His brain was not working properly, or he would have pieced together a few things. His memories all kerfuffle, he crawled out of bed then sluggishly staggered toward his fancy bathroom.
Without realizing the potential error, he opened the door with a loud yawn. A plopping sound echoed through the air immediately thereafter, much to his surprise. He looked down and saw the most beautifully disturbing sight that he had ever seen in his life.
Samantha Jeran stared at him hard from her seat atop the world's fanciest toilet. Gloriously naked in her natural innocence, and rapidly turning bright red, she began to flex her jaw.
"The... Hell?" asked Scott confused. Why was Samantha in his apartment? More to the point, why was she taking a surprisingly naked dump on his fancy toilet butler?
"Ah. Good morning to you, sir," said Alfred, adding even more to the confusion of the situation. "Forgive my rudeness, but I am currently attending to the needs of your lovely guest. It shan't be more than a moment."
"I'll fucking kill you," said Samantha. Breathing heavily, the knuckles on both hands turning white as she gripped the fancy toilet in a death grip, it was obvious that she did not mean her words in jest.
Suddenly, Scott's brain started to work properly. His eyes went wide. "Holy shit! Sorry!"
He hopped back and allowed the door to close of its own accord. However, it was not long before it flew open and unleashed a suited-up Samantha ready for murder.
"You damned pervert!" she screamed, before she started to chase him throughout the apartment. "I knew it! I fucking knew it!"
"Sorry, damn it! How was I supposed to know you were in there!" cried Scott.
She chased him through the kitchen, back through the sitting room. They ran across the top of the bed, and then back into the sitting room. All the while, she never tired nor deviated from her desire to get the sweetest of revenge.
Scott ended up on the other side of the kitchen table after a short while. They chased each other around it three times before they stopped. Eyeing each other carefully, they tested each other's defenses. Scott would lean one way, and she would move to match him.
"Where do you get off doing that?" she asked him heatedly.
"Why the fuck didn't you lock the door?" he snapped at her.
She glared at him. "Don't blame this on me, you perverted bastard."
"How am I supposed to know you're in there?" he growled. "I just woke up hungover as fuck!"
Her chest heaved as she took in large gulps of air. She was obviously conflicted by what she was hearing.
Scott sighed. "Look it was an accident. You want to see me take a piss, or just punch me in the face go ahead, but can we drop it afterward."
"Alright," she said simply. "Fair enough."
He nodded to her then walked over. "So, which one did you want to—" he began to ask, just before her dainty fist rocketed over and slammed against his jaw with enough force to make a normal man's jaw explode in a spray of blood and teeth.
Scott's head snapped to the side lightly due to the force of the blow then he glanced at her sideways. "Damn, woman."
She blinked at him then stared at her still closed fist. She winced a little as she wiggled her fingers. "What the...?" Samantha looked at him once more then squinted at him. "What the hell are you made of?"
"Sexiness and awesome," said Scott without missing a beat. His jaw stung like a bitch, but he was no worse for wear. Behold the glory of hit points and a game-like existence! Falling asleep in his armor had paid off as well.
Samantha snorted at him then shook her hand a little. "I was being serious." She tapped her suit clad hand. "When I'm wearing this, my knuckles don't sting like that even when I punch a bulkhead."
"Do you know what hit points are?" he asked her curiously.
Her confused expression was the only answer that he needed. "Well... Between them and the whole high-end resilience thing, I can take a punch."
"You tricked me," she said, her eyes narrowing in the process.
"What? You want to see me go to the bathroom?" asked Scott curiously.
"No!" she said, her cheeks taking on a bit of color.
Scott nodded to her. It was her decision after all "We good, then?"
She growled low under her breath. "I guess we have to be." An agreement was an agreement, after all.
"Alright, well. If you want, we can go visit my headquarters and you can see what sort of things I deal with?" asked Scott.
Samantha blew out an angry breath. "Yeah, fine. Let's do that."
He used his prerogative to open the door of light, from within the safe confines of his apartment. He could open it from inside a world at location, during his downtime. Though, he did need to enter a world from at a hub or another similar location, unless he utilized a warp zone.
"This— We walk through it?" she asked him.
"Yeah, it'll stay open for a full minute unless I close it. Nothing can go in unless I want it to go," said Scott.
"So, I can go in?" she asked curiously.
"Yeah, you're my companion as the system calls you," said Scott.
She made a noncommittal noise in his direction, but nodded anyway. "Companion, huh..."
He grinned at her then laughed a little. "Would you prefer partner?"
"I'd prefer credits," she said lightly.
"Alright then, Credits. Shall we enter?" he asked her with a smile.
Samantha snorted at him then managed to crack a smile of her own. "Fine, let's go see what all the fuss is about."
They walked through the doorway and into a dimly lit room. The ball floated where it always did, but other than a few doors, and a foot locker, the room held nothing else of interest.
"Cozy," she said after taking in the lack of sights.
"Yeah, welcome to my humble abode." Scott walked over to the ball and reached out his hand. It shifted into a spectral image of his body, and various little message screens popped up. Before reading any of them he paid a few EXP to restore his hit points and health. His hangover disappeared immediately as a direct result.
