7/18

  Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium

  8:25 AM

  The exterior of the stadium is very different from most Dracosys sites. Well, the building itself is the usual “smashed and stretched and defying architectural physics” but the odd thing is the line outside the building. National guards people are keeping armed citizens in a line as they wait their turns to be signed in by a couple more guards at a folding table in a big camp tent (for shade). It's almost blisteringly hot out here, and it's not even 9 AM. The guys (almost entirely men) waiting in line to enter the arena are sweating buckets.

  While we're walking up, a fight breaks out, weapons are drawn and very brave national guards people have to step in between morons with automatic weapons. There's shouting and arguing further back in the line. I see the looks on the faces of the troops and they look like this is rough, but almost expected from this lot of treasure seekers.

  As we approach there's even more shouts from the guys in line. Mostly boos. I've never been booed before. It makes me feel bad. I shout back, “yeah, yeah, shutting this down is saving your dumbass lives!” The angry would-be-arena-victims shout back.

  “Greedy pigs!”

  “Fucktard!”

  “More like ass-breakers!”

  “Give me like an hour in there!”

  “Dracosys cops gotta come down when the normal guys finally got a way to the top!”

  I turn away, just giving double middle fingers to the crowd. Ah, Los Angeles. City of Angels. Angels and assholes.

  “Have I mentioned that I hate this fucking city?” I say to Mercy.

  “Because you grew up in San Francisco?” she asks me.

  “No, because it sucks.” I am firm on this point.

  Quins offers, “like Glasgow, but hot.”

  “Glasgow sucks?” Odysseus asks. “I'd heard it was cold but nice.”

  “Oh, they know what they did,” Quins ominously says.

  We enter the stadium and just like the video showed, the inside has a sports betting/casino theme. There's red carpet, brass trimmings and dark wood everywhere. There's a desk where you can bet on fights, and there are screens above us where you can see inside the arena. Currently on screen there's a team of three people gunning down what looks like a horse-sized duck. It doesn't go well for the duck.

  We move past several robots who seem transparent. I'd heard that you can't actually fight the creatures stationed inside arena waiting areas. Because the Dracosys’s answer to America’s vandalism tendency was to make robot ghosts that are impervious to vandalism. At this point nothing surprises me.

  There's a few national guards inside to give us the lowdown.

  “Name's Jeffries,” the guy introduces himself. “Go inside the inner lobby, pull the lever, pray. 1st number is enemy tier, second and third are level. Second number increases by 1 after it stops, because of the whole plus ten levels bullshit in the last update. Questions?”

  This guy sure has said all this before to hundreds of people.

  “What are the desks for?” I ask mentioning the sports betting spots.

  Jeffries explains. “You can gamble on fights. You can only bet levels, but get treasure and money in return. If you win you get the levels back. We don't advise people bet anymore. The slot machine is too random.”

  I turn to the table and see Odysseus at it. “Odysseus!” I yell over at him.

  “I'm gonna see what the odds are,” the deep-voiced man says.

  Jeffries chastises him. “You can only bet once fighters are in the slot room, and before they pull the lever.”

  Ivy joins Odysseus, along with Quins. Quins turns to me and says, “hey chief, go kill something, would ya?”

  I hang my head. These dummies.

  Mercy turns towards the slot machine room, and yells back, “fine, but we get a cut of whatever you win!”

  We have to wait for the duck-killing team to exit. They come out of the slot machine room carrying some pillows and looking quite down. I scan a pillow.

  Duck! Down! Pillow. Sleeping on the pillow provides a +5 Agility boost for a number of hours equal to the hours you slept on it. So make sure you're not skipping sleep! It's important!

  I explain the effect to the three and they turn their frowns upside down.

  “Wot chu buy these for, man?” the muscle-bound leader asks. He's got that “I'm a real tough guy” attitude which I came to absolutely despise in the Army.

  I roll my eyes at him. “From you? Nothing.”

  He gets in my face. “What, I'm not good enough for you? My shit ain't good enough?” He's shouting the last part. His own spittle gets trapped in his thick mustache. He's furious. I'm not sure if he's on something illicit or he's just full of adrenaline from his horse-sized-duck fight.

  Jeffries pulls him back while I just smile at the muscle head. I haven't been scared of a human in years. “I like your shirt!” I say cheerily, pointing at his red and yellow Hawaiian shirt.

