“Where is my stuff?”
“Look in your inventory, bro,” Bob told him. “Same as last time.”
Why do these assholes treat me like I’m a moron? Josh wondered while he played around with the dumb floating screens until he found the one he was looking for. Inventory. Seriously. They made things difficult on purpose.
He had enough Essence to level up to level four, so he did that. More levels more power. He got more gold, enough that he wouldn’t have to work again, ever, but they were about to shut down everything, and gold wouldn’t be worth much.
Josh didn’t have a good handle on who ‘they’ were, but he’d heard enough on the podcasts he listened to while he was driving. He knew that ‘they’ were to blame for most everything, and one day there would be a reckoning.
But that was for later. Now, Josh had to see what prizes he’d gotten and figure out a way to take Wendy away from this shit show.
He got something called a Scale Mail Shirt of the Reaver, which looked kind of cool, overlapping little plates covering a leather vest. The whole thing was painted an off-black or dark brown that would blend in with shadows real good. And then there was a ring.
Its name was weird: Put Me on and Don’t Tell Anybody, and You Will Win!
Why would I tell anyone what I got? So that nerd who keeps ogling my sister can make fun of me? Or Bob tells me to give it to someone else, like the goth bitch who used to be fat but now was an A-grade ‘would’? Except she’s the bitch who cut me.
Still would. But I’d make it hurt.
No, this ring is mine.
Josh took it from the inventory and put it on. Everyone was busy looking over the loot they got from their chest, so nobody noticed it. And the ring disappeared a second after it was around his finger. Weird.
“Who said that?” Josh shouted.
“Who said what?” Barton asked him, looking up from a book he’d gotten as a reward. Who the fuck got a book for a prize?
“Gotcha,” Josh said before biting his lip. I mean, gotcha.
A sound like someone sighing echoed in his head.
“You okay?” the nerd asked him.
“I’m fine. Thought I heard something. Never mind.”
“Okay,” Barton said, turning back to his book. “This will increase my Hex capacity by ten percent and damage by twenty-five percent,” he announced. “Epic Book of Hexing, baby!”
Nobody cares, Josh thought, then saw Bob come over and high five the nerd. I don’t, at least. Never realized Bob was a nerd. He hid it well, back in the Army.
You got that right. Used to think Bob was all right, but he turned out to be an asshole with asshole friends. Fuck him.
Wendy... Josh was worried about her. Something had happened to her. She’d always been weird, but she’d been okay. She was family, only real family he had.
A big brother always had to look out for his sister. He still felt like shit from hearing Eddie put hands on her. When he got back to Ohio, he was going to give that fucker a new smile right below the jaw with a razor blade.
But she had changed. That weird thing she did with her face. She was back to normal, but Josh still couldn’t get it out of her head, the way she had looked. Like a monster.
Can you fix Wendy?
True blood?
Josh had heard stuff like that. Enough jailbirds of his acquaintance had come back from the joint with shaved heads and tats about those German guys. Josh wasn’t German, though. Three quarters Irish, a fourth Polack, but that was okay.
Is that what I am? A pure blood?
Sure, bro. What’s in it for you?
People thought Josh was dumb. But Josh could tell when something sounded a little too good to be true. And the German tat guys were good people to know in prison, but outside the correctional system they never amounted to anything. Josh wasn’t about to make deals or get no tattoos without learning what was what.
No, Josh admitted. Not even Wendy.
Even thinking the words hurt. Made him feel ashamed of himself. Not that he was going to fess up about his feelings to some talking bling.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The Good Folk. You mean like leprechauns?
Josh had heard plenty of fairy tales from Grandma Hennessy, who had come from the old country. Realizing the ring came from the fairies disappointed him a little. Fairies were, well, not exactly something a man wanted to associate with.
But the stories also mentioned magic and riches, if you played your cards right.
You still ain’t told me what’s in it for you.
Now you’re talking nerd to me.
Spider-Man’s a weenie. Give me Superman powers. No, screw that, he’s a dork. I want to be Batman.
Josh smiled. Deal. What do I need to do?
More fucking blood. I never knew any bling that drank blood until this shit started.
Just keep that goth bitch away from me.
Okay. I approve.
There was some pain, but less than when the goth bitch cut him. Josh didn’t feel any different, though.
Is that it?
What does that mean in non-nerd?
Like, .22 long rifle bulletproof or fifty-cal bulletproof?
Okay, not bad.
“Josh, we’re moving on to the next room in five,” Bob called out.
“Roger that,” Josh said with a smile.
Things were finally looking up.
Barton:
You have gained 486 Unbound Essence and 41 gold coins. Total Unbound Essence: 548. Total Gold: 163.
You have gained 7 Uncommon Health Potions, 12 Uncommon Mana Potions, and 10 Uncommon Endurance Potions.
You have found 12 F-Grade Monster Cores (Minion), and 9 F-Grade Monster Cores (Lieutenant).
You have found:
* Ring of Hex Conversion (Epic, Finger): Durability: 500/500. Significance: 0. Traits: The ring increases your Hex capacity by 5 Tiers. Additionally, you can feed Monster Cores to the ring and convert their Essence into temporary Hex Tiers. 10 Essence from Monster Cores will provide the ring with an additional Hex Tiers. You can convert up to (Intelligence x 2) Monster Core Essence per day using the ring. The original 5 Tiers will be regained every 24 hours as well.
