Chances of Death: Seven Decks Book I

by S Bailey

  Jen was texting Sam in real-time on her status. The Roulette Confederation had given them an hour to surrender. The City Lord announced to his people that he had no intention of surrendering, but said to Tamako that he was going to take the best soldiers with him, and be the last line of defense in front of the City’s treasury vaults and the City Lord’s System interface. He then ordered Tamako to lead the defense of the palace and gates.

  Tamako had ordered Jen to escape from the City as soon as the battle started. Tamako did not trust the City Lord, but she was bound by her oath to follow his orders. She expected the City Lord to throw away all the defenders’ lives while trying to minimize his purchase of city buffs and defenses from the System. Unfortunately, they were far outnumbered and there was simply no escape for Jen or any of the other guards.

  Sam’s agility and forgetme charms allowed him to move quickly through the City. Sam was surprised that the chunky Slim had no problem keeping pace, if anything, Slim was the one constantly waiting on him. When he arrived near the palace gates, he quickly climbed onto a rooftop that overlooked the Roulette forces between his and Jen’s location. Tamako had moved Jen to an area where the enemy forces were the thinnest hoping an opportunity for Jen to escape would present itself.

  “Glad he woke up! and I swear you better get your ass out of here when the shit starts, or I will kill you myself!” Tamako said to Jen, with tears barely noticeable in her eyes. The pressure in Jen’s chest was crushing, but it wasn’t out of fear of battle, but the knowledge that she would be losing Tamako forever. “This isn’t the time or place for the goodbye I wish we could have.” Jen cried inside herself.

  “He’s over there on top of that building,” Jen said as she nodded to where Sam was waiting.

  While trying to figure out exactly what he was seeing, Sam messaged Jen, “can you hear any coms from the City Lord’s contingent, because I’ve got my scope out, and It looks like a group of people are emerging from the bottom of the slope behind the palace.”

  At that moment, Tamako and the other guards felt a current of power pass through them, as they each realized the City Lord had relinquished his rights as the Lord of Casino City.

  The System notification screen appeared in front of Tamako’s vision.

  ==

  The City Lord has left Casino City while under attack. Your gambling oath to the City or the City Lord is cancelled. Maybe you should take over the City!

  ==

  City-Wide System Message:

  The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward!

  ==

  Gambling Quest: Become the New City Lord of Casino City

  ==

  Requirements: Seize and login to the Casino City System interface until the end of Roulette City’s attack. Odds of dying – Yes!

  Select your Fortune:

  Accept reward of 50 ability points plus euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 3

  Decline Quest and continue your life as a commoner!

  ==

  Jen Selected “B” declining the quest and messaging Sam. “Who the hell would want to be stuck with all the boring details of empire building!” Sam Selected “B” declining the quest and messaged back, “True dat! Plus we’re here to get Kelly! Now, let’s get you out of that palace!”

  ==

  Tamako explained to Jen, “The City Lord has abandoned the City, and I’m sure he has taken the entire treasury with him. I’ve got to figure a way help the rest of the guards escape. The Roulette Confederation is going to kill us all once they realize the City Lord is fleeing with the City’s gold.”

  At that moment, a signal rang out, and a contingent of about 100 Roulette Confederation troops started mobilizing. Within a few minutes they were heading out of the City chasing after the City Lord and his guard contingent.

  To Tamako’s surprise, the emissary approached the walls again and said, “Your Lord has abandoned you and the City. You no longer have a duty to him or this City. Don’t be foolish. Surrender now! You have 10 minutes to decide.”

  Jen had been listening in on the enemy’s coms and said, “Tamako, I feel certain that if you surrender, they are going to kill, rape, and enslave every single one of you anyways.” Tamako nodded and simply responded, “I know. His demand didn’t include a promise of safety.”

  Tamako started to take charge of the guards to prepare them for the battle. None of the other guard’s believed the Roulette’s promises either, but to Tamako’s shock, during their hurried battle meeting, all the lieutenants under her rebuffed her as their leader and basically told her to fuck off.

