Chapter 5 - Brave New Dawn
[*]
When: 03.14.993 A.C. - 0411 hours F.C.T.
Where: in the panic room under magejosh's house.
Who: Our lovable protagonist

I wake up in my bed and feel all my old pains I'm used to, except my morning smoker's cough. 'Very Nice' I think to myself. "Wait, how does that work? My body aches like it does every day when I wake up, yet my lungs feel the cleanest I can remember them feeling in ever. Must have something to do with that shapeshifter body I'm supposed to have now. Feels weird to use it, well, it did when I tried it in my dream training. I wonder why I feel the aches. Maybe my memory of my body recreates the aches from bones in wrong places? Since I'm some kind of shapeshifter, an Apocryphon according to the lore on my UI, whatever that is. What kind of description of origin is 'They emerge from the mists of the wild magic that ring this world?' Sounds like a 3am weed fueled idea from a writer desperate to make something sound edgy and novel to me." I grab my phone to check the time and remaining charge as I stand up beside the bed. 

I note the time and that my phone is still at a full charge, "Weird," I say and then stow the phone in my pocket since I'm still wearing the clothes from last night. Then try to wake all the animals as well. It's not a difficult task. They all start stretching as I slide the phone in my pocket. I walk back out to the main area to put the orb back on the table where I'd pulled it from last night. I lead the puppies and cats back out of the panic room and up the stairs to the house. The other two dogs start barking when the rest come upstairs with me, and I quickly let them all out of the front door to go to the bathroom without even thinking about it.

I go to the bathroom myself and then head to the kitchen to make myself a coffee as I hear a few of the others starting to stir in the living room where they had apparently fallen asleep, with the movie still playing on loop all night. I walked to my home office and grabbed a couple prerolls before heading back to grab my coffee from the machine.

"I should make that potion. I should write down the recipe before I forget a step or something." I say, trying to set a mental reminder for myself. Then light one of the prerolls after stirring the sugar and heavy whipping cream in my coffee. I play one of my favorite waking up songs by Little Stranger from my downloads as I take a sip of my coffee after exhaling another toke.

Roscoe and Jasper stumble into the kitchen with me, with Jasper speaking, "What is that wonderful smell?"

"Depends on if you mean this or this," I said holding up the preroll first then the coffee cup that had been a prize for participating in World Ember 2023 on WorldAnvil.com, a place for writers and worldbuilders and gamers and artists to intersect and share their creations. I'm gonna miss living a life where that was how I got to spend my day. Even with magic, losing my passions and loved ones in an instant and being thrust into something so familiar to things I wished for all my life, yet also not exactly what I wanted, leads my heart to judge it all is a pale replacement for what I've lost at best. My face had a far-off look as Jasper repeated himself, finally gaining my attention again. 

"I said, the drink, how can I get some of that drink magejosh?" Jasper waved his hand in my face to annunciate what he's saying.

I shake my head and say, "Of course frienderson," and I show him how the coffee maker works to make a single cup at a time. He gets a cup and then Roscoe swoops in, having silently watched us make Jasper's cup, and slides his own cup in place before getting more coffee grinds and starting his cup brewing. He gets it and spends a full five minutes just sniffing it like it's warm soup on a cold day or something. Then takes a sip and makes a slight grin.

They both thank me for the drink as a few others wander into the kitchen. One of them is Lia, "Will you come outside and get your hounds while I relieve myself?" Her tone not quite embarrassed, but definitely uncomfortable saying that in front of everyone.

"I mentioned the bathroom right?" I ask slowly.

"I do not need to bathe," She persists.

"Oh, that's right, different world. You might not have these. Come check this out," I say as I grab her hand and pull her towards the bathroom. She's easily 6 and a half feet tall if not a little over it. Big stocky frame, tightly toned and swollen muscles, and a set of double lower tusks on each side. Coppery brown hair with blonde streaks in a kind of ponytail. She stood in the hallway as I flipped on the bathroom light and then opened the door again so she could see me explain the purpose of the commode. I poured a little of my coffee in the toilet, then spilled some on my hand. Then I grabbed the roll of toilet paper and pulled off a few sheets, enough to wrap a loop around the hand a couple times and wiped the coffee from the other hand. Threw the toilet paper in the commode and then flushed the handle. It took a minute and then it finished its cycle.

