A muzzle formed on his mutant weapon, and he fired another blast at her as she scurried around him.
Aya was fast, but not fast enough to avoid the shot, which flipped her off her feet.
“Duchig Destroyer!” Iris called to the Thulean as she recovered from her hard landing.
Her face a mask of fury and frustration, Aya dropped low with her blade at her side. The Reaper tried to blast her again, but she dodged this one, dodging subsequent shots as she closed in on the muscled, skull-faced man.
Lady C. was having a hell of a time getting to the Ballistics Mage, who kept firing various types of magic creations at her using a slingshot. The Mage dropped her hand into a pocket on her belt and loaded a silver marble, which grew into a full-sized sword after she’d fired it, which would have been hell to dodge if not for the fact that Lady C. had cast bomb cyclone.
What resulted was the Ballistics Mage firing blindly, her attacks going wide each time. She had a general sense of where Lady C. was coming from, which was miraculous in itself, but all of her shots went wide.
Electricity charging up her body and down into her two swords, Lady C. shot several blistering bolts of lightning toward the Mage.
Her lightning sword still in her hand, Lady C. threw her other sword into the midst of the bomb cyclone.
I could tell by the way the other Alpha reacted that his marble-firing Huntress had gone down.
“Got one,” I said to Iris, who hadn’t taken her eyes off the battle.
Spew Gorge was also getting the upper hand.
I don't know how many throats he managed to slit, or eyes he managed to gouge out, but the fugly Greek giant was beyond pissed. It couldn’t get a hit in, and like a wounded predator being overrun by ants, there was not much it could do.
But the problem remained with Aya, who still couldn't get close enough to the Reaper to perform her special move.
The Reaper was so engaged with trying to blast Aya that he didn't see Lady C. come from behind, both blades drawn and lit aflame. By the time he realized she was there, it was already impossible for him to block her first blast. The fireball hit him, flames spreading up his body.
As the fire seared his flesh, the Reaper ran forward, right into Aya, who cut him down with her Duchig Destroyer, killing him instantly.
Both Huntresses turned to the giant.
“I’ve fickin’ got this,” Spew Gorge cried out as he continued to bite, scratch, stab, and confuse the giant.
And as it turned out, the goblin was right.
With no way to fight him off, the giant eventually gave up and dropped to his knees.
The match was over.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
“Nice,” the Indian man told us in accented English. “I had a chance to catch a goblin once, but I decided not to. I apparently made a mistake.”
“It was a good battle,” Iris told him.
“And you’re an Alpha Duo?”
“That's right,” I said. The three of us stood in the middle of where the battle had just taken place, our Hunters and mythcrea gone.
“Got any tips?” he asked.
I looked to Iris and back to him. “About what?”
He shrugged. “Just capturing tips or tournament suggestions. I'm kind of new at this. I keep wanting to get into some tournaments, but I haven't really, you know, tried to join any yet. A little nervous about that.”
“There's no need to be nervous,” Iris said. “Just use GoogleFace for tournaments, and enter any that you qualify for. That's what we started off doing, and we are by no means veterans at tournaments or anything. We’ve competed in two.”
“Only two? Huh, I thought you guys have been doing it for longer, even though we are at similar levels. I figured you guys were probably up to Level Eight, maybe even nine or ten, but had just been selling everything you captured.”
“We haven't sold much, but we have gotten lucky a couple of times,” I said.
“Well, it's nice meeting you both, thanks for the advice.”
As soon as he was gone, I activated the Monster Hunt app and Aya and Lady C. returned. Coinciding with their return was a deposit into the digital bank account.
Proxima Dollars: $18,750
Spent: $61,500
Loan: 0
“What are we going to do now?” Lady C. asked me, her eyes reflecting the clear sky overhead. “Aren't you two hungry?”
I glanced at Iris. “I’m a little hungry, and we just won nine thousand PD, so maybe we could have a nice little lunch.”
“That would be cool,” she said. “We can check out one of those places near the music store. I'm craving a veggie burger.”
“Oh, oh, oh, that would be nice, like a portobello burger with some bacon on it.”
Iris laughed. “Doesn't that kind of eliminate the point?”
“Exactly, I live life on the edge,” I told her as we turned toward Central Park's exit.
“It’s true, Alpha Iris,” Aya said. “Chase is a weakling, and I mean that in a very affectionate way. He needs to eat more meat. If he eats more meat, he will become stronger. This is why Thulean men have such large muscles. They eat meat, a lot of meat, and then exercise. I think you should exercise too,” she told me.
“You always have suggestions for me, don't you?”
“Everyone needs a life coach, especially a person like you.”
“A person like me, huh?”
“I think Chase is fine just the way he is,” Lady C. said, “And you shouldn't bother him about his muscles. Not all strong men have muscles. Some men are strong inside.”
Aya laughed. “I guess you're right, inner strength is important. It can make you last longer if you were to be tortured.”
“Inner strength definitely helps with torture,” Lady C. said, nodding in agreement.
“Still, if I were Chase, I wouldn't eat too many vegetables. I would eat more meat.”
