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The Gamer Chapter 1471 – 27 Days of Preparation 24 – Long Unused Mechanics
🕑 Added 2023-07-03 09:45:55 +0000 UTC
“Man, I haven’t used this in forever,” John, in the form of the Creator Puppet, said out loud. Typically he only touched this window when he disabled the Loot for an Assault. Just how long he hadn’t made use of it was evident in the item that was still in the Loot Focus. Putting an item into that Slot meant that it could theoretically drop from any future enemy, for as long as the item remained there. The Symbiotic Riddle was a Revealer of Secrets – an item that unlocked Secret Rooms when he came across them.
Just that the Symbiotic Riddle only worked up to Tier 28. Something that he had ever so slightly exceeded by now. Just because he could, he chucked a crafting material in there instead. Chances that more Solunium ingots dropped were ludicrously low, because Gaia typically adjusted the rates on a per item basis.
Which was a necessary design compromise, considering that the Celexium ingots were more worthy of the Legendary than Epic moniker, but that would have messed with the way John’s Loot tables worked, so… it was all a big mess of tape and spaghetti code.
‘Just like all the other games I enjoy,’ John thought and rolled his metal neck. “We’re just doing casual runs. So, the Experience gain isn’t a priority, and we might as well get some more Rare items while we’re at it… don’t think we need the Aids and… I only just realized there’s Loot twice in this window, that’s weird.”
“Well, that takes care of that,” John hummed out loud. “I wouldn’t mind a few more Horrors, just to spice things up… and I’ll crank up the Rare Spawn chance as much as possible, maybe something interesting will happen. Traps and Mimics can stay, I suppose… don’t need Secret Rooms, because we don’t have any keys, will keep the Trap and Treasure Rooms… and then we just finetune it all a bit….”
“There we go,” John said and clapped his hands. “Everyone ready?”
“Duh,” Rave cried out. “Why’re we doing all this nerd stuff?”
“Because I just remembered I had it,” John told her and gave his crew a once over. “What a nostalgic combination.”
“Huh?” Rave was confused for a moment, then looked around. It was her, Salamander, Gnome and Aclysia. “Huh. Yeah, I guess it’s kinda been a while since it’s been just us.”
This was his original party. Granted, Salamander was a late addition to it, but this was still the five people party in which he had done most of his early grinding. By the time he had acquired Sylph and Undine, he had been preparing for the incoming assault by the Bloodfallen. After that, it was a cascade of events, leading to Eliana’s (then Thana’s) freeing, Rave’s short death, and John’s journey to Europe as a direct consequence.
“Simpler days…” Gnome let out a long, nostalgic sigh, while the world changed around them.
John took the list from the top. Since they had already cleared one dungeon (or he had, the previous party members had been tagged out), they were going for the second Floor dungeon on the list: Angels. Historically a mixed bag of encounters.
They found themselves in a glorious gleaming hall. A pretty standard thematic when it came to Angel dungeons. It couldn’t have been that easy to find variations when it came to the whole ‘holy’ theme. Not that she really needed to. There was something comforting in finding something expected when entering an Instant Dungeon. It was similar to the comfort of watching a predictable story play out, with the hero saving the day and getting the princess at the end of a long and arduous journey.
That had been John’s life once.
‘Actually, it kind of is, still,’ he considered, remembering how Claire had joined his harem. That was besides the point though. “Do you ever want to go back to the early days, Gnome?” he asked and stepped off the gold-silver spawning platform.
“Not really? I… uhm… I do like the simplicity of those days.” Gnome rapidly moved to the front of the formation. Rave deliberately fell a few steps back, joining John in the second row. Behind them hovered Salamander, and behind her, Aclysia was watching their rear.
There wasn’t much to watch at the moment. They were in some kind of tunnel. The walls were made of brightly coloured crystals, some of them jutting out of the gently curved oval of the corridor’s boundaries in formations resembling wings. In irregular intervals, golden rings, less than a hand width thick, interrupted the crystalline nature of the environment. Beyond that, there was little to report about the uneven corridor, half cave and half formation. Constant up and down, left and right, and curves and crossroads made it impossible to look too far ahead.
“I don’t like that we were just… upstarts,” Gnome continued. “It was dangerous and… yeah, uhm, I d-don’t really like danger?”
“Why the fuck do you sound uncertain about that, chief rock?” Salamander asked, a cackle behind her red smile.
“Just general nervousness?” Gnome suggested.
“I remember when you didn’t have that,” Salamander stated.
“I’d rather not think of the time Gnome looked like a four year old,” John joined in immediately. “Kind of makes the thing we got going on right now a tad weird.”
“Why? You never wanted her when she looked like that?”
“A-and you didn’t protest when I asked that we… do the thing right after I changed!”
“Well, for one, of course I didn’t because then you were hot adult you and I was… I don’t know, it would be inaccurate to say I was hornier back then than I am now, Stat-wise.” John scratched the back of his head, contemplating the correct way to express this. His hand only brushed over smooth metal. “I’d say I was needier for physical affection?”
