'How?! How is this possible?!' Jim Tucker was maintaining a calm smile on his face, however, his mind was a mess.
He and Daz had rolled a total of five times thus far and the rolls had gone like this; Daz: 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, Jim: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1.
It made absolutely no sense to him. Shouldn't it have been the other way around? Mayor Rickley had asked for a break so he could speak to Jim privately for a moment, which Daz happily allowed.
"What's going on?!" Mayor Rickley shouted at Jim as soon as they had stepped into another room.
The blonde-haired man ran his fingers through his golden locks as he wore an angered expression. "I don't know! I've been sapping his Luck, but it's like he has bad luck or something, but if that was true, then why the fuck is he getting straight sixes? It makes no sense!"
Aston nodded as he wore a frown. "I identified his dice, you know. It alerted Daz. I'm surprised he has a better identification skill than I do. As far as I knew, he only had a Higher Identification which should easily lose out to my Grand Identification, but what's even more surprising is that he actually let me see the dice's information."
Jim's face wore a confused look. "Is that why he's winning and I'm getting bent over? Those shabby dice?"
The mayor nodded somberly. "Rolling them gives him a solid 10,000 point boost in his Luck."
Jim's jaw nearly hit the floor but he quickly grit his teeth and spat out, "Fuck. I should have identified them myself before the game. No wonder he's kicking my ass. There's no way I can siphon that much Luck fast enough for it to matter, especially since it isn't inherently his, not to mention the fact that only one limiter for my power has been lifted so far on him..."
"Exactly. Now, I'm going to work my magic and get him to allow you to use his dice instead. I need you to properly crush him, okay? The only way we can win now is if you get straight sixes and he gets straight ones. Then you'll tie at ten rolls and you can defeat him in the deciding roll," Mayor Rickley said.
Jim nodded. "Yeah, I can do that. I must have already sucked out at least a third of his natural Luck already anyway, so unless he has more than 3,000 of his own then he'll have to be the luckiest man alive to even roll a two."
Mayor Rickley nodded. "Nobody has been allowed to access his status. He seems to be rather particular about that, so fingers crossed. I'd be surprised anyway if anyone had even close to your 7,000 base Luck."
Jim grinned. "I spent several years building it up, after all."
"And wasting it away on lotteries and casinos like a fool," the mayor quipped cynically.
Jim just shrugged, then the two men returned to the VIP room shortly after their conversation had concluded.
----------------------------------------
"Why should I let him use my dice, Aston?" Daz asked very passively.
Rose smirked as she lifted her eyes from her laptop. 'Here we go.'
Mayor Rickley abhorred being called by his first name so casually by a man more than half his age and less than half his intellect, but he wore a smile and said, "Young Jim here thinks it's unfair for you to be using such... special dice, and since at this point your victory is all but guaranteed, what's the harm in letting him feel a little bit lucky? You need only roll anything higher than a one and it's your win."
Daz shook his head. "Not going to happen. He's using his own dice as well, and, unlike you people, I wasn't rude to the point that I identified them. You're lucky I haven't demanded compensation for trying to identify myself and presumably my sister as well."
"Six people have tried and failed thus far, Daz," Rose noted.
"Oh? I lost count after ten. A lot of your waiting staff are pretty skilled at gathering info, huh? I'm guessing their weapons were phones when the apocalypse started." Daz greatly enjoyed the slight hints of annoyance peeking through Mayor Rickey's expression. "Give me a reason to let him borrow my lucky dice."
"Well... Our Fairway Villa is without a permanent resident. Before the world became what it is now, a single night would cost you upwards of $5,000 and I'm more than willing to let that become your mainstay home here in Las Vegas if you'll allow this selfish request of mine," Mayor Rickley offered.
"Ha," Daz dryly chuckled. "This entire city will belong to me in a few minutes, so why don't you give me something that isn't practically already mine?"
Rose spoke before the mayor could collect his thoughts and give Daz a sufficient response. "Acamapichtli's Eye. Give us that."
"How did you find out about th-"
"Who cares?" Rose shot back with a rude glare. "Give that to my brother and he'll let that useless man over there borrow his 'lucky' dice."
"As if that's possi-"
"Then say goodbye to your life as a flourishing post-system city ruler and say hello to your life as a nobody, and maybe even worse, say hello to your life as a corpse. It's up to you if you want the system to forcefully evict you or not. I'm giving you a chance since my brother here doesn't really seem keen on the idea of lending his dice to others," Rose explained in a very uncaring manner. "Either way, once he's the king of this city too, what belongs to you will belong to him, so he'll get the eye regardless."
Mayor Rickley was beyond furious, but, despite his anger, he was still a wise man. He hated to have his intellect challenged by a child, but he had to agree. She was speaking sense.
'I've no clue how she discovered the eye, but yes, it isn't as valuable as my position here is since I can't use the damned thing, and if I try to push any further to offer something else, they may withdraw. They have no logical reason to stop using those dice with the system ready to place him as the new king and ruler of my city,' Mayor Rickley reasonably thought. 'And besides, if I can kill him with a sneak attack later on, getting the eye back will be no challenge. I need that floating city. Conceding this much is still within acceptable limits.'
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
"Fine. Lizzy, go collect the eye for me," the mayor ordered with creased brows and an incredibly unpleasant expression painted on his rotund face.
The gorgeous beauty in charge of Daz and Jim's matches bowed her head politely. "Yes, Boss." She then left the room.