Iris looked to me and rolled her eyes. I nodded in response, glad that she too was now experiencing the mindless daily banter that had come to define my life.
Chapter Five: Shopping for Info
I thought about cashing out some PD on the Proxima Exchange – it was still 1 USD to 12.3 PD, so I could cash out a thousand and get about eighty dollars for food and entrance to the music store – but eventually decided to just use the cash I already had on hand.
Our first stop was for some lunch, and we chose a hamburger joint called Deconstructed Burger to satisfy the burger craving. It was Iris' suggestion, and I'd heard about the place – and while it sounded to me at first like they just gave you all the parts of the burger and then you built it yourself, hence the term deconstructed, it was actually a lot stranger than that.
They actually served food that was molded and shaped into other food, all of which tasted like a burger. Iris ordered first, letting me sample hers.
A banana that tasted like a hot cheeseburger? Only in New York City.
“Nope,” I told her. “The texture is off.”
“I’ll finish it,” she said.
“Please do.”
After Iris’ banana burger, we hit up a kimchi taco place, where I got a bulgogi burrito.
Aya and Lady C. stayed with us the entire time, Aya commenting on people's weights and Lady C. skimming through the new book that she’d picked up at the Central Park subway station.
“I’m still confused about this American body type,” Aya said as a short fat woman walked away holding hands with a lean and tall man. “Where I’m from, it’s important to match yourself to someone else's body type, nearly as important as your personalities.”
Iris laughed. “Is that so?”
“I wouldn’t say it if it were not so. Thuleans believe that a person should be similar in stature to their significant other. Now one could be taller, sure, but over there is a combination that feels very out of place. She should be with a very short and very robust goblin-shaped man. The man should be with a very thin, very tall and lanky wo
man. Then the visual would match.”
“You can’t fight love,” Lady C. said, looking from her book to me and smiling.
“So, this means that you and I would never work out as a couple?” I asked Aya.
The Thulean placed her hands on the table, leaning over toward me. “I've already explained to you what you would need to do to become an adequate person for me to breed with.”
“More muscles, I remember.”
“I think you have enough muscles, and I don't think you’d like dating a Thulean,” Lady C. said as she closed her copy of The History of Mortem and Chrono Magic.
“It doesn't matter if he likes it or not. He would need to gain fifteen to twenty kilos of muscle to date someone of my race.”
“Well, if I wasn't so busy hanging out with you two, I could be hitting the gym.”
Aya laughed. “I don't believe you've ever been to a gym, and if you ever decide to go, I would love to be your personal trainer. I would volunteer for this task and considerate it charity. I would whip you into shape.”
After a little more playful banter, we headed to the music store and each paid the twenty-dollar door fee.
The music store was crammed full of instruments, to the point that it looked like a hoarder’s den. The guitar section was on the right, acoustics were behind a glassed-in partition, and there was another room for laptop DJ equipment, keys, amps, and the drum section, which was adjacent to my final destination.
“I give you… the bass guitar,” I told Aya and Lady C. as we stepped into the area dedicated to the low end.
“Cool!”
“Is this supposed to impress me?” Aya asked. Her orange eyes locked on a particular bass that was shaped like an axe. “That is the only one I would recommend you buy, Chase.”
“I’ll, um, keep that in mind.”
There was no need to put up prices on the instruments; every time I focused on a piece, the price would appear above it alongside a list of features, financing options, and other details I may need to know about the piece.
I saw the Rickenbacker, sitting at a cool $4,500, which was more than I had, even if I cashed out my Proxima dollars.
But that could wait, because I wanted something a little more portable now, something that would make our mythcrea mariachi a little more doable.
I had heard about the Fender mini basses, but had never actually played one. I'd never had a need for a bass that could go anywhere with me, one I could play without plugging in. So I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up a cherry red Fender mini bass and found that it was fairly sturdy, not as cheaply made as I had assumed it would be.
“This could be really fun,” Iris said as she sat down on a stool in front of an entire rack of electric drums.
She grabbed a pair of drumsticks, and started setting the sounds on the rubber pads in front of her. She started first with the pad that represented the snare, then the hi-hat, then a ride cymbal, then the crash cymbal, and went to the toms as I continued to examine the features of the bass.
To make it more portable, the fender mini bass was headless; the strings simply wrapping around the top of the neck and clasping taut in the back. Without turning it on, I ran my hand up the neck, running through a few scales just to see if it played the same way.
No, the strings didn't have the same buoyancy as an acoustic bass, or maybe an upright bass, but for an electric bass, it felt pretty damn good.
Turning the instrument on immediately synced it with my iNet feed, effects, volume control, and other modification options suddenly available to me on my pane of vision.
They were easy to navigate too; I simply focused on one quadrant and it zoomed in, allowing me to tweak the dial. There was also a clickable banner that allowed me to download more effects for a fee.
Another innovation in the instrument was the fact that the body was also what emitted the sound. This was more low-key than it must have looked thirty years ago, but the sound actually came from reverse speaker cones along the contours of the instrument.
It was loud too, much louder than a thirty-watt practice amp when it was turned to full blast.
