Found the Motorcycle!
“Don’t rush,” Magnus Vane said with a faint smile, showing no anger at Hershel’s sharp response.
“I told you before, we came here peacefully.” He narrowed his eyes slightly and continued before the older man could order them out again.
“If I’m not mistaken, you’ve been seeing more walkers around the farm lately, haven’t you?” Hershel’s fingers trembled almost imperceptibly against the armrest, and Magnus immediately knew he had guessed correctly.
The barn was already holding more walkers than Hershel was comfortable admitting, and recently more of the dead had begun wandering across the surrounding fields.
Hershel had been wondering where they were coming from, but until now he had treated each arrival as an isolated problem rather than part of something larger.
His expression remained stern, but the hostility in his eyes weakened slightly.
Instead of interrupting, he looked at Magnus and waited for him to explain.
Magnus set the small glass of milk on the coffee table, stood, and walked toward the living-room window.
He separated two slats of the blinds and looked outside just as a lone walker wandered across the distant field, its pale eyes staring aimlessly ahead.
“Atlanta isn’t exactly getting safer,” Magnus said.
“Most of the living things in the city are either dead, hiding, or gone, so walkers are gradually spreading outward into the suburbs and countryside.”
Hershel’s face tightened, and Maggie and Beth both looked toward their father.
Magnus kept his voice even rather than trying to make the warning sound more dramatic than it already was.
“Atlanta alone had hundreds of thousands of people, and every surrounding town has the same problem on a smaller scale.
Right now you’re seeing one or two walkers wandering onto the property, but larger groups are eventually going to follow.” The thought clearly unsettled everyone in the room.
“Why should we believe you?” Hershel asked, forcing his voice to remain steady.
Magnus turned away from the window and looked directly at him.
“Because I just came out of Atlanta.
I’ve already been surrounded by more walkers than I care to count, and I know what happens when enough of them gather in one place.” He paused briefly before adding, “What you’re seeing around this farm right now is only the beginning.”
Magnus glanced toward the open land beyond the farmhouse.
“Maybe it takes months, maybe less, but sooner or later a large herd is going to cross this area.
You’ve got open fields, a farmhouse, a barn, and basic fencing.
If hundreds of walkers come through here, how long do you honestly think this place will hold?” Hershel followed his gaze toward his daughters, and for the first time his confidence visibly weakened.
“What are you suggesting?” Hershel finally asked.
Magnus smiled slightly because he knew the argument was already moving in his favor.
“We help each other.
Let my group stay on your property, and we help protect the farm.
Any walkers that wander in become our problem too, and these two are experienced hunters.” He gestured toward Daryl and Merle, who had remained unusually quiet through the conversation.
Hershel looked the Dixon brothers over carefully before answering.
“Half.” Magnus raised an eyebrow.
“Half of what?” Hershel nodded toward Daryl and Merle.
“Whatever they hunt.
You can camp near the farmhouse, but you don’t harass my family or the people working here, and half the meat stays with us.”
“One-third,” Magnus replied without hesitation.
“You get one-third of what they bring in, and if you want more, you trade us food for it.
Vegetables, grain, milk, whatever you can spare.” His expression remained calm, making it clear that this was a negotiation rather than a favor.
Hershel rubbed one hand across the sofa armrest while considering the offer.
Trading farm produce for fresh meat wasn’t a bad deal, especially when Otis and Jimmy weren’t experienced enough to hunt reliably every day.
More importantly, Magnus and the Dixon brothers would deal with the growing number of walkers around the property.
Hershel looked at Daryl, then Merle, and finally back at Magnus.
“Deal.”
He extended his hand.
Magnus shook it.
For the moment, the argument was over.
Hershel prepared lunch afterward as a gesture that both sides had reached an understanding.
Once everyone finished eating, Magnus chose an open area near the farmhouse and began setting up their temporary camp.
They placed several boards over the ground, raised their tents, and built a simple rack where Daryl and Merle could clean whatever game they brought back.
