Get Lucky Book 1: Friday Apocalypse, page 31
Congratulations! The UI suddenly gushed. You now have ranks in all of the skills the system has to offer, a feat worthy of anyone’s prurient interest, regardless of race, gender, or age. You have unlocked a special achievement, and our hearts.
Special Achievement: Jack
You’re something of a jack of all trades, aren’t you? A know-it-all, at least a little. In addition, you’re in the first 10 on this new world to have obtained this achievement. You will be granted a boon of your choice.
*a copy of Class Reset spawns in your inventory once a day, but disappears at midnight if unused.
*7 copies of Clone Ability and 1 copy of Class Reset
*Unlocks all rare PC races and allows the choice of a new race.
*gain 20,000 coins, and three random gems of polished rarity or better
*gain 2 random double rare ability cards for your class
Ohhh nice.
He went over the options one by one. The first one didn’t seem like much, until he gave it some thought. He could be a barbarian just before a big fight, or transform into a rogue when a lot of sneaking was required, or traps in a dungeon. Depending on the adventuring party he stuck with long term, he might want to change into a tank or a healer.
And while changing up his class every day might seem ideal at first, it would be tiring. He’d need to cultivate several different high grade decks and keep them. It would require him to basically take all the cards as loot to build up a series of good decks, leaving nothing for any of the girls. Although he could take on any role and that would probably be useful to some small degree, it was more useful to do several things very well.
First option was a bust. As for the second option, it was easy to see how useful it would be to copy his best cards, or better yet, his best single card, then meld them and create an ubercard.
He did a quick bit of math and found that it would take 8 copies of a card to upgrade its rarity twice. He could take Hareminator, a rare, copy it 8 times, and have four double rares, then two ultra rares, then one hyper rare.
He admonished himself for immediately thinking with his dick again. He had Sorcerer spells that could be devastating at double rare. He could end up with a battlefield clearing fireball spell. At higher levels it probably became a firewall, a massive inferno, a rain of meteors, something like that. Plus, he doubted he had the prerequisites for Hareminator’s eventual melding into a higher rarity.
On the other hand, he could very well end up as a Bard pretty soon. With as much as he was dumping points into Charming and Hearts, it made sense to grab a flute, or a lute, and really lean into his role as sex-haver. It could be best to stick with Hareminator.
He really liked this one, and was leaning toward it. Time to move on, and think over the other options.
The 20,000 coin would disappear in a flash, putting him years ahead on his monthly payments to Ray Eastman, essentially penniless, and still not out of debt. So that was right out.
The locked races weren’t necessary. He’d unlock them eventually, by dying more and more. Plus, Netsu and Mizu had already proven that the locked races still had potentially crippling downsides.
Last, the two double rares were out as well. He could craft double rare cards soon, and the word ‘random’ always turned him off.
He took the seven copies of Clone Ability and the Deck Reset. One immediately went toward cloning Hareminator.
Hareminatrix was the result.
Requirements:
*Bard, Sorcerer or barbarian class level Amateur 5 or higher.
*Lucky at Amateur level 5 or higher.
*Diamonds skill at Journeyman level 5 or higher.
He fit all the requirements already. “Awesome,” he breathed, grinning. He’d have to wait on the higher rarity version of this card before the girls were at the precipice of Amateur as well. He needed a strong supporting adventuring party.
All the initial text was the same, including the bonus xp for increasing relationships and extra experience for hitting on (and going all the way) with sexual partners.
The new text added this:
When you make advances on or have sex with a new partner, you gain reward cards added directly to your inventory.
Your radius for using auras is increased by 3 meters for each member of your party with whom you have had a sexual encounter.
All aura effects are increased by 10% for each party member in range with whom you have had a sexual encounter.
He put it into his action deck without replicating it again, since the next version would be far beyond his current stats. +15 meters of aura range was huge, assuming he eventually got with Mizu. +50% effectiveness was likewise enormous.
