Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

"What do you mean it's on top of the building?" The police officer said.

"It's on top of that building next to the Korean consulate, like two of three doors down. The one with the variable outdoors space," Ashley said. "Across from the shop where you got that bak lava."

The man with the white collar placed his clipboard down "And you found this out because...?"

"We flew a drone. It's unreachable except from the air or the apartment."

"You flew a drone? Did you get FAA approval..."

For a long moment, both Ashley and the police lieutenant looked at each other before they both began cracking up.

"Okay, that is pretty funny. Alright let me send a team up there. Somehow. Unless the guild can handle it?" He looked right at her. As the leader of the guild she was often the liaison especially when Kate didn't want to be the one to talk to them, which was often.

"I don't know why the FAA would be doing anything about drones when they can't even get a pilot to show up for work."

Ashley winced. "Is that why...?"

"Don't tell anyone. I've already said too much. My wife is a pilot and things have been weird."

"Lieutenant Gil, would it be possible to talk to her?"

The NYPD lieutenant nodded, cracking a smile again. "She's already in the guild. You might know her."

Ashley cracked a smile. She was probably the one that demanded to be called by a call sign a while back that had caused guilders to begin to use gamer tags or discord handles. It was a problem of their own making. They allowed people to fill in their own name and not ask for ID and then filled it in for them. So of course, New Yorkers being New Yorkers, they did what they would do.

---

"Ace!" Ashley said from across the way.

The middle aged woman was showing a little bit of grey in her black hair but aside from that looked like everyone else at the guild. She was wearing the same black tights that everyone else was wearing with a utility vest over a black shirt and a backpack. She smelled amazing.

"First off how did you do that?" Ashley said. "The not smelling like you have been dungeon diving. What's up with that. I know you have done several today."

"I got a sponsorship from the... a woman making her own soaps and she's got this one that just about...whoa."

Ashley was all up in her business, as close as the advertised length of a shave from a feminine razor. And yes, Ace did not flinch.

"Get the fuck out of here. How many dungeons? You did how many today?" Ashley said.

"Thanks girl. Three was the actual number," Ace said, stepping back.

"Whoa. Okay listen. So I didn't know you were a pilot. Talked to your husband and he said you were a pilot."

Ace straightened up like a cobra about to strike. "Oh he did, did he? I need to talk to his ass."

"Chill, mama. We have a uhhhh proposal for you," Ashley said, stepping back even further. "You know how to fly something right?"

"I flew fuelers for the air force before I got out and then I flew the big planes. The airbus types that executives get drooling about. For a time, I was an instructor for the air frame. Why, what's up?"

"We've got drones. We need pilots."

Ace smiled wider than the Brooklyn bridge.

---

Bagel watched the group forming to make their way up to the dungeon. They had a way up and he had been invited. He had decided to go on this one. The draw of a juicy prize at the end was too much. He had an inkling of the possibilities because he had flown into it.

The drone had been quickly programmed to observe and return. That had been enough to give them an idea of what was inside.

Large houses were inside. Large furry houses that apparently moved around a large interior world. He wanted one of those cards if he could have it. That was enough of a reason to make it there.

So he found himself doing the thing where he fell in with the humans once again for a dungeon run. This one required them to go up twelve floors and then pop a door. The elevator was surprisingly still working but they had to pop the door open with a crowbar. That was the most interesting part of his day this far, mostly because it took three grown men to do it.

All he had to do was watch.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He didn't know about intrusive thoughts before but he wanted that power and it felt palpable.

The ability to pop open a door using manpower? That would have been so nice to have on demand and he... He already had the power.

He had two of them out ready to go as they moved into the apartment. There was now a strategy around using your mobs in battle. You would send forward a mob to soak up hits behind a larger one that did more damage.

Bagel... Did not agree with this, mostly because he could use Janet in battle and she would complicate everything for them. She had lasers and stuck around long term outside of the Bodega.

When Kate and Ashley opened the door to the outside, the aperture to the dungeon waited for them.

It beckoned Bagel approach with its audacity.

He would meet it with his own.

---

"What the hell. More pizza rats?" Ashley said, ordering her concrete lizard to move about.

"It's a wave dungeon," Kate said, gritting her teeth.

