Chances of Death: Seven Decks Book I

by S Bailey

  “You’re like a walking space ring” exclaimed Sam.

  Jen was a little stunned herself, but cracked up at Sam’s expression and said, “Apparently mana cats are considered to be loot monsters. He looted everything from Vicki Chang and every other adventurer he had to kill over the last 200 years.”

  Sam finally found his tongue and said, “You’re kind of like a dragon in there sitting on top of all that loot!”

  Slim hissed at Sam with anger and said, “I will excuse your ignorance this time but never compare me to those fat and lazy lizards!”

  “Sorry, I don’t know what got into me comparing you to a fat and lazy lizard that likes to sleep on loot.” Sam replied sarcastically.

  Jen cracked up at Sam’s joke, and Slim pretended to ignore the two stupid, but lovable maybe? humans.

  Chapter 52:

  Pest Control

  Slim was exploring the warehouse where Jen and Log exercised and performed their strange experiments, when he noticed Jen feeding mice, rats, lizards, and some other pest animals, and he said, “I don’t need you to hunt for me, young one.”

  Jen laughed, “These little guys are not for you, Slim. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to communicate with them and get them to let me see through their eyes for spying and gathering information.

  Slim replied, “That will never work; they are too stupid. You need to dominate their minds and control them like puppets. Reach for their mind. You call it your onboard, and push out their consciousness completely.” Jen cringed at the idea of basically destroying the animal’s mind to control it.

  Slim replied, “I don’t know why that bothers you; they are not thinking beings. Up to you.”

  Jen grudgingly agreed with Slim and focused her psych ability toward the mouse’s onboard. However, she focused on simply pushing the mouse’s mind to the background and creating a remote terminal for her to access, in order to control the mouse’s onboard. It was strange, with her eyes closed, she was “looking” at her onboard’s screen and seeing out the mouse’s eyes. It was like watching a security monitor where you could control the direction the camera was pointing.

  System Message – Psych Skill Level 50: Journeyman

  ==

  For entering the journeyman rank you are rewarded with a new spell: Mental Manipulation – Level 1. Imbue your words with mana to get others to do your bidding.

  ==

  While reading her system message, she barely heard Slim say, “You’ve got it. Vicki Chang just crushed the minds of animals she controlled, but I can sense you figured out a way to just push their conscious aside momentarily. I don’t know if you have as much control as she did, but I am glad I am with you now, gentle heart. I’m heading out for a bit, but I will be staying in the city. If I am not around when you are about to Deck jump, just call me.”

  Jen called out blindly with her eyes closed, still looking through her mouse-eye video and thinking about her new spell, “Thanks for the help, Slim! Be safe!”

  Slim snorted at her last comment, but he knew she meant well.

  Jen was excited to try out her mental manipulation spell, but she was even more interested in controlling her little spy force.

  It took her over a week of trial and error, but she finally figured out the best way for her to control her animals was by creating a “First Person Shooter” app in her onboard. With the app and keyboard, she would control the animal, just like in a FPS video game.

  “This is awesome,” Jen giggled to herself as she wiggled under the door into Sam’s workshop. She was running this little mission with her lizard. She was narrating like those YouTubers back on Earth, “Up the wall we go. Now, we are going to look over Sam’s workbench, and we are waiting for just the right moment, and jump……”

  Chapter 53:

  Bloody Lizard

  Sam was in a foul mood. “We need to jump to the next Deck soon, but I haven’t been able to create a really powerful offensive or defensive weapon that will protect us and grow as our levels increase! I also haven’t found a mundane weapon in this world that we can use to protect ourselves when we get transported.”

  Jen and Sam were flush with money; he had just finished a contract with the Arc Guild which paid them an enormous amount of gold, and his part in it was kept anonymous.