"What was that?" asked Samantha, coming closer.
"That's the little ball thingy that lets me buy stuff and heals my injuries when I touch it," he said simply.
"Can I touch it?" she asked him curiously.
"By all means, touch my ball," he said with a chuckle.
She groaned loudly at him then reached out toward the floating energy sphere. It did not react to her at all, much to her annoyance. Her hangover persisted.
"Oh, that's interesting," he said after reading through a few of the message screens that he'd ignored until now.
Samantha asked him what he learned. Scott grinned at her and said, "Come with me."
He led her through the various rooms. She liked the command center, even if it seemed a bit bare. The recreation room could use a bit of upgrading as well. What interested her the most, however, was in the companion room. One thing was her personal room. The other was a little ball thingy like Scott's that floated just outside of her room. It was much smaller than his, more like a tennis ball compared to a bowling ball.
Curious, she looked herself over once the ball shifted to take on her appearance. "So, this one I can use?"
"It seems so. It only popped up because you came to my Home Point," said Scott.
"I don't have any EXP, so I can't use it to get rid of this hangover," she said, disappointed.
"Hold on a moment." Scott walked over to her sphere and placed his hand on it. He used a function that he discovered through one of the new message screens. He gifted her with forty EXP and told her that it was an advance on her first mission.
She expended two points to rid herself of her status afflictions and immediately felt better. "Wow! That's great... I haven't felt this good in a while."
Samantha pulled her hand away then offered him a slightly dangerous seeming grin. "Well, since you paid, I guess you have me till the job's done."
"You do know that say
ing it like that means that I only have to pay you five EXP a day, right?" he asked her lightly.
She shrugged at him. "That was the deal," she said, before tilting her head to the side. "Besides that, I recall you saying I could earn my own EXP."
"Yeah, it seems you'll be rated the same way that I am. I don't know how much you can earn, but I'm sure you'll be happy," said Scott.
She started to say something, but he interrupted her briefly. "I'm going to go ahead and pay the maintenance cost for a few days."
"Maintenance cost?" she asked.
"Yeah, the system's going to charge me five EXP per day to pay you. So, if I load your ball thingy now, it'll auto-debit it to your account every day when the clock strikes zero."
"Ah, neat," she said. "Is five EXP a lot?"
Scott smiled at her. "You'd have to kill seventeen low-end zombies, but no it's not a lot. You'll probably earn a lot more on our first mission."
"I should have charged more," she said with a laugh. "This place is rolling in money."
Scott laughed with her. "EXP can do a lot more than make money. Pick one of your stats and see what happens if you spend a point or two."
"Stat?" she looked at her screen. "You mean like strength and concentration?"
"Yes, exactly," he told her.
Samantha tried it then noticed that her stats increased with every point spent. "So, that means that I'm stronger now?"
"Whatever stat you increased, will go up." said Scott. "I don't know which one you upgraded."
She nodded to him then bit her lower lip a little. "It says that I can't increase my stats past six points. Is that permanent?"
"Might be. Does it tell you anything about bloodlines and lifestyles?" he asked her.
"Hold on," she said, before taking a look. After around a minute, she looked back at him. "There's a lot of stuff to read."
"You should read as much as you can. If you want, I'll leave you to that while I go take care of something with my own ball," said Scott.
"Alright," she said simply, before she turned back to the information screens.
Scott left her to her reading and went back to his main room. He immediately upgraded his new bracelet to maximum capacity. It took twenty-eight hundred EXP, but the end result was worth it. He also bought a few random odds and ends, such as restorative items. The trauma packs that he purchased with credits would be useful, but the restorative items from the system were nigh-instantaneous in their effectiveness.
After all was said and done, just over ninety-three hundred EXP remained. "More than half spent already."
He still had the better part of a week left to live. There was no reason to expend EXP on his daily survival cost during his week off. However, that extra three hundred EXP called out to him. He tossed them into his daily survival cost and increased his lifespan by three days. It would be better to be safe, than to cease to exist through negligence.
"Now, what does a sexy and dynamic sort of guy do with over nine thousand EXP?" he asked in a rhetorical manner. He chose not to make the standard joke about how it was over nine thousand, and turned back to his status menu.
"I've already bought most of the cost effective upgrades..." There were certain bonus feats and incredibly simple powers he could buy from the generic upgrade list. Unfortunately, a standard human was not granted a lot of high-end feats, not at this exchange.
"I could upgrade strength and vitality by a point if I buy it from the shroom soldier lifestyle list..." he said thoughtfully. The thought of spending one thousand EXP to increase two stats by a single point each did not sit right with him, though. Once his stats were all maxed out, it might be worth it. For the moment though, he sought bigger game.
"Here's the problem... Do I go for storage space and buy another foot locker, or do I go for the hit point upgrade and massively upgrade my base hit points?" he asked himself softly.
