Saturday, June 02, 2018, 07:30 AM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

I woke up with the sunrise, as is usual, with Rex curled up on my chest. As I woke up, I felt the expansion of abilities that Rex and I had access to. I had reached a new plateau, gaining access to additional spells, and a stronger ability to strike those who I focus on. My brain expanded with knowledge that had finally been realized as I slept. I shuffled my way out from underneath Rex and got up to start getting ready for my first weekend.

Getting access to two new spells, one of which converted water to a temporarily magical, but permanently transfigured wine or mead. The temporary magic effect is to increase my mental skill usage. The other spell, is one to vastly increase the quality of an item, including weapons, armor, and equipment. It requires a variable amount of non-specific magical reagents, for which I take some time to think. Going back to the book I had gotten together on this world’s Alchemy; I found a common item, Salt. This book was oddly enough signed by one “Sir Poley”.

Salt here is exceedingly cheap, but it is considered a consistent value for magical purposes. I think I could start increasing the quality of a firearm for fifty pounds of salt, or at the cheapest I can find it right now, is about twenty-five dollars’ worth of salt. At the current exchange rate, it would seem like it this would be effectively just shy of seven coppers. At this point, I might consider getting into magical item enchanting, if this Sir Poley is right about it working the same way for enchanting items. I decided that I would give this a try tonight and resolved to go to Walmart or somewhere similar to get the required salt later in the day.

I figured that this would be an easy day, so I decided to spend a fair amount of time riding around to get my bearings for the area. I checked with Rex and asked him if he was planning on going out again. Rex indicated that he had eaten enough yesterday to just relax today. I told him that I would be taking a ride around and see what I could see, to get a better handle on the situation. I told him to just send me an empathic message of worry, if he needed me home quick, and he told me that he would.

*****

Saturday, June 02, 2018, 11:30 AM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

I spent four hours riding around on the bike, just getting a good “lay of the land” so to speak. There were more people and buildings in this portion of the city than in all of Magnimar. I looked for interesting things to keep track of for future navigation purposes. With the amount of time that I spent looking around this area, I figured that I might have been a bit suspicious, but most people still in a bit of a daze, from the events that happened just two days ago. I had not noticed anything super suspicious, but I realized that I was pretty much dead in the center or areas were there could be dangerous or illegal activity.

I had decided to stop off at a place called Waffle House for lunch and got treated to a very economical meal. There seemed to be an electric undercurrent to the atmosphere, where a fight could break out at any moment, but nothing happened at this time. Since I was right next to a “Walmart Neighborhood Market” I decided to go in and get the salt for later. The clerk looked at me oddly and told me that they just had to ask me why all the salt. I quickly decided to take the piss and told him it was for resistance training, riding on the bicycle, and it was cheaper than buying actual weights.

The clerk looked at me oddly buy nodded, like he thought it could make sense. I thanked him, swiped my badge, and ended up purchasing fifty dollars’ worth of salt. Loading up my basket, my backpack, and the crate I put on the back of the bike, I rode directly back to the safehouse. It was better to find out if this was going to work or not, early on. I pulled the bike back into the garage and went back into the house. Thinking bluntly, I looked around until I could find something that I could easily recognize as useful for the enhancement I would be working on. I decided on the sewing kit that I had wrangled up at the thrift store.

*****

Saturday, June 02, 2018, 12:30 PM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

It worked! The experiment was a success! I am now in possession of a masterwork sewing kit. It evaporated ten pounds of the salt, but at that price, we are only looking at less than five dollars for making a masterwork tool. Now for the bigger challenge.

*****

Saturday, June 02, 2018, 2:45 PM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

Wow, that took sixty pounds. Sixty pounds of salt just evaporated into nothingness. Well, sixty pounds to enhance the weaponry capabilities. I utilized the spell again and enhanced the climbing capabilities at the cost of another ten pounds, but my spider-skin cesti are now so much better crafted. Both for attacking and for climbing.

This about wiped out how much salt I had purchased, but it was for an excellent cause. I now have variety in what I can do when I am not pursuing my job or any other vigilante related task. Now my equipment will be as high end as possible, at least over time. I’m limited on three sets/items a day. I might end up using this on some of the firearms that I get hired to work on - if it is worth enough money for me. Be hard to justify lugging around sixty odd pounds of salt, but maybe I will get lucky and find a way to get one of the bags of holding here.