  Without the authority granted to Tomako by the City Lord, her chief lieutenant, Tanya, a woman that always resented her leadership, convinced the other lieutenants to support her and her gambling-quest to become the new City Lord.

  Tamako knew they all resented her because she would not allow them to take bribes or abuse the poor in the city, but she never imagined they would be so stupid as to follow the battle orders of Tanya. However, Tamako did worry for many of the front-line guards that had no idea what was going on, but after a pause to consider everything, Tamako laughed and said, “Good luck!” as she turned and left the battle meeting to go find Jen.

  Tamako was happy to be rid of the unappreciative shits, but she was still looking stricken with the knowledge that Jen was trapped with her.

  Jen messaged Sam with everything that was happening. She estimated there were close to 500 Roulette Confederation soldiers outside the wall in the area between Sam and her.

  Sam placed only a little mana in his healing enchantment, because he was primarily powering up the legacy lightening tattoo enchantment with his mana regen the entire time. He messaged Jen, “Get ready, I’m about to make a distraction. Don’t move until after you see the lightning, it will be your best chance to get out. Once you are out, come to the building where I am hiding if you can. If not, I will meet you at the safe house you set up.”

  “Wait!” Jen messaged back.

  Jen looked at Tamako and said, “Sam is about to create a distraction. This will be your best chance to get out of here.”

  Tamako nodded in agreement saying, “I’ll fight with you to the very end.” There was both a look of determination and impending death in her gaze.

  Jen pulled some forgetme charms out of her ring and handed some to Tamako and told her to charge them up and get ready to run.

  “We’re ready when you are,” Jen messaged Sam.

  Sam dropped five strange devices out of his rings that he called clay trap launchers and said, “Slim, can you charge those up for me?”

  Slim looked at the spring-loaded levers and said, “Easily, but when this is over, don’t wait on me. I’m going to be collecting the shit out of some loot.”

  Sam rolled his eyes at Slim’s looting comment while he continued to lay out strange-looking round enchanted disks in each of the trap launchers. He designed them to hold a maximum of 8 disks in each of the trap launchers.

  Sam adjusted the distance setting on three of the trap launchers so that they would shoot the enchanted disks evenly over the enemy soldiers, and the other two were both aimed directly at the soldiers between his location and Jen’s.

  “Thank goodness it’s starting to get dark. That should help them get through the enemy lines” Sam said to Slim. The first and second disk that Sam loaded in each of the launchers were each equipped with a small parachute that unfolded allowing the circular disks to float slowly down to the ground. These disks were basically space rings that Sam enchanted to collect all the corruption from the mana filtering chimney above their charm’s store. He had the idea to build enchanted rings and place them near the stack to keep the surrounding area free from the mana pollution, but then he thought about how he could use them to attack the mana flow of an enemy combatant, so he designed them as disks.

  The third and fourth parachute disks he placed in each of the launchers would start emitting smoke after being fired.
The smoke was collected from their actual fireplace chimney. He hoped the smoke would make it even darker and harder for the enemy to see.

  The fifth and sixth parachute disk he placed in each of the launchers contained literally thousands of logs Sam had been collecting while exercising and improving his stamina and strength stats with Jen in the surrounding forests.

  The seventh parachute disk contained about 300 crossbow bolts each. Sam smiled as he thought about Long Bi’s sons gaining strength stats from shooting the bolts into his enchanted disks, and how excited they were to make the extra money.

  The last parachute disk he placed in each of the launchers threw out fire, poison, and ice enchantment grenades.

  Slim finished charging up the plate launchers by the time Sam finished loading them. Sam quickly did one last check. The whole process had taken less than five minutes with Slim’s help. Sam messaged Jen, “I’m about to shoot my Wad all over their heads, but wait for the lightning before you make your move!” Jen groaned, “gross, you have to make old pervert boomer jokes now!” Sam stress-laughed and replied, “love you too, see you when this is over.”

