“Ahhhhrrrg,” Peter grunted as his entire body felt as though it were being eaten by tiny creatures. Like he was bathing in a river of molten hot curry. Like a thousand tiny tattoo artists were inking every millimeter of skin on his body all at once. The pain continued escalating for what could have been seconds or hours. Peter fell to the ground in uncontrollable convulsions, the vague forms of Greg and Roma standing over him blurring into nothing. And then, when it felt as though he could take no more, the pain faded away along with his conscious mind.
When he came to and opened his eyes to find himself lying in his own bed, a worried Renea seated on a chair beside him squeezing her hands together nervously, Peter was confused. He no longer felt any pain, but was still compelled to look at his right palm, where the… whatever, that was in the ancient puzzle box had touched him. There, looking more like an unlikely birthmark than anything else, sat a diamond shaped mark - slightly pinker than the rest of his palm. Curious, he poked at it with his other hand. And then something strange happened. Superimposed over his vision, an informational box appeared as though hovering in front of him. He turned to see if Renea was seeing it too, but the box remained affixed before him even as he turned.
Name: Peter Mayhew
Race: Human (100%)
Age: 31
Power Level: 1
Fun Fact: Drives like Greg Van Helsing’s long dead grandmother.
“Oh that’s just hurtful,” he said to nobody in particular.
“Peter? Oh my god. Are you alright? Greg told me what happened. How are you feeling?” Renea asked.
Peter wished he could make the videogame-like informational box to vanish so he could lay his eyes on the comforting visage of his wife and, as though it were never there, vanish it did. Surprised, confused, and relieved, he smiled at Renea weakly.
“I’m tired,” he said. “And might be hallucinating. But otherwise I think I’m alright. How long was I out?”
“Hallucinating? You were out for a couple of hours. Greg used your phone to call and let me know what happened while driving you home. I came immediately, of course, but you’ve been out like a light.”
“But it’s Tuesday!” Peter said, eyes wide with alarm.
“It’s fine, Peter. I would leave a meeting with god herself after receiving that particular phone call. I’ll catch up on everything tomorrow. It’ll just be a long day. Nothing to worry about.”
“Is he still here?”
Renea scowled. “He is. Our whole living room smells like gunpowder and garlic. He seems to be growing on Flapjack, though. Earlier, I saw the old boy sleeping with his head resting on Greg’s combat boot. It was honestly kind of sweet.”
Peter laughed. “Really? Did I tell you Flapjack actually growled and barked at him the first time they met?”
“What?” Renea asked in disbelief. “But Flapjack doesn’t growl. Like. Ever. Except when he’s having a bad dream, I guess.”
“I know, right?” Peter asked, sliding his feet off the bed and rising to a sitting position facing his wife. “Not to change the subject abruptly or anything, but I think my hand has magic powers now. Here, touch it right there,” he said, holding his right palm up to her and indicating the pink diamond with his other hand.
Renea reached out hesitantly and poked at it. To his surprise, another informational box appeared in front of him.
“I know you’ve always wanted magical powers, Peter, but I don’t think it’s working like you might think it’s working,” Renea said delicately.
“It’s working,” Peter disagreed, scanning the information presented with interest.
Name: Renea Mayhew
Race: Human (81%); Witch (19%)
Age: 30
Power Level: 3
Fun Fact: Renea Mayhew just became one of only 3 Witches in history to commit insurance fraud.
“You’re a witch?” he asked, closing the informational table with a thought to give her a scrutinizing look. He must be hallucinating. It was more likely that he was than any other explanation he could think of, at the very least. Reading the fun fact again, a smile began to spread across Peter’s face. If he was hallucinating, and his mind was just making this shit up, he wanted to pat himself on the back for such a ridiculous and funny random ‘fact’.
“Excuse me?” Renea asked threateningly.
“The powers,” Peter explained, puzzled by whether a concussion or other mental trauma could be making him think he was seeing informational tables that weren’t really there, “give me information. When I touched my palm, a prompt appeared. Like when you inspect an item in a videogame or something. It told me I was 100% human, had a power level of 1, and had a fun fact about me saying…” he paused, trying to think of a lie. “Nothing at all, actually.”
Renea frowned, clearly confused by everything he’d just said. He could hardly blame her.
