NOVEL NEXT 34. Deck Pics
When the aperture snapped shut behind them, Bagel was all too ready to just call it a day but they had things to do and it looked like Ashley was not doing well. Course she wasn't doing well, she had several humans surrounding her. One human was enough. For a moment. He thought that he should dart in but then Kate had her and he was to let that slide.
What would he do except let her know that he was there.
Raul was behind him and. Each one of the police officers had a full deck with several item cards.
"All right. We've got full decks here for anyone who wants to help," Raul said.
On top of the cards that they had received from the police officers which they were going to potentially get back to the precinct, they had several cars from the dungeon itself. Though Bagel had decided that perhaps right now he didn't need a mini version of the giant hulking carpet elephants. He could live without that particular problem.
The amount of humans around them was a bit much. But there had been a lot of commotion when they came out so clearly they had been waiting for something to happen. That was another thing about humans. They were so curious about the wrong things. This is obviously just a dungeon and babe couldn't see a reason why people want to congregate around them except for the potential for car drops. But then any deck bearers could have easily gone in and cleared out the dungeons when they were so readily available and apparent.
The other two apertures, the ones that he'd been told were at fifty percent capacity, were sitting there and anyone would just walk in. They hadn't because of the one that overflowed but they could have and whoever had tried to follow after the police officers to save them had been run out by that one monster they defeated on second avenue.
Actually work the field today and the best you could do was take some of these cards and sell them at his Bodega.
Raul handed out four decks that afternoon, then taking it upon himself to duck into the new dungeon with the four of them. He hadn't made it receiving it that conditional upon following him in but they were all bounced decks and no one's accused them of stealing from the NYPD. Clearly, what they were doing was community service though seeing the effects that it had upon Ashley, big. I'd hope that would have been some other community member.
But really there wasn't anything for her to do for him to do
All he wanted to do now was give her some comfort in the store and get her to a place where she could actually do some good
She looked like she was ready to quit
He didn't know what to say or what to do. It just felt appropriate for him just standing around her while Kate held her. The nurse that had been helping her with what they called a panic attack had by that time moved on to someone else.
Abilities on somebody Ashley was able to use her healing abilities as well as Kate though Bagel didn't want to start shuffling through his deck while they were all out exposed right now.
The worst part of it all was that he couldn't buy the park but it wasn't until he would have to buy and then you would have to go further down.
And that itself well… could he go? Do dungeon dives by himself? Or was just Kate? Who was he kidding? He wouldn't be doing that without both girls. They have been instrumental in being his backup
Maybe it was time for someone else to experience the horrors of it. He surely had enough by now.
Maybe it was time for him to get back to the Bodega. Surely some of the police officers that disappeared at that time were back. But if this kind of thing was going to happen every so often, then there was going to have to be enough humans to respond to it. Cats could not do this by themselves.
"Do you want to take it back to the little building next to the Bodega and we'll have a little sit down?" It was, of course, Kate. And she wasn't so much asking if she was telling him that she expected him to say yes no matter what he could take that he was okay with the idea of getting back. Even if they were going to go do some more dungeons he needed to take a look at his deck and rework it. If they're going to keep doing this it was unconscionable for them to keep pushing harder.
It's only going to happen to the police officers and he was betting that they had all self-dispatched to deal with nearby Dungeons.
"If you want to become a deck. Bearer, come with us. Bagel I'll pay for all the cards but we need to make more deck bears now if we're going to survive this," Raul said. "Think of it like a free sample."
The system gave him an idea of what a free sample was and he wish for free sample of baklava at that moment. It would just be nice to have something like that. Something sweet but it looked like he was going to be giving out a bunch of free cards so there's going to have to be some rules about it. And there's definitely going to have to be them returning with the cards or returning with more new cards.
"If they're going to take my cards then I want to figure out a way to get paid for them. You've got lots of cards but..." he said.
"Bagel, we're in a crisis. If they lose the cards we have what… 400 cards there?600?" Raul said.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
"712 cards," Janet helpfully chimed in. "Can we draft up legal documents that these cards are loans to be paid in full within a reasonable timeframe?"
Bagel's head was spinning. "I think I know what she's feeling right now. If this is the thing that's going to save us all then yeah let's do it."
"Anybody that wants to pitch in, follow us up to forty fifth Street and second avenue," Raul said.