Daz got behind Rose and picked up Mr Barrier who was peacefully resting on her head before he placed the fuzzy ball of blue softness on her laptop's keyboard in her lap. He then kissed the top of her head. "I assume whatever this eye thing is, it's valuable. Good job, Rose."
"It's just a stupid necklace..." Rose mumbled through her embarrassment.
Not long after, Lizzy returned with a box made entirely out of gold and sparkling jewels. It was roughly the size of a shoebox, so it had been made with no small amount of the precious metal and gemstones. Oddly enough though, she wasn't holding it with her hands but by the neck of the small table it was sat atop.
Without waiting for her to hand it over to him, Daz used his ability to control all crystals and gems to move the box away from the table, making it float through the air until it had reached his hands.
He raised an eyebrow curiously. "How odd. It's leaking a deadly power..."
Mayor Rickley looked quite disappointed to see Daz not writhing about in pain. "You are rather resistant to death, I see. Why don't you identify it instead of having me explain it to you?"
Daz didn't complain. The portly man was right. It certainly would be wiser to simply check the item with his Master Identification instead of filter and decipher the lies the portly man may choose to tell him.
Ometeotl's Seal [S-Rank (Higher Tier)] Description
A sealed box created by the first high priest and ruler of the once-great Aztecian Empire, Acamapichtli.
With the help of over 100 human sacrifices, Acamapichtli successful appeased the wrath of the remnant of Ometeotl's will for creating Acamapichtli's Eye, and with the help of the holy artefact of the god of duality, souls, and heaven, Emperor Acamapichtli, High Priest of the Aztecan Empire, was successful in sealing his foul creation; the key that was never meant to be created.
Huh, looks like Earth used to have a ton of inferior pantheons. Well, that makes a lot of things suddenly make a lot more sense, now doesn't it? Well, only if you can put 2 and 2 together, which honestly, I'm a bit doubtful of... Don't think too hard, 'kay? Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.
Stats Durability: 200,023/1,000,000 Necrosis: 102 Skills Seal of Heaven
'Necrosis?' Daz's intrigue was immediately piqued. 'Master Identification.'
Necrosis Raw death radiation. For every minute that the host holds Ometeotl's Seal, their primary energy source shall permanently lower by 1.02% (Does not apply to the host [Daz] as the host [Daz] is a race of the reaper species, a species immune to most forms of necrotic damage).
It was only upon reading that did Daz realise why Lizzy had brought the box in on a table. 'Interesting... So the eye, or necklace, or whatever inside is related to some sort of powerful deathly energy?'
He tried to open the box, but surprisingly, it didn't budge.
Mayor Rickley almost had a heart attack when he saw that. "Please, you cannot open it without saying a certain phrase."
"And that phrase would be?" Daz asked.
"I'm not sure," Mayor Rickley answered with a short apologetic laugh.
"You're lying. Anyway, I don't care. I'm sure I'll find out eventually. We've stalled long enough as it is. Let's finish our game, shall we, Jim?" Daz asked as he picked up Altros' Unlucky Dice Set and tossed it to the blonde-haired man.
Nimbly catching it, Jim grinned devilishly. "With pleasure."
----------------------------------------
"How?... How...? How is this possible?!" Jim shouted.
He had rolled one of Daz's dice like planned and Daz had rolled an ordinary everyday casino dice, but, miraculously, Daz had still rolled a six while Jim had rolled a one.
'How?' Daz repeated internally. 'Simple. When I was rolling them, I genuinely wanted you to win because it didn't matter. If I lost, I'd have simply killed Aston, returning Fort Sky to me and giving me Las Vegas, so me wanting you to win in turn made me win, and now that you're rolling Altros' dice with the mindset of you wanting to win, well... The rest is history.'
Mayor Rickley's face was filled with rage. "You cheated! This is invalid! I demand the system gives me justice!"
"Oh, it will," Rose quipped.
Congratulations! You have won the match with the ruler of Las Vegas, [Aston Rickley]'s representative [James Parker].
Las Vegas is now a lawful part of your territory.
Daz smiled. "You're such an idiot, Aston. I didn't even have to use my chance to take a free Nevadian city. I guess I'll use it on Henderson instead."
Mayor Rickley's body rumbled with fury. He raised his hands and hundreds of golden coins spilt out of his sleeves before they began floating menacingly behind him. "You won't have the chance since you won't be leaving this room alive."
"These dice aren't lucky, they're cursed!" Jim yelled before he too took out his weapon, a single lucky coin of some sort. He gripped it tightly and shouted, "You cheated me! I should have won! One way or another, I'll get you to grovel and beg at my feet!" He then shot a rageful gaze towards Rose. "Maybe hurting her will do the trick?"
Lizzy backed up and left the circle of men pointing their firearms at both Daz and Rose. 'I want nothing to do with this,' she thought very wisely.
"Kill him!" Mayor Rickley screamed as his army of coins flew forward to assault both Daz and Rose.
At the same time, Jim flipped his own coin while the encirclement of armed men unloaded the magazines of their assault rifles.
The sound of gunfire drowned out all other noises in the room.
After a solid 20-seconds of non-stop firing, Mayor Rickley - with sweat covering his brow and exhaustion filling his already rather full face - muttered, "What on Earth..."
A blue transparent bubble had surrounded Daz and Rose and it stayed there perfectly unphased as it deflected each and every coin and bullet.
"Well, at least you tried. Now, who among you do I kill, who among you do I punish, and who among you do I assign to help me wipe out the other people like ex-Mayor Rickley here?" Daz asked stoically.