He returned his attention to the matters at hand, a notification that he was getting extra xp from Hareminatrix:
Congratulations! Your partner this time has a complicated view of men, but you were able to handle her roughly, though well. This user interface felt the heat of your union from all the way up here. You’ve received the following rewards:
*Sex: 1,000 xp
*First time with this partner: 5,000 xp
*Partner’s orgasm: 2,000 xp
The card upgrade was so amazing he just gaped at it. He stared with awe for a while until it sank in, and he started brainstorming the best ways to spend his newfound wealth.
He went over his character sheet and saw that, clearly, he should be advancing his class first and everything else next. Getting a card on top of free attribute and skill levels was just the better math.
He was interrupted by a cry of dismay from outside the captain’s cabin.
Oh, right, the bullshit they’d just fought off, currently presided over by Ashley. Boy was he glad she was the party’s diplomat. He had half a mind to execute every adult member of the traders, give a small sum of money to the children remaining, and take all the cargo left over.
All twelve of their combatants and half a dozen more ambitious civilians were either dead or wounded enough to make them no longer a threat. Mizu and Evie did the tying up, while Ashley healed people to the point where they wouldn’t immediately be killed, then talked with the new guy in charge. The last one had lost the ability to speak, along with his head.
“We’re going to be confiscating some of this cargo as spoils of war,” she explained. She then allowed them to reserve up to a single item each that Ash’s crew wasn’t allowed to touch. When they did so, she immediately swiped all of their most prized possessions. Savage, but in a good way.
“You’ll get these back when we land at our destination, provided you don’t cause any more issues.”
The people seemed to get the point, and quietly mourned their dead.
When he awoke with Netsu still snoozing on top of him, he grinned. She made a muffled noise of protest when he crawled out from beneath her, but quieted after he kissed her on the cheek.
“You promised,” he breathed.
The next Random Encounter came, again a Journeyman level one, and this one appeared as a destroyed hulk of a skyship in the midst of the desert. They debated just leaving it, since they had a bunch of people tied to the mast, and the other group not allowed on deck. With only five crew, they had to stay vigilant and ensure the traders didn’t try anything. Fortunately for them, most of the combat-age males and females had just been either killed off or tied up and healed up, enough that they wouldn’t bleed to death.
Ash was okay with leaving two of them on the ship to make sure the traders didn’t get any funny ideas. He took the ship down and left it to hover a good twenty meters above the desert floor, while they surveyed the wreck.
“Ideas?” He asked.
“Definitely an ice creature,” Evie said. “You can still see some icicles that haven’t melted off…”
“…and the wet sand in the shadows,” Mizu said from below decks. She had a similar reaction to the desert heat that Netsu had had just a couple of hours ago in the sudden downpour.
“Whatever it is, the corpse isn’t here,” he said.
“Ship fell from a short distance,” Evie went on.
“How do you figure?” Ashley asked, trying to inject herself in the conversation.
“Debris should be a lot more spread out if it fell from higher up. Maybe a lunging ambush predator,” Evie said. “We doing this?”
He nodded. “We should be quick about this. While we’re down below, I want you to take her up. ”
They followed his command. The newly expanded ship now had the Spellcraft version of the parachute, a set of pop out wings with small vials of magic fluid set into the brass and gold filigree in several places. Throdric would’ve known exactly what the ship was now equipped with. He, Netsu and Ashley strapped theirs on, popped the wings out to about two meters plus on either side, and leapt from the ship’s rail.
This was the craziest part of the day so far: leaping out into the void was terrifying, even if it was only about twelve meters up. It certainly looked like enough height to lead to his death, though he probably would’ve survived given his hit point total. Maybe.
After a terrifying moment of free fall, the wings hit the air and jerked him backwards a bit, then let him fall in a controlled manner. He spiraled around the wreckage, looking for claws, spines, nostrils the size of a kitchen sink, a buried gigantic eyeball, and the like. He didn’t find any, but that didn’t do much for the sinking feeling he got.
