Pocket Dungeon, page 26
“I would like that very much,” she declared. “I do not need more sleep.”
“That’s good. I don’t think I have any more clothes to put together an outfit for you, so if you wanna wear the same thing from yesterday?” I suggested. “I can make us some toast or something while you get dressed. We might need to go to the grocery store, too, now that I’m thinking about it. I don’t have very much on hand.”
Yasha unfurled herself from the couch in a very cat-like gesture and stretched her arms above her head. She rose up onto her tiptoes and yawned again before she padded back into my bedroom to find her discarded clothing.
“I do not understand what you mean by many of those words, but I am eager to find out,” she called over her shoulder.
I let myself watch her as she left because, well, there was a hot woman in my apartment. What else was I supposed to do?
After she turned the corner and I no longer had a chance to gawk, I made my way into the kitchen and popped two slices of bread into the toaster. They were the last slices in the bag, and one of them was the heel. I decided I would be a gentleman and take that piece instead of giving it to Yasha, even though she probably wouldn’t know that it was notoriously the worst piece in the bag.
See, maybe I really was like Han Solo but more noble. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t into the idea of maybe, possibly proclaiming myself to be his… dare I say it, superior? Personally, I’d always seen myself as more of an Indiana Jones, though. I already had the satchel, and I had gotten a whip in the last loot haul from the dungeon.
Would it be super cool or super lame to pretend I was Indy in the next dungeon? It wasn’t like anyone would be around to see me.
Well, maybe someone would, but the odds were I’d be totally cool to act like a nerd in the privacy of my own strange portal dimension.
My life had gotten so goddamn weird.
The toast popped out of the toaster just in time for me to get the almost-empty tub of margarine out of the fridge. I was struck with the astonishing realization that I could actually afford real butter now without having to rationalize the purchase.
Holy shit.
Also holy shit, I had been too poor to buy real butter.
I slathered some of the margarine on the toast before setting the reserved piece of toast aside and getting started on cleaning up the living room from the fiesta we’d had the night before. I knew that most of the food was probably fine to save, but I also didn’t want to end up giving the hot woman from another world an earthly disease.
That sort of thing notoriously killed a lot of people. Like a lot of people.
In the end, my worry beat out my income-based frugalness, and I tossed the food into the trash. I’d deal with cleaning a little more when Yasha and I came back later.
As if on cue, the fox-woman walked out of my room in the same skirt she’d worn yesterday. Her tail was neatly tucked away, and she bent down to grab the hat from where she’d left it on the sofa. Yasha pulled it over her ears and fluffed out her strawberry-blonde hair. Her bangs stuck out just a little from underneath the fold of the beanie. Despite the disheveled outfit and general lack of sex appeal a Stevie Nicks-wannabe skirt and a beanie had, she still looked stunning. I felt like I had hit some sort of jackpot with the crystal in more ways than one when it came to Yasha.
“Your toast is on the counter,” I told her. My piece of toast was half-clamped between my lips as I spoke. Luckily it seemed like Yasha didn’t have any issue in understanding me as she made her way over to the kitchen to grab the last real slice of bread I had to offer.
I left her to her breakfast as I made my way over to my room to grab my own change of clothes for the day. Once I was dressed with my leather jacket on and my satchel slung over my shoulders, I rejoined Yasha in the living room.
“You’ve got a crumb.” I motioned to the corner of her mouth where a breadcrumb still lurked.
She darted her tongue out to lick it clean, and I fought the urge to gawk. This woman was going to be the death of me.
“So, what is the plan for today?” she asked. “Where are we going first?”
“Well, first, we need to exchange some of these gold coins for some actual money. We also have a package to drop off at FedEx, and that should take care of the rest of them,” I explained. “And then we can go drop the money we get off at the bank. After that, we can do whatever you want. Though I still think we should probably go pick up some new clothes, and maybe some food.”
Yasha’s eyes widened. “So we could go to Casper’s?”
“Of course,” I laughed. “But we can also buy ice cream at the store. We don’t have to get it from Casper’s specifically, but if that’s what you want, we can definitely do that.”
My single sentence seemed to blow Yasha’s mind. She stared at me in what I could only call awe.
“You mean we can purchase ice cream and eat it here?” She seemed mystified by the prospect.
“Of course,” I said again. “We can keep it in the freezer.”
I moved over to the freezer as a way of explaining and pulled open the door. A gust of cold air washed over me as I showed off the entirely empty freezer. I didn’t even have an ice cube tray.
The more I thought about it, the sadder that fact got.
“That is wonderful!” Yasha clapped her hands together. “We should get ice cream and return to enjoy it here, that way we can eat and watch more Star Wars, as well as this Indiana Jones you have mentioned.”
I figured eventually I should probably show Yasha movies from this century, but it was hard to beat the classics. After all, they were classics for a reason.
“That is more than okay with me,” I told her. “Now, come on. Let’s get out of here. The sooner we get everything else done, the sooner we can get back here with ice cream.”