"See, you can relieve yourself, clean up, and even wash your hands in the sink afterwards. My daughter has some tampons in the cabinet too if its a lady issues thing." I say to her as I clear out of the bathroom and let her go inside. I shut the door completely clueless to her wondering what a tampon is.

"Good Luck," I say as I walk across the hall into my office and go through those boxes from the dispensary wholesale buy I made, yesterday. 'Yeah, that was yesterday, weird. That dream though. So weird.' I thought, 'Seeds, yes, I thought there had been packages of seeds.' I looked for the labels and found one named strain I knew I liked. I grabbed it and went back to the living room to find Mirelle still waking up. I waited for her to acknowledge me, "I have a present for you Mirelle. You liked that herb right? This package has 10 seeds for it, that are supposed to be feminized to produce fruit bearing female plants. The big flowers are what you want, the label says this strain is autoflowering at between nine to eleven weeks. It's called 'Blue Dream'. I hope you can make use of them. If you have any luck, you'll have a customer for life from me. I doubt moving to a new world is going to make me any better at not forgetting to water my plants regularly." I demonstrate how to open the ziplock on the plastic bag they are in, showing her the contents, then resealing the bag and offering it to her.

Her eyes bulge as she looks at me and then the package I'm trying to hand her. Her hand reaches out for it, "Thank You! I'm sure I can put these to good use."

"That's great news, because I'll run out eventually unless I can find a new grower to supply me. If this works out, I have more seeds, including some that should be a mix of male and female so we can sustainably cultivate them indefinitely." I say to her.

"I can make that happen, I'm sure of it or I'm not a wood elf of the Spring court." She said as she accepted a coffee cup from Jasper. She sniffs it and says, "What is this wonderful smelling drink?" Then takes a big sip. Her eyes light up like a kid in a candy store as she starts gulping it down greedily.

I chuckle and look for Tomas. He steps into the house from outside right around then, a couple of the dogs with him. "Hey Tomas, I thought I remembered you saying you loved to cook right?"

"I do, I can get a cook fire started outside in a few minutes if we have something to cook," he said to me. 

Right then the chickens started their morning song. "Oh crap, I totally forgot about my wife's chickens, and my daughters rats. Crap." I provide Tomas permission to use the porkchops I had thawed in the fridge, and some of the eggs from the egg cartons on the counter, laid by the chickens out back in their enclosure. I show him all the pans and utensils, where the spice rack is, and the pantry he can have open access to.

Then I show him how the dials on the stove work and explain it takes the burners and oven a couple minutes to warm up so he will need to pay attention to avoid accidentally burning himself or starting a fire. Which that thought makes me show him the spray nozzle on a hose on the side of the sink and how to use it just in case. Siren joins us around then and he starts cooking with her help grabbing ingredients as he asks for them, since she can read the labels with her spell to Comprehend Languages. 

I head to make sure the chickens have feed and water and bring in the new eggs. I get to the cabinet we keep their stuff inside near their pen and notice the feed bags we emptied into the plastic bins are now full next to the bins. 'That will be helpful, no feed store to get more.' I duck into the hens enclosure looking for eggs, 'we got 3 today, nice.' I had a tough time with one of the hens, she always flexes her wings aggressively when I go in there. I swear she knows I was attacked by a rooster as a kid and am a little skittish around them.

Then head back in the house and drop the eggs off in the basket in the kitchen before I go into my daughter's room to make sure the rats have food and water as well. I have no desire to have rats as pets. But what would my daughter think if I just got rid of them one day into this ordeal? I think she'd think the same thing I do about that, it's fucked up. Then she'd tell her sister and her mother and I'd never hear the end of it. So I try to remember their names. I know I was listening when she told me, but I'm really not good with things like that, at least with pets that aren't mine. 'Maybe it'll come to me later,' I think as I shut her bedroom door.