“Ooo, I can feel that in my chest,” Lady C. said as I continued playing. “Chase is a very good bass player,” she told Aya with a smug look on her face.
“He only played a few notes.”
“They were nice notes!”
I cycled through some of the effects options on my iNet screen. I could even make it sound like a keyboard, a guitar, a laser, and a ton of other things. The options were endless, but as I continued going through them, I finally settled on the sound of an acoustic bass, just because I wanted something more natural, as opposed to a digital abomination.
Okay, some of the sounds weren't abominations, but some of the crazier ones... I had no idea what someone would use those for. Case in point, the effect that turned all the notes into cat meows.
~~Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow~~
Iris gave me a funny look. “Are we playing cat songs now?” she asked before finishing her joke with a classic ba-dun tshh!
“I see you’re auditioning to be the house drummer at the Comedy Cellar.”
“Ha!”
I flipped to a new sound, this one based on the schwing of swords, which got Aya and Lady C.’s attention.
“Reminds me of my childhood,” Aya said, her eyes tearing up.
I turned back to the acoustic bass sound, adjusted the mid-range, and added just a hint of reverb.
“You feel like jamming?” I asked Iris.
“Definitely.”
We kicked it into high gear, going through some variations of the music we’d played together in the past.
By the end of our little jam session, I was as ready as I’d ever be to purchase the bass.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
“Damn, it feels good to leave a music store with a new instrument,” I told Iris as we hit the streets. It wouldn’t take us long to get to Clinton Hills, and I’d saved fifty from a case and bass bundle, leaving me with around $800 in my bank account.
So, I offered up a taxi ride.
One UberLyft later, and we were whipping out of Manhattan on our way to Clinton Hills, Aya in front, Iris and me in the back, Lady C. between us.
“It sure is comfy back here,” Lady C. said.
“Yes, it is,” said Iris.
“You don’t mind sitting next to me, do you?”
“Why would I mind sitting next to you?”
“Some people don’t like Meticans.”
“Who doesn’t like Meticans?” Iris asked her.
“People from Tagvornin.”
Iris glanced over at me and I shrugged. There was no successful way to navigate a conversation with Lady C. other than to strap in for the ride.
We arrived back at Iris’ apartment and got set up to dive.
Finally, we were going to EverLife, and after the Brian Eno tone indicating we were geared to go, our forms took shape in the Dojo.
Magnus and Ophelia were sitting on a bench at the back of the mythcrea quarters, talking quietly. I hadn’t seen our two undead members since yesterday, and it was nice to see them, even if they were a little odd.
They waved as we approached, and offered Lady C. and Aya dinner.
“Food would be nice,” Aya admitted, “but we have some serious business to handle.”
“You two should eat,” I told the two Huntresses. “This won’t take Iris and me very long.”
“Wonderful,” Ophelia said, cheery for once. Was she happy now? I swore that every time I saw her she had a half smile on her face.
“Who’s cooking?” Aya asked as they entered the quarters.
“Sun Wukong,” said Magnus. “His food is…” The graceful Fext searched for the right word. “Exquisite, wouldn’t you say, Ophelia?”
Ophelia nodded. “I would say that, dearest.”
The four took a right toward the kitchen, and Iris and I took a left to the stairs that led to t
he basement.
Our basement Fusion Center was all Bauhaus, a minimal, slim-lined design with a single table in a spacious room that featured two vertical vats that were brimming with blinking blue lights.
As we approached the table, I noticed a wine-colored trackball and went for it. As soon as I did, a menu system appeared before us listing the mythcrea we currently had, in the order we had captured them, as well as their levels:
[Rose, Level 8]
[Altsoba, Level 7]
[Magnus, Level 12]
[Ophelia, Level 7]
[Fujin, Level 9]
[Joe Camel, Level 5]
[Sun Wukong, Level 12]
[Yaksha, Level 7]
[Spew Gorge, Level 14]
[Schnoogles, Level 4]
[Mitchell, Level 4]
[Chimera, Level 9]
[Satori, Level 8]
I used the track wheel to select the last two mythcrea, and 3D images of them appeared before me, the images slowly rotating as they listed out various details about the two mythcrea, including a list of possible fusion results.
Iris began researching these, and bit her lip once she had finished checking through the list.
[Draugr]
[Ennedi Tiger]
[Jikini]
[Manananggal]
[Myling]
“What is it?” I asked, noticing how her brow had furrowed.
“Most of these are quite violent, and maybe a little gruesome. You said that you wanted to kind of avoid that, correct? Because I'd rather not be fighting with zombies, I guess aside from Ophelia and Magnus.”
“In that case, if we get something that we don't want, we'll just sell it,” I suggested.
“Good call.”
A sarcophagus took shape in between vertical vats.
Shadowy forms of each mythcrea appeared opposite each other in the outer vat.
The chimera and the satori glared at me, likely pissed that they were being fused into something else. I didn't know what they wanted me to do, it was all part of the game, but it still felt a little strange and manipulative.
After a little bit of static electricity spiraled up and down the center piece, we both heard the sound of hissing smoke as the sarcophagus popped open, revealing a Level Eleven Draugr.
Monster Hunt NYC 2 Page 6
