A Bar a Vampire and the Apocalypse

There was a sizable amount left to do. Sarah was currently off getting tabletop games. The combat crew was still licking their wounds and Ana and Maria were busy making skill infused food for said combat crew. This left only Cameron and Trevor to prep the actual floor. There was a table to rearrange T.V.s to change over and move to be used for game consoles. Then there was the back that was a bit of a mess at the moment. Thinking about it, I went back to the used-to-be parking lot and started cleaning up. Once that was done I hung the projector screen and moved any extra chairs we had outside.

Satisfied with that I went back inside to see Edward and Steward taking one of the T.V.s off the wall to bring down the floor with Cameron setting up another T.V. with a switch. Todd and Carl were walking in the front door with bean bags in their arms heading towards the T.V. that was already set up. Sarah was following them in with a stack of table games. In her arms was Risk, Sorry, Life, apples to apples, Monopoly and a few I had never heard of before. Looking over at the tables in the middle of the room there were already a few chess boards, connect 4, clue and scrabble. Looks like Sarah went out and bought some stuff. I would say I'm surprised she found anything but what she bought would not be on the top of peoples priority list for survival well maybe board games to have something to do if power went out but most likely not.

I walked over to Sarah and took some of the games out of her arms to help her out and walked them to the tables with the rest of the games. With that done I asked. “Is there anything else that's in the car?”

“Yeah there is some chalk, jump ropes, some frisbees and a couple more bean bags.” Sarah answered. Nodding, I walked out to the car, grabbed the chalk jump ropes and the frisbees leaving the rest of the bean bags to the boys to grab. I set them down on one of the tables with the games. I walked into our storage area, grabbed one of our few extra fold up tables and set it up outside and put the chalk jump ropes and frisbees on the table. With that done it was getting close to open. We were going to open early today around 4 instead of 6 so the families can get home earlier and so the kids have some daylight to play under the elm tree.

With that thought in mind I walked over to Steward and said. “I have a special job for you tonight. '' he nodded to me and I continued. “I want you guarding the entrance to the dungeon. We don't want anyone going down in there tonight especially with there being kids around. To be honest it's rather surprising no one has gone down there yet. Remind me to bring that up at the next meeting.”

“Sure thing Vivi.” he said and went out the door leading to the parking lot.

As he walked out the door the first group of people walked in. It was a family of four with both a boy and girl, the girl being the older sibling. The father was a well built clean shaven man with short cut light brown hair. He looked to me in his early thirties and was rather handsome. The mother was a relatively average blond haired lady but she did have a very nice smile. She looked a bit younger than him, maybe later twenties. The kids seemed to mirror their parents in appearance and both looked to be in the single digits. Walking up I greeted them.

“Welcome to our family night glad you could make it. There are different table games over there." I gestured towards the tables in the middle of the floor. ”Nintendo Switches with a handful of other games there. “Pointing to the group of T.V.s with bean bags on a side wall.” There are also a few things to do outside in the parking lot. We will be setting up a movie out there once it gets dark.”

The kids looked to their parents, the dad nodded and the kids ran over to one of the T.V.s and started it up. I looked back to the parents, the dad held out his hand and said. “Hello my name is Brian and this fine lady is my wife Jessica. Thank you for putting this on, the kids have been a little wound up being stuck at home and from what I was told this place is safe.''

I looked at his wife, seeing a slight blush, then took the man's hand. “Of course it is our pleasure to put this together. My name is Viviana, the owner of this establishment.” The man was a little surprised. He released my hand and said,

“Wow you look quite young to already have such a business.”

Not missing a beat I lied and threw my teeth. “Yeah I was both lucky and unlucky to receive a sizable inheritance from a family member. With that money I decided after I went to college to open a bar and here we are.”

Brian put on a regretful face and said. “I'm sorry for your loss. But it looks like that money was used well. Not many people your age would invest that kind of money in a business like this.”

Well people my age don't need that kind of money. I internally joked to myself.

“Thank you. I feel I have done pretty well with what I have made.”

“That you have.” But the man's features turned serious. ”I’m going to be frank, it's only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose and I fear for my family. I know you have the power to defend this place. I also know that the local dungeon is under your control and I've read my fair share of fantasy books to know what dungeons are worth. So what can I do to either gain access to the dungeon or have my family be under your protection.”

I was not that surprised to hear this. But his wife did. I expected to hear this or something like this quite a bit today. Parents want to defend their children and right now the only person they know that can is well… me.

“Well right now I can't let people in the dungeon. For the simple fact that I don't want blood on my hands. I have been down there and the lowest level creature was 15 and that was not a predator. It was a deer but even then it was not a normal one. It is not a safe place and not in the oh you can get hurt type of dangerous its the you could die before you know what happened, kind of place.”

The man paled slightly but quickly collected himself. “Then what can I do? I don't want to be helpless. I’m just another office worker. I don’t have the power to protect my family from what is to come without it.” Jessica gave him a side hug and he put his arm around her and some of the tension seemed to leave his shoulders.

I thought about it for a time. We really do need to do something to inform people and get more help. This was one of the reasons we are doing what we are doing tonight was to possibly get more help. Making a decision, I spoke.

“Come back Monday at 2 pm we will have a sorta town hall. You can bring the kids again so you don't have to worry about leaving your family alone. We will set something up for them and have some people look after them.”