The thoughts of how long I spent in that dream last night flood over me as I turn from her door. I miss my family, a lot. I don't know how to process the years inside that dream I spent with the clear evidence I was only asleep a few hours. "That is such a mindfuck, I need my jams and morning meds." I say stepping into my home office and grabbing another preroll. I light it as I hit restart on my morning jams playlist while making my way to the coffeemaker to refill my cup. I pass Lia heading out the front door with a cup of coffee as I turn into the kitchen and start singing along with the music.

[\*/]
Who: Lia, the Orc guard woman

Lia made herself a cup of the coffee with only a little of the salt added in. She didn't like a lot of talking first thing in the morning. She was one of those people that might actually throw a friend through a wall if they talked too loud in her face in the morning before she had time to come back to reality from her dreams. Dreams that were sometimes more vivid and desirable than her life was right now. She escaped the now busy kitchen and living room for the porch. She picked a chair near the west railing and looked out over The Elderwild Lake. She could see some non-mutant koi coming up and breaking the surface for bugs. She tensed at first, but when nothing crazy happened, she relaxed again.

She'd been jumpy most of the night for some reason. Barely got any sleep, which wasn't the most uncommon thing. But last night had a reason. Someone powerful had been scrying on them as they slept, and their spell's scrying eye had moved too close to her, setting off her mental alarm spell. She'd tried to get a read on who it was, but didn't want to alert them to her being awake either. It had watched for a short while, moved around the room, and then left. That however just left her mind to whirl on who it might be. Her main suspicion was Aliester, 'but he's powerful enough it shouldn't have been visible' she thought. 

'I have a lot to think about and I need to get it done now, before we leave for the village,' Lia thought. 'I need to send a message to my lady about this new Worldwalker. But after hearing Jasper quote that prophecy, I think I should try to learn more about that as well.'

She sighed and took another sip of her coffee. There were some birds making calls she didn't recognize nearby in the trees. 'Not that surprising, I never did pay enough attention in my survival and wilderness education classes in school.' She thought to herself before seeing a strange red headed bird with grey black feathers along its body land nearby on a tree, then watched in mild amazement as it slammed it's beak into the tree rapidly, drilling into the trunk some as it did so. Then a different kind of red bird, mostly red with a black collar around its beak, flew at the first like it was trying to tell it to go away. They circled each other in the air, clearly speaking harshly to each other, when Lia saw something fly from above them in the branches down and nearly hit the red bodied one. She glanced up to find a furry creature that looks like a tiny sized Squirrelman. She'd only met a few of them in her life, but never seen one so small. And this one was naked, no tools, armor, or weapons on him anywhere. 'Strange,' she though and tried to wave to him. He didn't seem to notice her, just threw another nut at the noisy birds who then flew after him. He kind of barked at them then scurried away through the branches losing them fairly quickly. "Very strange indeed."

'I can't let Roscoe find out what I'm doing. He's been getting more and more suspicious of me lately.' She thought of the look on his face and the questions the last two times he'd seen her dragging in a small group of bandits she had arrested by herself. 'Can't be helped, he still believes Aliester to be a noble worthy of his title and station. He doesn't know what the Ordum Arcaniu Neopsis has been up to in secret all across the country and beyond it. If he knew they were slavers and infernalists acting like charitable nobles he'd be right by my side, but I can't tell him. I can't risk my mission.' 

She shrugged after another sip from her coffee. A squirrel makes a racket as a bird lands nearby it in a tree not far from her. She sees the squirrel throw the nut it was holding at the bird. She can't help but laugh at their antics. Then thinks, 'How could he know, he still doesn't know I'm one of the Queen's Hands. It's not like I've told him, not that I could. The Gaes we take when joining the order prevents that.' 