“Psh, like that changed. How many cuddle piles are ya in right now? Two?” Rave asked. That sassy smirk of hers was the same, even if the face around it had changed ever so subtly over the past two years.
“The maximum is two, unless you decide we’ll have a cuddle pile mid dungeon.”
“Don’t ya tempt me, tiger.” Rave purred.
Their conversation came to a sudden halt when the corridor before them broadened like an expanding lung. Concentric rings with seven wings floating around them emerged. Large silver eyes opened at the centres of the rotating golden bands, focusing on the party.
One immediately took a flying, burning rock to the iris. “HAH!” Salamander exclaimed with glee.
“Impressive shot,” John complimented, trying to replicate the success by loosening a bolt at the second biblically accurate angel. The piercing mass of shadows drilled a hole into one of the rings, but otherwise achieved nothing. Clicking his tongue, or at least replicating that particular sound, John left it to his fiancée to try. ‘I still love how that sounds in my head.’
Rave rushed in, weaving past a laser attack and then shoving her light-clawed hand past the outer rings. Before the limb could get stuck between the various swirling orbitals, the feline Lightbearer unleashed a blast of concentrated light, mirroring a shotgun – except the pellets were replaced with magical sunrays.
Which was far from the rainbowy image an inexperienced person may have when hearing that description for the first time. The superheated light turned the silver eye into a scattering of dust against the wall.
“Ya thinking about how nice fiancée sounds in your head, tiger?” Rave asked as she strutted back.
“Your mind reading power must be waning if you even have to ask,” John responded.
“I forgot how fucking easy these things are.” Standing in the ashes of her victim, Salamander looked around for something else to set on fire. “Like, not these things specifically, just enemies from regular Instant Dungeons.”
“Well, this is supposed to be the ‘casual’ content.” John gestured and Gnome took point again. For no reason other than his intuition, they took a right turn. The three-dimensional layout of this maze meant navigating it was useless anyway. They’d either stumble over an orientation point or the boss room at some point. In either case, John was drawing a mental map as they walked.
“Ya know how ya always draw that mental map?” Rave asked.
“That’s twice in a row that you had to ask what my thoughts are.”
“Honestly, this time was just a coincidence,” the feline Lightbearer confessed. “I was just gonna say that I can kinda do that too now and that feels weirdo.”
“I am not sure you can use weirdo like that.”
“Last I checked, I’m the First Lady, so I can set the language rules.”
“And I am still not sure that’s how language works… Anyway, it’s not really a surprise. Your Intellect isn’t your primary rising Stat, but it is rising. Especially when you are fused to Cappy… how is that by the way?”
“When we’re like this, there ain’t anything.” Rave wiggled the light-extended fingers of her left hand. “No real difference between him and I. I’m just in charge, and if I kinda concentrate, I could access his memories if I wanted.”
“I wonder if you could reverse this if you wanted….”
“Ja.”
“Really? When did you test that? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t? Coulda sworn I did… anyway, it ain’t that handy. We can only do it when we’re in the Light Plane, or whatever ya call it.” She proceeded to say a single word that John couldn’t understand. “Weird that I know old elemental when I’m like this, but not otherwise.”
“Interesting… the first thing, that is. Guess it’s because that is his realm and this is kind of yours?”
“The heck ya mean ‘kinda’? Ya seen my cute butt? Obviously, this whole world is at my feet.”
“You say that in jest,” Aclysia joined the conversation for the first time since they had entered the Instant Dungeon. “Speaking logically, my… our-“
“It’s just us, Aclysia, ya can have your ‘my’.” Rave laughed. “I ain’t insecure enough to think ya would steal him from me.”
“-John will eventually rule the entire globe,” Aclysia finished the sentence before responding with a curt nod. “Much appreciated, Jane.”
“Huh, that’s a thought.” Rave tapped her chin repeatedly with her index finger. The Creator Puppet’s eyes were drawn to her bubble gum pink, glossy lips. Luckily, this body did not have the capacity to get hard. “I s’pose the world will be put to my feet one day.”
“If you want that,” John said earnestly.
“I’ll think about it.”
Their conversation was put into another temporary halt when four more of the enemies rose from the ground. Shot lasers forced the party to duck behind particularly large crystal formations along the walls for cover.
“I-I’ll take care of it,” Gnome assured. Four butterflies swarmed out from her red dress. A summer dress, literally in her case, made from brightly coloured flower petals and other vibrant plant matter. “Is it really that awkward to think about when I looked like a child?”
“That’s a question only an elemental could ask,” John assured her. For beings that had no proper concept of how age related to appearance, because it didn’t apply to them, the weirdness would not be present. “Wonder if that will go away when you have a kid…”
“Which reminds me, we didn’t do the breeding order yet,” Rave stated.
