“Been ‘round Gertie’s then, have you?” Gary remarked amusedly, nodding at my tote bag, “It’s a wonder that old girl manages to make any money.”

Gary was an interesting character to say the least.

For one thing, he was something like an eighth Gremlin on his grandfather’s side, making his choice of profession slightly confusing, and for another, he had ties with a syndicate out in Farlight, our neighboring city.

He was good people though, bit of a grey short stack on account of to his Gremlin roots, but like just about everyone else in Darlingwood, he looked out for his friends.

“What’s the damage?” I asked concernedly as he led me to the garage.

“There’s good news and bad news on that front,” Gary replied after we’d reached the open hood of Monster Mash, “good news is that she ain’t dead.”

“And the bad news?” I seethed as Gary went up his stepladder and grabbed the holographic tab at the lip of the hood.

“Let’s just say it ain’t the battery.” Gary chuckled weakly before pulling the screen down, revealing a series of charts and diagnostics that may as well have been hieroglyphics.

“What am I looking at here?” I asked, trying to make any sense of the terms I could understand.

“You bang that head of yours?” Gary scoffed, “Last I heard, you were pretty dang clever.”

“May as well have,” I replied halfway amusedly, “seriously though, what sort of damage are we looking at?”

Gary went to start pointing things out, but stopped himself partway through, “Ain’t much point going through the technobabble with you, huh?” the smirking mechanic asked, “What I can say is that it ain’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been, and she’s definitely worth fixing.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said with a nod, grateful he wasn’t asking why she’d been reverted back to her rust bucket days, “how much?”

Tilting his head side-to-side, Gary gave the screen a tug and let it disappear back where it came from, “Look, on account of me owin’ you so many favors and you owin’ me next to none, I’d say I can get the job done in a day for… 300?”

Now, I had no idea what was wrong with the van, but anyone looking at the screen would tell you that she was in bad shape and that 300 dollars was a Hell of a deal.

I didn’t have 300 dollars though.

“Any chance I’d be able to get it home?” I asked hopefully.

“Yeah, with a tow truck,” Gary half-joked before turning somewhat somber, “you’re really in a bad way, aren’t you?”

“Not ‘bad’,” I lied, “but certainly not great.”

“We’ve all been there,” Gary sighed as he finally climbed off his ladder, “alright, well how much do you have in your pockets?”

“Fifty.” I replied.

“Fif-” Gary started with genuine surprise before catching himself, “I’m guessin’ it’d be fair to assume that’s your last fifty?”

“Yep,” I said with an embarrassed nod, struggling and failing to keep my chin up, “got a nice wallet though.”

Gary chuckled at my little joke before giving his chin a scratch, “Well, how about this? You leave her with me, I’ll get her fixed up, then you come by with the money tomorrow? I know there are a few jobs up on the board that’ll more than cover the cost.”

“You’d do that?” I scoffed appreciatively.

“Of course,” Gary laughed, “I know you’re good for the money, and I know you’d do the same for me. Besides, if you can’t come up with the money, I’ll be able to sell the van.”

I knew he was joking, but the thought of Monster Mash joining the rest of my possessions in the ‘For Sale’ pile was more than a little heartbreaking.

“Anything specific you think I should be looking at?” I asked.

“I know the Ghouls are doin’ something weird nearby,” Gary replied, “council wants ‘em gone good and quick.”

“Don’t know if I can handle Ghouls on my own,” I sighed, “and before you ask, the girls can’t help. They haven’t got Day-Walking yet.”

“Then go at night,” Gary replied matter-of-factly, “I swear, you’ve lost so many brain cells you’re making me look smart.”

“It’s just been a rough day.” I said somewhat defensively.

“Yeah, well, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to hit up the library while you’re in town, grab yourself a book or two and get your brain good.” Gary lightheartedly jabbed, “Anyway, you best be on your way, I’ve got work to do.”

“Sure thing,” I replied with a smile as I walked away, “thanks.”

“You can thank me after you pay me, Allie.” Gary chuckled, knowing I hated that nickname.

Still, better than him jabbing at how dumb I’d gotten.

Deciding against cutting through the parking lot in the middle of the block in favor of eating up as much time as possible, I was able to catch a wave from Andrew, owner of Reynold’s General.

Andy was a good enough man, middle-aged, balding, loving wife, no children, the type of man you’d expect to live most of his life behind a counter.