She shuddered thinking about that and stuffed it down as best as she could. That had been the worst and best day of her young life, but not one she liked to think about, ever. She tried to recenter her thoughts and focus on the tasks at hand. It wouldn't do to take unthinking actions as one of her instructors had loved to tell her after baiting her into a rash attack while they were sparring.

'I will have to wait to send the message. I'll have to purchase one of the flying parchments rather than trust it to a hired spellcaster or carrier message, this news is too important to risk it being sold to others by an unscrupulous courier or spellcaster. I can get that while Roscoe goes to walk Sirin home and then try to drop by Master Cirions workshop inside the Cowled Academy. I will have to say I'm dropping by to make sure Jasper is going to make that report to Aliester like he ordered yesterday. That should relieve suspicion and help me loosen their guard on any information they gain about the prophecy.'

And with that she smiled, confident that now that she had a plan, she should be able to handle the task ahead. She took another drink of her coffee and noticed the tiny cats playing in the yard near the carport as magejosh had called it last night when he'd asked their helping moving his metal boxes. Three little black cats, one black and brown and coppery and gold cat bigger than the others a little, and two that were white with black spots in different locations that are the smallest of all the cats. All of them adorable. They reminded her of the Feline Folk girl she knew from the orphanage she was taken to after her tribe had been slaughtered. 'What was her name again, she'd always been so particular about it. That's it, Akana Rho-denalys was her name. I wonder where she wound up. I was only at the orphanage until I was old enough to be taken to training in the Queen's Hand.'

She pulled a spellbook from thin air with a whispered incantation in concert with a practiced arcane hand motion, and laid it on her lap before taking another sip of coffee and studying her spellbook to decide what spells to prepare for today.

She'd made it a few minutes past being through her studies when she heard a scream from inside, and knew it was her best friend Mirelle's voice. Panic and adrenaline flooded her system as she decided to act, feeling it heighten her concentration to it's peak as she'd trained herself to do all those years practicing under her teachers. She dismissed her spellbook back into the void as she leapt to the front door in two steps, flipping over a chair that was in the way in the process. 

She burst through the door and saw her friend on the ground surrounded by Jasper, magejosh, and Sirin. Roscoe and Tomas aren't too far away as she continues moving closer to her friend before suddenly seeing the ground rapidly approaching her face as she hears and sees a small wolf cub slide across the floor into the kitchen shelves in front of her. 

((\*/))
Who: Our lovable protagonist and his six new friends from the koi attack yesterday

I was pretty pumped and dancing around, with Sirin and Roscoe even joining in. This is how you wake up. And Tomas was done cooking the eggs and pork chops. He'd left them on plates on the counter for everyone to serve themselves and was eating and giggling at our antics as the song ended. He claps, "Great Job, truly spirited and quite entertaining. Now go make something to eat before it gets cold," he says with a chiding smile.

Jasper was wobbling his way back into the living room at that moment, with a small plate of eggs and another cup of coffee. Roscoe eyes his plate and says, "Yes that sounds like an outstanding plan of action." And he promptly disappears in the kitchen. I notice Mirelle is sitting quietly in the corner, her eyes darting around the room skittishly. She looks like she's watching something not in the room with us. Her forehead is glistening with sweat, her hands are shaking, and her pointed ears are poking through her now damp hair showing the skin of her ears have turned a very red color along the tips.

Jasper sits beside her and tries to get her attention, his hand reaches out and touches her own, and I was not prepared for what happened next. It was all at once, she screamed louder than a banshee, jerked her hand away and leapt back and into the wall. Her head hit the wall pretty hard, knocked her out cold from the look of it as she dropped to the floor like a bag of potatoes.

I rush forward as Jasper moves to her side, saying in a panic, "Mirelle, are you okay?"

I lean in and check her pulse, it is racing so hard I can't believe she is unconscious. "Her pulse is too high. How many cups of coffee did she have?"

"She was on her third cup when she just stopped talking a few minutes ago. I went to make her a snack when I saw her hands trembling a little. Figured maybe she was still needing more food after all that healing magic used on her yesterday. That doesn't seem like it would account for her reaction though." Jasper says, sounding more than a little exasperated.

