CHAPTER FIFTY
Practically by rote at this point, as soon as Penelope finished draining her current bottle dry, Richard tossed it over his shoulder to join the rapidly growing pile, pulled up the points catalogue with a sigh, and purchased yet another standard milk ration. Managing to hold onto the baby bottle for all of two whole seconds this time, before she’d latched onto the teet—nearly wrestling it from his hands.
Richard watched the greedy little monster attack the milk ration with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. He then glanced over his shoulder at the mountain of emptied bottles that’d almost grown as tall as he was, and nearly had an aneurism. His eye twitched.
“You know, you’re going to eat me out of house and home one of these days,” Richard said—trying, and failing, to smooth out her unruly hair.
In lieu of a response, the glutton continued to drain the bottle with an almost concerning degree of seriousness. Richard sighed.
“You’re just lucky you’re so darn cute,” he muttered, the words coming from his mouth unbidden.
He suddenly started, whipping his head around, fearful he’d been overheard. Nope, as it so happened, the others were far too busy with their own “activities” to pay him any mind.
Phew! Thank Opon for that!
He couldn’t have them thinking he was going soft after all. A tiny hand reached up and tugged at his face, hard.
“Yes dear…” he mumbled.
Without even looking, Richard chucked the empty bottle aside, and quickly replaced it with a brand new one.
“I swear there has to be a way to order on an industrial scale. I refuse to believe this isn’t a more common problem.”
Richard once more glanced at the teetering tower of teet tipped baby bottles.
“Well… surely it’s happened at least… a couple of times before. Right?”
While he continued to sate the bottomless infant, Richard entertained himself by spectating the gathering of intelligent, accomplished, competent women—and also Maya—who were, by some strange twist of fate, somehow having a worse time of it than him. Well, Denise was, at any rate.
Heh.
“No, no, no! Yer doin’ it all wrong! Yer all like this,” Skye made an exaggeratedly sloppy attempt at a diagonal slash. “When ye should be like this!” the girl then performed a sharp, exacting cut—stone dagger whistling through the air.
Richard joined in, whistling his appreciation.
He thought he recognized the form from his short stint as a dagger wielding aficionado. That wasn’t what shocked him however. Everyone had their inspirations. Instead, it was the way in which she imitated him. Not only mimicking his movements, but improving upon them. Richard hummed to himself. She would definitely be one to watch out for. A potential martial adept…? Possibly.
“You mean like this?” Denise growled through clenched teeth—performing a respectable slash with her rapier.
Unfortunately for her, respectable was only that, and her teacher happened to be something of a perfectionist. The little girl crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
“Ugh! Ah swear yer hopeless. Were ye even tryin’ that time?”
With his higher than average strength stat, Richard could actually see the vein in her temple start to bulge.
“I am trying. Maybe if you spent more time teaching, and less time spouting nonsense-!”
“Ah showed ye how it’s done. Whit mair dae ye want frae me?”
“You did no such thing!” she screamed. “This?!” she made a slash. “Or this?!” she made another slash. “Is not forking helpful! And it is most certainly nowhere near an actual demonstration!”
The little girl shrugged nonchalantly—looking up at the grown woman like she were being the unreasonable one.
“How’s it ma fault ye cannae tell the difference?!”
“But that’s my point! There is no difference! IT’S THE SAME FORKING THING!”
“Oh? So yer blind as well as daft.”
Denise was shocked into silence for several long seconds following that pronouncement. Jaw working silently, but no words coming out.
“Well,” she pronounced sharply. “Maybe if I had a better teacher I wouldn’t be- my god, what am I doing? Hah!” as if teetering on a nervous breakdown, she began tugging at her own hair.
“You’re arguing with a forking child Denise! Get it the fork together…!”
Skye, for her part, looked on, both fascinated and concerned in equal measure.
Richard snorted. As much as he would’ve loved to continue watching Denise lose her marbles, he figured it would’ve been unfair to the others if he didn’t at least take a peek at their progress.
“Umm, so, almost,” Jimmy said—trotting over to adjust Marlene’s stance to his satisfaction. “Also,” he dropped into a stance of his own. “When you punch, it should be more like… um, uh, sort of… how do you say-”
“More like pow!” Donald exclaimed, executing a power blow as he said it. An updraft kicked up in the wake of his punch—a miniature cyclone peppered with blades of grass.
