Collide Gamer

Dorn and Saphiria left behind a singular chest. A somewhat disappointing development, but entirely in line with their shared Loot Table.

John and his women crowded around the ornate object. It had an Egyptian flair to it, especially with the way the gold was shaped. At the same time, it deviated in the way hippos made for such a dominant aspect of the engravings and the wood used outside the ornamentations was tropical in origin.

Much as there was to enjoy in analysing the bits of work Gaia put in flavouring these chests appropriately, John was more interested in the inside than the outside. Flipping the lid open revealed the black void inside, a lightless pit that offered great gifts. If this had been a biblical story, John should have stayed quite far away from this.

He did give the box a stab with the clawed finger of his left hand to make doubly sure it wasn’t a mimic, then dove in.

In the Common category, John was treated to one of each of the items. The Desert Bikini was an attractive set of garments made from purple silk and gold, the top and bottom connected by a variety of chains and threads. It was a highly elaborate version of a belly dancer outfit that would fit in nicely with his general collection of such things.

The other three, Golemkinder Gold, Elemental Mana and Untal Crystals, were all crafting materials. Elemental Mana had a secondary use as a consumable that could give an elemental a 10% All Stat Boost for 3 minutes. John considered whether that made it worth keeping around and ultimately decided against it. It was going to serve him and his empire better as part of an item that someone could use than a weak emergency option.

On the Uncommon level, he got the Moo Deng Ikon, the Theognostic Ikon and the Lightning Dashers. The Moo Deng Ikon granted the wearer a steady HP regeneration, increased massively in water. Sadly, the only person with water powers in his harem couldn’t benefit from item effects, so it went into the pile. The Theognostic Ikon was a lens through which one could peer to ascertain the alignment of a god. Between Observe and Lorelei, John did not feel like he needed to carry that with him. The Lightning Dashers, lastly, were decently powered footwear that gave their wielder the ability to move as a rapid streak of light two times a day. That, John was going to gift to some Viceroy or other noble he wanted to sway.

Rare, he had the Marks of Light and Hippo-Blessed Waters. The former came in the form of a flask that contained highly enchanted ink that was supposed to greatly empower the light and electricity power of those who were marked with it. There was a limitation on its use case though: the user could not have made a direct contract with an elemental. That made it useless for Rave and John had no other contender among his women. Another item for the pile of political gifts.

The Hippo-Blessed Waters were a powerful healing item. John decided to hand it over to Delicia for analysis. If she could tickle an improvement for health potions out of it, then that would be good news for the entire world.

On the Epic front, he got the Mace of Dagressia twice, which felt a bit stupid. The long-hefted weapon was an exact replica of Saphiria’s armament visually, with several enchantments that mimicked its capabilities. Since the only person around that used a mace had a Mythical one, John also put those weapons on the pile of political gifts and/or military equipment.

Nothing Legendary reached his hands.

“All around meh,” John summarized. “Good items in there but nothing really usable for us.”

“Did your levels increase, my patriarch?” Nightingale asked.

“Indeed, they did.” John opened his window with the glee he commonly felt for these levels. Though diminished since the days where every point mattered, the simple joy of ‘numbers go up’ had never truly faded. ‘Let’s keep investing into Intellect,’ he thought. ‘I have enough of a Wisdom buffer that my Upkeep Costs won’t catch up for a while.’

“Yo, John?” Metra put an arm around his neck. The presence of her armour made it a rigid touch, though not entirely unpleasant. Her warmth was still there, in the spiritual sense. The segments of her helm parted, folding into a tall collar around her neck. The wolf woman smirked at him. There was a dash of seriousness in the tomboyish expression. “Why still Guildmaster?”

“Because that one isn’t mine to change,” John answered.

“Then whose call is it?” Metra asked.

