A loud bang and a burst of gunfire sounded out as the introduction to our attack, and I tossed the rope down, beginning my descent with the Sten braced against my shoulder, lead spraying down into the stunned group of NPCs currently falling all over themselves, the bullets tearing through them like wet tissue paper before they disappeared.

  As I slid down the rope I witnessed the two guards on the catwalk being torn to shreds as well, unable to react before they too disappeared. My feet hit the ground moments later, my health having fallen only a little as I suffered some rope burn on my left hand.

  I scanned the room with my SMG, loading a fresh magazine. There were only a few shelves with sealed crates, not a soul emerging to attack us even as AZTea descended to the ground floor. She went for the door leading outside, letting Jolly in. I directed the two to the crates while I stalked toward the office, chambering a fresh round.

  One foot in front of the other up to the solid metal door, painted blue. I tried the handle first, finding it locked. I looked at the door frame, my instincts turning more predatory by the second. I took a few steps back before charging forward, leaning into it as my shoulder rammed against the door, ripping the lock out of the plastic and wood frame.

  I heard a scream, an NPC man cowering underneath a desk to my right, a safe sitting on the floor in the opposite corner, a combination lock keeping it firmly closed. There was nobody else in the room, so I moved in with my gun pointed at the seemingly harmless NPC, whose large belly made it almost impossible for him to fit comfortably underneath the desk. "Please, I don't know anything! Take whatever you want, just don't kill me!" He shrieked the words at me as I stared at him unblinking, finger on the trigger.

  "Open the safe or die." I didn't move toward him, just uttering that short sentence and then firing a burst of lead into the wall next to him.

  "Keldath, we've got some weapons here!" Jolly shouted in my direction as the sounds of wooden crates being cracked open emanated from outside. "Load up on whatever you can get! If there's explosives, set some up to destroy everything else, otherwise we'll just leave it behind!" I didn't look away from the fat man for a second, knowing full well that anyone could be dangerous if they were scared enough. I jerked my gun toward the safe.

  He crawled out from under the desk on his hands and knees, the barrel of my Sten following him the whole way to the metal container as he blubbered and sobbed.

  Getting a better look at him, I noticed a large leather jacket over a plain white shirt, an oversized pair of jeans held up by a stretched out belt. I could hear the clicking as the safe combination was entered, the door opening with a slight creak. "Move away." I ordered with as forceful a tone as I could muster, moving behind him. He took a moment to do so, his right arm moving forward into the safe.

  "Bad move." I pulled the trigger and held it down for a full second, light scattering to reveal the contents before me. A Hornet pistol dropped to the ground, discharging a single shot into the wall as the top of the weapon struck against the floor.

  Inside was a small pile of platinum colored credits, an extra Hornet magazine, and a folder. I took everything, putting the credits into my account and slipping the folder in near the bottom so that it wouldn't get as damaged. I took the Hornet too, figuring that another one could always be useful.

  Giving the rest of the room a quick glance revealed nothing of immediate value, so I went back into the main room. I found AZTea pulling multiple identical guns from a crate, the gun itself completely white except for the charging handle and trigger, the barrel narrowing out from the magazine well until it was around the size of a whiteboard marker. Everything about the gun screamed compact, from the narrowing barrel to the folding stock, and even the magazines that had locking lugs for easier storage and reloading. The magazines were small enough that I could only wonder what caliber of bullet the gun fired.

  I shook my head to stop myself from wondering, moving over to the other open crate. What I saw could only be described as big, heavy, and expensive to use for a long period of time. Definitely a light machine gun, the magazine being a box that fed directly into the firing chamber in a manner similar to a rifle, while the rest of the gun was this strange mix of futuristic technology and modern machining. I loaded only one into my duffle bag along with a few of the box magazines, filling it up completely even as a horn honked just outside. AZTea put down the gun she'd been grabbing and ran for the industrial door, pressing buttons until it finally started opening.

  I could hear sirens starting to blare off in the distance as Jolly ran back in, carrying several empty duffle bags in his hands. "Get what you can in the bags, I'll run them to the truck!" He spoke quickly, dumping several bags at our feet before grabbing the ones that were already full or half full.

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  Things moved fast for the next minute or so as we moved guns from crates to bags, and then to the truck. Each bag was filled with whatever we could find in the crates nearest to us, from guns to ammunition. There was even a more portable crate which happened to be carrying fragmentation grenades. I only hesitated for a moment to grab them as Jolly got in the truck, yelling for us to do the same.