“Umm, yes. It should be more like pow.”
Robin, Marlene, and Eva, for their parts, nodded along, if with a bit more confusion than they’d likely prefer. With a few more helpful hints, however, they eventually got the hang of it. And Donald was always ready with a demonstration, whenever they slipped up. Together, they actually made a pretty good team, and Richard could honestly see the trio of adults forming their ability cubes by the end of the day. Maya on the other hand….
“Ugh! This is so boring,” Maya flopped down onto her back. “Can’t we do something more fun? How is any of this going to help me anyway? I want to do sneaky rogue things lamb it!”
Was utterly hopeless.
+++
It actually wasn’t too long before the bottomless well of unending appetite was momentarily sated. It merely felt like an eternity.
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Richard waved emphatically by way of teary eyed send off. All the while trying very hard not to think about his points total, lest the tears flow in earnest. As a ponderous Penelope floated away, the contented little hot air balloon that she was, Richard’s mind immediately turned to his next steps. More specifically, what he could do for the others right this instant that would aid them in a meaningful way.
The answer, as it so happened, came to him rather quickly.
Gambling.
Really, it was the only way.
Before anything, Richard slipped inside of an unused tent. Not everyone needed to be privy to what was about to happen. Once he was out of sight, and hopefully out of mind, Richard plopped himself down onto a bed of rumpled sheets and pulled up his System interface. He navigated to the archives, pulling up the string of titles he’d received just recently.
Tapping on each reward in turn as he scrolled down the list. Much like when he purchased something from the points catalogue, the reward items in question simply appeared out of thin air.
Tickets, lottery tickets to be exact. Or, well, the System’s facsimile at any rate. In truth, they were more akin to loot with extra steps.
They came in a range of colors that corresponded to their rarity grade. Uncommon was green, Rare was blue, etc..
Naturally he only had eyes for the purple variants, and oh boy did he get an eyeful. Tallying everything together, he ended up with one Uncommon ticket, twenty one Rare tickets, and twenty one Epic tickets! So forty three in total! Something that simply did not happen at his level and grade. Like, ever.
Not that he had any intention of returning them, mind you. Richard began to rub his hands together in anticipation. Plucking up the lone Uncommon ticket, if only to get the lackluster loot out of the way, Richard glanced over the oh so familiar layout.
In many ways, it resembled a matching-game. This one depicted a three by three grid of bubbles, each of which hid a symbol which correlated to a specific piece of loot. One was expected to reveal three identical symbols by scratching out the corresponding bubbles. Reveal three of a kind, and that particular piece of gear was guaranteed.
Mismatch the symbols even once, however, and you’d instead receive a random drop from the hidden pool of items available—come complete with its own unique drop rates, and other unpredictable factors. Thankfully, because this was a blank ticket, he at least got to choose thecategory of item he’d be trying for. At the very top of the ticket there were four categories. Items, weapons, armor, and consumables.
Naturally, Richard selected consumables, scratching off the corresponding bubble. It was basically hardwired into his brain at this point. It was through tickets like these that he’d gotten most of his talisman making materials. There was a flash as the ticket refreshed its loot pool, though given it was still unused, very little visibly changed. Lips pressed into a hard line, tongue peeking out ever so slightly, Richard brought his thumbnail to the top right corner.
Oh?! A potion? Either that or an elixir of some kind, though at this rarity I highly doubt it.
What he’d revealed was the simplified depiction of a tapered alchemist’s flask. The depiction flashed with a reflective luster, as if covered in shiny foil. Meanwhile the sloshing contents of the illustrated flask itself were unmistakably red.
So either a health potion, or a body enhancing elixir huh?
More curious to see if he’d get the trifecta, than he was especially pressed to receive the item itself, Richard picked another bubble at random, and revealed its contents. Much to his chagrin, a shimmering green leaf stared back up at him.
So, not even close huh? Richard chuckled. Typical.
Abruptly, the ticket burned up in a flash of emerald fire. And in its place was revealed… a little tapered flask with sloshing red liquid.
Huh. Go figure.
Richard plucked up the vial from where it sat, and held it up to the light streaming in through a gap in the tent flaps. It’s contents glistened and shimmered, refracting the light into a bloody red hue.
