Collide Gamer
Chapter 90 – A Murder of Windows

Chapter 90 – A Murder of Windows

“Gnome, do me a favour and gather all the items on the floor.” John absent-mindedly commanded while he went over his rewards. This was some good stuff. Like, seriously great. Like, seriously incredible. He felt like he had just accidentally cleared endgame content. He accepted the Quest, applied the percentage bonuses to Wisdom and started with the scale Nathalia had left him with.

That was a strictly better Dragonscale. Really, that was all there was to it. Although that bit of ‘keeping an eye on him’ was slightly distressing. Inner Inferno was a better version of Inner Fire, Steelskin of Ironhide, Elemental Resistance 6 was obviously better than 3, Godly Mana was something he would love to have and….

What the hell was Touch of the Abyss?

‘So it is a better version of Phasing?’ John asked himself and put the Shard away to give to Aclysia later. He felt that it was a worthwhile endeavour and trying to escape from Nathalia seemed to be a suicidal act at best and becoming an eternal sex slave at worst. No, wasn’t that supposed to be the other way around? John shook his head to get his penis out of his decision-making process and looked at the two items the Achievements had earned him. First, was the Rare Equipment piece.

The Attributes were boring but +5 HP per minute was pretty hefty as far as he was concerned. He handed the gloves to Rave. “These will heal you,” he explained with a look at the hand shaped burns on her arm and neck.

“Bullshit.” Rave laughed and put them on. The edges of the burns started glowing green and closed ever so slowly. It was like watching grass grow. He knew it was happening, but looking at it he didn’t notice.

Next was the Necklace of the World Ender. John looked at the thing dangling from his hand. It was a fine chain of a black metal with a roughly worked orange stone dangling from it that reminded him of the one set between Nathalia’s collarbones.

That was absurdly good. And it was not even fully powered? What the hell would the other 3 then do to it? “Master, that thing scares me.”

He raised his head to see Aclysia, who had finally snapped back to reality. She beheld the necklace with a distressed look. Not just that – his Artificial Guardian was shivering in genuine fear. Was that still the dragon instinct inside her?

“It is just an item, nothing terrifying.” John tried to calm her and took a step towards her, necklace in hand. She took two steps back. John was torn between putting the necklace away for her sake or getting her used to it right now. In the end he decided to do the latter. “Aclysia, do you trust me?”

“Of course, Master.”

“Then close your eyes and extend your hand.” With heavy breaths, she did and John calmly walked up to her and put the necklace into her open palm. “Open your eyes again.” Aclysia stared at the necklace in her hand in a mixture of terror and confusion. “See? Just a piece of metal and stone. Nothing to be scared about.” He gave her a calming smile, before taking it back from the slowly nodding Aclysia.

“Is it good tho?” Rave asked and tossed John his pants and shoes. Right, he was still naked. She also showed him his ruined shirt. “Seems like ya will go home in a stylish jacket.” She giggled while looking at the cut.

“Will I?” John mused and took it from her after putting the rest of his clothes on. He put it on the stone table and used Craft.

Oh cool, he didn’t know he had access to magical dry cleaning. He did that and Repair (he had the mana to spare right now) and was presented with a perfectly unwrinkled and clean blue shirt. Which he put on. “Tada!” He exclaimed but Rave clicked her tongue in response.

“I was looking forward to ya running through the city half naked.”

“What? Am I getting punished?” John asked while spending the new five points he got from Nathalia’s purge of the floor in Endurance, reaching the needed 25 points.

He put on the necklace and checked out his new total Stats. The Blessing had run out at this point.

That was pretty good. His Health Pool was no longer wet noodles. Which reminded him that, if he hadn’t increased his Endurance earlier that day, Nathalia would have murdered him with her lava hands. A fortunate circumstance.

Rave’s wounds were about a quarter closed at this point. John pulled the Shard of Destruction from his inventory. He wanted to hand it to Aclysia but the artificial being shunned away again.