It was a good question. If he relied on his new piece of armor, the immediate change in hit points would be negligible. The upgrade to his base hit points through an increase in feats and stats would become amazing over time, but the change would be miniscule at the moment. He would need to be level forty or so before his base hit points would match what his new piece of armor offered after it was maxed out. It did not take long for him to realize that four hundred thirty-eight hit points was not that much worse than four hundred sixty.
"Storage is best..." For the same cost as two simple stat upgrades, he could buy four small footlockers. However, he had the funds now to afford something much larger. Scott decided to delve deeper into the wonderful world of storage containers.
The biggest problem with larger containers was that he would need to find something reasonably similar to match it in a game world. What he really needed was something that acted as portable storage. There was a section for such things but it only had two items available, and they were not cheap.
"Twenty thousand EXP," muttered Scott. It was an expensive purchase for a storage container that held only water. Though, it was billed as a Flask of Everwater.
He did not know the stats for the item due to the fact that such things were hidden until the item was purchased. However, its little blurb indicated that it would provide a permanent source of clean, fresh, water. The other item was a Sack of Everbiscuits. It would provide fluffy biscuits, as many as a man could want, and never run out. There was no butter provided with the biscuits, however.
"Twenty thousand EXP for bread, and another twenty for water," mumbled Scott. True, it would cut down on a lot of the necessities of scrounging food for survival during long missions, but it seemed like a terrible waste when he could just stuff a bit of food in a foot locker. Maxed out, the smallest footlocker held a great deal more than it did when it was fresh out of the system.
He shook his head. "It's bound to have a purpose, but probably won't be as useful for short missions near civilization."
Scott rooted through his storage menu then settled on something interesting. He chose to purchase a storage closet for two thousand EXP. There were cheaper alternatives that, at first glance, would hold nearly as many items. However, he bought the small storage closet for one reason.
[Household Item]
Small Foot Locker
This storage item provides four storage units and it is capable of linking with another storage item of large trunk space, or below. One storage unit offers general utility and can be used to store up to four small items, two medium sized items, or one large item that might conceivably fit inside the closet. It can also store one trunk type storage item.
If you wish to store items in the field, find any similarly shaped space, with a door, and create a [storage link] by strongly thinking of creating that link. Item transfers can be performed between worlds with no cost in EXP.
Level 1/6
EXP: 0/25
Storage: 4 Unit(s)
Trunk Space: 1 Unit(s) [No Upgrade]
[--]
The trunk space, and the fact that a small closet was more likely to be discovered in most houses, were what caught his attention. The worlds that he had unlocked were filled with various types of civilization. Large trunks, or even stand-up storage lockers like the type used by the police or a school building, might be simple enough to locate in most places.
Unlike trunks and lockers, a closet would appear in nearly all buildings of any reasonable size when any remotely modern setting was taken into consideration. His current bread and butter world-setting was Dead Men Walking, a modern day zombie apocalypse world.
"I need to upgrade to a large trunk, but not yet," said Scott. The footlocker could be linked to his new storage closet just fine for the moment. What he needed more than a new storage unit now was to upgrade the one that he just purchased. He splurged the over seven hundred EXP necessary to max out its upgrade level then smiled. "Sweet, twenty-four storage units and space for a trunk."
"That's probably going to be one of the biggest storage item I can use
regularly out there on a mission... other stuff is more for base building, I'd think," he told himself after a moment. The larger storage items would definitely be harder to locate than a simple closet. Even the larger walk-in closet would be a rarity outside of large buildings and fancy houses.
Scott laughed a little. "Damn man, I could spend entire mission loads of EXP just buying storage space." He would actually need it as well now that he could smuggle items from world to world on his days off.
A thought occurred to him. "My stuff!"
He had not checked to see if his recent acquisitions ever arrived at his apartment. There was also one other thing that he needed to check as well. He lifted his arm and took a good look at the transparent bracelet around his wrist. It was fully upgraded now, and should be tested out.
Scott raised his arm up and concentrated on the device. He then looked left and right to see if he was alone in the room. The next part would be a little embarrassing at first. He coughed once then loudly called out, "Nano-Cloud Activate!"
Light flared outward from his little wrist treasure. His clothing disappeared in an explosion of light-based fury while a slightly catchy guitar solo played in the background. A swarm of multi-colored lights shot out from the bracelet in all directions then covered his body like a thick fog.
From the toes up, a skin tight suit began to form around him. The nano-tech swarm took several seconds to complete its task. In the end, Scott stood in the room wearing nothing but the form fitting material, and a smile. His face was covered by the suit, but the hit points would protect him from injury in that region anyway.
He experimentally punched and kicked at the air. The suit moved with him flawlessly. In order to upgrade it, he had chosen to increase the suit's integrity twice, and its assault capacity once. He could not help but smile at the thought that his punches and kicks were now officially stronger than the force provided by his pistol. They would not penetrate an opponent to even remotely the same degree, but the pure damage potential was actually a little higher. Meanwhile, his own weapon would not even damage the suit, though it would still take off a few hit points if he got shot. Without hit points a solid headshot would easily kill him.
Galactic Fist of Legend: Volume 2 Page 4