Beyond the cover, there was a simultaneous creation and expansion of four rods of stone, prying open the enemies. The beam attacks ended abruptly and John raised his head over the cover to find thin trees of rock standing where the enemies had been. “Good job, Gnome,” he complimented the season elemental and got out of cover.
“No comment on the breeding order, you fucking degenerate?” Salamander asked.
“I mean, what comment do you expect me to have? That I love the idea that there needs to be an order that I impregnate all 21 of you in?”
“If it stays at 21,” Aclysia remarked.
“It will, for the time being,” John said, as certain as he possibly could be.
Aclysia smiled, a sensation of contentment radiating from her thoughts. Was she that pleased that he had elected to spend more time with his current haremettes before he went and introduced more members into his already absurdly large household or was something else afoot? It felt like she was happy with some decision she had made herself.
‘There definitely is a stalker,’ John thought. ‘Is there?’ By now, his frustration at this riddle had grown into an appreciation. Because he could resolve it whenever he wanted and because he trusted everyone involved immensely, it was less a threat and more of a game. As long as he looked at it like that, he could keep his second guesses in check.
Aclysia visibly had to keep herself from running up from the backline to give him a big loving hug. Regardless of whether she was in cosplay, a maid outfit, or clad in black scales and glacial ice, the weaponized maid remained ever diligent to her task of protecting him first and cuddling him only once they had reached a safe area.
They advanced through the dungeon, conversation bouncing all over the place. “All I’m saying is that ya definitely got more into boobs since we got together.”
“Well, can you blame me?” John asked, gesturing in Salamander’s general direction. The apocalypse elementals squished her obscenely huge tits together, even dropping the fire bra for a moment to show off just how much meat was spilling between her fingers.
“I ain’t blaming ya for anything, just observing things.”
“You sure? Because I remember you having some jealousy about large boobs in the past.”
“A, I never was jealous about big boobs, just getting kinda sick that guys always drooled after the big titted gals,” Rave clarified. “Two, I ain’t got no reason to get jealous, since I’mma have Ds before the next decade is over.”
“What, are you still growing?” John asked and checked out his girlfriend’s tits. Those sweater puppies had swollen from B to C already, there was no guarantee it would stop there. “Or are you saying that…”
“They’ll get bigger once there’s milk in there, yes. Average boob size in your harem has gone up over time.”
That was definitely true. John had been most appreciative of the B to D range in the past, nowadays he was more of a C to E range kinda guy – not that he minded any size of breast that he got to touch. Still, Rave had been a B-cup, Aclysia had been a B-cup, Salamander had been a DD-cup, the list went on like this. A lot of haremettes had gone up a cup size or two over time.
“Ya also used to have one big case of yellow fever.”
“That was pure coincidence,” John assured her. The first two women that he had regularly slept with and the starting point of his harem were Rave and Aclysia. Rave had that half-Japanese aesthetic, with very clear Asian overtones, while Aclysia had originally been modelled after a character from a Japanese game. After that, Gnome had been the next to really join his harem, and she had that Korean feel, which was ever so slightly different. Between them, there had been Victoria (that traitorous and very dead bitch) and Nathalia, both of which had not exactly been part of his harem. It had not been until Salamander joined that there was an ethnicity/aesthetic besides Asian among his loves.
Which was an odd coincidence for someone from the middle of the USA.
“Speaking of nostalgia…” Gnome stated, after turning a corner.
The rest of them caught up, finding themselves in an open space that served as an intersection. There was one path deeper into the dungeon right ahead and a path to the right that led into a medium sized room. Down the short corridor that led into it, on the opposite wall from the entrance, a large, gleaming chest was conspicuously placed to entice them.
“A Trap Room,” John stated.
“C-could be a Treasure Room,” Gnome said.
“Ja, it could be, but what’re the odds of that?”
“About equal, mathematically, which means it’s a Trap Room guaranteed until it isn’t,” John said.
“Makes no fucking sense and yet all of the fucking sense,” Salamander stated. “This is the kind of room that you found Nathy in, right?”
“Affirmative… exactly that kind of room. Even the layout is the same.”
“What are the odds we find another goddess in a chest?” John joked. “Zero. Gaia will put someone else in there, if anyone.”
“Wh-Ooooohhh, right… ya think, really?”
“Only one way to find out,” John said and gestured for Gnome to take the lead. “If I may take the rear on this one.”
As party leader, he did.
Comments
Funatic
I was going to do much of this anyway, but I would lie if I said doing the rewrite at this time wasn't upping the detail/frequency of the early references. Its nice to have some refreshers on things and remember this and that are still the same series of events, as far apart as they seem now.
Cal
This is pure nostalgia and I am here for it! I can definitely tell that you've been working on the rewrite with all of these references, it's nice to remember how far they've all come. I also really like how you're handling the Layla mystery. It'll still be an interesting reveal, but there's no danger of overt suspicion or feelings of betrayal with how much John trusts those involved. Very excited to see how it all plays out.
Charles bell
It surely has been a long time since we last saw the angel
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