 “Aclysia.” John said patiently, “It’s just like the necklace, an item, nothing more.” He was not quite sure about that in this case, actually, but he wanted to believe it and he certainly wanted to not piss off a level 666 dragoness. A few moments passed by during which John was almost sure that this would be the first time Aclysia would outright defy an order. Then she grabbed the scale and in an overly hasty motion threw it into her mouth.

She gulped down and the windows rolled in. They were the same assortment as the last time she had eaten something dragon related. Aside from the flood of level ups, there was one that informed him of Aclysia being unable to overtake him in level and the other asking him which Attributes he wanted.

He made the easy decisions first and replaced Phasing, Elemental Resistance 3 and Ironhide with their respective upgrades. Then he had to think about it for a moment. Fire Immunity he couldn’t replace with Fire Immunity so that was useless, however Inner Inferno was an interesting one. Inner Fire had given Aclysia human like body temperature, would Inner Inferno push her to the same feverish temperatures he had experienced while touching Nathalia? If yes, he was pretty sure he did not want that, radiating such heat all the time was bound to get him into trouble with Gaia eventually. He therefore denied that and Godly Mana and ended up with an upgraded list of Attributes as well as 25 points to spare.

Oh, and this little window.

Which was nothing short of horrifying. +75% Libido, that was like…a lot. Still though, it was too attractive to pass up (and his dick wiggled his way back into his decision making) so he clicked on Shard of Destruction. He eyed up Aclysia but the Artificial Guardian didn’t change in behaviour. It would probably only be noticeable once they had sex again. She was too stressed out right now to be in the mood.

He sighed and spent fourteen of her points on Intellect. Aclysia’s eyes opened wide. “I can remember clearly now. How terrible… I almost forgot so many things, the day I was created, our first time….” She whispered and bowed deeply. “Thank you, Master. The world is a little… easier to understand now.”

“I would be sad too if you forgot, you know.” John patted her on the head.

“What he said.” Rave stepped in and hugged Aclysia, rubbing her face on the artificial skin of her boyfriend’s creation. “Cuddling is only half the fun without context!”

John turned back to the window and glared at the 11 that stared back. He was tempted to leave one point unspent but that would only move the one to another part of the sheet. Blasted thing. His inner perfectionist (which only got worse as he raised his Intellect apparently) took offence to the number. He sighed. “Whatever is troubling you, Master?”

“Just a first world problem.” He referenced a meme that no one found funny and truly nobody in the room laughed.

John currently had no desire to increase Aclysia’s Charisma. She got along with people well enough. Her Libido had just sky-rocketed through other means, so no need to touch that either. It was time to concentrate on her actual battle-stats for a change. He put 5 points into Agility to cross the 25 threshold there (whatever it did for Agility) and the remaining six he put into Strength.

He made a mental note to use Enchant on her later today and finally replace out what that was about. Aclysia was already a pretty good tank as it was (and he was fairly certain that Steelskin had just made her a whole lot more durable) but if he could push her even further that would be great.

He was also done for the day. The whole Nathalia affair had sapped all of his energy for grinding from his bones and left only tiredness. “Let’s go home.” John yawned and turned to the passage.

Rave played with her smartphone, “Bitch scratched my screen,” she mumbled but then laughed.

“What’s so funny?” John wondered.

“I just saw the conversation she had with Romulus.” Rave giggled, “Can’t read most of it, some weirdly swung runes, but ya should listen to the last statement.” She tried her best at a very deep, manly voice, “Break him and I will make sure he takes your second horn, you horny whore.”

John wondered whether Romulus had personally written that or if he had attendants. He was also giggling. He stopped when he heard loud noises coming towards them from the passage. It was like hundreds of little metal pieces rubbing against each other. He was on alert until he saw the little girl approach, pushing a mountain of equipment in front of her on a wave of moving earth. He had completely forgotten about Gnome. “Oh Lord….”

“I think Gaia is a chick, John.” Rave reminded him.

“IknowIknow.” He slurred and quickly went over the pile. “Trash for the vendor!” he said decidedly and dumped it in his inventory. Money wouldn’t hurt him. Maybe he could afford some new Skill Books now?