12 - Negotiations

[New location questlines!]

[Beginning Dungeoneers Questline: Complete first dungeon]

[Quest Reward: An interdimensional storage system]

[Jungle Dungeon Quest: Clear the dungeon and defeat the boss in the Jungle Dungeon]

[Quest Reward: Unknown]

[Funhouse Dungeon Quest: Clear the dungeon and defeat the boss in the Funhouse Dungeon]

[Quest Reward: Unknown]

[Desert Dungeon Quest: Clear the dungeon and defeat the boss in the Desert Dungeon]

[Quest Reward: Unknown]

[Beginning Dungeoneers Questline: Complete all three local dungeons]

[Quest Reward: Access to the System Library]

I woke up to a wall of notifications from the System after a rough night of sleep on the cot. If we had to do this for more than today then we were going to set up a rotation with that damn cot.

Because I’m not an asshole, I put on my only other set of clothes and quietly crept out of the room. I needed coffee and I hoped that this place was serving a continental breakfast or something.

Downstairs there was a different person behind the desk than who checked us in last night. I waved as I followed the smell of coffee and syrup to the little dining room off of the lobby. Thankfully there was a little coffee pod machine and a little kiosk of coffees available. There were only the powdered creamer and packets of sugar, but beggars can’t be choosers.

After adding copious amounts of creamer and sugar I moaned into my first sip of coffee. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either. It did however have caffeine, so I was happy.

By the time I was nearing the end of my cup and starting to eye the small buffet of pastries and cereal Ashley waltzed into the room. She smiled at me before heading over to make her own coffee.

I ran through the buffet and got myself a few little treats before sitting down again. Ashley sat down in the chair next to mine. Her knee brushed my thigh before pulling away. I caught myself leaning my leg closer to her and pulled it back before we brushed again. Stupid body betraying me like that.

I took a big bite of éclair. A moment later Ashley snorted and I glared at her. She reached out and before I could do anything, swiped her thumb across the corner of my mouth. I saw the smear of chocolate glaze on her thumb before she popped it in her mouth with a smirk.

A blush immediately erupted across my entire body. I almost choked on the pastry already in my mouth. I couldn’t meet her smug eyes any longer and turned away. I may or may not have melted into a puddle right there in the hotel lobby. What was this woman trying to do to me?

A cleared throat behind me clued me into the fact that someone had snuck into the little breakfast area without my notice. I turned and met the extra smug grin on Mara’s face. Fuck…how much of that had she witnessed?

She sat down next to Ashley and across from me. “Hey guys. Having a good morning?” Mara asked.

I took another big bite of éclair, risking more chocolate related injuries to buy myself a few moments. Ashley raised her hand teasingly and I reared back away from her reach.

“Well, I’m having a good morning,” Ashley laughed. If anything my blush deepened.

“Yep. Doing great,” I squeaked.

A few minutes later John and Oliver pulled up an extra chair and sat down between me and Mara. We all ate quietly for a few minutes, just enjoying the morning.

“So, did y’all get that wall of text this morning?” Mara asked.

“Great, I was hoping to catch you all this morning,” a short man in a police uniform walked up to us. It took me a minute to recognize him as Lieutenant Montgomery without his cowboy hat from yesterday. He looked much less haggard than the last time I’d seen him.

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Ashley bared her teeth at him in what could only in the loosest terms be considered a smile. “What do you want? Come to charge us with some new crime? Sleeping in too late, or maybe eating too many pastries before nine?”

“I understand you might be a little…upset with me after yesterday,” he tucked his thumbs into his belt loops. “But I only did what I had to in order to keep my community safe. If some feelings got hurt along the way? Well, better than someone getting physically hurt or worse.”

He pulled out a chair from another table and flipped it around to sit in backward. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Now, let’s discuss what we know,” he offered. “Your portal split people between four different towns that we know of. Only one of which is within a hundred kilometers of here.” We nodded in understanding. “Your Army friend had her companions teleported to one of the further towns from here. She’ll be leaving this afternoon, with some help, to reconnect with her compatriots. Where they go from there isn’t my concern.