"I think she was having a reaction. I didn't break out the psychedelics so I don't think it's anything like that. The coffee is the only new thing today that I can think of her having. Caffeine allergy maybe? Is she allergic to it?" I asked thoughtfully.

"What is caffeine?" Sirin asked as she looked on with a concerned look on her face while standing beside Roscoe, who had rushed back into the living room at the sound.

Lia burst through the front door just then as well. Tomas nearly being knocked over as she rushed into the room. His plate of food spilling to the floor, much to the dogs delight as they rushed it, causing Lia to trip over one and nearly face plant herself. Thunder Boom, my little 15 pound coppery brown haired puppy that knows he is cute, yelped in pain as he was punted into the kitchen shelves past the deep freeze. Asha Rei, our biggest dog in the house and my daughter's oldest dog, rushed to his side to check on him. Her tail tucked as she licks at him, he whimpers a little and stands up, shaking off the impact and turning to charge at Lia. He rushes to her ankles and leaps up, throwing his front paws on her leg and wiggling his tail. "Ruff, Ruff Ruff, grRrRuff!" She looks down, "Oh I'm sorry tiny wolf, I did not mean to hurt you pup." And she rubs his head while continuing to watch her friend on the floor with worry.

I look over to Sirin as I explain, "Coffee, soda, tea, all these usually have caffeine inside them. It's one of the compounds inside the herbs the drinks are made from. Some people are allergic to it, though it's pretty rare on my planet."

She gets a look of recognition, "Oh like a poisoned or sickened condition type of effect. I think I can do something about that. I'll give it a try," She says to me and steps towards the still unconscious Mirelle, who has progressed to twitching in her sleep like she is having a night terror.

She pulls out her flute from the hardcase strapped to her thigh like a pistol holster. Which is when I realize she's not wearing the dress she was last night, just bloomers of some sort. I file that away to think about for later, looking back to Mirelle's face as the music Sirin is playing generates that ethereal golden light again. It looks similar but not the same, and this time instead of a quick melody it is this staccato rhythm that keeps building to a frenetic pitch over almost a full minute before she sharply breathes in the growing cloud of golden energy through the flute and it begins to bathe the room in a brilliant radiance of white and golden light. The dogs still their playing, the cats ears twitch as they blink at the light. And she forces that huge lungful of light and air out the flute in sharp harmonic notes, hurling motes of light into Mirelle with each cry of the flute.

I'm transfixed on the moment, I can't help but passively take in everything around me. I think about taking my glasses off while I look at the lights of this spell, and then I realize, 'I'm not wearing glasses, I never put them on this morning. And I'm seeing just fine.'

Mirelle gasps, and her tremors calm as her body looks to go into a restful sleep. Her ear tips seem to shift their tone away from the rosy red they were and her sweating seems to have stopped. The music from the flute stops as well as Sirin looks up to say to me, "I believe you were correct. I cast a spell that removes poisons, well eventually I was able to cast it, and she seems to be doing better now."

Jasper looks at Sirin and says, "Wow, thank you so much!"

"Easy there stud, She was my friend first so of course I'm going to help her." Sirin cut back smartly.

Jasper's face fell a little as he softly replied, "It's only that I gave the cups of coffee to her, it's my fault." His shoulders drooped to match his tone of guilt.

I cut in at hearing Jasper say that, "Nope. You are fundamentally incorrect if that is how blame works. Because I was the source of the coffee, so my hospitality caused her harm, so if anyone should be punished or feel guilty it should be me."

Jasper looks up, not really ready to accept my words as right, because of his own judgement of himself. I can see it clearly on his face as he says to me, "Thank You for saying that," and just leaves it at that.

"Do you really think that kind of self-pity is what she is going to want to hear when she wakes up from this? Which it looks like Sirin's spell is going to see to that happening from what I can tell. Stop being so emotional, boys." Lia says to us, that last word feeling like a jab at us. Like some guy from back home saying stuff at the end of a sentence like 'women' or the like. 'Weird.'

