Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

What was inside was a rather large room and though a number of trees around made it feel like this was not going to be a place where they could easily move.

In fact, Ashley's gentrifier crab was having difficulty moving between the trees. In most cases though it just as easily was able to knock them down, effectively gentrifying with its claws a pathway to success and to move forward.

The overwhelming smell on the inside was that there was a lot of pollen in the air and bagel was pretty sure it was an unnatural thing and possibly a spell effect. So far they achieved poison type cards that did damage over time.

He checked his status and he was not poisoned so he just kept his eyes open and listened for what he knew was coming. Twenty paces into the room and a door opened up to a second room. The smaller room before the larger forest opened provided an easy choke point for them to retreat to.

He was beginning to believe that this was a way station into the dungeon, based on the amount of broken over trees that were between the dungeon's entrance and the door into the greater area of the dungeon, it was clear that this was the way that the large mob had escaped through to leave the dungeon.

At least that's what it smelled like. It was fresh a bit funky and skunky and he did not like it. Just for once in his life, he wanted to be nose blind.

The smell was not even as bad as the taste.

Every time that he stuck his tongue out, he regretted it more. The smell of it grew so dense that he was able to touch it.

He didn't and he realized it was affecting him worse than the humans and that was probably something he was going to have to take a look at later.

There was nothing in the large room except for dirt trees and the fact of it being a forest. Without it being a full Forest, he could see several rows of trees that in turn into a larger open Pine Barrens, complete with a controlled burn in the back.

It was the smoke that blocked his view of the sky.

He didn't have the time to address his system knowledge, giving him information about how pine trees needed heat to open up and grow new trees.

He was here to do a job and that was what he was going to do.

Ashley pushed her swarm through the door.

Bagel was right behind her. Katemoved to take a position to defend the door from any one of the nearby mobs. But once again, he was disappointed to not really see any mobs. Though he could hear something moving about in the distance.

All I was going to have to do was to move a little closer and he'll be able to see them. It was just that the thick underbrush and those directions in particular was obscuring whatever it was.

There was no wind but the leaves of grass was swaying anyway.

Come to think of it, was he undergrowth and brush moving about? And that was when it grew on him.

Bagel yowled. "The plants themselves are the mobs. They're moving like they are live-"

A whip of plant matter smacked him and his mount, sending the cat sprawling.

Due to a quirk of his nature, he landed on all four paws.

"Still got it," he whispered.

Bagel got up, considered the situation and seeing that the smack had unsummoned his store worker, he checked his hand cards. He had two energies tied up in the bodega that he couldn't access but there were two available and he used them to summon both a cook and a store worker.

They immediately got to work.

The cook, having a knife, went right after where that tentacle was and began stabbing the ground savagely. The worker picked him up and started running a large circle around what had to be the large surface area of a more advanced mob.

It all caused the land itself to be targeted by Ashley swarms as they began to push.

"Throw everything at it!" Ashley yelled.

Once again they were back in the chaos of battle, working around the large mossy carpet. There was no other word for it. It was both the ground and not the ground at the same time. And to think that he had until that second been ready to step out and walk about it. It would have beaten him up if it had a chance.

Heck, just one attack from the monster had destroyed his Mount.

The rewards would be intense.

But then again, but this many people, it had to be. Bingo counted no less than 20 swarm mobs from Ashley and each of the other deck bearers, including our rule, had their entire handout of available cards. This meant that over 28 cards were circling up around the large carpet mob.

Once it was actually attacking them it was easy to point out where the mod was and where it ended.

Unfortunately for him, he could make out several police uniforms and in the middle of the forest beyond them the smell of human blood was beginning to leak out.

Janet lays did the thing and bagel had his new summoned amount stomp on it several times each time doing about 20 damage

He had never seen a mob that had more than the capacity to take 300 damage.

He knew it was large, but there definitely was a limited help at play there because it was down after destroying four played cards in under a minute.