  Sam had created some permanent air conditioning and heating enchantments (HVAE – Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Enchantments) out of high-quality steel rods mixed with monster-core dust. He built the enchanted boxes and had them installed in all the rooms of the Arc Guild’s headquarters and then he ran iron “wire” from the boxes to a central power supply that contained a mana charging enchantment for mages to re-charge everything once a week. The downside was that he estimated the entire HVAE unit would only have about a 10-year life expectancy.

  He also installed a refrigerator and oven for the Arc’s cooks – they called them cold boxes and hot boxes. These were somewhat crude, because to control the amount of cold or heat the box created, you had to actually switch the enchantment that was made to snap into the top of the box.

  He made four enchantment rods for each box that varied in temperature. Just thinking about the crudeness of his temperature control system pissed Sam off. However, Director Devon wanted to pay him to travel all over the Deck building HVAEs and cold/hot boxes in all the Arc Guild branches.

  Director Devon knew they were looking for a family member, and politely asked him multiple times to join the guild, offering to help him travel, provide him with all the materials he needed, and even to help them jump a Deck if they were interested.

  Sam politely declined, but he could tell they wanted to know how his enchantments worked. He didn’t blame them; he himself stripped the secrets out of the enchantments owned by other people.

  Sam was gaining a decent amount of experience with all his enchantments and inventions, but after he made a new enchantment once, he received almost no experience points for re-creating them. He even made it to level 45 in his words of understanding skill. Sam gained 6 more ability points from a few good gambling-quests related to his enchantment work, but unfortunately, he lost 2 ability points overestimating his own skill in fixing a couple of enchantments. To Jen’s frustration he kept putting all his “winnings” back into his luck stat.

  Jen beat him over the head about keeping his skill-level secret and constantly reminded him of the risk of being kidnapped, if his true level became known. They were both continuing to increase their stats through training, but they were reaching a limit on being able to challenge themselves within the city and the surrounding area.

  “That’s what pisses me off!” Sam thought as he was working on some of the daily charms for the store. “Our rifles work, but for how long! Tamako’s body is probably strong enough to take shots to her tempered body…..Ha! ‘Hot body’ ha! Need to remember that to bug Jen… Back on track, she could take 8 to 10 shots to her body before going down, and unless you got a solid headshot on her, she would still be in the fight.”

  Sam continued muttering to himself, going round and round in his mind trying to come up with a weapon or armor solution that would grow stronger as they grew stronger. Neither he nor Jen had enough mana to use the legacy scrolls, but even if they did, that’s not what he wanted to do with them. As he decrypted each symbol in the scroll, that piece of the scroll would evaporate. Sam was almost finished with converting them into enchantments, but he was worried about finding any material on the First Deck that would be strong enough handle the enchantments. He felt like he should have more “something” before they jumped to the Second Deck.

  “Shit!” Sam yelped, as a lizard jumped across his arm causing him to cut himself with his engraving tool, and his hand was bleeding all over the minor healing charm he had been working on. Sam quickly charged up the charm to heal his hand.

  “God damnit, that is so obvious!” he said quietly and tersely to himself, as he watched the blood-covered enchantment on the
charm soak up the mana like a sponge.

  “Jen, you got a minute,” he hollered to her in the other room.

  Jen hadn’t meant for her little lizard distraction to cause Sam to cut his hand, and she replied using her onboard, “I’ll be over there in just a second. I didn’t think a lizard would startle you so much?”

  “Yes sir, what’s up, sir? Did the lizard scare you, sir?” Jen mocked as she walked into the room a few minutes later.

  “Don’t call me ‘sir;’ I work for a living,” Sam automatically responded from his military days. Jen thought she just might have found something that annoyed Sam!

  “I’ve discovered something, but wait, I almost forgot: how’s that hard body of yours doing?” he smirked.

  Jen just looked at him not needing to pretend that she was confused by his stupid joke.

  Then Sam went into explanation mode. “You know, strength stat for your body, hard body?” he said looking at Jen for approval for his pun.