  There were still a few half-filled bags on the ground, forcing me to waddle as fast as I could manage with a load of explosives in my hands. I shoved the box on the truck and whirled back around to get the bags AZTea had already left behind, passing me to get in the passenger seat of the truck.

  The truck began to move just as I scooped up the last bag in my arms, the frame of the car rattling as I hauled myself around, my legs struggling to move fast enough. I only barely managed to leap into the back of the truck, my legs slamming down uncomfortably against what I could only assume was one of the light machine guns.

  My health dropped a bit due to the impact, but all I could do was wonder why a lightly guarded warehouse had so many goodies inside. While the other two sat in the front, I decided to move things around so that nothing was visible to everyone except those above us.

  "Should've grabbed a tarp to deal with this." I muttered to myself about all the things that could've been done better as I set up a small space for myself to sit in relative comfort. Once that was taken care of I opened my menus to see how many credits I'd managed to grab from the safe. My balance had jumped from just over a thousand credits to over eight thousand. I blinked a few times, sure that the number was wrong. It didn't change. I looked a little closer, and it still remained the same.

  I couldn't stop myself from laughing. If we lived long enough to sell everything, we'd be able to afford way more than just a workshop. Hell, I'd be able to get back to going outside the walls. There'd been screenshots floating around of different areas past the Ruined Zone, each more and more reclaimed by nature.

  Despite the dangers I'd face outside the walls I really wanted to get a system set up so that new players would have a source of equipment that wasn't shabby as hell, so that I'd be able to focus more on the hero aspect that I'd joined the game for in the first place. I had to admit though, the screenshots were beautiful, in a way that I could only kind of understand.

  I continued scrolling, looking at the occasional screenshot as the sirens got inevitably closer, before fading again just as we reached the storage area. We tried to move everything into the workshop without any delay, but had to leave one of us to guard the truck. Since I was already sitting in the back, I drew the short straw.

  I passed the time by checking each bag and the crate of grenades that I'd found. It wasn't a large crate, maybe only two feet long and wide, while it was just a foot tall. There were still a lot of grenades though, each one carefully inserted into what looked like a styrofoam mold. They'd either sell for a lot or do some serious damage either way. I told AZTea to put them behind the lockers where a stray bullet wouldn't hit them so easily, the woman nodding as she took a look inside, a wicked grin appearing on her face as she took it from me.

  It didn't take terribly long to get everything inside, though the player we'd hired to guard the place wanted in on what was going on, considering just how much we'd brought back. I thought about it for a moment before pulling them inside and sitting them down across from me, my Cobra resting comfortably in my hand as I rattled off various questions meant to help me get a feel for who I was dealing with. I also sent both AZTea and Jolly fifteen hundred credits each, lowering my balance to a bit over five thousand. They seemed overjoyed as they booth whooped and hollered, high fiving each other the whole time.

  The player seemed loyal so long as the money flowed, so I figured that he'd be a good hire until I could afford to kick him to the curb. Greed was good in moderation, but serious avarice was something I tended to avoid quite often. I gave him an advance payment of one thousand credits for weapons and armor, told him to go get himself equipped, and that I'd have a job for him soon enough.

  This was enough for him to leave for the moment, though I had no doubts that he'd betray me at a moment's notice. If my paranoia was right, then I wouldn't be caught off guard. If my paranoia was wrong, then I'd just end up being a little extra vigilant around him. Either outcome was perfectly fine with me, as I started taking a look at each gun we'd managed to lift from the Whitman warehouse.

  Sixteen submachine guns, eight light machine guns, twenty three P850 handguns, and over ten thousand rounds of ammunition overall. It was a major haul, though I had no doubts that the Whitman Arms Dealers would hit back several times harder than we did. The guns had to go to any buyers we could find, and fast. The only problem with trying to sell all of it at once would be that only a few groups would have the money to buy them all.

  AZTea confirmed that with her advertisement half an hour later, since the smaller guilds could only afford to purchase portions of the product instead of everything all at once. While normally that wouldn't be an issue, all of us were certain that there would be people looking for their weapons, and we were likely to be fairly high up on the list of suspected thieves.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how it was looked at, I still had the Zephyr representative in my message list.

  "If we want to make this sale quickly, then we'll have to make a deal with the devil. Should be fun." I doubted the words even as they left my mouth.