting was hard work, and he wanted to make sure he rewarded it. That thought made him think about what he’d talked about with Davey earlier in the day.

“Well,” Arthur resisted the urge to shake his head as he handed over the money. “As rewarded as I can manage now, anyway.”

Sally took the coins with a pleased smile. “Johnny will be alright, won’t he?”

“Provided he didn’t get bit,” Arthur nodded. “Are you going to go back for the bricks?”

“It’ll take multiple trips,” Don said in his deep voice. “We might need the trucks, or at least a wagon for the scooters you lent us.”

“I can arrange that.”

They continued to chat for a while longer until Johnny came back up from the basement. He looked far better. Out of the three waiting, Sally looked the most relieved. Upon seeing Arthur, Johnny waved.

“Hey man, thanks for the healing. Two coins, yeah?”

Arthur waved him off. “On the house. Call it even for the information about the bricks.”

“Oh, did they tell you about that already?” Johnny looked excited. “I dunno if we can get it all out on our own. They have a truck, but the tires are pretty badly damaged. Are you going to generate infinite bricks?”

The man’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Arthur couldn’t help but grin and nod his head.

“If I can, I will. Plus, any other supplies you can find for me. Two of my three slots are currently on clothes and water. But I can change those out when I need to.”

“Right on. Does this mean I get to drive the truck to pick up the bricks?” Johnny asked as he held up a hand for a high five.

Arthur shook his head and slapped the man’s hand. “Not unless you’ve learned to drive recently.”

“He hasn’t,” chorused the rest of his group.

Johnny narrowed his eyes at them. “No fair. I can drive a scooter fine.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Doesn’t mean I trust you with the truck. One of Lisa’s guys who used to make the deliveries will go with you. They can be another hand to help you load up. I need to contact her, anyway.”

“Fine, fine,” Johnny grumbled good-naturedly as he slipped out from behind the counter. “We’ll go get some games in then, provided someone hasn’t nicked our tent.”

Arthur smiled and bid them goodbye as he watched him go, before grabbing a rag and cleaning off the residue the corpse had left on the counter. Once that was done and Carly had returned to cover the counter, he moved outside to see if he could flag down anyone loitering around in the street.

With the promise of coins, he watched a young man hurry to the scooters and take off.

That complete, he tracked down Jemima and grab Augustus. They had a trip to plan for.

***

Augustus turned out to be the easier of the two to locate. His head of security was simply inside the store, watching customers with a wary eye. Theobold stood outside, guarding the door, and he wasn’t sure where Nyssa was. Probably inside one house. Even after all this time, people were still commissioning her for this and that.

A fact he was thankful for, especially now. She needed something to keep her mind off the potential meeting with Dr. Kunibert.

Jemima proved slightly trickier to track down.

At first, he thought she was in the small tent city that was forming north of the store, but no one had seen her. So, with Augustus in tow and glares at his back, he moved in the opposite direction. His search took him on a trip a street over before he finally found her.

Like the street his store was on, this one contained mostly old shops. Unlike him, though, these hadn’t survived the test of time nearly as well. They stood half-crumbling, with broken windows and ceilings covered with holes.

Water had gotten into most, meaning they needed to be cleaned out before they were fit for human habitation. Thankfully, they had a cleaning crew to handle that. The number of people who’d taken on the quest surprised him.

Though, he supposed, it was fairly easy money compared to fighting monsters or wandering the city in hopes of useful finds.

Jemima was working with a crew, carrying buckets of debris out of the houses. She barely seemed to register the weight as she moved. A few others threw her jealous glances. Nearby, people swept out the buildings and piled up the loose stones and bricks, some of which they might be able to reuse. Every bit helped, after all.

For a moment, he wondered if they should build a wall like the knights did, but then shook his head. It was the same problem as the housing. While they could pile things up, it wouldn’t be worth much without someone who knew what they were doing.

“Jemima!” he called out when she finally tossed her load into a nearby dumpster.

She turned and waved at him before putting her buckets down. He got a few other greetings as well when people noticed his arrival. Arthur did his best to return them, even as he moved over to stand next to Jemima.

“I’m setting up to—”

A cracking sound from one of the nearby buildings interrupted him. Someone yelled, and another cursed as a piece of roof fell away. It landed with a thud, and he winced as he watched people scramble away from the incident.

Even as he moved in to see if he could help, a thought flashed through his mind. “Not that much safer than hunting monsters, it seems.”

“Is everyone alright?” he asked as he waved away the dust the fall had stirred up.

Arthur smiled in relief as he heard a general chorus of people saying fine. A quick examination showing that the rubble hadn’t landed on anyone.

Still, he made a note to buy helmets and other safety gear. He couldn’t help but sigh. Other things on the list already included his cane, better office furniture, and maybe someone who could tell him more about Rathnil.