When he peered up, the Wind Runner was much higher up than it had been, and now circling the area slowly. Evie wasn’t going to fuck around with something that could take out a larger ship than theirs.
This downed ship had capsized. Curved supports had splintered and stuck out of the ground like a giant’s ribcage. The magi-tech repulser parts were scattered here and there, with only one of the dozen still attached to the bottom of the ship. The mast had shattered and cast of sails here and there. Bits of sailcloth still billowed in a futile attempt to get some bit of the ship skyward.
“No corpses.” Netsu said from beside him. Holy… she really moved way too quietly.
“She went over on her side starting here,” he said, pointing to where a lot of splinters became a wider and wider swath of destruction, some ten or fifteen meters off. “Whatever she was carrying, it’ll be inside.”
“Let’s go then,” Ashley said, and began stomping over there. Staves (Charming) told him she was being pissy about him speaking with Netsu. She still wasn’t fully with the program Evie had set in motion.
“Hold up,” he called. God, she was going to get herself captured again, getting angry that he was talking to another woman. They’d shared another girl together in bed; what bug had crawled up her ass now? Maybe it was because they hadn’t shared Netsu together, or whatever influence Evie had over her didn’t keep very long once Evie wasn’t with them.
He hated how complicated women were. Evie seemed like she didn’t have much in the way of complications, and loved that about her.
Ashley whirled in response, nostrils flaring. The orc side of her was taking control. She just lived violence where before she’d lived intense control.
“Netsu takes point, we assist her with spells. She’s got more hit points than us, more damage reduction than us, and a bigger war hammer than us.”
They found a point where Netsu could get inside, and he held her war hammer with his Telekinetic Hand while she climbed, then lifted it to her once she was inside.
Ash didn’t waste a moment. He turned. “Okay, I’m listening. What’s your deal?”
“My deal? My deal?” Ashley laughed, one bark of incredulous misery. “What the fuck are you doing, Ash? You’re my boyfriend. You can’t just go around having sex with lava girls and adorable bisexual inventor girls. Me first, me.”
“What is it you want?” he asked. “I got this card, and it’s the best chance for surviving we’ve got. I need to hit on other girls. That’s the way it has to go.”
“You have to hit on other girls, huh?” she barked.
“I just got five thousand experience points,” he said. One Journeyman level or five Amateur levels.
Her eyes went wide. “What? When?”
“For having sex with Netsu,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Five… thousand? Five thousand?” Her mind didn’t seem capable of handling that number of xps.
“You want me to keep you safe, this is how I do it,” he said. “And anyway, it’s not like you’re being completely ignored, are you? I let you do your thing in that dungeon with the little fuzz ball.”
She had the good grace to look abashed.
“And then you had sex without me,” he went on, “more than once.” Her face fell further. “Look, this is a weird time. We’re figuring shit out. We need to give each other some grace right now. You can have sex with Evie, with me, without me. She’s…” Horny as hell, he didn’t say. Maybe it was a nellwyn thing, like most nellwyns just got freaky at the drop of a hat. Ashley certainly got turned on by violence, being an orc. Whatever turned Evie on, it was happening often.
Actually he could use that.
“Come on, we need to make sure Netsu’s safe. And get what we came for.”
32- The Wedge
Sunday, Day 3
Netsu had already done most of the work by the time they arrived. A bunch of dead rodents and minor reward cards littered the overturned hull. Netsu was in the process of scooping up her rewards.
“What have we got?” he asked.
“All the cargo is smashed, except for this,” she indicated a small crate with alien script burned into the sides. And red paint in warning signs.
“That doesn’t look safe,” Ashley said, eyes sparkling.
He hoped it wasn’t something like the Quiverwhisker. On the other hand, they’d made 5,000 coin off it, and if necessary he had leverage to get Ashley to stop moaning.