  “When you feel the need to explain one of your stupid puns, that’s nature’s way of telling you, that you’re an Old Man, sir,” Jen replied shaking her head at him with disappointment.

  “Ha Ha,” Sam responded rolling his eyes.

  Jen could tell her barb bugged Sam just the tiniest bit, “Two swings and two hits!” Jen thought, and then said guiltily, “I’m sorry about the lizard.”

  Sam, looked funny at her. “Thanks, but not your fault.”

  Jen cringed and said, “Well….it kinda was. I was practicing my new FPA “First Person Animal” psych app, and I didn’t expect the jump to startle you so much.”

  Sam was stunned. “You mean you’re controlling them enough to run them around all over the place. That’s amazing!”

  Her app placed a lot of stress on her multi-focus skill, but she was getting better with it. Sam watched as she ran the lizard up her leg and into her open palm. She smiled and said to Sam, “Thank you for the compliment, but I should have known better than playing around in your office. I’m sorry, it was my fault you cut your hand.”

  Sam wasn’t that concerned about his hand and wanted to talk about his epiphany. “No worries. I believe I’ve made a breakthrough on the problem of weapons and getting them to power up with us, and partially addressing the issue of being naked and defenseless in a Deck jump,” Sam said, as he started to explain the enchantments he wanted to try, and how they should be built.

  Jen interrupted, “Wait, don’t go all enchanting nerd on me. Just tell me what you need.”

  Sam replied, “I really just need several weeks with no interruptions, but I don’t think we can simply close the store without drawing too many questions.”

  Jen came up with an excellent plan, but it was torture for Sam, because it required him to wait a couple of weeks before he could go “All In” on his research.

  Jen explained, “First, make the enchantments on your basic charms simple enough for you to train Long Bi and Ji Bi on how to make them, and we cut them in on part of the profit for the small charms. This also solves my worries about them and their children when we Deck jump. Second, go ahead and fix all the enchanted items you currently need to repair for customers. Third, any enchanted items that come in for repair, we tell the customers it will be two months before we can work on them.”

  “What reason do we give everyone for the wait?” asked Sam.

  “We say it’s because you have to make more charms for a merchant to sell in another city. This will allow us to keep collecting most of the enchanted items people want repaired. They will continue to drop them off, wanting their items to be first in line for repair in two months. You can then take a quick look to see if any of the enchantments are new or interesting enough for you to incorporate in your research. Fourth and last, you better come up with some good shit for me, because I will be taking care of everything else….Maybe a drone to fly my lizard around in or something.

  Chapter 54:

  Scar Wars

  “It’s been almost three weeks, not two weeks!” Sam grumbled as he was finally heading into his research room, instead of heading to the front store.

  “Sir, I’m so sorry I couldn’t satisfy all your demands, my esteemed Master Enchanter.” Jen said exaggerating the “Sir” and “master” as she watched Sam hurry into his workroom and shut the door. She had learned that Sam hated being called “Sir” or when customers or people called him a “Master Enchanter,” he would get awkward and uncomfortable, and… she was getting payback.

  “Efficient Code and High-Quality Mana Infusion” Sam said to himself as he tried to narrow down the essence of building enchantments. Of course, there was a lot more to it than that, but if you didn’t satisfy these components of an enchantment, you would not be successful. He was sure of this basic concept after having repaired hundreds of enchantments. Admittedly, many of the enchantments he fixed were simple or copies of other enchantments he fixed.

  Sam spoke to Kelly as he reviewed the principles of enchantments and laid out all his materials in his workshop. “Kelly, the “High-quality infusion” is based on the amount and efficiency in which the material could use mana. A person could supply the power directly from their mana pool, but the amount of power would be limited by the size of their mana pool and mana regen ability.”