“Out of all the people that came through in our town, you are one of only two groups that are prepared to fight these monsters. The other group, who I will talk to after this is made up of a couple of teenage cousins and their stoner uncle.”

There had been well over a hundred people in those cells last night. I wasn’t certain. But to think that so few people had taken up the call to defend their fellow humans was kind of scary. Even I had been reluctant to join the fight at first. But Mara was right, I couldn’t have sat back and watched all the people in danger and done nothing. No matter how misanthropic I was.

There had to be more teams like ours that developed in their own town as well. If people like us could recognize the need, then surely some of the locals had done the same.

“You can maybe see why I came to your group first,” Montgomery continued. “We have monster sightings, mostly out in the more rural areas outside of town. I was hoping to send your group out with some radios so we can coordinate getting you to those locations. We’d also be providing a vehicle for transportation.

“In exchange for doing that whenever it pops up, the town is prepared to offer you more permanent housing and a food stipend.” He sat back and looked around our group, meeting everyone’s eyes.

“I’m not sure if you understand everything else that’s going on around us,” John interjected. Montgomery bristled a little but let John speak. “I assume you got the same notifications as us about the dungeons in the area? What you may not know is that dungeons need to be cleared fairly regularly in order for them to not over populate and start spitting monsters into the wild so to speak.”

I looked over at Mara questioningly. Was John just talking out of his ass? Where did that even come from? I hadn’t heard anything like that, and it wasn’t in any of the notifications.

“John collected the Dungeons 101 book,” Mara told us. “Whatever he tells you about the dungeons is from the System itself.”

“How often do the dungeons need to be cleared?” Montgomery asked.

“It’s hard to be certain,” John sat forward eagerly. “It can depend on a lot of factors including the level of the dungeon, ambient mana levels, growth of the dungeon, but a minimum of once a week for each one. We’ll know more once we’ve cleared them the first time.”

“You need to find the teams like ours that developed in your own community too,” I added. “You can’t expect strangers to bear all this weight alone.”

“Of course not,” Montgomery answered. “We’ve put out a call to any people from the community willing to help out.” He turned his head toward John, “And we will make clearing the dungeons a priority. The offer still stands though,” he looked around at all of us. “This will be something that will move the needle on people’s acceptance of you just showing up here. And earn you plenty of goodwill from those in charge.”

“How are you going to house us? Hotel rooms are nice and all, but I’d prefer something more…private,” Mara hedged.

We spent the next half hour going over little details about the deal we were striking with the town. We never stopped to ask if we were going to do it. It seemed an unspoken agreement that we were here to help if possible. Even I was certain on that point. Mara and her ilk had corrupted me and turned me into one of those people with…empathy. Well, maybe just a little bit.

We would be moved into a three bedroom home near the center of town that was owned by some out of town people that used it as a vacation rental. So, it was fully furnished at least. Four bedrooms would have been better, but it still beat two beds and a cot. Instead of a food stipend or allowance or whatever, we’d each draw a small salary from the town. During down time we were also allowed to pursue other work (there was a nice little funeral home that I might be able to pick up some hours with). Oliver would draw an additional salary by being on-call as a healer for serious injuries. Ashley still wouldn’t have her pistol returned to her, but the offer of ammo at wholesale prices for at least her army gun managed to turn her snarls into growls.

Montgomery headed out, promising to return with our transportation and keys for our new house. By the end of things, I had begun to even empathize with him and the situation he’d found himself in yesterday. Yuck.

“Alright, so obviously John and I get one of the rooms. But who gets to be roomies out of you three?” Oliver asked coyly.

“Ashley and Mara, obviously,” I shout as I hold my finger to the tip of my nose.

“What?” Mara gasped dramatically. “You don’t want to sleep with me?”

“You kick in your sleep. Nope,” I said, popping the p.

“You really do,” Ashley complained rubbing her thigh.

“Betrayed! By my own friends,” Mara pretended to cry.

“Cool, so I guess you and Ashley then,” John said pointing between me and Ashley.

I spluttered, waving my hands in a warding manner. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not? I don’t kick or snore or anything like that.”

And that is how I found myself assigned as Ashley’s roommate while the rest of the party snickered behind my back.