You find yourself at the market sooner rather than later, unable and unwilling to further engage with anyone about the Sheriff and his divisive worldview. You wonder how anyone can believe that someone like him has all the answers, when it’s clear the majority of what he says is dubious at best.
You certainly don’t think it’s wise to keep dwelling on him and instead turn your thoughts to your own future. Right now, your continued survival is the only thing that matters. Not only that, but you’ve already spent the majority of your life thinking negatively, and it’s high time to change that.
And so the shops over at Town Square seem to be the best bet, at least in terms of spending your time.
Certainly one of the more prominent stores here is the basic survival shop. Not that it calls itself that - Ted is the one who owns it, so he simply calls it Ted’s Necessities. Not terribly creative or descriptive on Ted’s part, but you suppose it doesn’t matter - the name is highly accurate.
His shelves are filled with first aid kits and bottles of water among various sundries that most simply can’t live without. There’s other stuff beyond the purely functional, such as packs of playing cards and a few small board games. There are also old puzzles and brain teaser books in the mix, all of which at first glance aren’t considered necessities.
But you know better, as does Ted. our minds also need regular exercise, not just our bodies. His inclusion of these things show a greater consideration for more than just our physical selves, and as a result you gain an increased appreciation for his shop. And for Ted, too.
One of his shelves is filled with all kinds of water filtration devices. Some are those jugs with a disposable water filter in them, much like the one you used to have at home. They’re the kind where you fill a top reservoir with tap water, and the filter supposedly cleans it down into the bottom reservoir. While this could be handy, it’s also kind of unwieldy.
There’s an entire box filled with water filters designed for water bladders such as the one you’ve got. So you spend a few minutes sorting through them to find one that fits yours. It could certainly come in handy, much more than any other filter you see on the shelves.
You also grab a small jar half-filled with water purification tablets, to pair with your filter. Those two combined means you could potentially drink water from a lake or stream without worry of contaminants and undesirables. Well, most of them anyway. Mostly, it means you’ll always have drinkable water wherever you go.
Of course, you grab as much bottled water as you need to fill your water bladder, along with one more spare bottle to stow in your messenger bag. You’re already low and can’t exactly go around looking for lakes to drink out of at this point in time.
Finally, you grab enough ingredients to top up your electrolyte powder - more salt, more sugar, some potassium chloride, and magnesium chloride. Ted also thankfully has lemon juice powder, and powdered ginger. Both of these definitely will help out the flavor of your drink.
There are a few other things that pique your interest, such as survival hatchets, multitools, and cooking kits, but you decide against them for now. You certainly could use them without a doubt, but you’ve already racked up quite a bill with just your hydration needs.
You ultimately haggle for your ingredients, filter, tablets, and water bottles with your spare tool kit and both your random electronic devices, which you find more than fair. Someone certainly has more use for them than you do. Besides, you still have plenty to trade with, particularly your spare pistol, ammo, and your katana, and could certainly get some of the other stuff you’ve got your eye on.
But you reserve them for later - you’ve got other shops to visit after all.
So you say farewell to Ted, at least for now, and head over to the next shop that piques your interest. You wander down the street a bit until you come to a quaint little bookstore. It’s tended to by a resident, who’s sitting on a stool just inside the doorway.
They greet you warmly and invitingly, so you can’t help but oblige.
The store itself is rather tiny, but it’s filled to the brim with shelves from top to bottom. Each one is packed with all sorts of books, most of which are fiction. In fact, there’s so many of them that numerous shelves make up for entire genres. The biggest being romance, for reasons you’re not sure of.
Though you’re tempted to pick up a few paperback books, particularly one of those adventure game books, you decide to focus on the nonfiction books instead. You’re mostly focused on finding wilderness survival books, or something similar.
Like, how to tie knots, or how to start fires, or how to find water sources. Stuff like that. Sadly, you find very little in regards to those kinds of topics within the shelves. There are certainly some that could be useful, such as about soil cultivation and farming, or animal identification and husbandry. There’s also a book about mycology, and how to spot various kinds of mushrooms and fungi.
You certainly spend a bit of time flipping through it, if only to confirm if the mushrooms you’ve picked are safe to eat or not. You determine that they’re not. The ones that you picked look almost exactly like an edible kind, except these ones look like they’ll cause some serious upset. The kind that results in lots of vomit and diarrhea and whatnot.
You toss your mushrooms into the nearest bin, thankful that you didn’t try them. Then you decide that mycology isn’t going to be your thing after all. The whole adage about brightly colored mushrooms being poisonous might be true, but it doesn’t mean that earthy colored mushrooms aren’t.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
You’d rather not experiment and find out the hard way, regardless. So you shelve the book, along with any ideas of picking mushrooms in the future.
Among the shelves is, oddly enough, a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook. You’ve certainly never read it before, so you pick it up. The title is most certainly intriguing, as it promises recipes for the more revolutionary or rebellious kind of person. As you flip through its pages, you find yourself more enraptured by the information listed in it. How to make explosives, like molotov cocktails. How to make hallucinogens, such as LSD.
It’s got whole sections on weapons, their usage, electronics, surveillance, and so on. There are even illustrations on how to make home-made traps. The whole thing is deeply interesting and if the world hadn’t imploded you might have purchased this (or stolen it) back then.
