Machine gun fire had a definite rhythm to it. Great for the first time, and it was something that you would never forget.

It was possible to be over how cool they were as a concept when you spent enough time.

Kate was over it. "It's just like can we stop? I want to stop. I want them to stop."

Ashley yelled back. "You don't have to go on these missions. I keep telling you this."

"But you keep sticking your neck out for the guild and I want my girlfriend to come back home in one piece. I feel like that's not a big ask."

"I think you're just trying to aura farm. Is that what you're trying to do?"

Kate put her hands on her hips. "Aura farming? In this economy? I got mine."

"I feel like you're playing a dangerous game there. Just because you're going to survive doesn't mean that we're all going to survive this. You doing great but you are just one person."

Kate waved your arms at the assembled crowd of people that were now taking turns cleaning out machine gun parts so that they could keep running smoothly. Then she pointed to the people that were attacking the shoreline with dozens of mobs, pushing back everything they saw. It was utter chaos on the other side as none of the mobs were coordinated at anyway whatsoever. On their side, it looks like a funnel of death was opening up as the attackers were leaving a opening where the machine guns and marksmen were firing.

It was about the most badass thing that Ashley had ever had a hand in making. It was true that she was just a conduit for this to happen but somebody had to get the ferry and somebody had to load it up with people and machine guns and somebody had to secure that little Coast guard base so they could use it to reclaim the entire Island.

This time, rather than the mobs being packed shoulder to shoulder, they were far more spread out. They approached and started to mass but it took them time to mass together.

Great formations of of shades looking like they were ready for Black Friday shopping all converged at the same point.

Several of the mobs had abilities that let them raise up stone walls or create walls that were enduring and they'd use that to funnel newer mobs towards them.

Fort Wadsworth itself was a very old looking structure that included a large wall along their side of the Verrazano bridge. The bridge itself was above parts of the old Coast guard base making it look like it was all beneath them.

The only bad part was that their wall was something that they wanted to keep intact. So they worked around it. They used a little space between the wall and the outcropping that led to the ocean to also steer mobs where they wanted.

Mobs were too much like zombies and that they went towards the closest to human or the closest summon. It was easy to draw aggro if one ever wanted to do that but it was very difficult to sustainably destroy the aggro that one had then gotten.

Above them, on the bridge, there was a coordinative effort from the resistance there to keep moving forward. Forward. They were drawing as much of the mobs away as they could. The idea being that eventually they could section off fort Wadsworth and lock it down. Killing enough of the mobs that they could lock it down meant that they were going to probably be able to buy up the whole fort.

This monumental task felt finally manageable. They have been a break in the mobs several times where they'd had to go almost a half a minute without shooting any mobs and they were able to move they still kept a line open to the ferry, but rather than hearing the rattling of the machine gun they heard select amount of random pops when a marksman found a shot and took it.

Through it all, actually pushed her swarm around. The roughly 30 beings that she had acquired of various makes ran around trying to deal with larger mobs or unusual mobs that had broke through. And they would also be picking up cards or at least a few of them would pick up cards and bring them back to her. One of the cards that had gotten often was a card that poisoned the summer mob that attacked the summon that had it attached.

---

Poison Pill: Tool

Any summon or mob that attacks this mob will gain the poison effect.

---

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

It was a rather unusual item that no one had seen before in the crew. It was in the deck builder. Thankfully though the artwork there was different than theirs. There were so many places where they had different versions of the same card and the artwork was just the thing that changed.

They still got an amount of normal cards but this was one of the few that seemed like it was a here thing. Somebody somewhere with study this and figure out what it meant. With any luck Kate and Ashley would be sipping mimosas on the beach by then. Maybe even Jones beach.

"Hey girlfriend how do you feel about Jones beach?" Ashley said.

"It's far and there are crowds."

"Do you think that there are crowds right now with everything that's going on? I don't think that there are crowds. But I could be wrong and you could be right and maybe we just need to check it out."

Kate laughed. "I tell you what if you wear that new low-cut thing that Liza is selling at The adventures guild I will take you there. We could even take the ferry."

"Oh my God we could have a a beach episode. I would love a fucking beach episode."