  The man immediately calms down. “Oh, thanks, it was a gift from my mother.” Afterwards he takes his friends and his pillows away.

  You know, sometimes I say that dungeons are weird, but I'm pretty sure people are stranger still.

  We enter the smaller chamber with a large slot machine on the wall. The reels are several feet tall. I look around and this room looks like a baseball team's locker room, which I suppose makes sense. I check a locker. It's locked. I have to smash it open. Inside is a black and white baseball jersey.

  Dantalion #71 official jersey. Wearing this jersey makes you a fan of demonic baseball. What, your local channel doesn't carry demonic baseball? Call your local station or cable provider today!

  I take the jersey. Seems like a dumb, fun thing to wear.

  Mercy has pulled the lever. She's currently in her Pathbreakers uniform, but transforms into her new costume as the reels slow.

  Psi Dragon Ren is a side character from a gatcha cell phone game. She's (Ren) not much more than a busty brown skinned woman in purple armor and purple dragon wings. She's got psychic powers. Her entire written out backstory is “Ren was born a half dragon, but her own intellect developed psychic powers instead of draconic ones.” That's gacha games for you, 300 different characters and zero character. Anyways, Mercy likes the sleek armor design and that Ren is a powerful woman of color, which is really rare for those types of games.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  The armor for this costume is actual metal even before Mercy's costume powers kick in, thanks to our resident Smith, Arushi. It's thin layers of metal that hug Mercy's curves without being revealing. The outfit has a black skirt that's mid-thigh length in front and mid-calf length in back. Mercy also has dragon wings in this form, which shine with purple psychic energy. With her costume powers, she can actually flap them to fly. Mercy's purple hair is tied in one big braid to match the character. My girlfriend pays great attention to detail. Her colored contacts are golden yellow. Yeah, she's that level of committed to the details.

  By the way, Mercy wears different colored contacts all the dang time. So if I've mentioned her eyes before, they might have had some odd color. Her natural color is this deep, dark brown that I totally get lost in all the time. Heh, I really like this girl.

  Anyways, arena business. Each reel only has the numbers one through six on it. We've been told that we just have to fight a battle of 666 or higher power to close this place. So it's going to be a series of random fights. Our first number is...

  Reel result: 362

  The door behind us closes and the doors in front of us open onto the baseball diamond. We exit the visitors team dugout and step onto the red grass and await our first foes.

  An announcement carries over a PA system. “Teleporting in from the third ring of hell, iiiit's the Glass Eateeers!”

  Three 18 foot tall mounds of broken glass teleport in.

  Glass Eater. Tier 3. It's a slime that ate a lot of glass.

  Possible loot: Bag Of Glass

  Mercy holds her hands in front of her, creating a wide, flat energy barrier in front of us. The purple energy deflects dozens of shards of glass that fire on us from the mounds, which are slowly rolling towards us.

  I have my spell shot revolver loaded with spells that won't shatter my arm, but I'm saving that for later. I do, however, want to impress my costume afficionado GF.

  I shout, “Solar Mind! Chimerablood Rise!”

  Dozens of plates of solar energy shimmer around me, coming into existence as if out of a heat haze. The plates briefly ignite with orange fire, then each one snaps down onto my body, forming an entire suit of armor, including a helmet. Then a digitized system voice echoes in my head.

  Relentless Heat. The sun wolf howls!

  The armor is high-gloss orange with faintly glowing yellow trim, and my white uniform peeks out between the heavy looking medieval plate. Well, medieval if the artist also watched too much anime. The gauntlets and boots are clawed, and the helmet has a wolf's head design, with a dozen short spike-like flanges on each side of the helmet.

  Mercy looks at me and smiles. “New power?” she asks.

  “New accessory,” I say, pointing at the bracelet that's still visible and looks built into my right gauntlet. I hold my hand out and flames spin into a large flaming maul, complete with spiked head. I heft it over my shoulder with one hand. I stride out from behind the Psi barrier and glass shards pelt me with no effect. Chunks of glass literally shatter against this new armor. I smile behind the wolf's head helmet. Maybe I'm not a goku or a superman. But I sure as shit can be a Kamen Rider.