It could definitely ambush others which is what it had done and it was apparent after they had received experience points and cards that it had killed at least three police officers. Bagel didn't know how he felt about that. He was just glad that he hadn't really recently eaten. He would have to deal with that later

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They got notifications the mob had died and that it was the same thing that they had seen outside. Obviously this was the carpeted version and that one was some more of an active one, although it did make a difference to bagel. If it could run after and Chase humans and try to kill them and eat them then it could be an ambush predator or it could be a chase predator. Either way, he urged his mount forward to check out the remains of the police officers.

The first thing he saw was that their hats were intact as well as their body armor and their uniforms. The second thing was that all of the flesh and muscle had been taken off of the skeletons that were made as if it had been expertly removed. There was no other way to put it.

Bagel retched.

Clearly this was the kind of thing that humans had nightmares about and clearly he did not want them to see it. But at the same time all the humans were nervous about a secondary attack and they should be, there was a second mob further in though this first carpeted mop had down a large area. Fair as he himself did something similar ll He faced the remanding mob or at least the closest remaining mob as several of their played cards danced. This was not the time for him to have a crisis. He would do what he had to do to keep the shop safe and to keep profitable. So what if this.

Three that he just sold cards to no less than 2 hours ago.

That didn't bother him. Did it?

Death was natural. Life was natural but this situation where there was a dungeon showing up out of nowhere? This was the most unnatural thing he could imagine. Show.

He was going to have to deal.
And so Bagel did what most New Yorkers did and compartmentalized it

Because it didn't take them long to go through the second one. But he still found himself staring at the pile of bones and body armor. Even as they got the final reward from the dungeon.

The price of doing business was getting weird.

Ashley got the last reward from the dungeon and she almost celebrated despite the somber mood.

After all they still needed to collect the bodies of the police officers.

She had mobs to take care of that. Her mobs loaded the corpses of the bodies so they could take them out. Someone needed to tell their families.

It wasn't going to be her.

They had sergeants for this.

They needed to be moved because it was the right thing. They also needed to be moved because the dungeon would close.

If nothing else, these people had decks. Their decks had been laying next to them so clearly they would be able to pass them on.

Somebody else would make good use of them.

Cards were weapons.

It was just going to take some time for her to get over having to move corpses around. Nowhere in her entire life. Had she ever been prepared for this and nothing she could do could ever have prepared first herself for this.

Not even during the covid pandemic had she been so close to death.

She didn't even know if there was a morgue truck out there or whether it was going to smell awful. Something in the air hurt her. It was their return to the park that filled her with bile and regret.

Every single life choice she had ever made choice was now something that had lead up to this.

Seeing a corpse like that? It was majorly unsettling. The worst part was that they were just laying there as if they had sat down to take a nap. They had looked so serene, despite the entire lack of skin and musculature.

They moved out of the dungeon and the fresh air felt like a blessing. Something about the density of the air had felt so oppressive inside of the dungeon. There had to be something there if she dug. This whole ordeal could be prevented.

"I'm going to lay these these down," she found herself saying. She didn't need to see everything perfect but she could appear a lot more put together. The damn thing felt like...

Why did it have to be on her watch? She hadn't asked for this. She wanted the damn role in Doechistan. That was not even in the cards anymore.

"Hey. I'm a nurse let me help you," A man said from the crowd around them. "You're hyperventilating."

"There's so much work to do! And these men THEY JUST DIED. I'M WHAT?"

Suddenly Kate had her arms around her. "Babe. This is too much. You gotta stop."

The breaths, she now realized were coming in heavy. Their breath was in sync and then Kaye began to take slower and slower breaths. Still fast, but it was the only thing that Ashley could hold onto.

It felt right.

It wasn't peaceful. It was less chaotic.

And it was exactly what she needed right then.She didn't even know that she needed and kate came through in clutch

It was gonna be tough

Slowly breath came back to normal and.

But as long as she had Kate with her, she was going to be if alright, able to feel the world. It hit her.Her knees ached. Why did they ache so?

Her arms ached...her head hurt but most of her face was all wet.

Someone had been crying onto her face. She refused to entertain any other reason for it.

She looked up and Kate was there. Bagel was next to her and the new girl whose name she had already forgotten twice was there and she had roped the girl into almost dying and...

She had almost died.

All of them had almost died.

"Why is this the worst timeline?" she whispered.

"God sends his most mid tasks to his strongest besties," Kate whispered back.