It probably wasn't the best idea to go to the beach given the entire situation, but they could steal away for half a day. If nothing else it would be a chance to see what mobs were out there. There were definitely going to be some water mobs they hadn't seen before, especially on a beach. And she couldn't she'd burn so many times going to the Jersey shore or Jones Beach that she didn't know if she could even handle it.

Or maybe she had all the reasons in the world to not do that. Really, if she couldn't leave the adventurous guild on its own for a few hours she might need to rethink the whole thing. She was technically in the ocean right now where the Hudson and River met at least.

Probably Sandy Hook was the closest beach even though it was Jersey. It was just a little bit south of them. She could take the ferry down there and they could have a cookout and now she was thinking about that is a viable option for when this whole battle was done. That would definitely make her day.

"What about if we take people down to Sandy Hook and we have a little cookout?" Ashley said. Her mind was spitting up how to get this to happen. She would need some grills which she could probably find or some other way to feed people. She would obviously need a cute outfit to wear. And she would probably need some sunscreen. Especially they're going to be out there all day. It might be something that they could do after they took a shift laying down suppressing fire and trying to reclaim Staten Island.

It was a pipe dream but now she was thinking about it in real terms and it felt good to be actually thinking of some sort of vacation or anything. Besides to get home and watching more recycled TV. There was nothing new out there for them. Thankfully, powers that be had decided to allow people to keep working the services for free and definitely. It was one of the few things that kept Ashley going.

It was this and the potential that they were going to be opening up on new broadway when this was over. It wasn't going to be the best thing ever produced but it was going to be about them and their struggles and if she could just get the music and choreography right...

---

"What do you mean you need more? I'm giving you all I have!"

Khaleesi had come in heated.

"All I'm saying is that if we can get people leveled up using the drones then we can make more drones and get the city off our back," Bagel said.

" I'm not going to let you kill City officials with our drones. That's a terrible idea."

"Not even in a little bit?"

"Not even a little bit."

Khaleesi groaned. "We have too many mobs to kill before we can do anything about this. You know I keep sending sending drones down to Staten Island to drop. Basically grenades? It's like I have to actually put these things into these tennis wall tubes and then it just opens the tennis ball tubes and it dumps them one at a time."

Khaleesi mimed what she meant, using her hands to show how it would happen. Bagel beginning to be a little bit concerned with the size of these grenades. They seem to be large but he didn't have any special knowledge about grenades. He probably needed a primer.

Bagel looked up to artificial intelligence. Can you give me a primer on a grenade sometime because this all sounds ridiculous. Not right now because I'm trying the perfect way to use her drones for good."

Khaleesi grabbed a drink and returned. She got one of the kombuchas that we're always one of the last drinks to go. She opened it up and the fizz claimed his nose and he could almost taste it. Just off of that. She took her time drinking it as if any answer she gave would just be unpleasant for him.

"Now look. I know we've had our differences here because I'm a cat and you are a person but clearly you know what to do about and I don't want step on your toes. So maybe we can start again?"

"Bagel what is this really all about?"

"I've gotten some news from Vince and I think we need to go talk to him."

Khaleesi blinked. "Oh the engineer? I haven't... Haven't what's he got going on?"

"He's been asking for lots of chemicals and things that I don't know how to source. He's also asking for a ton of clams."

" Is he a seafood junkie? Is that what's going on or is there something else more nefarious?"

"He said something about a breeding project to to do something with a water supply and then he muttered something and disappeared. So Eddie guess you have is better than mine. I just need him to come up with project plan proposal so that we can get this thing moving. I want fresh water as soon as possible in a way that is going to be effective long-term."

"Well that sounds delightful. What do you think we should do about it?"

What he wanted to do was to come in and talk to the man but he had a feeling. He had a feeling that things were going to pop up is as soon as he went up there and he was going to have to pay out a lot of money.

"I think that we need to talk to the man. You hired him and you shouldn't be afraid of him. I can just call Gladys and have her over here very shortly. Do you want to call? Gladys?"

"No no no. I think we're good. Don't call Gladys. I will talk to him when I'm ready."

Khaleesi raised both eyebrows very high. "All right, but you need to be able to talk to your people. If you think he's going to be a problem then he doesn't have to be here."

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