“Yours said 81% human, 19% Witch, power level of 3, and that you just became one of only 3 witches in history to have committed insurance fraud.”
Despite the insanity of the situation, Renea barked a laugh at that. “If you’d said something like that even two days ago I would have thought you were doing the thing where you make a joke that I have to play along with until you finally got to whatever obscure punchline you had planned. Now I don’t even know what to think. Just tell me you aren’t teasing me or leading me into a joke, Peter.”
“I’m not,” Peter said absently, one hand stroking his chin thoughtfully. Then his eyes widened. “I’ve got to try this on Greg.”
With an increasingly confused Renea in his wake, Peter Mayhew left the bedroom in search of his new friend. He found the big man in the kitchen, dutifully cleaning up the mess Peter had made preparing breakfast. Quietly, he snuck up behind Greg and placed his palm on the man’s broad, muscled back.
Name: Gregorovich Van Helsing
Race: Human (41%); Witch Hunter (59%)
Age: 736
Power Level: 11
Fun Fact: Gregorovich makes and wears his own custom cologne, which he named Gregscellent and smells of gunpowder and garlic.
“Gregcellent?” Peter asked as Greg turned to face him, a soapy plate in one hand, water still running in the sink.
He dropped the plate, which splashed soapy water over them both, but did no further damage. Greg blinked rapidly, his grizzly face reddening adorably.
“What did you just say?” he stammered.
“Your… aroma? I guess I figured it was just the natural result of your monster hunting stuff. I never would have guessed it was a cologne you made to smell like gunpowder and garlic.” Peter was laughing throughout his statement, and was now wiping tears from his eyes and laughing even harder at Greg’s reaction. “Gregscellent. I’m dying. I honestly had no idea you were so funny. You’re always so…” Peter puffed up in a pathetic attempt to look muscular and angry. He deepened his voice and attempted to replicate Greg’s accent. “I’m Greg Van Helsing. I kill monsters and drink tea.”
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“How the hell do you know about that?” Greg demanded, face continuing to get more and more red as Peter poked fun at him. “There’s no way you could possibly know about Gregscellent.”
“I have magic powers now,” Peter said, casually buffing his nails on his t-shirt. And he did have magic powers. There was no other explanation. If he’d been hallucinating or imagining these information boxes that appeared when his palm contacted somebody, there was no way he could know something like that. “It shouldn’t be a big deal to someone like you, Gregorovich.”
Greg’s embarrassment turned to a threatening anger in an instant. “Remember when I told you to call me anything but Craig?”
“Yeah,” Peter replied, cocking his head to one side as he tried to figure out where Greg was going with this. “Fuck Craigs, am I right?”
“Add Gregorovich to that list.” Greg turned his back on Peter and continued washing dishes. He stopped and turned to look back at Peter over his shoulder. “And fuck Craigs.”
“Alright,” Peter said cautiously. He’d been fairly liberal in his comedic pokes at the big man, but if Greg laid down a line and told Peter not to cross it, he wouldn’t. He and Renea exchanged a shrug behind Greg’s back.
Greg placed the final dish on the rack to dry, turned off the sink, and then turned back, curiosity now clear on his grizzled features. Gaze locked on Peter, he opened his mouth to speak, but closed it. This process repeated two more times before he managed to gather his thoughts.
“Explain to me how you know about Gregscellent.”
Peter did his best to explain. After a handful of probing questions that led nowhere, Greg sat at the kitchen table, expression considering, his chin propped up by one hand. It turned out that even the venerable Gregorovich Van Helsing didn’t know what to make of Peter’s new magical powers. He’d never heard of anything quite like this ability, but suspected that the artifact bestowed a power to the person who opened it as unique as the person themself. Greg made an obscure analogy about how, perhaps, if Renea had been the one to open it she may have received an administrative ability - but he did make it clear that it was nothing more than supposition on his part.
“I’ve come across humans with strange abilities in the past,” he was saying, “and most of them grew in power as they were used. Some even gained new attributes over time. You should test the limits of this analysis thing you’ve got, see what it can really do.”
Testing the limits of items or even people was something Peter had practiced heavily throughout his life, but testing the limits of a magical ability was breaking new ground. He, quite literally, could not wait to begin and immediately put his hand on the only other living thing in the house.