Sirin laughs out loud at Lia's comment. Roscoe joins her and Lia in laughing. Mirelle chuckles from the floor as well, her eyes opening slowly. She looks up at Jasper and smiles, "I'm fine you dork, thanks for caring." Tomas and I let out the breath we were holding at that and join in the laughter.

Everyone calms as Mirelle stands up to join the rest of us standing around my living room. I raise my voice after a moment to get everyone's attention. "I hate to be a bother, but I have no clue where to pick up that 'reward' that meanboi mentioned yesterday."

"Meanboi? I like that, you mean Sir Aliester do you not?" Came Lia's strong voice amidst the rooms questions of who or what 'meanboi' is.

"I do, I'm trying to get the urge to call him names out now before I have to attempt decorum." I replied.

"Yeah, whatever you do, don't badmouth him in the Trade Authority, he'll definitely hear about it and does not take insults to his station or name well." Roscoe said soberly. "I mouthed off one time a year ago, still have to clean the latrines once a month."

Lia chimed in, "At least it's not every weekend anymore."

Roscoe grimaced, "You're not wrong there. Thanks again for getting me out of that, even if it was with more work."

Lia shrugged, "What are partners for? If a guard can't count on his partner to have his back, who can he?"

"Indeed my friend, and I couldn't be more blessed to have my partner as my friend at that." Roscos says solemnly. 

Lia feels a pang of guilt at that but expertly keeps it from playing upon her face, "And I am grateful to have you as my partner in the guard my friend. Even off duty and without armor, you leapt into action yesterday to defend the group and then the town. Like the noble warriors of my mother's clan, always ready to leap into action, no matter the circumstance. Even if you are a tiny pink skin twig-holder."

Most of the room chuckles at that, I don't quite get the reference as Roscoe responds, "I'll have you know I'm a club holder, it's no twig." Everyone is laughing now, I join in to not stand out, as I'm fairly sure this is some kind of dick joke. Still don't quite get it.

Even on a new world, social anxiety still grips me with a deathly strength in these situation. I don't know how to act, I just try to smile so I look to match the tone of the group. I can feel how awkward I look masking that I belong. I pull out my phone on instinct to withdraw and refocus. I see the battery is finally running down a little. Puzzling that helps distract me for a moment. '97% is down from 100% but why was it at 100% so long?'

Jasper says to Mirelle as the laughter has died down and the room is relaxing from moments stress, "If you are sure you are alright, I will need to head off soon, I have duties to attend to at midmorn." Which causes a couple others to agree, they have places they need to be today as well. Everyone turns to start gathering their things. Mirelle says, "Yes, I'm feeling better already, that was a very intense experience." She turns her head in my direction, "I should like to get some seeds for this coffee herb you have as well if that is alright. Now that I know I have a reaction I can take precautions, but that is quite a powerful effect that I'd like to understand more."

"Well, sadly that is one I don't think I can help you with. You see, it's the seeds of the coffee tree that are dried, roasted, and ground to make coffee that we use to make the drink." I saw with some sadness, "I do have a few coffee beans that haven't been ground, but they have still been dried and roasted. They are just kept unground to keep them fresher for distribution over long distances. So they still can't be grown."

"Actually," Jasper interjects, "I may have a spell construct that could help with that. Though it is slow and will likely take me almost as much time as has passed to complete as it has been since they were first harvested, so I'll need your assistance to maintain it once I set it in motion."

My eyes light up at that. "I want to ask so many questions, but most importantly right now, what do you need to make that happen. I have a limited supply of coffee at the moment and no more supermarkets to purchase more from since I'm in this world."

Jasper smiles and says, "Well, I can gather what we need after I go work a shift in my master's lab and come back to set it up here. That way I can show you the ritual to perform, and that way both of us are available to check on it to keep it going until it completes the process. Since we don't know how long it's been since the beans were harvested."