It wasn’t much, but compared with sleeping inside the SUV, it already felt like progress.
While Magnus was finishing the setup, movement in the distance caught his attention.
Two walkers were crossing the field toward the farmhouse, and another appeared farther behind them.
Magnus turned his head toward the house and noticed Hershel watching through one of the windows.
He stretched his shoulders, picked up the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer, and smiled faintly.
“We’ve got a camp now.
Time to start earning our keep.”
Daryl shifted as if he intended to follow, but Magnus waved him back.
This was Magnus’s promise to Hershel, and there was another reason he wanted the kills for himself.
After the quarry attack, his Level 4 experience bar was already more than two-thirds full, and a few more walkers should push him close to Level 5.
Strays wandering onto the farm were practically free experience.
Magnus walked toward the first walker and rolled the heavy sledgehammer in his hands.
He held the oversized head beside the corpse’s skull for a moment, almost as though he were lining up a golf shot, then planted his feet and swung with full force.
The Horse-Bone Sledgehammer smashed into the walker’s head, triggering the headshot bonus and bursting the skull apart instantly.
Without stopping, Magnus carried the momentum into a wide turn and drove the weapon toward the second walker.
Crack!
The hammer struck the corpse squarely in the chest and knocked it flat onto its back.
Magnus reversed direction immediately and swung low at the third walker, snapping one of its lower legs and sending it down beside the other.
Neither corpse could properly rise, so Magnus stepped forward and finished them with several heavy blows to the skull.
Within seconds, all three had stopped moving.
Inside the farmhouse, Hershel slowly lowered his binoculars.
Maggie, Otis, Jimmy, and the others exchanged astonished looks after watching the short fight.
Magnus’s movements weren’t graceful, but every strike carried enough force to knock a grown body off its feet or crush bone outright.
Now that the agreement had been made, his strength only made the people inside feel safer.
Magnus returned to camp and looked toward the others.
“Do whatever you need to do.
Hunt, cook, wash clothes, scout around, look for transportation—I don’t care.” His expression became more serious before he added, “One rule: don’t cause trouble for Hershel or his family.
I gave him my word, and I expect everyone to respect it.”
Andrea and Amy agreed immediately, while Daryl gave a short nod.
Merle muttered something under his breath but eventually did the same.
Magnus then walked back toward the farmhouse and knocked on the door.
Beth opened it and looked him over with obvious curiosity before asking quietly, “Do you need something?”
“One question.” Magnus raised his chin toward Hershel standing farther inside.
“Besides your family, do you know anyone else living around here?” Hershel thought for a moment before shaking his head.
“Not around the farm.
We rarely leave the property.
If anyone else is nearby, your best chance would probably be the town east of here.”
Magnus thanked him and walked back outside.
The answer matched his suspicion almost perfectly.
Someone had stolen two motorcycles during the night, which meant they were probably operating somewhere in the surrounding area rather than simply passing through.
If there was another group nearby, the town Hershel mentioned was the obvious place to start looking.
Magnus took the SUV keys from Andrea and drove alone back along the road they had used the previous night.
Before long, he reached the same roadside spot where the group had stopped to sleep.
The patch beneath the trees where Daryl and Merle had parked their motorcycles was still empty.
Magnus stepped out of the vehicle and slowly looked around.
Then a soft chime sounded inside his head.
Ding.
An orange-yellow marker appeared directly in his field of vision.
[Apocalypse Quest Triggered]
[Retrieve the Motorcycles]
[Quest Type: Recovery]
Magnus stared at the notification for a moment before a grin slowly spread across his face.
In 7 Days to Die, quests normally came from Traders, but apparently his system had adapted the mechanic to this world and could generate objectives directly from real situations.
That was more than fine with him.
It meant he wouldn’t have to waste hours searching blindly.
An orange quest marker appeared in the distance.
Magnus turned toward it.
According to the system, that marker represented the current location of the quest objective.
Which meant the stolen motorcycles were somewhere beneath it.
Magnus smiled.
“Found you.”
[Chapter Rewards]