"The way to get what you want is to amass power. That's it. All this moving around stuff? I don't want to have to deal with these little leg biters."

  The crabs did not agree with his assessment. They didn't agree with each other. In fact, he was pretty sure that if they were able to, they would fight each other. It would be ugly, but it appeared that they needed an enemy.

  "I feel like if they get far back enough from them then they'll start fighting each other," Bagel yelled. "Does anybody else feel that way?"

  "That's exactly what they were doing before," Meatball said, running along the sand next to him, checking behind her every so often.

  "Why the hell were you fighting them then? Why not just let them fight each other?" Khaleesi panted the most of the three of them.

  "Because I wanted the experience points? You guys come on it's like you don't run dungeons."

  Bagel summon ed one of his workers. It was basically the only option he had in his hand as one of his Pizza rats was unsummoned. He held three recharge cards and one heal card, they were nice but they weren't useful at his current moment.

  He was prepared for a life of leisure and calm haggling. This was not for him. They passed the dungeon exit and entrance. It would be great if they could go through but clearly she had enabled this just so she could get some experience points.

  "You didn't think that maybe, just maybe you should not fight the endless horde of crabs for a little?"

  "Okay well you're so lovely. You just want to help me out so much. I really appreciate you, but I don't need anyone to save me. Again, not a princess, not trapped in a tower."

  Khaleesi shrugged, before turning to summon two more of her cards. They were only about 30 of the crabs left but they were faster than they looked. Because the crabs scuttled sideways, the three of them had been zigzagging every so often.

  Bagel did not want to leave the dungeon without meatball. She did not want to leave without finishing it. This was anathema to his whole existence.

  But he needed her to answer some pointed questions. "We've got to talk to you about the pigeons."

  Meatball turned, narrowly avoiding a palm tree. "What about them?"

  Bagel sprinted after her, clearing the obstacle easily. "They-grrr- Meatball I swear to you that I'm going to eat your dinner. Don't play with me."

  There and around for another five minutes before their summons could whittle down the group. That was when they could finally settle down.

  The sand was salty and coarse against his fur."Now what I was trying to say is that the pigeons have kind of disappeared from the piers and I'm just wondering what's going on. There is a lot of new land being bought up in Staten Island and I'm just curious as to what the heck is happening down here."

  Meatball raised her eyebrows at that, her face a mask.

  "Well you know how you can't get this warehouse card except for in West Virginia? The pigeons found it out and they kind of took that to heart. They took a little expedition down there and gathered dozens of them."

  Khaleesi gasped. She was sitting cross-legged on a giant stone. In retrospect, Bagel could have sat there but it looked too warm for his tastes.

  "So the pigeons got a lot of Warehouse cards. What are they planning on doing with them? And why haven't we heard about this?" Khaleesi said. "I did not expect that at all."

  Meatball sighed. "They didn't want me to tell anybody but they knew that eventually it was going to become a parent so they didn't hide it from me either. They just gave me extra delicious food to kind of buy my silence. There really is none of them out there?"

  "When we came in here, none of the people were even concerned about the pigeons being gone. It was like they just disappeared. But at the same time, a bunch of places in Staten Island are now clearly owned under the system and it looks like that's where they went. Especially since our Staten Island people are saying that."

  "You know it makes a lot of sense that they would do that and not tell me. They just told me that they were getting the warehouse cards. Not where they were going to use them."

  Bagel narrowed his eyes at her. It made sense that they wouldn't tell her where they were going to do that, but they were pigeons. They could fly anywhere. Basically no one would stop them unless they were a flying mob or another flying animal.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  If Bagel had wings he would be unstoppable.

  Unfortunately he only had flying mobs and sometimes a possum dragon that came around.

  "Meatball do you want to come back home with us? It seems like you are not needed here anymore."

  She gave him a look.

  "My mom is going to cook a special dinner for the best girl around," Khaleesi said, petting Meatball.

  "You guys could have led with that and I would have would have gladly come with you."

  Bagel could not roll his eyes any harder. Of course she was going to be ready to go eat Lizas is cooking. Who else was going to make them that thinly cut chicken that they loved.

  She probably would have left the dungeon and come back to it just to get some of that.

  ---

  "What do you mean? It just disappeared. Are they going to come back? This doesn't make any sense. Why would the pigeons just up and leave?" Ashley said.