  “What can mana be infused in? That’s a good question Kelly”

  “I believe mana can be infused into anything. Electronics react violently to mana and melt down. Paper will hold mana just long enough for a very weak enchantment to be cast before it disintegrates. Iron is a very poor conductor of mana, and as a result the mana will slowly drain out of it to the point where there is just ambient mana remaining. Forged steel is strong, and enchantments carved into forged steel will last for many years. Steel is a poor man’s power conductor for enchantments. Mana infused steel mixed with monster core dust can conduct and hold the power for years and can withstand being recharged many, many times, so long as they are not completely used up or damaged.”

  “Yes, you’re right Kelly there is also Mana-infused thorium or mana-infused titanium, well…with those, you can create true powerhouse weapons.” Sam had not been able to afford these materials, but he had re-charged or repaired some that were imbedded in weapons under close observation by the Arc Guild. He knew they could hold significantly more power than the normal items he had recharged.

  “I know spell scrolls are one-time use item and use special mana infused ink and paper to hold the power until activated, but the activation destroys the ink and paper, and most importantly, I haven’t been able to figure out the trick for creating paper or ink that can hold the amount of mana necessary,” Sam continued to himself as he organized his tools as a way to stall before continuing.

  “It’s simple Kelly, if I can’t solve the power problem, there is no need for the enchantment!” Sam already decided to work on the power issue first but had just wanted to go through the mental steps and process one last time before diving in.

  Sam looked down at his arm, and he could see how his mana channels interacted with his body. “Fuck this shit hurts!” Sam screamed quietly as he started to carve the shortest mana containment rune he knew into his arm and then tie it into a breeze, initiator, and direction rune. This was a slow painful process, and Sam was physically and mentally drained after carving into his arm all day.

  The containment rune didn’t make his arm contain mana, but would contain the mana within a certain area on his arm. If his experiment failed, he didn’t want his entire body to disintegrate or burst into flames like some of the different types of papers and materials he had tried in the past. Sam also had water next to him as well as a very expensive healing enchantment he engraved into a rod made of mana-infused steel and monster core shavings.

  Sam used his minor mend spell on his arm leaving a scar where he had carved the rune. Next, he cleaned up all the blood on the table and equipment. “O.K. Kelly, if this works, my arm should store the mana power like a battery, a
nd when I’m ready, the initiator rune should activate the breeze rune in the path dictated by the direction rune,” Sam said.

  He was doing everything possible NOT to get his hopes up, but he wanted this to work so badly, so they could start Deck jumping and get Kelly back!

  “Kelly, maybe I should rest tonight and try it out in the morning when I’m fresh?” Sam thought, but he knew he was just making excuses because he was afraid of failure. “Quit being a little bitch and do it,” he berated himself.

  “Jen, would you come in here for a minute,” Sam called to her as she was closing the shop up for the night. He really didn’t want her to see him fail, but he wasn’t going to be that stupid, prideful person, who kills themself because they were afraid to ask their best friend for help.

  “What the shit happened in here!” Jen exclaimed, when she saw the blood-soaked towels and the nasty rune scars all down his forearm.

  Jen’s eyes kept getting wider and wider as Sam explained what he was trying to accomplish and how he needed her to be ready in case his arm caught on fire or even completely disintegrated. “Throw water on my arm or tourniquet it if necessary, and then start the enchanted healing rod,” Sam finished.

  “No, No I won’t. You’re a fucking idiot! No wonder you wouldn’t tell me what your plans were for the last few weeks. I thought you had something so great, you wanted it to be a surprise. But no, you had thought of something so stupid! You were embarrassed! You moron!” Jen ranted for several minutes before running out of breath just shaking her head at Sam.

  Sam had kept quiet during her rant. He knew she might think he was stupid, but he didn’t expect her to be upset like this. “It’s not that big a deal; It might take all our savings, but we could travel to Slot City and hire some of the guild healers to grow my arm back if it’s that bad,” Sam unsuccessfully tried to explain as Jen went off on another five-minute rant about how insane he was.