A Werewolf In Under-Town

Shaggy sighed as he sat back in the uncomfortable chair of the deli. It had been a long trek around the sewer system for almost three hours. The police sent their drones down and Shaggy suspected they even had a few Supers in the mix. But Levy assured him that their long and windy route home, along with her magic, would mask their escape.

They came out of the sewers to the north of their territory and then walked back to the deli. After arriving, Shaggy took a quick shower to wash the scent of the sewers off, then came up to sit down and relax. Bodecker gave him a tablet full of information for him to go over and Shaggy was going to dive into the paperwork with a charcuterie board by his side.

Levy was below, finishing her own shower and plotting their next bit of mischief. His pack was out and about doing their own things as well. He spared a moment to assign various missions to his Captains. Giving Cekrass some beat-down missions, Rita some training goals, and Tom some scouting to do. It was all fairly mundane stuff; he thought. Just making their presence in the local area known.

He grabbed a thin slice of meat from the charcuterie board and popped into his mouth as he went over the afternoon figures. Bodecker was a stickler for a three report day. One at breakfast, one at noon, and one in the evening. Shaggy thought it was overkill, but he skimmed the reports anyway. Just in case.

The various business deals in the neighborhood were still ongoing. Nuc and her Association even wanted to hire another five guards for product protection. Shaggy okay-ed the order and sent the request to the Lackey pool. Five of them would pick it up and be paid well for the job. Along with whatever they 'found' lying around. Crooks were still going to be crooks.

Charlie's Barcade and Willow's library were also on Bodecker's new reports. Shaggy almost choked on a bit of pepperoni when he saw how much Willow needed for renovations. It was an extortionate amount of credits. But the woman was asking a lot of them. Then Shaggy saw the brief note added to her file. Apparently, the credits were also to renovate the second floor. He tapped his chin in thought. They still didn't have any plans for that.

Charlie's Barcade was already tapped for credit laundering and a set amount was already placed aside for that. Shaggy made some orders on Charlie's behalf while sending over the credits to get things done. They were going to be funneling credits through the place, anyway. Might as well get a couple of his favorites.

Shaggy tabbed back over to Willow's library and stared down at her information. The system had given Bodecker everything he needed to find out about the library's worth. Monetarily, it wasn't much. But Shaggy could see the in-game benefits for their neighborhood as well. The library made the Legion look better to the locals and even came with a morale boost for the locals. Happy sheep were pliant sheep, Shaggy figured.

"Look at you working away." Levy's voice said from his side.

Shaggy turned to see his wife coming around the deli counter. She sashayed past the few remaining people in the deli and took a seat across from him. He raised the tablet in her direction, but Levy shook her head as she raised her own.

"Got my own copy from my people. The tower is outputting a lot of juice. I've got to figure out what to do with it."

"What do your people say?"

"Same old, same old. Places of power, pocket dimensions, imbue the power into artifacts."

Shaggy waggled his head. "All of those seem like good options, babe."

"Yes, but they're so boring! I mean, everyone with enough magic is racing to create their own pocket dimensions. A bunch of small-minded rubes with god-complexes, in my opinion."

"Okay, so what about a place of power? Wait, isn't the tower already one of those?"

"It is, but it's also ostentatiously mine. Some of my Henchmen want their own mini-power places as off-shoots to mine. Basically, a network of power running through the cave acting like a feedback loop. The magic would feed into them and they'd boost the overall power of the tower."

"Not hearing a downside, Levy."

"It takes a certain amount of skill, Shaggy. My Lackeys are good, but I don't think they are ready for that. No matter what they say. I could let a few of them fry themselves to show the others, but I don't think that's good for morale."

"So, what about the artifacts?"

"That one seems the most fun. But Artifacts aren't easy to create. They need to come from items that are already… charged in some aspect."

"Charged?"

Levy took a bite of salami as she searched for the word. "Historically significant or otherwise imbued with emotion."

"That seems kinda vague."

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"That's magic for you, love. But I'll know if I see something that can become an artifact."

"Then you can handle that." Shaggy grinned. "Meanwhile, I got to figure out what to do with a damn library."

"Willow's second floor?"

"Yeah."

Levy sat straighter in her chair as she locked eyes with Shaggy. "I've been thinking about that, actually."

"Ooookay?" Shaggy said slowly.

"I was thinking of turning it into an Arcane Library."

Shaggy nodded as he racked his brain for what that was. It was clearly magically significant. But he did not know what one of those did. He tried to surreptitiously bring it up on his tablet, but Levy caught him immediately. Smiling at his antics, his wife explained.

"An Arcane Library increases a mage's chances of learning or copying a spell. It's like a lesser Place of Power without a school of magic assigned to it."

"School of magic?" Shaggy asked, thinking of Levy's tower.

If that was a Place of Power what school would it be a part of? Then it hit him. The focal point of Levy's Tower was Xang's Lamp. Which made her tower a great place to study Blood Magic.

"Y'know, Evocation, Necromancy, Divination, or any of the other myriad of Schools."