Not only did he make it a habit to drive customers to the other businesses in town, he was also more than happy to help Gertie out as needed.

He had big dreams too, wanted to turn the empty lot into something for the town, make Darlingwood a place to be truly proud of.

Ask anyone, including our sitting Mayor, and they’d tell you Andrew should be Mayor of our little slice of the USA.

Of course, he had never run, said it wasn’t his place.

For all his goodness though, he sure knew how to suck people in for day-long conversations, and as much as I wanted to lose time, I still had things to do.

Not that it mattered, seeing as after waving to me, he’d gone back into his shop, almost as if he knew I had places to be.

I’d probably have felt guilty if I wasn’t distracted by a crow flying towards the mountain.

There was nothing particularly special about the crow, I just liked the way its black wings beat against the sky.

“I think…” I trailed off, following the trail of the bird, “I need Adderall…”

Not going to lie, I briefly considered heading to the clinic and seeing if I could get a prescription under the guise of a sudden resurgence of my ADD.

Thankfully, sanity prevailed and I instead half-mindlessly wandered to the town hall where a holographic noticeboard was waiting at the top of the stairs.

The majority of the jobs already had a few people signed on, not to mention the fact that they were way outside of my skill level, but after a few seconds of perusing I found a hopeful listing.

“Case A11…” I mumbled as I grabbed my phone, opened the Freaks and Slashers app, and clicked into the case number search bar.

I messed up a few times, but I eventually managed to get the twelve digit alphanumerical code into the search bar, pulling up the unclaimed listing.

HARROW PEAK GHOULS

As most of you will know, a pocket of half a dozen or so local Ghouls has been working on something in the forest towards Harrow Peak.

Due to its proximity to Harrow Peak, law enforcement is unable to respond to the threat at this time.

If you engage the nest and are unable to exterminate the nest, contact Sheriff Galway.

LEVEL

EXP

REWARD

3

750

$800

Going for a level three job seemed a little dangerous, especially seeing as we didn’t have much in the way of weapons.

With that being said, I knew our lower level would undoubtedly net us some bonus experience, and most of the stuff in the first five levels was more or less the same.

So, confident that the worst that could happen is we’d panic and run away, I hit accept on the mission and immediately heard the familiar cheerful sound effect ring in my ears, followed soon by a ‘QUEST STARTED’ popping up in my feed.

Feeling a rush I hadn’t experienced since my first job, I practically danced away from the noticeboard, swinging my tote and smiling broadly as I made my way to the library.

I’m not sure what it was about accepting a quest that made me so happy, it may very well have simply been the fact that I knew it was the start of getting my career back on track.

Or, you know, money.

Whatever the reason, I had to fight the urge to whistle a cheerful tune as I entered our small town’s single story but still reasonable large library.

The librarian was missing from her station, which was no big surprise, and while there were a few kids with their parents in the children section, the library was more or less bare.

Hoping I could find a book that would get me a surprise level up or skill point, I wandered through the nonfiction section, eyeing up a few different titles.

As much as I knew it was random which books gave people the bonuses and that the ones that had worked for me previously had probably been reset and changed, I couldn’t help but hope that one of the titles I’d flicked through before would be of some help.

“Here we go.” I said, pulling out the ragged copy of ‘Hunting Monsters Vol. 1’ and opening it to the first page.

Disappointingly, all I got was a ‘EXPANDING YOUR MIND +5’ which, while still better than nothing, did little to fuel my sunny disposition.

Knowing I’d have to read at least another ten pages or open another book, I closed the lengthy tome and tucked it under my arm.

For a moment, I considered going through and opening a bunch of books, but even with my struggle with math I knew it’d take me a good couple of hours of flicking through books to make any real progress, not to mention a lot of the books would give out next to no XP, if any at all.

Still though, it was worth taking out the hunter manual, if only to give the girls something to read while they were stuck.

Hoping something else would jump out at me, I wandered through the libraries rows of shelves, passing the obscenely attractive, Velma-like librarian with a polite nod as I got a text from Nolan to let me know he was on his way, spurring me to speed up my search.

Nothing called to me though, not until I found the graphic novels section that is.

Knowing I was limited to borrowing out five books and that the comics would offer nothing but entertainment, I decided I’d grab one and move onto better, more productive things.

I mean, it would’ve been pretty stupid to fill my bag with Batman when there were at least a dozen more volumes of Hunting Monsters, right?