At this rate, even with his trepidation about what might happen if he went back, it seemed he couldn’t keep putting off a return visit.

Though he knew he had one secret weapon to get him out of trouble if security tried to cause him problems—the demon cores. He’d collected more after the battle at Diaboli Theatrum and had kept hold of them. They were as good as gold, and potentially, in some ways, better. He still remembered how eager Officer Zerreon had been to get his hands on it.

Valuable enough that someone might trade them for information on Rathnil, or at least get more information about the bribery scheme.

“You were looking for me?” Jemima asked, snapping him out of his musing as she moved over to the building.

“Yes,” he said as he turned to face her. “I wanted to know if you would come with me to visit The Assembly. We need people who can scout the city for danger if we’re sending people out there.”

Jemima looked thoughtful. “When?”

“Tomorrow. It’s already been a long day, and I’m not sure I’m up for more adventures. Plus, Lisa will need time to get organized.”

“I can’t.”

Her words surprised him, and it must have shown on his face, because she continued hurriedly. “Some groups have been talking about heading to the third level of the sewers to poke around. There are rumors of an exit, but no one’s really sure. I want to be there. It’s better I’m protecting them than not. Plus, well. Someone claimed they’ve seen demons lurking about.”

Arthur couldn’t argue with that. If demons were present, Jemima could get a sense of them, even if they were invisible. So he nodded.

“Makes sense. I’ll go with just Augustus then. I doubt it’ll be a long trip.”

With that said, he said his goodbyes and headed back to the store. With the darkening sky, he wanted to be there for the dinner service. Today had been full of surprises, and he wanted to be there in case of a third.

***

To his relief, the bad news didn’t come until after they finished serving dinner.

Augustus and Theobold helped to put the tables away when George returned. He appeared unharmed, though hurried, as he made his way into the store. Arthur put down the chair he’d been holding and nodded to him.

“Did you get the meeting?”

“I did,” George said. “With conditions.”

The fact he had conditions didn’t surprise Arthur in the slightest. As when they’d last met, he’d betrayed Dr. Kunibert by helping Dr. Muriler save Nyssa. A decision he in no way regretted. Without her, he doubted he’d have gotten as far as he had.

“What conditions?” he asked.

“He wants it to be you and him alone. No one else,” George started and then raised his hand before Arthur could interject. “Not in the sewers. A neutral location. There’s an abandoned building a few blocks away. He told me the way so I could guide you. It’s nothing special; I checked it out before I came back here. I told him you probably wouldn’t agree, but it was his main condition.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request, though he didn’t like it. Especially without a weapon to defend himself from the potential rat swarm. He sighed; that meant he’d need to go to The Mall tonight.

“Fine. Any others?”

“That was the main one. That, and he wants the rat Slagsoul Chimera you found as well as some of the moss. He’s still interested in that.”

A grimace crossed Arthur’s face, but he nodded. It would be a small price to pay for the information he wanted. Though he wasn’t sure why Dr. Kunibert cared about the moss, it wasn’t his area of expertise.

“Alright. Are you going back down to tell him we have a deal? And when did he want to meet?”

“He said you could decide that.”

“Alright,” Arthur said as he tried to think about what he had planned. “I’m heading to meet with The Assembly tomorrow. So, the day after? Say, noon?”

George nodded. “I’ll tell him. And you’ll bring the materials he wanted?”

“Of course. Though I doubt he’ll take my word for it, hang on.”

As he spoke, he moved over to the box and pulled out a sturdy shoebox. Inside of that, he placed some rags, and then quickly pulled out the carapace and stuck it inside. His fingers tingled, and he grimaced.

“Here. As a sign of good faith, he can have the carapace now. I wouldn’t touch it.”

“I didn’t plan on it.” George laughed as he gingerly held the box. “I’ll go now then.”

“Thanks, George,” Arthur said, moving to get the door for him.

With another round of goodbyes, George left, and Arthur sighed. Theobold side-eyed him as he put the last of the tables away.

“Are you sure going on your own is wise, boss?”

“Nope,” Arthur admitted. “But that’s why I’m going to grab some protection before I go.”

That said, he turned to Adam sitting behind the counter. “You’re getting replaced by Chris soon, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Adam replied with a friendly smile.

Arthur nodded. “Great. I’m going to bed; tell him to wake me if anything urgent happens.”

“Will do, sir.”

After saying goodnight to Augustus and Theobold, he moved into the backroom, ready to get some sleep. As he closed his eyes, he thought about Gastho as well as the mall in an attempt to manifest them both in one fell swoop.

As his breathing slowed, his thoughts drifted away. He couldn’t be sure he had succeeded.