Reluctant Necromancer

The next week quickly became a kind of routine. For five days we were on rotation with other teams to clear out monster infestations around town. After the clearing of all three dungeons the monster appearances began to slow down quite a bit. The monsters varied, but none of them were very challenging for us. I don’t know about the other teams.

On the sixth day we cleared the jungle dungeon. It remained much the same, including the burned down forest. The monsters became easier to kill as they remained the same as we grew stronger. At the end of our second run, the rewards were much lower. I only snagged a book token from the system that allowed me to buy one of the novice level books and a system token. The others received similar rewards.

On the seventh day we did the clinic with Oliver until late afternoon. Montgomery had hesitantly agreed to let us set up something out of an old shopfront that was for lease. He advertised it all week and we ended up quite busy until the last patient. That was ostensibly our ‘rest day’ but honestly with the fewer and fewer monster occurrences we got called out for most days were pretty chill.

None of us minded that much. Our schedules were open and as long as we stayed close enough together to quickly get back to the van in case of a call out we could go exploring the town. We got pretty far in our campaign of Starfinder.

It was two days after our first clinic day when we got a weird call to come in and see Montgomery. “Hey, dickhead needs us to come down to the station,” Mara called through the house.

“Why?” John asked.

Mara shrugged her shoulders, “Wouldn’t say, just said to hurry.”

“It’s always hurry up,” Ashley accused. “Like we’re just going to take our time saving whatever grandma of the week,” she almost whined.

“Why are you all grumpy?” I asked. It wasn’t like my little miss sunshine to be so negative about anything.

In response she gave me a grimace and rubbed her lower abdomen. I gave her a sympathetic smile and dug through my bag to offer her an ibuprofen. She shook her head and wandered to the front door after the boys. Mara trailed behind us out the door.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked as I sat down next to her in the very back of the van. It had become our de facto seats pretty quickly.

“No, I need like one of those heating pads for my back, but the store didn’t have any when I looked the other day. Thank you though,” she leaned over to kiss my cheek.

“We can make one out of rice and a sock or something I think. I’ll look it up when we get home,” I smiled at her reassuringly.

“Oh, thanks,” her face brightened up a little. “That would be so great.”

A few minutes later we pulled up in front of the police station. Oliver threw the van in park and we all trooped out and through the front doors. The rude ass receptionist was at her desk when we came in and I almost groaned in annoyance.

Fortunately Montgomery was out front waiting for us. He waved us back and we followed him to the same briefing room we kept meeting in. I wondered if the tiny station even had another.

“Alright ladies, gents,” he nodded at us in turn. “We have a bit of a situation that I’m going to let you in on.” He waited for us all to nod in understanding. “The grocery is running low on just about everything at this point. They haven’t heard anything about a new shipment from their suppliers.

“The roads are dangerous and full of monsters. We can supplement a little from some of the local farms, but a lot of them are working with a single large crop for selling and many aren’t ready for harvest yet.

“To further complicate matters I got word from the McDonalds that–”

Mara sputtered. “Seriously?” she interrupted. “Like ‘Old McDonald had a farm’?”

Montgomery took a deep calming breath while failing to not roll his eyes at her. “They sent word that a large group of people are currently walking down Old Wilkshire Road.”

“Refugees?” Ashley asked.

“Looks like it. Not all the towns around here got as lucky as we did with people being able to handle the monsters,” he answered.

“And right as we’re starting to run out of food,” I added.

“We don’t have the space to house them really either with the influx from your people,” Montgomery complained quietly.

“What do you need us for? We’re not turning people away for you,” Mara puffed up.

Montgomery waved his hands, “No, no. We’ll figure something out, though it may involve tents for a little while. The weather is still nice for now. I need you guys to run a convoy down to the depot that ships to the grocery store. If they won’t come to us, we’ll go to them.

“It shouldn’t take more than a few days total. And the dungeons aren’t due to be purged for a few days after that, so there’s some leeway built in.”

“When do we take leave?” Oliver asked.

“This afternoon. I’m getting together the actual convoy still. You guys are just security, but if you lend a hand here and there it’d be appreciated,” Montgomery drawled.

We agreed and then left to get ourselves ready. We’d at a minimum need food we could eat without heating it up for the next four or five days. There was no more bread at the grocery, but there were still some tortillas and lunch meat. The only cheese left were the giant blocks, which we snagged one of. All around the pickings were slim and I realized what Montgomery was worried about. Modern people weren’t prepared to live off the land anymore. Not in the short term. Given enough time sure, but how many people would starve before then.

We pulled a cooler out of the garage and filled it with ice from the ice maker in the fridge door. I only made a small mess while doing it. We filled it with bottles of water and cans of diet coke. When everyone else was buying pallets of water, I bought the good stuff. On top we added the packs of lunch meat and condiments. Soon we were ready for a crappy camping trip that I was already over.

We loaded the van with supplies and then headed back to the police station. When we got there we were introduced to the people we’d be in a convoy with. Dennis was the ordering manager for the grocery store. He’d been to the depot before and was our guide. Not to mention knowing what it was we needed versus what I would have packed to bring back. Glen and his son Junior. His actual name was Junior, not Glen Jr. or anything. They were there with a big sealed trailer for cattle. It wasn’t refrigerated though, which is where Sheryl came in. She had the local ice cream truck and would be who we counted on to bring back anything that absolutely had to stay cold.

None of them had opted to absorb any of their essences. None of them were bringing any kinds of weapons either. We were this group’s first and last line of defense. Yay…