Raven met us on the way and volunteered to take our gear haul to the others, so we could visit this last item shop.

  Some stores had little corridors tucked into the gaps between them, leading to fire exits or staff-only areas. I usually ignored them even on a normal day, and I'd actually walked right past this one already. A few stores in front of Kevin's Gospel Pianos, between a couple of clothing shops, a fire exit sat slightly ajar.

  [ I'm Afraid We're Fresh Out Of Gravitas — Game House

  Shopkeeper: Whovian Trekker (Level 60 Electric Druid)

  Play minigames, win prizes! ]

  Chaz rubbed his hands together. "Ohoho, now we're talking!"

  I pushed inside. "Don't get too excited, we're raiding pretty soon—"

  My foot kicked a piece of debris.

  Never mind, this place was trashed. It had once been an item shop, with a few shelves of goods around the counter and game cabinets against the walls, but now the lights were blown out, the shelves were smashed, and the cabinets were broken. The space-themed carpet was covered with glass, plaster dust, and twisted metal. Everything had a weird, citrussy smell.

  A red light lit up in the darkness, and an electronic voice buzzed.

  "Hello!"

  I turned my phone light on. "...Hello?"

  Pieces of a man-sized broken robot were strewn around the counter, sparking and buzzing. There was a blocky body with a stereo built into its torso, a thick rubber wheel that had probably been its legs, and a round head with two lens eyes behind a smooth glass face. One of its eyes was smashed; the light was coming from the other one.

  "Welcome to my store!" the robot head burbled. "Well, what's left of it. I'm Whovian."

  This shopkeeper had a health bar with a huge skull next to it.

  [ SEMILICH, Lvl. 60 ]

  I took a step backward. "What's going on here, exactly?"

  "I got robbed," Whovian said. "Well, killed, really. Normally the store closes when I die, but everything that dies in this tutorial is raised into undeath, so... here I am, I suppose. Don't worry, I won't hurt you."

  I looked at the debris, sniffed the air. I had my suspicions, but...

  "How did they do this?"

  "The culprits captured some other poor sap and forced him to carry some Fragger fruits in here. Pretty silly of them, really. They destroyed the items too."

  I shone the light around. Red stains glistened on the walls.

  "Jesus. You think Pee Pants did it?"

  "I think so," Chaz said. "At least we got him before he hit more stores..."

  Whovian's lens focused on me. "Hold on. Are you William Tombaugh?"

  "...That's me," I said cautiously.

  "A mutual friend told me to look for you," Whovian said. "Can I see your ID to confirm?"

  I dug out my wallet and produced my driver's license. "Here you go?"

  The robot beeped. "I meant your Zetta ID, in the app? But that works too! Miss Val said you're the one that avenged my store."

  "Not on purpose, but we did destroy his group," I said. "Why?"

  "To reward you, of course!" One of Whovian's robot claws waved jankily before falling off. "And it's not every day I can help out a fellow human."

  I froze for a sec. "Uh..."

  "You're human?" Lex asked. "But you're..."

  "There's a brain in here." Whovian's head bobbed. "How do you think I became Expired? Normally you can't open item shops in the tutorials of your own species without some wicked paperwork, but I'm 95% alien alloy. Loophole!"

  I still had questions. "You're a human named Whovian?"

  "My parents were nerds. Do you want to hear my story, or do you want your reward?"

  "You don't have to tell me. I'll take the reward."

  "Okay." The eye gleamed. "Normally you would play one of my three games for a chance at my grand prize, but that Pants guy and his three friends blew them all up. I can still make up a game for you to play though! I've got three ideas, but how about this: guess the number I'm thinking of."

  I stared.

  "You get three guesses," Whovian said, waggling his entire head (it didn't have eyebrows.)

  "Five!" Chaz guessed.

  I ignored him. "Three, man."

  "Wow! You got it!" Whovian winked. "Congratulations! Could you do me a favour and play Cassette Two on my torso?"

  I prodded stereo buttons. A little jingle played, some shelving fell down, and a hatch opened on the wall. Inside sat a weird device that looked like a high-tech battery and some jumper cables.

  [ EPIC! A Janka Robotics Promotifier 2000! Attach the cables to any item below Epic quality to raise its quality! Only works below level 20. Do not throw into ocean. ]

  A free upgrade on any item I wanted? Hell, yes. I didn't need Chaz to tell me that was great.

