Oh Scrappy Day

An hour’s bike ride along Springfield’s old main street brought John, panting and drenched in sweat, to the outskirts of town where he currently laid, sprawled out under the shade of the old oaks that lined the seldom traveled road.

“Mana powered bike,” John muttered, his breathing slowly returning to normal. “That’s what I need. Put a siphon in the handlebars. Attach some batteries like saddle bags. Maybe use an air focus or something to generate power for an electric motor? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out later.”

He pushed himself up from the ground, retrieved his bike, and continued on the few hundred yards that lay between him and his destination, Sal’s Salvage, nearly two hundred acres of derelict vehicles and appliances – for John, a veritable gold mine.

Sal’s offered a somewhat uncommon service for a salvaging company of its size, opening its gates to the general public, allowing amateur mechanics and handymen to pick over the various derelict machines within for recoverable parts that might otherwise be impossible to find. Better yet, they charged fees so low that some might consider it a genuine act of charity. Unfortunately, they only offered this service on weekends.

So, John intended to break into the yard and steal a bunch of scrap. He was not generally comfortable with theft. Which is why he was going to take what he needed from Sal’s old lot, the property’s back fifty acres, left abandoned and rotting for as long as he could remember.

“Because,” he rationalized, “it’s not stealing if nobody wants it.”

As he neared the office building which served as the company's pedestrian entrance, he made a hard turn to the left and followed along the yard’s perimeter searching for a gap in the barbed wire crowned, chain linked fence. Rows of totaled vehicles and household appliances filled the yard. A thick layer of fresh, white gravel paved the walkways between the rows.

A right turn redirected John along the yard’s western edge. The rows of reclaimed machines soon gave way to a line of pole barns which divided the junkyard in two. Decades old wooden shelving, sagging with miscellaneous junk, reached to the barns’ rusting metal roofs. Bright yellow caution signs warned of their potential collapse.

Beyond the barns, the road curved away from the fence slightly. Trees and underbrush filled the widening gap between. John got off his bike, deposited it behind a clump of trees, out of sight of any passers by, and then continued along the fenceline, trudging through the dense underbrush. Branches dragged over his body, snagging his clothes and scraping his skin.

Through the thicket entangled fence, he spotted his objective. The cars and appliances beyond the barns were amongst the oldest of the collection, evidenced by the oaks and pines that grew up through their rusting bodies. Weeds and saplings grew in patches throughout the long neglected gravel paths.

Shortly after rounding the northwestern corner of the yard, he discovered a gate barred by lock and chain. Against his probing touch, they shifted as a single rigid object, their links fused together by decades of corrosion. Craft reduced them to a few ounces of iron shunted into his Inventory. John pushed hard against the gate to **** it past the underbrush.

Squatting down in the shade cast by a stack of half crushed cars, John took a moment to recover. Dirt and sweat clung to his body. Small splotches of blood dotted his exposed arms but no cuts or scabs could be found.

John reached into his Inventory, retrieved his phone and a bottle of water, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the latter was still as ice cold as when he had deposited it.

‘Oh, sweet. My Inventory keeps stuff in stasis.’

He took a long refreshing drink, poured the remainder over his head, then wiped the dirt and sweat from his face with the hem of his shirt.

‘So, it took an hour and half to get here. It will probably take at least as long to get back. If I want to beat Mom home by four, then I can’t stay longer than two hours. That’s just enough time to exhaust my mana, recharge, and then exhaust it again.’

With a groan, he pushed himself up, returned his phone to his Inventory, then waded through the overgrown paths, salvaging any loose pieces of metal small enough that the cost to salvage them would not immediately deplete his mana stores and whose salvage results were not heavily penalized by their intense corrosion.

When he inevitably expended the last of his mana, he wandered about searching, somewhat more carefully, for more pristine pieces. He threw the smaller pieces in a pile, salvaging them as his mana returned, but shoved the larger, monolithic pieces into his Inventory to be deconstructed at home.

About an hour into this endeavor, he discovered, tucked away in the lot’s northeastern corner, a small pole barn shielding a collection of old motorcycles and engine blocks from the weather. Though far from pristine, they did not suffer the same corrosion as their unprotected neighbors. John retrieved a small toolbox then knelt down next to the nearest bike and began to disassemble, rendering its pieces economically salvageable.

John froze. He’d thought he’d heard a faint crunch of trodden gravel over the ratcheting of his wrench. He listened intently, but could only hear birds chirping above and the distant hum of a passing car. After a minute of undisturbed ambience, he returned to his work.

More crunching. A series this time. John stopped his work just in time to hear the last footstep. He remained still for a moment. The stalking presence did the same.

‘I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.’

Slowly, delicately, he collected his tools in his toolbox withholding only a screwdriver which he gripped tightly, just in case. But, as he moved to return the toolbox to his Inventory, its contents shifted, its metallic rattle betraying his location.

An unfamiliar voice called out behind him, “There you are!”

John moved to run, but a shimmer of color passed over the world, silencing the birds and traffic.

Entering Illusion Barrier - The barrier’s controller prevents your escape.

‘What the fuck?’ John internally screamed. Panicking, he scrambled to his feet and whirled around to face his captor.

Roughly ten feet away stood a bearded young man, perhaps late twenties, maybe a few inches taller than John. The name Daryl was emblazoned on a patch sewn to the breast of his navy blue coveralls.

Seeing the panic in John’s eyes and the screwdriver in his hand, the man calmly raised his hands to shoulder height. “Whoa, little dude. No need to panic. I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

“What do you want?” John’s shot back, his voice shaky.

“I just came out to check on some wards that suddenly quit working. Which I’m betting was your doing. It ain’t a big deal if it was. I’ve just gotta-”

“If it isn't a big deal, why’d you trap me in this-” John couldn’t remember what the notification had called it. He was too panicked. “...thing?”

That raised an eyebrow. “Daryl” took a moment to look John over before continuing, “Because I’ve got a few questions for ya. Namely, what would possess you to cast magic in broad daylight?”

John shifted nervously. The man clearly suspected something. The question was clearly a test. But what could he do other than honestly plead ignorance, “Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”

A broad grin stretched across the man’s face. “I had a feeling. You’re new to all this. Ain’t ya?”