“An auction house and a quartermaster, huh?” Richard asked. “What does that even mean? How does that help us?” He looked around at the new buildings, “It seems the only good thing we got was the extra space.”

  Lucas beat me to the punch, “An auction house gives us a way to sell our goods. I’m sure we have plenty of random junk that someone might find useful.”

  “What people?” Richard looked around, “It’s just us here.”

  “True… but.” Lucas continued and then caught himself before he said too much.

  “There’s a chance it’s more than just us,” I said, “we’ve seen more fantastical things before than a building with connections to other bases.” I didn’t mind getting everyone’s hopes up. Being realistic and being hopeful meshed somewhere on the spectrum, and only with a healthy dose of both could we keep going. In games auction houses were linked, which led me to believe these would be networked to other abodes, wherever those might be.

  “Can you three stop your yapping so we can check the quartermaster?” Maria barked.

  “How do you know what a quartermaster even is?” Richard gave her a side-eye.

  “Psh, I’m not as wet behind the ears as you are, alright?” She spoke with such venom that Richard didn’t dare respond. With that, noone seemed to want to talk about the auction house anymore, instead opting to see what we might find in our new shop. “Sometimes it’s better to just do the thing instead of talk about doing the thing… idiots,” I heard Maria mumbling under her breath.

  Everyone was used to her little outbursts and didn’t mind it. We crowded around the quartermaster, who looked like a person, but seemed alien at the same time. The man’s expression was lifeless, the eyes staring into distant space.

  “Hello?” I asked. Which got no response.

  Eventually Alan walked a bit too close and triggered a menu, opening up the shop. The eerie thing was the NPC. It faced the last person to open the menu with its lifeless gaze and expressionless face. “Get closer to him,” Alan urged us.

  It was a tight fit for everyone to get close enough to obtain a menu, and so we opted to take turns four at a time. Maria, Anna, and the remaining women going last. I had to admit, the thing was beyond freaky. I drew a parallel to a Chucky doll, and wondered if it was capable of doing more than just giving us that stare.

  At Level 1, which was the current level, the quartermaster seemed to only contain some consumables, mostly for recovery. There were mana potions, health potions, and minor food buffs. There wasn’t any equipment, but the good thing was that the currency we received from the demons would be useful. It was the currency used by the quartermaster.

  The currency we had currently couldn’t buy much, and as we already had a small supply from our previous encounter, we opted out of buying anything. “Save it for when the good stuff shows up,” I suggested.

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  We quickly moved to the auction house, and, as expected or unexpected as it might have been, it was empty. There were menus that allowed you to search for things, and even get specific on what slot of gear you wanted. I tried searching for generic items, and then some rare consumables I knew Glenn would want, even some of the crafting materials needed for our new profession—all to no avail.

  Eventually Anna figured out there was a way to see how many items total were listed, which came back as a big fat zero. We were going to leave it at that when Lucas had the bright idea to list an item. In the end, there was one thing on the auction house—a piece of rotting flesh. An extremely common item that was obtainable by killing any of the nearby wandering ghouls or zombies.

  Neither of the new buildings were immediately useful, but what was useful was the increased size of the base. There were three weeks to kill before the next demon wave, and I questioned whether my decisions had been correct. The mark on the map of our location grew, and shone with an even brighter green, almost neon in color.

  That seemed to do the trick, or at least help our cause. People started to arrive. Four new faces to be exact. Three men and one woman. A warrior, a priest, a rogue and a gunslinger—two of these were classes I’d not heard before.

  Marcus, Bruce, Ryan and Evee were their names. Marcus was their tank, a warrior. He was specialized in doing lots of damage while tanking, and had a lot less threat-generating abilities than Alan. Another downside was the increased damage Marcus took compared to a more defensive tank.

  Their healer, Ryan, was the same class as Thomas, having selected priest after finding a single healing book at low level. Ryan did not have a HoT, instead having a second heal—much larger and more focused on healing a tank.

  Bruce was their rogue and had the skills I would have expected for the class. He wore light armor and wielded two swords. He could also easily equip daggers, but had specialized in more straightforward fighting than being sneaky or clandestine. He also had a stealth-like ability that made him a turn translucent and reduced the chance for enemies to detect him.

  Evee was their gunslinger, and, as the name suggested, wielded a rifle. She had three guns in fact. One high-powered rifle, and two pistols she wielded on each hip. The rifle was meant for long-range stationary shooting, excellent if the enemies were being properly tanked. The pistols were for on-the-move kiting.

  Overall, their group seemed sociable and friendly enough. They were all level 21, and that fit with their story. They were just shopping at a grocery store when the apocalypse started, and as fellow victims of circumstance, banded together to face the challenge ahead of them.

  When Lucas asked had they killed anyone, they were not hesitant in stating they had been attacked by another group and had fought back in self-defense. Their account made the deaths seem justified, and listening carefully to the story they had told, I agreed. My Sixth Sense showed no problems, and Jessica had no qualms either. There was plenty of room for them too.

  Bethany, Nicole and Rebekah took the building next to ours, and the new group took the next. There was enough room for everyone to fit in just one, but it seemed pointless to leave the buildings vacant for now. As they had been the first of what I hoped would be several groups to arrive, it seemed fair to encourage them with their own building, especially if they showed promise.

  Lucas got them familiar with everyone and with the new NPC as well as what to expect rule wise. The biggest rule was no fighting. We didn’t want internal conflict, especially with the current numbers being so small. As the abode grew in size that would be harder to enforce, but we would deal with that as it came.

  My decision to take the auction house and quartermaster was generally accepted as the correct choice, even though there was no proof that they would deliver anything useful. Any doubts I personally had disappeared on the fifth day after their appearance, when a new item appeared on the auction house: one we hadn’t put up.