“That of an old… friend?” He sighed, reminded of how pathetic and petty some parts of him were. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” Metra spoke softly and gave him a big kiss. She knew as well as he did that he would tell her what this was about in due time. Right this moment, they instead dwelled on the fact that they were done with another Raid boss. The arena around them was buzzing only with the default sound effects of the roaring crowd. The next event was held back, courtesy of the deific programming of this place. The Raid itself must have known it would not be continued that day.

The harem gathered back up in the living room. Everyone, even Daiyu, had come along to watch the fight, which made calling the second meeting of the day very easy. “To answer the immediate question,” John began, “I will not use today in any further capacity to grind.”

“Is that not a waste of a day?” Moira asked. The redhead was once again seated among his women, something she had made a habit out of these past three days. In no way was John any more certain whether she realized the implications of her chosen seat.

Ehtra agreed with her fellow confusing woman. “You told Romulus you have ambitions to take his place as Apex.”

“That I did,” John agreed, “but I am not going to let that goal consume my joy in life. Pushing absurdly hard to become the strongest will distract me from what I actually have to deal with – which is instability from people we can certainly crush.”

The gathered force in the room now was the strongest in the known Abyss, John was certain of it. ‘Known’ was the most important word in that sentence. There was always a chance that another freakish instance of gathered power like Macuil or Tiamat could appear. The unknown was scary. Yet, to prepare against the unknown could not be healthy either. John struggled enough with his paranoia without feeding it.

“The way I see it, I can go after my goal and live a good life by staying motivated without getting obsessed.” John reclined and put his arms around his adjacent haremettes – Lulu and Scarlett. “Besides, I only have two more days before I will have to spend busy days travelling all over Fusion’s territory.”

“I guess we gotta prepare for our return to reality,” Rave sighed. “I’ll guess ya got a bunch of notes by now about stuff to check out from Magnus?”

“That I did, and-“

“Uh, uhm…” Daiyu shyly interrupted him, all while shooting to her feet. Carrying a smartphone in her hand, she hurriedly walked over to Lu Zhi. “E-empress, uh… y-you should look at this… right now.”

The imperial tomboy received the device with darkened eyes. Slit pupils narrowed into near invisibly thin lines. “Traitorous flies are beginning to smell the pile of dung, I see,” she hissed. “Qingmei has informed me that hostile elements in snake clans, led by the official head, are attempting to supply Vinh’s rebellion.”

“They want to stab you in the back?” John asked.

“Worse, they wish to play both sides of the conflict.” Lu Zhi clutched the device and rose from her position on John’s side. “I’ll go deal with that in a quiet corner. I will catch up with you later.” Uncharacteristically, the ruler of the Mandate of Heaven paused. Ponderance appeared on her features, before she turned to Claire. “May I ask you to join me?”

“I was about to ask if I may,” the vampire maid responded and followed Lu Zhi towards the exit.

Even while strutting away angrily, the sway of Lulu’s hips meticulously followed the golden ratio. For as long as possible, he drank in that sight, then the Heavenly Jade Empress and her retainer were through the door. The empty spot on John’s side was occupied by Hailey.

“What was that about?” the country gal asked.

“Claire has gotten a bit more involved in Chinese politics lately.” John leaned forward to pick up his glass of cold water on the table. “She wants to get to the bottom of the Riftspawn and the apparent conspiracy to mess with historical records of their time. That makes our vampire a valuable outside advisor.”

The Gamer sipped on his water. Claire was equipped to aid in governmental questions beyond what he had just said. Though she loathed to speak of the time, Claire had once governed a tremendous landmass and attempted to minimize the suffering of the few subjects she had in a world governed by a tyrant obsessed with testing the will of mortals.

It was easy to forget that Claire had so many more competencies than being his reverent maid. Sometimes John wondered if she deliberately made her obsession so dominant. Frequently it caused others to underestimate what the shapeshifting, hyper-Charismatic vampire could do if left to her machinations. Google seaʀᴄh novelfire(.)net

It was fortunate that she was so loyal.