?—|-Basic Healing Vial-|—?
?[Uncommon]?
A vial of healing liquid. Heals very minor to moderate injuries.
Richard briefly checked what his Truth Seeker’s Sixth Sense had to say about that.
A vial containing the concentration of mana and life energy rich ingredients, it is liable to fully heal very minor injuries, moderately heal minor injuries, and barely heal moderate injuries. Contains very few impurities.
Shrugging, Richard popped the cork and downed it in one go. He’d been feeling somewhat unwell, ever since his run in with the Midnight Earl, and he figured one little flask couldn’t hurt. He took a second to guide the life energy to where they were most needed, and began to feel better almost immediately. He still wasn’t back to one hundred percent, but he was getting there.
Next, he picked up a Rare blank ticket. This time, the grid that stared back up at him was four by four, making it just that much harder to find that elusive three of a kind. Richard wasted no time, it wasn’t a game of skill, after all, no matter how it presented itself.
Scratching out the consumables category, the ticket flashed, and he was already striking out the first two bubbles.
Some sort of pill, and a scroll of some kind. Unlucky.
The paper burned away with a flash of azure flames, to reveal a cylindrical bottle of five large round pills.
?—|-Blood Purification Pills-|—?
?[Rare]?
Richard didn’t bother reading the description. He already knew what they did. Besides it was fairly self explanatory. He merely checked his Sixth Sense skill to make sure there weren’t too many impurity’s. When he’d confirmed that there were not, he scrutinized the pill bottle for a time.
Obviously it won’t be enough for a full level of prestige, but combined with another series of pills and elixirs, maybe…
Richard moved onto the next Rare ticket.
He quickly went through the motions, the ticket burned away, and he was blessed with yet another rare item.
?—|-Strength Enhancement Elixir-|—?
?[Rare]?
Increase strength by four points.
Richard raised his eyebrows. About time he got one of these. It wouldn’t be useful to him, of course, not right now, but he was sure one of the girls could find a use for it. Richard set it aside. Another ticket vanished in a gout of blue flame.
?—|-Greater Explosive Talisman-|—?
?[Rare]?
Richard plucked up the long slip of mana treated paper, scrutinizing the arcane script which ran along its length.
Meh. I could do better.
He set the talisman aside and plucked up the next ticket from the pile.
?—|-100-Year Old Ginseng-|—?
?[Rare]?
Richard stared at the bulbous root vegetable for a time. It stared back, nonplussed. Richard shrugged, tossed it over his shoulder, and promptly forgot about it.
I really don’t see an auction house spontaneously appearing in the near vicinity any time soon, so I think I’ll pass.
?—|-Body Purification Pills-|—?
?[Rare]?
?—|-Bone Purification Pills-|—?
?[Rare]?
?—|-Mana Restoration Potion-|—?
?[Rare]?
?—|-Blood Burning Pills-|—?
?[Rare]?
?—|-Health Restoration Potion-|—?
?[Rare]?
?—|-Ability Scroll: Fireball-|—?
?[Rare]?
?—|-Control Enhancement Elixir-|—?
?[Rare]?
Richard pocketed that last one. Just in case. His looting spree continued in this manner for the next five tickets, before he finally, finally stumbled onto something good.
?—|-Mana-Treated Paper-|—?
?[Rare]?
A ream of mana treated paper. Useful in the creation of ability scrolls, paper constructs, and talismans.
“Yes!”
Richard jumped to his feet and pranced around the tent he was so ecstatic. Happy feet dancing up a storm, arms waving wildly through the air. It was all that he could do to keep himself from crying out loud. Finally! All he needed now was some decent ink, and the world would be his to conquer!
Nye- NYEHE-!
Richard coughed.
Actually, better he call a rain check on the maniacal laughter. No need to get too ahead of himself, now. There were still plenty of tickets in need of scratching. Time was of the essence, after all, and he wouldn’t be getting anywhere like this. Richard promptly sat back down, and set to breezing through the rest of the rare tickets with a will. His eyes periodically straying to the pristine pile of purple slips.
Soon, he promised himself. Soon. He needed to eat his vegetables before he could savor his desserts, after all. Because if he’d thought the rare offerings were generous, oh, he hadn’t seen anything yet.