He's going to teach me magic that can do that? I hope my excitement isn't too offputting as I say, "Yes that would be fantastic, and happy to learn anything I can about magic."

Jasper responds, "As am I, I am very interested to better understand that spell you did at the lakefront yesterday. It was more advanced than anything I can do and I've never seen that particular kind of magical effect, I didn't quite understand what I was sensing. As for the reversion spell on the beans, I'd be happy to have your help with it. I have been working on a new kind of spell for some time now and this will be a perfect way to prove it works."

"Ah, so it's like a thesis paper or something for your training?" I ask him, feeling intuitively that it sounds an awful lot like how my T.I.O. Ken in my dream had required something similar of me while training me last night.

"Yes, thesis paper, that sounds like a good name for it. It's not quite a spellbook since there's only the one spell, but it's not a scroll because it's packaged in a book to make room for notes about how the spell is intended to work, as well as theories on why some circumstances and elements have the reactions they have." Jasper explains pulling a book from his robes sash at his waist.

"That sounds exciting, yes let's head into the village and that way you can take care of what you need to while I retrieve that reward. How will I find your Master Cirion?" I asked.

"I could guide you around the village if you like." Lia offers, "I need to make sure Tomas makes it safely back to his workshop anyways." And puts an arm around him as she says that last bit. He smiles.

"Yes, that would be very helpful, thank you Lia." I said as a little of my southern heritage came across as a twang, even in this new language they called common tongue. 'Weird.'

Roscoe chimes in, "We all need to get back to the village at this point. Might as well head out together." 

As everyone agrees and starts gathering their things, I ask them, "If you could, would you all wait for me in the driveway? I need to put a couple of the puppies in kennels before I head out. And I don't have anything proving citizenship, is that going to be a problem?"

"You don't have to be a citizen to be subject to the law, so just don't break the law and you will be fine." Roscoe says matter of factly.

"And I'll help you find your way around since me and Roscoe are still off-duty until tomorrow morning." Lia adds on.

"Great, I'll get my things and meet you by the maroon hearse in the driveway after I get the puppies put up." I say as they begin making their way out the front door. I put AshaRei and Scrappy in their kennels and go into my bedroom to grab a pistol from my husband's gun safe in the corner. I open it, and discover half the guns aren't in the safe, well half the handguns at least. Both shotguns and all three rifles are there with his small arsenal of shells grabbed during sales over the last few years. 'Go figure, the other handguns are probably on him or in his work truck with him.' I think as I select his 9mm, a compact glock G19. I picked it because he already has all his clips that fit in it loaded in a belt pouch with an extra box of shells. And it has a holster that will work easily with my belt. I throw on a pair of black BDU's and a t-shirt with one of my memes printed on it, and then put on the belt with belt pouch and holster, and slid the pistol into the holster and secured it. Last thing, I grab the pair of collapsible steel asp-batons my wife got me for my birthday a few years back. Sliding those on each hip of the belt I felt almost ready. Then found one of my light zipper hoodies that's long enough to cover the pistol on my back beside the belt pouch. With that squared away, I grab a messenger bag to put some things into. I grab some beers, and put some pizza in a bag to snack on later if needed. 'It'll go bad soon if I don't eat it anyways.The fridge is too full from all the other stuff I saved.' Last things last, I go to the office and grab a pound of weed and some papers, and a couple prerolls. That should do to get some trade goods going, just in case the reward isn't money or not enough to be useful. 

First rule of survival in society is have enough power to protect yourself. Power is often a matter of finances in most societies. 'At least in my experience so far in life. I can't imagine it's too different here.' I think as I head out the front door and see everyone standing around in the driveway. I grab my husbands keys to the hearse hanging from just inside the door and pull it shut and lock it. Then join them as I motion them to climb into the back, except Lia. I ask her to sit in the passenger seat. 

With everyone inside the vehicle, I start it up and turn the music on as we pull out of the driveway to begin weaving our way between trees and back towards the road to the village.