I held my arm out for Yasha to take so she could steady herself. The last thing I wanted was for her to put too much strain on her still healing ankle and hurt herself.
Together the two of us made our way out of the apartment with our helmets and down to the parking garage where my motorcycle was still there waiting for us.
Once both of our helmets were on and secure, we mounted the bike and pulled out of the garage and onto the street.
It was a surprisingly beautiful day out, and not even just by Chicago standards. The sun was high in the sky, and even the cutting wind wasn’t as rough as I had expected. I imagined that if I wasn’t wearing my helmet, the breeze would have felt wonderful on my face as we zipped down the crowded streets toward the nearby FedEx.
I managed to squeeze my bike along the curb between two cars in what was probably an illegal but definitely necessary move. Yasha’s eyes were wide as she took in our new surroundings, and she clutched the FedEx box in her lap like her life depended on it.
“Here,” I said as I delicately removed myself from the bike without disturbing her. “I just have to go drop the box off inside.”
Yasha passed me the box without any hesitation. “You will be back?”
“Right back,” I promised.
I tucked the box under my arm and jogged up to the front door. Thankfully there wasn’t really much of a line, so it only took me a few seconds to drop the box off before I made my way back out to Yasha and my bike.
“That was quick!” she remarked in surprise.
I laughed. “I told you it wouldn’t take long. Now hold on, we’ve got a pawnshop to get to.”
I resituated myself on the bike, and Yasha tightened her arms around my waist before I pulled away from the non-parking place and started to zip down the street once again.
It didn’t take long to pull up in front of the pawnshop, and I managed to sidle my bike along the curb in a blessed bit of street parking before turning the engine off and knocking the kickstand down. It had been a fairly short ride, but it had been a pleasant one.
Yasha seemed to be invigorated from the ride as well, and she didn’t seem to be in all that much pain as she swung her injured leg off the bike. Then we kept both of our helmets tucked under our arms as we made our way into the pawnshop.
It wasn’t any less cluttered and crowded than the last time I’d been there. In fact, the only thing that had changed in two days was the amount of gold on my person, and the fact that Yasha was with me this time.
“This place is very strange,” Yasha whispered in my ear as I helped guide her through the winding aisles of the storefront.
It was a little hard to keep track of the heavy sack of gold hanging over my shoulder, my helmet, and Yasha at the same time, but there were definitely worse problems to have.
“It is,” I agreed. “Try not to touch anything, okay? This shouldn’t take very long.”
I pushed through the store toward the glass counter near the back. Sure enough, the same man as before was there leaning up against the display case. He seemed deeply unbothered about upholding the appearance of customer service as he ate the sloppiest-looking meatball sandwich I had ever seen.
It made me never want to eat a meatball sandwich again, but to be fair, my urge to do that was pretty low to begin with.
Instead of the bowling shirt with the name “Dale” embroidered above the heart, this time the man wore an equally tacky Hawaiian print shirt. The buttons were undone just enough to show a thick patch of unruly, dark chest hair.
Was it like some sort of job requirement for pawnshop owners to just look as skeevy as possible at any given time? Because Dale was doing a bang-up job of it.
He raised his eyebrows at the sight of me. “You’re back.”
“I am,” I replied. It wasn’t the warm welcome I’d been hoping for, but I figured it was about as warm a welcome as I was going to get. Yasha stayed behind me as I hefted the massive bag of gold up onto the counter with a loud, metallic clang.
I narrowly avoided dropping it straight into a puddle of marinara sauce, which would not have been all that pleasant for any of us.
“Did you have another uncle die or something?” Dale asked.
A few of the gold coins from my satchel had already started to spill out across the glass countertop.
“Nope,” I said. “Same uncle.”
From behind me, I heard Yasha quietly whisper the word “uncle?”
“He must have really liked you,” Dale said. He didn’t sound suspicious, though. If anything, he just sounded annoyed that he was going to have to deal with all of my gold coins again.
I couldn’t really blame him, but then again, he didn’t even know the half of how unwieldy they’d gotten to deal with.
“We never met,” I reminded Dale of the fake story.
“Right,” he replied flatly. “Well, let’s see it.”
I flashed him a sheepish grin before I dumped out the contents of my bag onto the counter. Fourteen coins hit the glass countertop in quick succession. There wasn’t really a graceful way to pour out the gold coins. It sort of sounded like when someone won a prize at an arcade, and the machine kept making the electronic dinging sound. It reached a point where it was honestly more than a little comical.
Dale cut his eyes between the still growing pile on his counter and my face. I tried not to make things any more awkward, but that was getting harder with each coin that slapped down onto the glass loud enough to echo around the tiny shop.
“Is that all?” he remarked dryly.
I shook the last coin out and dropped my bag back down at my side.
“Sure seems like it,” I said.
Yeah, I was really, really going to have to find a new pawnshop after this. I had a feeling Dale was about to put up a poster with my face on it that said “Do Not Help This Man.”