Name: Flapjack
Race: Canine (98%); HellHound (2%)
Age: 23
Power Level: 1
Fun Fact: Flapjack is an expert at selective listening, despite his HellHound blood enhancing all of his senses, all of the time.
“You little bastard,” Peter said, shocked at what he’d just read. He glared at the dog, who decidedly did not look up in response. “What on Earth is a HellHound?”
“I knew it!” Greg exclaimed, slapping the table. “The second I saw him I knew there was something off about him. How old is Flapjack anyway?”
“Almost 24,” Peter reported. His mother had brought Flapjack home when Peter was just a boy. Seeing now that his dog was one: not just a dog; and two, a bigger shit head than Peter had known. He thought the old boy was starting to lose his hearing with how often he seemed to ‘not hear’ commands. The more he thought about it though, Flapjack had always been that way. He was and always had been a good and loyal companion regardless, so Peter tried not to hold it against him. “He’s apparently 2% HellHound and there is absolutely nothing off about this good boy.”
“It isn’t too unusual for a normal dog to have some HellHound blood in ‘em,” Greg explained. “Dogs will hump just about anything and interbreeding with standard canines was big in the late 18th century, but usually with larger, more aggressive breeds. Like rottweilers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a corgi hybrid. The bloodline’s thinned since it fell out of popularity, though. Usually they’ll live longer, have better senses, and heightened intelligence.”
Peter leaned against the kitchen table, inadvertently placing the palm of his right hand against its smooth surface as he thought about this new information. It was then that he learned his new magical powers extended to non-living things as well.
Elegant Wooden Table
Durability: 98/100
Quality: Above Average
Fun Fact: Peter Mayhew purchased this table at 30% below market value.
“Hey,” Peter said, dismissing the window. “It works on non-living things, too.”
“You don’t need a magical ability to know that what you’re touching is a table,” Renea said, smirking to herself.
Greg looked up sharply. “Does it really? Did it tell you anything interesting about the table? Anything that isn’t immediately obvious from looking at it?”
“Well,” Peter said, thinking about it for a moment. “It has a durability score, and is above average - for a table, I guess? Whatever that means. It was listed as ‘Elegant Wooden Table’, and I completely agree with that assessment. And its fun fact just said I bought it at 30% off. Nothing interesting, though I could have sworn it was listed at 50% off...”
“Hey,” Renea interjected. “Sorry to interrupt your fascinating discussion about the kitchen table boys, but I’m going to just pop in real quick to excuse myself. I’ll be in the office if you need me, Peter. Night Greg.”
“Let’s put this new ability to the test,” Greg said, crouching to reach into his bag. “Oh, goodnight Mrs. Mayhew,” he called after Renea, who was already out of the kitchen and down the hall.
When he popped back up, he had a silver stake in one hand. The one he used to finish off Kinsey Fox the night before. It had been cleaned, thank goodness, or Peter would have had to clean werewolf blood off of his elegant wooden table. Greg dropped it onto the table with a bang. Hand still on the table, Peter’s vision was again obscured by the description of the table, this time with another, uninteresting, ‘fun fact’ and its durability now showing 97/100. The prompt was otherwise identical to the first time, so Peter dismissed it and glared at Greg for damaging his table. Greg just looked back at him, brows raised expectantly. Peter sighed, deciding to just let it go, and then placed his palm on the cool surface of the pointed silver rod.
Silver Stake
One Handed Weapon: Dagger Class
Damage: 7-9
Attack Speed: Very Fast
Durability: 79/100
Quality: Average
Fun Fact(s):
1. In Private, or with very intimate company, Gregorovich Van Helsing calls this specialized monster slaying weapon ‘Greg’s little rod’.
2. And also, one stab to the heart of a werewolf or vampire with this silver stake is all it takes to put it down like a bad dog.
Inspecting the silver stake that ran about 16 inches from base to tip, Peter dismissed the info box and turned his flat faced expression to Greg. “Greg’s little rod? Really?”
“Why does it keep giving you personal shit about me?” he asked angrily, face red once again.
“Probably because of how cute I think it is when you blush, big guy.”
Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Greg just let the comment go. Instead, he insisted that Peter share everything that his ability told him about the stake itself. Greg nodded along as Peter read out every line. When Peter finished, the big man looked thoroughly impressed.
“You know, Peter, this ability of yours may be more useful than I’d thought. I’ll be right back,” Greg said, abruptly turning to leave the kitchen. He returned moments later, now holding the core left behind by the late Kinsey Fox. “Try using it on this.”
Curious, Peter held out his right hand and Greg dropped the core into it. It was warm against his skin, still pulsing softly like the beating of a heart. Again, information was provided and, again, Peter greedily took it in.
Werewolf Core
Monster Core: Rank 2
Durability: 2/2
Charges: 2/2
Fun Fact(s):
1. Monster Cores are used for a variety of things including, but not limited to, crafting magical items; elixirs; and ingesting to power up abilities.
2. Werewolf Cores are most often used to power up physical abilities or abilities whose power is drawn from the moon.
“People eat these things?” Peter asked doubtfully, looking down at the softball sized hunk of warm rock in his hand.
“What?” Greg asked. “No. Well, kind of. Absorb would be a more accurate word. What else did your ability tell you?”
Peter shared what he had learned and gave the Monster Core back to Greg.
“Rank 2, huh? Not bad. Thanks, Peter. That saves me a trip to the assessor. That woman must have been living as a werewolf for quite some time to get her core to rank up,” he speculated. “Which makes sense, really. A werewolf with a Rank 1 core wouldn’t have been an issue for me, even unarmed. Rank 2 werewolves don’t often pose a threat either, which makes me wonder if she was toeing the line toward Rank 3.”
“These ranks,” Peter puzzled, “are they just an arbitrary way to measure a creature’s potential strength?”
“Yes and no,” Greg said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, they are a measure of a monster’s strength. No, it is not arbitrary. It’s just complicated. Really complicated. The short and dirty is that Rank 1 Monster Cores come from monsters who’ve been around less than ten years. Usually. Some monsters are able to rank up before that through various means and some remain at Rank 1 indefinitely.”
Peter shrugged, satisfied with the answer and not incredibly interested in the subject matter. It isn’t like he would ever need to know the intricacies of monster Ranks.
“Neat.”
“Now that you’re up and about I think I’ll head back to Roma’s place,” Greg said, getting to his feet and pocketing the Monster Core. “She was less than enthused when you opened her artifact, evidently gaining an ability in the process, and left her with just that empty bone box. That floating diamond thing disappeared after your little episode, by the way. I think I’ll give her this Monster Core as recompense. It’s not even close to the value of an ability like yours, but you solved the puzzle she never could, so she’ll just have to get over it.”
Greg gathered his things and made to leave the house, leaving Peter feeling… well, if he had to put a word to it, Peter was feeling a need to reciprocate what he had gained at Old lady Romanov’s expense. He followed the big man out the front door.
“Greg,” Peter called after him. “That Monster Core is yours. You don’t have to pay my debts for me. I’ll talk to Roma. I’m sure we can work out some way for me to compensate her fairly.”
Greg, who was attaching his travel bag to his motorcycle, turned. “We’ll call it half yours. Without your flying double-kick of idiocy, that fight wouldn’t have been such a pleasant experience for me. Don’t worry about it, Peter. You go on living your life, like I said before, just as it was before you ever met me. Don’t get yourself caught up in all this monsters and magical power bullshit.”
Peter frowned, concerned. “Is this goodbye, then?”
“It is unless you want to put a bounty on another werewolf. Or vampire, goblin, troll, fairy, whatever. Don’t make it weird,” Greg said, smiling awkwardly. “Goodbye, Peter Mayhew.”
“Bye, Greg.”
Peter stood in the doorway, watching Gregorovich Van gods damned Helsing mount his bike and then roar down the driveway before turning the corner and disappearing from view. Flapjack stood at his side, watching as well. Peter’s emotions were a surprise, even to him, at Greg’s far-too sudden and permanent departure from his life. He felt a loss, despite only having known the man for a few days. Not only a loss from losing Greg’s company or friendship, but the greater loss of no longer being a part of something so interesting: the supernatural, magical powers, monsters, and secrets. Shoulders slumping, Peter Mayhew closed the door behind him.