After a short and heated debate, they decided to leave the gold from Ben's last mining trip behind. Louden's argument was that someone could just walk up and steal it; Ben's argument was that it had never happened before, he didn't care about such a small amount of gold; well over six million dollars Vaughan had said from the background, and they were in a rush because supposedly the town was under attack. McCrea had chimed in and said they probably shouldn't be walking around Hope with any significant wealth on their persons, and Polk said the gold was probably radioactive or something. In the end, Louden grumbled and groused, claimed that everybody always ganged up on her, and pouted the entire trip back to town. No matter how hard they tried, Alice refused to leave, so Polk stayed behind with her to keep her out of trouble. Ben left her the keys to his car, handed them a device which would detect monsters within a mile, and told them to run if it started going off.

They had a game plan. They were going to ride into town, guns blazing with mana, and kill the shit out of whatever monster had invaded. As far as they were concerned, there was literally no way this plan could go south. Even Ben, normally intelligent and somewhat stealthy when it came to taking down monsters, was completely caught up in the mood. They played another one bites the dust like fifteen times on the drive over, and none of them were even close to being tired of it. So when they got into town and saw that nothing was going on, they were understandably disappointed. The group stuck together for about an hour, waiting around for trouble, but none showed up.

Hope's residents seemed to be in even more of a daze than usual, edgy and irritable, like someone had kicked the hornet's nest and the hornets couldn't find the offender. After enough time had passed, Ben told everyone to meet up at his place in the evening so they could regroup and come up with a new plan.

McCrea went home to do some research in a more suitable environment. Vaughan followed McCrea back, citing the beer in his fridge. Ben hadn't been home in months, and was eager to clean the place up and play some games on his computer, for old times sake.

Louden, with a pocket full of gold, headed straight for the pawn shop.

–

The pawn shop, which was simply named 'Pawn Shop', was a well known and reliable place to fence just about anything. It was clean, the windows had heavy bars, and everybody knew that robbing the place was a death sentence; the owner was connected, and his connections liked having an easy place to get rid of things a little too hot for Craigslist. There were guns all along one wall, most of them illegal to sell. There were the usual assortment of TV's, guitars, clothing and accessories that could be found in any other pawn shop in the country. There was also, if you were polite, pretty much any kind of drug you were looking for, referrals to hitmen, referrals to body disposal services and the other sorts of unsavory things that bad people might want access to in a pinch.

Louden set the gold nugget onto the pawn shop table.

“I want you to take a look at this, sweetie.” She was a fairly regular patron of Goldberg's, using their services to dispose of the watches, wedding rings and various other pieces of property she managed to extort or outright steal from her dates. Chaim never asked questions about ownership or the origin of what he was buying, and the price was always just right. The owner was a greasy, fat piece of shit who cared little for anything but profit. He was also one of the most knowledgeable men in the southwest when it came to appraising just about anything. He had a mind for exactly two things in life; how much something was worth to him, and how much someone else would be willing to pay for it.

“Oh ho, if it isn't my favorite hoe,” Chaim Goldberg said in a nasally, phlegmy voice. “And you are bringing me my favorite thing, gold.” He picked the nugget, approximately the size of a Lima bean, and rotated it to view from all angles. “Pretty,” he said before setting it on a scale “Totally smooth, and a little over an ounce.”

“So what'll you give me for it?”

Chaim chuckled. “Not so fast, little girl. This has a pretty shell, but what is on the inside, I wonder?” He enunciated every word deliberately, carefully. He pulled a sharp knife from under his counter, along with a strange box that was giving off a steady beeping sound. Chaim seemed excited, and put the box away, before indicating the knife “I'll just cut into it once, then I can give you your price.”

Louden rolled her eyes, took the knife and forcefully cut the nugget in two. The two halfs rolled away from one another, the split revealing that the gold was totally pure.

Chaim whistled. “Quite a find. I'll give you. . . tell you what, I'll give you a grand. Gold's easy to get rid of.”

Louden's eyes got wide, and she smiled a dazzling smile that had been the end of many a man. “Oh sweetheart, how could I say no to that.”

He paid her, and watched her shaw-shay out, eyes unashamedly fixed on her ass as she went. He grunted, disgruntled about her 'No Locals' policy in selecting clients, but knowing that eventually she'd need him more than her pride. Girls like that always needed a friend like him. After she left, he waited several minutes, tidying up the shop a bit, then walking to the door and turning the sign from open, to closed. Unhurried, he went back to his counter and picked up the landline phone, pulled out a business card from under his desk and dialed the number on it.

“Yes, hello, Mr. Melmat,” he said “It has been a while. I though I would never get the opportunity to call you, but I have just recently come into possession of what you asked me to find.” There was a pause “Oh yes, your little device was quite taken with it,” another pause “It is a small piece of gold, in fact. When can I expect you to come by and have a look?”