  I dash forward and plant my left foot right in front of the first glass mound, then swing my big-ass hammer like a baseball bat. Upon impact the top half of the glass monster explodes backwards, raining glass shrapnel across the stadium behind it. I spin on my left foot and come back around with an overhead slam that sends a wave of flames out from the point of impact on the creature. The glass turns red hot and becomes molten. I throw the hammer away, letting it dissipate into flames.

  I dash over to the second mound and leap, pulling a 15 foot long greatsword out of flames. I cleave down with the sword, chopping the second monster in half, the two halves splitting apart while igniting in flames.

  I turn to the third monster but Mercy's got this one. She expands her barrier then flips it on its side, then throws the 20 foot wide barrier like a discus. The purple disc slices right through the monster, but then Mercy gestures up and then down with a finger. The disc follows her command and flies up and then crashes down on the glass creature, where it then spins like a buzz saw, sending glass shards in every direction.

  I let my transformation fall. My armor shines, then as the light fades the armor is gone.

  Mercy is pouting. “How come you get a cool costume for free and I have to make mine, huh?”

  “It wasn't free. I paid for it.”

  She squints at me. “And just how much went into the system store for that bracelet?”

  “Ehhh, well... Oh look! The loot dropped quickly!”

  Bag Of Glass. Kids love it! Bag of glass! Contains an infinite number of broken glass shards. Fun for the whole family!

  We head back to the prep room and spin the wheel again.

  Reel result: 456

  The grass of the baseball field is much taller than normal.

  Solar Mind! Chimerablood Rise!

  Relentless Heat. The sun wolf howls!

  I summon ten flame scythes and sweep them low across the ground with telekinesis. The field ignites and flames spread across the arena like a wave. Some sort of monsters die, apparently, because after the flames sweep through the room there's some loot left behind.

  Mole Maniac Gloves. Allows you to dig through the dirt like a mole. Mole Mania is a criminally underrated Game Boy game that still holds up. You should see if it's on the Switch Virtual Console.

  The items are trash but thanks for the tip about a hidden gem!

  Reel result: 256

  A rainbow of three inch cubes floats before us. I'm not sure if it's one enemy or many. Mercy fires purple psy needles like a shotgun blast and blows them away. The insides of the cubes look like geodes. Neat.

  Glow Stone (x183). This can be set to any of 256 different colors and will glow forever.

  Reel result: 564

  The enemy is a man in a black ninja outfit with a long red scarf.

  Black Flame Ninja, 5th rank. Tier 5. This master of fire and dark magic shouldn't be underestimated under any-

  I don't get to finish reading the scan as the ninja seems to teleport behind me. I roll forward and Mercy tries to use a psy punch on it, but the ninja is pretty damn quick. It back flips over her and I don my Sun Wolf armor in a flash of fire and light.

  Mercy uses a backhand to fire a psy shotgun blast but the ninja dives into his own shadow to evade the attack. He pops out from Mercy's shadow, slashing upwards with a tanto. The blade scrapes across Mercy's leg, back and left wing. I reach for the ninja to pull him away but he grabs my wrist and uses it to flip himself over my head. He lands behind me and I do a reverse headbutt, catching him by surprise. He staggers back away from me and I form two longswords from swirling flames, catching them in my hands as I spin around to face the ninja.

  His right hand extends and burning shuriken fly out, but I ignore them. They clatter off my armor. I dash forward and slash left and right with both swords but the ninja drops into his shadow again. This time I know what to expect and drive my blades straight down as he rises up out of my shadow. My swords catch him in the shoulders and acidic green blood sprays up in two jets. I have to leap back as the acid sizzles against my armor. The ninja pulls the swords from his own shoulders and throws them at me, but I just dismiss them in a flash of fire.

  Mercy launches a flurry of psi punches at the ninja which hit him in the back. With each punch she sends an orb of purple force flying forward to the ninja. She advances while jabbing repeatedly like a boxer, going for speed rather than heavy blows. The ninja gets pushed forward towards me and I take advantage of the stagger to sweep a Sol Arms longsword across his thighs, spraying more acid blood to the sides. Mercy gets to the ninja as he topples forward and she touches the back of his head. His entire body is outlined in purple as her telekinesis takes hold of him, and she flings him straight up. He flies dozens of feet up and as he reaches the end of Mercy's range he comes to an abrupt stop. Then she pulls down on him, sending him hurtling towards the ground. I prepare a bed of dozens of solar daggers for him to land on. Acid blood sprays high into the air as he essentially explodes.

