A Bar a Vampire and the Apocalypse

Waking up the next morning I knew it was time to get things going again. Our two day hiatus was over. I know some people will still be morning or skittish but we have to keep moving forward. Now is not the time to cower, now is the time to work and improve while other cower.

Stretching in my chair I looked over to see if my daughter had woken up yet but she had not. It was starting to worry me if I was being honest. It normally did not take so long for the transition and she was already a vampire. Maybe it had something to do with how long it's been since I have changed, or the system has a hand to play, for all I know this is normal for taking a vampire from another. It's not like I have much experience with making vampires let alone take one from another.

Looking down to the floor I see Cameron is still sleeping. Taking a quick glance around I don't see Sarah so I assumed she is up and about.

Getting up the first thing to do was strip my bedding in my room and spray it down. No need to have any leftover blood on it or the smell of it. Once I was done I let it sit for now. I would make it later.

Moving down stairs I looked around. Most of the kids were awake and the few adults in here were as well. I walked outside to the area where all the adults were sleeping and spoke, not caring if they were awake or not.

“For all those of you that had been approved to go down into the dungeon you may once again do so. But we will not be letting all of you down. We still want some people to keep guard. Once you are ready I will be next to the dungeon to let you enter. For those of you that are working on skills the person leading that group is currently unavailable but I will have her come out to continue when she can. For the rest of you the fighting has calmed down and the streets are full of law enforcement. If you want to retrieve friends and family now is the time before the military takes full control of the area. Otherwise go on as you were before the fighting broke out.

We have to keep moving on. Right now I believe this is the calm before the storm, remember the system said this was phase one. We have no idea what could come next so let's prepare. For those of you that can, we need supplies of all kinds if you are willing to donate it please do so. We will do our best to keep track of who brought what and we will compensate you in time. Spread the word and let's get back to work.”

With that said I made my way back inside to gather those in my inner circle. Once I got all but Cameron Trevor and Maria we all squeezed into the down stairs officer and had a quick meeting.

“First we need to get things moving again. If Cameron is still not ready to continue her work when she wakes we need someone to take that up. I feel that is a rather important task. We do have all her notes right?” I said.

Sarah nodded and pulled up a file on her tablet. Showed it to me and I nodded.

“Next Alex Alfred I am giving you carte blanche to hire anyone you find trustworthy and helpful. Just give their names to Sarah and we will mark it down. We need things to be moved along. With that noted I want you guys to focus all your attention on acquiring building supplies for those that are here and any store you can. I don't care if the store is broken into or still running. I will give you a credit card for the store still open and some written check in an envelope for those that you loot. Anything you think might be helpful at all we will take. Get trucks, trailers, whatever is needed to move the supplies.

After that we will be taking over every building on this street Strip anything you can use from any of them. I know you got one floor of the building ready already. So fill it. If you can prep other buildings for storage as you strip them. Also Alex did we ever get our hands on any solar panels or generators and batteries to go with them?”

“We do have some small generators from our own tools but no larger batters to go with them nor solar panels.”

“Well that is the thing I need you to get the most right now. I don't care what it costs or how you get it, make it happen. We have not idea how much longer the grid is going to last. I mean we are in California it barely works as it is. I feel it in my bones that we are running out of time. I don't believe we will need you two for the rest of the meeting so if you want to start feel free to leave.” They looked at each other and left after some parting words. Looking over to Sarah I asked.

“Sarah, did we find any others with magic skills or classes?” She looked over a spreadsheet on her tablet for a bit then shook her head.

“We have not seen anyone with magic based skills like Carl so far.” I cursed under my breath.

“Well if that is the case we need to work on our water situation too. Todd go out and tell Alex and Alfred to also pick up any clean buckets or water tanks they can. We will have to start filling as many of those as we can while we still have running tap water.” Todd nodded and left to do as I asked

“Sarah, if Cameron is not able to, I need you to take over her job until she is back to work. I will give her another day to grieve but after that she will be back to work. We can't be dwelling now. We have people that need to be managed and information to gather. I can’t have any of you out of work for too long. Samantha, how is our project going?”

With some more room in the office with three people out they all spread out a bit.

“For all intents and purposes we have everything we need. At this point it is just adding to what we already have. Gathering more books, more history, more songs, movies and schematics. All the basics are covered as far as I can tell but we will keep it going until we run out of time.”

“Good, keep at it. The more things we can recover the better off we will be later. This way we will not be starting from square one. The saying that knowledge is power came about for a reason.

Moving on, many people will be going out to gather family and friends. and I'm sure many more will follow. This is also your chance to do this as well. I know not all of your families are nearby but if you can tell them to make their way here. With that being the case we will have to expand our area of influence soon. With that being said Eric I know I promised people that they could go back in the dungeon and your group could gain quite a bit of progress if you go in now but I need you all to help the groups that go out to gather people to not only protect but to in a way screen people. I also want you to plan out where we will expand. Figure out what is the best place to move forward that we can defend and keep an eye on things.” Eric only nodded and Todd also slipped back into the office.