The mental image was enough to make me laugh, and I was reminded of one of my mother’s coworkers in the psych ward of a hospital. He refused to see any clients named Tiffany. I felt like he and Dale would get along.
Dale heaved another sigh. “This is going to take some time. Should probably test all the coins just to make sure your uncle isn’t scamming me from beyond the grave. Go look around or something.”
He used one arm to sweep the small mountain of gold into one of the totes he had behind the counter. Once he had all of the gold pieces swept up and organized into a manageable stack, he hefted up the tote and disappeared behind the beaded curtain.
“Where is he going?” Yasha whispered. For the first time, I noticed that her hands were gripping my leather jacket. She had really taken my command of “don’t touch anything” seriously.
“He’s going to count up the gold in the back,” I explained. “He did it last time I brought it here, too. It’s so he knows how much money to give me in exchange.”
“I think I understand,” Yasha said. “You cannot spend the gold, but the gold is worth currency, so you bring it to men like this who will give you the currency in exchange for the gold.”
“Exactly.” I grinned.
“But I have a question,” Yasha continued. “If this is a man who deals with money, why is his shop filled with… with all of this?”
She didn’t have to elaborate as to what “all of this” was. The pawnshop was practically filled top to bottom with a strange amalgamation of things. I realized that for someone like Yasha, who had no cultural construct for what a pawnshop even was, it must have seemed incredibly weird.
“He doesn’t just deal with money,” I explained. “People can bring in all sorts of things, and he’ll trade them for currency. And then people can also come in here and buy the things.”
She looked around the store again, as if she was appraising it for the first time.
“You mean we could purchase anything in the shop?” The idea seemed to fill Yasha with wonder.
I followed her gaze around the store as I tried to set eyes on anything that might actually be worth buying, but continued to come up empty. I wasn’t sure if it was the frugal part of me that had taken control, or if I just lacked Yasha’s excitement for the things of my world.
“Yeah, you could buy anything here,” I said. “Why don’t you look around? Be careful not to break anything, but if you find something cool, we can definitely get it if you want it.”
“Really?” The fox-woman seemed shocked. It was like she hadn’t expected me to offer what I thought was a pretty normal thing to do.
I liked this woman, and if she wanted to buy some weird shit from a pawnshop, I was more than willing to accommodate that, especially considering she literally wasn’t from Earth. It would have been different if she was, like, from Jersey or something.
“Of course,” I assured her. I was always happy to see the look of pure joy on her face when it came to something so menial.
Yasha took off from me like a shot. Well, that wasn’t quite right. She took off from me like a shot with an injured leg, which in her case was still pretty quick. God only knew that I wouldn’t be able to move so quickly with an injured leg, but she made it look easy.
I trailed slowly behind her as she started to look over seemingly every single item in the pawnshop. She leaned in close to various trinkets and knickknacks all without touching them, like it was some sort of museum.
Maybe I should have been more specific that I was only worried about her breaking items and us having to shell out the ass for it. That was why I wasn’t touching anything, but honestly, it was sort of cute watching her be so cautious.
After a few minutes of shuffling around, I heard the swish of the beaded curtain, and I assumed Dale had finally made his reappearance.
I left Yasha to explore and made my way back over to the counter. Dale had set the tote with the gold coins on the counter next to an almost nauseatingly thick stack of cash. I wondered just how many more times in my life I would get to think “I’ve never seen so much money in my life,” because I had never seen so much money in my life.
“How much was there?” I asked, once again despite the fact I knew how many coins and the approximate weight I’d given him.
Dale grunted, which I was learning to be Dale standard. “About seven grand… Seven thousand four hundred and eleven, if we’re being exact. Which we are.”
I reached for the stack of dollar bills, but Dale held up his hand to stop me.
“What?” I asked, but I still pulled my hands back from the pile like I’d been burned.
“I don’t have that much cash on hand,” he said. “I don’t know any shop in their right mind that actually would, and you managed to clear me out two days ago. This is only about six and a half thousand here, which is a whole hell of a lot. You’re lucky someone came in before you and made a big cash purchase.”
I suppressed a small wince at the damage. I really was going to have to find another pawnshop. I looked back down at the tote and saw that the coins were split into little piles. He must have broken it up into what he could pay out and what he couldn’t. That was still like a thousand dollars short.
Dale might not have been my biggest fan at that point in time, but I still appreciated his efficiency nonetheless.
Before I could say anything else, I felt Yasha tap my shoulder to get my attention. I glanced back to see the fox-woman with a bright, eager look in her eyes.
“I have found something that I would like to purchase.” She was so excited she looked like she might combust. “Very much so.”
Chapter 18
“Oh, she found the Kenner set,” Dale remarked.
I had no idea what those words meant when they came out of his mouth, but I quickly put them together when I saw what Yasha was gripping.
“Holy shit,” I said. “I’ve never seen one still in the box.”
Yasha lifted the large, black toy box up a little higher. It had a giant tag on it that informed me it was in fact the 1979 release of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, along with a set of more genuine 1970s and 1980s Kenner Star Wars Toys (some boxes not included).