  "Well there is a lot of experience they can get there right? They're basically shooting fish in a barrel," Liza said. " And all they have to do is make sure that the mobs can't reach the top floor whatever building they're living on. That should be pretty simple. And if they spend enough time with some of those earth mover mobs they can just create a little fortress in there."

  This is a lot of food on the grill. Made Bagels, mouth water. They couldn't feed him fast enough. It wasn't that he was ungrateful but he just wanted them to shovel that food into his mouth faster and faster. The fact that they hadn't yet was such a tragedy that he felt like he needed to consider getting another family.

  In this economy, a second family was probably not going to be in the cards.

  "So what you're saying is the pigeons left Manhattan to farm experience points on Staten Island because it was easy pickings?" Bagel said.

  "That's what I'm saying. That's my hypothesis," Liza said. "If the arena is at any type of proof then clearly we need to set up something. I know that we haven't talked about this Bagel but there's going to be an after time."

  All of a sudden they wood table that he was trying to eat on felt so solid. His problems with the squirrels and the pigeons seemed so small in comparison. The humans who are going to want to keep fighting and getting experience points and there was going to have to be a way for them to do that. He didn't relish the opportunity for sending to him but somebody was going to have to figure out a way for them to hunt down mobs.

  His idea of scooping up all the available real estate so that he could be safe had a tiny flaw. Well two flaws if he had to count how much money he was spending on it.

  The problem with it was that eventually, people would have to range for our field to take any mobs. It was hard enough to go a few blocks. To have people walking miles and miles to get their experience point daily, they were not going to enjoy that. He already had requests to to Ferry people daily across to Brooklyn and Queens to get more cards.

  The effect of him buying up all the land within five blocks of where he started meant that there was a modicum of security and safety.

  That safety and security had bought him a loyal following in The adventurous guild. And about freezing 17 more time to get the situation under control. It had got the city a real safe zone in an area of Mount security and tougher change is brought her out by the system. After all, the once busy City had gone through gridlock pricing followed by no more cars when the system really took over.

  "So is our most important thing that we need to defend the arena then? Or should I make a separate one further north? Maybe Roosevelt island or something?"

  Roosevelt Island was small and defensible. It was like a Bodega. He wanted to make some in roads there. He only had to go what 20 blocks north to get onto the little suspended thing that went from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island? It was still operating.

  That was on his bucket list.

  "Bagel, I think we need to worry about La Noche," Ashley said. "I know that Gladys has been doing a lot of stuff but they've been asking around."

  Suddenly, she had his full attention.

  "When you say that they've been asking around, what do you mean? Squirrels have been showing up?"

  Ashley crossed her arms. "They've been showing up and they've been asking questions and we were trying to be good neighbors but Bagel they are trying to figure out how to do what we're doing. They've got people working for them; actual humans that are kind of bought into what they were doing."

  Ashley went on to explain how several people had shown up asking very pointed questions.

  Liza held up several plates, stacking the dirty ones as she moved around them deftly. " We don't mind when they coming stuff from us. It's just that they're asking so much about your operation as well. Would be best if we had a sort of response to them."

  Bagel closed his eyes. "The response is that we try to get them on our side so that when La Noche fails we have more people that are willing to help us out in a pinch."

  It'll be too easy for them to start inviting before they could get to that. They had so many mobs that they had clear and so much land they had to buy up. Anything they could do to speed that up would just be peachy.

  "There has to be a way for me to make enough credits so I can buy all Manhattan within a reasonable time frame." He said.

  Ashley nodded. "If all the guild members gave you all of their credit, then we kept killing everything in an ever increasing circle, it would make sense for us to just be able to buy up everything. Otherwise we'd have to start shaking down people. That's probably not going to end well."

  Bagel could see that backfiring. Especially after the water incident? Human's one of the things that they got. They love their creature comforts and he didn't want to spoil any of that. But it looks like the squirrels were going to be a big old problem for him.

  "I think that these squirrels are going to be a tough nut to crack," Liza said. "But you can definitely do it."

  Ashley placed a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you so much for this great dinner. It really was a special treat."

  They said their goodbyes and prepared to go downstairs and talk to Gladys. After all, she had more information too and they needed to make sure that they provided this all to the powers that be. It was time for them to talk to the NYPD.