Mythran's Master Of All

“I have just over 8 platinum coins.” Selene said when she saw Ren's smile. “But, I've got another monthly bank payment due in a few days, and that's going to be 3 platinum.”

“You make monthly payments for 300 gold?” Ren asked as his smile disappeared.

Selene nodded. “I borrowed heavily when I started playing so I could get the best of everything available; and it worked. My attack bonuses were unbelievable at lower levels, especially combined with my special skills and abilities.” She smiled. “As I progressed to higher levels and outgrew my equipment, I borrowed more to maintain my advantage.”

Ren's smile went to a frown, and she wasn't sure why.

“Then you gave me those swords.” Selene said. “I haven't had to do anything with them until the quest where one was broken.” She sighed. “I shopped around, and none of the blacksmiths could even come close to reproducing them.”

“They were only cast and not forged.” Ren said. “They couldn't make you a new sword?”

Selene shook her head. “I've used iron blades before, and they don't have the flexibility I need in a weapon to be effective... and they don't have your enchantments, either.”

“You've checked?”

Selene nodded. “I even had several offers to buy them, by both smiths and enchanters, just so they could take them apart and see what it was.”

“Thank you for not doing that.” Ren said.

“I had a feeling you'd hate me for selling or throwing away something you made, and I didn't want to take the chance that you wouldn't fix them for me.” Selene chuckled. “Then you broke it.”

“I did that to show you how lucky you were that it didn't break the last time you used it.” Ren said. “It had several cracks that could have caused you serious damage if it broke at the wrong moment.”

“I know.” Selene said. “I had to sit out the last quest because I didn't have a good weapon to use.”

“I'm glad you didn't endanger yourself.” Ren said.

“Oh?” Selene said and stepped close. “Does that mean you care about my welfare?”

“You... could assume that.” Ren said, and she smiled.

Maybe my charm works on him after all. Selene thought and reached out to rub her hand on the large ruby mounted to Ren's armor chest plate. “Then, perhaps, we could... work out some kind of payment plan.”

“Ren! Someone's coming!” Teepo interrupted, and Ren activated his Heat Sense Aura. Everything turned to shades of red, and Selene caught her breath as his silver-blue eyes gained a red glow around them. Ren felt all the people in his Aura, and then someone else entered his Aura and he stepped back from Selene and turned to face the threat. He saw a large armored man with a big sword running down the street towards him, and felt the man's bubbling anger.

“What are you looking at?” Selene asked and started to turn her head to see.

“Catch.” Ren said and tossed her the new sword without looking at her, then launched himself down the street to attack.

*

Selene caught the sword easily and then Ren practically disappeared. She turned her head the rest of the way to see where he was going, and saw people move out of the way as her boyfriend ran towards her with an angry face. She realized too late what was about to happen.

*

Ren ran down the street as fast as he could, then saw and felt surprise from the big man in the split second before Ren slammed into his chest. It knocked the wind out of the man and they both flew backwards almost 30 feet as Ren successfully tackled him to the ground. The people on the sides of the street gasped as they witnessed the attack. Ren and the big man landed in a heap, and he thought he heard someone applaud as he sat up and grabbed the big guy's armor chest piece. Ren's Enchanted Eyes skill showed him that the armor wasn't enchanted, so his hand dug through the weak metal easily. The sound of metal being crumpled was loud in the slightly crowded street, and Ren braced with his other hand on the man's shoulder and pulled. The armor broke apart and left the man's chest completely exposed.

“Sword!” Teepo said.

Ren caught the man's hand as he tried to swing, and gripped it around the hilt of the sword. He saw the weakness in the metal sword and used a thumb on that hand to bend it, much to the big man's surprise.

“More people!” Teepo said.

Ren felt 4 more people enter his Aura, then something hit him in the chest. It flung him backwards off of the big man and he landed on his back, rolled over, and activated the Revealing Light on his Bracelet of Importance. 200 feet away, an archer was revealed.

“Oh, shit!” The archer said as he looked down at himself and tried to load another Push arrow. Ren grinned and grabbed the big man, lifted him up like he weighed nothing, then threw him at the archer.

“LOOK OUUUUT!” The big man yelled, but the archer was too slow and didn't duck in time. They crashed together and rolled down the street a little. When they came to a stop, neither of them moved; because they had hit their heads against each other and Ren's Skull Cracker ability of 40% chance to Stun with a hit to the head had stunned them both.

“Dodge right!” Teepo exclaimed and Ren did as he said instantly.

“STOP!” Selene said as her sword swing had missed Ren by a fair margin. He grabbed her wrist and swung her around, and she did a cartwheel to twist out of his grip. She had swung the sword on it's side so that she wouldn't hit him with the sharp edge; but apparently she didn't have to, because he had dodged her attack easily and even countered it.

“Wh-what?” Ren said when her shout registered, and stopped fighting.