  Just then Jen could see the parachute enchantment disks start opening up over the enemy. Tamako looked up following Jen’s gaze. She didn’t see anything at first, then she saw a dark mist start descending over the enemy.

  “Holly Shit! Are those fucking trees!” Tamako exclaimed as thousands of trees, logs, and stumps starting appearing out of the sky raining down on the enemy. In a matter of seconds, it was total chaos in the enemy ranks. However, those that could, immediately responded by trying to charge the palace gates, but then hundreds of enchanted crossbow bolts rained down on the enemy, and those were soon followed by the enchanted grenades which blasted and poisoned the enemy soldiers. The 6,000 strong enemy army was being shattered, but there were still soldiers everywhere that had fight left in them, screaming for vengeance.

  Last, Sam planned on making one hell of lightning storm that he hoped would surprise and confuse any remaining soldiers that were directly between Jen and his location. “Kelly, please let the distraction last long enough for Jen and Tamako to make it through.”

  Sam looked out over the enemy and targeted the entire group between them. “Go!” he messaged Jen. Sam’s arm was nearly full of mana now and he didn’t hold back and pushed every ounce of the mana stored in his arm through his enchanted lightning tattoo.

  Several things happened all at once. Sam’s right arm almost instantly disintegrated in a blazing hot fire. As Sam was falling to the ground trying to fight the pain and stay conscious, he cast heal with his left arm. There was not much mana in his left arm, and his legacy healing tattoo was only able to cauterize the stump that was left. Sam stayed conscious just long enough to see a storm of hundreds of lightning bolts coming down from the sky, and as he hit the ground he received countless system messages notifying him of enemy soldiers killed, before passing out.

  On Sam’s message to “Go”, Jen and Tamako had started to make their escape when they saw a lightning attack of the gods. Lightning bolts cracked from the sky striking all the soldiers between them, killing all but the very strongest instantly, and there wasn’t much life left to those that remained. The lightnings power and utter destruction stunned everyone remaining, even Jen and Tamako for a second.

  With the chaos and disorder of all the dead, and those still alive screaming from the near electrocution, the city guard counter-attacked what was remaining of the Roulette Confederation’s strike force.

  Jen and Tamako did not join the counter-attack, but powered up their forgetme charms and within a few seconds crossed through the destruction, and disappeared without being noticed.

  Slim messaged Jen and let her know Sam was still on the roof, but she didn’t understand why Sam wasn’t responding or hadn’t already come to escape the city with them. Slim assured Jen that Sam was still alive, just unconscious.

  Jen and Tamako raced to the rooftop and found Sam, “Holy shit! What happened to his arm!” Jen asked in shock at his condition.

  Slim reassured her, “He’s alive and in stable condition. He’s just passed out from the pain of losing his arm.”

  Jen shuddered with relief when she confirmed for herself that he was still breathing, but there was no time for emotions now, she thought to herself. They grabbed Sam, the rings, and the equipment on the ground near his body.

  Slim said to Jen with a greedy purr, “Take care of him, there is some loot that belongs to me out there!”

  Tamako’s strength made it easy for her to carry Sam as she followed Jen. She was using her Psych and Ninja ability to dodge the enemy remaining in the streets while keeping the forgetme charms powered up. They were all out of the City within 20 minutes, and no one was the wiser.

  Chapter 65:

  Cocky

  “Ohh, shit, it just won’t stop hurting,” groaned Sam as the intense pain in his shoulder forced him to open his eyes.

  “Shhh, I know it hurts Sam, but I need you to do your best to stay as quiet as possible. Listen to me. Jen is OK and she is checking the surrounding area to make sure we lost the Roulette Soldiers that were trailing us.” Tamako said, as she was trying to make Sam somewhat comfortable on the forest floor.

  Sam’s pain and the heat of the forest made it hard for him to focus his mind, so he just closed his eyes, and tried to shut it all out.