With all that being said, I checked in on the animated tools. They had set up everything they could with the lack of materials that I have right now. I knew I couldn’t get much done, without a true market to get what I need, but hopefully, everything is unpacked and ready to go at moment’s notice. I decided that I was going to deep into studying for this area, with all of the preparation that I could accomplish to get this done. I decided that I would expend all of my expendable remaining magic, just to get enough clues to focus on for my investigations.

*****

Saturday, June 02, 2018, 4:00 PM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

I had ended up getting ahold of just over twenty gallons of water, and turned it into mead, of an average quality. It wouldn’t win any awards, but it would certainly keep it safe and clean. Drinking almost immediately, I then focused my arcane powers on heightening my awareness. With this being done, I focused and opened my mind to the city around me, all around me, taking in every bit of rumor or tidbit of information that was out there. Time collapsed into itself in my mind, as an effective twenty-two hours of searching and listening provided me with some interesting clues.

The Snap:

S.H.I.E.L.D. was in disarray, as it was determined that a man by the name of Nick Fury had gone missing in a city called New York, along with half of the population of the world.

Several of the superheroes had gone missing from a country called “Wakanda” in the continent called “Africa”, where they had gone to confront some universal threat.

Some of the villains had apparently disappeared as well, of the ones that were active during the event anyway.

The “credit system” has also been thrown into disarray, as there were people who disappeared who owed money or were owed money.

Several owners of large groups of buildings disappeared into nothingness.

The snap also took away half of the non-sapient life as well, but not half of the plants.

Norfolk:

The military bases in the area are all locked down to outside contractors and personnel, while they determine the extent of what actually happened.

The same kind of situation is occurring in the FBI and CIA branch offices.

The local government branches have lost half of their population too, completely stopping their litigation capabilities.

The local police are in a panic, as they have tried to call in everyone who is on vacation or absent to help iron out who they all have left.

Local Sanitation and other government functions hasn’t been picked up either.

Aside from moving the abandoned vehicles to the sides of the road, no one has taken any movement to get rid of them.

Organized Crime:

In a stroke of luck, many of the gangs had their top members removed by to snap, leading to a lot of disorganization in the crime family structures.

Of those that remain with their leadership intact, a lot of them lost their enforcers or similar members, leading to an inability to capitalize on the sudden power vacuum.

Of the areas where crime is the worst right now, the worst one is Huntersville, where most of the homicides and drug crimes are occurring, which just happens to be the closest to me.

Park Place is close to my new workplace, has some gang activity, having had not as much of a loss from the snap, but they were one of the smaller gangs.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Broadcreek, where the safehouse where I stay is located, is not that bad for crime right now, but the industrial park to the east was a poorly policed area even before the snap and has a group of gangs looking to add it to their territory, once the consolidation is over.

Smaller, independents are looking to strike out on their own and have a go at starting their own gangs.

Back to normal:

There is a lot of inferences and conclusions to gather from all of this. I knew that things were a bit odd, but a lot of people were talking something about a rapture and others were asking about the end of days, but this further information that I picked up indicates that I’ll need to do even more investigation. That, and I will need to figure out how to get things going better, since I won’t be able to get other resources from the local government. Maybe I will make a trip to visit Jonathan after I go to work on Monday. I don’t know what their hours of operation are, but I hope that I can get there before they close.

S.H.I.E.L.D. will probably have to help me get things together, especially since they can seem to get things going even without the normal commonwealth government being capable of responding. Before that, I realize that I will need to get things going quicker, but I will need to get the other details. I’ll spend some time studying the drivers manual and spend some time on that internet thing to try to get myself ready for using a vehicle. It can’t be so much different that the auto-carriages back in Magnimar, right?

I spent the next few hours after that getting all kinds of automatic tasks set up. I started a stew on the stove, started getting a broom and dustpan set up cleaning the various rooms, mopping going on in the kitchen. I did the same situation out in the garage and found a bunch of hand tools and garden tools, setting them up to taking care of the garage, the bicycle, and the lawn. Heading back into the house I decided to personally spend some time getting Rex preened, check for any tears or injuries, and ensure he was in shape, which he enjoyed. I also took the time to clean up all of my gear and everything that had been used in the previous day.