The room that the dungeon was in was a giant island. The water led nowhere and the island had a triangular shape overall. They had came into the dungeon at one of the angles and the waves of cottage sized minions spawning every five months had threatened to overwhelm them over and over again.

It was to the point that they had actually called for help after half an hour. They had been able to fit another fifteen guild members there and all had leveled up at least five times. Ashley wanted to pull out and assign his points but the time that they had between waves was decreasing with each wave. If it went on any longer, she might.

"This is the fifth one? The only saving grace here is that the dead mobs don't despawn and we can salvage them into something usable," Ashley said.

Ahead of them a man mad wall of salvaged were-houses were picked up to give the self bearers a firing line. They had been using long range attacks as much as possible in this battle. Ashley had been able to figure out how to get lasers going in one drone and was about to get a second one online.

Janet II, her salvaged AI drone, was controlling the laser in the first one once it had gotten online. It helped that Janet, the original drone was using infrared targeting to help their shots.

"Here they come," Janet II said. "A stirring on the spectrum."

The drones noticed the were-houses spawning before them. Still it was roughly an even ten minutes between waves up until now though they had gone from five minutes between when the last mob had fallen and the next wave spawned.

There had to be a way to let people know what they were getting into with these. This whole ordeal in itself was too much on the humans unless they came in guns blazing for some of the dungeons. They would be satisfied with just a little sign telling them that this was an S tier dungeon or a F tier one. Already, they were trying to figure out how to do that.

It wasn't clear how they would do it long-term, but if the cars are magic and the system was magic then there had to be a way to make this transition easier. There was only so many times that they could walk into these kinds of situations. And yeah they could radio for help or call for help whatever it was but...

Twenty were-house mobs groaned into view, moving like they always did; slowly and steadily. Ashley got her forge to finally spin up the second drone with a remote and she was cooking. Instantly, the beams from two drones began to tear apart the first two enemies as they lumbered towards the line of adventurers and police officers.

They reached open fire range and every police officer there which there were 10 unloaded their pistols. It was a deafening sound and Ashley was more than grateful for the heal card being able to fix her hearing for the long-term. Otherwise she would have not been able to hear much. She updated her packing list for dungeons to include noise, canceling headphones, or earbuds that did the same. The earbuds, would be great if they could just let her hear what was actually going on... That was something that the guild was trying to fix.

No one she knew wanted to go into battle with air pods in but if it worked? They would salvage some scrap and make those as well.

Every police officer on the line spent their entire clip and then reloaded. That was another thing that it changed. Police officers now had a more more like posture and each one carried way more bullets and wore those fests that they could put the bullets in like they were heading to invade a Middle Eastern country. Their best war faces were on and they were sending the younger officers out there.

She has seen a few sergeants rotate in to get levels but they had pushed hard to get those beat cops in a position to earn the experience needed for the perks that they wanted.

The line was loud but they were effective. Ashley checked her watch. Five minutes.

It'll take them about 5 minutes to clear this wave. And if her mouth was right, now, everyone's going to have a breather of 5 minutes instead of the two or three and they'd gotten on the last two waves. She was ready for that.

And said, the gungeon played animation and everyone that was in there got a were-house card. Like clockwork, the glowing cards appeared in front of every single person along with several were-cottages. She smiled, seeing the new cards. With these? She could help even more people. This plus the restock card which had become a common tier sell for no value type card.

Truly the over abundance of restock as a common non mantle card without anything to play it with meant that they would be able to make more buildings that could potentially turn the tide. Even if they had to head to Kentucky to hunt for more were-houses, things were looking up.

She had gone from having a little hope to now grinning like a demon. "This is going to change the war, isn't it?"

"With this card... We can regain the land even faster. How do we get more of these?" Bagel said, floating by. Both Janets flew in to inspect the new cards, each one giving a low trill.

"This is amazing," Kate said.

It was two cards that one had to put in their deck but together the two of them would would fix a lot of problems. Now they just needs a way to get more of them.

"Can we send a delegation or a team to go scoop up some of these cards?" Ashley said, turning to Bagel.

Behind them, the lease were doing their due diligence and making sure that no other guards were popping up before they all exited. A few of them had walked further out and grabbed extra cards. They would split them evenly though with the amount of NYPD officers out there, it was likely that Ashley bagel and Kay would refuse. Either way the cards would be better used by the city where it needed it the most.