The remainder of the cargo wasn’t just smashed, but the provisions were scattered, some lying in shallow puddles. The other crates had been smashed, but Staves (Clever) told him they’d been chewed on, and the metallic cargo was gone. Scraps of crates informed him this ship had been hauling spare parts, scrap metal, arms and armor. All that was just gone. Again, the UI made a check for him, and this time he succeeded with Arcana (Clever), his first ever Arcana success.
The bits of metal he could find had been corroded at the edges, and were painful to touch.
“I think we have a problem,” he said. “We need to get back to the ship.”
“Agreed,” Netsu said.
The ground began to rumble.
“We gotta get out of here!” Ashley said, unnecessarily, since her foot was already in Ash’s hands to get her boosted up and out.
The crate fit under one arm, and while Ash had no trouble boosting the two ladies up and out of the hole in the broken ship, he was too short to get out on his own. But, since he wasn’t in combat, he had access to his entire action deck at any given time. All of his cards came up in icon form, like he was playing Spellcraft.
He picked Telekinetic Hand and used it to levitate the crate up and out, attached to a rope pooled at his feet. As soon as the crate went out of sight he grabbed the one and of the rope.
“Grab on!” he shouted.
He felt the line go tight, and he began to climb.
The rumbling grew more intense as he went, up the five meters to the edge of the hole. It got so bad he had trouble hanging on. It became a roar, while everything shook, and it was all he could do to hang on. Outside, he watched Ashley wave at him from where she hadn’t grabbed onto the rope, as instructed. Netsu had hefted herself onto the crate instead of the rope, and now struggled to hold onto it, staring down at him. Splinters of the dead ship dug into his ribs where he clung to the rope, but the seismic rumbling continued.
A moment later everything was gone in a flash of white.
***
The thing that surged up out of the desert was white, but glittering with other soft pastel colors: pink, blue, mint. It was like a worm, but five meters across. It swallowed Netsu and Ashley in an instant, but somehow the rope held and dragged Ash up out of the broken ship’s hull, into the air, and then down against the creature.
He immediately blasted it with Force Missiles, twice, which didn’t seem to hurt it at all. He couldn’t even see its health bar from down here.
He was rising up, up, and up further, towards the Wind Runner. That was unacceptable. That ship was a fucking anchor around his neck and he would be damned if this thing would destroy it and cost him an extra 25,000 coin even while trudging through the desert.
The Wind Runner was already turning and gaining altitude, causing the gigantic maw of the worm creature to snap closed on nothing. Meaning Ash had the opportunity to climb the rope or prepare another spell.
He reached the edge, which was ringed with crystalline spears. Right now it had closed, but when it opened the mouth had to be some five meters across. Easily enough space for two young women to be swallowed whole and not even touch the sides. Hope warred against the certainty that inside the thing probably looked like a garbage disposal or the throat of a sea turtle, or a combination of the two.
When he climbed up onto the edge and balanced on two of its teeth, he immediately found Netsu and Ashley staring up at him from a good three meters away. Beyond that, the thing had a churning, turning throat composed of rocks and shards of crystal.
He called down. “Don’t… move.”
“We have no intention of moving,” Netsu replied, grunting with the weight of holding onto Ashley. Her feet were braced against the inner wall of the worm, but she had Ashley by the wrist.
Fuck. Okay. Ideas, ideas…
He ended up succeeding a Wands (Clever) check this time for inspiration. He had the tools, though Telekinetic Hand wasn’t strong enough… yet. But he could make a better version, if he made a huge sacrifice.
He rapidly copied Telekinetic Hand with his Clone Ability, twice, and combined them into a rare called simply Telekinesis. Internally he moaned at the cost of such valuable cards, but he really needed more power.
Telekinesis could now handle up to a hundred kilograms, which was perfect. He slotted it into his action deck, and went through spells while the worm surged forward and tried chomping his ship again.