“Edward, you and our combat crew will also be in the dungeon today. I want you to, while being safe, kill as much as you can. We need to move forward to gain more strength. Tomorrow you will be taking the place of Eric's crew to play as guards for our area. But Eric, I need you to stay top side for when the military brass eventually come for us. If you have your full military get up it will be helpful.” Looking to both of them Edward conferred verbally while Eric just nodded again

“Once we have a more proper guard rotation we will get back to training and such but right now it's forged in fire time.

Ana how has the cooking with the dungeon meat gone?”

Ana straightened up and said “From what me and Maria have learned it is edible and in most cases better than the meat we have on earth. In some ways it is worse but for the most part it is better. We also discovered that by using this meat our skills that affect food are more potent. We believe that using better ingredients will increase the effectiveness of such skills. We have been writing down all of our findings in greater detail if you want to look over it later.

Another major thing we discovered was that certain meats have a slight chance when prepared well to give a slight and temporary boost to stat points.”

Everyone gasped at that, I however was not surprised. Ana kept on

“It does not seem to affect the level even if it would be enough to put you over. So it seems temporary stats do not affect that. We do not know much about how to make this effect occur. The few times we were able to get this to happen the duration and amount of the stat boost was different.” Nodding I spoke

“That is good news, keep experimenting with that in your free time. I will have some more hands to help you hopefully by the end of the day. With that said is there anything anyone wants to add before we all get to work?” Edward spoke up.

“We need to take a better accounting of the general mood of people right now. After the last two days people are on edge.”

“I agree that is why I want us to get back to work. If people are doing things they are less likely to dwell on it. We need them to think they are making progress or a difference building to something. If you all have ideas to keep mural up feel free to try them. I trust you to get things done and do them well.” Everyone nodded Eric then made a comment.

“We need better communications. Information is key and being able to get to everyone will be vitally important in the future. If we can find walkie talkies that would be great. Me and the others in my group have some but more would be great.”

“Great point while you are going out to guard people if you see aunty stores that might have them grab them I will give you a credit card and cash. Like I said to Alex and Alfred I don't care if you're breaking in or not, we need them. Also ask the people you're escorting if they have any to bring them as well. Oh and also batteries, any of them you can find.” He nodded to that. When I looked around and when no one spoke up we ended the meeting.

“With that said let's get to work!”

I went back to my interviews of cooks to help out Ana and Maria. They were slammed and even with the people helping out we not only were still short on manpower but tools and stoves and the like. After getting some people with cooking related classes to help out I was hoping that things would ease up on them.

There were noticeably less people as quite a few people went out to gather family and friends along with a group of people going out to gather construction supplies and the like. While there was a noticeable drop in morale, people were still working and there were still smiles and excitement. Most of that excitement came from the skill investigation group.

Cameron did end up coming down not too long after our meeting while she did look a little worn she did go back to working with those testing and sharing their skills. This left me Sarah. After she was done helping me with the interviews I let her gain some levels by supervising the kitchen. Not only would she gain levels and skill ups but she would help those in the kitchen get food out faster. There was not a small amount of people to feed. There was now always a line at the surviving tables we set up out front of the bar. Having long run out of things we were mostly serving meat based foods from the dungeon. With a few other things thrown in as we get them.

Most of what I did was move around and help those that needed it and just be seen. Showing people I was there and ready to help. I also had lots of conversations with people and even played with some kids. It was nice to unwind a bit with them. But sadly not everything went well.

While walking back to the bar from one of my rounds on the day I ran into an argument that was about to break out into a fight. Two men in their early thirties were yelling up a storm.

“The fuck you mean I’m not good enough for your group!? You are the same level as me and have a worse ranked combat class.” The first man said.

“It's not about the rank dipshit and you are only the same level as me because your class gives you more stats my class level is two higher than yours. And I never said you were not good enough, I said your attitude would get us killed. I don't know about you but I have people waiting for me and even then the dungeon handler would never let us in the dungeon with someone like you in our group because we would not work well enough together.” The second man said, still yelling more exasperated than mad.

“Fuck the dungeon handler what the fuck is a bitch going to do about it. I think you all are wipes being afraid of her. I bet all those stories about her are made up. You know what I’m just going to go in by myself you all are pathetic wipes anyways.” I while all this was happening snuck my way right behind the taller man who seemed to have started the argument. The second man was going to say something but when the first man turned reveling me his mouth froze and he paled. I just smiled and winked at him.

When the first man fully turned around he saw me looked at me with a sneer and said “Get the fuck out of my way if you know what's good for you bitch.” The whole area went silent. I smiled at him staring right into his eyes and stayed put. His face contorted in rage and he went to grab my shoulder to shove me away. The moment he did I activated all three auras of presence of an ancient. His hand slipped off my shoulder and his knees hit the floor. Sweat started to pour down his face as I kept eye contact with him, smiling the whole time. The pure terror in his face made me a little giddy. Hey, I never said I was a good person.

“Now I will have to turn down your invitation to join you in bed. I don’t find joy in doing it with men that have such short…" I waved my hand in the air a little “ sightedness.

So as a nice friendly note of advice if anything like this were to happen again you might find yourself suddenly not in MY area of protection anymore. So I hope you all have a good day. I have some work to get back too. Nice to meet you, good sir.”

Turning around I walked away smiling the whole time.