  I put it in Snakpak for now. "Thanks!"

  Chaz whistled. "What are you gonna use it on?"

  "Maybe the Stabchop? I don't know yet. I'll figure it out after the elves."

  "That's pretty much all I had left," Whovian said. "Sorry. I'd normally restock tomorrow morning, but I have no idea how that's gonna work, so don't hold your breath."

  "Thanks again," I said. "Uh, are you going to be okay?"

  "I won't make as much as I hoped, but I'll be covered for the robbery," Whovian said. "I'll think of this as a vacation."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "Could we get you anything?" Lex asked. "We're about to do a raid, but..."

  Whovian thought about it. "Maybe a light? If there's an electronics store out there, something to watch would be great. I'll take whatever. Kinda curious what they watch on Earth these days..."

  "We'll set one up when we're back," I said, as Lex found a lamp in Snakpak. "Only two Lairs left, then we're free for the night."

  "Good luck," Whovian said. "Can you play Cassette One before you go? It's my mixtape."

  I tapped the stereo, and Whovian's favourite nerdcore played us out.

  We returned to the upper food court. By now, most of the gear haul had been distributed to the other survivors by the gear nerds in the chicken shop. A few people tried to use the "we're guarding the others while you raid" excuse to take items without doing anything, but with the safe zones up that argument flopped.

  Val and Harmony had picked a few things for their parties, used the remainder of Raven's donation to open the crates, and split the drops. It took longer than expected—Harmony had recruited Manaia and Hugh, who kept asking for things like a "+1 sword" that his phone had made up—but both parties were ready to roll by the time we got back.

  Almost, anyway. The last item was giving them trouble. The Prehistoric Crate had dropped a high-tech, glass-walled box, and floating in a clear fluid inside...

  [ EPIC! A FleshMart Laser Rex Heart! Grants +1 Might and the [Terrifying Roar] skill. It's self-installing—just press it to your chest and we'll do the rest. The cooler it comes in will store your current heart in case you change your mind. ]

  I wasn't a cardiologist, but I was pretty sure hearts were smaller. They didn't have glowing pink lines either.

  "So, uh..." Harmony began. "You want it?"

  "Not really," Val said.

  "You sure?" Chaz asked. "A primary stat boost on an item is pretty huge, and you both have Might builds..."

  Val tapped herself with a fist. "I got damage-boosting gloves from Lex earlier, and this new armoured vest boosts my Health. I'm a tank now! So I'm good. Harmony can have it."

  "Fryvern already boosts my Might when I need it. Also, we both know it's gross," Harmony said. "What about Manaia?"

  "He's not really Might-focused," I said, partly to mess with them. "He's just ripped."

  "Hugh?" Lex suggested.

  "Ugh!" Harmony sighed and grabbed the box. "Screw it. If it helps get us out of here, I'll do it."

  We tried not to stare as she unlatched it, pulled the heart out, and fumbled around with it. She ended up having to stick the thing inside her shirt, so we didn't see what happened exactly. We just heard the schlurp sound and watched her double over.

  "Oh, God. Ohhh, I hate this. Hnnngh. It's moving around in there. Guh!"

  There was a worrying pop, a more normal heart appeared in the box, and the lid slammed shut.

  [ EPIC! A FleshMart HeartCooler III Pro! Currently storing the heart of: Harm (Sol-Human). ]

  "So, uh..." I cleared my throat. "You alright?"

  "My body is," Harmony said to the floor.

  I patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Wanna try focusing on the plan?"

  "Yes, please."

  "Let's be quick," Lex said. "I think I'm going to throw up."

  "You're going to?!"

  We had an elf problem.

  While the porcs were raiding the east plaza, the elves had hit the west. Unlike the porcs, the elves didn't have to worry about survivors on the upper floors—the Big Pants crew had killed or driven out most of them. Instead they'd captured Level One, created those huge trees somehow, and sent more forces into the car park. Val's party had done a little scouting, and they'd spread out pretty far in there.

  "We could just do 'em like the porcs," Val suggested. "Drop down from above, cut 'em off."

  "That's pretty dangerous when we can't see through the trees," Chaz pointed out. "We could be running into a sniper trap."