But you certainly don’t need it now, so you slip it back on the shelves where it came from.
You sigh in frustration at not finding anything that you actually need, at which point a voice comes up from behind you.
“Looking for anything in particular?” asks the voice.
You spin around to find Frank. He gives you a warm smile.
“Saw you as I was walking by,” he continues. “Figured I’d see if you needed anything.”
“That’s, uh, quite considerate of you,” you reply. You’re not quite used to this small-town vibe, having come from the city and all. Back there, in your old life, the only people that asked if you needed help were salesmen looking to extract money from any old sucker.
“But yeah, I was kinda looking for some kinda survival manual,” you continue. “This place doesn't have anything like that, though.”
“I know what you mean,” Frank says. “I guess those might be pretty rare these days, all things considered. You’re welcome to come by my place - I’ve got a few you can take a look at if you want.”
“Would you trade for them?”
“Depends.”
He then leads you out of the bookstore, out to the southern end of town. His place seems to be at the southeastern section of the town itself, though far from its edge. The house looks relatively cozy and cottage-like in size. It’s got a small overgrown garden out front with a small peach tree in the corner.
It’s all of one floor, though it’s deceptively larger than it seems from the outside.
The entryway leads straight into the kitchen oddly enough, but you both walk past it into the main living room. This room is perhaps the largest in the entire cottage, and it has an old leather couch along one wall. In the corner is a large dining table with a couple of chairs beside it.
On top of the dining table is a rifle that’s been opened up with its parts everywhere. There’s some cleaning rags and a variety of fluids and oils in a wide plastic tray next to the parts themselves. Clearly, Frank’s cleaning one of his guns. Or at least, he’s in the long process of it.
There are stacks of various things in the other corners, whether it’s books or boxes or blankets and whatnot. There’s also a stack of packaged bottled water, which Frank is seemingly hoarding. You would too, if you were in his position.
Frank invites you to sit on the couch, then ducks into an adjoining room. Presumably his bedroom. You hear him clamber and curse a bit, but after a couple of minutes he emerges back into the living room. In his arms are a small stack of books, which he sets down on the matted carpet in front of you.
When you look through them, you realize that not all of them are books - three are actually binders with hundreds of individual papers inside them, each one laminated for weather protection. When you open them up, you realize that they’re military survival manuals, and are incredibly comprehensive. There’s one from the army, another from the air force, and the third appears to be from a different country altogether.
Each one is sectioned off inside with labeled tabs, and are clearly marked with whatever section they are. Typically: Medicine, Shelter, Water, Fire, Food, and so on. They all also have their own unique sections, such as surviving extreme cold or heat, or inside of irradiated zones, or behind enemy lines.
These are, without a shadow of a doubt, exactly what you need. But each one is large, heavy, and unwieldy. You count them having more than 600 pages each, which is more than you’re able to carry. Well, you could fit one of them into your messenger bag, but it would take up a majority of the space.
While they’re filled with the knowledge that you crave, there’s no way you could carry one of them with you. Definitely not all three.
You set them aside and instead pore through the rest of Frank’s books. There’s certainly a couple on hunting and trapping, another two on skinning and preserving, and one on smoking, curing, and salting meats. He has a treasure trove of knowledge, and part of you wishes you could snap them all up.
There is one book that catches your eye, and it’s a beginner’s guide to bushcraft.
This is perhaps the best you’re going to get - the book itself is paperback sized, and only about 250 pages long. It’ll fit great in your bag, or at least much better than the binders. Most importantly, it has most of the information you need.
It’s so deeply enlightening that you find yourself engrossed in one of its many topics. Just the section about what gear to have makes you realize just how much you’re unprepared for what’s ahead of you.
“How’d your meeting with the Mayor go?” asks Frank. “I hope it went well.”
“She gave me a trading pin, so that’s probably a good sign,” you reply. You even angle it a bit, so Frank can get a better look. “Though she made me listen to this Sheriff guy, and I don’t honestly know what to think about that.”
“She made you listen to onna them broadcasts? Really?”
“Yeah, right after a tour of the town.”
Frank immediately grimaces, then exhales at length. Clearly, he isn’t at all happy with hearing that, and you don’t even have to Scan him to confirm his feelings on it. He telegraphs them clear as day.
“That don’t sit well with me at all,” he says.
“So I’m guessing you’re part of the town that doesn’t want to move?” you ask.
“I don’t even know. Most what I hear from the Sheriff don’t make any sense. Thing is, if the town moved to his Fortress or whatever he’s calling it… Well, we’d all be that much safer. That much is probably true. But something about the way he says some things… I don’t like it. In any case, I think that the town being safe matters a whole lot more than me not liking whatever words come outta his mouth.”
“You oughta move North, to a co-op that’s forming out there. That’s where my Dad’s going, along with the rest of the Settlement I came from. And you oughta convince everyone to go with you instead. Nothing good could possibly come from a place they call a Fortress, or whatever.”
“Sure, but can they keep our people safe?”
“As far as I can see, you all are keeping yourselves safe enough as it is. As long as you keep doing that, you don’t really have anything to worry about no matter where you are.”