☾ BARK! ☽
The sound cut through the fog that had grown in my mind. Sharp and urgent. Demanding
attention
in a way that bypassed every mental barrier I’d
constructed by instinct
around and in my mindscape.
Vrika had found a way to
force
me to listen. I stopped dead in my tracks, blinking as the world
snapped back into focus
with trees, wet ground, and chilly air.
"How far did I...?"
I looked around while trying to orient myself before
remembering the system
. My feet were muddy and scratched from rocks I didn’t remember stepping on. My naked body standing in a forest an hour’s walk from where I’d started, with no real
memory
of the journey between.
My wolf spirit still radiated concern and frustration, as if it had been
trying to reach me for some time
. In my mindscape, I could see it pacing with its back hair and tail
fluffed
, held low with worry.
I’d been walking toward the city in pure shock, my mind so
overwhelmed
by the revelations that my body had simply...
continued without me
. I can’t just zone out like that in the wilderness.
> What if I’d walked off a cliff? Well, I might be fine as long as you took over in time. For the record, I give you permission to do that if I ever get like this again. Thank you, really. I’m fine now. That’s... that’s more than a thousand meals. More than three years of eating... an amount almost like I did that first visit to a diner. Oof. Tackles are prohibited. You’re giant, you know? <
Stroking its back, calming it down now that I’ve gotten somewhere close to being ’put together’... I let the
seeming enormity
of that sum settle in. Quickly, practical concerns crept back in as I remembered the
prices
at Moontrail Outfitters.
I’d seen advanced tent structures that cost well over $3,000 dollars. The
high quality winterized wear
ran into the hundreds per item, though I’m not sure how much of that was material build and how much was
brand recognition
.
Maybe somewhere in between, for some items. Altogether the things for a proper shelter setup, additional storage considerations, maybe
heating
equipment, months...
or even years of food storage
...
"It’s a lot of money. That figure. But is it enough money?"
Out in reality, I finish looking up the other two metals. Silver by weight is
worth considerably less on the market
- despite that container having enough ’units’ of it to probably help
poison
the regeneration and kill every pack member in the region.
"Which doesn’t even get into how you can just reuse whatever tool you make from it afterwards. It’s not like shifters in my world were invincible, but there’s something about having a *specific* weakness that makes death seem even more present here."
Regardless,
one thousand ounces total
of those silver bars I cannot touch directly would add another $25,000 if I get rid of them. The
platinum
bar at ten ounces was worth nearly $10,000 despite being small enough to hold in one hand like a small but thick, heavy rectangle.
Close to a hundred thousand dollars total
from those three things, if I could find buyers for all of it. In a city, I’m sure that’s not a terrible problem. Enough to buy proper survival equipment without touching Kyrie’s
bankcard
again.
That was before considering
everything else in my Stash
. The electronics, the weapons, the luxury items the hunter had stockpiled. Some of it might be worth quite a bit to the right people.
Weapons might be traded off on the hunter’s app most easily,
with anonymous possibilities
, though continuing to interact with those people may be dangerous. I already have that
BoundaryKeeper
getting too close... and that ’package’ to figure out.
Altogether enough to be truly independent. But also...
easy enough to burn through if I wasn’t careful
- a few poor decisions and I’d be right back to owing someone else for my survival. And paying back my
debt
to her should come first.
However, I wasn’t thinking about how to survive the next week, now. I was thinking about how to survive the next year... the next
decade
. And honestly, that
stressed me out
more than I feel it should.
Which is why I might just keep appearing as my
old
self in
my own soul
for a while.