They walked behind Raul quietly well. It was a crowd of noisy humans that were making most of the noise but Bagel on his mouth. Raul, Caton Ashley were just silent. Getting inside of the bodega felt so woman inviting and he instantly started stacking sets of cards. That'll work well together. Unfortunately, most of the decks he had would be a half pizza rats, but they would have to deal it with it. Pizza rat was a good reliable card that worked in many situations. It just happened to be cheap. The energy that they needed to pull those out was the only one so not only were they ubiquitous they were about to be the dominant Force on the island of Manhattan.
The people, as New York often did, formed an orderly line and Janet presented each one in turn with a little snippet of a hologram. They were to accept or deny the little agreement and each person without even looking at the terms of service. Just clicked yes. By the third person, Bagel was incredulous.
"Do people just sign things without reading the terms of service agreement? You could have put anything in there."
"Oh my sweet summer child," Kate said, holding up an ice pack to Ashleys forehead. "No one reads the agreements they sign."
It was about that time that something clicked inside of Bagel's head and he realized that these humans were crazy.
All humans were crazy. It was just dawning upon him now that they didn't let their free flags fly nearly as much as he thought they did.
"This is going to be one of those kinds of days where nothing gets done but everything gets done. We can't do... We can't clear all the dungeons ourselves," Kate said.
Ashley was leaning back against the glass case. She wasn't going to be any help for now. She was at least drinking some water which was a good thing to see though he worried that she might not cuz apparently humans could do the thing... She might not and that felt wow to him
It felt so wild that someone would not enjoy the delicious food that they had probably enjoyed before just because they were not feeling it? Why wouldn't they feel it? Food was good. Food was delicious! Bagel love a good nosh.
---
One by one the people filed through and Raul had each one a deck that he put together with Kate's help. Most of them had half Pizza rats and he told each person to come back with new cards and that he would be trying to keep a tab so that they could make more debt bearers. But with the absence of the police at that exact moment things were going to get kind of dicey.
"So no one has seen the police. Anybody in a police officer uniform in the last couple minutes?"
There were a lot of shaking heads as once again he cursed the police. They were probably doing something important but that was no consolation right now.
Right now he needed the results and he needed to stem the tide of what was going to become a wave of monsters if they didn't do something about it.
It only been six days since the cards arrived and the system arrived and everything just got fucked up? And now...
"There's one of them!"
A woman in the back of the line was frantically waving. The line reached out the back, So she was holding the door open. By this time. There were only about five people left in line and as nobody had arrived with any more cards, things were getting very dicey.
"Apologies, this one has six pizza rats in it but make a trade when you get something good and come back here."
A cheer went up outside.
"Oh thank fuck," in a moment, Kate was at the door checking it out.
The two women were so nice and kind as to stick around that he was thinking that maybe he should thank them or something.
But really everything. I've been so chaotic that day that he kind of lost track. What was going on.
Bagel hopped up next to him. "Are the police finally here?"
A tall man in a white vest with red splotches walked through the door. His eyes were haggard.
" I've got some cards for you. Deputize some people... Making more deck bearers or we're not going to make it..."
He shoved nearly 400 cards onto the counter Bagel didn't have time to think about the implications of this.
"Do you have a megaphone?" Ashley said, suddenly appearing next to the police officer.
"There's one right over there. Why?"
But she was outside of the shop before he could even get another ward in.
Raul was just going to let that one go laying down nearly in the back and gone straight to active...
---
Ashley chugged a Blue Ox as she walked out the front door of the bodega. The police trailer sat there, as it had for a while, like a cartoon cat.
"I heard you have a bullhorn. I need it." She said to the officer in front of her.
The man in the blue shirt looked her up and down and shrugged. "Take it."
In her hands, the Red Bull horn felt small. She grabbed the mic and tested it out by blowing on it. When the men around her recoiled she knew she was doing the right thing. It was working. She dug deep into herself and thought about what she needed to say. What she had to say. The people were unorganized. The police officers that she had asked for help were half dead.
But there's one thing that she knew about this. Damn city that adopted her one thing kept her moving.
"Excuse me, New York. It's me, your favorite rapper, Ashley. I'm out here to promote my latest album which I'm going to call. Get your ass down here and get a deck so that we can fight against these damn mobs. Anybody who comes down to the 45 deli will get a free deck if they promise to help us in this fight. We're about to be overrun if we don't work together as a team to fight the system and all of this. So come on down. Bring your friends, bring your mom's. Bring your grandma's and help us secure our neighborhood or our city or just a damn apartment."
Ashley paused there as the entire Street had to turn to look at her.
She could get used to this.