Scott turned his attention back to the stairway. He was not certain what to expect in the coming moments, but if nothing else he wanted to make certain that Ashton was still alright.

Searching the air for her thoughts, he noticed that they were chaotic but subdued. Curious, he made his way upstairs then entered her room.

A slight smile crossed his lips as he noted her rhythmic breathing. “Yeah, it’s probably best if we both get a little rest.”

He started toward the bed then stopped. There was a sudden sense of wrongness in the air.

Nostrils burning, he turned toward the location of a familiar scent. It was the stench of rot. His eyes narrowed after a low moan escaped the confines of her bathroom. Something had spawned in the house. His memories were fragmented, and for the life of him he could not recall whether or not Ashton had the ability to prevent monsters from spawning. If she did have that capacity in her home before, clearly the roll back removed it.

Uncertain of what the night would bring, Scott went to the bathroom and dealt with the lone zombie that mucked around inside. It was naked and a bit slimy, like it had crawled out of a sewer. Yet, if it had done so how would it be in the bathroom? Did it crawl out of the toilet? There were many questions.

A few hard punches to the head dealt with it well enough, though it took more hits than he would have liked. He could not use magic and was largely unarmed at the moment.

He returned to Ashton’s room and made certain that she was fine before he inspected the house. Eventually, he went out to the garage and managed to find a reasonable weapon. “Not sure why she has a fire axe, but I’ll take it.”

The night wore on. Scott made calls to Archers to see if they could help him locate Shara, but no one answered. Concerned by that lack of response he turned on the television downstairs. Between news broadcasts he went upstairs to check on Ashton, but nothing else spawned in the house during that time.

After a while, she woke up briefly and he told her what was going on. She frowned prettily then nodded. It was obvious that she remained exhausted. She did, however, try to contact Archers herself.

“No one’s picking up. I wonder what’s going on? You did say things rolled back to a few days ago and people were working earlier, right?” she asked him.

“Yeah, it’s how I find your house,” he said.

“Maybe we should go to your place? I’ll be a burden on you until we get there, but monsters won’t spawn there right?” she asked him.

“You up for it?” he asked.

She reached up toward him with both arms. A cheeky smile on her lips, she said, “Sure.”

Scott laughed and scooped her up into his arms. She cried out in pain briefly, but then giggled at the treatment. He had her in a princess carry, after all.

He gathered her keys at her request, and they headed down to the garage. A few lone figures shambled around in the streets, but they did not seem to be bothering anyone, so Scott let them live for the moment while he tucked Ashton safely into her truck.

The zombies soon ran out of their good fortune when he went after them with axe in hand. A few hard chops brought them down, and he gathered up three dollars and a finger for his efforts.

“What were you picking up out there?” she asked him as he returned to the truck.

“Three dollars,” he said with a grin. “I can almost afford to smell the coffee at Starbucks.”

“Almost!” she agreed giddily.

The immediate threat taken care of they drove off into the night. Admittedly, it was a bit of a hair-raising scenario for Ashton. Scott was not exactly a well-practiced driver and had not driven much in his life. Archers was closer than his house, so they drove through the area on the way.

“Weird. It looks closed,” she said. There were no other cars in the parking lot and all of the lots in the store were off.

“Think it has to do with the monsters spawning mostly at night?” he asked her.

“Maybe, but I don’t know anything about it.” Ashton shook her head slightly then closed her eyes. The place certainly looked better than the last time she had seen it. There were no flaming wrecks. No burnt windows.

“Hey, on the front doors there.” Scott gestured to a large sheet of paper that he had not seen earlier due to the nature of his entrance into the building.

He got out and went to see what it said. Upon his return, he told her what was going on and she nodded. The current store hours would be sun rise to sunset until further notice.

The drive to Scott’s house was largely uneventful. There were people driving on the road, but not as many as one might normally expect. In many ways that was the strangest thing of all. People drove during emergency situations all the time. Every year some idiot or other would ride on an iced over road despite warnings to stay off those roads until they were cleared. Yet, people seemed to be taking the current threat more seriously.

Scott pulled up into his driveway, and to his great relief he saw Sonja open the door. She stared brazenly at him for a moment then sauntered out with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked for all the world like an annoyed housewife ready to berate her husband.

Sonja noticed Ashton in the truck then looked to Scott. He got out and told her what was going on and she nodded. The tension in her body visibly relaxed and she moved to help him take Ashton into the house.

There was no sign of Shara. Scott was certain that she would be fine given his suspicions and fragmented knowledge.

They placed Ashton onto his bed then tucked her in like a tired little girl. After a short chat she fell asleep once more.

Scott turned to Sonja. “The situation has changed again.”

“I noticed that,” she said with a snort. “I went to get a drink of water, stepped through a door in that place you called a police station and wound up here.”

“I’m going to see about getting you a phone. I wasn’t able to take a nap and bring you to the dream world because of the possibility that more monsters would spawn in Ashton’s house while I was asleep,” said Scott.

“More monsters?” she asked him curiously.

“It was just a zombie, but one did spawn in her bathroom.” Scott shook his head then waved his hand around a little. “I’ve started making plans, but they won’t work for a while.”

“Ah. Yes. Did you not say that you wished to check on acquiring land?” asked Sonja.

“When I got there, I had to claim it through combat. I won, but it took its toll on me,” admitted Scott. “We don’t have that much more land, but it’s a start.”

“This is wonderful news…” she agreed. Sonja pursed her lips slightly while she made a curious and thoughtful noise.

“Now what we need is money,” said Scott. “The shitbirds that run this craphole of a game system decided to make quality of life adjustments that helped and fucked me at the same time.”

“We were already making plans, right?” she asked him.

“Yes, but we’ll need to be a bit more careful in how we approach their execution,” said Scott. “Thankfully the monster spawns would drop items on occasion. We can sell a few cheap things and make it seem like we found them in spawns.”

“That should do nicely. The value of things from this world would be high in mine, and the opposite would also be true,” she said.

He shook his head, however. “Loot grinding and synthesis resales won’t be enough. The rest of our cash has to come from trading resources and commodities.”

“Could we not just do here what is done on my world? Find resources and take them for our own?” she asked him.

“Like rob a bank?” he asked. Scott shook his head. “It would be easy to do, but I refuse to be that kind of person.”

“Does it have to be a bank?” she asked him. “Are there no creatures in this world that stockpile treasure?”

“No, not real…” He started to respond, but then stopped cold. In fact, there was a type of creature that stockpiled treasure which he would not mind crushing into the dirt.

While he would not want to harm the innocent, there was a type of easy to obtain cash that he could snatch up. All he would have to do is take it and doing so would even be a boon to society.

“You have thought of something. I can tell,” said Sonja.

Scott flashed her a cheeky grin. Yes. He certainly had thought of something.