–

The next day, Louden had an entirely new outfit, all of it expensive and designer, straight from the Vegas Strip. Polk had come back with Alice that morning, citing Ben's device, saying it had started beeping, letting them know it was time to get out of there. Alice was currently staying in the one hotel Hope had to offer, an unusually nice building that usually housed VIP felons who needed to stay low for a while. They were, the five of them, holed up in Ben's mobile home. Scattered about were various works of fiction based on RPG's, several Dungeons and Dragons manuals, and every video game console that had come out in recent years. McCrea had brought most of it.

“What?” she asked “You think I took some of Ben's gold, and sold it to Chaim?”

The general consensus was that, yes, she took some of Ben's gold and sold it to Chaim.

“Louden you fucking idiot,” Polk said with a fire in her eyes, and Louden's expression darkened as Polk continued “First, we all made the 500 mile rule pretty fucking clear. Let me repeat it for you, we don't sell ANYTHING to ANYONE within five hundred miles of Hope! This is basic criminal theory. Second, and this is more important, Chaim? Really? Chaim fucking Goldberg, the least trustworthy, scummiest person in Hope? He tried to come on to me at my tenth birthday party, and I'm not the only girl in town who he's tried that shit on.”

“First of all, fuck you bitch, you don't get to yell at me. Second, I can do whatever the fuck I want with my treasure. Third, I don't care how good my new outfit looks, I will fuck your stupid ass up if you ever talk to me like that again.”

Vaughan shouted from the other side of the RV “Girl fight! Girl Fight! Woooooo!” McCrea could be heard laughing next to him. They figured this wasn't as big of a deal as Polk was making it out to be, even if Louden clearly had messed up.

Ben, who had designs to ask Polk to marry him someday, possibly soon, wisely stayed out of the jeering.

Polk and Louden looked in the direction of the men and seemed disgusted.

“Seriously,” McCrea said, entering their part of the RV “Louden, you fucked up bad. That global announcement has got everybody on the planet in kind of a frenzy,” an extreme understatement “and we don't know who knows what, or if there's a way to trace that stuff back here.”

“We don't want anyone to grab the dungeon right out from under us,” Vaughan said, sober and focused for the first time in what felt like years “This thing is big, and we don't need to be making stupid mistakes like that. New Afghanistan,” he said, and everybody groaned at the name of 'their new country' “Needs us to be smart about this. Be a patriot, Louden, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. New Afghanistan,” he finished, smiling.

“Besides,” McCrea finished “that Red Church on the outskirts of town is giving of some seriously suspicious vibes. I think they know something's here.”

Louden still looked defiant, but her tough exterior was showing cracks.

“Red Church?” Polk asked when McCrea didn't continue.

“I thought you all would have heard of it by now,” he said

“Some of us have lives outside surfing the internet and looking at anime porn,” Louden said sourly.

“The Red Church,” he continued “is a cult based around a mysterious character known only as 'The Master'. Apparently he's got freaky magic powers, and answers about the dungeon. Whenever anything new happens related to the freaky suff people have been talking about on EndChan, like that sighting up in Seattle, they show up on the scene with answers, and always leave with new converts.”

“What happened in Seattle?” Polk asked.

“Some homeless guy, an alcholic I think, was muttering about bugs under his skin. Typical, right? Then, bugs actually started bursting from him and ate him alive. Nobody got a sample of the bugs, mind you, but witnesses reported that they didn't look like any bug they'd ever seen before. The theory is that they were a psychic manifestation of the man's hallucination, caused by-”

Louden perked up and interrupted. “I bet they're here because of the earthquake. We're all on the same page about that, right? That the earthquake must have been caused by the dungeon?”

McCrea gave her a skeptical look. “The one like a year ago? With the floating boulders? That would be the best case scenario.”

Louden had brightened up, having apparently already absolved herself of any guilt in the matter. “Look at that, question answered. Now let's stop talking about it.”

Polk looked at her with steel in her eyes. “I swear to God, Louden. If we lose everything because of you, I'll mess up that pretty face you're so proud and beat you into the dirt.”

Louden blushed a deep blush and ran finger across Polk's face “Oh honey, you know exactly what to say to turn a girl on. I'll go talk to Chaim, see if I can't get him to forget all about this.” She laughed wickedly and ran from the RV.

“Well that's totally not going to make everything worse,” Ben said sarcastically.

Vaughan peaked his head out from the other side of the RV. He had been working on one of the three computers they had brought with them.

“So, believe it or not, but Louden's not the biggest problem we have right now,”

“Shocker,” Polk muttered.

“The land the dungeon is on, you know, the land we really want and need to buy? Apparently someone bought it seven months ago, directly from the state. They bought everything surrounding it too, over a thousand acres. ”

Ben looked up from the computer he had been working on “What?” he had an expression crossed between shock and disgust “Who the fuck would want a thousand acres of worthless land in them middle of the. . . desert.” He sighed “Fuck.”

Polk, who had previously been scowling and likely thinking about Louden, suddenly had a sober expression on her face.

“We aren't the first people to find it.” She suddenly looked scared “I think someone knew it was coming, and they had our idea before we did.”

The blood from McCrea's face drained.

“Guys,” he said “I think I know why the Red Church is here.”