A 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 shit. Like seriously good. He felt like he just accidentally cleared endgame content. He accepted the quest, used the percental bonuses on Wisdom again 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, and 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 suicide command at best and becoming an eternal sex 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 three items the Achievements had earnt him. First was the Rare Equipment piece.

The Attributes were boring but +5 HP per minute was pretty hefty as far as he was considered. He gave the gloves to Rave. “These will heal you.” He explained with a look at the hand shaped burns on her arm and neck. “Bullshit.” She laughed and put them on. The edges of the burns started glowing green and closed ever so slowly. It was like watching grass grow, you knew it was happening but looking at it you didn’t notice it.

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

Oh, holy fuck that thing was good. And it was not even fully powered? What the hell would the other three then do to it? “Master, that thing scares me.” He raised his hand to see Aclysia, who had snapped back into reality and looked at the Necklace with a distressed look. Not just that but 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 get her used to it right now. In the end, he decided for 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 said with a smile before taking it back from a slowly calming 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. "At the very least I will remind you of how good a fuck I am tonight!" Rave declared.

"Looking forward to that." He put on the necklace and checked out his new total Stats (After the blessing of Nathalia had run out).

That was pretty good. His Health Pool no longer was wet noodles. Which reminded him that, if he hadn’t increased his stamina earlier today, Nathalia would have murdered him with her lava-hands. Good Stuff.

Rave’s wounds were about a quarter closed at this point and John pulled the Shard of Destruction from his inventory. He wanted to hand it to Aclysia but the Artifical 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 of a level 666 black dragoness. A few moments passed by during which John was almost sure that this would be the first time Aclysia would defy an order, but 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, 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% 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 accept. He eyed up Aclysia, but the Artificial Guardian didn’t change in behaviour. It would probably only be noticeable once they had sex again.

He sighed and spent fourteen of her points on Intellect. Aclysia’s eyes opened wide. “I can remember clearly now, I almost forgot it, the day I was created, our first time….” She whispered and bowed deeply, “Thank you, Master.” “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 made a pun that no one would understand and truly nobody in the room laughed.

He currently had no desire to increase her Charisma, she got along with people well enough, and her Libido had just sky-rocketed through other means. 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 find out what that was about. Aclysia was already a pretty good tank as it was (And he was fairly certain that Steelskin just made her a whole lot more durable) but if he could push her even further, that would be great.

However, he also was done for the day. The whole Nathalia affair had sapped all of his motivation to go 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 take your second horn, you horny whore.”

John was also giggling when he heard loud noises coming towards them from the passage. It was like hundreds of little metal pieces rubbing against each other, and when a pile of equipment arrived at his feet, he knew what it was. He completely had 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. The money wouldn’t hurt him.

After all, he finally wanted to buy some new skill books.