Brian nodded and said, “We will be there.” With that we parted ways and they sat down at one of the tables with a chess board and set it up. I went to find Sarah. She was in the downstairs office. Knocking on the door I walked in and said.

“People are starting to show up.”

“Really already they are a bit early but I guess that's not unexpected.”

“The Parents that came were new here; they mostly have a friend that comes to the bar.”

“Well that was the hope, to get a different group of people then the ones that normally come here.”

“Yeah, and also like we expected they both asked for access to the dungeon and A chance to have their family protected.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes and asked “What did you tell them?”

I shrugged and answered “That we would have a kind of town hall on Monday. I thought that would be enough time to hammer out some more details and decide on how to go about it. I also plan on doing a deep dive of the first floor both to try and gain some levels and also to get an idea of the true danger of the first floor. After that we will be able to both better prepare and have more information to tell the people on Monday what is to be expected and how we want to structure things related to the dungeon.”

Sarah sighed “This is going to be a long night. You do like making things harder don't you?”

“What do you mean by that? This was going to happen sooner rather than later anyways all I did was put a date on it.”

Sarah tilted her head and said “Fair enough we will want all the people in the know here after everyone leaves or do you want to have the meeting first thing in the morning? So you can have time to map the first floor of the dungeon and explain what you find with us then?

“I think the morning would be best. It's already going to be a long day for us, especially the combat crew that got the buts handed to them today.”

“Fair”

“Ok I’ma going to head back out. I think I'm going to play host tonight. Feel free to join me in this.”

“Sure thing Vivi.” With that said, I made my way back. There were a couple more families there. With 6 more kids here we were up to 8. Brain and Jessica were still in the middle of their chess game but the other sets of parents were sitting at the table with them talking while they played. Putting on a smile I walked over to be a good host.

“Hello my name is Viviana the owner of and host of this shindig. But you can call me Vivi. What are your names?” The group of parents turned to me including Brian and Jessica. The two other sets of parents were dressed nice but casually. The first of the husbands spoke up. He was a hispanic man.

“Hello Vivi my name is José and this is my wife Rebecca.” He gestured to the woman sitting next to him who while still looking hispanic looked much more caucasian. “Thank you for putting this together. The kids have been getting rather pent up with schools being closed and us not letting them go outside.” He said with a grateful smile.

“Of course it was needed and in times like this we all need a moment to relax and enjoy the company of good people.” I said

“That we do.” The last man at the table said. “My name is Andrew and this wild girl is Alexis” he gestured to the very meek looking girl sitting next to him. Her face puffed up a bit and she lightly hit him on the shoulder. We all had a nice chuckle at the exchange. The man was a well tanned man but I could not quite place his ethnicity while his wife was a small pale girl but cute as a button.

After laughing the man carried on. “Thank you for putting this together. I have not seen my kids light up the way they did when they walked in in quite some time. It makes me a little sad that it took someone else doing something for them to have that light in their eyes.”

“Oh of course Andrew but don’t beat yourself up, you have time to do great things with them. And now you might really be able to show them magic tricks, think about that.”

He smiled and laughed. “That is very true miss.”

“Oh please no miss like I said call me Vivi.”

“Of course Vivi” Looking at Brian’s and Jessica's chess game and seeing it finished I saw the decks of cards and said.

“Do you all know how to play spite and malice?”

###

A couple hours had passed and the number of people that came was frankly more than we could handle. I was expecting to get MAYBE 200 people at any given time. What we had now was, well the main room was packed with kids playing all kinds of games and most of the parents made their way outside and let the kids have free rain of the building. There had to be north of 400 total people. If the fire marshal showed up they would not be very happy. By some miracle most of the kids were rather well behaved and did not make more of a mess than was expected of kids playing. It was still going to be a chore to clean up after but so be it.

I ended up having at least a third of the parents come up to me asking similar things to Brain and Jessica, a couple demanded to be let into the dungeon, they were firmly told no with a light use of presence of an ancient. Some begged for protection. Apparently they were hearing a lot of gunfights in their neighborhoods and no shortage of police sirens. One thing all the parents had in common though was they have not really been out of the house since the message has happened. Apparently all the schools have closed. I can kinda see why, kids with magical powers getting up set up teens with raging hormones, yeah does not sound like a good mix of things along with the fact no one knows when something might appear in the middle of the school.

I told them all something along the lines of I can't let them in the dungeon yet it's too unknown and I don't want their blood on my hands and children orphaned. As for the rest of it, I told them I would hold a town hall on Monday explaining what I knew and what my plans are for the dungeon and so on. Everyone accepted the answer but some were more upset about it than others but by this point they all knew what I did to the level 23 that came into my bar and knew not to push the issue.

Part way through the night I ended up in the kitchen with Ana, Maria, Sarah, Todd and Steward trying to keep up with the demand for food. Edward took Stewards' job of guarding the dungeon entrance. Thank goodness for Sarah’s class along with Ana and Maria without those classes we would not have gotten through it. And the three of them got a nice amount of levels for it.

The rest of the night went off with nothing more to note other than the mess at the end. The parents that stayed for the movie approved of my picks. When we were done picking up everyone was told to be up for an early morning meeting and went to change and then I made my way down into the dungeon.