While I was doing all of this, I was mulling over all of the information that I had acquired and what I can do with it. I decided that I would have to defend this section of the city if the constabulary were unavailable to do so. I mean, we’d hire adventurers to deal with things from time to time when we were swamped with tasks in Magnimar, or if it was too dangerous or required certain skills. Would it be that much different here? I mean I guess I’m taking on the role of an adventurer here, rather than the guard, but I guess I’m the one who has abilities outside the norm here.

Coming to this decision, I realized that I was going to have to keep a setup that allowed for this kind of activity. With all of this information I decided to turn the other spare bedroom to tracking room for all of the information on the different subjects and set up the room to account for what would be needing for this. It was going to require a lot of tracking for various things, and a need to check in tomorrow to see what S.H.I.E.L.D. has as a view for vigilantes. I would probably need to find some way to hide the room better, or even find an extradimensional area, in the long run, provided I can ever eventually do that. That or at least get a place away from the safehouse that will permit sneaky access and removal of items.

*****

Saturday, June 02, 2018, 9:00 PM, Norfolk, Virginia, United States of America

I had decided to take another bicycle trip around the neighborhood, just to see what I could while everything was working on its own at the safehouse. As soon as I can figure out appliances, maybe I can get electronic tools to perform on their own as well. Rex decided that he wanted to take a fly around as well, so he went in the opposite direction, so that we can get a better view of the area. We both spent about three hours riding around, until about seven thirty, when I was riding around Huntersville, where I found a group of scoundrels attempting to ransack a possibly abandoned house. I sent the empathic message to Rex about the situation and started to sneak in to get within striking range. There was one acting as a lookout, that wasn’t that proficient about it.

I focused up on getting into my stance to be able to invoke the fiery winds of the plains but prepared initially to knock this individual out. I managed to sneak up behind this person who was attempting, poorly, to act as a lookout for the others’ activity, waited for him to respond that the coast was clear, and then he managed to catch a cestus to the back of the head, knocking him down and out, drained in strength, perception, and consciousness. I pulled the robber back away from the line of sight to those in the building. I used his shirt to tie him up even though he was unconscious and then moved back to get an eye on the other robbers. There were two more, from what I could see, moving around the house with flashlights and bringing all of the useful items back to the garage area of the building.

It was going to be difficult to get them both separately without notifying the other and getting into a bigger fight than I wanted, especially without any of my higher level magics available. I utilized my oath of anonymity effect to disguise myself as unrecognizable and came up with the idea of trying to get one of them to look upstairs for something. Using a bit of prestidigitation, I caused a noise like unrecognizable words from another room. It was only loud enough for one of them to hear, and thankfully, that one took the bait, unfortunately by pulling their firearm and walking that way.

I quickly rushed in, attempting to get behind the other robber. I managed to sneak my way over, and lined myself up, studying this person to see where their drug addled blind spots were. I managed a solid hit, but without all of the preparation from the previous perp, I only managed to severely injure him, rather than knocking him out. He managed to yell our a somewhat hushed warning of someone attacking them. I managed to get a good hit in following this, knocking him out the rest of the way.

This was just in time, as the last of the three burglars came from the room that they were looking in to and let out a shot at the two of us. I had already had my own revolver out, and managed to fire as he did and deflect the shot. The burglar who shot at us muttered, “No fucking way” before having to deal with his unconscious friend being pushed towards him. He must not have realized that I was right behind the body, because he dropped his gun to grab the co-conspirator. As he was gently lowering his friend, my fist was following, striking him in the head and knocking him out as well.

I drug both of the two out of the house, to follow up with the other one. With sound of firearms going off I expected some form of city constable or guard to show up. I quickly used magic to search the three of them for anything of value. I found their firearms (I left them because I did not know if they had been used in any crimes), the tools that they used to break in (again, left to tie them to their crimes), several doses of some white crystalline substance (again left to be caught), their knives, their saps, their bulletproof vests (which I did abscond), some random diamond jewelry in the form of rings and such, and some cash (as I had noticed it earlier). I pocketed the knives, their saps, their vests, the jewelry, and the cash, before tying them all up and leaving them in the middle of the street.