  Only a mile away in the forest Jen heard, “I can smell you and hear you,” and the mocking laughter of the General.

  Jen had intercepted the coms of the enemy and knew this General was a former Ranger with a tracking skill. The General was leading a small group of Roulette soldiers that escaped the City upon their unexpected defeat in the battle.

  After pinging his specific location, Jen used her Ninja skills, increasing her speed, suppressing her mana signature, suppressing the noise she made, and powering up her forgetme charm. She was going to kill this General without him ever knowing what happened. That’s when, almost quicker than the eye could see, the General spun in her direction and shot an arrow right at her.

  “Shit!” Jen screamed from the pain, but she immediately rolled with the momentum, hit the ground, sprung up, and raced to some cover and concealment. “Damn, I can’t simply run from this guy, he moves almost as fast as me, maybe faster. If I didn’t have my overclock skill active, this fucking arrow would not be in my arm, but through my damn heart.”

  Jen was embarrassed being caught flat-footed. She was so confident that she would be able to kill this guy, just like she had killed the bandits. “Great job Jen, assuming you are Ms. Super Ninja, but this fucking guy could freaking SMELL and HEAR me coming. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!” She berated herself.

  Jen called out, “How could you Hear me?”

  The General laughed, “I could hear everywhere else, but nothing from the spot where you were. You stupid fucking amateur. I’m going to have fun killing you.” Then the General moved.

  Jen could no longer see, or even hear where the General was. Thankfully, she could tell he was trying to flank her by constantly pinging his location. He was not stupid like her; he was being cautious as he stalked her. There was no way he was just going to stand out in the open and let her pull a pistol from her ring and shoot him. “Get your head in the game Jen!” she told herself. There was no need for her to be silent, he knew where she was. She pulled the arrow out of her arm and cast minor mend on it, but her arm was still very weak.

  She noticed a sudden change in his location and she instinctively rolled away, but she had to keep moving as arrow after arrow was being shot in her direction. It was all she could do to keep from being skewered.

  The big General closed the distance and tackled Jen to the ground. He was not Tamako strong, but Jen realized he was clearly skilled in grappling.

  “I can’t let this fucker kill me!” Jen thought, but she was losing, as she struggled to keep the man’s hunting knife away from her face with her injured arm. Unfort
unately, her injured arm simply wasn’t up to the task for much longer, and the General had immediately dominated her good arm holding her knife when he tackled her.

  She was desperate, trying to twist or buck him off… or anything, but he was overpowering her and had better grappling skills. Jen could see his angry, wild face, determined to kill her in their struggle, but she also saw his coms device in his ear. With a panicked thought of hope she sent a mana blast at his coms device causing it to overload and emit a high-pitch piercing blast of sound in his ear. The man flinched, not much, but enough for Jen to free her knife arm and sink her poisoned blade under the man’s chin and into his brain.

  Jen didn’t have time to relish being alive, she had to move before the rest of the soldiers found them. Jen rolled the big man off of her, looted his body and got a safe distance away to rest up and heal herself. She had to use several of Sam’s healing charms before her arm fully recovered, and she used multi-focus with meditation to get her sanity and fear under control.

  Later, Jen would learn from Tamako, that she should be dead. If the General didn’t still have his Ranger SMELL and HEARING skill activated during the fight, she seriously doubted Jen’s sonic blast would have done a damn thing to a former Ranger, that was now a level 26 general who probably had over 100 years of battle experience.

  After Jen made her way back to Tamako and Sam, Jen explained, “I intercepted their coms messages and learned that a General was leading the Roulette soldiers following us. He tortured some of the guards they captured while retreating out of the City. It turns out those guards, YOUR former guards were hunting you. They believed you secretly had the City Treasury and used some of the money to activate the City defenses so you could escape with the rest of the treasury.”

  Tamako was picking up on an odd tone in Jen’s voice, and asked, “What do you mean a General WAS leading the soldiers?”