The third barracks had a similar mix of lieutenants and minions as the one before. Barton had to use most of the extra Hex Slots he had gained after leveling up. It had been worth it, though. Those Fireballs had made a huge difference.
Dahlia’s two active pets plus Bloodykee provided most of the additional firepower, and Bob tanked like a champ, with Wendy healing up a storm. Josh had shot a bunch of critters and actually started using Mana potions to keep his Skills and Item Traits going. Maybe stuff was beginning to sink in.
Sweet victory, more loot, and now he had enough to become a Third Level Hex Wizard.
His Skills were improving nicely, too: all his Hex related Skills had hit Beginner 3, even Improvised Hex (his level two acquisition), which he had spammed in the last battle, failing and burning Mana until Magick Darts finally went off and he killed a Ratling Champion Dahlia’s spider had softened up.
While everyone else did their bookkeeping – Dahlia had just hit second level and was busily looking through her available Skill list – he accepted the new level.
Congratulations! You are a Level 3 Hex Wizard!
You gain the following Attribute bonuses (Title rewards added in): +2 to Strength, +1 to Dexterity, +3 Constitution, +6 to Willpower, +5 to Intelligence, +3 to Perception, +1 to Charisma, +8 Free Points.
You gain the following Energy Pool bonuses: +20 Health, +40 Mana and +20 Endurance
Barton quickly assigned his freebie points. Five points took Intelligence to forty, and he dropped the rest into Perception to get it to twenty-nine. His stats were beginning to look respectable:
Barton Martinez (Human Ascendant)
Level 3 Hex-Mancer (Magick, Rules)
Health 108 Endurance 122 Mana 182
All his resource pools were at over a hundred, so the chances of getting one-shot had diminished considerably. Still nothing compared to Roland, but Roland was a monster, with an Epic Class and Mythic Cultivation. Competing with him was like pre-System Barton trying to compete with Albert Einstein.
The important thing was that he had six more Hex Tiers from Intelligence and level, another four from his Epic Book, five more from the ring, and up to eight extra Tiers if he could feed the ring enough Monster Cores.
His firepower was going to be off the chain! Even better, he had added three more Hexes to his Grimoire: Acid Jet (I), Grasping Earth (II), and Lesser Levitation (II).
Barton was ready to go. He clutched the book in one hand and his new wand (it did thirty points of damage per shot, and he could boost it up to a hundred percent for ten Mana) in the other.
He wanted to yell at everyone to get a move on but controlled himself. That would be rude. Instead, he watched them as they finished making their choices.
Dahlia looked very happy. Barton noticed that she had drawn another card, probably due to a new Skill or a level-up reward, now that she was a second level Fiend Mistress. She’d gotten another Fiend. Killodillo. That pocket monster could tank and taunt, so it was a perfect addition to the party.
“Nice card,” he told her.
She actually smiled at him, which made him feel funny. “Yes. I got a new Skill: Extra Card. I can draw a new card with every Beginner level. Still limited to six cards in my hand, though.”
“Awesome.”
He thought about giving her a hug, but he knew it would be awkward for him and probably repulsive to her, so he refrained. Besides, he thought that hugging Wendy might be nicer.
“Congrats,” he told her and went looking for Wendy. Maybe she had done something worthy of a hug.
She was sitting on the remains of a bunk bed, eyes closed. Probably doing some kind of divination. He noticed she had made it to third level. Good, now he had something to say.
When Barton took a tentative step toward her, she opened her eyes. It was kind of spooky.
“Congrats on hitting level three,” he told her.
“Thank you.” She paused for a second and looked around until she found what she was looking for. Who she was looking for. Barton followed her movement and spotted Josh, who was trying on a leather helmet he had found in his chest; it seemed to match the chest piece he had gained in the previous fight.
“He’s been acting different,” Wendy said softly. “And something is blocking me when I look at him. Blocking my senses.”
“Oh.”
That was the kind of problem that probably wouldn’t earn him a hug if he fixed it, but he liked fixing problems anyway.
“He has gotten quieter,” he said. “But while we were looting the second barracks, I noticed him talking to someone only he could see.”
Her already wide eyes got very big. “Did he? I was distracted then. Let me take a look.”
Barton picked up a Mana surge rolling out of her aura like steam off a boiling kettle. He watched Josh off the corner of his eye, to see if he noticed anything, but the guy seemed to be thinking hard about something, which was odd. He had put the helmet on and was staring into space.
“There is a presence with him,” Wendy whispered. “Like Roland’s Guide but hidden inside his aura. That is what is blocking my senses. I don’t get a feel for Josh anymore.”
“Possessed? Maybe it’s a cursed item. I should have been in charge of identifying objects, looking for curses. They are probably a thing in Dungeons. Curses, I mean.”
“Can you examine him?”
“System Analysis would give me a good diagnosis, but unless his Perception is low, I think he will notice.”
He’d tried the Skill on Bob before their last fight, and he’d said it felt like ‘having ants crawling inside my skin.’ That sounded like something that would be hard to miss.
“Let’s wait, then.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” he promised her.
“Thank you,” she said, and squeezed his hand.
It wasn’t a hug, but it did the trick.
Barton would kill for her.