I animated a pen to put to paper what they had been discovered doing, what street address for the house, and how they had been discovered in the commission of the crime. I did a final onceover to check to make sure that none of them would die from their wounds and fled the scene to a safe place to observe them until the guard arrived. I was waiting for a few minutes before I noticed a car show up with “City of Norfolk Police Department” written on the side. I guess they call the guard members police here, because they looked at the criminals, at the note that I had had auto-written, and at each other. One of them leaned into what I recognized as a type of microphone for a type of those radios that David Drake had gotten us used to using in Magnimar, and they started putting a criminal in the back of their vehicle.

Two more vehicles showed up while the police held their firearms trained over the two remaining criminals, but the criminals never moved. The police had replaced the clothing tying them up with a finer version of manacles than I had ever gotten ahold of and resolved to get a couple of sets of those, as they looked a LOT lighter than the ones that I carried. I overheard most of their conversation, some of it was in code, one pair of police went to investigate the house that the criminals had been burglarizing, while the other two were helping get the other criminals in the backs of the two remaining cars. The police who were investigating the house came back and noted that it had looked like they had been stopped in the middle of the robbery. They noted that it looked like the homeowners were snapped, so they didn’t know about a burglary charge sticking.

One of the first responding police provided the others with the sheet of paper that had been auto written, and the others went to go check the pockets again. The police all found the white crystals and the guns on the criminals’ persons, and started talking about how this would at least be enough to get them booked for the night. The two newer arriving police cars, and their occupants all drove off, while the first responding police went back to their cars. The one that was in the driver side waited a bit before saying out loud, “Thank you, whoever you are.”, and getting into the vehicle and driving off. With all that done, I sent another empathic feeling of success to Rex, and a feeling of homesickness, followed by a feeling of happiness upon returning home.

I started back on my journey, being careful to avoid any major roads or thoroughfares. I made back without any significant issues, and parked my bike back in the garage, before heading to the back door of the safehouse. Rex was there, smiling while he waited for me. He asked me in our language if I was successful in our first night out. I told him that I had stopped a burglary and came out of it with a little extra coin and such.

I unlocked and opened the door, allowing Rex to enter before me, and then securely locking the door behind us. I brought all of the items into the room that I had set up as my investigation lab. I did a quick appraisal of all of the items that I had taken from the burglars and figured that the knives and blackjacks were basically worthless. They had probably been used for crimes, so I would have to be careful with how and where I used any of these items. The other items, the vests, the jewelry, and the cash, would all be useful for me either as barter, direct purchasing power, or as useful items for me.

I focused some of my innate magical ability to increase my ability to appraise the jewelry and came back with what would equivalate to maybe three thousand dollars, doubtful that I could really get anywhere close to that amount for them, but thankful for whatever I can get for them. Between the three of them, I got almost sixteen hundred dollars. That is a lot of cash from what I got from this first group. Maybe tomorrow I will check to see if I can get the jewelry sold off at some place. I’m pretty certain that I can’t just exchange them at a bank or store.

I finished up the day with getting a bowl of stew from the pot, seasoned it a little, and starting eating at the table. I asked Rex if he was hungry, and he responded back to me that no, he was good, and curled up on his heat reflective mat and enjoyed the warmth. I ensured that all of my clothing was cleaned, as well as the new items I had acquired. No need for any kind of traces of chemicals or fingerprints or anything. I set the sharpener from the items in the house to slowly and quietly, regrind all three of the blades to give them different edge and thrust profiles.

I decided to take a nice hot shower, enjoying in the luxury before getting ready to read for bed. It wasn’t that far off from what was available in Sandpoint, or in the noble houses in Magnimar, but here it seemed like it was in every house. Hot and cold running water, cold boxes that don’t need ice, ovens that don’t require fires, a lack of obvious insect pests, and less actual chance of dragons or monsters attacking the town. All in all, I could only make the following conclusion: humanity needs conflict. There was still crime in this world, as there was back in Magnimar, with all these luxuries and safeties and without the threats or needs for getting stronger to defend yourself from those who were stronger than you. I sighed and decided to head to sleep.