You must be this old to enter the Dungeon

Chapter 17) The old man delves alone

Our second round of test firing went better.

As long as I put some warmth into my shoulder after every shot or two I was able to keep ahead of the bruising. Little Red watched me shoot and asked. “Are you sticking with the Elysians or wandering in on your own?"

I stared at her for a moment before I said, “Guess.”

She nodded and marked something down on a clipboard. “Good enough.”

Now I like her. I’m pretty sure that was some snark.

If I find out what it takes to piss her off, I might even bother to remember her name.

While Brad had a bigger gun he was still wincing after putting eight shots into the trash cans. At this point, cardboard was now flying up with every load of buckshot and I could hear some of pellets going through and hitting cement.

The shooting gallery seemed awfully makeshift, but I guess no one planned on any of this in advance. For something rigged up on the fly, it wasn't that bad.

I stepped over and laid my hand on Brad's shoulder as he gave me a baffled look. "Just hold still. This may be the thing I do that ends up keeping you alive like Beryl had said."

There wasn't a box this time, I just sent the warmth down from my hand to his shoulder without going weak in the knees before I started pulling whatever I needed to replace it from all around me. I guess the boxes figured I know what I’m doing at this point.

Brad slowly smiled. "That feels nice, it that your version of healing?”

I didn’t even look up at him since it seemed like one of those questions that didn’t need to be asked but was just to make conversation. Bread didn’t seem to pick up that I wasn’t interested since he kept trying to talk to me until it felt like the warmth didn’t want to go into him anymore and I walked off to the table to reload my gun.

Beryl was standing right behind me.

“Thank you Harold. That was nice of you... What are you up to?”

I gave her a slow smile. “You seem to care about him. If he dies in there, it would make you sad.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I almost believe you.”

With a nod, I walked past her. "I almost meant it."

I heard her make that annoyed sound she made when she didn’t want to respond to me and had to make an effort not to give me another chance to keep picking at her.

I’ll count that as two points for me.

Of course, since she roped me into this I figured it still put her eight points ahead of me.

Droopy face opened up a whole box of green shotgun shells and handed one to me. “Let’s see you load it up again Mr. Sight so we can be sure you got it right. Then you can fill up your pockets.”

I started loading up the shotgun while giving him a suspicious look. Was he doing the name thing deliberately?

I could respect that if he was.

When it came to guns he seemed to be firing on all cylinders as he showed me I could get one more shell in the shotgun by having one in the barrel.

Behind me, I could hear Fake Teeth bragging about his handguns and letting off some shots behind me. Looking over and paying attention to whatever he was up to would just encourage him to start talking at me so I didn’t.

In addition to the shotgun, Sam hooked me up with a little revolver with a holster on a belt I put on over my hoodie. He said it was a thirty eight which I was sure was a pretty weak gun, but Sam explained that “A lot of old time cops still carry these. It will kill someone just as good as a nine millimeter or a forty five. It just won’t do it through a car door.”

Good enough for me. Little Red made me shoot it a few times after Sam showed me how to load it.

I put some of the bullets and shells in the inventory, and some more in my pockets since I didn't entirely trust the magic storage bin.

Heading over to my cart, I watched Wilyna push Chubby ahead of her with her nose over toward Little Red who looked completely overwhelmed as she looked over at me for help.

Blue curled up by Red’s foot and yipped at her brother.

I shrugged at the army gal and reached over to pat the coyote mom on the head as Chubby whined at her, but stayed put as his sister yipped at him again.

“I guess you’re planning on going in with me huh girl?”

The coyote shook my hand off and gave me a long look before walking toward the factory. I guess this was it.

I set the shotgun across the top of my cart next to the putter and pulled the smelly old coat on before lifting my hood to let my eyes start to adjust to the dimmer lighting inside the building. Then I followed along behind Wilyna.

Brad caught up with me and handed me another plastic container. “Mini Vegetarian Burritos. They reduce the severity of wounds for an hour, but it cancels out any other food bonus. It’s safe for dogs so the Coyote should be able to eat one too.”

I gave him a sharp look but nodded. I guess being nice to him was worth it.

Even if he was going to make me eat a vegetarian burrito. What the hell? There hadn’t been any meat on the salad either.

I pulled one of the packets of cheap hot dogs out of the inventory as I walked along. The stuff was still chilled from the fridge despite being out of it for over an hour. As advertised time didn't happen inside the magic bin.

Now, since I had food, Wilyna slowed down for me and I gave her a whole hot dog as I chowed down on a couple of my own. Healing me and Brad's shoulder hadn't taken that much out of me, but I figured having something in my stomach would help when I needed it and despite the whole magic food thing I don't think fiber was what I was going to need in there.

At the entrance to the factory four soldiers guys, well three and angry looking gal, were waiting for me.

A middle aged black guy with a neatly trimmed white beard started to salute, hesitated, and then did a quick one anyways. “Sargent Broadnax Sir. We’re your escort to the entrance. Thank you for doing this.”

I snorted and waved my hand vaguely at the four of them. “Escort away.”

The factory had seen better days.

Everything was torn up and covered in various idiot’s spray painted graffiti. Trash was everywhere.

As well as smears of orange blood.

Broadnax must have noticed me looking at it. “At first we shot at them as soon as we saw them, the ones that didn’t die would drag themselves back into the factory and we started to recognize the same ones coming back out from the scars. Now we let them get clear and then put them down, even if a few slip by us.

I grunted. I hadn't asked but it was still informative. So I decided to share something that I had started to mull over.

“You might want to get some nets, and those poles with a cable in a loop at the end. If you can capture some of them alive there are probably old people willing to pay for the chance to put a bullet in a captured one’s head without having to risk anything. If they get enough kills they might even get into good enough shape to go in. Take some of the pressure off me and the other dead men hobbling.”

He mulled that over and gave me a nod.

Then Wilyna whimpered and I saw the entrance to the Dungeon.