  Black Flame Scarf. If you wear this scarf your elemental attunement transitions towards the dark and fire elements, eventually growing to third tier attunement over the course of three hours. If worn for nine hours the change to your alignment becomes permanent but this scarf loses this ability.

  It's an interesting item. We don't often get alignment changing items.

  “Maybe Maddie would want it?” Mercy asks after I explain the effect. “She's leaning into fire nowadays.”

  I nod and put the scarf in my inventory, which is a lot smaller than it used to be. The Luck (which governs inventory size) I lent Jose got burned up with his Second Chance and I didn't get it back.

  Reel result: 364

  Hedge Wizard. Tier 3. A living hedge that also casts spells.

  Possible loot: Seeds.

  It's topiary shaped like old fashioned wizards. The dark green leaves occasionally move to the side to reveal bloodless organs closer to the trunk of the bush. Mercy mercilessly fires off a volley of psy bolts and the dozen shrubs get blasted apart as they begin to cast spells. The organs explode in green sap.

  Staff Seed. Plant this seed and wait for like three months. A random magical staff will grow. Don't forget to water it.

  Wow. Something useful three months from now. Great /sarcasm.

  Reel result 246

  Penguins armed with rocket launchers. We got tiny, penguin sized rocket launchers as loot. Seems like they'll be fun at a party. Also, killing penguins made us both sad.

  Reel result 364

  “I'm starting to feel bored by these things,” I say, standing over the corpses of zombie fishermen. I kick one. It drops a fishing rod. My inventory is full so I just grab it.

  “Should we make the others do a few runs?” Mercy asks, holding up a blue vest with too many pockets. She inspects it, then tosses it aside.

  I sigh. “We could at least make them come with us. I don't want them to fight something tier 6 without me.”

  She shrugs. “At least let me sit out the next few so I can use the toilet?”

  I agree.

  Reel result 226

  “Boss,” starts Quins. “Want me to do the whole lot of them?”

  We're facing down about a hundred tier 2, waist-high robots. Their heads are just binoculars, their bodies look like boxy old toy robots from the mid 20th century. Oh, the binoculars have actual human eyeballs in them. Gross.

  I look at the very slowly advancing horde. “Sure, impress me.”

  Quins draws a palm-sized blue cube and throws it up above the crowd, where it hovers at the apex of its flight, some 80 feet up. Then Quins draws an arrow with a glowing yellow arrowhead, sweeps his aim across the group, then fires the arrow into the cube. The cube turns into dozens of arrows which rain down, each one piercing a robot from above, right between the binoculars. The robots all glitch out and fall over. A little bit of oil leaks out of each one.

  “Multiplier Cube,” Quins says. “Plus a Sure Shot arrow. Just have to mentally target somethin’ an’ it'll get hit by the rain.”

  “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” I rhetorically ask.

  Quins goes on to explain that the Multiplier Cube has a strict limit of how powerful the item it replicates is versus the number of items it makes versus the duration on those items. In short, his guided arrows count as “weak” items, so his cube can make lots of them but they disappear quickly. Which is just fine for an arrow rain attack. Doing the same trick with explosive arrows makes about a dozen arrows, but they lose any accuracy. So he can use that like a cluster bomb.

  The old, combat-related item creation classes like Engineer and Tinkerer are something that I haven't touched yet, and that's on purpose. They rely on Luck (which I didn't have much of before, and don't now). After you make an item it goes on a cool down of sorts, where it has a time in which it'll recharge, but also a very, very small chance that it'll immediately refresh every second. Both the regular recovery speed and instant refresh chance are based on Luck. To be honest, I'm not super comfortable with stuff that I can't 100% rely on. Having a physical flame thrower instead of magic could be just as effective, but not knowing exactly when I'll be able to use it again would drive me absolutely nuts.

  Quins solves that problem by having a variety of Creations he can make, and he's got multiples of the ones he uses most. Apparently you can have multiple “explosive arrow” Creations and as you use them they each have their own cool downs. Which, to me, sounds like a pain to manage. I'll stick to the straight-forward Arcana and Ki point spending, thanks.

  We loot the robots, which drop binoculars and toy robots and actual human eyeballs. We don't take the eyeballs.

  With yet another pointless battle done, we head back to the prep room, spin the reels and wait for them to stop.

  Reel result: 663

  The second 6 switches to a 7, for a total of 673. Boss time.