“Magnus compiled a list of matters I will have to look into personally,” John continued the conversation. “It’s stuff that the council decided was above their paygrade or couldn’t reach an immediate decision on. There’s two things on here that he rightfully put at the top.”

John nudged Scarlett with his elbow. The doll-limbed woman rolled her eyes, then operated the TV for him. Expert technomancy could not compare to his singular connection he could put up at a time. “Lazy ass,” she cussed him out, grumpy and yet so attached to his arm.

Everyone else was inspecting what the screen presented. The display was split, the right side showing a blurry picture of a man staring grimly at the camera, while the left showed a map of Fusion separated into its policing districts with several clusters marked in bright red.

“There have been reports of a new Abyssal Latebloomer who has been stirring things up in San Jose,” John said to everyone. “Our forces had to pull back, proving too weak to stand up to them. It is assumed that it is this man, though strikes have been too quick to confirm that.”

“Do we have casualties?”

“Not yet,” John said, “which I can’t say for the other matter. There has been an inexplicable uptick in Kingdom gates in our territory.”

“Hold that phone, tiger – Kingdom gates?” Rave asked. “Full on Kingdom gates? Plural? The super-rare stuff that connects Earth to other realms? Multiple of those?”

“Yes,” John answered.

Scarlett casually gestured at the screen, pulling the map forwards. The red areas were numbered in order of appearance, dates and hours appearing next to them. “We’ve had a total of 12 such incidents all over the country since the end of the Lorylim war,” she told all of them. “I don’t think anyone here is stupid enough to think that’s a fucking coincidence. Either what Tiamat did destabilized something or what Izha did produced a Latebloomer capable of breaking open the realms.”

The redhead licked her lips at that prospect. Greed was written all over her features. John could practically hear her calculate her profit margins from getting resources from other worlds. While her capitalist mindset was laudable in the prosperity it would ultimately bring through the markets, John had to temper her enthusiasm.

“These Kingdom breaches have introduced various supernatural wildlife into the areas they opened up in and several people that ventured into the portals did not return before they collapsed,” he stated. “37 people are either dead or missing. We need to get to the source of this. We can never know when a portal opens up that connects us to something more dangerous than enormous wolves.” He reclined in his seat again. “The second we are out of here, we are splitting into three teams. One team will stay in the Guild Hall and continue as usual. Another will travel to San Jose. The third will attempt to deal with this Kingdom crisis.”

“Feels like I should be part of that team,” Lee pointed out. “Otherwise you aren’t getting around to the sites quick enough to intervene.”

“I insist I also be part of it,” Scarlett stated.

“I wanna be part of the San Jose bit,” Rave remarked.

Before the harem could get lost in chatting about who went where, John raised his hand. There was one more announcement he wanted to make. “I also want to let everyone know that I am about to hit Metracana Master Skill Level 50 – which means blue boxes. A whole lot of blue boxes.” He checked the Skill again. “By my projection, I should get there by this evening, so everyone who wants to be there when I press all of those buttons, this is your invitation.”

“I’ll be there,” Momo joked.

“Darn,” John muttered under his breath. “No choosing the fun option while you aren’t looking.”

“Urgh, and what pervy thing would that be?”

“Pervy?” False offense guided the Gamer’s hand to his chest. “Why, good lady, you hurt me so! I merely wanted to take a Perk that creates a small raincloud above your head whenever you frown!”

“First off, I can already do that.” Momo crossed her arms and frowned. Indeed, the mysteries of her fae powers manifested a little grey cloud above her head. Metra and Gnome tilted away from the fairy, a heavy, localized rainfall quickly soaking her hair. Somehow, the water never made it further than the tips of her sidelocks. “Second off, my Perks, my choice.”

“That is our agreement,” John responded with a reassuring smile. “Well, with that said, I’ll go gaming. You can discuss how you want to split up amongst yourselves, the definitive decision will be made just before we leave.”