Shaggy nodded. "Okay, but why have one so far from home? How are your people going to use it when it's on the other side of our turf?"

Levy smiled. "Love, I'm not talking about building it for the Legion. I mean a public Arcane Library. Mages will come swarming in to our territory and it'll bring in a lot of money."

"Will that work?"

"Sure it will. It'll be like a reading cafe. Mages come in, pay a set few, and use our arcane library for a certain amount of time. We can even have rooms built for groups or solo meditation."

Seeing his wife's excitement, Shaggy sighed. "Sounds good, love. If you can get it set up and trust the people running it, then I won't complain. Just let me know if we need to steal anything."

"That's the thing."

"What is?"

"To set the library up, I'm going to need a certain amount of magical books covering a range of topics."

Shaggy raised an eyebrow. "You can't buy them?"

Levy nodded hurriedly. "I could. Of course, I could. But… I figured with us being Villains and all…"

Levy trailed off and Shaggy couldn't keep a smile off his face. "Love, we just barely escaped the police after taking a fifteen minute drive into Downtown. Now you want to go back?"

"Absolutely not! I think we're getting far too much heat in Austin as it stands. We need to expand our reach slightly."

As she finished talking, Levy tapped her finger against her tablet for a few seconds before spinning it toward Shaggy. She had brought up the homepage for the Austin Tribune newspaper. Shaggy scanned the headlines before he spotted the one she was referring to.

"The Arcane Library of Fort Worth is donating several thousand books to the Los Angeles Library of the Magical Arts?" Shaggy read.

"It's perfect, right?" Levy giggled.

Shaggy tilted his head in confusion. "Dear, it doesn't say how they are transporting them."

"No. But with the weight of all the books and the wards required to mask them, I have to think it's a truck."

"So a moving target where we don't know the route they are going to take? I don't know."

Levy pouted at his words and snatched her tablet back. Tapping a few more times, she brought up a map of Texas and pointed at two routes.

"Look, they'll either go through Abilene or Amarillo to get out of Texas. I say we wait for them in Abilene and if they don't pass through, we race to New Mexico and cut them off at Albuquerque. We can even have people in place to wait for them."

"And if they buck expectation and fly the books in?" Shaggy asked.

"Then we spend a few days in Abilene. Maybe rob some stores and then we come back."

Shaggy scratched the back of his head in mild aggravation. He could sense his wife's excitement. But with the Shadow League at the door and the Phreaks up to something. He didn't know how he felt about leaving. Abilene wasn't too far, but if shit went off the rails, they could be chasing the trucks all the way to California. He plucked another slice of pepperoni off the board and stuffed into his mouth as he thought.

"We could get one of the others to manage things here…?" Shaggy mumbled to himself.

"Or we could invite them along, Shags. I mean, things would go a lot smoother with other Players with us. Maybe a few from your Pack too?"

Shaggy looked between his wife and the tablet full of paperwork he had to read through. Bodecker could send the reports remotely. All he was doing was confirming things, anyway. His decision must have been written on his face, because Levy jumped from her chair and laughed.

"YES! We're going to rob a magical truck, Ba-bee!"

Shaggy rolled his eyes and shushed his wife hurriedly. There were still a few NPCs in the deli. Although he wagered, they all knew to keep their mouths shut. He met eyes with a few looky-loos before he turned back to Levy and waved her down. She leaned in close to his face and Shaggy smiled.

"You plan this little expedition, babe. I'll inform the guys and we'll see who wants to come. When's the shipment moving?"

"Not for a couple of days. We might even be able to sneak a few into Fort Worth and see what the route is. If we're fast enough."

Shaggy nodded. "I'll contact Ephe and Tom. See if they can put some people on it."

"Oh! Have them take a mage. That way, we'll have an idea of the wards on the truck."

Shaggy nodded as he began slightly communicating with both groups. Tom's group was smaller, so he didn't have the people free. But Ephemara had some on stand by. Shaggy passed along everything they wanted and let his Number One Captain handle the rest. Once the conversation was done, Shaggy sighed to himself and looked back at the tablet in his hands.

There was still a fair bit of information on there. But he wasn't in the mood anymore. The wolf was excited again and wanted to hunt. Checking the evening patrol numbers, he decided to join in on the patrols for the evening.

"Care to join me tonight?" He asked Levy.

"No thanks. I want to head to Willow's library and start going over things there. Once we steal the books, we're going to have to stash them fast. Don't forget to tell the contractors we have more work for them."

"I won't." Shaggy said, passing over his data tablet and stretching his limbs.

Even after fighting a Super and running around all day, he was still excited to commit more crime. Sure, they were just stealing moldy old books. But they were magical, which meant they would somehow be a pain in the ass. They'd have some ancient protection on them and be guarded by even more Supers. Shaggy flexed his fingers as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

There was always something to do or steal in the game. Sure, he had to defend his turf from ninja clans and alien experiments. But at least he was never bored. Now they were going to hit a moving truck full of magical books. Shaggy grinned as he started to jog. At least no one could say his time in game was boring.