Quest 2: Happy Tots Day-Care Part 1: Setting out.
We arrived at the outdoor center without incident. Beth, Heather and Amanda waited outside with the wagon
and the rest of us went inside to look for stuff, we split into three teams, Kelly and Samantha, Candice and Melissa,
and Jackie and I each split up and started searching. Jackie and I took the far left side of the store using her
hammer with Light cast on it to see.
Blessing: Light Beginner 20/100 Creates a ball of light on an object or portion of an object Brightness 0/100
We were currently in the tents section, debating on what to do. We had brought two carts with us to carry
stuff. “We should get 1 for each of us and a few extras in case of damage or running into others.” I said.
“Why so many?” Jackie asked. “Get three of the big ones for the girls and a small one for you.”
“Only way we’re fitting two people comfortably in that small one is if they’re in a sixty nine.” I responded.
“What do we do if we run into another guy?”
“Sixty nine, who needs to be reported to HR now?” Jackie asked sneering.
My retort was cut short by the light on Jackie’s hammer going out. “Hey what gives?” I asked taking a quick
step back in case she decided to take a swing at me in the dark.
“I don’t know it just went out when I got distracted arguing with you. This is your fault.” She said.
“Well learn to not get distracted,” I said. “You may have to maintain that while in combat sometime.”
“Everything is not going to be about combat,” Jackie said I could hear her fiddling with her hammer. “Why isn’t
this working?” I then heard a sound that sounded suspiciously like her smacking her hammer.
“How’s your MP?” I asked. “You were getting pretty low I noticed.”
“My MP is fine,” Jackie said. “It’s…”
“It’s what Jackie?” I asked. “Don’t just stop in the middle of a sentence in pitch dark. That’s how horror movies
start.”
“I’m out of MP alright? You were right are you happy?” She snapped.
“I’m just happy it’s something easy to fix. Drink an MP potion.”
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“How do I know what it is in the dark?”
“Well what did you pull out of your inventory?”
“Nothing yet. How do I know what I pull out is an MP potion?”
“You just think MP potion and it will appear in your hand.”
“But how do we know it will be an MP potion?”
“Jackie! John!” Candice called from somewhere else in the store. “Are you two all right? The light went out.”
“We’re fine!” I yelled back. “Jackie ran out of MP so the light went out. Can somebody come lead us out?”
“On my way!” Candice yelled.
“She’ll be here in a minute,” I said to Jackie. Jackie suddenly grabbed my wrist. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
“No!” She practically shouted. “I’m just making sure you don’t wander off in the dark.”
“Good thinking.” It didn’t take long for Candice to find us, and as soon as she was aware of her presence
Jackie’s hand flew off of my wrist. “Thanks, we were just about to fill our carts up with tents. What do you think do
you think we should get two big ones for the women and a small one for me, or small ones for everybody?”
“I’d say get the medium ones for everybody,” Candice said. “Beth, Heather and Samantha are far larger than
the rest of us, and when we get to my kids I’m gonna want to keep them close at night so a medium sized tent
would afford us more room.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” I said. “Leader?”
“Sounds good,” Jackie said.
After Candice loaded up the carts she pushed one and I dragged the other, me and Jackie put our hands on
Candice’s shoulder and she led us out to the front door.
“Thanks for the bail out,” I said.
“No problem,” Candice said. “Pick out some good stuff for us.”
Kelly arrived with a cart full of stuff and took a new one with her back into the darkness of the store. “OK, so
why don’t you go through this stuff and I’ll take two of the extra tents and try to make some kind of canopy for the
wagon, so that Beth, Heather, Amanda, Kelly and the kids can stay out of the sun a little bit.” I said to Jackie.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s a good idea, and thoughtful. Yeah get to work on that.” I went over to the nearest cash
resister and grabbed a package of bags and put them in my cart with the tents. “What are those for?”
“The bags?” I asked. “Somewhere to put trash, just because it’s the end of the world doesn’t mean we start
littering.” Jackie just shook her head.
I rolled the cart out to the wagon set two of the tents up on the wagon and climbed aboard myself. Amanda
was still in her bucket, I assumed she was sleeping so I was careful to step around her quietly.
“What’s up?” Heather asked.
“I’m going to try and erect a canopy of some kind, create some shelter from the sun for you.” I explained.
“Oh thank you so much,” Heather said. “I’ve been getting so thirsty since coming outside.”
“I don’t know what dehydration does to a mermaid, but I’d like to not find out,” I said. “Or a humanoid slime.” I
took the support rods out of the tent box and looked at the sides of the wagon. The sides themselves were made
of metal pipe, two wooden benches ran down the interior sides of the wagon. I tried propping the rods up in-
between the benches and the railings to no avail. “Hey Jackie!” I yelled into the building.
“What,” she yelled back after a second.
“See if anybody has found duct tape, I need some.”
There was a slight pause I heard Jackie yell some stuff, but couldn’t make out what. “How much you need?”
She yelled out to me.
“As much as you can carry, it has a lot of uses,” I yelled back.
I turned my attention to the fabric part of the tents. I’d have to cut them up to make them fit how I needed
them to, but if I did that they may be too small to cover everything I wanted them to. I was deep in thought when a
large crashing sound rang across the parking lot, I looked up to find Samantha standing there, she had dumped an
entire shelf of duct tape, shelf included on the parking lot.
“What?” She asked as I was staring at her in disbelief. “You said as much as I could carry.”
“Hey when you go back in try and find me a tarp or a big section of fabric to use as a covering for this.”
“Sure,” Samantha said walking back in.
It took me about an hour but I eventually managed to erect a cover for our wagon. It would win any awards
for it’s appearance, but it was stable. Just as I was getting done with that the girls started coming out of the
Outdoor Center with carts filled with stuff we’d need. Two outdoor cooking stoves, a dozen blankets, a dozen sets
of outdoor clothes in children's sizes, a couple of small hatchets, a half dozen flashlights, another half dozen
lanterns and the rest of the tents me and Jackie had gotten. It didn’t take us long to get packed and ready to go, it
was now early afternoon.