Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

"Hey guys, what are we celebrating?"

They kept jumping around for a minute, but then they saw her and then maybe something about the situation caused them to stop in their tracks. Maybe they just had the wind knocked out of them.

It didn't really matter. Ashley was used to people hiding things. It was human nature after all.

"You can take ten cards and get the system. That's all it takes." An Indian man in a NYPD outfit was absolutely beaming.

Ashley grinned. "Oh, that's outstanding! I mean theoretically, it should be genuine, right? But you guys actually tested it out?"

The Scottish man and the police officer both nodded at her vigorously. "Hey do you want to test this out real fast?"

"I mean, why not? We're here already, right? Let's take these outside and... We just missed the spawn, didn't we?" The Scottish man held up his watch. He shook his head from side to side.

"I've got to get back to work," the police officer said. "But that doesn't mean I can't try to summon one of my pizza rats."

The glee from his face as he pulled out a hand full of cards was infectious.

He immediately summoned a pizza rat, then walked his happy ass to the door.

Because of course that's what men did. They played with their new toys.

He met a tall blonde woman with a pair of eyes that had to be... About the most distracting thing in the room.

For nearly ten seconds, Ashley failed to register something important. Kate's new low-cut top was attached to the most annoying thing on the island: Kate herself. "Oh finally, a police officer. I'm so sorry sir, dungeons, but I've got this card skill that tells me what these dungeons are and I need to make a report or talk to somebody about this...?"

Suddenly all eyes are on the girl with blonde hair as she stood there on the precipice, the door half open.

"You want to make a report about where the dungeons are popping up?"

Kate held up a hand-drawn map. "Do I want to make a report? I want a bounty."

Ashley slid over to the counter to stand next to Bagel. It was a good way to assess the situation. Clearly she thought through what she was doing when she had come by Ashley's work and was now trying to not only run the dungeons, but get paid to find them as well. Because, of course, in the apocalypse, what you really needed was money and not an excellent source of water.

Ashley realized she was thirsty as she stared at Kate. She was so thirsty that she wandered over to the open air fridge and grabbed two drinks for herself.

Normally, she'd grab something with caffeine in it, but then she realized... Bagel would encourage her. So she grabbed two Blue Oxes.

There was also nobody in the apocalypse to tell her what to do. No one would tell her to go to bed a certain time. Just like in real life, she had to keep to yourself and keep yourself in shape. But this was real life and she was...

She chugged a blue ox, putting thoughts of Kate out of her mind.

There was a bounty to find Dungeons and in short order, the police officer had called it in and he'd also asked her to take care of some if she could.

"Ashley, do you want to go again? We might take these boys with us. And yes, I mean you too bagel."

"Do you have any information about the dungeons besides where they're located? I guess you didn't step inside, so you don't know because you were looking for a party or something like that, right? It would be insane to go through and do it yourself, right?"

Ashley sighed. "I don't have any other information, but I want to go with as many people as possible. And yes, we might have a difference, but I want your swarm with us. It made a difference last time. Bagel, you were very helpful last time and I would have you come with us if you could."

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The man behind the counter looked at them as if they were all from a different planet. Ashley was so blanking on his name. He looked familiar, but she still couldn't place it. Was he something with an r?

She could ask. She could always ask, but she wasn't entirely sure if that would matter. Every time she came to this shop, something new was happening.

She was thinking that she could just show up to this place and that she might have an adventure every single time should she want it. She took a little assessment of herself.

She had eaten something she felt good about, and what else was she going to do? Was she going to what stay at home? Catch up on Netflix. There was time now she could have finally figured out what happens in the latest Yuri Grand Strategy series. Or if she could just catch up on one of her podcasts.

It made sense to do a podcast in the apocalypse.

It didn't sound like it was going to make sense, but things were still going on.

The store was open. Many stores were open despite the concentrate of mobs.

It wasn't so bad.

The system wanted to kill 90% of them, but honestly, it just sounded like the system wasn't trying that hard. And maybe that was why so many dungeons were now popping up. Maybe it figured out that the humans were not just going to play the game.

"I'm down for this dungeon. Are you both coming with us?"

The Scottish man and the police officer both nodded yes. The Scottish man went by McTavish. The police officer had a Bengali name. She had to ask him to repeat three times.

"My name is Partho, but you can just call me Par. It's fine. I understand. I'm not here to change anyone's mind about anything. Not that I'm the best candidate for that."

He was five and a half feet tall and looked like he didn't enjoy running. He wasn't out of shape, but he definitely adhered to the idea that a cylinder was a shape, especially with his body armor on. She resolved to never call him Par.

"Should you be even going to dungeons while you're on duty?"

Ashley crossed her arms. She didn't care if he got in trouble, but she didn't want to have to deal with any entanglements if he did, and then I came back to bite her.

"Think of it as community outreach. You've done a dungeon before, haven't you? You sound cavalier about it."

"You only have those pizza rat cards. I understand. I don't want just pizza rat cards. Maybe if you're lucky out there, we'll get an item card and that'll help you with your deck overall."

She showed him her backpack. Her Forge enabled her to break down scavenge parts and turn them into something useful. She enjoyed the forge as it gave her the option to have over four things out in the field at once, provided she took the time to get them and turn them into parts for the swarm.

"So all your cards have a theme or they go all go along with something? That's incredible," he said.

Kate began leading them around the corner. "It's right inside of this parking garage, deck. I'm almost certain. Either that or it's above it and that won't be much of a problem because it's a single story building."

It was less than a three minute mile walk away from the bodega, which was worrying because Kate had identified over 20 dungeons within a three-block radius. If they were going to stop, the dungeons were from overflowing, they were going to have to cull these dungeons regularly.

Once they saw the aperture of the opening, they took a second to discuss strategy.

"Okay, let's summon our cards now that we're going to use and get into a position where we can immediately shift into a defensive position if we need to," Kate said.

With nobody volunteering, she'd take a leadership role in the group and Ashley was kind of digging it. She might not like the girl that much, but right now she was feeling her.

"Are we good with me going in first, then?" Partho said.

"You need to stay behind my swarm. They'll keep you safe."

Partho summoned four pizza rats in front of him. Of course, he didn't have a variety in what he was doing because he just had a lot of pizza rats, which was fine.

It's just that he had so many. Four didn't seem like a lot.

She'd had enough pizza rat for a long time. She pushed her floating balloon to the front.

Next to her, the cat was riding on his human mob. And had his drone circling him.

"Hey, while we're still waiting to go in, is there a way that I can figure out how to make my own AI drone just like her?" Ashley had addressed the cat, but she wasn't sure which one would answer. The request might not be well-received.

"Are you trying to create your own AI drone?" Bagel said.

"Yours looks very useful, so I was going to see what I could do about that. I don't have a limit on how tokens I have out, which is what my forge makes."

There was something going on between the cat and the drone, as a long second stretched out longer.

"There was a way that I can show you a blueprint that will help you out with what you're trying to do. Is that something you're interested in?" Janet clicked.

"I'm just going to need a bit of the scavenging material to turn into a drone, but maybe we'll find some stuff inside of the dungeon."

Bagel nodded. It felt normal. It felt like she could talk to the cat and that they were on the right path. It also felt like for how many things had changed, they had changed little, if at all.

The concrete of the parking deck had zero give. It was also dirty, but dirty in a corporate way. They had cleaned it just enough to make it look clean, but they all knew.

They all knew that this wasn't just another little side quest in their daily lives. One dungeon run was an anomaly. Two was a trend. Ashley gulped as the McTavish followed her swarm in.

When had he gotten a pistol?