  "But the only other way is past Buy-Lo, yeah?"

  That was the other problem. In theory we could just reach the elves by heading down to the bottom level and walking across, but our rival supermarket had claimed the connecting corridor, and they'd violently rebuffed any attempts to interact with them...

  "It might be fine," Harmony said. "Reg scouted down there and he says they got cooked. We could just walk in."

  Uh oh. "Cooked how? Did the elves get through the barricades?"

  "Probably," Harmony said. "They were farming the car park."

  My memory threw up a card. The exit connecting the west plaza to the car park wasn't far from Buy-Lo, and they said they'd locked it down so they could farm it. They'd probably focused on the car park. If the miniboss had turned up in the mall and rushed them, like Braz did with us...

  "Are they dead?"

  "The survivor count wouldn't make sense if they were," Chaz said. "You want to rescue them?"

  "May as well," I said. "But mostly I was thinking we should hold that exit too."

  Lex frowned. "We're going in there?"

  I shook my head. "We just have to cut the elves off. Make them take the long way around."

  Our plan for the porc raid had worked out great when it came to freeing the safe zones, but it had gone off the rails at the end when the porcs started running their shoplin corpses back to base. If we took over that exit though, they couldn't back on Level One without going through us.

  "Good idea," Harmony said. "Maybe we can post people on Level Two, just in case..."

  "Oh!" Lex raised a hand. "I have a bunch of fruit bombs. Pee Pants was storing them. There's some Sticky Pineapples we can set a trap with."

  "Now that's a plan," Chaz said. "We could send some archers upstairs, have them set the trap, and if things get hot they can run to Toys B. Goode."

  Harmony smiled. "I like it! Then my party and Val's kill everyone, right?"

  "Just try not to die," I said. I knew it was their decision to go in, but I still worried. "We're still short healers, right?"

  Chaz coughed. "We really didn't coordinate that well. I think everyone assumed Mike would help them..."

  "We'll be good," Val said. "Red can crank out the healing drinks now, and Kara gave me her healing sleeves. I'll take everyone out, no problem."

  "And I'm giving Reg these," Harmony said, holding up her Slurp Nurse loot. The crate had given her party a fancy-looking blue-and-orange water gun and a slightly dented can.

  [ Rare! A Slurp Nurse Slurper Soaker XD-101! This water gun will convert any healing can into up to ten healing squirts. Simply slot in a healing can, fill the chamber with water, and squirt away! ]

  [ A can of Slurp Nurse Goodberry Crush! Slurp Nurse's patented human-calibrated healing formula, now with 80% less horse sweat!

  This product has been discontinued. ]

  Lex recoiled. "Blech. You want another can?"

  "It's better if we use this one," Harmony said. "We won't have to drink it."

  I felt as prepared as we were going to get. "Anything else?"

  Chaz raised a hand. "Oh, right. We met a shopkeeper from Earth, and we promised to bring him a TV later. Anyone up for a watch party after the Lair? We could put on some anime..."

  "As long as it's not trash anime," Harmony said.

  "We could rewatch some One Piece, that's always fun."

  "I haven't seen One Piece," I said. "I'm up for anything, really..."

  Everyone at the table was staring at me.

  "What?"

  Chaz frowned. "Bro."

  "For real?" Harmony looked at me like I'd just told her how my granddad died. "You seriously haven't seen One Piece?"

  "It is a little weird that you haven't," Lex said.

  "How is that weird? There's like a million episodes!"

  "Only a thousand," Chaz said.

  "You are making my point for me!"

  "Even an episode a day would get you there eventually," Harmony said. "What's wrong with you?"

  "I'm too busy to watch hundreds of hours of anime? Even cutting out the openings and the filler episodes—"

  "So now you're committing blasphemy?" Chaz shook his head. "Come on, bro."

  "Even the filler can be quite entertaining," Khan said.

  "Now my hand's getting in on this?! When did you even watch it?"

  "The Food Court has cable, William."

  I appealed to the table. "Does anyone remember we have some elves to fight?"

  "Fine, fine." Val said, then gestured at my arm. "Just sayin' though, you're halfway to being the guy already—"

  "Okay, that's it," I stood up. "I'm gonna go set up the fruit bombs."

  Chaz joined me. "I'll go with in case we see any devil fruit!"

  "I don't know what that is!"